"The Five Iraqs" by Scott Ritter, former Marine Corps Intel officer & UN Weapons-Inspector in Iraq...

Former Marine Corps Intel officer, and former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, SCOTT RITTER offers up his analysis of the "FIVE IRAQS" - an excellent commentary to start any discussion on that nation's tortured future.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071230_the_five_iraqs/

"STABILITY" and "IRRESPONSIBLE" - in two words, Sen. Chris Dodd shows "Democratic" SUBSERVIENCE to the Bush/Cheney/neo-con WAR AGENDA....

"STABILITY" and "IRRESPONSIBLE" - in just two words, Sen. Chris Dodd illustrates how "Democratic" "leaders" are abjectly SUBSERVIENT to the Bush/Cheney/neo-con WAR AGENDA, and to the awful "major media" narrative of that agenda, which is so often completely INVERTED, 100% the OPPOSITE of the truth.

In this case, Senator Dodd was saying that "STABILITY IN PAKISTAN is OUR HIGHEST PRIORITY," and therefore that "ANYONE CRITICIZING the regime of Pakistan general and dictator Musharaff IS BEING IRRESPONSIBLE."

Cut through the oh-so-responsible double-talk of the Senator, what that means that even if President Musharaff DID have a hand in the ASSASSINATION of his political rival, former President Benazir Bhutto, 3 days ago, HE NOW HAS FREE HAND TO ASSASSINATE ANYONE IN PAKISTAN he so desires.

Like Henry Kissinger and President Ford giving a GREEN LIGHT to Chile dictator AUGUSTO PINOCHET, Dodd is NOW ON THE SIDE OF DICTATORS, AGAINST any EVEN SEMBLENCE of democracy... under the generic propaganda rubric "FREEDOM."

Of course, those who supported SEGREGATION in US Deep South in the years after World War II, maintained that THEY "SUPPORTED FREEDOM" - even as they supported a political and economic system which USED BRUTALITY and quasi-state APPLIED TERROR to PROHIBIT minority (Black/African-American) voters from EXCERCISING THEIR 15th AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
Even the Northern, "moderate" senators, congress wo/men, and leaders of the Democratic Party thus have a LONG HISTORY of COOPERATING with the racist, radical agenda of the reactionary South, for it was not until the United States was fighting to bring "FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY to..... VIETNAM!" that Americans were FORCED (by the modern invention of television nightly news videos being broadcast into millions of American homes) to EXAMINE THE UN-DEMOCRATIC SEGREGATION and state-sanctioned EXTRA LEGAL VIOLENCE of segregationist's regime of terror against Civil Rights and Voting Rights activists in the Deep South.

SENATOR CHRIS DODD, House Speaker NANCY PELOSI, House MAJORITY LEADER STENY HOYER, and Senate Leader HARRY REID are no more an no less than another "DEMOCRATIC" _REVERSION_ to the LYNCH MOB ERA, when Americans COULD BE DISENFRANCHISED with NO real, substantive QUIBBLES from the Northern Democrats or Republicans.

IN THIS CASE, EXTEND Senator Dodd's "IRRESPONSIBLE to question whether dictator Musharraff had ANY role in Ms. Buhtto's ASSASSINATION" to ANY QUESTIONS of the BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars spent by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney on their global war on the world.... and CLEARLY, SENATOR DODD and his FELLOW "DEMOCRATIC" senators are DERELICT in their duties to OVERSEE and provide ACCOUNTABILITY for the vast billions spent on the war on terror.

Or, in plain English, Senator Dodd NOW AGREES: THE WAR ON TERROR justifies ANY DICTATORSHIP overseas (up to and including the ASSASSINATION of genuinely democratic opposition leaders), and, as well, ANY SPENDING, AND ANY POLICE STATE POWERS, here at home in America.

SENATOR DODD, your recent veto-talk against the retroactive immunity/surveillance "REFORM" bill WAS MERE SHOW! For you APPROVE of the DICTATORIAL POLICE/war-state powers ABROAD as well as here in America!

FOR SHAME! Senator Dodd, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Kerry, and the Democrat "leadership" MAY MARK THE END of American democracy, as the fury of the Muslim world over ever-expanding American wars of imperialism generates ever-increasing PRESSURE COOKER FORCES in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Senator Dodd is TOO COWARDLY to DEMAND THE FACTS of the Bhutto ASSASSINATION!

More on Krugman, what America needs is some middle- & working-class PARTISANSHIP.....

Paul Krguman repeats his call for Democrats to REJECT, