Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Mysterious for evermore
(Filed: 21/05/2006)
Telegraph.co.uk

Edgar Allan Poe is credited with inventing mystery fiction, and his
own death is still a subject of intense speculation. Matthew Pearl
investigates one of the most peculiar puzzles in literary history.

Only four mourners attended his funeral in Baltimore, along with an
Episcopal minister, the gravedigger and the sexton. The minister, a
distant relation of the deceased, decided not to deliver a sermon to
such a small gathering. The grave itself sat unmarked for 25 years.
As if fate itself conspired to accentuate the void in the death of
Edgar Allan Poe, 15 years after the burial, a train derailed into a
quarry and destroyed the stone that was finally being constructed
for the grave. The tablet read Hic Tandem Felicis Conduntur, "Here
At Last He Is Happy".

Edgar Poe (the "Allan" was not yet commonly in use) had had a
troubled life by the time he died at 40, though a blanket assertion
of unhappiness is facile. As a young man, Poe had rebelled against
his foster father and jumped headlong into the literary world. He
produced some 70 diverse short tales and around the same number of
poems, as well as a lesser-known novel and an uncompleted play, and
challenged the larger writing community with his harsh, explosive
literary criticism. His professional decisions brought him a fair
amount of scorn and continual financial hardship, but also
considerable personal fulfilment.

Poe was not an icon at the time of his death in 1849. He could
disappear without a trace, and he had. At the end of September that
year, Poe had been lecturing in Richmond, Virginia to raise money
for his new literary magazine, The Stylus. From Richmond, he
intended to go to Philadelphia and then home to New York, where he
would travel south with his aunt Maria Clemm. Instead, he ended up
on an extended stay in Baltimore. The official record loses sight of
him for five days before he turns up, incapacitated, inside an inn
called Ryan's.

We came close to knowing more. Neilson Poe, a cousin from Baltimore,
visited the hospital where Edgar was brought from Ryan's, but
doctors told him the patient was too fragile to be seen. Immediately
after Edgar died, Neilson investigated his recent whereabouts,
lamenting that he could find no answers. A few weeks later, however,
Neilson wrote a letter to Poe's first (and least friendly)
biographer claiming he had come into possession of information about
Poe's death known only to him, and planned to write it all down in
a "deliberate communication". Neilson never wrote another word on
the subject.

Today, the story of Poe's death is a subject of intense fascination.
Downtown Baltimore has signs leading tourists to Poe's burial place.
Fresh flowers can be found at the foot of the memorial obelisk built
in 1875. Where there was once no gravestone, there are now two: one
to mark the original spot of his grave and the other, the obelisk,
where the body was later moved to. Every year, Poe's birthday brings
a gathering at the cemetery, which is covered by the national press.
By contrast, few Bostonians know where Poe's birthplace is in
Boston, or even that it is in Boston. Poe's biography may be said,
in a sense, to begin with his death rather than his birth.

This was my initial Poe experience, too. The paperback edition of
Poe's tales and poems I read when I was at school said he was found
in shocking condition in the gutter (there was no gutter involved in
Poe's actual death, but the gutter tale is at least as old as 1850).
The questions over Poe's fate make his writing more intriguing, his
mysteriousness more mysterious. When I began researching the
subject, someone asked me if Poe had orchestrated his death to keep
us guessing.

This idea has been posed before. Baudelaire called his favourite
American poet's death "an almost suicide" as if Poe plotted death,
and unfounded rumours of suicide circulated in America until fairly
late in the 19th century. One of Poe's correspondents, a young
doctor named George Eveleth, wondered whether Poe pretended to die
as a hoax on his readers.

From early in his career, Poe was seen as excessively morbid and
sacrilegious - or, at least, unreligious - about death.
Posthumously, when Poe became widely popular, his writing was turned
into what contemporaries who bemoaned his lack of moral interests
would have never imagined: schoolroom material. There is a telling
cartoon I found in a thick archival file of miscellanies. It depicts
a housewife asking her friend whether she agreed that Poe's tales
were weird, and her friend responding, "Yes, but they don't hold a
candle to some of those my husband tells me when he comes home
late." Poe had been tamed, marketed, domesticated. A line of cigars
was named after him early in the 20th century, with the truly
bizarre tag, "Banish Your Cares by Smoking a Fragrant Poe Cigar".

The countervailing pressure to maintain Poe's darker mystique has
remained strong, and that mystique is driven by his death story. In
1899, a female spiritualist claimed that Poe's ghost dictated a poem
to her revealing the truth about his demise. Poe, whose ghost turns
out to be a rather bad poet, confesses openly to the drunken debauch
that contemporary newspapers blamed for the death: "Oh! Was all my
lifelong error crowded in that night of terror?"

Theorists and scholars have used the blank spots in the record of
his death narrative to suggest that Poe was the victim, not an agent
in his demise - a victim, specifically, of political corruption,
robbery, government conspiracy or the enraged relative of a woman he
courted. Each has its evidence and its proponents. One of the
exhibits at the Poe museum in Richmond features spinning plastic
cubes with different theories for the causes of his death printed on
each side. Conclusive causes are regularly offered up and just as
reliably knocked down, for a true conclusion would threaten the
operative mythos of the Poe story.

The Poe museum's cubes become appropriate symbols for the state of
scholarship about Poe's death. Today, all the theories are
considered more or less equally valid and hence interchangeable.
This was part of what attracted me to the subject: a need to
understand the obstinate stasis of it all. When deciding to work on
a novel of historical fiction with Poe's death at its core, I faced
a difficult question: was the story of Poe's death rooted in
history, or in his fiction?

The quieter mysteries in the record of his death suit Poe better
than most of the bizarre conspiracies that have been proposed. For
instance, the geographic map of his final days leaves him floating
almost arbitrarily from one city to another. Poe lived as an adult
in Boston, Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. The last
stage of his life reflects the same sense of the ground shifting
uncontrollably under his feet.

Poe's final extended stopover in Baltimore, though probably a last-
minute idea, is not as peculiar as it appears. At the time of his
death, he was living in New York with his aunt, and had travelled to
Richmond to raise money. However, as usual, he came up far short of
his expectations. It would stand to reason that Poe might try to do
more to bolster The Stylus before returning home. He had once been
part of Baltimore's literary community and had retained contacts.

When he was discovered at Ryan's inn in "great distress" (as a
witness described him), Poe invoked his acquaintance with Dr Joseph
Snodgrass. Snodgrass, who lived nearby, was immediately fetched to
assist, ultimately agreeing to a decision by Poe's former cousin by
marriage, Henry Herring, to send Poe to the hospital. Knowing as we
do that he would soon die, it has been easiest to interpret Poe's
call for Snodgrass as a plea for help. But a closer look at the
documentary materials suggests that Poe could well have been seeking
out Snodgrass, who was an editor, in connection with his new
literary venture. In fact, the other person that we know Poe sought
while in Baltimore was a man named Nathan C Brooks, also an editor
and, interestingly, Snodgrass's former partner in a short-lived
magazine.

In Philadelphia, there was a concrete financial boost awaiting Poe.
A piano manufacturer named John Loud offered him $100 to spend a few
days in Philadelphia editing his wife's poems. Poe found the offer
irresistible. Considering that Poe earned only $275 for all of 1849,
$100 was an enormous sum. It has never been clear whether or not Poe
visited Philadelphia in his final weeks. There is tension between
the strong incentive for Poe to travel to Philadelphia, and a
timeline that apparently traps Poe in Baltimore. In a "memo" that
surfaced in the mid-20th century, an acquaintance named Thomas Lane
made the (unverifiable) claim that Poe was, in fact, present in
Philadelphia in the days before he was found in Baltimore.

More can be coaxed from Neilson Poe than it first appears. Though no
evidence exists that Neilson wrote further of what he knew about his
cousin's fate, this should not lead us to assume he did not tell
other people. My initial instinct was that he would pass his
knowledge on to his daughter Amelia Poe, who became involved with
the legacy of her late relative Edgar. In fact, Neilson instead sat
down with a friend named Coale who was collecting information for an
article about Edgar in Harper's magazine in 1871, and shared some
information to be used "gingerly and sensibly".

Among other titbits recorded in a document by Coale, Neilson claimed
that Edgar did go to Philadelphia in those final days, or rather
tried to. His explanation of events, that Poe was incapacitated
by "a single drink" on his way to Philadelphia and was put on a
train back to Baltimore, is vague and may be fleshed out with other
known details. The travelogue is more significant. It makes far more
sense that Poe tried to go to Philadelphia, and failed, than that he
did not try at all.

One of the most surprising discoveries I made in my research allowed
me to support Neilson's claim that Poe never reached Philadelphia,
and discredits Lane's claim about Poe having stayed in Philadelphia.
Poe, who lost his mother when he was a child, was notoriously
dependent on the attention of his aunt Maria Clemm, who was also his
former mother-in-law (Poe's 13-year-old wife was his first cousin, a
fact not particularly noteworthy for the time and place).

While travelling, Poe wrote to her often and demanded she do the
same. In fact, he pleaded that Clemm send a letter to Philadelphia
so that it would be waiting for him as soon as he arrived there to
meet the Louds. In a twist that has been left unexplained for a
century and a half, Poe instructed Clemm to address that letter to a
pseudonym, "EST Grey, Esquire", and not to sign the letter.

For the first half of the 19th century in America, individuals
picked up their post at the post office rather than receiving it in
their homes. When a letter was not picked up, the post office
advertised in the newspaper with names of those who had letters. On
October 3, 1849 - the same day Poe was discovered in Ryan's inn -
the Philadelphia Public Ledger listed a letter for one "Grey, ESF."
This is clearly Maria Clemm's letter to Poe (the "T" must have been
corrupted somewhere along the way into an "F").

When I unearthed this newspaper listing, it meant not only finding a
new Poe artefact, but also a revelation. It exposed fresh evidence
that Poe had not reached Philadelphia, since the letter he was so
anxious for had wasted away at the post office. This was probably
the last letter written to Poe in his lifetime.

It may be an odd suggestion from a novelist, but the challenge of
refreshing our understanding of Poe's death is to resist the
temptations of narrative. The challenge is so acute in this case
because of Poe's literary impact. Though his immediate
contemporaries appreciated him only grudgingly, his writing has
transformed our consciousness.

Poe is credited with inventing mystery fiction with his story "The
Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1941). The result was not only a new and
marketable genre. It was also a storytelling paradigm in which a
baffling plot is pieced together in one fell swoop at the very end -
revealing a plot that was there all along but which we (the readers)
had been too blind to see. This structure of plot revelation
instilled us with a sense of closure: anything unknown, we tend to
believe, is only in a transitional stage and, sooner or later, will
be fully revealed. The fact that this is almost never the case never
weakens our expectations.

For The Poe Shadow, my novel tackling Poe's death, the most
authentic path seemed to me one that would present new primary
evidence and raw information (including the "Grey, ESF" listing, as
well as the first explanation of why Poe used the peculiar alias for
that letter), but at the same time to allow the big narratives
strung around Poe's death to come from the characters' mouths - that
is, from fallible sources - rather than be forcibly imposed as
authoritative.

On his deathbed, Poe, according to his attending physician, cried
out repeatedly for Reynolds. Was Reynolds someone he knew? Was he
trying to give us a clue into the cause of his condition? Was he
saying something else altogether? Maybe, maybe and maybe. For each
question, there are raw facts and competing narratives to tie the
facts together. Imagination is required, but it must be led by the
facts rather than the other way around.

Among the archived papers and correspondence of the 20th-century Poe
scholar Thomas Mabbott, I came across a letter with an amusing
request that I always think back to: "I am writing a paper on Edgar
Allan Poe for school and I am trying to prove that Poe was insane
and that this insanity aided in his writing of such great works of
literature." Not unlike the student manipulating Poe's life in order
to explain his writing, we often want to turn the key moments of a
great author's life into narrative to fit our literary instincts.

Poe's death stands alongside Christopher Marlowe's murder as one of
the peculiar and impenetrable mysteries in literary history. Unlike
Marlowe, who was actually a spy, Poe's life was, for the most part,
excessively normal, despite an element or two that may be read - or
misread - as dark and Romantic. We may put pressure on Poe's death
story to compensate for his ordinariness when the latter does not
suit our needs. Yet death may be the point at which ordinariness
embraces even a literary icon: the time when narrative control is
finally out of his, and our, hands.


'The Poe Shadow' by Matthew Pearl is published later this month by
Harvill Secker at £12.99

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com


The Best Homemade YouTube Video

Laibach's "Life Is Life" meets "Triumph of the Will"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vVHq0gViMLU&search=laibach%20life%20is%
20life

*****

Roth Hot for Van Halen Reunion
05/26/2006
E! Online
Josh Grossberg

David Lee Roth is ready to jump for Van Halen again.

After he was unceremoniously booted from his morning show in April,
four months after replacing Howard Stern on CBS Radio, Diamond Dave
opened up about his future job prospects, telling Billboard he
foresees a day when he and his old bandmates are bound for a
reunion.

"I see it absolutely as an inevitability," Roth told the
magazine. "There's contact between the two camps, and they have
legitimate management; Irv Azoff is part of their loop now."

But will the rest of Van Halen's members welcome back their first
and most popular vocalist, who led the heavy metal band to
superstardom, with open arms?

"To me, it's not rocket surgery," added Roth. "It's very simple to
put together. And as far as hurt feelings and water under the dam,
like What'shername says to What'shername at the end of the movie
Chicago--so what? It's showbiz! So, I definitely see it happening."

It was during the acrobatic frontman's tenure from 1974 to 1985 that
Van Halen scored its greatest success on the charts, with such
classic rock gems as "Jump," "Hot For Teacher," "Panama," "Jamie's
Cryin'," "Dance the Night Away" and "Runnin' With the Devil," among
others.

But bad blood between Roth and guitarist Eddie Van Halen, bassist
Michael Anthony and drummer Alex Van Halen surfaced over his
increasingly showman-like stage antics. After the release of Van
Halen's sixth and most acclaimed album, 1984, the flamboyant crooner
left the group in 1985 and launched a middling solo career.

He was replaced by Sammy Hagar and Van Halen entered a softer, more
pop-oriented phase (an era many fans refer to as the Van Hagar
years).

The original lineup did get back together briefly in 1996, when Roth
was invited to join Eddie and the boys in the studio to record two
new songs for Van Halen's Best of Vol. 1. However, a bizarre
appearance by the foursome at the MTV Video Music Awards that year
revealed the old tensions were still there.

Talk of a full-blown reunion has been on and off since then, heating
up in 1999 after Van Halen ended their two-year ill-fated
collaboration with their third frontman, Gary Cherone.

Instead, the rockers went on a four-year hiatus, only to resurface
in 2004 with a second greatest-hits album and a modestly successful
summer reunion tour fronted by Hagar, who returned to his solo
career shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, when he wasn't touring on his own tours or recording solo
albums such as 1988's experimental Skyscraper or 1990's more
conventional rocker, A Little Ain't Enough, the "Just a Gigolo"
singer wrote his autobiography, Crazy From the Heat and tried his
hand at being an EMT before turning to radio.

Roth took over the morning drive slot from Stern on CBS Radio in
January after the shock jock jumped to Sirius Satellite Network, but
low ratings prompted his ousting in April and he was replaced by
Opie & Anthony.

However, rumors of a Van Halen reunion got going again when the
rocker told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he had spoken with
Anthony and that a reuion was in the offing.

Whether it happens or not, Roth plans to press ahead with his own
tour this summer, telling Billboard he's looking forward to playing
all the old Van Halen hits with a large band he's assembling.

"I'm so proud of that music," he added. "I like to bring out the
brass section now and the keyboard players and the singers and so
forth. It's probably a little closer to the Rolling Stones revue
than to the early three-piece power trio."

*****

From Greg Palast (GregPalast.com):

Just wanted to let you know my new book hits the street on June
6, "Armed Madhouse:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush
Sinks, the Scheme to Steal 2008, No Child's Behind Left and other
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War," the longest
subtitle in publishing history.  It's out July 7 in the UK.

Do me a favor -- buy it right now.  You can order it on my site,
through Amazon, at www.GregPalast.com, your local book store,
whatever.

This is my best journalism yet, worst jokes, a full-color Secret
History of the War over Oil in Iraq, Republican Party caging lists
(say what?) and a killer recipe for shrimp curry.

If you've got a site, post it and link to www.GregPalast.com.  If
you have a list, or if you have any friends left, send out a notice.

It launches in New York City on June 13 at Ethical Culture Society
7pm -- joined by Amy Goodman, Paul Krugman and Randi Rhodes.  Find
another 20 US/UK cities at my website.

If you can't make it on the 13th, try make it to my booksigning at
Barnes&Noble (Chelsea, 6th Ave at 22nd St.)on June 14.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy helped kick off a national
discussion of the racial jiggering of elections.  Maybe this book
can bust the media omerta over The Topic which dare not speak its
name:  Class War.

I'm also starting a regular radio commentary for BBC World.

More info's at my site.

*****

Robertson Says He Leg-Pressed 2,000 Pounds
May 26, 2006

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says
he has leg-pressed 2,000 pounds, but some say he'd be in a pretty
tough spot if he tried.

The "700 Club" host's feat of strength is recounted on the Web site
of his Christian Broadcasting Network, in a posting headlined "How
Pat Robertson Leg Pressed 2,000 Pounds."

According to the CBN Web site, Robertson worked his way up to
lifting a ton with the help of his physician, who is not named. The
posting does not say when the lift occurred, but a CBN spokeswoman
released photos to The Associated Press that she said showed
Robertson lifting 2,000 pounds in 2003, when Robertson was 73. He is
now 76.

The Web posting said two men loaded the leg-press machine with 2,000
pounds "and then let it down on Mr. Robertson, who pushed it up one
rep and let it go back down again." The Web site said several people
witnessed the event, and shows video of Robertson leg-pressing what
appears to be 1,000 pounds.

Clay Travis of CBS SportsLine.com called the 2,000-pound assertion
impossible in a column this week, writing that the leg-press record
for football players at Florida State University is 665 pounds less.

"Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could
hold 2,000 pounds at one time?" Travis asked.

Andy Zucker, a strength-training coach at Old Dominion University in
Norfolk, said leg presses of more than 1,000 pounds represent "a
Herculean effort, and 2,000 pounds is a whole other story."

"If he was able to lift that much weight, I take my hat off to him,
but the numbers suggest that people who lift that much weight are
few and far between," Zucker said. "One would have to see what type
of leg press it was on and under what parameters it was done."

CBN spokeswoman Angell Vasko said Friday that Robertson was not
available for comment because he was "out of pocket" for the long
holiday weekend.

Vasko said she has not seen Robertson leg-press 2,000 pounds but
that it's not "a huge shocker" that he could.

"Pat is so healthy," she said. "This is something he trained for
over an extended period of time. He lives a very healthy, regimented
life."

One of the photos Vasko released had a digital date stamp of 1994,
although she said Robertson performed the leg press in 2003. Vasko
said that perhaps the date was not set properly on the camera.

The CBN Web site attributes Robertson's energy in part to "his age-
defying protein shake." The site offers a recipe for the shake,
which contains ingredients such as soy protein isolate, whey protein
isolate, flaxseed oil and apple cider vinegar.
---
On the Net:

CBN Web site: http://www.cbn.com/communitypublic/shake.asp

*****

Gonzales pressures ISPs on data retention
By Declan McCullagh, CNETNews.com
http://news.zdnet.com
May 26, 2006

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert
Mueller on Friday urged telecommunications officials to record their
customers' Internet activities, CNET News.com has learned.

In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales,
Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said
Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and
network data for two years, according to two sources familiar with
the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The closed-door meeting at the Justice Department, which Gonzales
had requested, according to the sources, comes as the idea of
legally mandated data retention has become popular on Capitol Hill
and inside the Bush administration. Supporters of the idea say it
will help prosecutions of child pornography because in many cases,
logs are deleted during the routine course of business.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales In a speech last month at the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Gonzales said
that Internet providers must retain records for a "reasonable amount
of time."

"I will reach out personally to the CEOs of the leading service
providers and to other industry leaders," Gonzales said. "Record
retention by Internet service providers consistent with the
legitimate privacy rights of Americans is an issue that must be
addressed."

Until Gonzales' speech, the Bush administration had generally
opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had "serious
reservations" (click for PDF) about them. But after the European
Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet,
telephone and voice over Internet Protocol providers, top
administration officials began talking about the practice more
favorably.

During Friday's meeting, Justice Department officials passed around
pixellated (that is, slightly obscured) photographs of child
pornography to emphasize the lurid nature of the crimes police are
trying to prevent, according to one source.

A Justice Department spokesman familiar with the administration's
stand on data retention was in meetings on Friday and unavailable
for comment, a department representative said.

Privacy advocates have been alarmed by the idea of legally mandated
data retention, saying that, while child exploitation may be the
justification today, those records would be available in all kinds
of criminal and civil suits--including terrorism, tax evasion, drug,
and even divorce cases.

It was not immediately clear what Gonzales and Mueller meant by
suggesting that network data be retained. One possibility is
requiring Internet providers to record the Internet addresses their
customers are temporarily assigned. A more extensive mandate would
require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages
visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.

'Preservation' vs. 'retention'

Two proposals to mandate data retention have surfaced in the U.S.
Congress. One, backed by Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat,
says that any Internet service that "enables users to access
content" must permanently retain records that would permit police to
identify each user. The records could only be discarded at least one
year after the user's account was closed.

The other was drafted by aides to Wisconsin Rep. F. James
Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a
close ally of President Bush. Sensenbrenner said through a spokesman
last week, though, that his proposal is on hold because "our
committee's agenda is tremendously overcrowded already."

At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log
file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network
monitoring, fraud prevention or billing disputes. Companies do,
however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing
an investigation--a practice called data preservation.

A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional
Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet
providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90
days "upon the request of a governmental entity."

Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity,
ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether
a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are
the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol
over Ethernet.)

In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law
to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with
forwarding that report to the appropriate police agency.

When adopting its data retention rules, the European Parliament
approved U.K.-backed requirements, saying that communications
providers in its 25 member countries--several of which had enacted
their own data retention laws already--must retain customer data for
a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years.

The Europe-wide requirement applies to a wide variety of "traffic"
and "location" data, including the identities of the customers'
correspondents; the date, time and duration of phone calls, voice
over Internet Protocol calls or e-mail messages; and the location of
the device used for the communications. But the "content" of the
communications is not supposed to be retained. The rules are
expected to take effect in 2008.

*****

More than 60 children reportedly held at Guantanamo Bay
28 May 2006
Radio New Zealand
http://www.radionz.co.nz

More than 60 minors, some as young as 14, have been held as
prisoners at the US detention facility for suspected terrorists at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a London-based human rights group has said in
a report.

Those detainees were under 18 when they were captured by US forces,
and at least 10 of them still being held at Guantanamo were 14 or 15
when they were seized, held in solitary confinement, subject to
repeated interrogation and allegedly tortured, the charity Reprieve
was reported as saying.

Britain's Independent on Sunday, which carried the allegations,
suggested the charges could threaten the United States' relationship
with its closest ally in the "war on terror", Britain.

"We would take a very, very dim view if it transpires that there
were actually minors there," it quoted a British government official
as saying.

Unnamed government sources said the allegations directly
contradicted Washington's assurances to London that no minors were
held at Guantanamo.

Human rights conventions
Reprieve's legal director and a lawyer for a number of detainees,
Clive Stafford-Smith, told the newspaper the United States could
have broken not only its own laws but all human rights conventions
by putting children in adult jails.

Mr Stafford-Smith said that even if it were proved the 10 still held
there - who are now all thought to have turned 18 - were involved in
fighting, they should be treated differently from adults.

According to the newspaper, Washington has admitted that only three
Guantanamo inmates - later freed - were ever treated as children.

The US military also admitted that 17 of those on the first
definitive list of detainees released earlier this month were under
18 when they were captured, it added.

But Mr Stafford-Smith said Reprieve had credible evidence from other
detainees, lawyers and the International Red Cross that an
additional 37 juveniles were under 18 when they were taken to Cuba.

A US Pentagon spokesman quoted by the newspaper said no one now
being held at Guantanamo was a juvenile and rejected arguments that
normal criminal law applied to the facility.

*****

Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Set For June Or July
McGovern: Staged terror attacks across Europe, US "probable" in
order to justify invasion
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com
June 1 2006

Former CIA analyst and Presidential advisor Ray McGovern, fresh from
his heated public confrontation with Donald Rumsfeld, fears that
staged terror attacks across Europe and the US are probable in order
to justify the Bush administration's plan to launch a military
strike against Iran, which he thinks will take place in June or July.

Appearing on The Alex Jones Show, McGovern was asked about the
timetable for war in Iran and said that behind the diplomatic
smokescreen, the final chess pieces were being moved into position.

"There is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are
steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will
all be there in another week or so."

"The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place,
it doesn't take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases -
  cruse missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on," said
McGovern.

McGovern said Iran's likely response to a US air strike would be
threefold - mobilizing worldwide terrorist cells that would make Al-
Qaeda look like a girls netball team - utilizing its cruise missile
arsenal to attack US ships and sending fighters into Iraq to attack
US forces.

"The Iranians can easily send three divisions of revolutionary guard
troops right over....the long border with Iraq," said McGovern,
stating that the local Sunni population of Iraq would welcome such
an invasion.

The turmoil caused by such an action would lead the US to tap its so-
called 'mini-nuke' arsenal said McGovern, opening a new Pandora's
box of chaos.

McGovern highlighted President Bush's all time record low approval
ratings as a reason for launching an attack on Iran to again whip up
false patriotic fervour.

"I can see Karl Rove saying, 'look what you need to do is become a
war president again, get us involved with something pretty big here
and then strut around and say you can't vote for a bunch of
Democrats to pull the rug out from under me while there's a war
going on'."

McGovern drew a comparison with the concillatory cold war stance of
Russia and JFK's decision to respond in a similar manner, and the
Iranian President's letter which was immediately dismissed by the
Bush administration. JFK's approach saved the US from potential
nuclear anihalation while Bush's actions put the US in severe danger
as Russia and China give ominous mixed signals on what their
response to a US strike on Iran will be.

McGovern lambasted Bush's inner circle as uniformly lacking any real
military experience and characterized them as a cabal already hell-
bent on war.

McGovern entertained the notion that western governments and
intelligence hierarchies could potentially stage terror attacks in
Europe and the US either before or after an invasion of Iran.

"That's altogether possible," said McGovern.

"I would say even probable because they need some proximate cause,
some casus belli to justify really unleashing things on Iran....I
would put very little past this crew - their record of dissembling
and disingenuousness is unparalleled."

McGovern said that Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld, fearing impeachment
and Enron-style criminal proceedings, are urging President Bush to
launch a war in order to create a climate unconducive to lengthy
investigations and impeachment proceedings.

Asked to cite specifically when we should expect to see an attack
launched, McGovern said, "I think we all agree that an attack is
likely before the election and we all agree that it has to do
largely with the election - as for timing I see a likelihood that it
could come as early as late June or early July, most of my
colleagues predict August, September, maybe an October surprise
even."

"My thinking is that for it to be October that would be so crass and
so transparent that even this crowd would shy away from making it so
obvious," said McGovern.

McGovern is set to appear along with a host of other respected and
credible whistleblowers at the American Scholars Symposium at the
end of this month.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com


Murtha: New Scandal Worse Than Abu Ghraib
Rep. Murtha Says Fallout From Killing of Iraqi Civilians Will Turn
Out Worse Than Prison Scandal
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
May 28, 2006

WASHINGTON - The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen
Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more
than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a
prominent war critic said Sunday.

The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province
of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered
up, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so
long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it
goes. It goes right up the chain of command."

A bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.
Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the
scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to
Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.

Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one
fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against
the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not
seriously investigated until March because an early probe was
stifled within days of the incident, he said.

"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha
said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks
afterward and it should have been made public and people should have
been held responsible for it."

Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, told The
Associated Press that the investigation was ongoing and he would
have no comment.

Murtha, a former Marine and a prominent critic of Bush
administration policies in Iraq, repeated his view that the war in
Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions, which
he said were damaged by such incidents involving the U.S.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the
people," he said. "And we're set back every time something like this
happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib."

The U.S. effort to win over Iraqis and others in the Arab world by
fostering a democratic government was severely damaged when it was
revealed that U.S. military personnel had abused and humiliated
people held at Abu Ghraib, a prison outside of Baghdad.

The incident at Haditha has sparked two investigations one into the
deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject
of a cover-up.

The second, noncriminal investigation is examining whether Marines
sought to cover up what actually occurred that day and, in doing so,
lied about having killed civilians without justification. The Marine
Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing
and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported
had been killed.

A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press on
Friday that evidence gathered so far strongly indicated that the
Haditha killings were unjustified.

Early this year, a videotape of the aftermath of the incident,
showing the bodies of women and children, was obtained by Time
magazine and Arab television stations. The military then undertook
another investigation.

Sen. John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said he would hold hearings on the killings but cautioned
against reaching conclusions until the military concluded its
investigation.

"There is this serious question, however, of what happened and when
it happened and what was the immediate reaction of the senior
officers in the Marine Corps when they began to gain knowledge of
it," Warner said.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into the
shootings is not expected to be completed earlier than in June.
Whether violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
including murder, would be pursued would be determined by a senior
Marine commander in Iraq.

The NCIS also is conducting a criminal investigation into another
incident, the death of an Iraqi civilian on April 26, involving
Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.

*****

Fake Soldier Confession Video Runs As Cover For Real Slaughter
Dilutes impact of genuine war atrocities like phony rape photos
distracted from Abu Ghraib
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | May 30 2006

A widely circulated video in which an army ranger confessed to the
brutal indiscriminate murder of Iraqi civilians and its vehement
debunking as a hoax has acted as a smokescreen for the very real
admission and evidence of US war crimes in Iraq.

Working in this field for five years and scanning news on a day to
day basis you quickly develop and hone a bullshit detector that can
spot hoaxes, psy-ops and frauds from a mile off. As soon as the
MacBeth Marine video hit the Internet I smelt a very large rat.

The alternative media community is plagued by deliberate
disinformation specialists and gullible individuals who will act as
unwitting conduits for bogus information. This minefield of
deception breeds confusion, distraction and lowers the credibility
of the truth community.

In the video, MacBeth claims that he was part of a unit that
regularly killed innocent Iraqis, their wives and children if they
didn't explicitly follow orders.

Proof that the video is a hoax is legion. MacBeth's uniform is
totally inconsistent with that of a US army ranger and his claimed
medals are not verified by any official record. Army spokesman John
Boyce said there was no record of MacBeth ever serving.

"Initial research by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at
Fort Bragg shows no Soldier with the name of Jesse Macbeth having
ever been assigned to the Special Forces or the Army Rangers --
which are, in fact, two separate disciplines."

At its height, the fake video confession was the number 2 clicked
news item across the entire Internet.

The video has eclipsed the real evidence of US war crimes in Iraq.
The BBC video above carries bona fide testimony from US soldiers who
served in Iraq and were party to killing civilians. To emphasize,
this video carries accurate, unimpeachable, and legitimate testimony
regarding US war crimes in Iraq.

In addition, charges are expected to be brought against Marines
after an investigation into the killing of 24 unarmed civilians in
the Iraqi town of Haditha in November. Congressman John Murtha said
that the slaughter and its subsequent cover-up could do more to harm
the US reputation in Iraq than the Abu Ghraib scandal. To emphasize,
this event carries accurate, unimpeachable, and legitimate evidence
of US war crimes in Iraq.

The hoax video has allowed Neo-Con media government boot-lickers to
discredit all claims of US atrocities in Iraq, despite the fact that
the army has admitted to them and charges are pending. This is an
exercise in bait and switch and it softens the backlash of opinion
against the coalition of the killing when true and verified examples
of war crimes are brought to the fore. It dilutes the reaction to a
growing body of hardcore evidence of ceaseless atrocities committed
against innocent Iraqis.

Fox News wasted no time in exploiting the hoax to whitewash the real
issue of war crimes and civilian murders in Iraq. Michelle Malkin
(who advocates bringing back internment camps for Muslims) also
cited the video as an example of anti-war propaganda and used it to
dismiss genuine US-led slaughter in Iraq.

Watch below as fawning Neo-Con Malkin revels in debunking "peace
propaganda" by comparing MacBeth's words to John Kerry's Vietnam
testimony. This is also the only remaining record of the MacBeth
video as all other postings of it have been removed.

News Hounds hit the nail on the head in assessing the consequences
of this hoax.

"This segment serves a two-fold purpose. It plants in viewers heads
the seed of doubt about stories of atrocities and murder of
civilians, just as the Haditha story seems poised to break and
expose exactly the kind of behavior dismissed here. For many of
FOX's true believers, the Haditha story will be a conspiracy of the
liberal media to hurt Bush because they hate him, and this
discredited story will bolster their position of denial."

Fox were able to spin the hoax video and offer it as evidence of
their ridiculous claim that the turmoil in Iraq is a US media
creation and that we really are there to liberate everyone.

In considering the timing of the hoax confession tape it is
pertinent to recall a similar instance of bait and switch which
occurred at the beginning of the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Two days after the Abu Ghraib torture photos were released, the
Internet was flooded with fake rape photos taken from porn websites.
So when the actual military report stated that rape did take place
at Abu Ghraib, the Neo-Con media junta could discredit and deny it.
The Boston Globe inexplicably published these photos days after they
were known to be a hoax and then staged-managed an apology, which
garnered great attention. Printing the photos and then apologizing
was a theatrical set-up to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the
body politic for future release of new photos and allegations.

In addition, staged photos of British soldiers urinating on and
beating Iraqis were leaked to the Mirror newspaper in Britain.
Despite numerous military eyewitnesses coming forward to say that
beatings had taken place, the circus revolved around these few
photos which were admitted hoaxes. The public was left with the
impression that stories about British troops mistreating Iraqis were
fraudulent, even though other cases of abuse had been admitted.

Though the news cycle moves far too quickly to immediately identify
a story as a hoax, we should remain guarded in precisely what items
we choose to inflate and circulate to a wider audience. Otherwise
we're nearly as bad as the White House itself, which produces fake
government PR and packages it as 'news' for the indoctrination of a
bewildered US television audience.

But you won't see Fox News or Michelle Malkin kick up any fuss about
that.

*****

End of deaths uncertain in Iraq
By The Associated Press
Mon May 29, 2006

AP Correspondent Robert H. Reid is based in Baghdad and writes about
events in Iraq.

Allegations that American Marines massacred two dozen civilians last
November in the city of Haditha are making big news in the United
States but causing hardly a ripple in Iraq.

That may seem unusual, considering the firestorm that was unleashed
two years ago when pictures surfaced of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by
American soldiers at     Abu Ghraib prison. And the Haditha
allegations may yet hit Iraq's front pages after Navy investigators
announce their findings sometime next month.

For the moment, however, Haditha isn't making much of a ripple here —
  there is simply so much death and bloodshed in Iraq that a few more
don't make much impact except to family and friends.

That may seem brutal — and it is. But considering Iraq's recent
history, it's not surprising.

Since     Saddam Hussein invaded     Iran in 1980, Iraqis have had
little real peace. Two years after the Iran-Iraq war ended, Saddam
sent his soldiers into Kuwait, only to have them driven out by
American-led forces less than six months later.

The invasion of Kuwait led to a dozen years of crippling
international sanctions, which ended only after the Americans and
their allies invaded in March 2003 and toppled the regime. Since the
fall of Saddam, the country has been embroiled in insurgency,
kidnappings, Shiite-Sunni killings and raging crime.

No official figures are available on how many Iraqis have died
violently since the war began in March 2003. However, the Web site
Iraq Body Count, which collects from media reports and other
sources, estimates the figure ranges between about 38,000 and 42,400.

Critics may dispute the figures, but no one doubts that bloodletting
in Iraq is out of control. Sudden death can come to anyone in Iraq,
at any time.

For two CBS News crew members, death came Monday on a routine
assignment accompanying American soldiers driving through a square
where thousands pass unmolested each day. A car exploded, killing
cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, as well
as an American soldier. CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was
in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad after
undergoing surgery.

A few hours earlier, 10 people died when their bus was struck by a
roadside bomb 50 miles north of Baghdad. Twelve other passengers
were wounded. They were all headed for work at a camp of an Iranian
opposition group.

Back in the capital, another car bomb exploded near Baghdad's most
prestigious Sunni mosque, killing nine people. Across the Tigris
River, seven more died when a minivan packed with explosives blew up
in an outdoor market.

What can stop the carnage? That's the million dollar question. Many
believe appointing new heads of the police and military ministries
would help, and talks have been under way for months among Iraq's
feuding political factions to settle on the choices. Reining in
sectarian militias would help, too, along with taking guns off the
street and defeating the insurgents.

But none of those steps are easy, and all solutions have been tried
before. It is certain that someday the rampant violence will end.
What remains uncertain, however, is when, and how many more Iraqis,
Americans and others must die before the carnage stops.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Magic mushroom users turn to exotic alternatives to get high without
breaking law
By Terry Kirby, Chief Reporter
Published: 30 May 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk

They have exotic names like Funk Pills, Amsterdam Gold, Kratom Leaf
and Ayahuasca Sacrament and promise effects which range from the
mildly euphoric to "ecstasy-style" energy rushes and hallucinogenic
experiences.

But these are not drugs where you have to break the law to sell, buy
or consume them - they are all completely legal. Dozens of new and
ancient types of "legal highs" - derived from herbs, plants and
cacti from South America and Asia and synthetic stimulants from New
Zealand - are available. They can be bought, often at low prices,
from internet-based companies and an increasing number of high-
street "head" shops.

Ironically, the trade has been stimulated by the Government's
decision last year to ban "magic mushrooms", which contain the
hallucinogenic psilocin, which had been sold openly through the
internet and in places such as Camden market in north London. The
ban left a gap in the market, with consumers and vendors looking for
new products.

Mark Evans, of everyonedoesit.com, one of the leading internet-based
mail order operations, said the increase in trade since last year
had been "massive". He added: "There is a huge gap in the market.
These consumers are not going to disappear, they are just looking
for alternatives." Mr Evans, whose company also sells cannabis seeds
for growing, said there had been a change in the culture of people
who consumed recreational drugs. "We do a lot of festivals and speak
to people who say they are fed up with dealers and taking drugs -
like ecstasy - where they cannot always be confident that they know
what is in the pill. People want something which will not poison
them and they [want to] know what they are buying."

Although many of the organic-based legal highs have, it is claimed,
been used in primitive communities for millennia, the current
biggest seller, Funk Pills, have only been in existence for a few
years. Sales have rocketed in the past six months. Selling for
between £5 and £7, they come from New Zealand, where they are made
by companies licensed by the government there, after it decided that
they were a less-harmful substitute for illegal drugs such as
methamphetamine.

Also known as pep pills, they contain the stimulant
benzylpiperazine - banned in the US, Denmark and Australia - with
other chemicals from the piperazine family, which are also used to
create Viagra.

According to DrugScope, the independent advice body, while some
users are keen on the pills, attributing genuine ecstasy-style
effects, others are more sceptical. The pills come with warnings
about dosage, driving or using machinery, and side effects can
include those normally associated with ecstasy or amphetamines, such
as dehydration, anxiety and insomnia.

Another big seller is the Spice Smoking Blend, a new version of the
herbal mixes which are traditional legal alternatives to
cannabis. "Herbal substitutes were always a bit of a joke, but many
people say these are the closest thing to marijuana yet," said Mr
Evans.

At the other end of the scale from Funk Pills are the £12 peyote
cacti sold by Chris Bovey, who runs another mail-order company,
Potseeds.co.uk, based in Totnes in Devon. Peyote cacti contain the
hallucinogenic drug mescaline, which has a similar effect to LSD and
was the drug used by Aldous Huxley before he wrote The Doors of
Perception, which encouraged the use of mind-altering drugs in the
1960s. Native American tribes have used it for centuries as a
shamanic plant that can create visions of an alternative world. "It
is a lot more in demand since the mushroom ban," he said.

Mr Bovey said consumers broadly divided into two groups -
older "hippie" types, used to smoking cannabis and younger buyers
seeking to replicate the "E" experience. Instances of addiction,
abuse or harmful effects were almost non-existent. The Home Office
said there was no reason to examine the legal status of any of the
substances on the market.

Nevertheless, DrugScope issued advice to students in London earlier
this year, cautioning that any drug which has a psychological effect
can prove difficult to stop if used regularly. It added: "Proper
controlled research is sparse, and therefore side effects and
possible dangers when taken with other drugs and even foods is not
known."

Harry Shapiro, a spokesman for DrugScope, added: "People with mental
health problems should not take them. If you are going to
experiment, do so in a safe and secure environment."

Herbal pleasures

* PEP PILLS: Marketed as Funk Pills or Party Pills and made from a
chemical derived from the pepper plant. Developed as a worming
treatment for cattle. Replicates the rush of ecstasy, but users
should be careful of overdosing. £5-£7 for 2-3 pills

* AMANITA MUSCARIA (FLY AGARIC): Red- capped, white-spotted
mushroomlong known for its psychoactive effects. Not covered by the
Government's ban on "magic mushrooms" since it does not contain
psilocin. Users should start with low doses. £14 for 12g

* KRATOM LEAF (above): Leaves of the Mitragyna speciosa tree of
Malaysia and Thailand. Described by PotSeeds as "one of the most
effective and pleasurable psychoactive herbs". Said to cause a
dreamy sensation. Can be addictive. £9 for 5g

* SALVIA DIVINORUM: Herb that can create an intense high lasting
less than an hour. Not recommended as a recreational drug. £10-£17 a
bag

* AYAHUASCA SACRAMENT: A shamanic plant potion, it can induce
vomiting before narcotic effects begin. Should not be mixed with
with antidepressant drugs. £4.99 for 30g

They have exotic names like Funk Pills, Amsterdam Gold, Kratom Leaf
and Ayahuasca Sacrament and promise effects which range from the
mildly euphoric to "ecstasy-style" energy rushes and hallucinogenic
experiences.

But these are not drugs where you have to break the law to sell, buy
or consume them - they are all completely legal. Dozens of new and
ancient types of "legal highs" - derived from herbs, plants and
cacti from South America and Asia and synthetic stimulants from New
Zealand - are available. They can be bought, often at low prices,
from internet-based companies and an increasing number of high-
street "head" shops.

Ironically, the trade has been stimulated by the Government's
decision last year to ban "magic mushrooms", which contain the
hallucinogenic psilocin, which had been sold openly through the
internet and in places such as Camden market in north London. The
ban left a gap in the market, with consumers and vendors looking for
new products.

Mark Evans, of everyonedoesit.com, one of the leading internet-based
mail order operations, said the increase in trade since last year
had been "massive". He added: "There is a huge gap in the market.
These consumers are not going to disappear, they are just looking
for alternatives." Mr Evans, whose company also sells cannabis seeds
for growing, said there had been a change in the culture of people
who consumed recreational drugs. "We do a lot of festivals and speak
to people who say they are fed up with dealers and taking drugs -
like ecstasy - where they cannot always be confident that they know
what is in the pill. People want something which will not poison
them and they [want to] know what they are buying."

Although many of the organic-based legal highs have, it is claimed,
been used in primitive communities for millennia, the current
biggest seller, Funk Pills, have only been in existence for a few
years. Sales have rocketed in the past six months. Selling for
between £5 and £7, they come from New Zealand, where they are made
by companies licensed by the government there, after it decided that
they were a less-harmful substitute for illegal drugs such as
methamphetamine.

Also known as pep pills, they contain the stimulant
benzylpiperazine - banned in the US, Denmark and Australia - with
other chemicals from the piperazine family, which are also used to
create Viagra.

According to DrugScope, the independent advice body, while some
users are keen on the pills, attributing genuine ecstasy-style
effects, others are more sceptical. The pills come with warnings
about dosage, driving or using machinery, and side effects can
include those normally associated with ecstasy or amphetamines, such
as dehydration, anxiety and insomnia.

Another big seller is the Spice Smoking Blend, a new version of the
herbal mixes which are traditional legal alternatives to
cannabis. "Herbal substitutes were always a bit of a joke, but many
people say these are the closest thing to marijuana yet," said Mr
Evans.
At the other end of the scale from Funk Pills are the £12 peyote
cacti sold by Chris Bovey, who runs another mail-order company,
Potseeds.co.uk, based in Totnes in Devon. Peyote cacti contain the
hallucinogenic drug mescaline, which has a similar effect to LSD and
was the drug used by Aldous Huxley before he wrote The Doors of
Perception, which encouraged the use of mind-altering drugs in the
1960s. Native American tribes have used it for centuries as a
shamanic plant that can create visions of an alternative world. "It
is a lot more in demand since the mushroom ban," he said.

Mr Bovey said consumers broadly divided into two groups -
older "hippie" types, used to smoking cannabis and younger buyers
seeking to replicate the "E" experience. Instances of addiction,
abuse or harmful effects were almost non-existent. The Home Office
said there was no reason to examine the legal status of any of the
substances on the market.

Nevertheless, DrugScope issued advice to students in London earlier
this year, cautioning that any drug which has a psychological effect
can prove difficult to stop if used regularly. It added: "Proper
controlled research is sparse, and therefore side effects and
possible dangers when taken with other drugs and even foods is not
known."

Harry Shapiro, a spokesman for DrugScope, added: "People with mental
health problems should not take them. If you are going to
experiment, do so in a safe and secure environment."

Herbal pleasures

* PEP PILLS: Marketed as Funk Pills or Party Pills and made from a
chemical derived from the pepper plant. Developed as a worming
treatment for cattle. Replicates the rush of ecstasy, but users
should be careful of overdosing. £5-£7 for 2-3 pills

* AMANITA MUSCARIA (FLY AGARIC): Red- capped, white-spotted
mushroomlong known for its psychoactive effects. Not covered by the
Government's ban on "magic mushrooms" since it does not contain
psilocin. Users should start with low doses. £14 for 12g

* KRATOM LEAF (above): Leaves of the Mitragyna speciosa tree of
Malaysia and Thailand. Described by PotSeeds as "one of the most
effective and pleasurable psychoactive herbs". Said to cause a
dreamy sensation. Can be addictive. £9 for 5g

* SALVIA DIVINORUM: Herb that can create an intense high lasting
less than an hour. Not recommended as a recreational drug. £10-£17 a
bag

* AYAHUASCA SACRAMENT: A shamanic plant potion, it can induce
vomiting before narcotic effects begin. Should not be mixed with
with antidepressant drugs. £4.99 for 30g

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Lone Nutter News
LNN
Memorial Day Edition
by

Jaye Beldo
Lonenutter@...

In This Issue:

X-Zone: An Intuitive Perspective

The Anatomy of Evil in Our Time
by
Adam Michaelis

Political Ponerology
by
Andrew M. Lobaczewski


The Passion Code

*****
Greetings LNN Reader,

      While taking a morning jaunt on my bike to kick off the
Memorial Day
weekend, I could see all of the Iraq war dead floating around in the
ethers
above America, looking for some honorable means of discharge into
higher,war
free worlds, only to bounce off the oily cover of chem trails and
HAARP
generated scalar waves which deliberately prevented their escape.
My spiritual
guides revealed to me that General Hayden, with his oddly impish
grin, plans to
use some form of Golem technology now being concocted by his occult
buddies at
the Pentagon to insert these forlorn souls into the blow molded
bodies of young
and upcoming soldier mutants who will be promptly shipped off to the
Middle
East for deployment.  Perhaps this is the real reason Hayden is now
the director of
the CIA since only he knows how to read the encrypted Yiddish
incantations
required to animate the soldiers into action once they hit the front
lines.
All of this may be old Yarmulke to some of you, but I do suggest
opening your
third eyes to take in the gruesome splendor of this hostage crises
now playing
in an astral plane near you.

    And for those of you who just want to escape from family
barbeques and
garage sales this weekend, I offer you the latest edition of Lone
Nutter News to while
away your holiday with.

All the Best,

Jaye Beldo

*****

(Please Note:  The following article evoked a flame between myself
and one Acharya S. and Kenn Thomas after it was forwarded to several
Adventures Unlimited Press authors.  Ms. S. claims my opinions are
not worth anything because I'm 'emotionaly (sic) overwrought'
and 'blustering'.  I countered her attack by reminding her that she
is obviously still fuming because I trashed her crass bit of pseudo-
scholarship The Christ Conspiracy.  KT attempted to come to her
rescue and stated that he got along quite well with the host of the
X-Zone, without even considering any of the points I make in the
following article. Apparently it hasn't dawned on either S. or
Thomas that the reason they did so well on the X-Zone show is
because they are just as one dimensional as the host is-they may
even be organic portals for all I know.   I suggest to these
metaphysically challenged authors to dust off and activate their
meta-programming and non-local quantum neuro-circuits and sense what
is really going on behind the scenes during X-Zone and other late
night broadcasts.  For those of you more open/receptive to other
realities-good and bad, I trust you'll find the following just as
entertaining/revealing as the flame was for me.)

X-Zone: An Intuitive Perspective
by

Jaye Beldo

     On May 16th  I appeared on Rob McConnell's X-Zone broadcast, an
internationally syndicated affair that pervades the air waves in
Canada, the
Caribbean, South America , the U.S. and elsewhere.  Since this was
my first
time doing a late night radio stint, I didn't quite know what to
expect, so  in
order to counteract any possible weirdness, I drew the Eagle out of
the
Medicine Card deck and concentrated its Sagittarian energies into
the broadcast medium
during the hour or so that I was on the program.

         As I infused the raptor's energy throughout the broadcast
ether, the topics
discussed ranged from how I dealt with Howard Stern's vampires while
on the air
with him, my novel A Stab in the Light recently published by Red
Pill Press,
and how I overcame alcoholism through psychic/intuitive development.
All
throughout, I found myself having to deal with the host's mechanical
delivering of
questions and subsequent interruptions which occurred just as I was
about to make a
point, or get to the crux of an argument.  I've experienced this
with other talk show
hosts in the past and it appears to be an unconscious reaction
mechanism to
discourage any significant dialogue that can evolve and broaden a
listener's
perspective on things in a substantial way.  What really threw me
for a strange
loop was when Rob cut me off as I was narrating a story about a trip
to
Northern India I had taken and where I met this so called spiritual
aspirant who
announced to the group that he was enlightened and wanted to go to
Calcutta
where 'they burn egos in big black pits'.  Rob warned me to 'watch
my language'
and that the X-Zone was a 'family oriented program' thus derailing
my synapses,
preventing me from relaying to the audience the punch line to the
Calcutta
bound traveler which was: "Do you think you'll be able to find a pit
big enough
for your ego?"  I found myself fast forwarding to when the guy
offered to
employ me as a writer for his lucrative phone sex business a few
years later.  Perhaps
we should have talked more about the pictures of depleted uranium
deformed
babies that Rob has splashed all over his website-a form of overtly
sadistic
pornography IMHO.  I guess that would have been more family friendly
especially
during that hour of the night when most kids are sleeping-at least
in the
western hemisphere.  Many listeners have e-mailed me with comments
on this
bizarre interruption which really made no sense whatsoever on the
level of
rationality anyway.  Perhaps he thought I said a forbidden word that
rhymes
with 'pit' although the seven second delay mechanism radio stations
use would
have bleeped that out.  Very strange indeed.

         Even stranger, was the intense psychic fallout afterwards,
which most likely
came from astral goons policing the psychic parabolic dish created
by the
focused attention of the listeners.   It felt like I had been
subjected to some
sophisticated form of mind control even more sinister than the kind
usually
found in Clear Channel venues, which targets anyone who threatens to
pull
listeners out of the kind of dreadful, suspended animation which
renders them
passive and paranoid while listening to programs such as X-Zone.
Now that I've
got a better bead on this kind of occult manipulation, I think I'll
be able to
hold my ground more sufficiently in the future when doing gigs like
this.  This
also applies to listeners of these programs as well-so make sure to
pay
attention to the manipulations of your subtle body so you can
prevent  yourself
from falling into the collective mindset of morbid fascination,
bewilderment
when listening to twilight radio shows.  If not that, then draw a
card out of
the medicine deck like the Coyote or Owl or perhaps even the Lynx ,
beam its
energies into the matrix of the broadcast and see what happens.

*****

The Anatomy of Evil
in Our Time

by

Adam Michaelis


         It is rare to come across a book which describes the
manipulations of the
subtle body in a soundly objective way. Yet, in The Anatomy of Evil
in Our Time
we are offered much useful information in regards to how our aura
and chakras
can be distorted to cause us to become more susceptible to the whims
of
whoever/ whatever desires to control us. Remaining ignorant of these
underhanded methods causes us to surrender our abilities to
think/feel
independently as well as to sacrifice our very 'I-nes' to evil. The
author, a
survivor of a corrupt Tibetan Buddhist cult shows how he aligned
himself with
the esoteric Christ (via Rudolf Steiner´s Anthroposophy) and managed
to heal
and break free from a fraudulent guru´s control of his energy body
and mind as
well. He demonstrates throughout how he did this, primarily by
paying close
attention to his emotions and warnings from his unconscious mind
through a
series of quite vivid dreams. More importantly, he writes about
himself in the
third person which further enables us (and Adam) to view what
happened with
some degree of disengagement, truly a necessary prerequisite if one
wants to
liberate themselves from subtle entanglements that are difficult to
discern,
let alone express.

         While I found his exposé to be quite enlightening in regards
to the many ways
that evil can infiltrate our lives undetected, at times Michealis
tends to
posit this dichotomy between eastern and western religions, equating
the former
with evil throughout. Adam does emphasize the differences between
various
lineages such as Mahayana, Vajrayana, et. al., but perhaps should
have
stressed that, overall, it was Buddhism as brought to the west
through such
vectors as Theosophy that contributed to its inevitable corruption
and
cooptation by dark forces in this reviewer´s opinion. I make this
point only
because I spent time with Tibetan Buddhists in Northern India and
they did not
come across as being evil or manipulative at all. In fact they were
some of the
happiest people I've ever met-at least in some of the more remote
monasteries I
visited in Ladahk and Zanskar. Perhaps, this may have been an
exception
considering Tibetan Buddhism's involvement with magic (having
evolved out of
the Bon-Po religion), fallen Lamas such as Chogyam Rinpoche and the
Dalai
Lama´s current posing as the Buddhist pope.

         At times I thought the author dwelled for too long and in
too great of detail
on the manipulations of his own subtle body by the cult leader,
keeping in mind
that this kind of prolonged fixation could be yet another
Luciferic/Ahrimanic
trapping, i.e., to entice someone to perpetually figure out what is
going on
and further deplete them of energy since no real resolution can ever
be made
except at the level of the heart and not the intellect. Yet, I found
the
author's insights to be quite refreshing, profound and inspiring as
well. Not
many people have the gifts that Adam Michaelis possesses in terms of
overall
awareness of invisible influences and an ability to
objectify/analyze them as
well as to effectively articulate them. There are many genuinely
insightful
observations that make this a highly valuable book to read and
thoroughly
study. In fact, I would call it an essential spiritual survival
manual for our
times.

         Michaelis ends The Anatomy of Evil in Our Time on a strong
note with an
impressive argument on par with the theologian Paul Tillich,
defending the
Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity as the best things that
we can
ally ourselves with, contrasting this with the overall negation of
life (and
soul) found in Buddhist philosophy. Frankly, I was expecting some
kind of
pessimistic finale but found myself quite moved by his line of
reasoning,
indicating the validity and substance of a deep connection to the
esoteric
Christ and how aligning with this force is perhaps one of the best
ways to
overcome the encroachments of Lucifer/Ahriman, Sorath and other
forms of evil
in our time. For anyone interested in how cult control is maintained
on the
level of the subtle body, whether it be through Tibetan Buddhism,
Scientology
or the latest doomsday cult, I would most recommend The Anatomy of
Evil in Our
Time. Reading this work will bring forth latent powers of perception
within you
that you will most benefit from for a long time to come in a
protective and
liberating kind of way.

check out Adam's website at:
http://www.sitecenter.dk/adam-michaelis/looks/sitemap.nhtml


©2006 -Jaye Beldo

*****
Political Ponerology:
A science on the nature of evil
adjusted for political purposes

by

Andrew M. Lobaczewski


         What is ponerology?  According to some definitions, it means
the study of
evil, as it is related to the Greek word poneros or 'one whose mind
tends towards
evil'.  The author, a clinical psychologist who endured years of
living in
communist Poland makes sure to emphasize throughout Political
Ponerology  that
it is a scientific and not a theological approach to evil that he is
developing.  He certainly had many opportunities  to do his field
work in this
area, having suffered amidst what he calls 'pathocrats', i.e., those
who
instinctually subscribe to delusional thinking and occupy positions
of
prominence in governmental, corporate as well as military theaters.
The author
himself was subjected to having been arrested and interrogated
several times
throughout his career and even managed to question the secret police
themselves, who admitted that they suffered some form of mental
debility which
enabled them to follow orders without questioning them.  In one
incident,
Lobaczewski had to burn the only existing draft of Political
Ponerology just
prior to the secret police busting into his laboratory in search of
subversive
and potentially incendiary works.  Many years later, a revised
edition of his
book was suppressed by the likes of Zbigniew Brezenski during the b-
movie
pathocrat Ronald Reagan's presidency.

         The author throughout Political Ponerology emphasizes that
this pioneering
science can be effectively used to perceive evil without succumbing
to its
powers, even to trace its very etiology.  As I read this unusually
original
work, I kept getting the feeling that evil could  actually be
perceived on the
biological level.  I even strongly suspect that there are actual
ponerological
viruses that would take something like a Royal Rife microscope to
recognize,
viruses that perhaps emerge through some kind of sub quantum back
door and then
take over the cellular body of the host undetected.  These viruses
could very
well cause the lesions in the frontal areas of the cerebral cortexes
in the
brains of such pathocrats as Stalin and Hitler, lesions which
enabled these
tyrants to kill millions of people with nary a pang of conscience.
Whether I
was tapping into some vital imaginal  realm or not, I found reading
Political
Ponerology to be most inspiring in terms of developing a protective
perspective
in regards to the dynamics of evil.
            While some passages in Political Ponerology are initially
hard to grasp,
primarily because of their abstract nature, Lobaczewski does provide
some
tangible examples from his life under communist rule to back up his
innovative
and heretical ideas.  As an example, a pathocrat was introduced as
a 'faculty'
member in the school that he was attending, one who inevitably
infected a
considerable percentage of the student body with his rabid ideology.
Fortunately, the author charted out the various stages of this mass
infection
with the critical and objective thinking of a scientist, employing a
kind of
point of view that enabled him to soundly resist ponreological
indoctrination
and keep his sanity and humaneness intact.  Developing such acumen
to perceive
the various stages of evil's infiltration and takeover of a host is
crucial to
our mental health and the author offers us  ways in which this can
be done with
our current pathological leaders such as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney
and
Alberto Gonzales to name a few.  When Political Ponerology is
approached with a
willingness to further understand  evil and a desire to increase
ones ability
to ward it off, it will become quickly self evident just how
important and
vanguard this work really is. The science that the author so
effectively
describes demands to be incorporated into university curriculums
(esp. in
business, psychology and political science departments ) since it
encourages
heightening ones perceptions of how evil  cloaks its presence,
perhaps virally
and  spreads en masse.  Political Ponerology is  profoundly
inspiring in
regards to deepening our understanding the dynamics of evil and how
it infects
not only our leaders, but the billions of  'true believers'
unconsciously
following orders as well.


Available from: www.redpillpress.com

Also check out the Signs of the Times blog:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm


©2006-Jaye Beldo

*****

The Passion Code:
Second Coming to a
Theater Near You
by

Jaye Beldo


         The other night I dreamed that Mel Gibson and Ron Howard aka
Opie collaborated
on a summer blockbuster called The Passion Code to be released on
June 6th,
2006.  In it, a crucified bachelor Jesus takes on a Married-with-
Children Jesus
clone in a 120 minute battle royal on par with the kind of knock
down, drag out
fights usually found in Godzilla vs. Mothra movies.  The crucified
Jesus's
cross, fastened to a kind of armored vehicle with tank treads and
jet wings on
it was remote controlled by his disciples who attempted to shoot
Mr. and Mrs.
Christ and their holy yard apes who attempted to flee to Southern
France and
establish the Merovingian dynasty.  The family man Christ countered
the attacks
of the crucified one by Kung Fu-ing his obviously immortal enemy into
submission somewhere near the friendly confines of Rennes le
Chateau.  An abundance of
Hollywood formula was thrown into the mix: a topless Mary Magdalene
drove her
hubby all the way to Vatican square in a blood red Hummer
convertible, but not
before a few sultry back seat sex scenes along the way (Jesus
demonstrated to
her all the Kama Sutra tricks he learned while sojourning through
India during
his 'missing years').  All the while, single/dead /risen Jesus
teleported above
them, venting his sexual frustration doing barrel rolls and other
aerial tricks
on his cross that would have made air show pilots envious.
     In a rather grueling second act, Christ Dad leaves his kids with
Mary, goes
to Mecca and translates the entire Koran into Aramaic in one fell
swoop and
sends it back into the B.C.E. past and directly into the brittle
subtext of the
Dead Sea scrolls where it would later be….well….decoded  by some
Hollywood
bound author.
         Prior to waking up, I did get a glimpse of the film's coda:
The winner of this
action packed, messianic mêlée would be dressed up like Osama bin
Laden, get a
seat on the Supreme Court of Israel and would  then invite the Bush
family to
his 'last supper', no doubt to be shown in full in the inevitable
sequel to The
Passion Code.

    Stay tuned for further dream developments.

*****
Jaye Beldo writes for Paranoia Magazine, Magical Blend and Pulse of
the Twin
Cities.  He has appeared on BBC and Capitol Radio London, WGN
Chicago and The
Howard Stern show.  He is the author of the New Age Murder mystery A
Stab in
the Light available at: www.redpillpress.com  and can be reached at
Lonenutter@...
or
www.lonenutternews.blogspot.com

©2006-Jaye Beldo

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Tyranny of the Christian Right
By Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet
Posted on May 30, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36640/

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right
with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do?
Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport
current.

I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to
have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America
has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass
movement -- the largest and most powerful mass movement in the
nation -- rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow
citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection
is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic
majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.

The mass movement I've described aims to supplant Enlightenment
rationalism with what it calls the "Christian worldview." The phrase
is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every
aspect of public and private life, and that all -- government,
science, history and culture -- must be understood according to the
dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on
every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those
with the right worldview can discern them. This is Christianity as a
total ideology -- I call it Christian nationalism. It's an ideology
adhered to by millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful.
It's what drives a great many of the fights over religion, science,
sex and pluralism now dividing communities all over the country.

I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent in the United
States. Our democracy is eroding and some of our rights are
disappearing, but for most people, including those most opposed to
the Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty
much as normal for the foreseeable future. Thus for those who value
secular society, apprehending the threat of Christian nationalism is
tricky. It's like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating
up so slowly that you don't notice the moment at which it starts to
kill you.

If current trends continue, we will see ever-increasing division and
acrimony in our politics. That's partly because, as Christian
nationalism spreads, secularism is spreading as well, while moderate
Christianity is in decline. According to the City University of New
York Graduate Center's comprehensive American religious
identification survey, the percentage of Americans who identify as
Christians has actually fallen in recent years, from 86 percent in
1990 to 77 percent in 2001. The survey found that the largest
growth, in both absolute and percentage terms, was among those who
don't subscribe to any religion. Their numbers more than doubled,
from 14.3 million in 1990, when they constituted 8 percent of the
population, to 29.4 million in 2001, when they made up 14 percent.

"The top three 'gainers' in America's vast religious marketplace
appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as
Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion,"
the survey found. (The percentage of other religious minorities
remained small, totaling less than 4 percent of the population).

This is a recipe for polarization. As Christian nationalism becomes
more militant, secularists and religious minorities will mobilize in
opposition, ratcheting up the hostility. Thus we're likely to see a
shrinking middle ground, with both camps increasingly viewing each
other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension and contempt.

In the coming years, we will probably see the curtailment of the
civil rights that gay people, women and religious minorities have
won in the last few decades. With two Bush appointees on the Supreme
Court, abortion rights will be narrowed; if the president gets a
third, it could mean the end of Roe v. Wade. Expect increasing
drives to ban gay people from being adoptive or foster parents, as
well as attempts to fire gay schoolteachers. Evangelical leaders are
encouraging their flocks to be alert to signs of homosexuality in
their kids, which will lead to a growing number of gay teenagers
forced into "reparative therapy" designed to turn them straight.
(Focus on the Family urges parents to consider seeking help for boys
as young as five if they show a "tendency to cry easily, be less
athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.")

Christian nationalist symbolism and ideology will increasingly
pervade public life. In addition to the war on evolution, there will
be campaigns to teach Christian nationalist history in public
schools. An elective course developed by the National Council on
Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a right-wing evangelical group,
is already being offered by more than 300 school districts in 36
states. The influence of Christian nationalism in public schools,
colleges, courts, social services and doctors' offices will deform
American life, rendering it ever more pinched, mean, and divided.

There's still a long way, though, between this damaged version of
democracy and real theocracy. Tremendous crises would have to shred
what's left of the American consensus before religious fascism
becomes a possibility. That means that secularists and liberals
shouldn't get hysterical, but they also shouldn't be complacent.

Christian nationalism is still constrained by the Constitution, the
courts, and by a passionate democratic (and occasionally Democratic)
opposition. It's also limited by capitalism. Many corporations are
happy to see their political allies harness the rage and passion of
the Christian right's foot soldiers, but the culture industry is
averse to government censorship. Nor is homophobia good for
business, since many companies need to both recruit qualified gay
employees and market to gay customers. Biotech firms are not going
to want to hire graduates without a thorough understanding of
evolution, so economic pressure will militate against creationism's
invading a critical mass of the public schools.

Taking the land

It would take a national disaster, or several of them, for all these
bulwarks to crumble and for Christian nationalists to truly "take
the land," as Michael Farris, president of the evangelical Patrick
Henry College, put it. Historically, totalitarian movements have
been able to seize state power only when existing authorities prove
unable to deal with catastrophic challenges -- economic meltdown,
security failures, military defeat -- and people lose their faith in
the legitimacy of the system.

Such calamities are certainly conceivable in America -- Hurricane
Katrina's aftermath offered a terrifying glimpse of how quickly
order can collapse. If terrorists successfully strike again, we'd
probably see significant curtailment of liberal dissenters' free
speech rights, coupled with mounting right-wing belligerence, both
religious and secular.

The breakdown in the system could also be subtler. Many experts have
warned that America's debt is unsustainable and that economic crisis
could be on the horizon. If there is a hard landing -- due to an oil
shock, a burst housing bubble, a sharp decline in the value of the
dollar, or some other crisis -- interest rates would shoot up,
leaving many people unable to pay their floating-rate mortgages and
credit card bills. Repossessions and bankruptcies would follow. The
resulting anger could fuel radical populist movements of either the
left or the right -- more likely the right, since it has a far
stronger ideological infrastructure in place in most of America.

Military disaster may also exacerbate such disaffection. America's
war in Iraq seems nearly certain to come to an ignominious end. The
real victims of failure there will be Iraqi, but many Americans will
feel embittered, humiliated and sympathetic to the stab-in-the-back
rhetoric peddled by the right to explain how Bush's venture has gone
so horribly wrong. It was the defeat in World War I, after all, that
created the conditions for fascism to grow in Germany.

Perhaps America will be lucky, however, and muddle through its
looming problems. In that case, Christian nationalism will continue
to be a powerful and growing influence in American politics,
although its expansion will happen more fitfully and gradually.

The country's demographics are on the movement's side. Megachurch
culture is spreading. The exurbs where religious conservatism
thrives are the fastest growing parts of America; in 2004, 97 of the
country's 100 fastest-growing counties voted Republican. The
disconnection of the exurbs is a large part of what makes the spread
of Christian nationalism's fictitious reality possible, because
there is very little to conflict with it.

A movement that constitutes its members' entire social world has a
grip that's hard to break. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah
Arendt put it this way: "Social atomization and extreme
individualization preceded the mass movements which, much more
easily and earlier than they did the sociable, non-individualistic
members of the traditional parties, attracted the completely
unorganized, the typical 'nonjoiners' who for individualistic
reasons always had refused to recognize social links or obligations."

America's ragged divides

Those who want to fight Christian nationalism will need a long-term
and multifaceted strategy. I see it as having three parts --
electoral reform to give urban areas fair representation in the
federal government, grassroots organizing to help people fight
Christian nationalism on the ground and a media campaign to raise
public awareness about the movement's real agenda.

My ideas are not about reconciliation or healing. It would be good
if a leader stepped forward who could recognize the grievances of
both sides, broker some sort of truce, and mend America's ragged
divides. The anxieties that underlay Christian nationalism's appeal -
- fears about social breakdown, marital instability and cultural
decline -- are real. They should be acknowledged and, whenever
possible, addressed. But as long as the movement aims at the
destruction of secular society and the political enforcement of its
theology, it has to be battled, not comforted and appeased.

And while I support liberal struggles for economic justice -- higher
wages, universal health care, affordable education, and retirement
security -- I don't think economic populism will do much to
neutralize the religious right. Cultural interests are real
interests, and many drives are stronger than material ones. As
Arendt pointed out, totalitarian movements have always confounded
observers who try to analyze them in terms of class.

Ultimately, a fight against Christian nationalist rule has to be a
fight against the anti-urban bias built into the structure of our
democracy. Because each state has two senators, the 7 percent of the
population that live in the 17 least-populous states control more
than a third of Congress's upper house. Conservative states are also
overrepresented in the Electoral College.

According to Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy, the
combined populations of Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, North and South
Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska
equal that of New York and Massachusetts, but the former states have
a total of nine more votes in the Electoral College (as well as over
five times the votes in the Senate). In America, conservatives
literally count for more.

Liberals should work to abolish the Electoral College and to even
out the composition of the Senate, perhaps by splitting some of the
country's larger states.(A campaign for statehood for New York City
might be a place to start.) It will be a grueling, Herculean job.
With conservatives already indulging in fantasies of victimization
at the hands of a maniacal Northeastern elite, it will take a
monumental movement to wrest power away from them. Such a movement
will come into being only when enough people in the blue states stop
internalizing right-wing jeers about how out of touch they are
with "real Americans" and start getting angry at being ruled by
reactionaries who are out of touch with them.

After all, the heartland has no claim to moral authority. The states
whose voters are most obsessed with "moral values" have the highest
divorce and teen pregnancy rates. The country's highest murder rates
are in the South and the lowest are in New England. The five states
with the best-ranked public schools in the country -- Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey and Wisconsin -- are all
progressive redoubts. The five states with the worst -- New Mexico,
Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi and Louisiana -- all went for Bush.

The canard that the culture wars are a fight between "elites"
versus "regular Americans" belies a profound split between different
kinds of ordinary Americans, all feeling threatened by the others'
baffling and alien values. Ironically, however, by buying into right-
wing elite-baiting, liberals start thinking like out-of-touch
elites. Rather than reflecting on what kind of policies would make
their own lives better, what kind of country they want to live in,
and who they want to represent them -- and then figuring out how to
win others to their vision -- progressives flail about for ideas and
symbols that they hope will appeal to some imaginary heartland rube.
That is condescending.

Focus on the local

One way for progressives to build a movement and fight Christian
nationalism at the same time is to focus on local politics. For
guidance, they need only look to the Christian Coalition: It wasn't
until after Bill Clinton's election exiled the evangelical right
from power in Washington that the Christian Coalition really
developed its nationwide electoral apparatus.

The Christian right developed a talent for crafting state laws and
amendments to serve as wedge issues, rallying their base, and
forcing the other side to defend seemingly extreme positions.
Campaigns to require parental consent for minors' abortions, for
example, get overwhelming public support and put the pro-choice
movement on the defensive while giving pro-lifers valuable political
experience.

Liberals can use this strategy too. They can find issues to exploit
the other side's radicalism, winning a few political victories and,
just as important, marginalizing Christian nationalists in the eyes
of their fellow citizens. Progressives could work to pass local and
state laws, by ballot initiative wherever possible, denying public
funds to any organization that discriminates on the basis of
religion. Because so much faith-based funding is distributed through
the states, such laws could put an end to at least some of the
taxpayer-funded bias practiced by the Salvation Army and other
religious charities. Right now, very few people know that, thanks to
Bush, a faith-based outfit can take tax dollars and then explicitly
refuse to hire Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or Muslims. The issue needs
far more publicity, and a political fight -- or a series of them --
would provide it. Better still, the campaign would contribute to the
creation of a grassroots infrastructure -- a network of people with
political experience and a commitment to pluralism.

Progressives could also work on passing laws to mandate that
pharmacists fill contraceptive prescriptions. (Such legislation has
already been introduced in California, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada,
and West Virginia.) The commercials would practically write
themselves. Imagine a harried couple talking with their doctor and
deciding that they can't afford any more kids. The doctor writes a
birth control prescription, the wife takes it to her pharmacist --
and he sends her away with a religious lecture. The campaign could
use one of the most successful slogans that abortion rights
advocates ever devised: "Who decides -- you or them?"

A new media strategy

In conjunction with local initiatives, opponents of Christian
nationalism need a new media strategy. Many people realize this.
Fenton Communications, the agency that handles public relations for
MoveOn, recently put together the Campaign to Defend the
Constitution, a MoveOn-style grassroots group devoted to raising
awareness about the religious right. With nearly 3.5 million members
ready to be quickly mobilized to donate money, write letters or
lobby politicians on behalf of progressive causes, MoveOn is the
closest thing liberals have to the Christian Coalition, but its
focus tends to be on economic justice, foreign policy and the
environment rather than contentious social issues. The Campaign to
Defend the Constitution intends to build a similar network to
counter Christian nationalism wherever it appears.

Much of what media strategists need to do simply involves public
education. Americans need to learn what Christian Reconstructionism
means so that they can decide whether they approve of their
congressmen consorting with theocrats. They need to realize that the
Republican Party has become the stronghold of men who fundamentally
oppose public education because they think women should school their
kids themselves. (In It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum calls public
education an "aberration" and predicts that home-schooling will
flourish as "one viable option among many that will open up as we
eliminate the heavy hand of the village elders' top-down control of
education and allow a thousand parent-nurtured flowers to bloom.")

When it comes to the public relations fight against Christian
nationalism, nothing is trickier than battles concerning public
religious symbolism. Fights over crèches in public squares or
Christmas hymns sung by school choirs are really about which aspects
of the First Amendment should prevail -- its protection of free
speech or its ban on the establishment of religion. In general, I
think it's best to err on the side of freedom of expression. As in
most First Amendment disputes, the answer to speech (or, in this
case, symbolism) that makes religious minorities feel excluded or
alienated is more speech -- menorahs, Buddhas, Diwali lights,
symbols celebrating America's polyglot spiritualism.

There are no neat lines, no way to suck the venom out of these
issues without capitulating completely. But one obvious step civil
libertarians should take is a much more vocal stance in defense of
evangelicals' free speech rights when they are unfairly curtailed.
Although far less common than the Christian nationalists pretend, on
a few occasions lawsuit-fearing officials have gone overboard in
defending church/state separation, silencing religious speech that
is protected by the First Amendment. (In one 2005 incident that got
tremendous play in the right-wing press, a principal in Tennessee
wouldn't allow a ten-year-old student to hold a Bible study during
recess.) Such infringements should be fought for reasons both
principled, because Christians have the same right to free speech as
everyone else, and political, because these abuses generate a
backlash that ultimately harms the cause of church/state separation.

The ACLU already does this, but few hear about it, because
secularists lack the right's propaganda apparatus. Liberals need to
create their own echo chamber to refute these kind of distortions
while loudly supporting everyone's freedom of speech. Committed
Christian nationalists won't be won over, but some of their would-be
sympathizers might be inoculated against the claim that progressives
want to extirpate their faith, making it harder for the right to
frame every political dispute as part of a war against Jesus.

The challenge, finally, is to make reality matter again. If
progressives can do that, perhaps America can be saved.

Fighting fundamentalism at home

Writing just after 9/11, Salman Rushdie eviscerated those on the
left who rationalized the terrorist attacks as a regrettable
explosion of understandable third world rage: "The fundamentalist
seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings," he
wrote. "Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom
of speech, a multiparty political system, universal adult suffrage,
accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights,
pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness,
evolution theory, sex."

Christian nationalists have no problem with beardlessness, but
except for that, Rushdie could have been describing them.

It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism abroad while
letting it take over at home. The grinding, brutal war between
modern and medieval values has spread chaos, fear, and misery across
our poor planet. Far worse than the conflicts we're experiencing
today, however, would be a world torn between competing
fundamentalisms. Our side, America's side, must be the side of
freedom and Enlightenment, of liberation from stale constricting
dogmas. It must be the side that elevates reason above the commands
of holy books and human solidarity above religious supremacism.
Otherwise, God help us all.

Reprinted from Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by
Michelle Goldberg. Copyright © 2006 by Michelle Goldberg. With
permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Fri, 9 Jun 2006
SOA Watch <media@...>
We won the debate and are close to winning Congress!


School of the Americas Watch
http://www.soaw.org/new/>www.SOAW.org | 202-234-3440
Subscribe > http://soaw.live.radicaldesigns.org/modinput4.php?modin=52


SOA Watch Legislative Update & Action Alert
June 9, 2006 at 7:00 pm

We won the debate and
are close to winning Congress!

http://www.soaw.org/new

Your work and the amazing contributions of over 40 national
religious, labor and political organizations delivered an incredible
vote today in what is possibly the most conservative Congress in U.S.
history. Because of you, for the first time in six years, we won the
debate, and we had a vote in Congress that garnered the support of
188 Representatives who voted to cut funding the School of the
Americas/ WHINSEC, including almost 30 Republicans!

Today's session was a critical day in our ongoing campaign to close
the School of the Americas and to bring accountability to a “school
of shame.” Now we know where Members of the House stand – and who we
need to target. You now have the opportunity to invite at least 55
Members who voted with us but who aren’t yet co-sponsors of HR 1217
to sign on to our bill to suspend and investigate the SOA/ WHISNEC.
See the final roll call here:
<http://www.soaw.org/legislative>http://www.soaw.org/legislative

http://www.soaw.org/new > This week you successfully leveraged more
pressure on Congress than was leveraged on any other issue, and you
had the Republican leadership in the House worried about the vote. At
the last minute, the right wing pulled out all the stops to get the
bare minimum of votes needed – 218 – to defeat the amendment.

Our bill, HR 1217, is still alive! Today’s amendment vote is a good
marker for us, and it will continue to serve as a tool for educating
Members of Congress. Today’s vote will keep up our momentum as we
continue to build support for HR 1217!

Our supporters won today’s debate hands-down. Representatives Lowey
(NY), the ranking member of the House; Barbara Lee (CA), of the Human
Rights Caucus; Schakowsky (IL); Meehan (MA); Kucinich (OH); and
McGovern (MA) laid out strong arguments in favor of cutting funding
to WHINSEC, citing serious concerns over human rights abuses, over
the harm the institution does to relationships with Latin American
nations and over known human rights abusers returning to WHINSEC.

Each Representative in favor of the amendment gave compelling and
specific examples that supported their arguments. Those speaking
against the amendment were not nearly as eloquent -- and didn't even
have enough speakers to fill their time!

We have had an unprecedented level of success with our bill, HR 1217.
We have more Republicans as co-sponsors than we’ve ever had; about 30
Republicans voted with us today; and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the
House Minority Leader, a majority of the Human Rights Caucus and
Budget Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA) are on board with the bill.

We have made incredible strides forward, and we know that one day
this school of torture, this school of coups, this school of
repression will be closed down for good. We are continuing to grow
our movement here in North America. Three South American countries
have already pulled out of the school, and more may be on the way!
Across the Americas, major social change is happening, and people’s
movements continue to elect leaders that listen to the will of the
people. There is much about which we can be hopeful. Now as we
continue the momentum you must take action!

Take action:

1. Thank your Member of Congress if she or he voted with us

It’s really important that we thank Representatives who voted with us
on this amendment, and that we continue to build relationships with
staffers in their offices.

It’s also important that we hold Representatives accountable. If you
Rep did not represent your views in Washington, we urge you to
contact her or him by writing a letter and expressing your
disappointment that she or he did not vote according to your wishes.
Ask your Representative to provide an explanation for why she or he
voted the way they did. If you receive a response, please forward a
copy to the Legislative Coordinator in the DC office.

See the final Roll Call showing how each Representative voted:
http://www.soaw.org/legislative .

2. Continue to build support for HR 1217

Our bill is still alive and now has more support!

Keep working on those Representatives that haven’t yet co-sponsored.
Check out the Legislative Action Index at
http://www.soaw.org/legislative for how your Rep voted on this
amendment. If they are not currently a cosponsor of HR 1217, this is
an opportunity for us to add additional cosponsors to the bill to
close and investigate the SOA/ WHINSEC. Contact the Foreign Affairs
Legislative Aide in your Rep's DC office and urge them to add their
boss as a cosponsor to HR 1217.

3. Make your plans now to attend this year's Vigil to Close the
School of the Americas: November 17-19, 2006

This November 17-19, thousands will gather at the gates of Fort
Benning, Georgia for the Vigil to Close the School of the Americas!
Following on the heels of our powerful 2005 gathering and our first
vote in Congress in six years, this year's Vigil is shaping up to be
a powerful time for movement building and an effective tool in the
campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC.

http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1295 > Read more, find out
hotel, travel and accessibility information and more.

4. Get more involved in the campaign!

Many of you have gotten very involved in legislative work over the
past few months. We’d love to have you stay involved! Consider
joining the Legislative Working Group, and help us to continue to
shape our Congressional strategy. For more information, contact Pam
Bowman at pbowman(at)soaw(dot)org or at 202-234-3440.

5. Fund the continuing legislative campaign and the campaign to
encourage more Latin American countries to reject the SOA

For SOA Watch to become a movement that has the power to make real
change and to close the School of the Americas once and for all, the
organization needs your financial support. Every dollar is needed.
Please take a moment now to make a donation. Thank you!

Make a secure donation through the SOA Watch website.
>  http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=546


________________________________________

SOA Watch ~ PO Box 4566 ~ Washington DC 20017 ~ (202)234-3440 ~
http://www.soaw.org

________________________________________

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention the School of the Americas -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=School+Americas&how=all

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention human rights -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=human+rights&how=phrase

/RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO:  http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?
and just type in your topic.  For differing results you may uncheck
"article" and search on just "subject," etc.  /RENEGADE/ also has
"time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too.

------------------------------------------------------
For more information about the School of the Americas and SOA Watch,
see: http://www.soaw.org/
or send email to info@...
------------------------------------------------------


HUMAN RIGHTS NOW!  CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS !!!!!
--

Peace!

*STRIDER*        Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/

                    Blogs:
                      Strider's RENEGADE [activism]
                          http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/
                      Strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts]
                          http://striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com/

                    Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM

                    Articles posted in the last 40 days:
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=40

                    Bay_Area_Activist list ----
Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com> to request
membership.

                    EF! list ---------------
earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert
List-Subscribe: <mailto:earthfirstalert-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>

                   usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive
                   e-mail: mailto:strider@...
                                strider@...


                         No War!   No Nukes!   Impeach!   SOS!

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  -- Ethiopian Proverb

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/06/09/nasa_shelves_climate_satel\
lites/

NASA shelves climate satellites
Environmental science may suffer

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff  |  June 9, 2006

NASA is canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give
scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and
environment.

The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed
by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was
designed to measure soil moisture -- a key factor in helping
scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict
droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to
observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and
water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has
been canceled.

And in its 2007 budget, NASA proposes significant delays in a global
precipitation measuring mission to help with weather predictions, as
well as the launch of a satellite designed to increase the timeliness
and accuracy of severe weather forecasts and improve climate models.

The changes come as NASA prioritizes its budget to pay for completion
of the International Space Station and the return of astronauts to
the moon by 2020 -- a goal set by President Bush that promises a more
distant and arguably less practical scientific payoff. Ultimately,
scientists say, the delays and cancellations could make hurricane
predictions less accurate, create gaps in long-term monitoring of
weather, and result in less clarity about the earth's hydrological
systems, which play an integral part in climate change.

``Today, when the need for information about the planet is more
important than ever, this process of building understanding through
increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse,"
said Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of
Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire.

Moore is cochairman of a National Research Council committee that
will recommend NASA's future earth science agenda later this year. It
is unclear, however, whether NASA will follow those recommendations.

``NASA has canceled, scaled back, or delayed all of the planned earth
observing missions," he said.

Despite NASA's best-known role as a space agency, one of its key
missions is to study the earth. Scientists collect data through
ground- and space-based observatories using instruments that can
sense heat and through which they can see with exquisite detail from
many miles up. In recent years, these missions have increased in
importance and visibility as global temperatures rise and scientists
rush to better understand the phenomenon and the role of humans in it.

While NASA is proposing similarly deep cuts to other important
science programs such as astrobiology -- the search for life in space
-- the earth science mission cancellations and delays take on greater
significance, some scientists say, given recent allegations by a top
NASA researcher and other government scientists that the Bush
administration tried to silence their warnings about global warming.

While scientists interviewed for this story said they do not believe
the earth science cuts are a deliberate attempt to stall science on
climate change, they say it comes at a time when more research, not
less, is needed. NASA's earth science budget also has sustained a
prior round of cuts during the last two years.

NASA, which projects its budget five years out, intends to cut the
overall science budget about $3.1 billion below program projections
over that time. In 2004, the overall science budget was projected to
grow from about $5.5 billion to about $7 billion in 2008. The new
projections provide for $5.38 billion in 2008, and less than the cost
of inflation after that, according to a report issued last month by
the Space Studies Board, a National Research Council committee
charged with analyzing NASA's science program. The exact amount of
cuts to earth science programs could not be determined because they
are not listed separately in the budget proposal.

A NASA earth science official acknowledged that the proposed earth
science cuts are steep, and said the agency is attempting to replace
some of the funding. He noted the satellite data are used by other
agencies, from the military to the US Department of Agriculture. But
given competing priorities, there is little chance all the money will
be replaced, he said.

``Right now, we are going through the program carefully looking for
efficiencies to restore some of these cuts," Bryant Cramer, acting
director of NASA's earth science division, said in an interview. ``We
are keenly aware of the shortfall, of the necessary research that
should be funded, and we are trying to respond. I can't tell you a
solution yet."

Almost every planned earth studying mission, all that have some
contribution to understanding global warming, has been affected. The
$100 million Deep Space Climate Observatory , already built, was
canceled earlier this year. First proposed by then-Vice President Al
Gore in the 1990s, the satellite was planned to give researchers a
continuous picture of the sunlit surface of the earth and allow the
first direct measurements of how much sunlight is absorbed and
emitted, key information that could serve as an indicator of global
warming.

The Global Precipitation Measurement mission, designed to record
rain, snow, and ice fall more accurately, has been delayed 2 1/2
years. It is meant to replace another satellite whose mission was
extended last year. Now, scientists do not believe the older
satellite will last until the Global Precipitation mission is
launched, creating a big gap in data collection for weather
prediction and climate modeling.

Another key satellite, the $10 billion National Polar-orbiting
Operational Environmental Satellite System, is over budget and has
been delayed at least 18 months. And while NASA previously told earth
scientists to start developing proposals for other earth-centered
missions to be chosen in 2004, no such round of proposals will be
analyzed until 2008.

Scientists at area universities say that they are worried most about
a proposed 20 percent cut to research and analysis in the earth
science budget, which funds smaller-scale projects. Many of these
projects analyze data from satellites and help with long-term
monitoring of earth systems. The cuts also may have a chilling effect
on attracting and retaining university scientists, who realize their
research could be only partially funded -- or not at all.

``Missions can be delayed a year or two, but the most urgent issue
right now is to restore the cuts to research and analysis," said
Ronald G. Prinn, director of the Center for Global Change Science at
MIT. ``We need to understand the climate system much better than we
do."

NASA's earth science program was fairly robust until about two years
ago, when several missions were canceled or delayed -- a situation
that has made the current round of cuts all the more painful,
scientists said. Last month, a report by the Space Studies Board
concluded that the space and earth science program is neither robust
nor sustainable.

``There is a widespread sense that earth sciences has been suffering
more than its fair share," said Drew Shindell, a physicist at NASA's
Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Beth Daley can be reached by e-mail at bdaley@....


© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company


-----------------------
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
-----------------------

FYI: climatecrisisaction list info -
Subscribe: climatecrisisaction-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/climatecrisisaction

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles on climate change / global warming -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=CLIMATE+WARMING&how=any

/RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO:  http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?
and just type in your topic.  For differing results you may uncheck
"article" and search on just "subject," etc.  /RENEGADE/ also has
"time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too.

-----
--

Peace!

*STRIDER*        Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/

                    Blogs:
                      Strider's RENEGADE [activism]
                          http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/
                      Strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts]
                          http://striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com/

                    Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM

                    Articles posted in the last 40 days:
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=40

                    Bay_Area_Activist list ----
Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com> to request
membership.

                    EF! list ---------------
earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert
List-Subscribe: <mailto:earthfirstalert-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>

                   usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive
                   e-mail: mailto:strider@...
                                strider@...


                         No War!   No Nukes!   Impeach!   SOS!

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  -- Ethiopian Proverb

Fri, 9 Jun 2006
Lance Olsen <lance@...>
DON'T FORGET ASIA'S CLASSY LADY!

A story, and then some detail from BBC News  on one of the most
inspiring women of the world.
Lance, for CMCR

US worried over Sui Kyi's health
The US has expressed deep concern about reports that Burmese
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken to hospital.

A state department spokesman said he could not confirm the reports
but urged Burma's military rulers to assure she had any necessary
medical assistance.

Ms Suu Kyi has been held since May 2003, and has spent 10 of the last
16 years under house arrest.

Burma recently said she would be held for another year under house arrest.

"We have seen those reports... We are, of course, very concerned,"
state department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
FULL STORY AT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5066082.stm
Published: 2006/06/09 20:28:09 GMT
© BBC MMVI

Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi
Like the South African leader Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has
become an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in
the face of oppression.

For the Burmese people, Aung San Suu Kyi represents their best and
perhaps sole hope that one day there will be an end to the country's
military repression.

As a pro-democracy campaigner and leader of the opposition National
League for Democracy party ( NLD), she has spent more than 10 of the
past 17 years in some form of detention under Burma's military regime.

In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to
bring democracy to Burma.

At the presentation, the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee,
Francis Sejested, called her "an outstanding example of the power of
the powerless".

After a period of time overseas, Aung San Suu Kyi went back to Burma in 1988.

House arrest

Soon after she returned, she was put under house arrest in Rangoon
for six years, until she was released in July 1995.

She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she
tried to travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel
restrictions.

She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year
later she was put in prison following a clash between her supporters
and a government-backed mob.

Following a gynaecological operation in September 2003, she was
allowed to return home - but again under effective house arrest.

During these periods of confinement, Aung San Suu Kyi has busied
herself studying and exercising.

She has meditated, worked on her French and Japanese language skills,
and relaxed by playing Bach on the piano.

In more recent years, she has also been able to meet other NLD
officials, and selected visiting diplomats like the United Nations
special envoy Razali Ismail.

But during her early years of detention, Aung San Suu Kyi was often
in solitary confinement - and was not even allowed to see her two
sons or her husband, the British academic Michael Aris.

In March 1999 she suffered a major personal tragedy when her husband
died of cancer.

The military authorities offered to allow her to travel to the UK to
see him on his deathbed, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear
she would not be allowed back into the country.

Aung San Suu Kyi has often said that detention has made her even more
resolute to dedicate the rest of her life to represent the average
Burmese citizen.

The UN envoy Razali Ismail has said privately that she is one of the
most impressive people he has ever met.

Overseas life

Much of Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal within Burma lies in the fact she
is the daughter of the country's independence hero General Aung San.

He was assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just
six months before independence.

Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old at the time.

In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been
appointed Burma's ambassador to Delhi.

Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she
studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future
husband.

After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled
down to be an English don's housewife and raise their two children,
Alexander and Kim.


But Burma was never far away from her thoughts.

When she arrived back in Rangoon in 1988 -initially to look after her
critically ill mother - Burma was in the midst of major political
upheaval.

Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets
demanding democratic reform.

"I could not, as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that
was going on," she said in a speech in Rangoon on 26 August 1988.

Aung San Suu Kyi was soon propelled into leading the revolt against
then-dictator General Ne Win.

Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of US civil rights leader
Martin Luther King and India's Mahatma Gandhi, she organised rallies
and travelled around the country, calling for peaceful democratic
reform and free elections.

But the demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, who
seized power in a coup on 18 September 1988.

The military government called national elections in May 1990.

Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD convincingly won the polls, despite the fact
that she herself was under house arrest and disqualified from
standing.

But the junta refused to hand over control, and has remained in power
ever since.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1950505.stm
Published: 2006/05/25 13:42:30 GMT
© BBC MMVI
--

Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers
Working at the Crossroads of Environmental and Human Rights since 1990
PO Box 7941
Missoula Montana 59807
(406)728-0867

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------

wiki "Aung San Suu Kyi" =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi

Free Burma > US Campaign for Burma > http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/
List-Subscribe: mailto:sympa@...?subject=subscribe%20freeburma
List-Archive: http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/freeburma

See also: http://freeburma.org/

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi - under house arrest for
10 years... even though democratically elected with popular demand,
the military regime has refused to had over power

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention  AUNG SAN SUU KYI -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=AUNG+SAN+SUU+KYI&how=phrase

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention burma -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?BURMA

Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention human rights -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=human+rights&how=phrase&incremen\
t=weeks&many=56
[only articles for the last one year will be indexed]
--

Peace!

*STRIDER*        Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/

                    Blogs:
                      Strider's RENEGADE [activism]
                          http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/
                      Strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts]
                          http://striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com/

                    Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM

                    Articles posted in the last 40 days:
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=40

                    Bay_Area_Activist list ----
Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com> to request
membership.

                    EF! list ---------------
earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert
List-Subscribe: <mailto:earthfirstalert-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>

                   usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive
                   e-mail: mailto:strider@...
                                strider@...


                         No War!   No Nukes!   Impeach!   SOS!

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  -- Ethiopian Proverb

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Critics Blast Al Gore's Documentary As 'Realistic'
May 31, 2006 | Issue 42•22
TheOnion.com

NEW YORK— The Al Gore-produced global-warming documentary An
Inconvenient Truth is being panned by critics nationwide who claim
the 90-plus minute environmental film is "too disturbingly realistic
and well-researched to enjoy." "I found it difficult to suspend my
disbelief in man-made climate change for the first half-hour—and
utterly impossible after that—which makes for a movie-going
experience that's far more educational than it is enjoyable," said
New York Post film critic Skip Hack. "Gore's film overwhelms viewers
with staggering amounts of scientific information until nothing
about global warming is left to the imagination, and that's just not
good entertainment. Two stars." Some critics have called the film's
claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet somewhat sensationalistic,
although most agree that this is not enough to save the film from
being unwatchably factual.

*****

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com

Sunday, June 04, 2006
Mrs. Malkin's sacrifice
Michelle Malkin
Anti-Immigrant Activist

Dear Mrs. Malkin,

I know you've already given a lot for this country. Your courageous
defense of everything from toddlercide to concentration camps has
inspired us all. However, there is one more thing you must do for
your country, and unfortunately, it calls for you to make a
tremendous sacrifice.

One of the greatest dangers we face as a nation--a danger you've
noted on your own blog--is the growing numbers of "anchor babies:"

During my book tour across the country for Invasion, this issue came
up time and again. In the Southwest, everyone has a story of heavily
pregnant women crossing the Mexican border to deliver their "anchor
babies." At East Coast hospitals, tales of South Korean "obstetric
tourists" abound. (An estimated 5,000 South Korean anchor babies are
born in the US every year). And, of course, there's a terrorism
angle...The time is ripe to reassess drive-by citizenship and what
it means to be an American.

Indeed, it is a tremendous problem. Just in the last week, a poster
at your own immigration blog called it a "recipe for social
disaster," and Rep Dave Reichert (R-Mescaline), reported that border
area parking lots are becoming little more than large open air
maternity wards, awash with discarded placentas and the wrappers of
those nasty tamarind flavored candies from Mexico.

So how does all of this lead me to ask you to make a sacrifice?
Well, it's come to my attention that you too may be an "anchor
baby." Just a little over thirty-six years ago, it appears that a
foreign sperm cell hooked up with a foreign egg somewhere near
Manila and a Blastocyst-Filipina named proto-Michelle was formed.
Within a few weeks, little proto-Michelle moved from the Philippines
to New York City where she finally acquired "drive-by citizenship"
on Oct. 20, 1970.

Now that this is out in the open, you must renounce your
citizenship. Given your previous statements about anchor babies,
it's the only honorable thing you can do.

You can rest assured that your sacrifice will help your beloved anti-
immigrant movement immensely, and that you'll continue to have our
eternal gratitude long after we demand your deportation.

Heterosexually yours in a way of which my wife, Ofjoshua, would
approve,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

A helmet tip to commenter LG Fucktard.

*****

Rice is urged to be 'Friends' (or more?) with Fox anchor
NYDailyNews.com
10-4-2005

Interviewer James Rosen encouraged Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and 'Fox and Friends' co-anchor Lauren Green, who share a hobby
as concert pianists, to get together.

An interview with Condoleezza Rice turned bizarre last week, when
Fox News correspondent James Rosen appeared to try to fix her up
with "Fox & Friends" anchor Lauren Green.

The former Miss Minnesota is "single" and "beautiful," Rosen said,
encouraging the secretary of state to get in touch. The Sept. 27
interview from Port au Prince, Haiti, started out seriously enough,
with Rice expounding on Haitian elections and security, and on Iran
as well. But at the end, Rosen popped a wheelie, and the discussion,
posted on Radaronline.com, ended thusly:

ROSEN: "All right. I close with a gift for you. You met this person
once, I believe, but you really, I think, ought to know each other
because this woman is, I think you'll have an interest in knowing
her. She is one of our Fox News anchors in New York. Her name is
Lauren Green. She is brilliant, she's beautiful, she's African-
American, she's single and she's a concert pianist in her spare time.

RICE: My goodness.

ROSEN: And she asked me to give you her CD, and I promised her that
I would.

RICE: That's perfect.

ROSEN: And here's her doing a number of different classical pieces.

RICE: Well, that's special.

ROSEN: So there you have it.

RICE: Thank her very much, and I look forward to seeing her sometime.

ROSEN: All right. She's going to want to hear from you.

RICE: And maybe even play dual piano sometime.

Just so you know, Rice has been accompanied to state dinners by NFL
chief of football operations Gene Washington, who maintains the two
are "just friends."

When asked if Green is a lesbian, a Fox News spokeswoman said, "I
don't know."

*****

Venezuela backs proposal to sell oil in euros instead of dollars

CARACAS, June 2 (AP): Venezuela supports the idea of selling oil in
euros instead of US dollars, a proposal also supported by fellow
OPEC member Iran, the country's oil minister said.

"Iran has an initiative that we support. They are going to start to
do oil transactions in euros," Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said
Thursday in an interview with state television.
Selling oil in euros would in theory boost world demand for the
European currency at the expense of the dollar.

Analysts have said the proposal is highly unlikely to materialise
but could in theory have serious consequences for the US economy by
undermining the value of the dollar and diminishing its status as
the currency used in central-bank reserves.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is one of the US government's most
vocal critics on the world stage.

Ramirez spoke ahead of a meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries in Caracas.

OPEC president Edmund Daukoru said afterward that while some member
countries have raised the possibility, "they have not formally
tabled" the proposal yet to the group.

Earlier this month, Iran's oil ministry granted a license for the
creation of a euro-denominated market, an idea first floated back in
2004, though just who would trade on it remains unclear.

If Iran or Venezuela were to demand payment for oil in euros,
commodities experts have said it could lead central bankers around
the world to convert some dollar reserves into euros, possibly
causing a decline in the dollar's value.

Oil is currently denominated in dollars around the globe, through
direct sales between producers and consumers or in trades made on
markets in New York and London.

*****

Commentary: Kicking the oil habit
By Robert Redford
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Robert Redford is an award-winning actor, director,
producer and founder of the Sundance Institute and Film Festival.
Redford also is a businessman and philanthropist and has long
supported various environmental causes.

SUNDANCE, Utah (CNN) -- Today the American people are way out in
front of our leaders. We're ready to face our toughest national
challenges, and we deserve new and forward-looking solutions and
leadership.

The recent surge in gas prices has touched a raw nerve for many
around the country, reminding us of an economy that is increasingly
uncertain for the middle-class, a growing addiction to oil that
draws us ever closer to dictators and despots, and a fragile global
position with a climate that is increasingly out of balance. I
believe America is ready to kick the oil habit and launch a new
movement for real solutions and a better future.

Something is happening all across the country. People are coming
together and demanding new answers. A grassroots movement is
gathering today to promote solutions, like renewable fuels, clean
electricity, more efficient cars, and green buildings that use less
energy -- all of which are exciting alternatives that rebuild our
communities even as they cut pollution and create good jobs. And,
when people come together to invest themselves in building a better
future, we are not only helping to solve our energy crisis, but we
are taking back our democracy itself.

You can see this change in many places.

In California this November, voters will be offered an initiative
that cuts the use of oil by 25 percent and creates new funding to
support innovation and cutting edge technology.

Austin, Texas, is leading a growing number of cities in calling for
car companies to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles that can go
hundreds of miles on a gallon of gas.

New Mexico has joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, pledging to
reduce its carbon emissions, and at the same time becoming a
national leader in creating a state-of-the-art clean energy economy.

In Minnesota they have jump-started a new biofuels industry driven
by farmer-owned co-ops that are putting more money back into rural
communities and lifting up people's lives.

Cities like Seattle are joining with others around the world and
taking on goals for green development, while states like Colorado
are passing bond initiatives for transit and new requirements for
clean energy.

Recently, a dynamic new campaign launched to seize and grow these
opportunities and break our energy dependence. It's called
KickTheOilHabit.org, and it has the backing of a diverse coalition
of organizations. Its first action was to challenge oil companies to
double the number of renewable fuel pumps at their stations within
the year and pledge to offer E85 ethanol fuel at half of all gas
stations within the decade.

This is a simple clear action that the oil companies can do today.
But it is only a first step. Many others are ready to be put in
action despite industry claims to the contrary.

In coming months, this campaign, which is based at the Center for
American Progress and works with partners from the Natural Resources
Defense Council to Consumers Union, MoveOn.org to the Apollo
Alliance, will launch new challenges to our elected leaders, but it
will also point to good work that is already going on all around the
country. It will illuminate efforts on Capitol Hill by those who are
concerned about the public good as well as the work of a myriad of
grassroots groups effectively pushing innovative technological and
public policy solutions alike.

Kick the Oil Habit will bring forth the dynamic narrative of
American innovation and inspired thinking. It will give everyone who
believes we can free ourselves of our dependence on oil, real
solutions which embody real opportunity.

There is so much we can do right now. And there is a new groundswell
of good organizing and real world actions that we can take today to
make this change a reality. The Campaign to Kick the Oil Habit is
one way to connect to this growing movement. I hope you will join in
transforming the face of America and in working to leave a better
world for all of our children. I hope you will join me in signing on
to this growing campaign at KickTheOilHabit.org.

*****

Ancient Scroll May Yield Religious Secrets
Thursday, June 1, 2006
AP

ATHENS, Greece - The burnt remains of a 2,400-year-old scroll buried
with an ancient Greek nobleman may help unlock the secrets of early
monotheistic religion - using new digital technology.

A team of U.S., British and Greek experts is working on a new
reading of the enigmatic Derveni papyrus, a philosophical treatise
on ancient faith that is Europe's oldest surviving manuscript.

More than four decades after the papyrus was found in a grave in
northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to
uncovering new text from the blackened fragments left after the
scroll was burned on its owner's funeral pyre.

Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. document - a
philosophical treatise on religion written in ancient Greek - were
read by scholars years ago.

But now, archaeologist Polyxeni Veleni believes U.S. imaging and
scanning techniques used to decipher the Judas Gospel - which
portrays Judas not as a sinister betrayer but as Jesus' confidant -
will considerably expand and clarify that text.

"I believe some 10-20 percent of new text will be added, which
however will be of crucial importance," said Veleni, director of the
Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, where the manuscript is kept.

"This will fill in many gaps. We will get a better understanding of
the sequence and the existing text will become more complete,"
Veleni told The Associated Press.

The scroll, originally several yards of papyrus rolled around two
wooden runners, was found in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C.,
during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the
Great.

"It is the oldest surviving book, if you can use that word for a
scroll, in Western tradition," Veleni said. "This was a unique find,
of exceptional importance."

Greek philosophy expert Apostolos Pierris said the text may be a
century older.

"It was probably written by somebody from the circle of the
philosopher Anaxagoras, in the second half of the 5th century B.C.,"
he said.

Anaxagoras, who lived in ancient Athens, is thought to have been the
teacher of Socrates and was accused by his contemporaries of atheism.

Last month, experts from Brigham Young University in Utah used multi-
spectral digital analysis to create enhanced pictures of the text,
which will be studied by Oxford University papyrologist Dirk Obbink
and Pierris, and published by the end of 2007.

A separate, Greek team is also working to produce a new edition by
the end of 2006.

"We were now able to read even the most carbonized sections, as
there were pieces that were completely blackened and nobody could
make out whether there were letters on them," Veleni said.

The manuscript was thrown onto the funeral pyre that consumed its
owner, and laid with his ashes in the grave.

"The fire actually saved it, as the papyrus would have been rotted
away by damp if not burned," Greek papyrologist expert George
Karamanolis said.

The book contains a philosophical treatise on a lost poem describing
the birth of the gods and other beliefs focusing on Orpheus, the
mythical musician who visited the underworld to reclaim his dead
love and enjoyed a strong cult following in the ancient world.

Ancient legends tell how Orpheus, who could charm wild beasts with
his lyre, met a brutal end at the hands of an outraged band of
Thracian women who resented his fidelity to his lost sweetheart,
Eurydice, and tore him to shreds and threw the remains into a river.

The Orpheus cult revolved around the soul's fate after death. It
raised the notion of a single creator god - as opposed to the
multitude of deities the ancient Greeks believed in - and influenced
later monotheistic faiths.

"In a way, it was a precursor of Christianity," Pierris
said. "Orphism believed that man's salvation depended on his
knowledge of the truth."

Veleni said the manuscript "will help show the influence of Orphism
on later monotheistic religions."

The scroll's remains - about 200 charred scraps - are currently kept
in the museum's storerooms, sandwiched between glass panels.

The Derveni grave, about five miles northwest of Thessaloniki, was
part of a rich cemetery belonging to the ancient city of Lete.

"It belonged to a very rich man, a Macedonian nobleman, warrior and
athlete who had a lot of very important and valuable artifacts in
his grave," Veleni said. Finds included metal vases, a gold wreath
and weapons.
---
Associated Press Writer Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed
to this story.

*****

Hollywood Scandals Converging
A district attorney's investigator and others linked to a French con
man may be victims of Pellicano's snooping.
By Andrew Blankstein and Kim Christensen
Times Staff Writers
LATimes.com
June 7, 2006

While George Mueller was investigating French con man Christopher
Rocancourt in a bogus-passport scheme in the 1990s, Rocancourt
called him to boast of a "contact" with access to confidential law-
enforcement information.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's investigator didn't know
it at the time, but Rocancourt — notorious for his fake identities
and big lies — apparently was telling the truth.

In an unlikely convergence of two high-profile Hollywood scandals,
federal prosecutors allege that Mueller and at least five others
connected to the passport case were victims of illegal background
checks directed by rogue private eye Anthony Pellicano, then working
for Rocancourt as an audio forensics expert.

"It didn't shock me that much," Mueller said of the connection
between the two cases. "But it did shock me that I was one of the
victims…. Knowing that a suspect in a case that I'm tracking has my
personal information is pretty alarming."

Rocancourt, 38, began life as a poor orphan in France and went on to
travel the world, using a large number of aliases and an aura of
celebrity to steal more than $1 million from the wealthy and well-
connected from Beverly Hills to the Hamptons in New York.

At various times, he also claimed to be a Rockefeller heir, the son
of actress Sophia Loren and a nephew of movie producer Dino De
Laurentiis and fashion designer Oscar de la Renta.

In the mid-1990s, authorities in Los Angeles began investigating
Rocancourt in connection with thefts of hundreds of thousands of
dollars; a shooting; and the bribing of federal workers to provide
him with a phony U.S. passport that was delivered to his Regent
Beverly Wilshire hotel suite in a brown paper bag.

Mueller said that he also looked into allegations involving drugs
and prostitution, and that some victims of Rocancourt's scams were
too embarrassed or wary of publicity to come forward. Mueller
estimated that the extent of the Frenchman's swindles was closer to
$2 million than to the official figure of $1.2 million.

Lillian Pinho, a Sunland businesswoman, met Rocancourt in 1997 at a
Beverly Hills police ball and became part of an eclectic, mostly
well-heeled group that socialized at his hotel suite and at Westside
nightspots, often joined by his wife, Pia Reyes, a 1988 Playboy
Playmate of the Month.

Like others who backed Rocancourt's schemes, Pinho had a falling out
with the Frenchman after allegedly losing a $125,000 investment in a
clothing boutique that never opened. Her doubts about Rocancourt
deepened when he started making threats while Mueller was
investigating him.

In one telephone conversation with Pinho, Rocancourt allegedly said
he planned to kill his bodyguard, Ali "Benny" Amghar, who found
weapons, explosives and racks of Versace suits — with the tags still
on them — in an apartment that Rocancourt kept in Beverly Hills.

Fearing that he might be implicated in what he suspected was
criminal activity, Amghar told authorities that Rocancourt had paid
$2,000 for a fake passport, boasted of sneaking diamonds into the
U.S. from Zaire and bragged about having a stash of hand grenades.

Pinho later testified that she also felt threatened by Rocancourt,
who told her, "You better not snitch on me, or you will take a very
long nap." She also suspected that he was responsible for leaving a
decapitated mouse in her mailbox, which she understood to be a
message to keep quiet.

At Mueller's urging, Pinho recorded her conversations with
Rocancourt, including some that implicated him in the passport
scheme, in which he was charged with conspiracy.

Enter Pellicano, the private investigator and self-styled audio
forensics expert hired by Rocancourt's lawyer, Victor Sherman, to
analyze the tapes and determine their authenticity.

Sherman, who later defended Pellicano against federal explosives
charges that landed the private eye in prison for 30 months, said
his client had only a bit part in the Rocancourt saga.

"He didn't really have much of a role," Sherman said in a telephone
interview.

Nevertheless, the names of six people from the Rocancourt case
showed up earlier this year among scores of victims listed in a 112-
count federal indictment accusing Pellicano and others of
wiretapping and illegally accessing law-enforcement databases,
typically to gain an advantage in criminal and civil litigation.

According to court records in the passport case, the tapes were made
available to Pellicano in May 1999 — the same month he allegedly
directed Sgt. Mark Arneson, his contact inside the Los Angeles
Police Department, to run illegal background checks on six people
with ties to the case, including prosecution witnesses, co-
defendants and Mueller.

Pellicano never told him of any illegal activity, and it had no
bearing on the passport case anyway, Sherman said.

"It's possible that he may have run their names," he said, "but that
didn't play a role in the case."

While two of Rocancourt's co-defendants in the passport case pleaded
guilty, Rocancourt jumped bail and headed to New York, where he
allegedly swindled some well-heeled residents of the Hamptons, who
knew him as Christopher Rockefeller.

In March 2004, after being arrested and imprisoned for a year in
Canada, Rocancourt pleaded guilty to passport fraud conspiracy in
Los Angeles County Superior Court and was sentenced to five years in
prison, the term to be served concurrently with two others for
convictions in New York.

When he was released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania last
October, authorities took him directly to the Philadelphia airport
and put him on a British Airways flight to London, with a connecting
flight to Paris. It was a one-way, first-class ticket.

"That's Christopher," said Sherman, noting that his former client is
now collaborating on a movie about his life. He insists that
Rocancourt is on the straight-and-narrow these days.

"Christopher would never do anything wrong again — ever," Sherman
said, not even pretending to keep a straight face: "I have a big
smile."

But maybe it was Mueller who had the last laugh on Rocancourt.

"With him, it was 'Catch me if you can,' " Mueller said. "And we
did."

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

9/11 Widows, New York Papers, Respond to Coulter's 'Slander'
Ann Coulter
By E&P Staff
http://www.editorandpublisher.com
Published: June 07, 2006

NEW YORK Syndicated columnist and author Ann Coulter appeared on the
Today show on Tuesday, promoting a new book. Host Matt Lauer asked
her to explain certain remarks in the book aimed at activist 9/11
widows, including her charge that they were nothing but "self
obsessed" and celebrity-seeking "broads" who are "enjoying" their
husbands' deaths "so much."

After she defended these statements, he closed by saying, "always
fun to have you here."

Elsewhere in the book, Coulter refers to the widows as "witches" and
asks, "how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce
these harpies"?

In response, a group of five 9/11 widows, who may have been the
prime targets of Coulter's remarks, issued a statement denouncing
Coulter's views. The New York Daily News on Wednesday featured a
smiling Coulter and this headline on its front page: COULTER THE
CRUEL. One story inside was topped with "Massive Chip on Her
Coulter " and another called her a "a model of meanness."

The Star-Ledger in Newark, meanwhile, carried a story today with the
headline "For 9/11 widows, book adds insult to injury." It featured
interviews with some of the widows. The New York Post headlined a
story: "RIGHTY WRITER COULTER HURLS NASTY GIBES AT 9/11 GALS."

The Post interviewed one of the widows, Mindy Kleinberg of East
Brunswick, N.J. -- part of a group Coulter dubbed "The Witches of
East Brunswick." Kleinberg said, "We are trying to make sure that
nobody else walks in our footsteps. And if she [Coulter] thinks
that's wrong, so be it." Newsday (Melville, N.Y.) carried an
Associated Press story.

Universal syndicates Coulter's column. A spokesman there told E&P it
had no response to the latest firestorm.

The five widows' statement is reprinted below (it first appeared at
crooksandliars.com).

***

We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The
attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former
lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems
that our country has in place to protect its citizens.

Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols
were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent
commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and
allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only
motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from
this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?

We are forced to respond to Ms. Coulter's accusations to set the
record straight because we have been slandered.

Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching
men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our
children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored
these men and miss them every day.

It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the
Nation's attention to the real issues at hand: our lack of security,
leadership and progress in the five years since 9/11.

We are continuously reminded that we are still a nation at risk.
Therefore, the following is a partial list of areas still
desperately in need of attention and public outcry. We should
continuously be holding the feet of our elected officials to the
fire to fix these shortcomings.

1. Homeland Security Funding based on risk. Inattention to this area
causes police officers, firefighters and other emergency/first
responder personnel to be ill equipped in emergencies. Fixing this
will save lives on the day of the next attack.

2. Intelligence Community Oversight. Without proper oversight, there
exists no one joint, bicameral intelligence panel with power to both
authorize and appropriate funding for intelligence activities.
Without such funding we are unable to capitalize on all intelligence
community resources and abilities to thwart potential terrorist
attacks. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

3. Transportation Security. There has been no concerted effort to
harden mass transportation security. Our planes, buses, subways, and
railways remain under-protected and highly vulnerable. These are all
identifiable soft targets of potential terrorist attack. The terror
attacks in Spain and London attest to this fact. Fixing our
transportation systems may save lives on the day of the next attack.

4. Information Sharing among Intelligence Agencies. Information
sharing among intelligence agencies has not improved since 9/11. The
attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented had information been
shared among intelligence agencies. On the day of the next attack,
more lives may be saved if our intelligence agencies work together.

5. Loose Nukes. A concerted effort has not been made to secure the
thousands of loose nukes scattered around the world – particularly
in the former Soviet Union. Securing these loose nukes could make it
less likely for a terrorist group to use this method in an attack,
thereby saving lives.

6. Security at Chemical Plants, Nuclear Plants, Ports. We must, as a
nation, secure these known and identifiable soft targets of
Terrorism. Doing so will save many lives.

7. Border Security. We continue to have porous borders and INS and
Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate
our border security into the larger national security apparatus.

8. Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Given the President's NSA
Surveillance Program and the re-instatement of the Patriot Act, this
Nation is in dire need of a Civil Liberties Oversight Board to
insure that a proper balance is found between national security
versus the protection of our constitutional rights.

-- September 11th Advocates

Kristen Breitweiser
Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
E&P Staff (letters@...)

Links referenced within this article

front page
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/covers/
story
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/424405p-358034c.html
another
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/424472p-358075c.html
story
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-
7/114966058594750.xml&coll=1
story
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/69756.htm
Associated Press story
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/am-
coulter0706,0,4054164.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

letters@...

***

New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com

Massive chip on her Coulter
BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

When their husbands were killed on 9/11, four New Jersey widows
tried to find out why - and now no-holds-barred conservative pundit
Ann Coulter is mercilessly denouncing them as "witches."
"I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much,"
Coulter writes in her new book.

Her brutal words were challenged yesterday on national television
by "Today" host Matt Lauer - and she was slammed by the widows she
derided as self-absorbed, limelight-seeking "harpies."

"I'd like her to meet my daughter and tell her how anyone could
enjoy their father's death," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four
widows known as the "Jersey Girls."

"She sounds like a very disturbed, unraveled person," added
Breitweiser.

In "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," the uncompromisingly right-
wing Coulter writes the Jersey Girls have no right to criticize
President Bush or any of the failures that led to the terror attacks.

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about
them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-
arazzis," Coulter writes.

"And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to
divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling,
they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy. . .

"These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an
attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened
only to them."

Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza
bonded after their husbands died on 9/11, leaving them with seven
children and a desire for answers.

They pushed to create the 9/11 commission, which put out a scathing
report criticizing the Clinton and Bush administrations for not
taking the terrorist threat more seriously - and found New York's
emergency response system wasn't prepared for a serious attack.

"Our ports have not been secured. Our borders have not been secured.
We still haven't caught [Osama] Bin Laden," Van Auken said
yesterday. "She's not even talking about what we were talking about.
She's just attacking."

The Jersey Girls - or, as Coulter calls them, "the Witches of East
Brunswick" - have been criticized before, but never like this. Van
Auken told the Daily News she was stunned by the vitriol.

"Having my husband burn alive in a building brought me no joy," she
said. "Watching it unfold on national TV and .seeing it repeated
endlessly was beyond what I could describe. Telling my children they
would never see their father again was not fun. And we had no plans
to divorce."

When Lauer grilled Coulter about the book, she yelled at him so
harshly that gasps echoed through Rockefeller Center - and then she
made a wisecrack about CBS-bound former host Katie Couric.

"If you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a
political point of view?" Lauer asked.

As the exchange grew tense, Coulter said, "Look, you're getting
testy with me."

She later added: "Hey, where's Katie? Did she leave or something?"

Last night, Coulter didn't back down from bashing the 9/11
widows. "These women got paid. They ought to take their money and
shut up about it," Coulter said on MSNBC's "The Situation with
Tucker Carlson."

Coulter made headlines in the past when she called for blowing up
The New York Times Building, advocated forcing Muslims to become
Christians and wrote an entire book that said every American liberal
is guilty of treason.

Her controversial writings have made her a best-selling .author and
syndicated columnist and put her on the cover of Time magazine.
She's made big bucks in the process, buying a $1.5 million condo on
the upper East Side.

Politicians of both parties denounced Coulter's comments.

"It's totally inhumane to be saying things like this about people
who went through such agony," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.).

"It seems that she's just full of anger and hate," said Rep. Carolyn
Maloney (D-Manhattan), who held a news conference yesterday with
relatives of 9/11 victims on the country's failure to improve
security.

"Like an insecure child, it's always been clear that Ann Coulter is
prepared to do anything to get attention," added Rep. Anthony Weiner
(D-Brooklyn, Queens). "This is a new low."

With Michael McAuliff in Washington
and Derek Rose

*****

Coulter calls 9/11 widows "witches"
By Claudia Parsons
6-7-6
Reuters

Conservative author Ann Coulter sparked a storm on Wednesday after
describing a group of September 11 widows who backed the Democratic
Party as millionaire "witches" reveling in their status as
celebrities.

"I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much,"
Coulter writes in her book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism,"
published on Tuesday, referring to four women who headed a campaign
that resulted in the creation of the September 11 Commission that
investigated the hijacked plane attacks.

Coulter wrote that the women were millionaires as a result of
compensation settlements and were "reveling in their status as
celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis."

A spokeswoman for publisher Crown Forum said it had set a first
print run of 1 million copies of "Godless" and there were 1.5
million copies of Coulter's previous four books in print.

The four women, Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg
and Lorie Van Auken, declined to discuss the book in detail but
issued a statement saying they had been slandered.

"There was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There
was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were
never coming home again," said the statement signed by the four,
along with a fifth woman, Monica Gabrielle.

The four women, who live in or around East Brunswick, New Jersey,
became friends after September 11 and formed a group that agitated
for the investigation. "Our only motivation ever was to make our
nation safer," they said.

Coulter, whose books include the bestseller "How to Talk to a
Liberal (If You Must)," argues in the new book the women she
dubs "the Witches of East Brunswick" wanted to blame President
George W. Bush for not preventing the attacks.

She criticized them for making a campaign advertisement for
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and
added: "By the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning
to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling,
they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

PERSONAL ATTACKS

Asked by Reuters why she made such personal comments, Coulter said
by e-mail, "I am tired of victims being used as billboards for
untenable liberal political beliefs."

"A lot of Americans have been seething over the inanities of these
professional victims for some time," she added.

Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record) of New
Jersey said Coulter's "shameless attack" on the widows sparked
disgust. "Her bookselling antics and accompanying vulgarity deserve
our deepest contempt," he said in a statement.

The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News. Corp., slammed
the comments in an article on Wednesday headlined: "Righty writer
Coulter hurls nasty gibes at 9/11 gals."

Coulter, a regular television commentator who is hugely popular
among some conservatives, was challenged on NBC's "Today" show on
Tuesday over what host Matt Lauer called "dramatic" remarks,
prompting her to say, "You are getting testy with me."

Coulter is known for a combative column after September 11
saying, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and
convert them to Christianity." In one book, she wrote, "Even Islamic
terrorists don't hate America like liberals do."

Her latest comments were quoted on radio stations in New York on
Wednesday and the book was the subject of debate on Web sites such
as www.salon.com. The Daily News newspaper's front-page headline
was "Coulter the Cruel."

The controversy appeared to be doing no harm to sales of Coulter's
latest book, which was listed as the second-best seller of the day
at online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday afternoon.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Till death us do part
We're all doomed in the end - so when a character in a horror movie
is sent brutally to their grave, it should be a great source of
comfort to us, says Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Friday May 26, 2006
UK Guardian

By the time you read this my friend, Candice, will be dead. We've
been friends, members of the same writers' workshop, since 1990,
reading and editing each other's work one night each week until she
was diagnosed with cancer at 44. I've seen every draft of every book
Candie's written. One of her short stories, The Man with the Scars,
she brought for review each Thursday night for a year, some 50
rewrites, until I could recite all 18 pages from memory.
Her cancer spread to her pancreas and today she's in a hospice
injected with a constant stream of morphine. Her skin is tight and
darkening and her hair looks thin and coarse, but the moment you
walk up to her bedside Candie cups one hand over her face and
says, "Oh, I must look terrible." She says: "I'm feeling stronger
today. I really do think I'm getting better." The morphine drip
injects her with another dose, and her eyes close. Her hands settle
on the blankets, and she drifts off to sleep.

We always think we'll get better. But we'll all die in a bed like
this, worrying about how our hair looks. Or in the back of a
screaming ambulance, hoping our underwear looks clean as the
paramedic cuts it off, and ignoring our own blood pooling on the
floor.

This inevitable trap, this destiny, is why I love a certain breed of
horror movie. Why we all seem to love them. Movies I'll refer to
as "cycle" movies, which include some of the most popular movies of
the past 40 years: The Ring, The Amityville Horror, Carrie, The
Stepford Wives. In all of them, an individual is trapped by an
established cycle of events that doom and destroy. From their story
you can imagine that same cycle or process stretching into the past
or future, destroying an endless chain of similar people, all of
them denying the dire nature of their circumstances until their fate
is inevitable.

It's always a chain of events that the audience recognises early,
but the lead character recognises too late.

In 1948, when the New Yorker magazine first published Shirley
Jackson's The Lottery, that one short story drew letters from
readers in 25 states and six countries outside the US. People
complained of losing sleep owing to nightmares, and cancelled their
subscriptions. That one story is the most simple and well-known
example of a "cycle" story: Jackson shows us a seemingly normal
village where all the residents have gathered on a sunny day to
practise an age-old corn planting tradition. "Lottery in June," she
writes, "corn be heavy soon." The 300 villagers draw lots, laughing
and coaxing each other and when poor, dishwashing Mrs Hutchinson,
who arrived late for the ceremony, draws a marked lot, the rest of
her neighbours and family stone her to death.

And yes, there is a short movie version. I watched it in school,
where everyone sat in frozen delight at the sight of small children
murdering their own mother. And maybe The Lottery is a comment on
the draft, compulsory military service in which soldiers are chosen
by lottery with the awareness that some must die in terrible pain so
their civilisation can continue in prosperity.

Whatever the reason, I love, you love, we all love the cycle movie.
Think of them all: not just The Stepford Wives, in which we watch
the latest in a long series of suburban housewives get murdered and
replaced with robots, but movies such as The Wicker Man in which a
policeman investigating a murder falls victim to the same
sacrificial process that killed the last victim. Think of Burnt
Offerings, and how the character played by Karen Black comes to love
a decaying mansion more than her family, until that mansion kills
and digests them all in order to regenerate itself. Or the 1976 film
The Sentinel, in which a fashion model realises too late she's
destined to become a recluse, watching the gates of Hell so demons
can't trespass among humans.

In all of these stories, we witness one cycle in an endless chain of
victims or sacrifices, all of them individuals who must die to
preserve life for the larger society. And all of them deny their
situation until they can't escape. Of course, they all make a
valiant attempt to flee in the third act: in The Hunger, Susan
Sarandon cuts her own throat to escape becoming a vampire - but she
ends up as the queen of future generations of vampires. In the 1964
black-and-white version of The Haunting, Julie Harris almost drives
away from the haunted castle, until the ghost steers her car into a
tree, killing her and wrapping her soul into the eternal psyche of
Hill House.

In the movie version of Stephen King's Carrie, the troubled,
telekinetic girl dies. But in the original book, her death is
followed by a final letter that describes an infant girl who can
already manipulate her toys with her mind - thus suggesting the next
cycle. In King's novel The Shining, the caretaker-eating hotel
burns - but in the television miniseries that he wrote and directed,
the hotel is being rebuilt in the final shot, giving the story
another cycle of victims.

No, the victims never get very smart in a cycle story. But the
viewers get smart; if the viewers ever run across an abandoned ocean
liner filled with gold bars, as in Ghost Ship, the viewers will know
to run before greed traps and dooms them. In that way, the victim
dies for the viewer to find enlightenment. Maybe we won't keep
redecorating the Dutch colonial house in The Amityville Horror and
ignoring the demons and houseflies until they destroy our family.
Maybe we'll notice our rented island farm is isolated and creepy
before we're killed, unlike the hippy commune members in Let's Scare
Jessica to Death. People watching cycle stories are people who learn
from history.

People who learn from history won't be so shocked by James Frey and
his fictional memoir, A Million Little Lies. Instead, they'll
remember how we all loved and believed the "true story" of The
Amityville Horror even after the "non-fiction" book was exposed as a
fraud. If you know some history, you'll recognise how we'll take an
entertaining fraud over a boring truth any day of the week. Thirty
years after the Amityville hoax, we're still seeing remakes and
sequels of that "true" story. To heck with the fact it was a lie.

Only horror movies can tell these cautionary tales with their
unhappy endings. It's the nature of the genre that events won't go
well, people will suffer and die - the end. One small mistake early
in the plot, and you're doomed like Mrs Hutchinson who arrived last
for the village lottery, joking and glib, then died in a hail of
stones. Or Eleanor Lance who steals the car in which she'll
eventually die in The Haunting. All it takes is one small mistake or
flaw, and you'll be destroyed, like the curious teenagers in The
Ring. Your death will be certain and predictable, comforting even.

It's almost as if a victim in a cycle movie is more than a fictional
casualty, she's more like a sacrifice to keep the rest of us safe.
By witnessing his or her death, the rest of us feel more safe. Like
watching the strangers who suffer and die on the television news
every night. In hurricanes and rebel insurrections. We've seen the
cycle run its course, and this time we weren't the one who drew the
wrong lot and had to perish.

If nothing else, there's comfort in recognising that no matter how
much we fail and sin, death will limit our suffering. Even if it's
just the death of our innocence - the petty, vain, plotting person
we've always been - just seeing that ego destroyed provides a kind
of relief. In The Sentinel, supermodel Allison Parker won't always
be a beautiful rich girl repeatedly attempting suicide because of
her father and sleazy lawyer boyfriend; no, the comforting destiny
is that by the end of the movie she'll be a withered, wrinkled nun
named Sister Teresa, blind with cataracts and doing sentry duty at
the gates of hell. In Burnt Offerings, Marion, Ben and Benji may die
horrible deaths, but by doing so they transcend their ordinary lives
and become absorbed into the lovely Allerdyce Estate. Dr Sarah
Roberts, in The Hunger, becomes a blood-guzzling vampire queen - but
even that beats her former life: grovelling for monkey research
funding and sniping with her whiny boyfriend, Cliff DeYoung.

Really, death or imprisonment make a nice change for the troubled
characters who find themselves trapped in cycle movies. That's why
we enjoy these horror movies. We're watching a dream about
characters living inside their own dream. As they deny the end of
their lives, we're denying our own inevitable death. The Satan of
Ghost Ship may not arrive to trick us into eternal damnation, but
while we fret over pimples and dandruff, something will arrive.
Cancer or a car accident. The bird flu or just a poorly cooked piece
of fish.

The cycle horror story is comforting the same way porno is
comforting: you already know how they're going to end. The actor
will achieve a loud orgasm or die. In a slasher film he or she will
likely do both.

In the hospice, the next time my friend Candice wakes up, she'll
tell me what she's writing. An essay about her recent divorce. About
her illness. She'll say: "I'm really going to get better. I'm not
going to let cancer lick me." Until the morphine puts her back to
sleep. By now, mostly likely she'll be dead. Or you will be. But if
you've seen or read The Lottery you can't say you didn't see this
coming.

· Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk, is published by Vintage, £7.99

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Rollingstone.com
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election
_stolen

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting
ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John
Kerry in the White House.
BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
Posted Jun 01, 2006

The complete article, with Web-only citations, follows. Talk about
it in our National Affairs blog, or see exclusive documents,
sources, charts and commentary.

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election
watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls,
which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten
it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive
lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal
evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided
anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases
in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions,
did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington
Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy
theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no
evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that
something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of
the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their
ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the
Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to
file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul &
Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to
register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered
shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was
decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously
failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000
ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged
with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots
were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100
cast.(10)

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical
battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral
college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters
from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by
Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they
allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that
could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical
church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-
eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland
recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In
Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent
terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote
count.(11)

Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America's voting
system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county
and city officials. ''We didn't have one election for president in
2004,'' says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and
Election Management at American University. ''We didn't have fifty
elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000
independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.''

But what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was
their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt
John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the
evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a
massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in
2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party
stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to
fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in
Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of
them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have
their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the
results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's
Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from
the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote
in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not
listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented
flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn?t even
take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which
indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted
instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes --
  enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)

''It was terrible,'' says Sen. Christopher Dodd, who helped craft
reforms in 2002 that were supposed to prevent such electoral
abuses. ''People waiting in line for twelve hours to cast their
ballots, people not being allowed to vote because they were in the
wrong precinct -- it was an outrage. In Ohio, you had a secretary of
state who was determined to guarantee a Republican outcome. I'm
terribly disheartened.''

Indeed, the extent of the GOP's effort to rig the vote shocked even
the most experienced observers of American elections. ''Ohio was as
dirty an election as America has ever seen,'' Lou Harris, the father
of modern political polling, told me. ''You look at the turnout and
votes in individual precincts, compared to the historic patterns in
those counties, and you can tell where the discrepancies are. They
stand out like a sore thumb.''

I. The Exit Polls
The first indication that something was gravely amiss on November
2nd, 2004, was the inexplicable discrepancies between exit polls and
actual vote counts. Polls in thirty states weren't just off the
mark -- they deviated to an extent that cannot be accounted for by
their margin of error. In all but four states, the discrepancy
favored President Bush.(16)

Over the past decades, exit polling has evolved into an exact
science. Indeed, among pollsters and statisticians, such surveys are
thought to be the most reliable. Unlike pre-election polls, in which
voters are asked to predict their own behavior at some point in the
future, exit polls ask voters leaving the voting booth to report an
action they just executed. The results are exquisitely accurate:
Exit polls in Germany, for example, have never missed the mark by
more than three-tenths of one percent.(17) ''Exit polls are almost
never wrong,'' Dick Morris, a political consultant who has worked
for both Republicans and Democrats, noted after the 2004 vote. Such
surveys are ''so reliable,'' he added, ''that they are used as
guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World
countries.''(18) In 2003, vote tampering revealed by exit polling in
the Republic of Georgia forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down.(19)
And in November 2004, exit polling in the Ukraine -- paid for by the
Bush administration -- exposed election fraud that denied Viktor
Yushchenko the presidency.(20)

But that same month, when exit polls revealed disturbing disparities
in the U.S. election, the six media organizations that had
commissioned the survey treated its very existence as an
embarrassment. Instead of treating the discrepancies as a story
meriting investigation, the networks scrubbed the offending results
from their Web sites and substituted them with ''corrected'' numbers
that had been weighted, retroactively, to match the official vote
count. Rather than finding fault with the election results, the
mainstream media preferred to dismiss the polls as flawed.(21)

''The people who ran the exit polling, and all those of us who were
their clients, recognized that it was deeply flawed,'' says Tom
Brokaw, who served as anchor for NBC News during the 2004
election. ''They were really screwed up -- the old models just don't
work anymore. I would not go on the air with them again.''

In fact, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to
be the most reliable voter survey in history. The six news
organizations -- running the ideological gamut from CBS to Fox News -
- retained Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International,(22)
whose principal, Warren Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in
1967(23) and is widely credited with assuring the credibility of
Mexico's elections in 1994.(24) For its nationwide poll,
Edison/Mitofsky selected a random subsample of 12,219 voters(25) --
approximately six times larger than those normally used in national
polls(26) -- driving the margin of error down to approximately plus
or minus one percent.(27)

On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks
were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed,
had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309
electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.
(28) In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating
his relationship with President-elect Kerry.(29)

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls
showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including
commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and
a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing
down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North
Carolina.(30) Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of
Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.(31) ''Either the exit
polls, by and large, are completely wrong,'' a Fox News analyst
declared, ''or George Bush loses.''(32)

But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show
implausible disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit
polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins
departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift
favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating
Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election
results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also
tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in
Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.(33)

According to Steven F. Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University
of Pennsylvania who specializes in research methodology, the odds
against all three of those shifts occurring in concert are one in
660,000. ''As much as we can say in sound science that something is
impossible,'' he says, ''it is impossible that the discrepancies
between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical
battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to
chance or random error.'' (See The Tale of the Exit Polls)

Puzzled by the discrepancies, Freeman laboriously examined the raw
polling data released by Edison/Mitofsky in January 2005. ''I'm not
even political -- I despise the Democrats,'' he says. ''I'm a survey
expert. I got into this because I was mystified about how the exit
polls could have been so wrong.'' In his forthcoming book, Was the
2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and
the Official Count, Freeman lays out a statistical analysis of the
polls that is deeply troubling.

In its official postmortem report issued two months after the
election, Edison/Mitofsky was unable to identify any flaw in its
methodology -- so the pollsters, in essence, invented one for the
electorate. According to Mitofsky, Bush partisans were simply
disinclined to talk to exit pollsters on November 2nd(34) --
displaying a heretofore unknown and undocumented aversion that
skewed the polls in Kerry's favor by a margin of 6.5 percent
nationwide.(35)

Industry peers didn't buy it. John Zogby, one of the nation's
leading pollsters, told me that Mitofsky's ''reluctant responder''
hypothesis is ''preposterous.''(36) Even Mitofsky, in his official
report, underscored the hollowness of his theory: ''It is difficult
to pinpoint precisely the reasons that, in general, Kerry voters
were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush
voters.''(37)

Now, thanks to careful examination of Mitofsky's own data by Freeman
and a team of eight researchers, we can say conclusively that the
theory is dead wrong. In fact it was Democrats, not Republicans, who
were more disinclined to answer pollsters' questions on Election
Day. In Bush strongholds, Freeman and the other researchers found
that fifty-six percent of voters completed the exit survey --
compared to only fifty-three percent in Kerry strongholds.(38) ''The
data presented to support the claim not only fails to substantiate
it,'' observes Freeman, ''but actually contradicts it.''

What's more, Freeman found, the greatest disparities between exit
polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In
precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote,
the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast,
in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the
exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent -- a
pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the
ballot box in Bush country.(39)

''When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data
that supports the supposition of election fraud,'' concludes
Freeman. ''The discrepancies are higher in battleground states,
higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with
greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in
states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these
are strong indicators of fraud -- and yet this supposition has been
utterly ignored by the press and, oddly, by the Democratic Party.''

The evidence is especially strong in Ohio. In January, a team of
mathematicians from the National Election Data Archive, a
nonpartisan watchdog group, compared the state's exit polls against
the certified vote count in each of the forty-nine precincts polled
by Edison/Mitofsky. In twenty-two of those precincts -- nearly half
of those polled -- they discovered results that differed widely from
the official tally. Once again -- against all odds -- the widespread
discrepancies were stacked massively in Bush's favor: In only two of
the suspect twenty-two precincts did the disparity benefit Kerry.
The wildest discrepancy came from the precinct Mitofsky
numbered ''27,'' in order to protect the anonymity of those
surveyed. According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received
sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified
tally gave him only thirty-eight percent. The statistical odds
against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion.(40)

Such results, according to the archive, provide ''virtually
irrefutable evidence of vote miscount.'' The discrepancies, the
experts add, ''are consistent with the hypothesis that Kerry would
have won Ohio's electoral votes if Ohio's official vote counts had
accurately reflected voter intent.''(41) According to Ron Baiman,
vice president of the archive and a public policy analyst at Loyola
University in Chicago, ''No rigorous statistical explanation'' can
explain the ''completely nonrandom'' disparities that almost
uniformly benefited Bush. The final results, he adds,
are ''completely consistent with election fraud -- specifically vote
shifting.''

II. The Partisan Official
No state was more important in the 2004 election than Ohio. The
state has been key to every Republican presidential victory since
Abraham Lincoln's, and both parties overwhelmed the state with
television ads, field organizers and volunteers in an effort to
register new voters and energize old ones. Bush and Kerry traveled
to Ohio a total of forty-nine times during the campaign -- more than
to any other state.(42)

But in the battle for Ohio, Republicans had a distinct advantage:
The man in charge of the counting was Kenneth Blackwell, the co-
chair of President Bush's re-election committee.(43) As Ohio's
secretary of state, Blackwell had broad powers to interpret and
implement state and federal election laws -- setting standards for
everything from the processing of voter registration to the conduct
of official recounts.(44) And as Bush's re-election chair in Ohio,
he had a powerful motivation to rig the rules for his candidate.
Blackwell, in fact, served as the ''principal electoral system
adviser'' for Bush during the 2000 recount in Florida,(45) where he
witnessed firsthand the success of his counterpart Katherine Harris,
the Florida secretary of state who co-chaired Bush's campaign there.
(46)

Blackwell -- now the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio(47) --
  is well-known in the state as a fierce partisan eager to rise in
the GOP. An outspoken leader of Ohio's right-wing fundamentalists,
he opposes abortion even in cases of rape(48) and was the chief
cheerleader for the anti-gay-marriage amendment that Republicans
employed to spark turnout in rural counties(49). He has openly
denounced Kerry as ''an unapologetic liberal Democrat,''(50) and
during the 2004 election he used his official powers to
disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens in Democratic
strongholds. In a ruling issued two weeks before the election, a
federal judge rebuked Blackwell for seeking to ''accomplish the same
result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''(51)

''The secretary of state is supposed to administer elections -- not
throw them,'' says Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Cleveland
who has dealt with Blackwell for years. ''The election in Ohio in
2004 stands out as an example of how, under color of law, a state
election official can frustrate the exercise of the right to vote.''

The most extensive investigation of what happened in Ohio was
conducted by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House
Judiciary Committee.(52) Frustrated by his party's failure to follow
up on the widespread evidence of voter intimidation and fraud,
Conyers and the committee's minority staff held public hearings in
Ohio, where they looked into more than 50,000 complaints from voters.
(53) In January 2005, Conyers issued a detailed report that
outlined ''massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and
anomalies in Ohio.'' The problems, the report concludes,
were ''caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much
of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.''(54)

''Blackwell made Katherine Harris look like a cupcake,'' Conyers
told me. ''He saw his role as limiting the participation of
Democratic voters. We had hearings in Columbus for two days. We
could have stayed two weeks, the level of fury was so high.
Thousands of people wanted to testify. Nothing like this had ever
happened to them before.''

When ROLLING STONE confronted Blackwell about his overtly partisan
attempts to subvert the election, he dismissed any such claim
as ''silly on its face.'' Ohio, he insisted in a telephone
interview, set a ''gold standard'' for electoral fairness. In fact,
his campaign to subvert the will of the voters had begun long before
Election Day. Instead of welcoming the avalanche of citizen
involvement sparked by the campaign, Blackwell permitted election
officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive
purge of their voter rolls, summarily expunging the names of more
than 300,000 voters who had failed to cast ballots in the previous
two national elections.(55) In Cleveland, which went five-to-one for
Kerry, nearly one in four voters were wiped from the rolls between
2000 and 2004.(56)

There were legitimate reasons to clean up voting lists: Many of the
names undoubtedly belonged to people who had moved or died. But
thousands more were duly registered voters who were deprived of
their constitutional right to vote -- often without any
notification -- simply because they had decided not to go to the
polls in prior elections.(57) In Cleveland's precinct 6C, where more
than half the voters on the rolls were deleted,(58) turnout was only
7.1 percent(59) -- the lowest in the state.

According to the Conyers report, improper purging ''likely
disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide.''(60) If only
one in ten of the 300,000 purged voters showed up on Election Day --
a conservative estimate, according to election scholars -- that is
30,000 citizens who were unfairly denied the opportunity to cast
ballots.

III. The Strike Force
In the months leading up to the election, Ohio was in the midst of
the biggest registration drive in its history. Tens of thousands of
volunteers and paid political operatives from both parties canvassed
the state, racing to register new voters in advance of the October
4th deadline. To those on the ground, it was clear that Democrats
were outpacing their Republican counterparts: A New York Times
analysis before the election found that new registrations in
traditional Democratic strongholds were up 250 percent, compared to
only twenty-five percent in Republican-leaning counties.(61) ''The
Democrats have been beating the pants off us in the air and on the
ground,'' a GOP county official in Columbus confessed to The
Washington Times.(62)

To stem the tide of new registrations, the Republican National
Committee and the Ohio Republican Party attempted to knock tens of
thousands of predominantly minority and urban voters off the rolls
through illegal mailings known in electioneering jargon
as ''caging.'' During the Eighties, after the GOP used such mailings
to disenfranchise nearly 76,000 black voters in New Jersey and
Louisiana, it was forced to sign two separate court orders agreeing
to abstain from caging.(63) But during the summer of 2004, the GOP
targeted minority voters in Ohio by zip code, sending registered
letters to more than 200,000 newly registered voters(64) in sixty-
five counties.(65) On October 22nd, a mere eleven days before the
election, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett -- who also
chairs the board of elections in Cuyahoga County -- sought to
invalidate the registrations of 35,427 voters who had refused to
sign for the letters or whose mail came back as undeliverable.(66)
Almost half of the challenged voters were from Democratic
strongholds in and around Cleveland.(67)

There were plenty of valid reasons that voters had failed to respond
to the mailings: The list included people who couldn't sign for the
letters because they were serving in the U.S. military, college
students whose school and home addresses differed,(68) and more than
1,000 homeless people who had no permanent mailing address.(69) But
the undeliverable mail, Bennett claimed, proved the new
registrations were fraudulent.

By law, each voter was supposed to receive a hearing before being
stricken from the rolls.(70) Instead, in the week before the
election, kangaroo courts were rapidly set up across the state at
Blackwell's direction that would inevitably disenfranchise thousands
of voters at a time(71) -- a process that one Democratic election
official in Toledo likened to an ''inquisition.''(72) Not that
anyone was given a chance to actually show up and defend their right
to vote: Notices to challenged voters were not only sent out
impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the very
addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty.(73) Adding to
the atmosphere of intimidation, sheriff's detectives in Sandusky
County were dispatched to the homes of challenged voters to
investigate the GOP's claims of fraud.(74)
--
1) Manual Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating, ''Latest Conspiracy Theory --
  Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether,'' The Washington Post, November 11,
2004.

2) The New York Times Editorial Desk, ''About Those Election
Results,'' The New York Times, November 14, 2004.

3) United States Department of Defense, August 6, 2004.

4) Overseas Vote Foundation, ''2004 Post Election Survey Results,''
June 2005, page 11.

5) Jennifer Joan Lee, ''Pentagon Blocks Site for Voters Outside
U.S.,'' International Herald Tribune, September 20, 2004.

6) Meg Landers, ''Librarian Bares Possible Voter Registration
Dodge,'' Mail Tribune (Jackson County, OR), September 21, 2004.

7) Mark Brunswick and Pat Doyle, ''Voter Registration; 3 former
workers: Firm paid pro-Bush bonuses; One said he was told his job
was to bring back cards for GOP voters,'' Star Tribune (Minneapolis,
MN), October 27, 2004.

8) Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2004: Election
Results for the U.S. President.

9) Ellen Theisen and Warren Stewart, Summary Report on New Mexico
State Election Data, January 4, 2005, pg. 2

James W. Bronsan, ''In 2004, New Mexico Worst at Counting Votes,''
Scripps Howard News Service, December 22, 2004. 10) ''A Summary of
the 2004 Election Day Survey; How We Voted: People, Ballots &
Polling Places; A Report to the American People by the United States
Election Assistance Commission'', September 2005, pg. 10.

11) Facts mentioned in this paragraph are subsequently cited
throughout the story.

12) See ''Ohio's Missing Votes''

13) Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2004: Election
Results for the U.S. President.

14) Democratic National Committee, Voting Rights
Institute, ''Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio'', June
22, 2005. Page 5

15) See ''VIII. Rural Counties.''

16) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004'' prepared by
Edison Media Research and Mitofksy International for the National
Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 3

17) This refers to data for German national elections in 1994, 1998
and 2002, previously cited by Steven F. Freeman.

18) Dick Morris, ''Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage,'' The
Hill, November 4, 2004.

19) Martin Plissner, ''Exit Polls to Protect the Vote,'' The New
York Times, October 17, 2004.

20) Matt Kelley, ''U.S. Money has Helped Opposition in Ukraine,''
Associated Press, December 11, 2004.

Daniel Williams, ''Court Rejects Ukraine Vote; Justices Cite Massive
Fraud in Runoff, Set New Election,'' The Washington Post, December
4, 2004.

21) Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, ''Was the 2004 Presidential
Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official
Count,'' Seven Stories Press, July 2006, Page 102.

22) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004; prepared by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National
Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 3.

23) Mitofsky International

24) Tim Golden, ''Election Near, Mexicans Question the
Questioners,'' The New York Times, August 10, 1994.

25) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004; prepared by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National
Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 59.

26) Jonathan D. Simon, J.D., and Ron P. Baiman, Ph.D., ''The 2004
Presidential Election: Who Won the Popular Vote? An Examination of
the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data.''
FreePress.org, December 29, 2004, P. 9

27) Analysis by Steven F. Freeman.

28) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 134

29) Jim Rutenberg, ''Report Says Problems Led to Skewing Survey
Data,'' The New York Times, November 5, 2004.

30) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 134

31) Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit Poll
Discrepancies. U.S. Count Votes. Baiman R, et al. March 31, 2005.
Page 3.

32) Notes From Campaign Trail, Fox News Network, Live Event, 8:00
p.m. EST, November 2, 2004.

33) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 101-102

34) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004; prepared by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National
Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 4.

35) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 120.

36) Interview with John Zogby

37) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004; prepared by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National
Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 4.

38) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 128.

39) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 130.

40) ''The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data
Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount,'' U.S. Count
Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.

41) ''The Gun is Smoking,'' pg. 16.

42) The Washington Post, ''Charting the Campaign: Top Five Most
Visited States,'' November 2, 2004.

43) John McCarthy, ''Nearly a Month Later, Ohio Fight Goes On,''
Associated Press Online, November 30, 2004.

44) Ohio Revised Code, 3501.04, Chief Election Officer''

45) Joe Hallett, ''Blackwell Joins GOP's Spin Team,'' The Columbus
Dispatch, November 30, 2004.

46) Gary Fineout, ''Records Indicate Harris on Defense,'' Ledger
(Lakeland, Florida), November 18, 2000.

47) http://www.kenblackwell.com/

48) Joe Hallett, ''Governor; Aggressive First Round Culminates
Tuesday,'' Columbus Dispatch, April 30, 2006.

49) Sandy Theis, ''Blackwell Accused of Breaking Law by Pushing Same-
Sex Marriage Ban,'' Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), October 29, 2004.

50) Raw Story, ''Republican Ohio Secretary of State Boasts About
Delivering Ohio to Bush.''

51) In the United States District Court For the Northern District of
Ohio Northern Division, The Sandusky County Democratic Party et al.
v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case No. 3:04CV7582, Page 8.

52) Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, Status Report of
the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (Rep. John Conyers,
Jr.), January 5, 2005.

53) Preserving Democracy, pg. 8.

54) Preserving Democracy, pg. 4.

55) The board of elections in Cuyahoga, Franklin and Hamilton
counties.

56) Analysis by Richard Hayes Phillips, a voting rights advocate.

57) Fritz Wenzel, ''Purging of Rolls, Confusion Anger Voters; 41% of
Nov. 2 Provisional Ballots Axed in Lucas County,'' Toledo Blade,
January 9, 2005.

58) Analysis by Hayes Phillips.

59) Cuyahoga County Board of Elections

60) Preserving Democracy, pg. 6.

61) Ford Fessenden, ''A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing
States,'' The New York Times, September 26, 2004.

62) Ralph Z. Hallow, ''Republicans Go 'Under the Radar' in Rural
Ohio,'' The Washington Times, October 28, 2004.

63) Jo Becker, ''GOP Challenging Voter Registrations,'' The
Washington Post, October 29, 2004.

64) Janet Babin, ''Voter Registrations Challenged in Ohio,'' NPR,
All Things Considered, October 28, 2004.

65) In the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Ohio, Western Division, Amy Miller et al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell,
Case no. C-1-04-735, Page 2.

66) Sandy Theis, ''Fraud-Busters Busted; GOP's Blanket Challenge
Backfires in a Big Way,'' Plain Dealer, October 31, 2004.

67) Daniel Tokaji, ''Early Returns on Election Reform,'' George
Washington Law Review, Vol. 74, 2005, page 1235

68) Sandy Theis, ''Fraud-Busters Busted; GOP's Blanket Challenge
Backfires in a Big Way,'' Plain Dealer, October 31, 2004.

69) Andrew Welsh-Huggins, ''Out of Country, Off Beaten Path; Reason
for Voting Challenges Vary,'' Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), October
27, 2004.

70) Ohio Revised Code; 3505.19

71) Directive No. 2004-44 from J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio Sec'y of
State, to All County Boards of Elections Members, Directors, and
Deputy Directors 1 (Oct. 26, 2004).

72) Fritz Wenzel, ''Challenges Filed Against 931 Lucas County
Voters,'' Toledo Blade, October 27, 2004.

73) In the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Ohio, Western Division, Amy Miller et al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell,
Case no. C-1-04-735, Page 4.

74) LaRaye Brown, ''Elections Board Plans Hearing For Challenges,''
The News Messenger, October 26, 2004.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Ilene PRoctor
INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS
Press Contact: Ilene Proctor or Angus Hsu
Direct Line: (310) 271 5857
Cell: (310) 721.2336
E-mail: proctor@...
www.ileneproctor.com

Palast vs. Coulter - Battle of the Books begins today

TODAY, ANNE COULTER AND I BOTH LAUNCH OUR BOOKS -- hers to promote
the latest flavor of hate and militant ignorance; mine -- 'Armed
Madhouse:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Scheme to Steal '08 and
other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War -- the
investigations, first broadcast on BBC, simply banned from US
airways and print.  (There's no truth to the rumor Coulter chose to
release her book on 06-06-06 in honor of her father's birthday.)

I'm asking you to buy (or order) 'Armed Madhouse' THIS WEEK, right
NOW in fact.

Why right now?   Amazon and the industry have set up this Coulter
vs. Palast 'launch week' as the Battle of The Books:  Can
progressives match the forces of darkness (they call
them "conservatives")?

Coulter has a million-dollar Right Wing campaign behind her --
thereby allowing her and other hate-salesmen to control the media
and the national discussion. The Coulter crew buys and dumps massive
amounts of books, buying her way onto the bestseller list.  I have
only you.

Asia Times says, "Greg Palast, the man widely considered as the top
investigative journalist in the United States, is persona non grata
in his own country's media."  But it's not ME that's 'non grata,'
it's the information about the Washington regime -- that is shut out
of the Fox-ified press.  They may not count ballots, but they sure
as hell count sales.  That's the blunt, ugly truth of it:  that's
how you get the attention of America's media.

Pick up Armed Madhouse this week at your local bookstore or through
Amazon or Barnes and Noble  You can get to these from my website
www.gregpalast.com/armedmadhouse/preorder.html

When my last book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, was released,
you made it a bestseller and, that ended the silence over the theft
of the 2000 vote.  We broke through the electronic Berlin wall of
the American media.

The new book out today, Armed Madhouse, details the fix of the 2004
election, the Bush Administration's confidential, and surprising,
plans for Iraq's oil, the untold story of the destruction of New
Orleans, the dark, misunderstood economics of the rise of the India-
China colossus, Ken Lay's unindicted co-conspirators and many more
tales of the current regime you won't get on your nightly news.

Don't be fooled by the fact that the book is entertaining -- this is
my most serious investigative reporting yet, connecting Venezuela's
petrodollars, 3.6 million missing ballots, Thomas Friedman,
Hurricane Katrina and, the death of General Motors and the Arnold
Schwarzenegger's tawdry little gatherings with Ken Lay.

The full title is Armed Madhouse:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?,
China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind
Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
Welcome to the world of militarized greed, where America's panic
over lunatics with box-cutters has metastasized into a billion-
dollar fear industry, where Republicans sucking on Super-Sized
Slurpees hunt dark-skinned voters on 'caging lists' for elimination,
and James Baker's fixer in alligator boots sets up the grab for
Iraq's oil on her way to the rodeo.  Plus 50 illustrations,
including several marked "secret" by the State Department and a
brilliant recipe for fish curry.

Hear excerpts from Armed Madhouse read by Amy Goodman, Randi Rhodes,
Larry David, Janeane Garofalo and others at
http://www.gregpalast.com/section/podcasts

Randi Rhodes calls it the "best investigative reporting in America --
  and the funniest."  And deadly serious at the same time.  Please
get their attention -- and get it today.  Yes, this is a hard sell
for this book -- and for good reason:  I'm asked again and again,
What can we DO?  The answer is, we can't do anything until we're
INFORMED.  We can't prevent the theft of the '08 election until you
know the crazy details of the theft of '04.  We can't shield
ourselves from economic slaughter until we have the hard, if hidden,
facts of class conflict from the Sino-dollar panic to the
privatization of hurricane planning.  That's why I wrote this book:
as a class war defense course.

And that's why Code Pink, Operation PUSH, Ohio Citizens for Secure
Elections, Democracy for America affiliates and a score of other
front-line organizations are sponsoring the Armed Madhouse book tour.

The ARMED MADHOUSE TOUR BEGINS TONIGHT.  I will be traveling to
twenty cities across the US to meet with you during teach-ins, which
will expose economic piggery so deep and devious you'll just have to
scream or cry - or laugh.

For a list of cities and locations, see the end of this email or go
to: http://www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/index.php/tour/tour-dates/

For sponsors and sponsorship info, go to:
http://www.gregpalast.com/armedmadhouse/madhousesponsors.html

Armed Madhouse Table of Contents here:
http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=495

Read an excerpt from Armed Madhouse:
http://www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/index.php/category/excerpts


Armed Madhouse Tour:

Tue. June 6. San Francisco
Wed. June 7. Berkeley
Wed. June 7. Santa Rosa
Thurs. June 8. Seattle
Fri. June 9. San Francisco
Fri. June 9. Los Angeles
Sat. June 10. San Diego
Sun. June 11. Chicago
Mon. June 12. Washington D.C.
Tue. June 13. NYC
Wed. June 14. NYC
Thur. June 15. Boulder
Fri. June 16. Denver
Sat. June 17. Albuquerque
Sun. June 18. Austin
Mon. June 19. Houston
Tue. June 20. Columbus
Thur. June 21. Albany
Fri. June 23. Atlanta
Sat. June 24. Tampa

Details at http://www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/index.php/tour/tour-
dates/

***

'Godless' Is Gutless
By Greg Palast
6-7-6

Anne Coulter says we're "Godless" - we "liberals."  And
by "liberals," she means anyone who wants to keep the government out
of our underpants, out of Iraq, and out of the business of helping
Big Business shoplift America.

It's time someone took on the blonde bully.

Anne, I realize yesterday was special day for you, releasing your
book on June 6 - 06-06-06.

Going through it, I must, admit, is heavy going:  'Godless' is a 300-
page brick of solid meanness and pin-head hatreds packaged like a
fashion magazine:  Big Brother wears Prada.

You accuse those who don't sign on to your list of prejudices as the
Lord's enemies.   That's not original, Anne:  the Taliban thought of
it before you and they too were partial to dressing in black.

You want to talk about Godless?  OK, let's go:

Would the Lord lie us into a war?

Would the Lord let thousands drown in New Orleans while chilling at
a golf resort?

Would the Lord have removed tens of thousands of Black soldiers from
the voter rolls as the Republican Party did in 2004?

You talk about being "Christian" - but with all your zeal to fire up
electric chairs and Abrams tanks, you sound more like a Roman.

I suggest this, Anne:  let's debate.  Set the time, set the place,
and I'll be there.  Nose to nose, my facts versus your fanaticism.

But I know you don't have the guts to do anything but lob idiocies
from your electronic Fox-hole.

Your new book is called, "Godless."  Your autobiography should be
called, "Gutless."
**********
Greg Palast, winner of the George Orwell Courage-In-Journalism
Prize, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy.  Yesterday, he released his book, Armed
Madhouse:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the
Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches
from the Front Lines of the Class War."  Order it now from
www.GregPalast.com or your local book shop.

***

June 2, 2006

How They Stole Ohio
The GOP 4-step Recipe to 'Blackwell' the USA in 2008
Abracadabra: Three Million Votes Vanish
AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast

Heads up! Catch Robert Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Greg Palast
this next Saturday, June 10th, on Air America's 'Ring of Fire' on
the shoplifting of the last election & and the next one.

This is a fact: On November 2, 2004, in the State of Ohio, 239,127
votes for President of the United States were dumped, rejected,
blocked, lost and left to rot uncounted.

And not just anyone's vote. Dive into the electoral dumpster and
these "spoiled" votes have a very dark color indeed.

In another life, I taught statistics. And these statistics stank:
the raw data tells us that if you are a Black voter, the chance of
you losing your vote to technical errors in voting machinery is 900%
higher than if you were a white voter.

Any guesses as to whom those African-Americans chose for president
on those junked ballots? Check Ohio's racial demographics, do the
numbers, and there it is: Kerry won Ohio. And that, too, is a fact.
A fact that could not get reported in the USA.

But the shoplifting of those votes in Ohio was just the tip of the
theft-berg. November 2, 2004 was a national ballot-box bonfire. In
total, over three million votes (3,600,380 to be exact) were cast --
marked, punched, pulled -- YET NEVER COUNTED. I'm not talking about
the Ukraine or Uganda. I'm talking about the United States of
America "with liberty and justice for all."

Well, not "all." The nine-to-one Black-to-White ballot spoilage rate
is a national statistic -- not just an Ohio trick. Last year, I flew
to New Mexico to investigate the 33,981 cast but not counted ballots
of that state in the 2004 race. George Bush "won" New Mexico by
5,988 votes. Or did he? I calculated that, of all the ballots
rejected and "spoiled," 89% were cast by voters of color. Who won
New Mexico? Kerry won -- or he would have, if they had counted the
ballots.

But they didn't count them. And that was deliberate. It's in the
plan. It's the program. And the program for 2008 is simple. Two
million ballots were cast but not counted in the 2000 race. (Over
half, 54%, were cast by African-Americans.) In 2004, the GOP kicked
it up to THREE million. Get ready, these guys aim high: "four
in '06" and "five in '08" looks to be their game plan.

How will they pile up five million un-voters in 2008? Let's start
with the three million "disappeared" of 2004:

Step 1: "Spoiling" ballots -- 1,389,231 of them. In the vote-count
game, these are called "undervotes" and "overvotes." You can
recognize these lost ballots by their hanging chads, punch cards
without punches (an Ohio specialty), paper ballots eaten by
scanners, and touch screens that didn't know you touched them.

Step 2: Rejecting "provisional ballots" -- 1,090,729 in this pile.
Voters finding themselves at the "wrong" precinct, or
wrongly "scrubbed" from voter rolls get these back-of-the-bus
ballots first inaugurated in 2002. In '04, provisional ballots were
passed out like candy to voters in the poorest precincts. They
handed them out -- then threw them away -- one million dumped in
all. In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell
changed state rules, allowing him to toss out the ballots of legal
voters who cast ballots in the wrong precinct although these
citizens were told their vote would count after confirming their
registration.

Step 3: Not counting absentee ballots -- 526,420 of them. At least,
that's what we figure from official stats. But it's 1anyone's guess
how many mailed-in votes were dumped. (However, in one case, in Palm
Beach, Florida, Jeb Bush's candidate for Elections Supervisor,
Theresa LaPore, counted more absentee votes than absentee ballots
mailed in. Not the brightest bulb in the vote-fix biz, that
Theresa.)

Step 4: Scrub'm, Purge'm, Block'm. These are the voters who never
got to vote at all. This group includes those who found their
registrations were never entered on the voter rolls. In Ohio, about
one-fourth of those registered by Jesse Jackson's 2004 voter drive,
found their registrations delayed beyond the election date or lost.

Add to this un-voter group, those who were wrongly "scrubbed" from
registries as "felons." For example, there was Bernice Kines, purged
in Florida in 2004 because she was convicted of a felony on July 31,
2009. I repeat: 2009. There was something especially odd about the
Ohio felon purge: ex-cons are ALLOWED to vote in that state, Mr.
Blackwell.

How many lost their chance to vote by scrubbing, purging and
blocking? That's anyone's guess, but one million would not be an
unfair estimate -- and that's not included in the 3.6 million tally
of ballots uncounted.

Was it deliberate? Oh, my God, yes. I'd like you to take a look at
the "caging" lists the Republican National Committee concocted to
challenge voters with "suspect" addresses. It included page after
page of African-American soldiers, like one Randall Prausa, shipped
overseas. Mission accomplished, Mr. President?

And there's some new tricks for these old dogs. For 2006 and 2008,
the GOP is pushing new Voter ID requirements. Your signature won't
be good enough anymore.

What's wrong with the new ID laws? This: In the 2004 election,
300,000 voters were turned away from the polls for "wrong" ID. For
example, in the "Little Texas" counties in New Mexico, if your voter
registration included a middle initial but your driver's license had
none, you were kicked out of the polling station. Funny, but they
only seemed to ask Hispanic voters. We should see the number of
voters rejected for ID quintuple by 2008, based on the new "voting
reform" laws recently passed in several states.

Also, coming to a polling station near you: more caging lists, scrub
lists, ID challenge lists and more. Exactly why do you think they
are compiling those "War on Terror" and War on Immigration
databases? Behind the 2000 felon purge lists and behind the 2004
caging lists were databases from the same companies that now have
those homeland security contracts. Are they saving us from Osama --
or from Democrats?

I wish I could give you a book on a page, because information is our
weapon: Turn on the lights and the cockroaches scatter. That's why
I'm asking you to read RFK's article on the "Theft of Ohio" in
Rolling Stone magazine -- and GET ANGRY. Then read, Armed
Madhouse: . The Scheme to Steal '08 -- AND GET READY.

AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is author of ARMED MADHOUSE:
Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Scheme to Steal 'O8, No Child's
Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class
War. Order it at http://www.ArmedMadhouse.com

Also, check http://www.Bradblog.com and AirAmericaRadio.com for the
audio of Janeane Garofalo, Brad Friedman and Randi Rhodes
reading "Kerry Won" and other sections of Armed Madhouse.

Then belly up to the beast: Join Greg Palast and the Reverend Jesse
Jackson (in Chicago), Amy Goodman (in New York), Bob Fitrakis (in
Columbus) and others for the 24-city US/UK Armed Madhouse Class War
Boot Camp meetings. They begin this Monday, sponsored by Ohio
Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, Operation PUSH, Oregon Voter
Action, Activist San Diego and Pacifica Radio. For dates and
locations, go to http://www.gregpalast.com.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Congress Snivels While Bush Breaks Laws
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real
Posted on June 9, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/37263/

Am I missing something? I mean, I wasn't exactly an A student in
civics class, but I do clearly recall that the way the U.S.
Constitution was written -- and remains unamended -- is that
Congress passes bills and the president either signs them into law
or vetoes them. If he signs a bill, it becomes a law that the
executive branch is then constitutionally required to enforce.

Am I wrong about that? Did I miss the passage of a constitutional
amendment that changed the balance of power established by our
founders?

If not, then the president of the United States has broken the law,
not just once, but hundreds of times.

That's how many times this guy has signed bills into law and then,
after the camera left, signed a separate document he calls "a
signing statement," that, in effect, says, "Just kidding. Here's
which parts of that bill I just signed that I will enforce, and
which parts I won't enforce."

Phillip Cooper is a leading expert on signing statements; in fact he
wrote the book on the subject: By Order of the President: The Use
and Abuse of Executive Direct Action. Two years ago Cooper wrote
that George W. Bush had issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 in
2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003,
raising 142 constitutional challenges; and 23 statements in 2004,
raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first
term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to
various provisions of legislation that became law.

That number has now passed 750.

The White House claims all this is constitutionally kosher. But how
can it be? Would someone explain to me how these noxious signing
statements are any different from the line-item veto, which the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional? If you read one of Bush's
signing statements they read very much like a line-item veto -- "Yes
to this part of the bill, no to this part," etc. Sure looks like a
duck to me.

For those of you unfamiliar with a Bush signing statement, here's a
sample. Bush signed this little gem right after signing the USA
Patriot Act "Improvement and Reauthorization Act," earlier this
year. The president hailed that bill in a presigning statement for
the cameras. What he didn't mention was the little piece of paper
under the bill that he would sign after everyone left the room. Here
it is:


President's Signing Statement on H.R. 199, "USA PATRIOT Improvement
and Reauthorization Act of 2005"


Today signed into law H.R. 3199, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and
Reauthorization Act of 2005," and then S. 2271, the "USA PATRIOT Act
Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006." The bills will
help us continue to fight terrorism effectively and to combat the
use of the illegal drug methamphetamine that is ruining too many
lives.


The executive branch shall construe the provisions of H.R. 3199 that
call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive
branch, such as sections 106A and 119, in a manner consistent with
the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary
executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which
could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative
processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's
constitutional duties.


The executive branch shall construe section 756(e)(2) of H.R. 3199,
which calls for an executive branch official to submit to the
Congress recommendations for legislative action, in a manner
consistent with the President's constitutional authority to
supervise the unitary executive branch and to recommend for the
consideration of the Congress such measures as he judges necessary
and expedient.


GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 9, 2006.

"Shall construe?" Who gives a fig how the president "construes"
something he's about to sign? Surely not the U.S. Constitution. And
most certainly the courts don't care. I've read a lot of Supreme
Court cases where the "intent of Congress" in passing a bill was
central to the case. But I have never heard of a case in which
the "intent of the president" in signing a bill was given a
scintilla of regard. Because it doesn't matter, constitutionally. If
the court sees that a president signed a bill, rather than vetoing
it, they consider it prima facie evidence of only one thing -- that
the president intended to sign the bill into law. Not some of it;
all of it.

(Besides, when it comes to "construing" the meaning of laws, isn't
that the job of the third branch of government, the courts? Is Bush
claiming that right now as well? Our newly self-minted Construer in
Chief-Justice?)

Therefore, can any party of the first, second, third or millionth
part, explain to me why a single member of Congress has yet to drag
this White House into court over this clear and present attack on
the Constitution's separation of powers?

After all, established law (stare decisis) is on the side of the
angels in this matter. We've been here before, and not that long
ago. The Supreme Court settled this matter with a clear and
unambiguous decision in 1998. The court ruled against a law Congress
passed that granted the president the power to pick and chose which
budget items he would or would not enforce, the line-item veto. The
court struck it down and told both Congress and the president that,
if they wanted to rearrange the constitutional balances of power,
the only constitutionally legal way is with a constitutional
amendment.


"U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan decided on February 12,
1998 that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes
violated the U.S. Constitution. This ruling was subsequently
affirmed on June 25, 1998 by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States in the case Clinton v. City of New York." Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy, in a concurrence of the opinion of the Court,
objected to the argument that the Act did not violate principles of
the separation of powers and threaten individual liberty, stating
that the "undeniable effects" of the Act were to "enhance the
President's power to reward one group and punish another, to help
one set of taxpayers and hurt another, to favor one State and ignore
another." (More)

Bush's signing statements are an even more egregious constitutional
insult than the line-item veto. At least the line-item veto was
granted to the president by Congress. This time Congress wasn't even
asked. Bush simply claimed this power for himself. And so far, he's
gotten away with it.

So, I ask again, why has no member of Congress filed suit? You would
think that they would at least be offended. Besides being
unconstitutional, Bush's signing statements are also condescending.
They might as well be worded like this:


To: Congress
From: The President of the United States


To Whom it May Concern:
I have read your bill noted above and I signed it in front of the TV
cameras surrounded by all you smiling jackals. Because I understand
you need to show your constituents back home that you really are
doing something up here after all.


But I didn't like some of the parts of the bill you gave me. Rather
than embarrass you with a veto or -- God forbid! -- provide you with
an opportunity to embarrass me with veto override, I will simply
ignore the parts of this bill that I don't like.


So, for your records, here is my marked-up copy of your bill. For
your convenience I drew a happy face :-) next to the sections I will
enforce, and a frowny face :-( next to the sections I intend to
ignore.


Now, y'all all have a nice day.
George W. Bush :-)

This administration has usurped plenty of congressional power over
the last six years as well as chipping away at the third "co-equal"
branch of government, the courts. But Bush's signing statements,
which treat congressional legislation like boxes of See's candy, are
the most blatant, obnoxious and dangerous coup of them all.


"These signing statements are to Bush and Cheney's presidency what
steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding. Like
Schwarzenegger with his steroids, Bush does not deny using his
signing statements; does not like talking about using them; and
believes that they add muscle. But like steroids, signing statements
ultimately lead to serious trouble." --John W. Dean, former White
House Counsel under Nixon

Where's Congress today? Well, the Senate is voting on an amendment
to the Constitution -- to protect us from the scourge of same-sex
marriages.

Where are key Democrats?

Hey, Hillary, tell us if you will, which poses the greatest threat
to the American way of life -- flag burning or presidential signing
statements? Hmm?

Hello, members of Congress! Is anyone home? Did you all forget that
the Supreme Court is just across the street? Hell, you could pitch a
briefcase full of Bush's signing statements and hit the goddamn
place. Shouldn't you be storming the steps of the Supreme Court,
frothing at the mouth, lawyers in tow, demanding the court's
immediate and urgent attention to this attack on the legislative
branches' constitutional power?

Shouldn't you? After all, didn't each of you take the oath pledging
to "obey and protect the U.S. Constitution"? Or did you have your
own little signing statement tucked into your pocket when you took
that oath? Maybe you signed later. You know, "just kidding." That's
about the only thing that would explain it. I look forward more and
more with each passing day to the first Tuesday of November. Because
on that day I'm going into the voting booth loaded for bear --
incumbent bear. Shame on you. You are beneath contempt. All of you.

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside
Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was
nominated for a Pulitzer.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

CIA LEAK INVESTIGATION
What Ashcroft Was Told
By Murray Waas, National Journal
NationalJournal.com
Thursday, June 8, 2006

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft continued to oversee the Valerie
Plame-CIA leak probe for more than two months in late 2003 after he
learned in extensive briefings that FBI agents suspected White House
aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of trying to mislead
the FBI to conceal their roles in the leak, according to government
records and interviews. Despite these briefings, which took place
between October and December 2003, and despite the fact that senior
White House aides might become central to the leak case, Ashcroft
did not recuse himself from the matter until December 30, when he
allowed the appointment of a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald,
to take over the investigation.

In late 2003, the attorney general was told that FBI agents
suspected White House aides of trying to conceal their roles in
leaking Valerie Plame's identity.

According to people with firsthand knowledge of the briefings,
senior Justice Department officials told Ashcroft that the FBI had
uncovered evidence that Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President
Dick Cheney, had misled the bureau about his role in the leaking of
Plame's identity to the press.

By November, investigators had obtained personal notes of Libby's
that indicated he had first learned from Cheney that Plame was a CIA
officer. But Libby was insisting in FBI interviews that he had
learned Plame's name and identity from journalists. Libby was also
telling investigators that when he told reporters that Plame worked
for the CIA, he was only passing along an unsubstantiated rumor.

Officials also told Ashcroft that investigators did not believe
Libby's account, according to sources knowledgeable about the
briefings, and that Libby might have lied to the FBI to defend
other -- more senior -- administration officials.

Ashcroft was told no later than November 2003 that investigators
also doubted the accounts that Rove, President George W. Bush's
chief political adviser, had given the FBI as to how he, too,
learned that Plame was a CIA officer and how he came to disclose
that information to columnist Robert Novak.

It was Novak who, in a July 14, 2003, syndicated column, outed Plame
as a CIA employee, relying on Rove as one of his sources.

In a briefing devoted specifically to Rove and Novak, sources said,
officials told Ashcroft that investigators believed it was possible
that the presidential aide and the columnist had devised a cover
story to present to the FBI to make it appear that Rove had not been
a source for Novak's column.

Ashcroft's decision to continue overseeing the leak investigation
through December of 2003 was a sore point among some federal
investigators: Rove and Libby were top aides to the president and
vice president at the time, and Rove also had been a political
consultant to Ashcroft in his senatorial and gubernatorial
campaigns.

Since the Watergate era, attorneys general have traditionally
disqualified themselves from politically sensitive investigations
that involve their friends and political associates, or those of the
presidents they serve. Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics
at New York University, said in an interview that Ashcroft should
have recused himself from the Plame probe "once he learned that the
people professionally trained to draw these inferences" -- namely,
the FBI investigators -- "believed there was substantial reason that
Rove and Libby were involved in the leak."

Gillers added: "There is always going to be an interim period during
which you decide you will recuse or not recuse. But [Ashcroft]
should have had an 'aha!' moment when he learned that someone,
figuratively, or in this case literally, next door to the president
of the United States -- who was Ashcroft's boss -- was under
suspicion."

Ashcroft declined to comment for this article. But in October 2003,
Mark Corallo, then a spokesman for Ashcroft, said in an interview
with this reporter that Ashcroft maintained an intense interest in
the probe because he considered it imperative to determine who
leaked Plame's identity. "The attorney general wants this to be
investigated thoroughly and promptly, and to that end, he wants to
be informed of the progress of the investigators," Corallo said.
Corallo now serves as a spokesman for Rove on the CIA leak case.

Current and former Justice officials not directly involved in the
case said in interviews for this article, almost without exception,
that once senior aides to both the president and vice president came
under suspicion, Ashcroft should have recused himself entirely from
the case.

Ashcroft's Deep Interest
Although it has been known that Ashcroft was briefed on the Plame
investigation in the months before Fitzgerald was appointed, details
of those briefings have not emerged until now.

The Justice Department's involvement in the case began with the
announcement on September 30, 2003 -- two and a half months after
Plame was outed in Novak's column -- that the department was
responding to a CIA request to launch an investigation.

Plame, who had a covert agency job working on issues of weapons
proliferation, was unmasked at a time when the White House was
conducting a broad effort, led by Cheney and his staff, to discredit
Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

In March 2002, the CIA had sent Wilson to Niger to look into
allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure weapons-grade
uranium from the African nation. Wilson reported back that he found
no factual basis for the allegations. President Bush and other
senior administration officials, however, cited the Niger-Iraq
connection as one reason for invading Iraq. In the spring of 2003,
Wilson was publicly alleging that the Bush administration had
misrepresented intelligence information to make its case to go to
war with Iraq. Wilson's best-known account of his findings in Niger
appeared in a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed.

Looking to undermine Wilson's credibility, Rove, Libby, and at least
one other senior administration official told reporters that Plame
had arranged for her husband's CIA-sponsored trip, casting it as
nepotism.

On September 30, the same day that Justice announced the leak probe,
Bush praised the decision: "There's just too many leaks, and if
there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.
If the person violated [the] law, the person will be taken care of.
And so I welcome the investigation."

In a statement that day, Ashcroft, perhaps sensitive to the fact
that he was a political appointee of the president, said that
prosecutors and FBI agents "who are and will be handling the
investigation are career professionals with extensive experience in
handling matters involving sensitive national security information."

Ashcroft showed a deep interest in the investigation from its very
inception, seeking regular briefings on its progress, according to
Corallo, to the congressional testimony of senior Justice officials
who briefed the attorney general on the matter, and to interviews
with current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The briefings for Ashcroft were conducted by Christopher Wray, then
the assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division,
and John Dion, a 30-year career prosecutor who was the day-to-day
supervisor of the investigation.

On October 16, about two weeks after the investigation had begun,
Ashcroft assured the public, "I believe that we have been making
progress that's valuable in this matter." Asked about the possible
appointment of a special prosecutor, Ashcroft said, "I have not
foreclosed any options in this matter."

What the public did not know was that two days earlier, the FBI had
interviewed Libby for the first time. It was in that interview that
Libby first insisted that in mentioning to reporters -- specifically
Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York
Times -- that Plame worked for the CIA, he had been careful to point
out that the information was unsubstantiated gossip he had heard
from other journalists. Libby also told the FBI that a day or two
before he spoke to Cooper and Miller, he was told about Plame by NBC
Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert.

According to Libby's first FBI interview, which is summarized in the
grand jury indictment of Libby that was handed up in October
2005: "During a conversation with Tim Russert on NBC News on July 10
or 11, 2003, Russert asked Libby if Libby was aware that Wilson's
wife worked for the CIA; Libby responded to Russert that he did not
know that, and Russert replied that all the reporters knew it." On
July 12, 2003, Libby spoke with Miller and Cooper, telling them that
Plame worked for the CIA.

In November 2003, the FBI interviewed Libby a second time, and
information derived from that briefing was also passed on to
Ashcroft, sources said.

Around this same time, FBI agents had obtained Libby's own notes
stating that Cheney, not Russert, was the person who told Libby
about Plame's CIA connection. Also by then, investigators had
obtained other government records and the accounts of other
witnesses indicating that Wilson's Niger mission and Plame's
possible role in sending her husband to Africa were major
preoccupations for the vice president. As the agents interviewed
Libby, they showed him his own notes on Cheney's disclosure to him
about Plame's CIA job.

According to the FBI report cited in Libby's indictment, when
Russert supposedly told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA, "Libby
was surprised by this statement because, while speaking with
Russert, Libby did not recall that he previously had learned about
Wilson's wife's employment from the vice president."

Although the FBI had not yet been able to interview any of the
journalists -- Russert, Cooper, or Miller -- they were skeptical of
Libby's account, sources said. Word of their concern was passed up
to Ashcroft in a routine briefing on the status of the leak probe.

Within, at most, 10 days of the interview with Libby, sources said,
Ashcroft was briefed not only on what Libby had told the FBI but
also on the evidence that had made FBI agents and prosecutors doubt
his story. Later, investigators obtained Libby's handwritten notes
that showed that Libby had learned about Plame from Cheney.

Wray, the head of the criminal division, and Bruce C. Swartz, a
deputy assistant attorney general who oversees criminal
investigations involving sensitive national security matters, were
later told of the notes' existence and of the investigators' belief
that Libby might have been holding back to protect Cheney. It is
unclear, however, whether Ashcroft was briefed in detail regarding
Cheney before he recused himself from the Plame case.

Other papers that the White House later turned over to federal
investigators would show that Cheney had been a driving force in
encouraging Libby to discredit Wilson's allegations against the Bush
administration.

Both Libby and Cheney have adamantly denied that the vice president
ever encouraged Libby to leak Plame's CIA status to the media. But
over time, both Fitzgerald and attorneys for Libby have presented
new information in court filings that Cheney was personally involved
in the broader effort against Wilson.

In papers filed in federal court on May 12, 2006, for example,
Fitzgerald noted that Cheney was so upset over Wilson's New York
Times op-ed that the vice president made handwritten notes in the
margin of a photocopy of the column. Cheney wrote in the
margin: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb
[assador] to answer a question?" referring to the CIA's decision to
send a former ambassador, Wilson, on an intelligence fact-finding
mission. Cheney also wrote: "Do we ordinarily send people out pro
bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

In his filing, Fitzgerald wrote: "Those annotations support the
proposition that publication of the Wilson op-ed acutely focused the
attention of the vice president and the defendant -- his chief of
staff -- on Mr. Wilson, on assertions made in his article, and on
responding to those assertions." It is unclear whether investigators
reviewed Cheney's annotations while Ashcroft was overseeing the CIA
probe, but sources say that investigators had by then already
theorized that Libby might be trying to stymie the FBI.

Charles Wolfram, a professor emeritus of legal ethics at Cornell Law
School, said the "most distressing" ethical aspect of the case was
that Ashcroft continued overseeing the Plame probe even after
Cheney's name arose. "This should have been a matter of common
sense," Wolfram said. Ashcroft "should have left it to career
prosecutors whether or not to go after politically sensitive
targets. You can't have Ashcroft investigate the people who
appointed him or of his own political party."

Unique Hurdles

Around the same date that Libby was interviewed, the FBI also
questioned Rove for the first time. During that interview, and later
in his initial appearance before the grand jury, Rove did not
disclose that he had spoken about Plame to Time magazine's Cooper.
Ashcroft wasn't briefed about the omission because at that time
investigators apparently didn't know that Rove and Cooper had talked
on July 9, 2003, just before Novak's column appeared.

Rove's failure in the early stages of the CIA leak probe to provide
information on his conversation with Cooper about Plame is one of
the reasons Rove is still under investigation by Fitzgerald.

Although FBI investigators did not know of the Rove-Cooper phone
call, they were skeptical about Rove's account of his July
conversation with Novak. Both Rove and Novak have since said that
Rove was one of "two senior administration officials" cited as
sources in Novak's column.

According to the accounts of their conversation that both Rove and
Novak later gave to investigators, the subject of Wilson's trip to
Niger and any role played by Plame came up at the very end of a
conversation on an entirely different matter.

Rove told the FBI that when Novak mentioned Plame's CIA connection
and that she might have played a role in selecting her husband to go
to Niger, he (Rove) simply said that he had heard much the same
information. According to sources, Novak later told investigators a
virtually identical story.

Ashcroft was advised during the fall 2003 briefings that
investigators had strong doubts about Novak's and Rove's accounts of
their July 9 conversation. The investigators were skeptical that
Novak would have relied merely on an offhand comment from Rove as
the basis for writing his column about Plame.

Questioned further, Rove told investigators that he originally heard
the information about Plame from a person whose name he could not
remember. That person, he said, might have been a journalist,
although he was not certain. Rove has also said that he could not
recall whether the conversation about Plame took place in person or
over the telephone.

Rove's version was strikingly similar to the one from Libby, who had
also been a source for reporters about Plame. Libby's version to the
FBI was that in telling reporters that Plame worked for the CIA and
may have played a role in sending Wilson to Niger, he was merely
passing on unsubstantiated rumors that he had heard from other
reporters. But the indictment of Libby alleges that he lied about
this, and instead was told about Plame by Cheney, an undersecretary
of State, and at least two other government officials.

As National Journal reported recently, investigators further
believed -- based on the timing of phone calls between Rove and
Novak, and on other evidence -- that the Bush adviser and the
columnist may have devised a cover story to conceal Rove's role in
leaking information about Plame to Novak. Investigators were so
concerned about this possibility that Ashcroft received a briefing
specifically on that one topic, according to people familiar with
those briefings.

Corallo, now a spokesman for Rove, said in a statement: "Karl Rove
has never urged anyone directly or indirectly to withhold
information from the special counsel or testify falsely." James
Hamilton, an attorney for Novak, said he could not comment on the
ongoing CIA leak probe. And a spokesperson for Fitzgerald said his
office would not comment.

As the leak probe progressed through the fall of 2003, Rove's past
work as a political adviser to Ashcroft in three of his political
campaigns was not the only concern for career Justice Department
officials, sources said. Also not lost to some career prosecutors
was the fact that a number of Ashcroft's top aides at Justice had
come from the Republican National Committee.

During the initial stages of the Plame investigation, the RNC was at
the forefront of the Bush administration's effort to stymie demands
for the appointment of a special prosecutor and to continue the
campaign to discredit Wilson. To some career investigators, the RNC
appeared to be acting as a proxy for the White House in attempting
to thwart the naming of a special prosecutor.

David Israelite, who was a deputy chief of staff to Ashcroft, had
been the RNC's political director. Barbara Comstock, who was
Ashcroft's director of public affairs, had been in charge of the
RNC's opposition research department. Corallo, who succeeded
Comstock at Justice under Ashcroft, had also worked for the RNC.
Currently, Comstock is serving as a spokeswoman for Libby and his
legal team as he prepares for trial early next year.

In the fall of 2003, senior Justice officials concerned about the
investigation faced unique hurdles in seeking Ashcroft's recusal,
current and former federal law enforcement officials said in
interviews.

Wray, head of the Criminal Division, was supervising the
investigation. Ordinarily, if he had sought Ashcroft's recusal,
ultimate authority over the investigation would have fallen to the
deputy attorney general. But that position was then vacant.

On October 3, President Bush had nominated James B. Comey, the U.S.
attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be deputy
attorney general. The leak probe was just getting under way, and
Comey was awaiting Senate confirmation.

Meanwhile, the acting deputy attorney general was Robert D.
McCallum, a Yale classmate of Bush's and a lifelong friend of the
president and first lady Laura Bush. Bush and McCallum were inducted
together into the secret Skull and Bones Society at Yale.

If Ashcroft were to recuse himself from the Plame investigation,
several current and former officials said in interviews, it was a
virtual certainty that McCallum would have had to recuse himself as
well, putting Wray in charge of the probe.

By seeking Ashcroft's recusal, Wray would in effect have been
placing himself in charge of one of the nation's most politically
sensitive investigations, without anyone to oversee or supervise
him.

"He was really in a difficult position," said a former Justice
Department official. "If Wray had walked into the AG's office and
asked that Ashcroft recuse, Wray would have in effect been making
himself the de facto attorney general" in the matter. The official
went on to say: "But Ashcroft should have known on his own what to
do. He didn't need to be asked. He didn't need to be pushed. He
should have just done it."

On December 9, 2003, the Senate unanimously confirmed Comey as
deputy attorney general. It would not be long before Comey was
privately arguing that Ashcroft should step aside and name a special
prosecutor.

In announcing Ashcroft's recusal and Fitzgerald's appointment on
December 30, Comey said that Ashcroft had made the decision: "The
attorney general, in an abundance of caution, believed that his
recusal was appropriate based on the totality of circumstances and
the facts and evidence developed at this stage of the
investigation," Comey said. "I agree with that judgment."

Asked what might have caused the Fitzgerald appointment, Comey
said: "If you were to speculate in print or in the media about
particular people, I think that would be unfair to them." Then he
added, almost as an afterthought, "We don't want people that we
might be interested in to know we're interested in them."

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Who was Abu Musab al Zarqawi?
By Michel Chossudovsky
GlobalResearch.ca
Jun 12, 2006

Mythical figure and terror mastermind Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was
killed in an air raid, according to a statement of the Iraqi
government.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced at a press
conference . "We have eliminated Zarqawi." The head of US-led forces
in Iraq, General George Casey, said the strike against an "isolated
safe house" took place at 1815 (1415 GMT) on Wednesday. (BBC, 7 June
2006)

"Jordanian-born Zarqawi was said to have been in a meeting with
associates at the time. Several other people were reported to have
been killed in the raid. General Casey said Zarqawi's body was
identified through fingerprints, facial recognition and known
scars."  (Ibid)

Zarqawi has been upheld both in official statements and the media as
head of  "the Sunni insurgency",  leader of "al-Qaeda in Iraq",
allegedly responsible for the the killings of thousands of civilians.

Intelligence Asset

The evidence suggests, however, that Zarqawi was part of a Pentagon
disinformation campaign launched in 2003, which was initially
intended to justify the US led invasion of Iraq. This central role
of Zarqawi as an instrument of war propaganda was recently confirmed
by leaked military documents revealed by the Washington Post.

The Pentagon had set up a "Zarqawi program". Military documents
confirm that the role of Zarqawi had been deliberately "magnified"
with a view to galvanizing public support for the US-UK led "war on
terrorism":

"The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal
military documents. "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia
response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed
three methods: "Media operations," "Special Ops (626)" (a reference
to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to
hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein's government)
and "PSYOP," the U.S. military term for propaganda work . . ." (WP.
10 April 2006)

An internal document produced by U.S. military headquarters in Iraq,
states that "the Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful
information campaign to date." (WP, op cit). (For further details
see: Who is behind "Al Qaeda in Iraq"? Pentagon acknowledges
fabricating a "Zarqawi Legend" - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2006-04-18)

Is Zarqawi's  Death Part of Pentagon PSYOP?

If indeed Zarqawi was fabricated to deliberately mislead public
opinion, what are the implications of his death in the process of
media disinformation? Is the killing of Zarqawi part of the Pentagon
PSYOP program?

The Bush adminstration is already announcing "a post-Zarqawi era",
suggesting that with the death of its presumed leader,
the "insurgency" is in the process of being defeated. Zarqawi's
death was an opportunity for the new government to "turn the tide",
President Bush said.  "The ideology of terror has lost one of its
most visible and aggressive leaders."

The killing of Zarqawi has occurred at a time when Bush's public
support is at an all time low, as confirmed by the opinion polls. In
a press conference at the White House, Bush underscored the role of
Zarqawi. as "commnders of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a
campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that
has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of
innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist the
prince of Al Qaida in Iraq. He called on the terrorists around the
world to listen to him and obey him."

"Now Zarqawi has met his end and this violent man will never murder
again." suggesting that the US has from now on the upper hand in
Iraq. "Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to Al Qaida. It's a victory
in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new
government to turn the tide of this struggle."

Zarqawi's death has also served as a convenient coverup of the
extensive war crimes committed by coalition forces in Iraq.  The
news coverage suggests that Zarqawi rather than coaltion forces are
responsible for countless atrocities and civilian deaths. In the
words of Don Rumsfeld, the man who led the criminal invasion and
occupation of Iraq:  "I think arguably, over the last several years
no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent
man, women and children on his hands than Zarqawi."

Historical Background: Who Was Musab Abu al Zarqawi?

The following text first publish in June 2004, provides details on
the origin of the Zarqawi Legend and how this mythical figure was
used by Us intelligence to justify the invasion and occupation of
Iraq.

Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?
By Michel Chossudovsky
June 11, 2004
The US intelligence apparatus has created its own terrorist
organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist
warnings concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself
created. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar
counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations.

Counterterrorism and war propaganda  are intertwined. The propaganda
apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror
warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present
the terror groups as "enemies of America."

The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support
of America's war agenda.

The "war on terrorism" requires a humanitarian mandate. The war on
terrorism is presented as a "Just War", which is to be fought on
moral grounds "to redress a wrong suffered."

The Just War theory defines "good" and "evil." It concretely
portrays and personifies the terrorist leaders as "evil individuals".

Several prominent American intellectuals and antiwar activists, who
stand firmly opposed to the Bush administration, are nonetheless
supporters of the Just War theory: "We are against war in all its
forms but we support the campaign against international terrorism."

To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism must
remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly
reminded of the terrorist threat.

The propaganda campaign presents the portraits of the leaders behind
the terror network. In other words, at the level of what constitutes
an  "advertising"  campaign, "it gives a face to terror." The "war
on terrorism" rests on the creation of one or more evil bogeymen,
the terror leaders, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, et al,
whose names and photos are presented ad nauseam in daily news
reports.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is presented to World public opinion, as the
upcoming terrorist mastermind, overshadowing "Enemy Number One",
Osama bin Laden. The U.S. State Department has increased the reward
for his arrest from $10 million to $25 million, which puts
his "market value" at par with that of Osama. Ironically, Al Zarqawi
is not on the FBI most wanted fugitives list.
(http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/fugitives/fugitives.htm )

Al Zarqawi's Links to Al Qaeda

Al Zarqawi is often described as an "Osama associate", the bogeyman,
allegedly responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in several
countries.  In other reports, often emanating from the same sources,
it is stated that he has no links to Al Qaeda and operates quite
independently. He is often presented as an individual who is
challenging the leadership of bin Laden.

His name crops up on numerous occasions in press reports and
official statements. Since early 2004, he is in the news almost on a
daily basis.

Osama belongs to the powerful bin Laden family, which historically
had business ties to the Bushes and prominent members of the Texas
oil establishment. Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA during the
Soviet-Afghan war and fought as a Mujahideen. In other words, there
is a longstanding documented history of bin Laden-CIA and bin Laden-
Bush family links, which are an obvious source of embarrassment to
the US government.

In contrast to bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi has no family history. He comes
from an impoverished Palestinian family in Jordan. His parents are
dead. He emerges out of the blue.

He is described by CNN as "a lone wolf" who is said to act quite
independently of the Al Qaeda network. Yet surprisingly, this lone
wolf is present in several countries, in Iraq, which is now his
base, but also in Western Europe. He is also suspected of preparing
a terrorist attack on American soil.

He seems to be in several places at the same time. He is described
as "the chief U.S. enemy", "a master of disguise and bogus
identification papers". We are led to believe that this "lone wolf"
manages to outwit the most astute US intelligence operatives.

According to The Weekly Standard --which is known to have a close
relationship to the Neocons in the Bush administration:

"Abu Musab al Zarqawi is hot right now. He masterminded not only
Berg's murder but also the Madrid carnage on March 11, the
bombardment of Shia worshippers in Iraq the same month, and the
April 24 suicide attack on the port of Basra. But he is far from a
newcomer to slaughter. Well before 9/11, he had already concocted a
plot to kill Israeli and American tourists in Jordan. His label is
on terrorist groups and attacks on four continents."  (Weekly
Standard, 24 May 2004)

Al-Zarqawi's profile "is mounting a challenge to bin Laden's
leadership of the global jihad."

In Iraq, he is said to be determined to "ignite a civil war between
Sunnis and Shiites". But is that not precisely what US intelligence
is aiming at ( "divide and rule") as confirmed by several analysts
of the US led war? Pitting one group against the other with a view
to weakening the resistance movement. (See Michel Collon,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/COL312A.html , See also
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RAD308A.html

The CIA, with its $30 billion plus budget, pleads ignorance: they
say they know nothing about him, they have a photograph, but,
according to the Weekly Standard (24 May 2004), they apparently do
not know his weight or height.

There is an aura of mystery surrounding this individual which is
part of the propaganda ploy. Zarqawi is described as "so secretive
even some operatives who work with him do not know his identity."

Consistent Pattern

What is the role of this new mastermind in the Pentagon's
disinformation campaign, in which CNN seems to be playing a central
role?

In previous propaganda ploys, the CIA hired PR firms to organize
core disinformation campaigns, including the Rendon Group. The
latter worked closely with its British partner Hill and Knowlton,
which was responsible for the 1990 Kuwaiti incubator media scam,
where Kuwaiti babies were allegedly removed from incubators in a
totally fabricated news story, which was then used to get
Congressional approval for the 1991 Gulf War.

What is the pattern? Almost immediately in the wake of a terrorist
event or warning, CNN announces (in substance): we think this
mysterious individual Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is behind it, invariably
without supporting evidence and prior to the conduct of an
investigation by the relevant police and intelligence authorities.

In some cases, upon the immediate occurrence of the terrorist event,
there is an initial report which mentions Al-Zarqawi as the possible
mastermind. The report will often say (in substance):  yes we think
he did it, but it is not yet confirmed and there is some doubt on
the identity of those behind the attack. One or two days later, CNN
may come up with a definitive statement, quoting official police,
military and/or intelligence sources.

Often the CNN report is based on information published on an Islamic
website or a mysterious Video or Audio tape. The authenticity of the
website and/or the tapes is not the object of discussion or detailed
investigation.

Bear in mind that the news reports never mention that Al Qaeda is a
creation of the CIA and that Al Zarqawi had been recruited to fight
in the Soviet-Afghan war (This is in fact confirmed by Sec. Colin
Powell in his presentation to the UN Security Council on 5 February
2003) (see details below). Both Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-
Zarqawi are creations of the US intelligence apparatus. The
recruitment of foreign fighters was under the auspices of the CIA.

The press usually present the terrorist warnings emanating from the
CIA as genuine, without acknowledging the fact that US intelligence,
has provided covert support to the Islamic militant network
consistently for more than 20 years.

Amply documented, the training camps in Afghanistan established
during the Reagan Administration had been set up with the support of
the CIA. In fact, several members of the current Bush administration
including Richard Armitage and Colin Powell were directly involved
in channeling support to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, where bin Laden
and Al Zarqawi received specialized training. (See Michel
Chossudovsky,  globalresearch.ca/articles/CH0109C.html and
globalresearch.ca/articles/CH0303D.html )

History of Al Zarqawi

The first time Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's name is mentioned was in
relation to the thwarted attack on the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman,
Jordan,  during the millennium celebrations (December 1999).
According to press reports, he had previously gone under another
name: Ahmed Fadil Al-Khalayleh, (apparently among other aliases).

According to the New York Times, Al Zarqawi fled Afghanistan to Iran
in late 2001, following the entry of US troops. Official US reports
suggest that he was protected at the highest levels of the Tehran
government.

"United States intelligence officials say they are increasingly
concerned by the mounting evidence of Tehran's renewed interest in
terrorism [and support to Al Zarqawi], including covert surveillance
by Iranian agents of possible American targets abroad. American
officials said Iran appeared to view terrorism as deterrent against
possible attack by the United States.

Since the surprise election of reformer Mohammad Khatami as
president of Iran in 1997 and his wide public support, Washington
has been counting on a new moderate political majority to emerge.
But the hard-line faction has maintained its grip on Iran's security
apparatus, frustrating American efforts to ease tensions with Tehran.

Now, Iranian actions to destabilize the new interim government in
Afghanistan, its willingness to assist Al Qaeda members and its
fueling of the Palestinian uprising are prompting a reassessment in
Washington, officials say." (NYT, 24 March 2002)

In 2002, his presence in Tehran, allegedly "collaborating with
hardliners" in the Iranian military and intelligence apparatus, is
part of an evolving disinformation campaign which consists in
presenting Iran as a sponsor of the "Islamic terror network"

In February 2002, he was allegedly involved in planning terror
attacks inside Israel.

Colin Powell's Address to the UN Security Council

In the months leading up to the war on Iraq, Al Zarqawi's name
reemerges, this time almost on daily basis, with reports focusing on
his sinister relationship to Saddam Hussein.

A major turning point in the propaganda campaign occurs on February
5, 2003. Al-Zarqawi was in the spot light following Colin Powell's
flopped WMD report to the UN Security Council. Powell's speech
presented "documentation" on the ties between Saddam Hussein and Al
Qaeda, while focusing on the central role of Al-Zarqawi: (emphasis
added):

Our concern is not just about these illicit weapons; it's the way
that these illicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and
terrorist organizations . . .

But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially
much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist
network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and
modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist
network, headed by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an associate and
collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan War more
than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a
terrorist training camp. One of his specialties and one of the
specialties of this camp is poisons.

When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped
establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and
this camp is located in Northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this
camp. Graphic, above. [there were no WMDS at this camp according to
ABC report, see below]

The network is teaching its operative how to produce ricin and other
poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch --
imagine a pinch of salt -- less than a pinch of ricin, eating just
this amount in your food would cause shock, followed by circulatory
failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote. There
is no cure. It is fatal.

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in
northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq, but
Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical
organization Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In
2000, this agent offered Al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we
swept Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this
safe haven. They remain there today.

  . . . We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because
they remain, even today, in regular contact with his direct
subordinates, including the poison cell plotters. And they are
involved in moving more than money and materiel. Last year, two
suspected Al Qaeda operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into
Saudi Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell,
and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use
cyanide.

From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network
in the Middle East and beyond. [Note he is present in several
countries at the same time]

. . .

According to detainees, Abu Atiya, who graduated from Zarqawi's
terrorist camp in Afghanistan, tasked at least nine North African
extremists in 2001 to travel to Europe to conduct poison and
explosive attacks. Since last year, members of this network have
been apprehended in France, Britain, Spain and Italy. By our last
count, 116 operatives connected to this global web have been
arrested. The chart you are seeing shows the network in Europe.

We know about this European network, and we know about its links to
Zarqawi, because the detainee who provided the information about the
targets also provided the names of members of the network.

  . . .

We also know that Zarqawi's colleagues have been active in the
Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, and in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to
which they are linked is not mere chatter. Members of Zarqawi's
network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins.

We are not surprised that Iraq is harboring Zarqawi and his
subordinates. This understanding builds on decades-long experience
with respect to ties between Iraq and al Qaeda.

. . .


As I said at the outset, none of this should come as a surprise to
any of us. Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam for decades.
Saddam was a supporter of terrorism long before these terrorist
networks had a name, and this support continues. The nexus of
poisons and terror is new; the nexus of Iraq and terror is old. The
combination is lethal.

With this track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take
their place alongside the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass
destruction. It is all a web of lies. When we confront a regime that
harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass
destruction, and provides haven and active support for terrorists,
we are not confronting the past, we are confronting the present. And
unless we act, we are confronting an even more frightening future."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council,
Excerpts, 5 February 2003) The statement of Secretary Powell
regarding Al-Zarqawi consisted in linking the secular Baathist
regime to the "Islamic terror network," with a view to justifying
the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The Alleged Al-Zarqawi Sponsored Chemical and Biological Attacks

Powell's UN statement with regard to Al Zarqawi rested on the
existence of a chemical-biological weapons plant in Northern Iraq
producing ricin, sarin and other biological weapons, allegedly to be
used in terror attacks on the US and Western Europe.

With reference to the North Iraqi facility where the ricin was
allegedly produced, The London Observer's correspondent in Northern
Iraq (9 February 2003) blatantly refutes Colin Powell's statement:

" There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of
paraffin and vegetable butter used for cooking. In the kitchen, I
discovered some chopped up tomatoes but not much else. The cook had
left his Kalashnikov propped neatly against the wall. Ansar al-
Islam - the Islamic group that uses the compound identified as a
military HQ by Powell - yesterday invited me and several other
foreign journalists into their territory for the first time. 'We are
just a group of Muslims trying to do our duty,' Mohammad Hasan,
spokes-man for Ansar al-Islam, explained. 'We don't have any drugs
for our fighters. We don't even have any aspirin. How can we produce
any chemicals or weapons of mass destruction?'"

Barely a few weeks later, at the height of the military campaign, US
Special Forces, together with their "embedded" journalists, entered
the alleged chemical biological weapons facility in Northern Iraq:

"What they found was a camp devastated by cruise missile strikes
during the first days of the war. A specialized biochemical team
scoured the rubble for samples. They wore protective masks as they
entered a building they suspected was a weapons lab. Inside they
found mortar shells, medical supplies, and grim prison cells, but no
immediate proof of chemical or biological agents. For this unit,
such evidence would have been a so-called smoking gun, proof that it
has banned weapons. But instead, this was a disappointing day for
these troops on the front line of the hunt for weapons of mass
destruction here. Jim Sciutto, ABC News, with US Special Forces in
Northern Iraq " (ABC News, 29 March 2003)

The Ricin Threat

On February 8th 2003, three days after Colin Powell's UN speech, the
ricin threat remerges this time in the US. Al Zaqwari was said to be
responsible for "the suspicious white powder found in a letter sent
to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist which contained the [same]
deadly poison ricin."

In a CIA report which was apparently "leaked" to Newsweek, a group
of CIA analysts predicted that there was

"a 59 percent probability that an attack on the U.S. homeland
involving WMD would occur before 31 March 2003" . . . It all seems
so precise and frightening: a better than 90 percent chance that
Saddam will succeed in hitting America with a weapon spewing
radiation, germs or poison. But it is important to remember that the
odds are determined by averaging a bunch of guesses, informed
perhaps, but from experts whose careers can only be ruined by
underestimating the threat." (Newsweek, 24 February 2003,
http://newsmine.org/archive/propoganda/terror-threats/2003/terror-
alert-assumptions-hints.txt )

The picture of Al Zarqawi, the mastermind is featured prominently in
the Newsweek feature article.

In the National Review (February 18, 2003), Al Zarqawi was described
as Al Qaeda's "chief biochemical engineer":

"It is widely known [from where, what evidence] that Zarqawi, al
Qaeda's chief biochemical engineer, was at the safe house in
Afghanistan where traces of Ricin and other poisons were originally
found. What is not widely known-but was briefly alluded to in Sec.
Powell's U.N. address-is that starting in the mid-1990s, Iraq's
embassy in Islamabad routinely played host to Saddam's biochemical
scientists, some of whom interacted with al Qaeda operatives,
including Zarqawi and his lab technicians, under the diplomatic
cover of the Taliban embassy nearby to teach them the art of mixing
poisons from home grown and readily available raw materials."

Radioactive Dirty Bombs

There were rumors of attacks within the US also using ricin, sarin
and other poisonous gases. In the immediate aftermath of Powell's
speech, there was an orange code alert. Official statements also
pointed to the dangers of a dirty radioactive bomb attack in the US.

Again Al Zarqawi was identified as the number one suspect.

The various ricin and dirty bomb terror alerts proved to be
fabricated. A fabricated story emanating from the CIA on so-
called `radioactive dirty bombs' had been planted in the news chain
(ABC News, 13 Feb 2003). A few days following his address to the UN,
Sec. Powell warned that:

"it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive `dirty'
bombs to explode inside the U.S. . . . `How likely it is, I can't
say . . . But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American
people know of this possibility.'"(ABC This Week quoted in Daily
News (New York), 10 Feb. 2003).

Meanwhile, network TV had warned that "American hotels, shopping
malls or apartment buildings could be al Qaeda's targets as soon as
next week . . .". Following the announcement, tens of thousands of
Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas-masks.

It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated by the
CIA, in all likelihood in consultation with the State Department
(ABC News, 13 Feb. 2003). The FBI, for the first time had pointed
its finger at the CIA. While tacitly acknowledging that the alert
was a fake, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge decided to
maintain the `Orange Code' alert:

"Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the
threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated
and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted." ( ABC
News, 13 Feb. 2003 ).

A few days later, in another failed propaganda initiative, a
mysterious Osama bin Laden audio tape was presented by Sec. Colin
Powell to the US Congress as `evidence' that the Islamic
terrorists "are making common cause with a brutal dictator". (US
official quoted in The Toronto Star, 12 Feb. 2003). Curiously, the
audio tape was in Colin Powell's possession prior to its broadcast
by the Al Jazeera TV Network. (Ibid.)

Meanwhile, Al Zarqawi had been identified as the mastermind behind
the (thwarted) ricin attacks in several European countries including
Britain and Spain.

In London, in January 2003, there was a ricin terror alert, which
had apparently also been ordered by Al Zarqawi. The ricin had
allegedly been discovered in a London apartment. It was to be used
in a terror attack in the London subway.

British press reports, quoting official statements claimed that the
terrorists had learnt to produce the ricin at the camp in Northern
Iraq. Yet when US Special Forces in March 2003 raided the camp in
Northern Iraq, nothing resembling biological or chemical weapons was
found (see ABC report quoted above).

It is worth mentioning, in this regard, that news stories on the
chemical weapons plant in Northern Iraq, have continued to be
churned out, despite the fact that US Forces said that it did not
exist. In a recent story in the Washington Times:

Zarqawi stands as stark evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein's
autocratic regime and bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network. Zarqawi,
38, operated a terrorist camp in northern Iraq that specialized in
developing poisons and chemical weapons.(Washington Times, 8 June
2004)

The Spanish Connection

Meanwhile in Spain, Bush's coalition partner, Prime Minister Jose
Maria Aznar had initiated his own disinformation campaign, no doubt
in liaison with US officials.

Perfect timing! While Colin Powell was presenting the Al-Zarqawi
dossier to the UN, on the very same day, February 5, 2003, Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar was busy briefing the Spanish parliament
on an alleged chemical terror attack in Spain.

According to Aznar, Al Zarqawi was apparently linked to a number of
European  Islamic "collaborators" including Merouane Ben Ahmed, "an
expert in chemistry and explosives who visited Barcelona" (reported
in El Pais, February 6 2003).

Prime Minister Aznar's speech to the Chamber of Deputies (Camera de
diputados) intimated that the 16 alleged Al Qaeda suspects, who
apparently were in possession of explosives and lethal chemicals,
had been working hand in glove with Al Zarqawi.The information had
been fabricated. The Spanish Ministry of Defense report confirmed
that the "lethal chemicals" turned out to be "harmless and some were
household detergent . . ." (quoted in Irish News, 27 February 2003,
emphasis added):

A defence ministry lab outside Madrid tested the substances - a bag
containing more than half a pound of powder and several bottles or
containers with liquids or residues- for the easy-to-make biological
poison ricin . . . The Spanish defence ministry, which carried out
the tests, and the lab itself declined to comment " (Ibid)

The Link to Ansar al-Islam

Following Powell's February 2003 presentation to the UNSC, Al-
Zarqawi immediately gained in public notoriety. Since early 2004,
his name appears almost daily in CNN reports. All in all,  his name
is linked to some 25 "terrorist attacks" in Iraq, not to mention
numerous terrorist warnings, threats or alerts. Already before the
war in Iraq, he was presented in media reports as an ally of Saddam
Hussein.

The press reports, which quoted Colin Powell's UNSC 5 Feb 2003
speech, confirmed that Al Zarqawi was back in Iraq, working hand in
glove with Ansar Al-Islam, which was held responsible for the attack
on the UN in Baghdad. In August 2003, Zarqawi was identified,
without supporting evidence, as having played a role in the attack
on the UN, which led to the death of the UN head of mission and 24
other people. Bear in mind Ansar was also said to be behind the
alleged ricin plant in Northern Iraq, which was confirmed to be a
fake.

It is useful to recall that Ansar al-Islam, which constituted a pre-
existing Islamist group, developed into a paramilitary organisation,
only after the 9/11 attacks. Ironically, it was allowed to develop
in a region of Iraq, which was already under US military control,
namely Kurdish held Northern Iraq.

Ansar was largely involved in terrorist attacks directed against the
secular institutions of the Kurdish regional governments. It was
also involved in assassinations of members of the Kurdish PUK. And
the US military and intelligence were present in the region.

In other words, prior to the war, Northern Iraq -which was in "the
no fly zone"-- was already a US protectorate. According to one
report  «Al Qaida affiliates coordinating the movement of people,
money and supplies for Ansar al-Islam have been operating freely in
the [regional] capital." (Midland Independent, 6 February 2003).

Responding to Colin Powell's February 2003 UN address, an Iraqi
foreign ministry spokesman had stated at the time that:

"the Iraqi government helped the [PUK] Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani
against the Ansar al-Islam group. He [the spokesman] accused Ansar
al-Islam of carrying out acts of sabotage inside Iraq . . . [and]
that the United States had turned down an Iraqi offer to cooperate
on the issue of terrorism." (News Conference by Lieutenant-General
Amir al-Sa'di, adviser at the Iraqi Presidency; Dr Sa'id al-Musawi,
head of the Organizations' Department at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry;
and Major-General Husam Muhammad Amin, head of the Iraqi National
Monitoring Directorate. BBC Monitoring Service, 6 February 2003).

The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal

Was it a coincidence? At the very outset of the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal, there were rumors of an Al Zarqawi terrorist attack on
American Soil, in Jordan as well as in Iraq.

Al Zarqawi  identified by CNN as "the lone wolf" was, according to
these reports, planning terrorist attacks simultaneously in several
countries. Then there was the mysterious video on the Nicholas Berg
execution.

The Attacks in Jordan

A mysterious tape released by CNN pointed to Al Zarqawi's plan to
attack the Jordanian intelligence headquarters in an attack using
chemical weapons which could have been more deadly than 9/11. Again
the evidence is based on a mysterious tape.

CNN 27 APRIL 2004
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jordanian special forces
raiding an apartment house in Amman in the hunt for an al Qaeda
cell. Some of the suspects are killed, others arrested, ending what
Jordanian intelligence says was a bold plan to use chemical weapons
and truck bombs in their capital; targets including Jordanian
intelligence headquarters, the prime minister's office and the U.S.
embassy. The Jordanian government fears the death toll could have
run into the thousands, more deadly even than 9/11.

For the first time the alleged plotters were interviewed on
videotape, aired on Jordanian TV. CNN obtained copies of the tapes
from the Jordanians. This man revealing his orders came from a man
named Azme Jayoussi, the cell's alleged ringleader.

HUSSEIN SHARIF (through translator): The aim of this operation was
to strike Jordan and the Hashemite royal family, a war against the
crusaders and infidels. Azme told me that this would be the first
chemical suicide attack that al Qaeda would execute.

VAUSE: Also appearing on the tape, Azme Jayoussi, who says his
orders came from this man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the same man the
U.S. says is behind many of the violent attacks in Iraq.

AZME JAYOUSSI, ACCUSED PLOTTER (through translator): I took advanced
explosives course, poisons, high level, then I pledged allegiance to
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning, to be on
his side. After this Afghanistan fell. I met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in
Iraq.

VAUSE: Al Jayoussi was only shown in profile. He had marks on his
hand, neck and face. The Jordanians who taped the confessions say
the suspect suffered the injuries during the arrest. CNN was not
allowed access to any of those arrested. The Jordanian government
says this plot is only the latest attempt by al Qaeda to destabilize
this country.

ASMA KHADER, JORDANIAN MINISTER OF STATE: Jordan was fighting this
type of plans years now, and the security forces were able to
confront them.

VAUSE (on camera): The Jordanians say the alleged terrorist plot was
just days away from execution. If successful, Jordan's King Abdullah
told a U.S. newspaper it could have decapitated his government.

John Vause, CNN, Amman, Jordan.

The press reports which followed the original CNN report, often
quote CNN as the sole source for their information.

Al-Zarqawi's plans for Amman scale the heights of horror.

CNN quoted Jordanian authorities as saying that the attack involved
a combination of 71 lethal chemicals, including blistering agents to
cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents, which would
have formed a lethal toxic cloud over a square mile of the capital,
Amman. Many thousands would have died in what would have been al-
Qaida's deadliest terrorist attack.

The Associated Press reported Monday that four of the men arrested
said on Jordanian television that they had been recruited by al-
Zarqawi to carry out "the first suicide attack to be launched by al-
Qaida using chemicals . . . striking at Jordan, its Hashemite (royal
family) and launching war on the Crusaders and nonbelievers." One of
the conspirators, Azmi al-Jayousi, said he received about $170,000
from al-Zarqawi to finance the plot and used part of it to buy 20
tons of chemicals. Images of vans packed with chemicals and
explosives were shown on television. (Charleston Post Courier, 28
April 2004)

Alleged Al Zarqawi "Attack on America"

Two days later, following the alleged terrorist threat on Jordanian
intelligence, the State Department announced that Al Zarqawi was
planning an attack on America (29 April 2003, CNN Report).

Note that the rumours of an attack on America and the attack in
Jordan took place virtually at the same time:

The State Department today said the number of terrorists attacks
around the world declined last year, but the government's annual
report on terrorism includes a chilling warning about the year ahead.

Kitty Pilgrim reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The State Department
says terrorists are planning an attack on U.S. soil. High on their
anxiety list, terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

AMB. COFER BLACK, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: He is
representative of a very real and credible threat. His operatives
are planning and attempting now to attack American targets, and we
are after them with a vengeance.

Bear in mind that the Attack on America report, focusing on "We are
after them with a vengeance", was published on day following the CBS
60 minutes program on torture at the Abu Ghraib prison. (Complete
transcript at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CBS405A.html ).

The Nicholas Berg Video

Barely a couple of weeks later (11 May 2004), Al Zarqawi is reported
as being the mastermind behind the execution of Nicholas Berg on May
11, 2004.

Again perfect timing! The report coincided with calls by US Senators
for Defense Sec Donald Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal. It occurs a few days after President Bush's "apology" for
the Abu Ghraib prison "abuses" on May 6.

The Nicholas Berg video  served to create "a useful wave of
indignation" which served to distract and soften up public opinion,
following the release of the pictures of torture of Iraqi prisoners.
(See the intelligence assumptions underlying Operation Northwoods, a
secret Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to kill civilians in the Cuban
community in Florida, and blame it on Fidel Castro.
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ) .

CNN coverage of the Nicholas Berg execution was based on a
mysterious report on an Islamic website, which CNN upholds as
providing "evidence" of Al-Zarqawi's involvement:

ENSOR: The Web site claims that the killing was done by Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist whose al Qaeda affiliated group is
held responsible by U.S. intelligence for a string of bombings in
Iraq and for the killing of an American diplomat in Amman. CNN Arab
linguists say, however, that the voice on the tape has the wrong
accent. They do not believe it is Zarqawi. U.S. officials said the
killers tried to take advantage of the prison abuse controversy to
gain attention.

  . . .

BROWN: So, the administration said today we'll track these people
down. We will get them beyond, I guess, this belief that Zarqawi
somehow was involved. Are there any clues out there that we heard
about?

ENSOR: This is going to be very, very difficult. They've been
looking for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for several years now. There's a
large price on his head. He's been blowing up a lot of things in
Iraq according to him and according to U.S. intelligence. They don't
know where he is, so it's -- I don't think they have any clues right
now, at least none that I know of -- Aaron.

A subsequent more definitive report by CNN was aired 2 days later on
13 May 2004

The CIA confirms that Nicholas Berg's killer was Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi; The CIA acknowledges sticking to strict rules in tough
interrogations of top al Qaeda prisoners." (CNN)

BLITZER Because originally our own linguists here at CNN suspected
that -- they listened to this audiotape and they didn't think the it
sounded, the sounded like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But now
definitively, the experts at the CIA say it almost certainly is Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi?

ENSOR: They say it almost certainly is. There's just a disagreement
between the CNN linguists and the CIA linguists. The U.S. Government
now believes that the person speaking on that tape and killing Nick
Berg on that tape is the actual man, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi.

Did the US officials check the mysterious website or was it CNN?

The video footage published on the website was called «Abu Musab Al-
Zarqawi shows killing of an American». " Then the CIA experts
released a statement saying that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the man in
the mask who beheaded the US citizen Nick Berg in front of a
camera." (See  globalresearch.ca/articles/SAT405A.html ). Yet
several reports question the authenticity of the video.
(globalresearch.ca/articles/CAR405A.html ).

Al Zarqawi is Jordanian. Yet the man in the video "posing as
Jordanian native Zarqawi does not speak the Jordanian dialect.
Zarqawi has an artificial leg, but none of these murderers did. The
man presented as Zarqawi had a yellow ring, presumably a golden one,
which Muslim men are banned from wearing, especially so-called
fundamentalists." (See Was Nick Berg killed by US intelligence? by
Sirajin Sattayev, globalresearch.ca/articles/SAT405A.html

Another report states that Zarqawi was dead.

Immediately when the issue of his artificial leg was mentioned in
relation to the video, US officials revised their story, stating
they were not sure whether he actually lost a leg:  "U.S.
intelligence officials, who used to believe that Zarqawi had lost a
leg in Afghanistan, recently revised that assessment, concluding
that he still has both legs." (News and World Report, 24 May 2004).

There were a number of other aspects of the video, which suggest
that it was a fraud: there was no blood when Nicholas Berg was
beheaded. The audio was not in synchrony with the video, indicating
that the film might have been manipulated.

3/11 The Madrid 11 March 2004 Train Bombing

While the press dispatches provide no evidence of of Al Zarqawi's
involvement in the Madrid 3/11 bombing, several of the reports
implied, without supporting evidence, that he was involved.
According to the CIA, the Moroccan group which allegedly "supervised
the bombings in Madrid, [were] acting as a link between al- Zarqawi
and a cell of mostly Moroccan al-Qaeda members." (The Australian, 27
May 2004)

A CNN statement two days after the 3/11 Madrid bombing states that
Al Zarqawi may be planning attacks on "soft targets" in Western
Europe:

LISOVICZ: And Jonathan, specifically, Abu Musaab al Zarqawi is
someone you have described as al Qaeda 2.0, which is pretty scary.

SCHANZER: Yes. Abu Musaab al Zarqawi is the man we caught; we
intercepted his memo last month. U.S. intelligence officials found
this memo. It indicated that he was trying to continue to carry out
attacks against the United States. He was seeking help from the
larger al Qaeda network and was seeking to foment internecine
violence inside Iraq. This is a man dangerous; he's been linked to
attacks in Riyadh, Istanbul and Morocco. This is essentially a
freelancer. This is a lone wolf, someone that's acting alone in the
name of al Qaeda.

CAFFERTY: Where do we stand in your opinion on this war on
terrorism? We have got this terrible situation in Madrid. We've got
this fellow, Zarqawi, you are talking about, the lone Wolf that is
active, some think inside Iraq. We have got terrorist attacks
happening there. There is discussion all over Western Europe of fear
of terrorism, possibly being about to increase there. Are we winning
this war or are we losing it? What is your read?

SCHANZER: I think we're winning it. We've certainly -- I mean
counterterrorism at its core is just restricting the terrorist
environment. So we've cut down on the amount of finances moving
around in the terrorist world. We have arrested a number of key
figures. So we are doing a good job.(CNN,13 March 2004)

For details on the Madrid bombing see, Madrid 'blueprint': a dodgy
document by Brendan O'Neill at
globalresearch.ca/articles/ONE404A.html

Extending the War on Terrorism

Are "we winning or loosing"  the war on terrorism.  These statements
are used to justify enhanced military operations against this
illusive individual, who is confronting US military might, all over
the World. Al Zarqawi is used profusely in Bush's press conferences
and speeches in an obvious public relations ploy.

You know, I hate to predict violence, but I just understand the
nature of the killers. This guy, Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate --
who was in Baghdad, by the way, prior to the removal of Saddam
Hussein -- is still at large in Iraq. And as you might remember,
part of his operational plan was to sow violence and discord amongst
the various groups in Iraq by cold- blooded killing. And we need to
help find Zarqawi so that the people of Iraq can have a more bright -
- bright future. (Press Conference, 1 June 2004, emphasis added)

And with a new interim Iraqi government, US and British troops would
be in Iraq at "the request" of the interim government, in an
agreement sanctioned by the UN. "The terrorists are still at large":
The tasks of the so-called "multinational force" would
include "preventing and deterring terrorism", namely going after Al
Zarqawi, as a means to "establishing democracy" under G-
8's "political and economic reform in the Middle East and North
Africa."

Selected References

Pentagon PSYOP: "Terror Mastermind" Abu Musab Al Zarqawi
is "Incompetent" - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2006-05-15

Rumsfeld accuses bin Laden and Zarqawi of Manipulating the U.S.
Media - 2006-04-20

Who is behind "Al Qaeda in Iraq"? Pentagon acknowledges fabricating
a "Zarqawi Legend" - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2006-04-18

Did Al-Zarqawi Really Bomb Amman? - by Dr. Elias Akleh - 2005-11-15

Who profited from Amman bombings?- Israelis were evacuated hours
before the attack - 2005-11-15

The Al-Zarqawi 11/9 Amman Bombings: More Holes in the Official
Story - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2005-11-15

Zarqawi Black Op Hits Amman - by Kurt Nimmo - 2005-11-13

British Terrorism in Iraq - by Dr. Elias Akleh - 2005-09-30

Fabricating an Enemy: "Al Qaeda in Iraq". Who is Abu Musab Al-
Zarqawi?: - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2005-09-30

Al Qaeda and the Iraqi Resistance Movement - by Michel Chossudovsky -
  2005-09-18

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Syria: - by Kurt Nimmo - 2005-05-19

Zarqawi's Mysterious Pre-Election Audiotape - by Michel
Chossudovsky - 2005-01-29

Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi? - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2004-06-11

© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch.ca, 2006

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of
Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization,
at   www.globalresearch.ca. His most recent book entitled:
America's "War on Terrorism",Global Research, 2005, contains a
detailed analysis of the role of Zarqawi in the Adminstration's
disinformation campaign. For details on Chossudovsky's book
America's "War on Terrorism", click here

The incoming address of this article is:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=CH020060608&articleId=2604

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Hubub in Hibhib: The Timely Death of al-Zarqawi
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 08 June 2006
http://www.chris-floyd.com

Abu Musab Saddam Osama al-Zarqawi, the extremely elusive if not
entirely mythical terrorist mastermind responsible for every single
insurgent action in Iraq except for the ones caused by the red-
tailed devils in Iran or the stripey-tailed devils in Syria, has
reportedly been killed in an airstrike in Hibhib, an area north of
Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced today.

Zarqawi, the notorious shape-shifter who, according to grainy video
evidence, was able to regenerate lost limbs, speak in completely
different accents, alter the contours of his bone structure and also
suffered an unfortunate binge-and-purge weight problem which caused
him to change sizes with almost every appearance, was head of an
organization that quite fortuitously dubbed itself "Al Qaeda in
Iraq" just around the time that the Bush Administration began
changing its pretext for the conquest from "eliminating Iraq's [non-
existent] weapons of mass destruction" to "fighting terrorists over
there so we don't have to fight them over here."

The name change of the Zarqawi gang from its cumbersome original –
  "The Monotheism and Holy War Group" – to the more media-
sexy "Qaeda" brand was thus a PR godsend for the Bush
Administration, which was then able to associate the widespread
native uprising against the Coalition occupation with the cave-
dwelling dastards of the bin Laden organization. This proved an
invaluable tool for the Pentagon's massive "psy-op" campaign against
the American people, which was successful in sufficiently obscuring
reality and defusing rising public concerns about what many experts
have termed "the full-blown FUBAR" in Iraq until after the 2004
elections.

However, in the last year, even the reputed presence of a big
stonking al Qaeda beheader guy roaming at will across the land has
not prevented a catastrophic drop in support for President Bush in
general and the war in Iraq in particular. Polls show that
substantial majorities – even those still psy-oped into believing
the conquest has something to do with fighting terrorism – are now
saying that the war "is not worth it" and call for American forces
to begin withdrawing.

With the Zarqawi theme thus producing diminishing returns, the
Administration has had another stroke of unexpected luck with his
reputed sudden demise. Moreover, the fact that Zarqawi was killed in
a military action means that Mr. Bush will not have to cough up the
$25 million reward placed on the head of the terrorist chieftain.
That money will now be given to Mr. Bush's favorite charity, Upper-
Class Twits Against the Inheritance Tax, an Administration spokesman
said.

(More after the jump....)

Despite its fortuitousness, the reputed death of the multi-legged
brigand came as no real surprise. After all, approximately 376 of
his "top lieutenants" had been killed or captured by Coalition
forces in the past three years, according to press reports, and some
5,997 lower-ranking "al Qaeda terrorists" have been killed in
innumerable operations during that same period, according to
Pentagon press releases. With the widespread, on-going, much-
publicized decimation of his group, Zarqawi had obviously been
rendered isolated and ineffective – except of course for the
relentless series of high-profile terrorist spectaculars he kept
carrying out, according to other Pentagon press releases.

News of the reputed rub-out brought bipartisan praise. "This
enormous victory in the War on Terror is due entirely to the courage
and wisdom of the president," squealed Senate Majority Leader Lick
Spittle of Tennessee. "He has seen us through when so many of the
flag-burning destroyers of marriage wanted to cut and run. I think
this president is the best president the world has ever seen, and if
I am ever fortunate enough to be chosen as president by the American
people – minus the three million or so whose votes will be
discarded, lost, inadvertently mangled or just ignored, of course –
I promise I'll be a president just like him!"

"We must give credit where credit is due," said Democratic Sen. Joe
Biden, in a rare television appearance. "I have my differences with
the way the Administration is conducting this war, but the
elimination of Zarqawi is, I believe, a turning point, comparable to
the capture of Saddam Hussein, the first Iraqi elections, the second
Iraqi elections, the formation of the first Iraqi government and the
formation of the second Iraqi government. This is not the end, or
even the beginning of the end, but it is, I believe, the end of the
beginning. And no, I didn't plagiarize that. I made it up my own
self."

The reputed end of Zarqawi's reign of terror comes a mere four years
after U.S. forces had pinpointed his hideout and were prepared to
destroy his entire operation, only to be forestalled by the White
House. Before the war, Zarqawi and his band of non-Iraqi Islamic
extremists had a camp in northern Iraq, in territory controlled by
American-backed Kurdish forces, who had wrested it from the hands of
Saddam Hussein. U.S. Special Forces, CIA agents and other American
personnel had a free hand to operate there; indeed, anti-Saddam
Iraqi exiles held open meetings in the territory, safe from the
reach of the dictator.

In June 2002, American forces had locked in on Zarqawi's location.
They prepared a detailed attack plan that would have destroyed the
terrorist band. But their request to strike was turned down not
once, but twice by the White House. Administration officials feared
that such a strike would have muddied the waters in their public
relations effort to foment war fever against Saddam's regime.

At every turn, the Bush team had painted a picture of Saddam Hussein
as a powerful dictator able to threaten the entire world. They had
implied, insinuated and sometimes openly declared that he was in
league with al Qaeda. But this wildly successful psy-ops campaign
would have been undermined by a raid on Zarqawi, which would have
exposed the truth: that Saddam was a crippled, toothless despot who
had lost control of much of his own land and couldn't even threaten
vast enemy armies within his own borders – much less his neighbors
or the rest of the world. It would have also exposed the fact that
the only Islamic terrorists operating on Iraqi soil were in areas
controlled by America and its allies – which, now that Mr. Bush's
invasion has opened the whole country to extremist terror, is still
the case.

With Zarqawi's Bush-granted liberty reputedly at an end, the
Pentagon moved quickly to confirm the identity of the man killed in
Hibhib today. At a joint press conference with Prime Minister
Maliki, U.S. Gen. George Casey said Zarqawi's body had been
identified by "fingerprints, facial recognition and known scars"
after a painstaking forensic examination by Lt. Col. Gil Grissom and
Major Catherine Willows.

In yet another amazing coincidence, the announcement of the death of
Zarqawi or somebody just like him came just as Prime Minister Maliki
was finally submitting his candidates for the long-disputed posts of
defense and interior ministers, which then sailed through parliament
after months of deadlock. The fortuitous death also came after
perhaps the worst week of bad PR the Bush Administration has endured
during the entire war, with an outpouring of stories alleging a
number of horrific atrocities committed by U.S. troops in recent
months.

Oddly enough, Zarqawi first vaulted into the American consciousness
just after the public exposure of earlier U.S. atrocities: the
tortures at Abu Ghraib prison in the spring of 2004. With story
after story of horrible abuse battering the Administration during an
election year, Zarqawi, or someone just like him, suddenly appeared
with a Grand Guignol production: the beheading of American civilian
Nick Berg. This atrocity was instantly seized upon by supporters of
the war to justify the "intensive interrogation" of "terrorists" –
even though the Red Cross had determined that 70 to 90 percent of
American captives at that time had committed no crime whatsoever,
much less been involved in terrorism, as the notorious anti-war Wall
Street Journal reported. Abu Ghraib largely faded from the public
eye – indeed, it was not mentioned by a single speaker at the
Democratic National Convention a few weeks later or raised as an
issue during the presidential campaign that year.

Today's news has likewise knocked the new atrocity allegations off
the front pages, to be replaced with heartening stories of how, as
the New York Times reports, Zarqawi's death "appears to mark a major
watershed in the war." Thus in his reputed end as in his reputed
beginning, the Scarlet Pimpernel of Iraq has, by remarkable
coincidence, done yeoman service for the immediate publicity needs
of his deadly enemy, the Bush Administration.

It is not yet known who will now take Zarqawi's place as the new all-
purpose, all-powerful bogeyman solely responsible for every bad
thing in Iraq. There were recent indications that Maliki himself was
being measured for the post, after he publicly denounced American
atrocities and the occupiers' propensity for hair-trigger killing of
civilians, but he seems to be back with the program now.
Administration insiders are reportedly divided over shifting the
horns to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's already much-
demonized head, or planting them on extremist Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr, or elevating some hitherto unknown local talent – or maybe
just blaming the whole shebang on Fidel Castro, for old times' sake.

The announcement of the new bogeyman is expected sometime in the
coming weeks.
***
UPDATE: It looks like the Twits might not get that reward money
after all. Prime Minister Maliki said that those who helped locate
Zarqawi, or someone just like him, in Hibhib, would get their reward
later: "We believe in honoring our commitments." However, the
(London) Times' man in Iraq, Ned Parker, tells us that Zazqawi might
have been shopped to the Americans by Iraqi insurgents:

One of the most interesting things about the news of his death is
the timing. There have been talks going on since the election last
December by US and Iraqi officials to try to bring the homegrown
insurgency back into the political process. Certainly there was
tension between the homegrown Iraqi insurgency and Zarqawi's foreign
fighters. So it's possible a deal was finally cut by some branch of
the Iraqi insurgency to eliminate al-Zarqawi and rid themselves of
his heavy-handed influence.

So if Bush does decide to pay off the informants -- and it's his
money, after all, not Maliki's; in fact, in today's Iraq, any money
that Maliki's government might still have left after three years of
occupation rapine is Bush's money too -- but if Zarqawi's rumblers
are paid off, then it's likely that Bush will be forking over $25
million to Iraq's Sunni insurgents. That will certainly keep them
flush with IEDs for a long time to come. It's FUBAR every which way
you turn in Bush's Babylon.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Elections & Voting
Debunking the debunker
By Ernest Partridge
Online Journal Guest Writer
Jun 9, 2006

Complication of the election integrity issue works to the advantage
of the status quo; which is to say, the increasing use of paperless,
unauditable direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. More
complications abound as critics of the status quo attempt to prove
that past, and presumably future, elections were and will be
fraudulent.

In fact, the controversy can be reduced to two simple questions:

Can defenders of the status quo prove that the 2004 (and also the
2000 and 2002) elections were fair and accurate?

Can defenders of the status quo refute the critics?

The answer to the first question is simple and straightforward: they
cannot, because the DREs (and also the central compiling computers)
were designed to exclude proof. The software is secret, and thus
closed to inspection and validation, and there is no independent
record of the votes against which the totals can be verified.
(Running the same computations again is not a "recount.") Moreover,
computer experts have found, and demonstrated, numerous "holes" in
the machines through which voting totals can be finagled, and
reports of still more flaws continue to come in.

The response of the private election industry and the Republicans to
demands of proof are (1) "trust us," (2) ad hominem attacks on the
critics. ("Sore losers," "conspiracy theorists," "get over it!").
And finally (with the collaboration of the mainstream media) (3) no
response. There are no substantive proofs of validity because, once
again, the machines are designed to exclude them.

Regarding the second question, every now and then an attempt is made
to refute the critics. The most recent of note was published last
Friday in Salon.com, and was written by Farhad Manjoo, who has made
something of a career out of debunking the critics. Whenever an
important critique of the electoral status quo is published, by John
Conyers' committee, by Mark Crispin Miller, or most recently by
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., we can generally count on a rebuttal by
Manjoo. Last week, he did not disappoint us.

Manjoo's latest was a pathetically weak piece of work which, due to
its flaws, only serves to strengthen the case of its target, the RFK
article. Or so I shall argue in the remainder of this essay.

At the outset, I should note that with all due respect to Robert
Kennedy, Jr., I must hope that he is wrong and the Manjoo is right.
If so, then the Democrats have an excellent chance of regaining
control of at least one house of Congress in the November election,
and with it oversight of the Bush administration. But if Kennedy is
right about the ability of the Republicans to "fix" elections, then
it may be impossible to budge the GOP from power, whatever might be
the will of the voters. False optimism is the enemy of reform.

To begin, let's address a few minor points, which can be dispatched
quite briefly.

Is Kennedy just rehashing old complaints?

Manjoo writes: "If you've spent time on Democratic Underground or
have read Mark Crispin Miller's 'Fooled Again,' you're already
familiar with everything [sic] Kennedy has to say." [My emphasis,
EP] Because Miller is about to publish a rebuttal of this claim, I
would prefer to let him reply in his own behalf. However, having
read the books by Conyers, Fitrakis and Wasserman, and Mark Crispin
Miller, I am willing to stipulate that most of what Kennedy presents
is "old stuff," however, this time with the added advantage of
scrupulous documentation.

But so what? Those "old stories" are no less substantial for
being "old." On the contrary, after a year and a half of examination
and criticism, they still stand up. For this reason, the "old"
possesses an advantage over the "new."

Were the Ohio (and other) anomalies nothing more than
expected "screw-ups' and coincidences found in all elections?

If so, then these anomalies would be expected to work, approximately
evenly, to the advantage and disadvantage of both sides. They did
not. Almost all of the alleged "screw-ups" and "coincidences" worked
to the advantage of Bush. Typical of defenders of the Ohio outcome,
Manjoo also points out that individual anomalies were not sufficient
to alter the outcome of the Ohio election. But he fails to address
the obvious rejoinder: the cumulative effect of several anomalies
(by no means all of them) were quite enough.

Manjoo has nothing whatever to say about paperless direct electronic
recording (DRE) machines. He presumably says nothing because he can
say nothing that can advance his case for the validity of the 2004
election. So there is not a word in his article about secret source
codes, lack of independent paper record, impossibility of auditing,
or the GOP partisanship of the manufacturers and code-writers. Even
if DREs in Ohio in 2004 (and elsewhere, and in 2002 and 2000) were
100 percent honest and accurate, there is no reason whatever to know
this and an abundance of evidence (statistical, circumstantial and
anecdotal) indicating that they were "fixed." As I noted at the
outset, "Trust us," and ad hominem attacks on the critics are not
evidence. And the silence of the media (not to mention the
Democrats) about this compelling issue is deafening.

Now to some more substantial issues:

Is Kennedy guilty of telling half-truths and omitting embarrassing
data? Is Manjoo? Manjoo complains that Kennedy commits "numerous
errors of interpretation and . . . deliberate omission of key bits
of data." But "the whole story" cannot be told in the allowed space.
Even so, with his 206 endnotes, RFK makes a valiant attempt. More
telling are Manjoo's omissions. With Manjoo's complaint
of "deliberate omissions" in mind, I reread Kennedy's essay. There I
found at least 20 key elements of Kennedy's case for fraud that were
totally ignored by Manjoo. Among them:

Half of the 6 million American voters abroad either did not receive
their ballots, or received them too late. (Polls of these voters
indicated that they were overwhelmingly pro-Kerry).


In New Mexico, decided by 5,988 votes, malfunctioning machines
failed to register the presidential vote on 20,000 ballots. (Kennedy
fails to mention that these were in predominantly Democratic
districts).


"A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an
impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling
place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout
of only seven percent."


In Warren County, media monitoring of the official vote count was
prevented by a totally bogus "terrorist warning."


In one precinct, exit polls indicated that "Kerry should have
received sixty-seven percent of the vote . . . Yet the certified
tally gave him only thirty-eight percent." The statistical odds?
Almost one in 3 billion.


"A New York Times analysis before the election found that new
registrations in traditional Democratic strongholds were up 250
percent, compared to only twenty-five percent in Republican-leaning
counties."


"In heavily democratic Youngstown . . . nearly 100 voters reported
entering `Kerry' on the touch screen and watching `Bush' light
up . . . Similar `vote hopping' from Kerry to Bush was reported by
voters and election officials in other states."


"An electric machine at a fundamentalist church in the town of
Gahanna recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for
Kerry. In that precinct, however, there were only 800 registered
voters."
And 12 more. None of them mentioned by Manjoo. And once again, in
almost all cases of voting "anomalies" throughout the country,
the "errors" favored Bush.

If one were to concede most of Majoo's criticisms (the exit poll
issue excepted) which, of course, I do not, even so the remaining
unanswered elements of Kennedy's essay would add up to a compelling
case for fraud.

On the misallocation of voting machines: Manjoo gives away his
argument.

Manjoo appears unaware of the fact that through his attempt to
explain away the misallocation of voting machines, he has supplied
strong evidence of significant voting fraud.

To begin, here are some quotations by Manjoo which set up the trap
into which he falls. (The emphases are mine. EP):

Kennedy says that "more than 174,000 voters" in Ohio did not cast a
ballot due to long lines at the polls. He considers the GOP directly
responsible for this failure. "The long lines were not only
foreseeable -- they were actually created by GOP efforts," he
says . . .

Kennedy's argument that Republicans deliberately engineered the long
lines, [is] on pretty shaky ground. To be sure, there is ample
evidence that election officials throughout the state failed to
respond to the surge in voter registration seen in the 2004 race.
But it is far more accurate to see their actions as part of a larger
picture of incompetence in the midst of massive changes in election
procedures -- especially changes in voting technology -- than as
part of a GOP plot . . .

Franklin County's allocation of voting machines can be seen as
biased if you look at the number of black voters who were registered
by Election Day, but decisions about how to allocate voting machines
are made months before then. That's why Mebane also notes that "if
the allocation of voting machines is compared to information about
the size of the active electorate that was available to Franklin
County election officials at the end of April 2004, then the
allocation of machines is not biased against voters who were active
at that time in precincts having high proportions of African
Americans."

The difference reflects the reality that in the last few months of
election season, registration surged in Ohio. That Franklin County's
voting-machine allocation was considered unbiased in the spring and
biased in the fall arises from the fact that the county failed to
respond to these electoral changes.

Note now, as Manjoo concedes, that there were "shortages" of voting
machines in Democratic precincts and "longages" of machines in
Republican districts. And why? Because in April the election
officials did not anticipate the "registration surges." But Manjoo
fails to take note of the obvious implication that the misallocation
shows that the "surges" were primarily among the Democrats. Kennedy
is explicit: "A New York Times analysis before the election found
that new registrations in traditional Democratic strongholds were up
250 percent, compared to only twenty-five percent in Republican-
leaning counties."

So now the trap is sprung: Where, Mr. Manjoo, did the Democratic
vote "surge" resulting from the Democratic registration "surge" go?
Is it just possible that those votes were either "lost" or, through
some hidden hocus-pocus within the Diebold "black boxes," switched
from Kerry to Bush? Clearly, they are not apparent in the final vote
totals.

Robert Kennedy has a ready answer. I am curious as to how Manjoo and
like-minded apologists would respond.

Of course, none of this "misallocation theory" accounts for the
following, as described by Kennedy (and ignored by Manjoo):

At liberal Kenyon College, where students had registered in record
numbers, local election officials provided only two voting machines
to handle the anticipated surge of up to 1,300 voters. Meanwhile,
fundamentalist students at nearby Mount Vernon Nazarene University
had one machine for 100 voters and faced no lines at all.

Surely the election officials knew in April that Kenyon College was
strongly liberal, and Nazerene College was conservative. Why the
misallocation?

Explanation please, Mr. Manjoo.

Manjoo's dismissal of statistical evidence is absurd.

Because a paraphrase of Manjoo's treatment of statistical proof may
appear too outlandish to be believable, a direct quotation is in
order.

As for Freeman's 660,000 to 1 statistic [of the improbability of
random error], it is irrelevant . . . The statistic measures the
probability that the errors in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida
occurred due to chance or random error, and according to Freeman,
that probability is very low. But nobody argues the errors happened
by chance. Everyone in the exit poll debate agrees that there was a
systematic cause for the errors in the poll. Freeman, Kennedy, et
al., claim that the systematic cause was fraud, while Mitofsky and
many in the polling community claim the cause was a problem with the
poll. So Freeman's argument that it would take preposterous odds to
produce a random sampling error is a straw-man assertion. [My
emphases, EP]

Of course "nobody argues the errors happened by chance!" Freeman's
whole point is that chance error is in effect impossible. But that
doesn't make the statistic "irrelevant" or the argument "a straw
man." On the contrary, the statistic, and the
entailed "impossibility," is central to Freeman's argument.

Is Manjoo really so foolish as to believe this nonsense? I doubt it,
for he is obviously a bright fellow. But he apparently hopes that
his readers are fools. Well, not all of us are.

So we are left with this: Yes, random error is impossible,
therefore, yes, there was "systematic cause" for errors. Lacking
plausible explanation of error in exit poll design and execution,
the compelling conclusion is fraud.

But is there a plausible explanation in design and execution of the
exit polls? Manjoo says yes, and so to this consideration we now
turn.

The desperate attempt to explain away the exit polls.

Logicians and Philosophers of Science describe "ad hoc hypotheses"
as assertions that explain (better, "explain-away") phenomena,
although these assertions are without any independent evidential
warrant. Scholarly Choctaw aside, the concept can be clearly
illustrated by examples.

Q: "Why haven't any of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction been
found?" Ans.: "They were all shipped out and hidden in Syria."
(That's the ad hoc hypothesis). Q: "Any evidence of this?"
Ans: "Unfortunately, no." ("But just you wait!").

Fundie preachers are notoriously attracted to ad hoc explanations;
for example, the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell explanation of the 9/11
attacks as God's punishment of America for tolerating homosexuality,
abortion and the ACLU.

A final example: When, as a child, I asked how, if God created the
world in 4004 BC, there are dinosaur bones in the ground. I was told
that "it is possible that Satan put them there to lead us astray."
Any independent evidence of this? Of course not! (This is
where "faith" comes to the rescue).

"Ad hoc-ery" is commonly revealed by such phrases as "it is possible
that . . ." and "could have . . ." and "there is reason to
believe . . ."

Consider now the theory that the exit poll "error" predicting the
Kerry victory was the result of "the over-sampled Kerry voters."

"According to [Warren Mitofsky, whose polling group administered the
exit polls] interviewers assigned to talk to voters as they left the
polls appear to be slightly more inclined to seek out Kerry voters
than Bush voters. Kerry voters were thus overrepresented in the poll
by a small margin."

Kennedy is unimpressed with Mitofsky's explanation:

"Now, thanks to careful examination of Mitofsky's own data by
Freeman and a team of eight researchers, we can say conclusively
that the theory is dead wrong. In fact it was Democrats, not
Republicans, who were more disinclined to answer pollsters'
questions on Election Day. In Bush strongholds, Freeman and the
other researchers found that fifty-six percent of voters completed
the exit survey -- compared to only fifty-three percent in Kerry
strongholds. 'The data presented to support the claim not only fails
to substantiate it,' observes Freeman, 'but actually contradicts
it.'"

Now things begin to get dicey for the Manjoo/Mitofsky faction. (My
emphases):

The numbers Kennedy cites fit the theory that Kerry voters were more
likely to respond to pollsters than Bush voters. For instance, in
the Bush strongholds -- where the average completion rate was 56
percent -- it's possible that only 53 percent of those who voted for
Bush were willing to be polled, while people who voted for Kerry
participated at a higher 59 percent rate. Meanwhile, in the Kerry
strongholds, where Mitofsky found a 53 percent average completion
rate, it's possible that Bush voters participated 50 percent of the
time, while Kerry voters were willing to be interviewed 56 percent
of the time. In this scenario, the averages work out to the same
ones Kennedy cited: a 56 percent average response rate in Bush
strongholds, and a 53 percent average response rate in Kerry
strongholds. But in both Bush strongholds and Kerry strongholds,
Kerry voters would have been responding at a higher rate, skewing
the poll toward Kerry.

Yes, "it is possible that . . ." Independent evidence? None!

What's more, these numbers are not set in stone. That's because, as
Mitofsky has pointed out, it's not possible to measure the actual
completion rate by Kerry voters and by Bush voters. (When someone
refuses to talk to a pollster, it's not possible to say whether he
was a Bush voter or Kerry voter.) Mitofsky says that a hypothetical
completion rate of 50 percent for Bush voters and 56 percent for
Kerry voters would have led to the error we saw in the poll.

Independent evidence? None!

Next, from these unsupported ad hoc hypotheticals, Manjoo draws a
substantive conclusion:

"In other words, Kerry voters were very slightly more likely to talk
to pollsters than were Bush voters."

Obviously a non sequitor.

Ultimately, nothing in Kennedy's article, and nothing that the
research he cites, refutes Mitofsky's theory that there was a true
difference in the willingness of Kerry voters to participate in the
poll compared to that of Bush voters.

But why should Kennedy be required to "refute Mitofsky's theory,"
when Mitofsky offers nothing to substantiate his "theory?" Manjoo
concludes his "explanation" of the exit poll "error" with still more
empty, hypothetical hand-waving:

Mitofsky noted a broad array of methodological errors that could
have contributed to this difference in participation rate by Kerry
and Bush voters. Such a difference would not have been a surprise;
Democrats have historically been overrepresented in exit polls.
There is no reason to think that the error in 2004 was anything
substantively different.

"It's possible that . . ." "A hypothetical completion
rate . . ." "Would have led . . ." "Could have
contributed. . . ." "There is no reason to think. . . ." These are
the plaintive cries of despair of the evidence starved. They are
howling indicators of shameless ad hoc-ery aforethought.

So it comes to this circular result:

Why the exit polling error?


Because of the oversampling of the Kerry voters.


And why should we believe that the Kerry voters were oversampled?


Because it explains the exit poll error.
Pathetic!

How does one escape the circular argument? By supplying independent
evidence of "the over-sampled Kerry voter." And as we have seen,
there is none.

For the theologically inclined, here is another ad hoc explanation
of the exit polling error. As the faithful assure us, The Lord God
anointed George Bush to be our president. This we know from George
Bush himself. In fact, Bush won Ohio handily. However, The Prince of
Darkness, determined as ever to undo the Lord's work, distorted the
exit poll to cast doubt on the legitimacy of God's Chosen President.
So why did Mitofsky's polls fail? "The Devil made him do it."

I submit that this "explanation" has about as much independent
support as "the over-sampled Kerry voters" theory, i..e., none.

So if these ad hoc "explanations" of the polling error fail, and if
no other explanations are brought forward and "random error" is
judged impossible, what other explanation are we left with?

What else? The election was fraudulent.

Do articles like Kennedy's, and rebuttals like Manjoo's,
illegitimately "frame" the controversy in favor of the status quo
and against the critics?

Have the critics been "suckered" into "playing the game" according
to their opponents ground rules? Unfortunately, it appears that they
have. Why must it be the task of the critics, private citizens all,
to "prove" that the past three elections were fraudulent? Why have
these critics conceded this burden of proof? Do not the citizens
have a right to secure and accurate elections? Shouldn't the burden
of proof be on the government to provide verifiable procedures?
Should it not suffice that the critics demonstrate that the
procedures fall short? Even if Farhad Manjoo and others succeed in
showing that Robert Kennedy and other critics fail to make a
convincing case for fraud (and I submit that Manjoo has done no such
thing), shouldn't it be enough that the critics have raised
reasonable and unanswerable doubts, and that the election officials
and the defenders of the status quo cannot supply the citizens
convincing evidence and proof that the elections are honest and
accurate? This much at least, the defenders have accomplished.
Nothing else should be required. So why does the controversy
continue?

Robert Kennedy Jr.'s argument that the 2004 election was stolen
emerges essentially undiminished, and arguably strengthened by the
weakness of Manjoo's "rebuttal." That's the logic of it.

But the practical effects are another matter. Will this controversy
finally break into open public debate? And will it do so in time for
the public will to overcome the formidable barrier of "black box"
voting machines with their hidden secret codes and unlocked "back
doors" open to real time manipulation and fraud?

Emerging from the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was
asked: "What do we have, Dr. Franklin?" He replied, "A republic if
you can keep it."

Today it is uncertain whether we still have a republic, much less
whether we can keep it.

Today, as in 1787, the answer to that question is up to We the
People of the United States

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the
field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He has taught
Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado
and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, The Online Gadfly and co-
edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers." His book in
progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at The Online
Gadfly. Send comments to: crisispapers@... .

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11"
The Muckraker Report
http://www.teamliberty.net

June 6, 2006 – This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail
circulated through Internet news groups, bringing attention to the
FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.[1]  (See
bottom of this web page for Most Wanted page)  In the e-mail, the
question is asked, "Why doesn't Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted poster
make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?"
The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is
wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United
States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.
According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people.  The FBI
concludes its reason for "wanting" Bin Laden by saying, "In
addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks
throughout the world."

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI
Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden's Most Wanted
poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection
with 9/11.  The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of
Investigative Publicity for the FBI.  When asked why there is no
mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden's Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, "The
reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted
page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to
9/11."

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an
astonishing statement, I asked, "How this was possible?"  Tomb
continued, "Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to
9/11."  I asked, "How does that work?"  Tomb continued, "The FBI
gathers evidence.  Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to
the Department of Justice.  The Department of Justice than decides
whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury.
In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin
Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury.  He
has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11
because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11."

It shouldn't take long before the full meaning of these FBI
statements start to prick your brain and raise your blood pressure.
If you think the way I think, in quick order you will be wrestling
with a barrage of very powerful questions that must be answered.
First and foremost, if the U.S. government does not have enough hard
evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11, how is it possible that it
had enough evidence to invade Afghanistan to "smoke him out of his
cave?"  The federal government claims to have invaded Afghanistan
to "root out" Bin Laden and the Taliban.  Through the talking heads
in the mainstream media, the Bush Administration told the American
people that Usama Bin Laden was Public Enemy Number One and
responsible for the deaths of nearly 3000 people on September 11,
2001.  Yet nearly five years later, the FBI says that it has no hard
evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.

Next is the Bin Laden "confession" video that was released by the
U.S. government on December 13, 2001.  Most Americans remember this
video.  It was the video showing Bin Laden with a few of his
comrades recounting with delight the September 11 terrorist attacks
against the United States.  The Department of Defense issued a press
release to accompany this video in which Secretary of Defense Donald
H. Rumsfeld said, "There was no doubt of bin Laden's responsibility
for the September 11 attacks before the tape was discovered."[2]
What Rumsfeld implied by his statement was that Bin Laden was the
known mastermind behind 9/11 even before the "confession video" and
that the video simply served to confirm what the U.S. government
already knew; that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

In a BBC News article[3] reporting on the "9/11 confession video"
release, President Bush is said to have been hesitant to release the
tape because he knew it would be a vivid reminder to many people of
their loss.  But, he also knew it would be "a devastating
declaration" of Bin Laden's guilt.  "Were going to get him," said
President Bush.  "Dead or alive, it doesn't matter to me."

In a CNN article[4] regarding the Bin Laden tape, then New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that "the tape removes any doubt that the
U.S. military campaign targeting bin Laden and his associates is
more than justified."  Senator Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, the vice
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said, "The tape's
release is central to informing people in the outside world who
don't believe bin Laden was involved in the September 11 attacks."
Shelby went on to say "I don't know how they can be in denial after
they see this tape."  Well Senator Shelby, apparently the Federal
Bureau of Investigation isn't convinced by the taped confession, so
why are you?

The Muckraker Report attempted to secure a reference to the U.S.
government authenticating the Bin Laden "confession video", to no
avail.  However, it is conclusive that the Bush Administration and
U.S. Congress, along with the dead stream media, played the video as
if it was authentic.  So why doesn't the FBI view the "confession
video" as hard evidence?  After all, if the FBI is investigating a
crime such as drug trafficking, and it discovers a video of members
of a drug cartel opening talking about a successful distribution
operation in the United States, that video would be presented to a
federal grand jury.  The identified participants of the video would
be indicted, and if captured, the video alone would serve as
sufficient evidence to net a conviction in a federal court.  So why
is the Bin Laden "confession video" not carrying the same weight
with the FBI?

Remember, on June 5, 2006, FBI spokesman, Chief of Investigative
Publicity Rex Tomb said, "The FBI has no hard evidence connecting
Usama Bin Laden to 9/11."  This should be headline news worldwide.
The challenge to the reader is to find out why it is not.  Why has
the U.S. media blindly read the government-provided 9/11 scripts,
rather than investigate without passion, prejudice, or bias, the
events of September 11, 2001?  Why has the U.S. media blacklisted
any guest that might speak of a government sponsored 9/11 cover-up,
rather than seeking out those people who have something to say about
9/11 that is contrary to the government's account?  And on those few
rare occasions when a 9/11 dissenter has made it upon the airways,
why has the mainstream media ridiculed the guest as a conspiracy
nut, rather than listen to the evidence that clearly raises valid
questions about the government's 9/11 account?  Why is the Big Media
Conglomeration blindly content with the government's 9/11 story when
so much verifiable information to the contrary is available with a
few clicks of a computer mouse?

Who is it that is controlling the media message, and how is it that
the U.S. media has indicted Usama Bin Laden for the events of
September 11, 2001, but the U.S. government has not?  How is it that
the FBI has no "hard evidence" connecting Usama Bin Laden to the
events of September 11, 2001, while the U.S. media has played the
Bin Laden - 9/11 connection story for five years now as if it has
conclusive evidence that Bin Laden is responsible for the collapse
of the twin towers, the Pentagon attack, and the demise of United
Flight 93?

…No hard evidence connecting Usama Bin Laden to 9/11… Think about
it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
[1] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Most Wanted Terrorists, Usama
Bin Laden, http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm,
[Accessed May 31, 2006]

[2] United States Department of Defense, News Release, U.S. Releases
Videotape of Osama bin Laden, December 13, 2001,
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2001/b12132001_bt630-01.html,
[Accessed June 5, 2006]

[3] BBC News, Bin Laden video angers New Yorkers, December 14, 2001,
Peter Gould, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1711874.stm,
[Accessed June 5, 2006]

[4] CNN, Bin Laden on tape: Attacks `benefited Islam greatly",
December 14, 2001,
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape,
[Accessed June 5, 2006]

*****

Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Rick Santorum: It's all about sodomy
by John in DC - 6/06/2006
http://americablog.blogspot.com

Far-right Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is on the Senate floor right
now railing about sodomy. According to Santorum, this entire debate
about gay marriage hinges on the issue of whether society should
legitimize sodomy or not.

And you thought I was crazy talking about sodomy, adultery and
masturbation yesterday?

Oh, but it gets better than that.

Santorum is railing against the recent Supreme Court decision,
Lawrence v. Texas. That's the decision that rules that states can no
longer throw gay people in jail simply because of who they are (up
until then, several states made "sodomy" a crime - and remember,
sodomy includes oral and anal sex, both heterosexual and gay).

So, Rick Santorum is upset that states can no longer throw gay
people in jail. Rick Santorum is upset that analingus, cunnilingus
and fellatio are no longer crimes in America, even for heterosexual
married couples. Rick Santorum thinks this is what the United States
Congress should be spending its time and money debating.

But oh, it gets even better again.

Santorum just spent a lot of time defending Justice Scalia's dissent
in the case. Santorum agrees with Scalia's dissent. That would be
the dissent in which Scalia said the following:
State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest,
prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and
obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers'
validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these
laws is called into question by today's decision; the Court makes no
effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its
holding.
Yes, Rick Santorum just made the entire debate about masturbation
and oral sex.

Nice.

And he wonders why he's 23 points behind his Democratic opponent in
his re-election campaign. He wonders why the American public
overwhelming is fed up with the Republicans running Washington?

Please contact your Senators and ask them if they agree with Rick
Santorum that gay people should be thrown in jail?

Ask them if they agree with Rick Santorum that states should
regulate masturbation?

Also, please do ask them if they agree with Rick Santorum that
sodomy should be illegal - then please do ask whether they have ever
engaged in sodomy, including analingus, cunnilingus and fellatio.

Ask your Senators if they think banning blow jobs is more important
than dealing with his gas prices, with immgration, with the economy
and with the war.

And finally, do give little Ricky a call and make sure that he's
never engaged in sodomy. The public has a right to know.

Free number to call Congress: 1-888-355-3588

Santorum's direct office line: (202) 224-6324

*****

June 12, 2006
Why Pretend That Hillary Clinton Is Progressive?
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Norman Solomon

The scheduled speech by Sen. Hillary Clinton at the "Take Back
America 2006" conference in Washington on June 13 is likely to
intensify discussion about her relationship with the progressive
grassroots of the Democratic Party.

Many weeks ago the conference sponsor, the Campaign for America's
Future, sent out an email telling prospective attendees: "As in
years past, we expect America's most prominent progressive leaders
to attend and address the conference. Invited speakers include..."
On the list was Hillary Clinton.

In response, I wrote to Campaign for America's Future co-director
Roger Hickey and asked what Clinton's name was doing on a list of "
progressive leaders." He responded by saying that "I don't think of
ALL of our speakers as 'America's most prominent progressive
leaders.' In fact, I have been quoted saying very critical things
about Hillary -- in the Washington Post and elsewhere. We do,
however, want to ask possible presidential candidates to attempt
publicly to justify their candidacy to the progressive activists."

Hickey also commented that "some people do consider Hillary
progressive."

But the people who "do consider Hillary progressive" could mostly be
divided into two categories -- those who are Fox-News-attuned enough
to believe any non-Republican is a far leftist, and those who are
left-leaning but don't realize how viciously opportunistic Sen.
Clinton has been. Today, in keeping with her political character,
she welcomes the fund-raising support of reactionary media mogul
Rupert Murdoch.

Unfortunately, the kind of confusion that sees Hillary Clinton as
progressive is apt to get a boost from her appearance at a
conference with avowedly progressive sponsorship -- particularly
because the person in the best position to dispel such confusion is
not on the program. The "Take Back America" schedule set aside half
an hour for a speech from Clinton but not a minute for any words
from Jonathan Tasini, the longtime union activist who's running --
on an antiwar and all-around progressive platform -- against Clinton
in this year's Democratic primary for senator from New York.

It's sad to see that the progressive conference has excluded from
the podium the vigorous primary challenger Tasini while featuring a
speaker who has stood against the progressive agenda consistently
for more than a decade on issues ranging from NAFTA to the invasion
and occupation of Iraq.

Tasini points out that Hillary Clinton remains for the war in Iraq,
for so-called "free trade" agreements and for the death penalty. She
supported the notorious 2001 bankruptcy bill, "has never been for
single-payer health insurance" and has worked hard to undermine a
host of other progressive positions.

In the interests of truth-in-labeling, shouldn't Hillary Clinton be
described as anti-progressive?

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Norman Solomon's book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death" is being published this month in
paperback. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com

*****

US group sues KFC to stop use of unhealthy fat
By Lisa Richwine, Reuters
Tue Jun 13, 2006

A U.S. consumer group sued the operator of the KFC fried chicken
restaurant chain on Tuesday to try and force it to stop frying foods
in an artery- clogging fat.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, in a suit filed
against Yum Brands Inc., said some KFC meals were "startlingly" high
in harmful trans fat from the partially hydrogenated oils used for
frying.

CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson said it was harder to avoid
trans fat at KFC than at other fast-food restaurants.

"Trans fat is almost everywhere on this menu. By frying in such a
dangerous oil, KFC is making its unsuspecting consumers' arteries
Extra Crispy," he said, referring to a version of fried chicken sold
by KFC.

The suit, which KFC called frivolous, seeks to force the chain to
stop cooking with trans fat or prominently warn customers about the
health hazard in the restaurants.

KFC "does not properly warn, disclose or even tell consumers that
they are eating food items prepared with the worst oil available,"
CSPI said in a legal complaint filed in Superior Court of the
District of Columbia.

The group asked the court to order KFC to switch to a healthier
frying oil. If that is ruled out, CSPI said the court should require
signs at KFC outlets saying "KFC fried chicken and certain other
foods contain trans fat, which promotes heart disease."

KFC spokeswoman Laurie Schalow said the company provided trans fat
values and other nutrition details on its Web site and in
restaurants and that all KFC products were safe to eat.

"This is a frivolous lawsuit completely without merit and we intend
to vigorously defend our position," she said.

The company has been reviewing alternative oils, but must consider a
number of issues such as availability, transportation and
maintaining its chicken's taste, she added.

CSPI said a typical three-piece combo meal with an Extra Crispy
chicken drumstick, two Extra Crispy thighs, potato wedges and a
biscuit contained 15 grams of trans fat.

Health experts suggest minimizing trans fat consumption as much as
possible. Research shows it raises LDL or "bad" cholesterol, while
lowering HDL, the "good" cholesterol.

Last week, No. 3 U.S. burger chain Wendy's International Inc. said
it would significantly cut trans fat from its menu by switching to a
new blend of corn and soy oil for french fries and breaded chicken
items. McDonald's Corp. vowed in 2002 to remove trans fat from its
french fries in the United States but has not done so.

CSPI, often nicknamed the "food police," is known for campaigning
against high-calorie and high-fat fare.

The industry-funded Center for Consumer Freedom said CSPI had filed
the suit simply to generate media coverage.

"Any judge unfortunate enough to be burdened with this court-
clogging sham should have the good sense to throw CSPI out of
court," said Center for Consumer Freedom research analyst J. Justin
Wilson.

Yum Brands, based in Louisville, Kentucky, also operates the Pizza
Hut and Taco Bell fast-food chains.

Yum shares fell 6 cents to $50.43 in early afternoon trading on the
New York Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Martinne Geller in New York)

*****

Athletes and their motorcycles just aren't a good combination
By TIM DAHLBERG, AP Sports Columnist
June 13, 2006

The list is startling, mainly because it is so long.

Jason Williams may never play in the NBA again because he couldn't
stay off his motorcycle. A ride on his bike in a parking lot cost
Kellen Winslow Jr. $3 million and nearly his career with the
Cleveland Browns.

Dennis Rodman wrecked his twice, the second time in front of a strip
club for added effect.

And now Ben Roethlisberger is in a Pittsburgh hospital recovering
after seven hours of surgery for a broken jaw, nose and who knows
what else after his bike hit a car.

Not just any bike. He was riding the fastest street-legal motorcycle
you can buy.

Without a helmet.

Not the brightest thing to do. So dumb, in fact, that even fellow
Suzuki Hayabusa riders were shaking their heads.

"Wear a helmet on the field, but not on a bike? Makes no sense to
me," one wrote on a `Busa message board.

Doesn't make much sense to anyone, especially the Pittsburgh
Steelers, who lectured their young quarterback to no avail about his
motorcycle habits. Of course, had the Steelers shown some backbone
and put a clause in Roethlisberger's contract prohibiting motorcycle
riding, he might not be in the hospital today.

Just what is it about these men and their machines? More to the
point, what is it that makes Roethlisberger want to drive the
Pittsburgh streets with his hair flowing in the wind on a motorcycle
that reaches 139 mph in the quarter mile?

Taking hits from Ray Lewis can ruin your day. Taking them from a
Chrysler New Yorker can ruin your life.

Joey Porter had it right last year when asked about his quarterback
riding motorcycles.

"What I say about motorcycles is that concrete is undefeated,"
Porter said.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of athletes who can't seem to figure
that out. Roethlisberger was one of those, insisting on riding his
bike even after Winslow crashed his last year and was hurt so badly
that his young career was in jeopardy.

Steelers coach Bill Cowher used the Winslow accident to caution his
quarterback, apparently to no avail. Maybe he should have tacked up
a list of athletes injured in motorcycle crashes above
Roethlisberger's locker to get his attention.

Topping that list would be Williams who, like Roethlisberger, had
the world at his feet after a fine rookie season with the Chicago
Bulls. Shortly after the season ended, Williams crashed his new
motorcycle into a light pole, fractured his pelvis, tore knee
ligaments and damaged nerves in his left leg.

The Bulls released him, and the former No. 2 draft pick hasn't
played in the NBA since.

The list goes on, littered with names and lost careers. Even the
Herminator wasn't immune, breaking both legs in a 2001 wreck and
nearly losing one. Olympic skier Hermann Maier was told he would
never walk again, though he came back to win two medals this year at
the Turin Games.

Whether Roethlisberger can come back won't be known for months,
maybe years. His mother cried as she entered the hospital Monday,
and most of Pittsburgh was crying along with her at the possible
loss of the quarterback who helped win them win the Super Bowl.

At the age of 24, Roethlisberger seemed to have everything. He was
rich, loved by Steelers fans and already had one Super Bowl ring on
his finger.

Though there's no evidence Roethlisberger was speeding, the urge to
ride and the feeling that you're indestructible can be a bad
combination.

Athletes by their very nature tend to be risk takers. Some get their
rush on motorcycles, others turn to alcohol and drugs. Still others -
- John Daly and Charles Barkley come to mind -- get their kicks by
betting millions of dollars in casinos.

Tiger Woods went bungee jumping recently, and drove a race car.

"I look at it this way: I'll live once, and I enjoy going for par 5s
in two," Woods said Tuesday at the U.S. Open. "It's an adrenalin
rush, to compete and try and get ourselves in the biggest mix. It's
a fun thing to have."

According to a report in Psychology Today, researchers believe this
behavior is more than a simple death wish. The need to take risks
may be something addictive deep in their brains linked to arousal
and pleasure.

The good news is the tendency affects mostly young males and
declines with age. Some outside the world of shrinks call that
growing up.

Some risk, of course, is necessary in life. Without risk, the new
world wouldn't have been discovered and man would have never landed
on the moon.

But those were calculated risks, undertaken with a final goal in
mind. Riding a souped-up motorcycle without a helmet doesn't
qualify, unless landing in the hospital counts as a goal.

Roethlisberger was lucky to escape with his life. Steelers fans will
consider themselves lucky if he makes it back on the field.

If he had only listened when former Steelers great Terry Bradshaw
gave him the simplest advice last season.

"Ride it when you retire," Bradshaw said.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated
Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@...

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Special Reports
Bush stacked Supreme Court muzzles public employees
By Evelyn Pringle
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 9, 2006

According to US Census Bureau statistics, in 2002, there were over
21 million federal, state, and local government employees in the US.
These employees are in the best position to expose misconduct and
abuses of power that arise in government agencies. However, the
recent US Supreme Court decision effectively muzzles the nation's
watchdogs.

Attorney Barry Turner, a Lecturer of Law at Leeds Law School in the
UK, describes the Supreme Court's absurd decision. "Transparency is
essential in any democracy and is a bulwark against corruption,
which," he points out, "requires secrecy to survive."

"Any society or administration that facilitates secret deals and
hides from the truth can only court corruption," he warns. "Gagging
whistleblowers," he contends, "can only assist the corrupt, the
criminal and the fraudster."

In a nutshell, the question before the Supreme Court was: Does a
prosecutor who speaks on a matter of public concern by reporting
police misconduct lose his First Amendment protection against
retaliation solely because he communicated the message while
performing his job?

The plaintiff in the case was Richard Ceballos, a deputy district
attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, who
informed his supervisors that he believed a deputy sheriff had
falsified an affidavit to obtain a search warrant in a criminal case.

After Ceballos relayed his findings, he followed up with a written
memorandum recommending the dismissal of the case. At a hearing on a
motion to challenge the search warrant, Ceballos was subpoenaed by
the defense and testified about his findings regarding the affidavit.

According to Ceballos, he filed the lawsuit after he was demoted and
denied a promotion, in direct retaliation for the statements he made
in the memo and during his testimony. He maintains he is entitled to
protection for speech on a matter of public concern regardless of
whether the communication was made in the course of performing his
job duties.

In response to a motion for summary judgment by the government
defendants, the district court disagreed and said the memo was not
protected speech because Ceballos wrote it as part of his employment
duties.

Ceballos appealed the decision and the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed the lower court's ruling and held that the memo's
allegations were protected.

The government then appealed to the US Supreme Court and the case
was argued twice, once when Sandra Day O'Connor was still on the
bench, and again after she retired and Samuel Alito took her place.

The newest justice, Alito, cast the tie-breaking vote in ruling not
only against Ceballos, but against the public's right to know what
their government is up to, according to critics.

Attorney Tom Devine says, "This decision is outrageous."

"Canceling the constitution for 'duty speech,'" he warns, "means
that government employees only have an on-the-job right to be 'yes
people,' parroting false information and enabling illegality."

Mr. Devine is the legal director at the Government Accountability
Project (GAP), a non-profit, non-partisan whistleblower support
organization. He has represented FDA whistleblower Dr David Graham,
and has assisted some 4,000 whistleblowers formally or informally
since coming to GAP in 1979.

When public employees are muzzled, it follows that the public will
be deprived of information on important public issues, such as
police misconduct in this case. Society relies on public employees
like Ceballos to communicate information about abuse of authority
and other matters of great importance, because they are the members
of the community who are most likely to have informed opinions on
the operations of public employers.

According to court filings, Ceballos had served as a deputy district
attorney since 1989. In the latter part of the 1990s he was assigned
to the DA's office as a trial deputy and less than a year later, he
was promoted to calendar deputy, a position giving him supervisory
authority over junior prosecutors and responsibility for
prosecutions brought in the court to which he was assigned.

In March 2000, when the events in this case were unfolding, the
intense scrutiny focused on LA police officers was at an all-time
high. In September 1999, one of the worst law enforcement corruption
scandals in the city's history came to light and involved widespread
abuses by a unit of the LAPD assigned to the Rampart area of the
city.

The scandal began unraveling when Rafael Perez, a member of the
Rampart unit, was being tried on drug theft charges, and revealed
that he and another officer had shot an unarmed man, and to cover it
up, had planted a gun on the dead man.

In the end, in exchange for leniency, Perez implicated dozens of
officers in criminal misconduct, that included attempted murder,
beatings, planting evidence, false imprisonment, theft of money and
drugs, unauthorized searches, obstruction of justice, perjury, and
filing false police reports, according to the Report of the Rampart
Independent Review Panel 5 (2000).

Before it was all over, the scandal resulted in the overturning of
more than 100 convictions, the exodus of more than a dozen police
officers, the payment of $70 million in damages to victims, and the
LAPD's entry into a consent decree with the US Department of Justice
requiring extensive reforms.

Against this background, in February 2000, a lawyer representing a
defendant in a case assigned to Ceballos' court, asked him to
investigate whether one of the arresting deputies had lied in an
affidavit to obtain a search warrant to search the defendant's
property. The defense attorney also filed a motion to challenge the
warrant.

Ceballos agreed to look into the matter and started by reviewing the
file and speaking to the prosecutor on the case. While comparing the
photographs and a videotape of the property searched to the property
described in the affidavit, Ceballos noticed a clear
mischaracterization in the affidavit, and saw that it did not at all
match what the photographs were depicting, so Ceballos decided to
visit the crime scene to check it out further.

After verifying the mischaracterization, Ceballos called and spoke
to the deputy and confronted him with the accusation that he had
lied in the affidavit, and according to court filings, the deputy
told Ceballos: "Well, that's what they told me," referring to two
other deputies.

When Ceballos showed his fellow prosecutors the photographs and
videotape and described what he found at the crime scene, every
prosecutor he consulted with agreed that the validity of the warrant
was questionable.

He then showed his supervisors the videotape and photographs and
described what he had observed at the property and says they, too,
agreed that there was a problem with the warrant.

After all this, Ceballos determined that the prosecution could not
justify pursuing the case if the warrant was invalid and prepared a
memorandum reporting that the affidavit relied on was inaccurate,
misleading, and contained possibly outright false information and
recommended that the cases against the three defendants be dismissed.

Ceballos' original memo accused the deputy of perjury but after she
reviewed the memo, his supervisor directed Ceballos to make it less
accusatory, because it was to be shared with the Sheriff's
Department.

Ceballos complied, but he continued to assert that the deputy's
characterizations were "grossly inaccurate," "clearly misleading,"
omitted key facts, and were possibly fabricated.

Ceballos maintains that he spoke up to bring the abuse of authority
to light and believes that he was ethically bound to report the
misconduct. He also wrote a second memo reporting a conversation he
had with the deputy, in which he stated that the deputy's affidavit
appeared to be "grossly inaccurate."

The revised memorandums were faxed to the Sheriff's Department, and
a meeting was held with Ceballos, his supervisors, and
representatives from the department. According to court filings, a
lieutenant verbally attacked Ceballos, accused him of acting like
a "public defender," criticized him for not putting the case on, and
demanded his removal from the case.

At the end of the meeting, it was decided to proceed with the case
pending the outcome of the motion to challenge the warrant. The
defense issued a subpoena to Ceballos to testify at the hearing and
he informed his supervisor that, in his view, both memos contained
material that needed to be turned over to the defense before the
hearing.

The supervisor initially said they could not disclose the memoranda
because they would be sued by the deputy sheriff for defamation and
instructed Ceballos to write a new memo with only the statements of
the deputy, and to omit everything else.

Ceballos told her that he did not believe rewriting the memo was
appropriate and that the proper course was to turn over the memo
with portions redacted. Although initially she was not receptive to
idea, he said, she later agreed and Ceballos gave the redacted memo
to the defense.

Before the hearing, according to court filings, the supervisor
called Ceballos into her office and made a veiled threat of reprisal
if he insisted on testifying candidly at the hearing.

The same supervisor represented the prosecution at the hearing, and
objected to the defense calling Ceballos as a witness. The court
permitted him to testify, but it sustained most of the prosecution's
objections to his testimony, which allowed Ceballos to testify only
about the statements the deputy had made to him.

According to Ceballos in documents filed, the trial judge later
remarked to him that his supervisor's conduct toward him on the
stand was "very chastising, rude, and hostile."

Over the next six months, the lawsuit alleges, the DA's office took
a series of retaliatory actions against Ceballos because of his oral
and written statements to his supervisors and his testimony at the
hearing.

He says he was demoted from calendar deputy to trial deputy and that
one of his murder cases was reassigned to a junior colleague with no
murder trial experience, and that he was assigned no new murder
cases, undercutting his chances for promotion.

According to court documents, Ceballos was also transferred to a
courthouse in El Monte, significantly lengthening his commute to and
from work, in a form of punishment that Ceballos describes
as "freeway therapy."

He filed a grievance challenging these actions and while it was
pending, he spoke at the Mexican-American Bar Association about the
Sheriff Department's misconduct, the lack of a policy in the DA's
office for dealing with police misconduct, and the retaliatory
measures taken against him.

Two days after he spoke before the Bar Association, the DA's office
denied his grievance, in part, he alleges, because he spoke to the
association. Ceballos then filed an action under 42 USC §1983
challenging the retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment
rights.

On January 30, 2002, the district court granted the government's
motion for summary judgment, and concluded that the defendants were
entitled to qualified immunity on the §1983 claim because Ceballos'
speech was not protected by the First Amendment.

The court acknowledged that Ceballos' "speech clearly involved a
matter of public concern."

"For reasons that need not be recited," the court noted, "the code
word `Rampart' says it all -- there can be no doubt that, in
Southern California, police misconduct is a matter of great
political and social concern to the community."

Yet "[d]espite the intrinsic and important public interest in
excluding perjured evidence from court proceedings," the court said,
the speech did not touch on a matter of public concern for First
Amendment purposes because Ceballos wrote his memo "as part of his
job," and in fulfillment of his duties "not to introduce or rely on
evidence known to be false."

Caballos appealed the district court's decision and the court of
appeals reversed the ruling, finding that "the law was clearly
established that Ceballos's speech addressed a matter of public
concern and that his interest in the speech outweighed the public
employer's interest in avoiding inefficiency and disruption."

In the court's view, critical under the analysis was whether
the "point of the speech in question" was "to bring wrongdoing to
light" or "to raise other issues of public concern."

The court held that allegations that a policeman may have lied in an
affidavit to obtain a warrant constituted "whistleblowing" and noted
that "when government employees speak about corruption, wrongdoing,
misconduct, wastefulness, or inefficiency by other government
employees, including law enforcement officers, their speech is
inherently a matter of public concern."

The court rejected the contention that "a public employee's speech
is deprived of First Amendment protection whenever those views are
expressed . . . pursuant to an employment responsibility."

The court said the proposed rule would be detrimental to
whistleblowers like Ceballos, who report official misconduct,
because all public employees have a duty to notify their supervisors
when they become aware of wrongful conduct. It specifically noted
the perverse incentive that would be created by a rule protecting
employees only if they bypassed superiors and took their information
directly to the media.

The court also said that public employees "are positioned uniquely
to contribute to the debate on matters of public concern." And
that "[s]tripping them of that right when they report wrongdoing or
other significant matters to their supervisors would seriously
undermine our ability to maintain the integrity of our governmental
operations."

The court deemed Ceballos's speech of significant value because he
sought "to bring wrongdoing to light, not merely to further some
purely private interest," and it found no evidence that Ceballos had
spoken recklessly or in bad faith.

Most importantly, the court pointed out, "Ceballos tried to address
the problem initially by reporting the matter to his supervisors,
obviously an appropriate way of seeking a responsible solution."

The court rejected the argument that the adverse actions were
undertaken for non-retaliatory reasons, noting that "a reasonable
jury could infer that Ceballos' speech was a substantially
motivating factor."

The defendants appealed the decision and the Supreme Court reversed
the court of appeals and stated: "when public employees make
statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not
speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the
Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer
discipline."

Ceballos spoke on a matter of public concern and did so in the
course of his employment duties and ,therefore, the Supreme Court's
decision puts government workers in a Catch 22 situation, according
to Mr. Devine.

"Increasingly the bureaucracy has imposed a mandatory 'duty to
disclose' on its employees," he explains. "If they stumble across
misconduct, they have no choice but to report it or be guilty for
silence."

"Now government employees obey this duty at their own risk," he
warns. "They're damned if they remain silent, and defenseless if
they bear witness."

Corruption, abuse of power, and unlawful activity are of distinct
public concern and the value of receiving information from public
employees regarding such matters cannot be overstated. Critics say
the court's decision will further increase the ever-mounting shroud
of secrecy evident in government today.

According to Attorney, Mark Labaton, "The Supreme Court's decision
rests on a somewhat artificial distinction between speech as a
private citizen and speech pursuant to one's official duties."

"The fear is," he explains, "that the decision will encourage
employer retaliation against workers who speak out against illegal
conduct."

Santa Monica, California Attorney, Mark Klieman, finds the
decision "discouraging," and says he expects that we're going to see
a lot more like it. "The only saving grace," he notes, "is that some
state Supreme Courts may find that this kind of repression of
whistleblowers violates state constitutional rights of free speech
and of course," he says, "state legislatures are free to prohibit
retaliation if they wish anyway."

Others say the court's decision should compel Congress to act. The
court's opinion referred to the Whistleblower Protection Act,
but "it already has been gutted by judicial activism to remove
statutory protection for duty speech," according to Mr. Devine.

"This is exactly why House and Senate leaders must schedule votes on
bills to restore the Whistleblower Protection Act," he advises.

"Legislation has been unanimously approved by congressional
committees for the last two Congresses," Mr Devine explains, "but
the leadership has refused to schedule up-or-down floor votes due to
demands by the Justice Department."

"It is time," he says, "for Congress to do its duty and protect duty
speech."

Free speech concerning public affairs is the hallmark of self-
government. The decision by the Supreme Court in this case will no
doubt create a strong incentive for millions of employees to remain
silent, and when government employees remain silent, the public is
the ultimate loser.

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and an investigative
journalist focusing on exposing corruption in government.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

FreePress.net
May 25, 2006
Craig Aaron, (202) 265-1490, x 25

New Report Separates Fact from Fiction in Net Neutrality Debate
As House and Senate Consider Bipartisan Bills, Consumers Demand
Internet Freedom

WASHINGTON — In a new report released today, Free Press, Consumers
Union and the Consumer Federation of America debunk a dozen industry
myths and call on Congress to protect the public interest by passing
meaningful, enforceable protections for Network Neutrality.

"The interests of American consumers have been drowned out by a
noisy industry propaganda campaign that surely ranks among the most
expensive in telecom policy history," said Mark Cooper, director of
research at the Consumer Federation of America. "In a debate where
the facts are against them, the phone companies and their hired guns
have every incentive to hide behind slogans and propaganda. But no
amount of lobbying dollars or ad buys can purchase the truth."

The report comes as both chambers of Congress consider bipartisan
legislation supporting Network Neutrality. Today, the House
Judiciary Committee is expected to mark up the "Internet Freedom and
Nondiscrimination Act of 2006" (H.R. 5417), sponsored by Reps. James
Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.). Meanwhile, the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold a
hearing today on Network Neutrality as part of a major rewrite of
the nation's telecommunications laws.

"The issue of Network Neutrality is about who will control the
future of the Internet," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free
Press, who will testify on behalf of the consumer groups at the
Senate hearing. "Will a handful of phone and cable behemoths
dominate an anti-competitive marketplace and do away with the
Internet as we know it? Or will consumers, content creators,
educators and small businesses continue to enjoy a free, open and
competitive Internet? Every major consumer organization in the
country is committed to meaningful, enforceable Network Neutrality."

The new report — Why Consumers Demand Internet Freedom: Network
Neutrality Fact vs. Fiction — offers a point-by-point rebuttal of
each of the major arguments made by opponents of Net Neutrality.
Among its findings:

FACT #1: Network Neutrality protections have existed for the entire
history of the Internet.

FACT #2: Network discrimination through a "tiered Internet" will
severely curtail consumer choice.

FACT #3: Network discrimination will undermine innovation,
investment and competition.

FACT #4: Network discrimination will fundamentally alter the
consumer's online experience by creating fast and slow lanes for
Internet content.

FACT #5: No one gets a "free ride" on the Internet.

FACT #6: Phone companies have received billions of dollars in public
subsidies and private incentives to support network build-out.

FACT #7: There is little competition in the broadband market.

FACT #8: Consumers will bear the costs for network infrastructure
regardless if there is Network Neutrality.

FACT #9: Investing in increased bandwidth is the most efficient way
to solve increased network congestion problems.

FACT #10: Network owners have explicitly stated their intent to
build business models based on discrimination.

FACT #11: The COPE Act will not deter discrimination, but it will
tie the hands of the FCC from preventing it.

FACT #12: Supporters of Network Neutrality represent a broad,
nonpartisan coalition that joins right and left, commercial and
noncommercial interests.

Together, Free Press, Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of
America represent hundreds of thousands of individual members,
partner with hundreds of local groups, and deliver information and
advice about consumer issues week in and week out to millions of
Americans. Not a dollar of corporate money funds these efforts.

"The campaign to preserve Net Neutrality is perhaps the most diverse
set of public and private interests backing any single issue in
Washington today," said Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst of
Consumers Union. "Hundreds of groups and hundreds of thousands of
individuals from across the political spectrum are joining together
to save this cornerstone principle of consumer choice and Internet
freedom."

The full report is available at
www.freepress.net/docs/nn_fact_v_fiction_final.pdf

***

No Tolls on The Internet
By Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney
Washington Post
Thursday, June 8, 2006; A23

Congress is about to cast a historic vote on the future of the
Internet. It will decide whether the Internet remains a free and
open technology fostering innovation, economic growth and democratic
communication, or instead becomes the property of cable and phone
companies that can put toll booths at every on-ramp and exit on the
information superhighway.

At the center of the debate is the most important public policy
you've probably never heard of: "network neutrality." Net neutrality
means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike
and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the
Internet's wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but
brilliant "end-to-end" design of the Internet that has made it such
a powerful force for economic and social good: All of the
intelligence and control is held by producers and users, not the
networks that connect them.

The protections that guaranteed network neutrality have been law
since the birth of the Internet -- right up until last year, when
the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the rules that kept
cable and phone companies from discriminating against content
providers. This triggered a wave of announcements from phone company
chief executives that they plan to do exactly that.

Now Congress faces a legislative decision. Will we reinstate net
neutrality and keep the Internet free? Or will we let it die at the
hands of network owners itching to become content gatekeepers? The
implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be
more serious. The current legislation, backed by companies such as
AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different
tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the
express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone
else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still,
these gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who
doesn't.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the
consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what
Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University,
calls "the Tony Soprano business model": By extorting protection
money from every Web site -- from the smallest blogger to Google --
network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow
or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or
those who refuse to pay up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to
behave.

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable
TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and
distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much
it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing
and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use --
  all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with
telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and
distribution of independent news and community information through
broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created
by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and
production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of
network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone
companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves
monopoly power. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on
inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists;
coin-operated think tanks; and sham "Astroturf" groups -- fake grass-
roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet
and NetCompetition.org.

They're opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700
groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have
rallied in support of net neutrality at
http://www.savetheinternet.com/ . The coalition is left and right,
commercial and noncommercial, public and private. Supporters include
the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious
Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the
American Library Association, AARP and nearly every consumer group.
It includes the founders of the Internet, the brand names of Silicon
Valley, and a bloc of retailers, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Coalitions of such breadth, depth and purpose are rare in
contemporary politics.

Most of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started
out in their garages with great ideas and little capital. This is no
accident. Network neutrality protections minimized control by the
network owners, maximized competition and invited outsiders in to
innovate. Net neutrality guaranteed a free and competitive market
for Internet content. The benefits are extraordinary and undeniable.

Congress is deciding on the fate of the Internet. The question
before it is simple: Should the Internet be handed over to the
handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access
for 98 percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by
high-priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign
contributions could possibly even consider such an absurd act.

People are waking up to what's at stake, and their voices are
growing louder by the day. As millions of citizens learn the facts,
the message to Congress is clear: Save the Internet.

Lawrence Lessig is a law professor at Stanford University and
founder of the Center for Internet and Society. Robert W. McChesney
is a communications professor at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and co-founder of the media reform group Free Press.

***

House rejects Net neutrality rules
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
June 8, 2006
http://news.zdnet.com

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept
of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet
companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a
last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.

By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House
Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-
backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality
regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from
treating some Internet sites differently from others.

Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took
place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality
supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the
opposition.

The vote on the amendment came after nearly a full day of debate on
the topic, which prominent Democrats predicted would come to
represent a turning point in the history of the Internet.

"The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape
and Google...are going to have to pay taxes" to broadband providers,
said Rep. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the Net
neutrality amendment. This vote will change "the Internet for the
rest of eternity," he warned.

At issue is a lengthy measure called the Communications Opportunity,
Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act, which a House committee
approved in April. Its Republican backers, along with broadband
providers such as Verizon and AT&T, say it has sufficient Net
neutrality protections for consumers, and more extensive rules would
discourage investment in wiring American homes with higher-speed
connections.

The concept of network neutrality, which generally means that all
Internet sites must be treated equally, has drawn a list of high-
profile backers, from actress Alyssa Milano to Vint Cerf, one of the
technical pioneers of the Internet. It's also led to a political
rift between big Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo that
back it--and telecom companies that oppose what they view as onerous
new federal regulations.

As the final House vote drew closer, lobbyists and CEOs from both
sides began stepping up the pressure. eBay CEO Meg Whitman e-mailed
more than a million members, urging them to support the concept, and
Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Wednesday called on his company's users
to follow suit.

Defenders of the COPE Act, largely Republicans, dismissed worries
about Net neutrality as fear mongering.

"I want a vibrant Internet just like they do," said Rep. Lamar
Smith, a Texas Republican. "Our disagreement is about how to achieve
that. They say let the government dictate it...I urge my colleagues
to reject government regulation of the Internet."

The debate over Net neutrality had become more complicated after
earlier versions of the COPE Act appeared to alter antitrust laws--
in a way that would have deprived the House Judiciary Committee of
some of its influence.

But in a last-minute compromise designed to placate key Republicans,
the House leadership permitted an amendment (click for PDF) from
Smith that would preserve the House Judiciary Committee's influence--
without adding extensive Net neutrality mandates. That amendment to
COPE was approved.

While the debate over Net neutrality started over whether broadband
providers could block certain Web sites, it has moved on to whether
they should be permitted to create a "fast lane" that could be
reserved for video or other specialized content.

Prohibiting that is "not a road we want to go down, but that's what
the Markey amendment would do," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a
Tennessee Republican. "The next thing is going to be having a
secretary of Internet Access (in the federal government)."

*

Net neutrality's crowded field
Bill number Lead sponsor(s) What it proposes Status
S.2360 Wyden (D) No two-tier Internet Still in Senate committee
S.2917 Snowe (R) and Dorgan (D) No two-tier Internet Just introduced
HR5417 Sensenbrenner (R) and Conyers (D) Antitrust extended to Net
neutrality Awaiting House floor vote
HR5273 Markey (D) No two-tier Internet Still in House committee *
HR5252 Barton (R) and Rush (D) FCC can police complaints Net
neutrality rejected
S.2686 Stevens (R) and Inouye (D) FCC will do a study Senate
committee vote expected in June

* Republicans have defeated similar language twice as an amendment
to a telecommunications bill

Source: CNET News.com research

***

http://www.savetheinternet.com

House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet
June 9th, 2006 by tkarr

Last night's House vote against an amendment that would make Net
Neutrality enforceable is the result of swarming lobbyists and a
multi-million-dollar media campaign by telephone companies that want
Congress to hand them control of the Internet.

The fight now moves to the Senate, where there is stronger bi-
partisan support for a bill — put forth by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-
Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) — that would protect our
Internet freedom from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

Here are some comments from SavetheInternet.com Coalition members.

Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst of the Consumers Union:

Special interest advocates from telephone and cable companies have
flooded the Congress with misinformation delivered by an army of
lobbyists to undermine decades-long federal practice of prohibiting
network owners from discriminating against competitors to shut out
competition. Unless the Senate steps in, today's vote marks the
beginning of the end of the Internet as an engine of new
competition, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Ben Scott, policty director of Free Press:

The American public favors an open and neutral Internet and does not
want gatekeepers taxing innovation and throttling the free market.
The House has seriously undermined access to information and
democratic communication. Despite the revisionist history propagated
by the telcos and their lobbyists, until last year, the Internet had
always been a neutral network. It is the central reason for its
overwhelming success. This issue is not about whether or not the
government will regulate the Internet. It's about whether consumers
or cable and phone companies will decide what services and content
are available on the Net.

Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumers Federation of
America:

This is not Google vs. AT&T. CFA has been battling to keep the phone
companies from putting tollbooths on the Internet since the early
1980's, but now every business and every consumer that uses the
Internet has a dog in the fight for Internet Freedom. This coalition
will continue to grow, millions of Americans will add their voices,
and Congress will not escape the roar of public opinion until
Congress passes enforceable net neutrality.

Our grass-roots coalition includes more than 700 groups, 5,000
bloggers and 800,000 individuals who have rallied in support of net
neutrality at www.savetheinternet.com. The coalition is left and
right, public and private, commercial and noncommercial.

Supporters of net neutrality include the Christian Coalition of
America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service
Employees International Union, the American Library Association,
AARP, ACLU, and every major consumer group in the nation. It
includes the founders of the Internet and hundreds of companies that
do business online.

The battle for Net Neutrality - or Internet freedom - has
significantly stronger bipartisan support in the Senate. Senators
Snowe (R-Maine) and Dorgan (D-N.D.) have introduced the "Internet
Freedom Preservation Act of 2006? that enjoys the strong support
from the SaveTheInternet coalition.

Bi-partisanship will carry the day. A bi-partisan Net Neutrality
bill in the House Judiciary won handily only two weeks ago. As we
look to the Senate, our prospects are strong.

Senators can expect to hear from their constituents on their
responsibility to protect Net Neutrality and we will be watching
closely to make sure they listen.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Illegitimate election
A key source for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responds to criticism of his
analysis of the 2004 election
By Steven F. Freeman
Salon.com

Jun. 12, 2006 | Because Robert F Kennedy Jr. based much of the
discussion in his Rolling Stone article on interviews with me and on
a close reading of my new book, coauthored with Joel Bleifuss, "Was
the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud,
and the Official Count," and because Kennedy cites in his thorough
footnotes many of the same key sources we worked from, I feel
compelled to address directly several statements that Farhad Manjoo
makes about the exit polls, both in his original Salon article and
in his response to Kennedy's response to that article -- statements
that are either incorrect or based on misunderstandings about exit
polls and the 2004 results.

We regret that Manjoo did not request an advance copy of our book
before writing his article. Had he done so, I'm confident that many
of the basic errors he made could have been avoided.

Are exit polls usually accurate?

Yes, they are. On Nov. 2, 2004, Manjoo's source Mark Blumenthal, the
Mystery Pollster, had this to say: "I have always been a fan of exit
polls. Despite the occasional controversies, exit polls remain among
the most sophisticated and reliable political surveys available."
Properly done exit polls are highly accurate. Given the large sample
size in U.S. exit polls, they ought to be accurate within 1 to 2
percentage points of the official count.

The 2004 Election Day exit poll was a well-funded effort conducted
by the most experienced pollsters in the business, and it
represented a broad spectrum of media interests, from Fox to CBS.
The sample included 114,559 respondents in the 50 state exit polls,
conducted at 1,480 precincts throughout the nation. A subsample of
these was selected to provide a sample representative of the U.S.
electorate for the national exit poll: 11,719 Election Day voters
and 500 absentee and early voters. The National Election Pool, NEP,
a consortium of six news organizations (ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox and
NBC) pooled resources to conduct a thorough survey of each state and
the nation. NEP in turn contracted two respected firms, Joe Lenski's
Edison Media research and Warren Mitofsky's Mitofsky International,
to conduct the polls.

Prior to 2000, no one even debated the accuracy of exit polls.
Scholars, practitioners and critics all agreed. In 1987, Washington
Post columnist David Broder wrote that exit polls "are the most
useful analytic tool developed in my working life." Political
scientists George Edwards and Stephen Wayne, in their
book "Presidential Leadership: Politics and Policy," put it this
way: "The problems with exit polls lie in their accuracy (rather
than inaccuracy). They give the press access to predict the outcome
before the elections have been concluded."

An exit pollster himself for more than 20 years, St. Louis
University professor of political science Ken Warren has never had
an error greater than 2 percent, except one time -- in a 1982 St.
Louis primary. In that election, massive voter fraud was
subsequently uncovered.

Do the exit polls indicate a Kerry electoral victory?

Yes, as Kennedy reported, they do. Manjoo references a report I had
written shortly after the election to refute Kennedy's claim that
exit poll data indicated a Kerry victory in Nevada, New Mexico and
Ohio.

At that time, the only data available (and these were hard to come
by!) were screen shots preserved from the CNN Web site on Election
Night (before the data were "corrected" so as to conform to the
count). Whether these data indicate a Kerry victory was a matter of
debate, but as any of Manjoo's experts should have known, these data
have been superseded by the more detailed data released later by the
National Election Pool exit pollsters. The detailed 77-page report
was released on Jan. 19, 2005, Bush's Inauguration Eve. Reporters
who filed stories on it that night had no time to review it
properly; they could only summarize the report's conclusion. Their
stories appeared under misleading headlines such as MSNBC's "Exit
Polls Prove That Bush Won." In fact, the report makes no such claim.

Manjoo -- though not his triumvirate of expert sources -- may be
partly excused for his ignorance on this matter. The National Exit
Pool unnecessarily complicates the data through secretive processes
and misleading terminology. Despite requests from U.S. Congress
members and faculty at leading research universities, the National
Exit Pool has refused to release or even permit independent
inspection of these data that would allow an investigation of
suspected fraud. We only had access to "uncorrected" "early" exit
poll data because of blogger leaks and a computer glitch. The
National Exit Pool intended to, and eventually did, replace these
CNN.com numbers with data "corrected" so as to conform to the
official count, and implied that the Election Night CNN numbers were
merely "early" results, rather than what they really were: end-of-
day data reflecting the entire surveyed population.

Could the discrepancy between the exit poll results and the official
count have been due to chance or random error?

No, the discrepancy could not have occurred by chance.

The likelihood of the three most significant anomalies -- the
dramatic differences between the official count and the exit-poll
projections posted on Election Night in Ohio, Florida and
Pennsylvania, the three critical swing states -- occurring together
and all favoring the incumbent, Bush, is about one in 660,000. These
odds are calculated by multiplying the individual likelihoods from
each state, which I have calculated from the exit poll data and
which we explain much more thoroughly in the book. This is quite
relevant, because it means that there must be an explanation for
these irrefutable differences between the vote count and the exit
polls.

Are we saying that this means that Kerry must have really won the
election?

The evidence that Kennedy cites to cast doubts on the election
results come from diverse sources. The exit polls have never been
cited as primary evidence of fraud, but only as a reason to take
that primary evidence to heart. The title of our book is posed as a
question: "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" In the book,
we treat the exit poll discrepancy as, in the words of Rep. John
Conyers, "but one indicia or warning that something may have gone
wrong -- either with the polling or with the election." We agree
with Conyers that the election results should bear greater scrutiny.
The discrepancy is an undisputed fact. The question is, What caused
it?

There are only two possible explanations for the discrepancy: 1) far
more Kerry voters than Bush voters agreed to fill out the
questionnaires offered by pollsters, or 2) the votes were counted
incorrectly. In our book, we examine these two possible scenarios as
thoroughly as possible.

How significant is the discrepancy?

Manjoo, like Blumenthal and Mitofsky, consistently understate the
magnitude and improbability of the discrepancy. A close look at the
Ohio results proves this. The official count in the 2004 Ohio
election credited Kerry with 48.7 percent of the vote. The 10.9
percentage point disparity between the official count and the exit
poll results in those same precincts indicates that Bush's exit poll
results was 5.45 percentage points lower than his official numbers
and that Kerry's exit poll result was 5.45 percentage points higher,
or 54.2 percent. A layman's intuition may tell you that the
difference between 48.7 percent and 54.2 percent is not large and
you might be tempted to write it off "to chance."

But bell-curve mathematics tells us that the expected range, the
polling margin of error, should have been within 47.1 percent to
50.3 percent; 95 percent of the area under the bell curve -- 95
percent of the possible results -- is within this range. And 99
percent of the time the result would fall between 46.6 percent and
50.8 percent. If, in fact, 48.7 percent of the voters in the
surveyed Ohio precincts had cast their ballots for Kerry, there
should be an even probability of his receiving 48.7 percent or less
in the exit poll survey.

Yet the exit poll result falls at the 54.2 percent mark. This is
well outside the area where all the probability is located. In fact
there is virtually no chance that such a survey would produce a
result higher than around 51.9 percent. And this is just one state.
All told, 26 states had similar anomalous results. The odds are
astronomical that the exit poll results could have been so far off
in the same direction in so many states.

We reiterate that this does not prove that the official vote count
was fraudulent. What it does say is that the discrepancy between the
official count and the exit polls can't be just a statistical fluke,
but commands some kind of systematic explanation: Either the exit
poll was deeply flawed or else the vote count was corrupted.

How do we measure the discrepancy?

This is the most technical part of the analysis, and it is explained
at some length in our book. The Edison/Mitofsky report includes a
particularly useful statistic, what the pollsters called "Within
Precinct Error" and what we called "Within Precinct Disparity,"
as "error" implies "mistake" rather than "difference." In order to
understand the discrepancy between the exit poll results and the
official count, the best measure is the rendering of the discrepancy
within the precinct itself.

In the book, we compare 1) the exit poll results by state for Bush
and Kerry, 2) each state's official vote tally for Bush and Kerry,
and 3) their differential. For example, in Nevada, the official
count for Bush is 50.5 percent. The official count for Kerry is 47.9
percent. The difference between the two, the official margin of
victory for Bush, is 2.6 percent of the vote.

In Nevada, the exit poll result calculated for Bush was 45.4
percent. The exit poll result calculated for Kerry was 52.9 percent.
The difference in these exit poll results is a 7.5 percent margin of
victory for Kerry. The Nevada differential -- the shift between the
official count result, a 2.6 percentage point win for Bush, and the
exit poll result, a 7.5 percentage point win for Kerry, was a huge
10.1 percentage points, as reported by the pollsters.

Because it is based on the precinct-level exit poll results, we call
this the "Within Precinct Disparity." This is the difference between
how people said they voted as they walked out of the voting booth,
and the way those votes were officially recorded.

In New Mexico, there was a 7.8 percentage point disparity; and in
Ohio, 10.9 percentage point disparity. Given respective official
victory margins of 2.6, 0.8, and 2.1 percentage points in these
states, we can say with a very high degree of certainty that exit
poll results indicate a Kerry victory. Had Kerry won these states
(or even just Ohio), he would have won the presidency.

Have the exit pollsters provided a "clear and convincing
explanation" for the exit poll discrepancy?

No, they have not. Manjoo relies on a "hypothetical completion rate
of 50 percent for Bush voters and 56 percent for Kerry voters"
mentioned in the Edison/Mitofsky report to "explain" the
discrepancy. Unfortunately, what I said to Kennedy is absolutely
true: "The data presented to support the claim not only fails to
substantiate it, but actually contradicts it." All independent
indicators on poll participation suggest not lower, but higher
response rates among Bush voters. One of these is that response
rates are higher, not lower, in precincts where Bush voters
predominated as compared to precincts where Kerry voters
predominated. In precincts where Bush got 80 percent or more of the
vote, an average of 56 percent of people who were approached
volunteered to take part in the poll, while in precincts where Kerry
got 80 percent or more of the vote, a lower average of 53 percent of
people were willing to be surveyed.

Manjoo and the pollsters feel justified in ignoring these indicators
based on fanciful possibilities put forward by a aggressive defender
of the election, political scientist Mark Lindeman. Manjoo writes:

"For instance, in the Bush strongholds -- where the average
completion rate was 56 percent -- it's possible that only 53 percent
of those who voted for Bush were willing to be polled, while people
who voted for Kerry participated at a higher 59 percent rate.
Meanwhile, in the Kerry strongholds, where Mitofsky found a 53
percent average completion rate, it's possible that Bush voters
participated 50 percent of the time, while Kerry voters were willing
to be interviewed 56 percent of the time. In this scenario, the
averages work out to the same ones Kennedy cited."

Unfortunately, even beyond the fact that there is no evidence at all
to support the suppositions, Lindeman is flat-out wrong in his
calculations. Claiming that the average of a 59 percent response
rate for Democratic voters and a 53 percent response rate for
Republican voters is 56 percent (59 plus 53, divided by two)
neglects the fact that we know that there are at least four times as
many Republican voters as Democratic voters in this sample --
because it comes from the set of precincts identified by the
pollsters as precincts where 80 percent or more of the voters voted
for Bush.

The correct calculation would be that the response rate among Kerry
voters had to be at least 68 percent to balance out four times as
many Bush voters responding at a 53 percent rate.

Data in the Edison/Mitofsky report informs us of the WPD rates by
precinct partisanship is a whopping 10.0 percentage points in these
Bush strongholds (as compared to virtually zero in the Kerry
strongholds). US CountVotes analysts reconciled these two sets of
numbers (the math is not difficult, but more than I'll take on here,
although I do explore this in the book), and calculated that
response rate among Kerry supporters would have to be about 84
percent in Bush strongholds to reconcile the numbers.

All of which might leave you wondering why so many Democrats would
be willing to stick out their necks when they're in enemy territory,
surrounded by Republicans, but not willing to respond to the poll in
friendlier territory, where their response rate is only 56 percent.
Of course, the converse dilemma presents itself in Kerry
strongholds.

What about the historic overrepresentation of Democrats in the exit
polls?

Democratic overrepresentation, or overstatement, in the exit polls
is the same thing as Democratic undercount in the vote tallies. And,
as we point out in the book, a Democratic undercount is historically
established. The undercount is the votes that are discarded, such as
overvotes, undervotes and uncounted provisional ballots. In each
presidential election a documented 2 to 3 percent of total votes are
discarded.

What about flaws in the exit polls?

The pollsters do say in their report that the exit poll results were
not due to "sampling error," which means that they did choose the
right representative precincts for the state and national surveys.
Manjoo cites the "interviewer characteristics" the report examines
as another source of exit poll error. The report sorts and evaluates
poll results by examining interviewer characteristics of the poll-
takers: completion rates, age, gender, level of education, date of
hire, amount of training, and interactions between poll-takers. The
pollsters conclude that the disparity is greater under four
conditions:

when interviewers are more than 25 feet away from the polling place

among with younger interviewers

among interviewers with advanced degrees

among interviewers in large precincts

Now, in no way can we rule out the possibility of interviewer
effects, but we do point out, first, that this explanation is at
best unlikely to provide a complete explanation for the discrepancy.
It is significant to note that discrepancies were high for all
interviewer characteristics (for example, the disparity is higher
when the interviewer is farthest away, but even when the interviewer
was inside the polling place there was a 5.3 percentage point
disparity). So even if it is right to attribute polling error to
interviewer characteristics, it is unlikely that such error could
account for all of the discrepancy.

But none of these correlations explain the disparity between the
exit polls and the official count. It's understandable that there
might be more errors when the interviewer is farther away from the
polls, but these errors should balance out, sometimes favoring
Kerry, sometimes Bush.

The exit pollsters assume that groups with lower mean Within
Precinct Disparities (WPDs) are most accurate. But the data belie
that assumption. In fact, interviewers with advanced degrees had
lowest miss rates and lowest refusal rates, suggesting that their
results are likely the most accurate. And those with the least
education had the highest absolute error, meaning that their results
were all over the place. Their results were the least accurate.

The flip side to this lack of a "clear and convincing" polling
explanation is that the exit pollsters have failed to explain or
even consider many indicators highly suggestive of fraud: The 10.0
percentage point WPD in Bush strongholds is an astounding number in
and of itself. It means that in precincts where according to the
official count Bush received 90 percent and Kerry 10 percent, exit
polls indicated that, on average, Bush would get 85 percent and
Kerry 15 percent. In other words, in Bush strongholds across the
country, Kerry, on average, received only about two-thirds of the
votes that exit polls predicted. In contrast, in Kerry strongholds,
exit polls matched the official count almost exactly.

And this is just one in a series of indicators of fraud. An analysis
of state-by-state differentials in WPD indicates that discrepancies
are higher in battleground states, higher where there were
Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of
African-American communities, and higher in states where there were
the most Election Day complaints.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
I appreciate the efforts of Rolling Stone and Salon to bring this
issue to public attention. Given the many transgressions and
statistical improbabilities in the 2004 presidential election, we
have an obligation to question it. And those responsible have an
obligation to investigate.

Absence of scrutiny does not make a democracy function; democratic
processes do. In the case of the 2004 presidential election, the
absence of reporting on the election controversy has left the public
highly suspicious. A Zogby Interactive online poll one month after
the election revealed that 28.5 percent of respondents thought that
questions about the accuracy of the official count in the election
were "very valid," and another 14 percent thought that concerns
were "somewhat valid." In other words, 42 percent of all Americans
had immediate concerns about what had happened on Nov. 2, 2004. So
long as the suspicions are left to fester, the role of elections to
confer legitimacy on elected officials has already been lost.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Why the Democratic Ethic of the World Wide Web May Be About to End
From New York Times, May 29, 2006
By Adam Cohen

The World Wide Web is the most democratic mass medium there has ever
been. Freedom of the press, as the saying goes, belongs only to
those who own one. Radio and television are controlled by those rich
enough to buy a broadcast license. But anyone with an Internet-
connected computer can reach out to a potential audience of billions.

This democratic Web did not just happen. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the
British computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989, envisioned
a platform on which everyone in the world could communicate on an
equal basis. But his vision is being threatened by
telecommunications and cable companies, and other Internet service
providers, that want to impose a new system of fees that could
create a hierarchy of Web sites. Major corporate sites would be able
to pay the new fees, while little-guy sites could be shut out.

Sir Tim, who keeps a low profile, has begun speaking out in favor
of "net neutrality," rules requiring that all Web sites remain equal
on the Web. Corporations that stand to make billions if they can
push tiered pricing through have put together a slick lobbying and
marketing campaign. But Sir Tim and other supporters of net
neutrality are inspiring growing support from Internet users across
the political spectrum who are demanding that Congress preserve the
Web in its current form.

The Web, which Sir Tim invented as a scientist at CERN, the European
nuclear physics institute, is often confused with the Internet. But
like e-mail, the Web runs over the system of interconnected computer
networks known as the Internet. Sir Tim created the Web in a
decentralized way that allowed anyone with a computer to connect to
it and begin receiving and sending information.

That open architecture is what has allowed for the extraordinary
growth of Internet commerce and communication. Pierre Omidyar, a
small-time programmer working out of his home office, was able to
set up an online auction site that anyone in the world could reach —
which became eBay. The blogging phenomenon is possible because
individuals can create Web sites with the World Wide Web prefix,
www, that can be seen by anyone with Internet access.

Last year, the chief executive of what is now AT&T sent shock waves
through cyberspace when he asked why Web sites should be able
to "use my pipes free." Internet service providers would like to be
able to charge Web sites for access to their customers. Web sites
that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower
speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.

A tiered Internet poses a threat at many levels. Service providers
could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics they dislike.
Even if they did not discriminate on the basis of content, access
fees would automatically marginalize smaller, poorer Web sites.

Consider online video, which depends on the availability of higher-
speed connections. Internet users can now watch channels, like BBC
World, that are not available on their own cable systems, and they
have access to video blogs and Web sites like YouTube.com, where
people upload videos of their own creation. Under tiered pricing,
Internet users might be able to get videos only from major corporate
channels.

Sir Tim expects that there are great Internet innovations yet to
come, many involving video. He believes people at the scene of an
accident — or a political protest — will one day be able to take
pictures with their cellphones that could be pieced together to
create a three-dimensional image of what happened. That sort of
innovation could be blocked by fees for the high-speed connections
required to relay video images.

The companies fighting net neutrality have been waging a misleading
campaign, with the slogan "hands off the Internet," that tries to
look like a grass-roots effort to protect the Internet in its
current form. What they actually favor is stopping the government
from protecting the Internet, so they can get their own hands on it.

But the other side of the debate has some large corporate backers,
too, like Google and Microsoft, which could be hit by access fees
since they depend on the Internet service providers to put their
sites on the Web. It also has support from political groups of all
persuasions. The president of the Christian Coalition, which is
allied with Moveon.org on this issue, recently asked, "What if a
cable company with a pro-choice board of directors decides that it
doesn't like a pro-life organization using its high-speed network to
encourage pro-life activities?"

Forces favoring a no-fee Web have been gaining strength. One group,
Savetheinternet.com, says it has collected more than 700,000
signatures on a petition. Last week, a bipartisan bill favoring net
neutrality, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, Republican of
Wisconsin, and John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, won a
surprisingly lopsided vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Sir Tim argues that service providers may be hurting themselves by
pushing for tiered pricing. The Internet's extraordinary growth has
been fueled by the limitless vistas the Web offers surfers, bloggers
and downloaders. Customers who are used to the robust, democratic
Web may not pay for one that is restricted to wealthy corporate
content providers.

"That's not what we call Internet at all," says Sir Tim. "That's
what we call cable TV."

***

Saving Internet Equality
From Mercury News, May 16, 2006
The future of the Internet is in the hands of Congress, and Congress
is about to mess it up.

The choice facing lawmakers is stark: keep the Internet as a
decentralized network that no single company controls and where all
users and all Web sites are treated equally; or hand control over it
to an oligopoly of cable and telephone companies.

Shamefully, Congress appears inclined to do the latter by refusing
to adopt so-called "network neutrality" rules. It's a choice that
would be disastrous for Internet users, for Internet companies and
for innovation itself.

Network neutrality isn't new. Its basic tenets — that all users can
access all legal content on the Internet and that all content
providers are treated the same on the network — have been in effect
since the birth of the Internet through regulations governing the
old telephone network. But a series of court decisions and a vote of
the Federal Communications Commission last year have voided those
rules. And that has opened the door for phone and cable companies,
which control Internet access, to change the rules of the game.

Phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon have already made it clear
that they want to divide the Internet into slow and fast lanes. Web
sites and services that pay them a toll will travel on the fast
lane, while others will bump along on the slow lanes.

Telecom executives' first target is large, profitable Internet
companies such as eBay, Google and Yahoo, which AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre
has described as freeloaders. "What (Internet companies) would like
to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that,"
he said.

But this is far more than a battle between Internet giants and
telecom giants. Google and Yahoo may well be able to pay, but the
impact on start-ups — and innovation — would be devastating.

Consider the nascent world of Internet video, which promises to be a
free-for-all of ingenuity and creativity. With enough bandwidth,
CNN, a public access channel or an amateur video producer could put
up content for the entire Internet to enjoy. Scores of innovative
start-ups are coming up with business models to exploit that
creativity, by organizing the new content, making it searchable and
delivering it effectively to millions of users.

But if cable and telephone companies become traffic cops and toll
collectors, they will be in a position to decide which shows go on
the fast lane and which get stuck in a lane too slow to be watched.
That would turn Internet video into an online version of the cable
system, where an intermediary controls the delivery of all content.
The explosion in creativity would be snuffed out and the innovative
start-ups and business models would never see the light of day.

Future technologies and industries could suffer the same innovation-
crushing fate.

Outside the Bay Area, few lawmakers seem to understand that by not
enacting network neutrality legislation, they'd be subverting the
basic principles that have made the Internet into such a powerful
force for economic growth. Perhaps, it's because they've been worn
down by armies of lobbyists from the telephone and cable industries.

It's time for online users everywhere — those who search on Google,
download songs from Apple, buy books from Amazon, run businesses on
eBay, make phone calls on Skype or simply read e-mail and surf the
Web — to let them know the Internet is too valuable to be sold off
to special interests.

This article is from Mercury News. If you found it informative and
valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their website and
register an account to view all their articles on the web. Support
quality journalism.

***

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Telco Abuse Is a Problem with a Solution: Net Neutrality
June 2nd, 2006 by tkarr

The constant refrain of the Astroturf groups like Mike
McCurry's "Hands Off the Internet" is that Network Neutrality is a
solution in search of a problem:

"We have no clear evidence that content is being discriminated
against and we have no real problem with quality of service that
cannot be addressed under current law. We think the advocates of
regulated net neutrality have not pointed to a problem that needs a
solution."

– Mike McCurry, Wall Street Journal, May 24

The Truth: Telco-funded lobbyists like McCurry frequently cite the
absence of numerous examples of blocking or degradation to back
their argument. This is a red herring.

There are multiple real-world instances of blocking and impairment.
But there are good reasons why we haven't yet witnessed a full-blown
epidemic. Until very recently Net Neutrality has been the operating
principle of the Internet — when telco front groups like "Hands Off"
repeat that rhetoric, they merely reinforce our point.

All this changed last year. In August 2005, the FCC put the largest
phone companies under a year-long moratorium that prohibits them
from violating Net Neutrality. This FCC ruling will lift at the end
of this summer. Without Congress taking action to make Net
Neutrality the law, the path will open for rampant discrimination.

Until then — and because we are in the midst of a hotly contested
legislative debate — companies like AT&T and Verizon are trying to
be on their best behavior. This would soon change without Net
Neutrality.

By far the most significant evidence regarding the network owners'
plans to discriminate is their stated intent to do so:

William Smith of BellSouth: "[Smith] told reporters and analysts
that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able,
for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its
search site load faster than that of Google Inc. Or, Smith said, his
company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm
so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's
offering." (Washington Post, December 1)

Edward Whitacre of AT&T: "Now what they would like to do is use my
pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have
spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's
going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these
pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be
allowed to use my pipes?" (Business Week, November 7)

Network Neutrality advocates are not imagining a doomsday scenario.
We are taking the telecom execs at their word.

Thursday, 15 June 2006

Plowed Under
http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=167\
&Itemid=2


South Central Farm is raided and bulldozed away as owner-developer
refuses the city's offer to buy the property

~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~

[Photo by Steve Appleford~ Aqui Estamos y no nos vamos! The farmers
aren't going away, but where will they go now?]

This is their justice, eh?" said Tezozomoc, elected representative of
the community gardeners called the South Central Farmers. "This is
their dialogue."

All around him his world was exploding, a world he'd tried to hold
together with an army of pro-bono lawyers, celebrity friends, and
over 350 fiercely devoted low-income Mesoamerican immigrant families.
It was a coalition force that held onto a 14-acre chunk of South Los
Angeles, smack on the heavily industrialized Alameda Corridor, for
over 14 years, two of them under eviction notice - maintaining
24-hour vigil over their padlocked garden plots, mobbing weekly City
Council meetings, and generating a mountain of court documents as
they made their simple appeal to the citizens of L.A.: Save the
city's biggest community garden.

But they were living on borrowed time and, on Tuesday, June 13, time
ran out. The scene on the ground was messy, though never violent, as
L.A. County Sheriffs, Fire Department, and LAPD moved in with
helmeted troops and bulldozers to make the world safe for
warehousing. The scene was snarled with scores of emergency vehicles
and a half-dozen helicopters and honking semi-tractor trailers trying
to get through the heavily industrialized streets. As Tezozomoc
talked at around 11 a.m., he pointed out the ladder truck moving into
position to remove the last two people left in the gardens, Kill Bill
actress Daryl Hannah and environmental activist John Quigley, chained
to lockboxes up in the property's iconic walnut trees. By noon, they
were down and it was over. The bulldozers moved in on the gardens.

Tezozomoc stood in the intersection of Long Beach Avenue and 41st
Street, among a clot of about 250 furious protestors, some of them
with faces covered by bandanas and many of them banging relentlessly
on a metal gate, and said, referring to the owner of the gardens
property, developer Ralph Horowitz: "Just yesterday, we thought we
had saved this farm. But Horowitz and [Councilwoman Jan] Perry wanted
the eviction - no matter how much money was on the table."

For almost a year, the farmers had tried to arrange for the city to
buy the property from Horowitz, who publicly stated he was amenable
to the idea as long as he could get his asking price of $16 million.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had tried to negotiate that sale on Monday
morning, but said Horowitz refused the offer.

"Today's events are unfortunate, disheartening, and unnecessary,"
said Villaraigosa in a statement Tuesday.

Zack de la Rocha, former lead singer for the activist rock band Rage
Against the Machine, and an ardent supporter of the farm, swept
Tezozomoc into a tight and long hug.

"How are you, brother?" he said quietly, as the two men wept. "We
know you tried so fucking hard."

"This is a betrayal," De la Rocha told me. "Horowitz's children will
never have to worry about a bite of food. But for these people, this
is how they feed themselves."

He looked at the line of deputies sealing off the MTA train line that
ran alongside Long Beach Avenue between the black-and-green-clad
demonstrators and the farm, tears in his eyes.

"Isn't this farm the kind of civic interaction that the city and its
politicians are trying to stir?" he asked. "But when it crosses
capital and development plans, they get hit over the head with clubs."

In fact, there was little club-swinging when the eviction came.
Sheriffs in helmets and wielding batons arrived at 5 a.m. and cut
through the locks securing the large metal chain link gates, where
eviction notices had been posted and reposted for years during the
tumultuous legal battle. Of the 17 or so people who were arrested
inside the garden, most were "walkers," who agreed to walk out under
their own power. Another half-dozen fixed themselves to lockboxes
made from 55-gallon drums filled with cement. Hannah and Quigley went
up the tree. But all were removed without significant incident. A
total of 40 were arrested, including demonstrators arrested blocking
streets and sidewalks outside.

If this eviction did represent a betrayal, it was built on false
hopes engendered by the farmers' interaction with city government. In
the last year, it was clear the city was making an attempt to
purchase the farm from Horowitz as a significant chunk of rare
greenspace in one of the city's most industrial areas. Information
flowing out of those negotiations was sporadic and unreliable, and
farmers were left guessing what exactly was happening. The Trust for
Public Lands offered $5 million if the city could find matching
funds, but that effort seemed to falter when Villaraigosa's office
finally announced a few weeks ago that it was ditching the effort,
saying the funds were not forthcoming.

Julia "Butterfly" Hill, who became a legend after sitting in a
redwood tree called Luna for two years in an anti-logging protest in
Northern California, turned up at the farm and made her first treesit
since her leaving Luna. Activist songstress Joan Baez went up another
walnut tree with Quigley. Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ed Harris,
Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, Ben Harper, and Laura Dern either visited
the farm or offered their support.

Then, only days ago, their efforts seemed to bear fruit: the
Annenberg Foundation announced a plan to bring $10 million more to
the table. Finally able to match Horowitz's asking price,
Villaraigosa went in with an offer. Horowitz refused.

"Last week, after 10 months of negotiations and efforts by my staff
and others from the Trust for Public Lands and the Annenberg
Foundation - a proposal for a full-price, $16 million purchase was
made," Villaraigosa explained in his statement.

"This morning," the statement continued, "Mr. Horowitz told me that
he would not sell the property to the Trust for Public Lands and the
Annenberg Foundation."

Horowitz told the L.A. Times he was upset about anti-Semitic remarks
made about him, and all the money he'd spent on mortgage and
insurance payments over the last couple years, saying it was no
longer a matter of price, he just wasn't selling.

Interviewed from her treesit platform two weeks ago, Baez, like
Hannah, confessed she didn't know about the farm before coming there.
"But then you see it, and see it's a community and a living garden
and its really functioning. Then you have to do what you can. So I
grabbed a rope."

Quigley pointed out that the farm, which was created on property
leased to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank after the 1992 Rodney
King riots, said this was important for the community. "We need to
save it to show that something good came out of that effort to
rebuild South-Central."

On Tuesday, one protester summed up the sentiment among the farm
supporters, as he walked with a sign that read: "Antonio did not try."

As farmer and activist Maribel Tlatoa led chants over a PA system -
shouting, "Food, not warehouses!" - Tezozomoc was hollering into his
cell phone, "They're bulldozing right now! Get down here!"

"Maybe it's all over," he sighed, hanging up.

But later that night, an e-mail appeared to supporters and media,
announcing late-night vigils at the farm and at the mayor's home. It
read, in part: "We are continuing to stand strong with tears in our
eyes. It is not over yet! The community cannot be defeated."

But if the fight continues, it's without their plots of indigenous
plants, cactus, and guava trees, including the one that Tezozomoc
said is the only thing his father left him when he died. That place
is gone.

06-15-06
http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/

---------
--

Peace!

*STRIDER*        Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/

                    Blogs:
                      Strider's RENEGADE [activism]
                          http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/
                      Strider's REDEMPTION SONG [movies, music & thoughts]
                          http://striders-redemption-song.blogspot.com/

                    Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM

                    Articles posted in the last 40 days:
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=40

                    Bay_Area_Activist list ----
Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com> to request
membership.

                    EF! list ---------------
earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert
List-Subscribe: <mailto:earthfirstalert-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>

                   usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive
                   e-mail: mailto:strider@...
                                strider@...


                         No War!   No Nukes!   Impeach!   SOS!

WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION  -- Ethiopian Proverb

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

What Rove's Skate May Mean
By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor
The Crisis Papers
CrisisPapers.org
June 13, 2006

The 24-hour-news cycle bit me.

You see, I had written an imagined "Peek into Patrick Fitzgerald's
Diary" where the Special Counsel was ranting on about how he was
going to tighten the legal noose around Rove's pudgy neck and maybe
wind up getting Cheney as well.

When I woke up early this morning, the news was out: Fitzgerald
apparently wasn't going to indict Rove.

My heart fell. Not just because the Rovester, perhaps the most
detested and dangerous member of the Bush Bunker crew, was allowed
to skate, but also because the piece I had worked on for days
suddenly was behind-the-times and irrelevant.

Such happenstances don't come along often, but a satiric writer
riding the lip of the news wave always risks being overtaken and
wiped-out by real-life events of the moment, and this was my turn.
The water was cold and I felt a bit embarrassed -- the story was
pulled at Democratic Underground before it even saw the light of
day, but it was on The Crisis Papers home page in the early morning
for several hours before we took it down.

But that was merely a personal hiccup. The more serious matter was
that Rove would be able to devote his full time, attention and dirty-
politics skills to the upcoming November election, instead of having
to spend inordinate amounts of time in consultation with his legal
defense team trying to stay out of the federal slammer.

A DEAL MAY HAVE BEEN STRUCK

That last expression may help explain what is going down here. It
may just turn out that Rove was so desperate to escape the
likelihood of incarceration that he made a deal with Fitzgerald. He
gets to walk away if he testifies against Scooter, and tells what he
knows about Cheney and maybe even Bush, among others.

That certainly is one way to interpret the Rove news this morning.
The other is that Fitzgerald simply didn't think he could make the
charges stick against Rove and felt obliged to cut him loose.

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the former
interpretation, or maybe even a combination of the two. Even just
judging from news reporting on this story, it would appear that an
open-and-shut case had been made for charging Rove with, at the very
least, perjury and obstruction of justice. Whether or not Fitzgerald
was convinced he could make the case stand up in court, he may have
convinced Rove that conviction was pretty much a slam-dunk.

Rove's lawyer won't release the text of Fitzgerald's letter that
reportedly gives his client a walk. It's possible there are hints in
the actual text indicating why Rove is free to go: on condition that
he cooperate with the ongoing investigation, that sort of thing.

"SEALED VS. SEALED"

Which brings us to Jason Leopold's story Monday that asserted, with
far less bravado than his previous "scoop" weeks ago announcing
Rove's "indictment," the likelihood that the indictment had been
under seal for nearly five weeks. Leopold even supplied the title
under which the likely indictment was kept secret ("Sealed vs.
Sealed") and a case number ( "06 cr 128").

Hardly anyone was willing to publish that story. Was Leopold full of
crap (again), many editors and bloggers mused? Or is there a more
complicated, and compelling, interpretation?

Here's mine: If indeed Rove was told that a sealed indictment had
been issued for his arrest in the case, it's possible that
Fitzgerald used that scary fact as added inducement to Bush's chief
political advisor to use this last chance to cut a deal. Rove,
seeing the likely prison handwriting on the wall, made the deal,
which took weeks of detailed discussions between Rove's team and
Fitzgerald to work out.

DESPAIR AND TRANSFORMATION

Or, a contrary interpretation, not mine: That Fitzgerald's bluff
didn't work because Rove didn't bite. He looked at all the far-right
ideological loyalists that Bush has appointed to the various appeals
courts and decided that even if convicted he'd never have to spend a
day in federal prison, or that Bush would pardon him one way or
another.

Of course, we're all speculating in the dark out here in the
cybersphere. We won't be able to pin this story down more until or
unless Fitzgerald himself makes a public move, and he's given no
indication he's ready to do so. Indeed, if his probe is ongoing, he
may not reveal much for a while yet. (For more on the unfolding
events, see the invaluable insights of ##former federal prosecutor
Christy Hardin Smith and the blogger Billmon.

The despair I felt this morning upon hearing the Rove-going-free
news may be transformed some weeks or months down the line, one can
hope, if more indictments are unsealed, with key players in the Bush
Administration -- and you know who I mean -- frog-marched for their
fingerprinting and picture-taking prior to court appearances. If
there is no additional legal action from Fitzgerald's office, it
will lend more support to those who never believed Fitzgerald was
completely on the up-and-up in the first place and that all along
the fix was in.

Stay tuned. This story is "hot," no matter what does or does not
happen, and it is not going away.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has
taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a
writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-
edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). For comments:

crisispapers@...

*****

BLOGGED BY Brad ON 6/13/2006
BradBlog.com
Republicans Rush to Swear-in Bilbray Before Results are Counted or
Winner is Certified!
Officials Confirm: Tainted Election Results Still Features Thousands
of Uncounted Ballots, Unofficial Numbers, No Winner has Been
Certified!
Now Why Would The Republicans Do That?

In light of our recent reports that California's special run-off
election to fill the seat of disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke"
Cunningham in the 50th congressional was carried out on voting
machines tainted by massive security breaches — having been sent
home with poll workers in the weeks prior to the election in
violation of several state and federal directives — Republicans have
rushed to swear in the "winner" Brian Bilbray in Washington D.C.
this morning, despite the election results being unverified, ballots
still being counted and the "winner" not even certified in the state.

The Associated Press, who ran a photo today of a "mock swearing-in
ceremony" in House Speaker Dennis Haster's office, also ran a story,
widely carried unquestioningly around the country, describing
Bilbray's official first day in the U.S. House, as if the election
results had been legitimized. They haven't been.

"Bilbray sworn in to replace Rep. Cunningham," says the headline
accompanying a story written by AP's Erica Warner and picked up
widely. The story gives no indication that the questionable results
of the election have yet to be certified by the state of California.

AP's coverage has been published widely today by, amongst scores of
others, USA Today and Washington Post.

And yet, four sources in the CA-50's San Diego County Registrar of
Voters office, including the Registrar himself, Michael Haas, along
with two officials in the CA Secretary of State's office have
confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that there are thousands of votes still
be counted in the closely watched race, which has yet to be
officially certified by either the county or the state…

Ashley Giovannettone, Communications Director for the CA Secretary
of State's office confirmed that nothing has been certified yet and
that only unofficial results have been posted on the SoS and County
websites. "The counties have a 28-day canvassing period to collect
and count the results of the races," she told us.

"We didn't do anything out of the ordinary to complete the count in
that race any earlier than the others," said Cathy Glaser,
Supervisor of Campaign Services in the San Diego County Registrar's
office. "We haven't certified it yet."

"We're not going to certify until June 30th or so. There's still
provisional ballots and things like that outstanding," confirmed
Barbara Walther, Supervisor Clerk of Candidate Filings in the SD
County Registrar's office. Referring to the reports so far showing
Bilbray leading his Democratic opponent Francine Busby, Walther
said, "These are not official results I can tell you that."

So why then would the Republicans rush to hold a swearing-in
ceremony before the cameras and media, and before counts were even
completed, and before California state's mandatory 1% random audit
of ballots has even begun?

And why would AP report the swearing-in as if it was based on
official results? Apparently the standards for verifying information
are somewhat lower for the AP than they are for bloggers. At least
for this blogger.

As The BRAD BLOG has been reporting — nearly exclusively for the
last week since Tuesday's special run-off election contest — the
unofficial results of the race itself are without verifiable
evidence given that Diebold voting machines are hackable via dozens
a methods, by the company's own admission. In light of the county's
admissions that Diebold machines (both optical-scan and touch-
screen) were sent home with poll workers in the days and weeks prior
to the election, in apparent defiance of mandates both from the
California Secretary of State and the National Association of State
Election Directors (NASED), why would anybody in the media report
information that is plainy unverified and uncorroborated?

Last week we reported that AP had reported early results of the
race, charging that Bilbray had "narrowly beat" his opponent Busby
in what they described as a "Bellweather House Race." We challenged
AP at the time to prove their assertion, since it simply cannot be
done given the fact that the security of the voting systems was
breached by sending machines home unsecured by poll workers. Thus,
all tabulations as reported by the Diebold optical scanners — which
are highly unsecure and easily tampered with — must therefore be
considered as contaminated.

We spoke moments ago with Mikel Haas, the SD County Registrar of
Voters and asked if he considered storage in people's cars or
garages — as poll workers have told us they did in fact do with
these machines — would be considered secure.

"No," he said, "we would advise them to do that."

When we read that quote back to him later in the conversation to
confirm, he wished to modify the thought, explaining that storage of
poll machines in people's cars "may be secure…but it's not the most
secure."

He also confirmed that both Diebold touch-screen (DRE) and optical-
scan systems were sent home with poll workers in the days and weeks
prior to the election.

We'll have more on the security issues, and apparent violations of
both state and federal requirements for certification of these
machines, in an upcoming report which will show that San Diego used
machines that failed to meet certification requirements in last
Tuesday's race.

A staffer at AP who answered the phone in their DC bureau, but
refused to speak on the record, has said they would check out the
story and issue a correction if it is merited.

The conventional wisdom, however, has already been established —
even as of election night — that the Republican Bilbray defeated the
Democrat Busby. In case there was any doubt, a swearing-in ceremony
has now been held and — as covered by AP and others — has now been
reported around the world as if any of it were actually legitimate.

All of which harkens back to the Bush/Gore 2000 Presidential
Election when, amongst other things argued by the Bush team to the
Supreme Court, it was argued that their candidate, George W. Bush,
would be irreparably harmed if a recount in Florida showed that he
didn't actually win. That, since the media had already reported
the "winner" — unconfirmed and wrong [PDF] as it eventually turned
out to be — as George W. Bush.

America's fictional democracy lives on…San Diego's Union-Tribune,
reported the swearing-in ceremony today this way:

Tuesday, after he swore he would uphold the U.S. Constitution, after
House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois said "congratulations," and
after applause burst out around him, the 55-year-old Bilbray gave a
quick, firm nod of his head, as if to say: "It's done."
Done, indeed.

CORRECTION: The story above was originally headlined "Republicans
Rush to Stage Phony Bilbray Swearing in Ceremony! AP, Hosts of Other
Media Report it as Real!" — In fact, it now seems that only the
photo-op carried by AP was a "mock ceremony" but that indeed,
Bilbray was sworn in officially and gave his first speech on the
floor of the House today. That, despite the fact, as the story
accurately reported, the counting of votes has not yet concluded in
the CA-50th race, and has not been certified by either California
State or San Diego County officials. We have edited the story above
to reflect the updated information.

*****

'I've Found God' Says Man Who Cracked Genome
By Steven Swinford
The Sunday Times
6-11-6

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to
publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of
God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome
Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator
and that scientific discoveries bring man "closer to God".

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will
reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and
faith. "One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression
that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,"
said Collins, 56.

"I don't see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply
disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of
this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years."

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict
in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to "glimpse at the workings of
God".

"When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific
exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have
found it," he said. "But it is also a moment where I at least feel
closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived
something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

"When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-
letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and
all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can't survey that going
through page after page without a sense of awe. I can't help but
look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a
glimpse of God's mind."

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their
belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity
reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: "This most
beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an
intelligent and powerful being."

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity
and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had
a creator. "I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details," he
said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and
put on trial in 1633 for the "heresy" of claiming that the earth
moved around the sun.

Among Collins's most controversial beliefs is that of "theistic
evolution", which claims natural selection is the tool that God
chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that
man will not evolve further.

"I see God's hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God
chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the
mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal,
who are we to say that is not the way," he says.

"Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have
been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and
environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion
members. So what you see is pretty much what you get."

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor
he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most
critical patients.

"They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going
to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on
their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance," he
said. "That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling."

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S
Lewis's Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational
possibility. The book transformed his life. "It was an argument I
was not prepared to hear," he said. "I was very happy with the idea
that God didn't exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the
same time, I could not turn away."

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains
in Washington state. He said: "It was a beautiful afternoon and
suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so
overwhelming, I felt, 'I cannot resist this another moment'."

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence
of God because it is confined to the "natural" world. In this light
he believes miracles are a real possibility. "If one is willing to
accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside
nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally,
a supernatural force might stage an invasion," he says.

*****

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? : Exit Polls, Election
Fraud, and the Official Count (Paperback)
by Steve Freeman, Joel Bleifuss
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

  It is odd to BuzzFlash that so many progressives still think that
the possibility that the Busheviks stole the 2004 election is some
sort of fringe theory.

After all, they stole the 2000 election. Why wouldn't they do it
again, if they could? In fact, it defies common sense to think that
getting away with one robbery, they, all of a sudden, wouldn't try
it a second time.

So many individuals have uncovered the evidence of a multi-pronged
approach to suppressing and altering the votes by Republicans (the
latter theory rooted in the private ownership of electronic voting
machine tabulating software). Why then is the GOP penchant for
stealing elections still a taboo topic among mainstream media and
Democrats?

After all, it's only likely to get worse – and more sophisticated –
with each election.

BuzzFlash has featured several books on the issue, as well as
ongoing links to websites that cover voting fraud and the electronic
voting machine scam.

We strongly recommend another edition to this growing library: "Was
the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud,
and the Official Count."

Steven E. Freeman and Joel Bleifuss are the co-authors. Freeman is
the University of Pennsylvania academic specializing in polling. It
was Freeman's groundbreaking study that gave the gravitas to the
notion that the exit polling showing Kerry winning the election by a
comfortable margin was statistically likely to be true. In fact, the
likelihood that Bush would have "won" despite the large exit-polling
advantage for Kerry was about equal to being struck by lightning in
the Mojave Desert.

"Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" is a book grounded in a
thorough, detailed examination of the data. It is grounded in fact.

It is also eminently readable for such an exhaustively researched
book.

As the authors note in their chapter on how the media has ignored
the questions raised by the 2004 election, "That a journalistic
examination of the exit-poll discrepancy is deemed 'not fit to
print' by both the corporate and the independent media indicates how
far our standards have devolved. It seems undeniable to us that the
very same set of facts applied to a foreign election anywhere in the
world would have garnered front-page coverage in every American
newspaper and would have been the lead story on every American news
program. If election fraud in Ukraine or Haiti is news, why isn't
election fraud in the United States?"

This is a question we ignore at great peril to our democracy.

We know the presidency was stolen in 2000. This book, along with
others that BuzzFlash has featured, makes an extremely strong case
that it was stolen again in 2004.

How long can we keep letting the Republicans get away with mugging
elections?

*****

Net Neutrality Is Now a Song?!
Bary Alyssa Johnson - PC Magazine
Tue Jun 13, 2006

"Net neutrality" now has an anthem—if you can call it that.

Taking the net neutrality debate to a whole new level, songwriters
Jill Sobule, Kay Hanley, and Michelle Lewis have jumped on the
SaveTheInternet.com "band" wagon with their new single. The three
female rock stars came together to form a group called The Broadband
in an attempt to educate the masses on the current net neutrality
controversy, just the latest attempt by the SaveTheInternet.com
coalition to bring IT issues on Capitol Hill into the public eye.

The Broadband released its first single on Tuesday. "God Save the
Internet," available as a free download on the coalition's Web site,
is set to the tune of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man".

"Hey Mr. Telecom man, God save the Internet," the song opens.

"All I want is to be free to choose where I get my music and my
news/From left to right we're joining hands, folks pissed off all
over this land," the lyrics continue. "Put a paper cup to your ear,
or send a letter it could take a year/Shout it out and hope someone
hears, or just ignore it and drink a beer."

The trio takes a semi-threatening stance and brings it closer to
home with the last line: "Don't believe the hype, don't buy the fear—
must we remind you it's election year?"

"God Save the Internet" comes in response to a bill that recently
passed through the House of Representatives. The legislation, dubbed
the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE)
of 2006, passed on June 8 "without meaningful net neutrality
provisions," according to the coalition.

"If we don't keep a tight rein on the free exchange of information
we'll lose our rights to free exchange and it's scary to think of a
world where you can't go to KayHanley.com and find my music," said
Kay Hanley, founder of Letters to Cleo. "A good analogy is the
payola of major labels and radio stations in cahoots to make sure
only a small group of individuals gets a piece of the money
pie." "While 'God Save the Internet' is tongue-in-cheek, it's scary
because it's true," Jill Sobule said in a statement.

The Broadband joins other musicians, including Moby and R.E.M., who
have given public support to the Save the Internet campaign, as well
as members of the politically diverse coalition, in a bid to
convince Congress of the importance of network neutrality.

"Generation X was flagged for so long for being slackers but we had
a huge hand in making the Internet, so our generation has a lot at
stake here," Hanley said. "I'm 37 years old and I'm not a pop star
and I'm not making videos, so the only way to reach my audience is
through the Internet. It's crucial that I'm able to reach people—
[music is] my entire life."

"We're continuing to build a list of artists and musicians who are
coming out in support of Internet freedom," said Craig Aaron,
communications director of the media reform group Free Press, in a
statement. "This is our latest step to raise awareness and to let
folks know what's being done in Washington and that the threat to an
open Internet is very real."

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

June 13, 2006

Greg Palast Uncovers the 'Armed Madhouse' of the Bush Reign of
Greed, Fear and Stolen Elections
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

We were screaming in the streets: no blood for oil, which, of
course, you know, most Americans consider a bargain – blood for oil,
as long as it's not their blood, right? But in fact, it wasn't blood
for oil. It was blood for no oil. It was blood to make sure that not
too much oil would flow and bust the market. Oil had been down under
Bill Clinton to eighteen bucks a barrel. Now it's over $70 a
barrel. -- Greg Palast

* * *

Greg Palast is such a good investigative reporter, he can't get a
job with a mainstream media outlet in the United States. That's
right, Palast is good enough for the BBC and the London Guardian and
Observer, but he is too good for any paper or television station in
the United States.

You see, the mainstream press in America sees a big boulder blocking
the road and there's all sorts of arms and legs sticking out from
underneath. The White House tells the media that their eyes are
deceiving them and there is nothing under the boulder. They warn
them not to try and move it, otherwise they might be aiding
terrorists and revealing classified information. The corporate-owned
big media then reports that a big boulder fell from the sky and
caused no injuries. Greg Palast, however, hires an earth mover, has
an iron claw pick up the boulder – and then he reports what he finds
underneath.

This makes him a pariah to the corporate barons who run the American
media. They don't want inquiring minds as journalists; they want
stenographers. There's a reason BuzzFlash has interviewed Greg
Palast more than any other person. He's not afraid to look under
rocks and boulders and tell us what he sees, as he does in his new
book, Armed Madhouse.

* * *

BuzzFlash: You don't waste a page of this book, Greg. You open it up
and you've got an illustrated explanation of the two plans for oil
in invading Iraq.

Greg Palast: Bush had a secret plan for Iraq's oil. Make that, he
had two, and I got them. It was not easy, let me tell you.  The
first plan that I found was crafted by the Neo-cons – Wolfowitz and
the whole Rumsfeld gang. Their program for oil in Iraq was to sell
off the oil fields. We have it in black and white. They called this
privatization, which means slice, dice and sell. Of course, since
Iraqis only have Iraqi currency, it wouldn't go to Iraqis, right?

That plan was handed to General Jay Garner, our first vice counsel
there. I showed him the secret plan and he said, "Yes, that's it." I
said, "Why didn't you implement it?" He said basically that he told
Rumsfeld to take the plan and stick it where the desert sun doesn't
rise.

BuzzFlash: And then Garner got relieved of duty.

Greg Palast: That night, Rumsfeld said, well, don't unpack. You're
fired.

BuzzFlash: Then they sent Paul Bremer.

Greg Palast: They sent in Paul Bremer, whose sole qualification for
the job was that he was managing director of Kissinger Associates.
But the plan to sell off Iraq's oil fields was blocked by something
I didn't expect – big oil, the big oil companies. They said: Listen
guys, this isn't how it's done in the Mideast. You let the Iraqis
pretend that they own the oil, and what we do is we have no-bid
production sharing agreements. The key thing is to make sure – and
here's the kicker – make sure we don't get too much oil.

I have the actual 323-page document drafted by big oil executives in
Houston, working with James Baker's people. Remember, James Baker
represents Exxon Oil Company. He also represents the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. These are the guys drafting the plans – our plans for
Iraq's oil. By the way, why aren't the Iraqis drawing up their own
plan? That's another issue. But the plan was that we don't sell off
Iraq's oilfields. Rather they have lock-up agreements with U.S. oil
companies.

And most importantly, this plan would guarantee that Iraq does not
produce beyond its OPEC quota. In other words, we want the oil, but
not too much, because that would bring down the price of oil.

In the book, I actually show the pages from these plans for Iraq,
and one says the purpose is to enhance the Iraq government's
relationship with OPEC. As you can imagine, OPEC is the oil cartel
which basically has its foot on the world's economic windpipe at the
moment - $70 a barrel gasoline. Three bucks a gallon at the pump is
what it comes out to. We are literally in there right now to make
sure that Iraq remains good members of OPEC. They were afraid that
Saddam was going renegade, and he could not be trusted to play ball
with OPEC, which is basically an illegal cartel controlled by Saudi
Arabia and big oil.

That was the winning plan for the oil. In other words, if you wonder
why your cousin is shivering under a tank in Fallujah, it is to
enhance Iraq's relationship with OPEC. There it is, guys – black and
white.

BuzzFlash: To ensure a controlled flow of oil at a good profitable
price for the oil industry.

Greg Palast: Let's put it this way. Iraq can pump 6 million barrels
a day. As long as they are members of OPEC under Saudi control, they
can only pump 3 million a day. With the oil for food program – we
put a clamp on Saddam – it was 2 million a day. People misunderstand
this one. We were screaming in the streets: no blood for oil, which,
of course, you know, most Americans consider a bargain – blood for
oil, as long as it's not their blood, right? But in fact, it wasn't
blood for oil. It was blood for no oil. It was blood to make sure
that not too much oil would flow and bust the market. Oil had been
down under Bill Clinton to eighteen bucks a barrel. Now it's over
$70 a barrel.

BuzzFlash: I think it was $73 on Friday. And with the Iranians
saying that if the U.S. continues to put pressure on them, they're
going to lower their output, the price of oil may go up even more.

Greg Palast: Right. They are playing a nice little game. The next
war isn't with Iran – it's with Venezuela, as I explain the book.

BuzzFlash: Because they're the second-largest exporter to the U.S. –
isn't that right?

Greg Palast: Let me explain. I was able to obtain a document. That's
why we have all these illustrations in the book – because I want
people to actually see these things. I got a document from inside
the Department of Energy, which says that Venezuela – in other
words, Hugo Chavez - has more oil than Saudi Arabia, and that's a
real shake-up.

BuzzFlash: You mean according to geological surveys?

Greg Palast: Yes, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, a lot
more oil than Saudi Arabia. That's a disaster for George Bush
because – and that's why I have that chapter called "The
Assassination of Hugo Chavez."

I showed the chart to Chavez himself last month in Caracas, and he
said, "That's absolutely right. And we're going to demand that OPEC
recognize Venezuela, not Saudi Arabia, as the leader." That's big,
bad news for the Bush House of Saud cartel because you have to
understand that King Abdullah will always sell us his oil. He'll
never cut it off.

But that's not the most important point here. Abdullah sends back
his oil earnings. After he takes his slice and gives his slice to
Exxon, the remainder goes back to the United States in the form of
Treasury Bill purchases. They would never lend a dime to their
Muslim brothers. They just lend it back to George to fund his oil
wars and his tax cuts. And that's the game. Abdullah lends us back
the petro-dollars, and we lend him the 82nd Airborne to stay in
business.

BuzzFlash: Okay, so we don't expect to see Hugo Chavez on Bush's
ranch with him, with their pinkies intertwined, as we've seen Bush
with the Saudi royal family.

Greg Palast: The reason George Bush was chauffeuring King Abdullah
around the Crawford ranch in his golf cart – well, first of all,
because George is afraid of horses – no kidding. The second reason,
though, is to make sure that he keeps giving us those petro-dollars
back as loans or purchases.

And Chavez told me, "I'm just not going to do it." In fact, knowing
that I'd be reporting on BBC International News, Chavez said, "I'll
drop the price of oil to fifty bucks - knock off a third – a buck a
gallon off your gas tank charges. But I've got to have a deal with
George Bush." He wants no more assassination plots and a
stabilization of the oil market, which the Saudis absolutely hate,
because the Saudis crank up the price so that we choke, and then
about every six to eight years, they dump the price to wipe out any
alternatives, whether it's solar power or Chavez's oil, which is
heavy crude, which is expensive to get at.

In other words, Abdullah plays his game of jerking the market way up
and way down. That's how the Saudis keep control of the oil market.
Chavez says, I'm not playing that game. I'm not giving George
Venezuela's oil money. In fact, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the
U.S. Federal Reserve and lent it to Argentina, Ecuador and other
Latin American countries. When you start withdrawing your money from
the Federal Reserve and giving it out, instead, to Latin America,
you basically are getting a date with a bullet.

BuzzFlash: Two more quick questions about the oil situation, and
then we've got to get to the stolen elections issue. There is also
speculation that Iran or Chavez might shift to the Euro instead of
the dollar as being the currency for oil.

Greg Palast: That one I checked out. It doesn't float, because it
was George Bush himself who is trying to push the Euro up. Bush has
been trying to push the Euro big time.

BuzzFlash: Why is that?

Greg Palast: Because he's trying to devalue the dollar. When we talk
about revaluing the Chinese currency, you mean devaluing the dollar.
Very, very important to Bush to dump the dollar. His cronies are
trying to evacuate the United States financially, and that's what
privatization of Social Security is about as well. It's about
getting dollars out of this country, and so we devalue the dollar.
That devalues the debt held by these guys. It raises our interest.
It kills our pension funds and our economy is slowly dying off.

BuzzFlash: Why do they want to do that?

Greg Palast: There are a few reasons. One, higher interest rates as
well as high oil rates have completely demolished the auto industry.
General Motors is heading right into bankruptcy. High oil rates have
also demolished the airline industry while enriching the oil
companies, and the high interest rates have enriched the banks.

That means basically the Democratic stronghold industries - the last
unionized industries in America, which are auto and airlines – are
going down. In other words, "Mission Accomplished." Money is flowing
into Houston. We pay three bucks a gallon for gas, and they collect
it. Mission accomplished. Oil's at $70 a barrel. Mission
accomplished. The dollar's down, and we are exporting a quarter
trillion dollars a year to China in cash, so we could import their
manufactured goods. That's mission accomplished. The idea is that
American capital is fleeing this country.

BuzzFlash: And that's good for Bush supporters like Wal-Mart, who
basically are the largest U.S. business employing workers in China.

Greg Palast: In fact, one thing you'll find in the book is that Wal-
Mart has 700 factories that they effectively control in China – at
least – and zero in the United States.

BuzzFlash: One more question on oil. In essence, we look at the war
in Iraq, and saber-rattling in Iran, and see it as a Bush failure.
Our soldiers are dying in a macabre fiasco. It's a civil war there.
From the perspective of the oil companies, however, it's been a big
success. They're making out literally like bandits.

Greg Palast: Exactly. If you thought that we went into Iraq to get
that oil, then we failed. But the oil companies are not in the
business of finding oil. They're in the business of finding profits,
and they make profits by not finding oil – by locking up these
fields.

The history of Iraq is a history of locking up their fields so they
don't produce. So it is mission accomplished. You have to
understand - Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the number one, lifetime,
career giver to George W. Bush after Enron - is making $10 billion
clear profit every three months. We haven't seen cash like that
since the pharaohs. This is mission accomplished.

You can read the documents. Remember, I actually talked to the oil
company executives, the CEO of Shell Oil, and I talked to the inside
people working with Baker and his Exxon crew in drafting the
oilfield plans for Iraq. If you go through the plans, if you talk to
these guys - this is mission accomplished. Yes, kids are dying. But
it's not George Bush's kids, who are of military age. A "war
president" got himself a war. They didn't screw up, okay? And he got
re-elected – that is, close enough to swipe it. And by the way, I
did that wired, just so you know. They said that I never spoke to
them, and then I said, "What part of the audiotape is fabricated?"
Just so you know how I get this stuff.

BuzzFlash: Now let's quickly move to the scheme to steal '08. We
first met you, Greg, in 2002 when BuzzFlash and
MakeThemAccountable.com sponsored an event here in Chicago that you
spoke at. It was absolutely jammed, and this was when you issued the
first edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

You were the first to zero in on the role of the infamous
ChoicePoint data collection firm in purging the Florida voting rolls
in 2000 of eligible and ineligible Democratic voters alike. You had
a fantastic slide presentation, very detailed, about how they
accomplished this violation of voting rights.

Greg Palast: Here's what happened, in a nutshell, for those who
don't remember. For BBC Television, I discovered that before the
election, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris scrubbed tens of thousands
of black voters off the voter rolls. They called them felons when
their only crime was voting while black. That gave little George the
White House.

I reported that for BBC, and I couldn't get that on the air in
America for anything. It was completely blacked out until basically
Michael Moore brought it up later. You couldn't talk about the theft
of the 2000 election. It was a lockup fest. In 2004, they did it
again, and it was bigger and wider and sneakier and stinkier and
nastier.

Again, it's very important to me that I show you the documents, show
you the goods, show you the information, so you can see the actual
data and proof. And it wasn't, by the way, just Ohio. Don't kid
yourself. I'm glad that Bobby Kennedy – terrific guy – has now
endorsed the idea that it was stolen in Ohio, but it wasn't just
Ohio.

It was Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa, and on and on. 3.6 million votes were
cast and never counted in the 2004 election – 3.6 million. This
isn't Greg Palast getting the info from a black helicopter. This is
Greg Palast and our team going through the computer files of the
election information agency – and, by the way, the computer files of
the Republican National Committee, which is one of the most
enjoyable parts of the investigation because some schmuck at the RNC
wrote some e-mails, in which they were discussing exactly how to
jigger the election. We were able to suck that down through a fake
web site.

BuzzFlash: As we saw in New Hampshire – this is in a way a
big "gotcha" - people went to jail for it. In the 2002 election,
there was a phone-jamming case in New Hampshire where they jammed
the lines of a union to prevent them from getting out the vote for
the Democratic candidate for the senate. And people have gone to
jail for this, including the person who was the former head of the
Bush campaign for the northeast. The RNC paid his legal defense,
which was well over a million dollars. You couldn't get any more
proof – and here you had a litigated case – of the Republican Party
being involved in the – in felony suppression of vote by legal
verdict. There were direct connections through phone calls to the
RNC, and some indication even to Rove.

Greg Palast: Right.

BuzzFlash: So it's a wide swath of voter suppression, theft, and
illegal disenfranchisement that the Republicans have been engaged
in. You were the first to really detail the ChoicePoint role and all
the varied ways they stole the Florida vote – not just ChoicePoint,
but that was the key. If it weren't for ChoicePoint, Gore would have
run away with it.

Greg Palast: That's right.

BuzzFlash: Then we have the 2004 election, and we have a more subtle
combination of suppression of the vote, use of electronic voting
machines to miscalculate the vote and so forth. Now in your book upi
say, "Watch out for 2008." Why do Americans not understand the
threat here? It's only after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. brings it up in
Rolling Stone that some people suddenly say, whoa, someone who's
really got credibility brought it up. Hey, maybe it is serious.

Greg Palast: Remember that I wrote a story for the British Guardian
paper, actually in the column. I took over George Orwell's column.
And I put on the top of the BBC Nightly News – "Kerry Won" - okay?
Then I had to explain to a European, Asian and Latin American
audience that Kerry won. He got the most votes. But they're going to
inaugurate George Bush again. This is in 2004.

But how do I know Kerry won? The whole BBC team did an incredible
investigation, and we found 3.6 million votes cast but not counted.
It was called "spoilage" - and that's everything from hanging chads
to paper ballots that have extra marks, and are junked and thrown
away – you name it.

But it's not just anyone's ballot that doesn't count. Whose votes
are they? We did a precinct-by-precinct analysis of whose votes were
thrown away. If you are in a black majority precinct, the chance
that your vote will be thrown in the electoral dumpster is 900%
higher than if you're in a white precinct. If you are Hispanic -
500% higher than if you're in a white precinct. This also includes
something called "rejected provisional ballots," a whole new
gimmick. A million people were shunted to back-of-the-bus ballots
called provisional ballots. And over half a million of those were
never counted – never counted. And who made the decision not to
count them? The Secretaries of State, like the Secretary of State of
Ohio, who is also the head of the Bush reelection campaign.

Whose votes are thrown out? It's black voters and poor voters.
That's why the Armed Madhouse subtitle says "Dispatches from the
Front Lines of the Class War." Vote theft is class war by other
means. Not everyone's vote gets thrown out. In fact, do the
arithmetic nationwide. 54% of the votes in the electoral dumpster
are cast by black voters. Another third cast by Hispanic voters?
Something like only one in five lost votes is cast by white voters,
and those are the poor white voters. The electoral dumpster is
filled with basically a Democratic pile of uncounted votes. That's
how they did it. And they're planning to do a better job of not
counting those votes in 2008. It's the non-count of the vote – it's
not the count – that picks our president.

BuzzFlash: In the meantime, we have midterm elections coming up.
What is going to happen there in 2006?

Greg Palast: It will only get worse, because they've added a new
gimmick. Part of the way they knock out voters is using databases.
That's how they did it in Florida. They manipulated databases to
wrongly tag people as unqualified voters. In 2004, we found
something called "caging lists" of tens of thousands – and we know
it had to really be hundreds of thousands – of voters, almost every
one of them an African-American voter, targeted for challenge by the
Republican Party – the first mass challenge of voters since the Jim
Crow era. We found these illegal lists – these caging lists.

That pumped up the number of uncounted votes enormously – again,
black votes. In 2006 and 2008, they're targeting the Hispanic
demographic, because they're going to steal it in New Mexico, in
Utah, in Colorado, in Arizona, and Nevada. That's where they're
going to be stealing the votes. And they're targeting the Native
American vote as well, which is a big demographic in the West. How
are they doing it? They're starting this new game of voter ID and
national ID cards. They're creating tremendous databases to come up
with "gotcha rules" that are going to tag people as ineligible
voters – so-called "suspect" voters. This is what they did in 2004,
completely unreported in the U.S. press.

BuzzFlash: Is ChoicePoint playing a big role in this?

Greg Palast: You betcha, because where are they getting these
databases? The answer is the war on terror. People keep talking
about how they are attacking our civil liberties by keeping these
big databases on Americans. What are they for? They're not to keep
you safe from al-Qaeda. There's not a war on terror. It's a war on
democracy.

ChoicePoint is the biggest data mining outfit – it basically has the
biggest data mine in the United States – at minimum, 16 billion
records on Americans. It's illegal for the U.S. government to keep
those records, but ChoicePoint as a private company can. Then the
U.S. government simply dips into the data mine and pulls out the
nuggets it wants. We saw this in 2000, with them falsely attacking
people as felons.

In 2004, completely unreported in the U.S. press, but big news from
our BBC investigation -- and it's in Madhouse -- are the caging
lists, in which again we know hundreds of thousands of people were
tagged as having so-called suspect addresses. Suspect addresses, in
case you're wondering, causing people to lose their vote, included
page after page after page of black soldiers sent overseas, so that
their home address was now suspect.

If they've got the databases, they've got the election. And they're
getting the databases from the war on terror and the war on
immigrants. 3.6 million votes were cast and not counted last time.
Look for 5 million in 2008.

BuzzFlash: Is ChoicePoint being subcontracted by the NSA?

Greg Palast: I can't even tell you what they have. Remember, these
contracts are secret. We're not supposed to know. I happen to have
in the book the foreign intelligence gathering contract of
ChoicePoint. But you're not even supposed to know it exists. I know
that they have immigration contracts. I know that they have foreign
intelligence-gathering contracts. I know that they have U.S. DNA-
gathering contracts for the FBI.

BuzzFlash: We have a sinking suspicion that ChoicePoint and other
dating mining firms are doing the NSA's dirty work. Then the Bush
Administration can claim that the NSA is not spying on Americans,
because technically it's the subcontractors who are doing the
spying!

Well, Greg, thank you, once again. We wish there were fewer
cockroaches under the rocks you pick up, but it appears with the
Bush Administration, the roaches increase faster than the number of
rocks you can look under.

Greg Palast: Thanks, it's always a pleasure to talk with BuzzFlash.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Interview conducted by Mark Karlin.

* * *

RESOURCES:

Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush
Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War (Hardcover) by Greg
Palast, a BuzzFlash Premium.

GregPalast.com

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Unreported:
The Zarqawi Invitation
By Greg Palast
6-9-6

They got him -- the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq.  But,
something's gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi who
invited him into Iraq in the first place?

If you prefer your fairy tales unsoiled by facts, read no further.
If you want the uncomfortable truth, begin with this:  A phone call
to Baghdad to Saddam's Palace on the night of April 21, 2003.  It
was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a secure line from
Washington to General Jay Garner.

The General had arrives in Baghdad just hours before to take charge
of the newly occupied nation.  The message from Rumsfeld was not a
heartwarming welcome.  Rummy told Garner, Don't unpack, Jack --
you're fired.

What had Garner done?  The many-starred general had been sent by the
President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq
was tense but relatively peaceful.  Garner's job was to keep the
peace and bring democracy.

Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word.
But the general was wrong.  "Peace" and "Democracy" were the
slogans.

"My preference," Garner told me in his understated manner, "was to
put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of
elections."

   But elections were not in The Plan.

The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of
the land we'd just conquered.  There was nothing in it about
democracy or elections or safety.  There was, rather, a detailed
schedule for selling off "all [Iraq's] state assets" -- and Iraq,
that's just about everything -- "especially," said The Plan, "the
oil and supporting industries."  Especially the oil.

There was more than oil to sell off.  The Plan included the sale of
Iraq's banks, and weirdly, changing it's copyright laws and other
odd items that made the plan look less like a program for Iraq to
get on its feet than a program for corporate looting of the nation's
assets.  (And indeed, we discovered at BBC, behind many of the odder
elements -- copyright and tax code changes -- was the hand of
lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associate Grover Norquist.)

But Garner didn't think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a
year later in Washington.  He had other things on his mind.  "You
prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to
prevent famine."

Seizing title and ownership of Iraq's oil fields was not on Garner's
must-do list.  He let that be known to Washington.  "I don't think
[Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to
do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected
will of the people."  He added, "It's their country their oil."

Apparently, the Secretary of Defense disagreed.   So did lobbyist
Norquist.  And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away
with the "democracy" idea:  he called for quick elections -- within
90 days of the taking of Baghdad.

But Garner's 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the
oil sell-off program.  Annex D of the plan indicated that would take
at least 270 days -- at least 9 months.

Worse, Garner was brokering a truce between Sunnis, Shias and
Kurds.  They were about to begin what Garner called a "Big Tent"
meeting to hammer out the details and set the election date. He
figured he had 90 days to get it done before the factions started
slitting each other's throats.

But a quick election would mean the end of the state-asset sell-off
plan:  An Iraqi-controlled government would never go along with what
would certainly amount to foreign corporations swallowing their
entire economy.  Especially the oil.  Garner had spent years in
Iraq, in charge of the Northern Kurdish zone and knew Iraqis well.
He was certain that an asset-and-oil grab, "privatizations," would
cause a sensitive population to take up the gun.  "That's just one
fight you don't want to take on right now."

But that's just the fight the neo-cons at Defense wanted.  And in
Rumsfeld's replacement for Garner, they had a man itching for the
fight.  Paul Bremer III had no experience on the ground in Iraq, but
he had one unbeatable credential that Garner lacked:  Bremer had
served as Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates.

In April 2003, Bremer instituted democracy Bush style:  he canceled
elections and appointed the entire government himself.  Two months
later, Bremer ordered a halt to all municipal elections including
the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of
Najaf.  The front-runner, moderate Shia Asad Sultan Abu Gilal
warned, "If they don't give us freedom, what will we do?  We have
patience, but not for long."    Local Shias formed the "Mahdi Army,"
and within a year, provoked by Bremer's shutting their paper,
attacked and killed 21 U.S. soldiers.

The insurgency had begun.  But Bremer's job was hardly over.  There
were Sunnis to go after.  He issued "Order Number One:  De-
Ba'athification."  In effect, this became "De-Sunni-fication."

Saddam's generals, mostly Sunnis, who had, we learned, secretly
collaborated with the US invasion and now expected their reward
found themselves hunted and arrested.  Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born
US resident who helped with the pre-invasion brokering, told
me, "U.S. forces imprisoned all those we named as political
leaders," who stopped Iraq's army from firing on U.S. troops.

Aljibury's main concern was that busting Iraqi collaborators and
Ba'athist big shots was a gift "to the Wahabis," by which he meant
the foreign insurgents, who now gained experienced military
commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-
installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death.  They would soon
link up with the Sunni-defending Wahabi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who
was committed to destroying "Shia snakes."

And the oil fields?  It was, Aljibury noted, when word got out about
the plans to sell off the oil fields (thanks to loose lips of the US-
appointed oil minister) that pipelines began to blow.  Although he
had been at the center of planning for invasion, Aljibury now saw
the greed-crazed grab for the oil fields as the fuel for a civil war
that would rip his country to pieces:

"Insurgents," he said, "and those who wanted to destabilize a new
Iraq have used this as means of saying, 'Look, you're losing your
country. You're losing your leadership. You're losing all of your
resources to a bunch of wealthy people. A bunch of billionaires in
the world want to take you over and make your life miserable.' And
we saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, of
course, built on -- built on the premise that privatization [of oil]
is coming."

General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation
authority's provocations, told me, in his understated manner, "I'm a
believer that you don't want to end the day with more enemies than
you started with."

But you can't have a war president without a war.  And you can't
have a war without enemies. "Bring 'em on," our Commander-in-Chief
said.  And Zarqawi answered the call.

**********

Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse  out this week from
Penguin Dutton, from which this is adapted.

Armed Madhouse:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush
Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.  Order it now.

***

Published on Saturday, June 10, 2006
CommonDreams.org
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
by Tom Hayden

I have interviewed numerous Iraqis aligned with the armed
nationalist resistance fighting the US occupation, and none had a
good word for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Some even speculated that he was
a fictionalized character "used when someone needs to do a bad thing
and blame someone else." Others believed him to be serving British
and American interests. Fundamentally, they sharply disagreed with
his strategy of attacking Shiites to provoke a regional civil war.
He won't be missed by the armed nationalists on the battlefield. One
wonders who really turned him in.
Putting it simply, there are three armed movements in Iraq, and
Zarqawi was dividing two against each other.

First, the Sunni and secular nationalists, from former Baathists to
people who simply hate the occupation.

Second, the Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr, an Arab Shiite who has
led two uprisings against the US forces and represents the Shi'a
slums from Basra to Baghdad.

While harboring significant differences, these two insurgent forces
share a common program: to force the occupiers out of Iraq and form
a new coalition government. They are fighting against a largely
Shi'a coalition accepting – for now – the American occupation, but
who hold deep strategic and cultural links to Iran, including the
Grand Ayatollah Sistani. The other American allies are the Kurds,
who seek autonomy.

Third, Zarqawi's force, which is bent on sectarian violence against
the Shi'a, creating a barrier to any unity between the Sunni and
Shi'a Arab nationalists. This is why so many Iraqis, based on
intuition more than evidence, believe that Zarqawi served the
classic British [and now American] counter-insurgency aim of
dividing its enemies along sectarian lines.

I have no reason to believe Zarqawi was an agent, only a misguided
Islamic revolutionary. But I still wonder what those British
soldiers disguised as Iraqis were planning on the day they were
discovered in Basra in September 2004. I wonder if US Special Forces
ever dress up as Iraqis and paint their faces...But perhaps I rely
too much on the experience of Northern Ireland, where it is
documented that British officers continually managed "assets" bent
on sectarian killing expeditions, trying to reduce the nationalist
struggle to a religious one. The British then dispatched key
officers from Belfast to Basra.

It is enough to argue for now that Zarqawi served the purpose of
dividing and fragmenting the Iraqi national resistance into bloody
sectarian strife. The tensions were built into the power shift from
Sunni to Shi'a, and only needed sectarian leadership to unleash the
death squads and ethnic cleansing. In doing so, they gave the US a
new rationale for intervention, one appealing to guilty liberals and
moderates, the need for an occupier to keep the fanatics from
killing each other. Permanently. But in doing so, Zarqawi was
engulfing Iraqs in a boiling cauldron that promised no end to the
killing and no exit for the US. There were many interests who wanted
him dead.

***

Al-Zarqawi, international man of mystery
By Matt McCollow
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 12, 2006

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, alleged leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq
terrorist group, has reportedly been killed by US forces . . . again.

Reports indicate that US fighter jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on
Zarqawi's hideout [1], and successfully blew the terrorist
mastermind to bits. Thankfully the bits were large enough to be
identified quickly after the attack so the pundits and talking heads
could shout about our great victory.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters "Every time a
Zarqawi appears, we will kill him." [1]. How apropos a thing to say,
Mr. Prime Minster, in fact, it seems like every time Mr. Zarqawi
appears, it's because he is being killed, or at least seriously
wounded.

For a moment, let's hop aboard the Wayback Machine and take a little
trip back to the year 2002. Like many former jihadist Muslims who
had fought the Soviet Russians in the 1980s, al-Zarqawi took up arms
against the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001-2002. Reports
indicate that Zarqawi suffered a rather serious injury to one of his
legs during the fighting, and may have possibly had it amputated [2].

The leg injury would become an issue again in March of 2004, when
leaflets distributed in Iraq, and signed by members of twelve
insurgent groups, claimed Zarqawi was killed by US bombing
campaigns. His artificial leg apparently prevented him from fleeing
in time [3].

In the spring of 2004, Zarqawi was miraculously resurrected with
apparently two fully functional legs and announced his return to the
world by personally beheading journalist Nick Berg [4]. President
Bush specifically named Zarqawi as Berg's killer at a press
conference in mid-May of 2004 [5].

By October of 2004, Zarqawi was rumored to have been killed again,
in similar fashion to the first time, by failing to escape a US
attack quickly enough. This, of course, contradicts rumors
circulating at the same time that he had been captured by the US
military [6]. The US military denied Zarqawi had been captured.

Despite possibly being dead or captured already, in May of 2005,
Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan of the 5th division of the Iraqi Armed
Forces, claimed that Zarqawi was "seriously injured, possibly dead"
after a major offensive, Operation Matador, by US forces [7]. Some
reports at that time had Zarqawi being shot in the chest, not
necessarily as the result of combat [8].

By June of 2005, Zarqawi had apparently died and been buried in a
Fallujah cemetery. There were reports of gunfights with insurgents
allegedly protecting Zarqawi's grave. These reports came only a few
days after the release of a tape, said to be of Zarqawi, telling his
followers that he was safe and only lightly injured [9].

In fact, Zarqawi was doing pretty well for a man who had reportedly
been killed at the beginning of the US invasion of Iraq, as claimed
by an imam of a Baghdad mosque [10]. These reports in fall of 2005
seem to back up the March 2004 reports about leaflets claiming
Zarqawi's artificial leg hampered his escape from US bombing
campaigns.

Now, it seems as though Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed once
again by US bombs, possibly because his artificial leg prevented him
from escaping (though no reports seem to specifically mention it).
Now, I know it can't just be me who finds this story just a little
bit familiar sounding. Even the most credulous person would have to
wonder: how many times can you kill someone before they're finally
dead?

The more informed person however, might ask: How many times can you
kill a dead man?

The answer to both questions could be: As long as people will
believe it. With an Emmanuel Goldstein type figure of myth and
mystery, like Zarqawi, it's easy to control people's opinion. When
the people start questioning the reasons for being in Iraq (or
focusing on a damaging political scandal), out comes a new tape.
When the people complain of ineffectiveness in Iraq and nothing to
show for the losses incurred by our men and women in uniform, kill
the bad guy and everyone's happier.

So I, for one, congratulate the US government and media on what
looks to be another successful PR campaign. You managed to get a lot
of people to believe your latest addition to the Zarqawi myth, even
though it's full of holes and rather sloppy. Don't worry though, I'm
sure you'll do better the next time you kill him.

Sources:

[1] Major blow to Iraq insurgency, Christian Science Monitor,
06/09/06

[2] Zarqawi - Bush's man for all seasons. Asia Times, 09/14/04

[3] Leaflet Says Extremist Al-Zarqawi Killed, Washington Post,
03/04/04

[4] The execution of Nick Berg. Ronald Hilton at wais.stanford.edu,
Date Unknown

[5] Bush says Zarqawi killed Berg; Cites Saddam ties, Free Republic,
05/15/04

[6] Zarqawi killed in Iraq?, India Daily, 10/16/04

[7] Al-Zarqawi seriously injured says Iraqi official. Adnkronos
International, 05/11/05

[8] Zarqawi "injury" attracts prayers, BBC, 05/25/05

[9] Fallujah Sheikh says al-Zarqawi died on Friday, Adnkronos
International, 06/02/05

[10] Cleric says al-Zarqawi died long ago, Al-Jazeera, 09/17/05

Matt McCollow is a Freelance Writer from Hamilton, Ontario.

***

Pentagon Jettisons US Agent Provocateur Al-Zarqawi
Musab dies for the umpteenth time but this time its for real says
the US government!
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com
June 8 2006

For those of us attempting to keep track of how many times US agent
provocateur Musab Al-Zarqawi has been killed or captured today's
news comes as something of a relief - the US government has stamped
its official seal of approval on the fact that the Pentagon's most
influential PR tool is no more.

Irrefutable evidence confirms that Musab Al-Zarqawi was a US agent
provocateur used to both sell the necessity of the war in Iraq and
as a patsy to take the fall for numerous suspicious bombings which
only had the effect of realizing a long-held US and Israeli goal to
deliberately foment civil war in Iraq and break up the country along
sectarian lines.

Preceding the release of the recent Al-Zarqawi video tape, the
Pentagon embarked on a propaganda push to magnify the role and
influence of Al-Zarqawi in Iraq - reinforcing the 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq'
brand myth and pinning the increasingly unpopular occupation to the
wider 'war on terror'.

Leaked documents splashed in the New York Times were proof that the
Pentagon has even gone to the lengths of faking letters taking
credit for insurgent bombings, attributing them to Al-Zarqawi and
leaking them to journalists.

Transcripts of meetings between the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed
turning Al-Zarqawi into a caricature and making him appear, "more
important than he really is."

The same documents directly stated that the false promotion of Al-
Zarqawi included marking the the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the
targets of a broader propaganda campaign."

This alone is bullet proof evidence that the Al-Zarqawi image,
whether the real Al-Zarqawi was alive, dead or rotting away at
Guantanamo Bay, was carefully controlled and massaged by the US
military-industrial complex all along. His shining achievement in
terms of aiding his Neo-Con bosses was to launch a wave of copy-cat
beheadings after appearing in the production of the fictional Nick
Berg beheading tape.

The amount of times that Al-Zarqawi has been reported as killed or
captured is beyond a joke but the Pentagon refused to verify any of
these instances choosing instead to keep their pawn in place for the
time being.

The US home audience remains the target as it seems the laughable
credibility of the 'fearsome' Al-Zarqawi, his own 'home video'
revealed he couldn't even operate a gun, has caused the Pentagon to
jettison their creation and throw a few much needed approval points
Bush's way.

No doubt the feverish Neo-Con cheerleaders will pick the flesh off
this for the next 6 months at least, highlighting it as a benchmark
of the success of the war on Iraq, despite the fact that death rates
are at an all time high. The bombings will continue unabated because
phantom menace Al-Zarqawi was as much a ringleader for the
insurgents as the tooth fairy was responsible for the fall of the
Berlin wall.

The end of Al-Zarqawi should be a concern for all westerners because
it can be added to the pile of evidence to suggest the men behind
the curtain are creating a storyboard on which to later pin a staged
terror attack blamed on Al-Qaeda and carried out supposedly in
revenge for the elimination of Al-Zarqawi.

This development also increases that likelihood that the (also
deceased) CIA pawn Osama bin Laden will be rolled out before the mid-
term elections as the ever prevalent October surprise.

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

NY Times Nonfiction# 10 (June 25) Booksense Nonfiction #10 Powell's
Portland: #1* Amazon #23

Ilene PRoctor
INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS
Press Contact: Ilene Proctor or Angus Hsu
Direct Line: (310) 271 5857
Cell: (310) 721.2336
E-mail: proctor@...

Greg Palast's long Awaited New Book –
ARmed Madhouse

"No one has uncovered more about the Bush dynasty than Greg Palast …
and lived to write about it." Baltimore Chronicle

Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy topped the New York
Times bestseller list for seven months.   The winner of the George
Orwell Courage in Journalism prize for his reports for BBC
Television and Harper's, Guerilla News Network's reporter of the
year, Palast takes readers on his new global tour, from Baghdad to
New Orleans, from Osama's cave to the Pentagon's back rooms,
exposing official mendacity and corporate piggery.  Here's the
latest of what Britain's Guardian calls, "investigations up there
with Woodward and Bernstein – and a lot funnier."  In ARMED
MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The
Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches
from the Front Lines of the Class Wars (Dutton; June 6, 2006;
$25.95). Palast, former racketeering investigator, gives you the
facts you don't get from the Powers That Be, as brutal as they are
funny:

ARMED MADHOUSE, the long-anticipated follow-up to his New York Times
bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, uncovers even more
stories Americans won't hear on their Fox-i-fied news channels,

  Armed Madhouse

This is an autopsy of what happened to the American dream…

Greg Palast Tour Schedule:

http://www.gregpalast.com/armedmadhouse/tourcities.html

Greg Palast tells us how elections manipulations, Social Security
chicanery, oil wars, Hurricane Katrina and Chinese yuan are
interlinked, all pieces of the same puzzle: Class Warfare -- the war
of the movers and shakers on the moved and shaken.

Voting Fraud

Palast is the BBC Television reporter who busted Jeb Bush's and
Katherine Harris' purge of Black voters in 2000.  He's turned his
sleuthing skills on the suspect vote of 2004 and found a Republican
cesspool of "caging lists," "spoiled ballots" and "phantom voters"
that added up to three million votes gone with the wind.  His
chapter, Kerry Won, expanding on his award-winning reports for BBC,
Harpers and Britain's BBC, tells us how the vote was fixed in 2004 --
  and more important, signals the tricks that will be used in 2006
and 2008.

Nightmare of NAFTA

How 95% of Americans are being left behind in this new world order
run like a company town. The decimation of autoworkers and General
Motors and how it's just the beginning. The truth about
globalization, with confidential documents lifted straight from the
vaults of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.

Hurricane Katrina

1927 revisited. How the great flood of 1927 led to FDR's "New Deal",
how it was taken away, and New Orleans drowned again. The
privatization of the New Orleans' evacuation plan and Palast's
search for the elusive plan.  The unreported story of Enron and
Arnold Schwarzenneger.

$3 Gas and Iraq

Thought Bush and Cheney had a secret plan to seize Iraq's oil?
Wrong!  He had two plans -- and Palast shows you both.  Here is the
confidential inside story of how James Baker, the Saudis and Big Oil
fought it out with the neo-cons -- in an unseen policy war that
keeps our troops under fire today.    Want to know why gas is three
bucks a gallon?  Palast, a leading academic authority on energy
prices and the top investigator of oil company shenanigans gives the
story of the Bush crews' program to keep oil prices high.  And for
the first time, what Dick Cheney actually spoke about in those
meetings in the bunker with the oil boys.

Economics 101

The complex economics of how the threat to your social security
relates to the ballooning trade deficit with China. How Bush needs
to remain best friends with Saudi Arabia to finance his trillion
dollar debt.

The Next Oil War

It's not Iran.  The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is sitting
on the largest pool of oil in the world -- and why Mr. Bush's friend
Pat Robertson says, "Hugo Chavez thinks we are trying to assassinate
him.  I think we should do it."

Greg Palast, says Britain's Tribune Magazine, "is the most important
investigative reporter of our time."  His investigative reports for
BBC Television's prestigious Newsnight, his reports for the Guardian
papers and, in the USA, for Harper's Magazine have earned him
journalism's top prizes abroad; however, notes Asia Times, "Greg
Palast, the man widely considered as the top investigative
journalist in the United States, is persona non grata in his own
country's media."  Best known in the states for the investigations
behind Michael Moore's film 9-11 and the Eminem video "Mosh," Palast
is recipient of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Freedom of Expression
Prize and a record six Project Censored awards from California State
University -- for crucial stories that appear worldwide but not in
the USA.

Jesse Jackson calls Palast, "An American hero," and Sen. John
Edwards says his findings are, "stunning, disturbing and
important."  And as Randi Rhodes notes, Palast is not only, "The
best investigative reporter in America -- but the funniest."
Palast, author of a seminal United Nations study of energy prices,
combines academic credentials, satire and hard, old-fashioned
investigative reporting.  As the Baltimore Chronicle says, "No one
has investigated the Bush clan like Greg Palast -- and lived to
write about it."

…Trillion Dollar Babies.  If you suspected George Bush had a secret
plan to control Iraq's oil from the day he took office, you'd be
wrong.  He had two plans and Palast has them both---the confidential
documents from inside the State Department, and the full, hidden
story of the titanic battle between neo-cons and Big Oil that keeps
our troops under fire in Baghdad.

…The World As A Company Town. Palast pushes Thomas Friedman off the
golf courses of the Flat World into an economics lesson from the
film Network. Palast delivers the truth about globalization with
stacks of inside documents from the vaults of the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.
Because of these investigations, CNN reported, "the World Bank hates
Greg Palast."

… Kerry Won:  Now Get Over It.  The nasty little secret of American
democracy is that 3 million ballots weren't counted in the 2004
Presidential Election.  Republicans just seem to have that winning
spirit.  They also have caging lists, felons of the future, rotting
ballots, snuffed canaries, the undead, and a lock on the votes of
Kissinger Americans just waiting for 2008.

…. Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?  The macabre fun and folly of the war
on terror -- Ground Zero as a profit center, Osama's Operation
Islamic Liberation (O.I.L.), plus the Navy's $36 billion design
for 'Marines in a Tube.'  And:  "On November 9, 2001, BBC Television
Centre in London received a call from a phone booth just outside
Washington. The top-level U.S. intelligence agent on the line was
unhappy about a 'back-off' directive…"

Class War.  Who drowned New Orleans?  How much money floated in from
the busted levees and where did it end up?  Investigations into the
collapse of General Motors, how Ahnold got Lay'd, and how Bush is
planning to have China save our social security system, plus---the
coming assassination of Hugo Chavez.

Alan Colmes, Fox's house Liberal, once said to me:  "Greg, you have
no respect for the office of the President."  No, I don't.  You want
something heartwarming, Alan?  Buy a puppy.  But if you want just
the facts, ma'am -- here's your book.  (From the introduction to
Armed Madhouse.)

What do you get when a kid from the ass-end of LA winds up
hobnobbing with tomorrow's global power elite and studying economics
with neo-con Milton Freedman while moonlighting as an undercover
investigator for the United Steelworkers' union?  You either get a
hell of a case of split-personality disorder or a book like Armed
Madhouse, penned by a man that NPR's Alan Chartock called "the
greatest investigative journalist in America."

Winner of the George Orwell Courage in Journalism award Greg Palast
has spent the last thirty years getting the goods on the corporate
con men, political hucksters and "free-trade" gurus auctioning off
our children's future to the lowest bidder. The Palast Investigative
Fund, a project of the International Humanities Center, assists in
funding the Palast team's investigations, research and documentation.

Palast, whose reports appear on BBC television's premier current
affairs show, Newsnight, and in Harper's, has recently returned as a
columnist for The Guardian of Britain.

A couple issues in the news:

$3 Gas:  I just met with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
He's offering to cut the price of gas by a buck a gallon (i.e. cut
the price of oil to $50 a barrel).  But Bush would rather threaten
him than switch the US allegiance to Chavez' OPEC rival, Saudi
Arabia.  Chavez, on June 1, will demand that OPEC recognize
Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia.  The implications are huge.

Iraq:  It's NOT going badly -- it's going as planned.   Just most
Americans don't know what was planned.

"Surveillance" -- Republicans are shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George
Bush is snooping on innocent Americans.  There's a bigger story
here ... covering this KGB stuff by contracting it out.  Kind of a
new mercenary intelligence service.

Electronic voting machines -- Security breaches back in the news.
Will the next election be fixed?  No, it's ALREADY been fixed.  3.6
million ballots were cast but not counted in the next election.  But
those ballots were cast by voters that don't count:  Black,
Hispanic, Native.

Ken Lay verdict coming -- Like Al Capone, who went down for tax
evasion, Lay may do time, but not for his real crimes.  I've been
writing about that scamp since Enron was called 'Houston Natural
Gas.'

www.GregPalast.com

Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

Bush campaigner's Prozac solution
She says unhappy workers should try medication
Reuters
July 29, 2004

WASHINGTON - A campaign worker for President Bush said Thursday
American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones —
  or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy — or go on Prozac?"
said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry
Holt.

The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was
transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality,
and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: "Oh,
I was just kidding."

While recent employment growth has buoyed Bush's economic record,
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has argued the new jobs
are not as good as those lost due to outsourcing in recent years.

Nearly 1.1 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office in
January 2001.

*****

Sploid.com
June 13, 2006
74% hate their job

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're among the 74%
of American employees who are "not engaged" with or "actively
disengaged" from your pointless job.

According to an unsurprising new study by Gallup, less than a fourth
of employees are of any use at all -- they're the brown-nosing do-
gooders who make work so miserable for the rest of us.

That's not necessarily because Americans are lazy, experts say. The
main problem is that most companies are simply rotten places where
people are forced to waste their lives in exchange for a paycheck
that will never be big enough.

According to employment author Curt Coffman, no more that 15% of
companies provide the kind of workplace that lets people enjoy
actually working.

There are 12 characteristics of a "great job," according to Coffman.
These include really knowing what your job is, having the tools and
resources to get it done right, working with supervisors who show a
regular interest in your projects and routinely complement you for
good work, knowing your opinions and expertise are appreciated and
put to use, feeling good about your company's business, and being
able to see progress in your skills.

Because almost all workplaces are run by sociopaths who have
backstabbed their way "to the top," it's unrealistic to expect
conditions to improve for those toiling for the 85% of bad companies.

What's surprising is that only 74% of workers are either slacking or
actively plotting against their bosses -- that means another 11% of
doomed employees are still trying to "do what's right" despite their
unhappy, Sisyphusian existence.

Those otherwise-miserable employees may at least have good friends
at work; that's also one of the dozen requirements for a good job,
and experts say many a disengaged employee will make a little more
effort if they've got a buddy to make it a little less dull.

At least a few companies are now realizing that the economic
guillotine most Americans live beneath is not enough to keep people
working forever at stupid, pointless jobs -- and experts agree that
almost all jobs fall under this category.

The Bush Administration has mocked the plight of miserable
Americans, callously suggesting unhappy workers with lousy
jobs "take Prozac."

"Major corporations are recognizing that vacation time is intrinsic
to the mental and physical well-being of their employees," corporate
recruiter Penny Morey told the Christian Science Monitor last week.

"They are encouraging employees to take the allotted time. Some
smaller companies are increasing their vacation allotment so they
can attract the best talent."

*****

Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 2,500 U.S. Military, Pentagon Says

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- The military death toll in Iraq has reached
2,500, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman said.

The number of U.S. military personnel killed in action in Iraq since
the March 2003 invasion was 1,972 as of 9 a.m. today New York time,
Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin said. Including members of the
U.S. military who have died from other causes, such a illness or
accidents, the total death toll is 2,500, Martin said.

Details about latest casualty were not immediately available, Martin
said.

President George W. Bush yesterday vowed to resist domestic
political pressure to cut back U.S. involvement in Iraq, while polls
show that the American public questions the value of staying there.

Half of Americans surveyed in a CBS News poll taken June 10- 11
think the level of violence in Iraq will be unchanged following the
death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 7, while some
30 percent say they believe his death may provoke more attacks
against U.S. forces.

Bush said the U.S. won't reduce its force in Iraq until the
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is firmly in charge and
able to secure and defend the country.

While approval of Bush's job performance went up 1 percentage point
to 37 percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken after
Zarqawi's death and the formation of Maliki's government, it was
less than 40 percent for the seventh straight survey, NBC reported.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Judy Mathewson in Washington at  jmathewson@....

*****

Spiderman outs himself to the press
Wed Jun 14, 2006

NEW YORK (AFP) - For a comic book hero, it's the ultimate taboo.

In the latest edition of the Marvel comic "Civil War" on sale,
Spiderman does the unthinkable and removes his Spidey mask to
publicly reveal his hidden identity.

"I'm proud of who I am, and I'm here right now to prove it," the
legendary webslinger tells a press conference called in New York's
Times Square, before pulling off his mask and standing before the
massed ranks of reporters as newspaper photographer Peter Parker.

"Any questions?" Parker asks in the final panel of the issue, amid a
barrage of camera flashes.

In a statement, Marvel trumpeted the revelation as "arguably the
most shocking event in comic book history."

The seven-issue "Civil War" series, launched in May, sees Marvel's
writers taking on the topical issue of civil liberties.

Following a showdown between a group of superheroes and
supervillains in which hundreds of innocent civilians are killed,
the government passes the Super-Hero Registration Act, requiring all
superheroes to reveal their identities and register as "living
weapons of mass destruction."

Marvel's roster of invincible crime fighters is split into two
bitterly opposed factions, with one camp -- championed by the likes
of Spiderman -- in favour of the new law and the other, including
Captain America and his ilk, refusing to relinquish anonymity.

"It's about which side you are on and why you think you are right,"
said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.

*****

World Socialist Web Site
WSWS.org

Populist demagogy and immigrant-bashing in the US: The case of Lou
Dobbs
By Patrick Martin
16 June 2006

Right-wing politicians and media pundits in the United States are
seeking to use immigrant workers as a scapegoat for the increasingly
difficult social and economic conditions facing the working class
and considerable sections of the middle class. They claim that
immigrant workers are "stealing" the jobs of native-born Americans,
and that the low-wage exploitation of immigrants is responsible for
declining living standards in the US.

This pretended sympathy for the plight of working people is
occasionally combined with rhetorical attacks on American
corporations for hiring large numbers of immigrant workers or
shifting production to low-wage regions outside of the US. In this
way, populist and patriotic demagogy is used to cover up the ugly
racism and chauvinism of their political appeal. Perhaps the foulest
representative of this trend is CNN anchorman Lou Dobbs, who has
become the loudest media immigrant-basher.

Once a shill for Wall Street as the host of a business news program
during the 1990s stock market boom, Dobbs has sought to reinvent
himself as scourge of American business—but from a definite and
extremely right-wing standpoint. He now anchors a daily newscast on
CNN that includes regular segments on corporations he denounces
for "exporting jobs" from the United States. His condemnation of
business is strictly nationalistic in character: there is little
criticism of companies that attack American workers by slashing
their wages and benefits, so long as they carry out this super-
exploitation within the borders of the United States.

Dobbs's most strident comments are posted on CNN's web site each
Wednesday. This week he railed against Bush and the majority of the
US Senate for supporting an immigration bill that provides a limited
path to legalization for some undocumented workers, denouncing them
for being allied with "corporate supremacists" (a reference to the
support for the bill by the US Chamber of Commerce and other
business lobbies).

He went on to cast the significance of the immigration bill in quasi-
apocalyptic terms, saying it "could determine the financial and
social fate of nearly every American for the next 20 years." If the
Senate approach prevails over the far more repressive approach
backed by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives,
Dobbs warned, "11 million to 20 million illegal aliens will receive
amnesty, and at least 60 million new immigrants will be allowed into
the country over the next two decades," at a cost of "around $50
billion per year in administrative, social and health care costs."

These figures are wildly inflated. Suffice it to say that the figure
on new immigrants would require nearly half the population of Mexico—
men, women and children, young and old—to pack up and move north of
the Rio Grande. The figure on the social costs ignores countless
studies which demonstrate that immigrants make a huge net
contribution to the US economy, and even to the budget for social
spending. They pay far more in taxes than they receive in benefits,
in part because the majority of immigrants are employed workers
rather than dependents, and in part because they are not eligible
for many benefits or are afraid to seek them.

Dobbs attempts to pose as an advocate of "our middle-class working
men and women and their families," whom he describes as "our largest
and least represented group of citizens in Washington." As in the
most effective demagogy, there is an element of truth here: American
working people are indeed effectively disenfranchised under the
existing political system, even though they represent the vast
majority of the population.

But this is not because, as Dobbs goes on to say, "illegal aliens
are more important to this Congress" than American citizens. Working
people in the United States are disenfranchised by a political
system that gives exclusive power to two political parties, the
Democrats and Republicans, that defend big business and the
interests of the financial elite—an elite to which Lou Dobbs, as a
millionaire anchorman for CNN, very definitely belongs.

The peculiar reference to "corporate supremacists" underscores
another element of Dobbs' demagogy—an attempt to give a populist,
even "left" cover to extremely right-wing views.

The use of the word "supremacist" harks back to the discredited
white supremacists of the segregationist South, and represents an
appeal to popular resentment of the domination of big business.

But the term is meaningless: all bourgeois politicians and pundits,
including Dobbs himself, are "corporate supremacists," in the sense
that they uphold the capitalist profit system, whose contemporary
incarnation is the giant transnational corporation. The only genuine
opposition to corporate domination is based on the socialist
perspective of public ownership and democratic control of the major
corporate and financial institutions.

An inveterate opponent of socialism, Dobbs would perhaps suggest
that he represents an anti-corporate version of capitalism, rooted
in small independent businesses. But by the logic of the profit
system, as Karl Marx long ago explained, "one capital kills many."
The competition of rival capitalists has led inexorably to
consolidation and the formation of giant corporations, first on a
national and then on a global scale. The question is whether these
huge economic entities will remain under the dictatorship of a tiny
minority, the capitalist class, or whether they will come under the
democratic control of the working population.

It is appropriate, however distasteful, to consider a more extended
quote from Dobbs, which gives the full flavor of his populist
posturing. In another commentary posted on the CNN web site, he
writes, again referring to the Senate immigration bill: "This is an
outright assault in the elitist war on the middle class. And working
men and women who've already borne the pain of losing good-paying
manufacturing jobs and having middle-class jobs outsourced to cheap
foreign labor markets are faced with the onslaught of more illegal
immigration and cheap labor into the American economy. This
president and Congress talk about bringing illegal aliens out of the
shadows while they turn out the lights on our middle class."

Again, he seizes on a genuine and powerful grievance—working-class
distress over the loss of jobs and incomes—but seeks to divert
popular anger in a reactionary direction. Hence the constant
references to the middle class, never to the working class. This is
a hallmark of the right-wing populist demagogue, who seeks to split
the working class along social or racial lines—employed vs.
unemployed, black vs. white, or, as in Dobbs's case, native-born vs.
immigrant.

There is a name for the perspective advanced by Dobbs, which
combines appeals to real social grievances and utterly false and
nationalistic solutions, based on the scapegoating of a particularly
vulnerable section of the population—the name is fascism. Lou Dobbs
may not be a Hitler, but the politics he propounds, which aims to
mobilize the discontent of oppressed sections of the population and
divert it into racist and chauvinist channels, follows a similar
path to that blazed by the likes of Hitler and Mussolini.

The fact that CNN promotes him and gives him free rein must be taken
as a warning that the American ruling elite, in the face of ever
more intractable problems and contradictions, is testing the waters
for a future fascist movement to be thrown against the working class.

*****

June 15, 2006

A Big Problem for Hillary Clinton: "Premature Triangulation"
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Norman Solomon

Two years from now, Hillary Clinton might be pleased to hear the
kind of boos and antiwar chants that greeted her days ago when she
spoke at the annual Take Back America conference of Democratic
activists and argued against a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
But so much of politics is about timing. And right now, Clinton is
facing a serious problem of premature triangulation.

As long as she needs support from Democratic primary voters, Hillary
Clinton will want to defer the media rewards of an all-out "Sister
Souljah moment." Let's recall that in 1992, when Bill Clinton went
out of his way to denounce the then-little-known rap singer Sister
Souljah at a Rainbow Coalition conference, he'd already clinched the
Democratic presidential nomination and was looking toward the
general election.

Bill Clinton's triangulation gambit, using Sister Souljah as a prop
for his calculated move to ingratiate himself with establishment
pundits, had been foreshadowed by a Washington Post article that
reported the day before: "Some top advisers to Clinton argue
that ... he must become involved in highly publicized confrontations
with one or more Democratic constituencies." The constituency that
Clinton chose to polarize with was African-American activists.

These days, and from here to the horizon, there's no larger or more
adamant Democratic constituency than the antiwar voters who want the
U.S. military out of Iraq pronto. At this point, Hillary Clinton's
pro-war position is far afield from the views of most grassroots
Democrats.

Clinton's foreseeable game plan is to eventually confront antiwar
activists head-on as she portrays herself as a strong-on-defense
Newer-Than-New Democrat. Two years from now, if she has the
nomination cinched, she'll be eager to ratchet up her strategy of
playing to the gallery of corporate-media journalists by presenting
herself as a centrist alternative to both the Republican Party's
right wing and the Democratic Party's "special interests" (a.k.a.,
the party's base).

But first Hillary Clinton would need to win enough delegates to
become the party's presidential nominee. To that end, she'll try to
finesse and blur the war issue in hopes that her hawkish position
won't rub too many Democratic primary voters the wrong way.

It's not going to be easy. What happened at the Take Back America
conference the other day was mild compared to what Hillary Clinton
has coming in primary and caucus battleground states once the
presidential campaign begins in earnest. And she may encounter
unexpected difficulties as her pro-war reputation grows.

If Hillary Clinton thinks she can postpone an all-out confrontation
with the antiwar movement until a time and place of her tactical
choosing, she's going to be very disappointed. And at the end of her
2008 quest, Clinton may discover that she has triangulated herself
right out of the nomination.

Norman Solomon's book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death" is being published this month in
paperback. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com

*****

African-American Voters Scrubbed By Secret GOP Hit List
By Greg Palast
6-16-6

Palast, who first reported this story for BBC Television Newsnight
(UK) and Democracy Now! (USA), is author of the New York Times
bestseller, Armed Madhouse.

The Republican National Committee has a special offer for African-
American soldiers:  Go to Baghdad, lose your vote.

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004
sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in
the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by
residents of Black-majority precincts. Files from the secret vote-
blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight,
London.  They were attached to emails accidentally sent by
Republican operatives to a non-party website.

One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as
registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent
overseas.

Here's how the scheme worked:  The RNC mailed these voters letters
in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender.
These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed
overseas, to their US home addresses.  The letters then returned to
the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted
from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in
Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration
and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

One target list was comprised exclusively of voters registered at
the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville is third
largest naval installation in the US, best known as home of the Blue
Angels fighting squandron.

[See this scrub sheet at http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?
id=160156893&context=set -72157594155273706&size=o ]

Our team contacted the homes of several on the caging list, such as
Randall Prausa, a serviceman, whose wife said he had been ordered
overseas.

A soldier returning home in time to vote in November 2004 could also
be challenged on the basis of the returned envelope.  Soldiers
challenged would be required to vote by "provisional" ballot.

Over one million provisional ballots cast in the 2004 race were
never counted; over half a million absentee ballots were also
rejected. The extraordinary rise in the number of rejected ballots
was the result of the widespread multi-state voter challenge
campaign by the Republican Party.  The operation, of which the purge
of Black soldiers was a small part, was the first mass challenge to
voting America had seen in two decades.

The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the
Republican's  national Research Director and Deputy Communications
chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and
other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets
marked, "Caging.xls."  Each of these contained several hundred to a
few thousand voters and their addresses.

A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists,"
as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-
American majority zip codes.

Ion Sanco, the non-partisan elections supervisor of Leon County
(Tallahassee) when shown the lists by this reporter said: "The only
thing I can think of  - African American voters listed like this ­
these might be individuals that will be challenged if they attempted
to vote on Election Day."

These GOP caging lists were obtained by the same BBC team that first
exposed the wrongful purge of African-American "felon" voters in
2000 by then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris.  Eliminating the
voting rights of those voters -- 94,000 were targeted -- likely
caused Al Gore's defeat in that race.

The Republican National Committee in Washington refused our several
requests to respond to the BBC discovery.  However, in Tallahassee,
the Florida Bush campaign's spokespeople offered several
explanations for the list.

Joseph Agostini, speaking for the GOP, suggested the lists were of
potential donors to the Bush campaign. Oddly, the supposed donor
list included residents of the Sulzbacher Center a shelter for
homeless families.

Another spokesperson for the Bush campaign, Mindy Tucker Fletcher,
ultimately changed the official response, acknowledging that these
were voters, "we mailed to, where the letter came back ­ bad
addresses."

The party has refused to say why it would mark soldiers as
having "bad addresses" subject to challenge when they had been
assigned abroad.

The apparent challenge campaign was not inexpensive.  The GOP mailed
the letters first class, at a total cost likely exceeding millions
of dollars, so that the addresses would be returned to "cage"
workers.

"This is not a challenge list," insisted the Republican
spokesmistress. However, she modified that assertion by
adding, "That's not what it's set up to be."
Setting up such a challenge list would be a crime under federal
law.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws mass challenges of
voters where race is a factor in choosing the targeted group.

While the party insisted the lists were not created for the purpose
to challenge Black voters, the GOP ultimately offered no other
explanation for the mailings.  However, Tucker Fletcher asserted
Republicans could still employ the list to deny ballots to those
they considered suspect voters.  When asked if Republicans would use
the list to block voters, Tucker Fletcher replied, "Where it's
stated in the law, yeah."

It is not possible at this time to determine how many on the
potential blacklist were ultimately challenged and lost their vote.
Soldiers sending in their ballot from abroad would not know their
vote was lost because of a challenge.
_______
For the full story of caging lists and voter purges of 2004, plus
the documents, read Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, ARMED
MADHOUSE:  Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, Armed Madhouse:  Who's
Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to
Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the
Front Lines of the Class War.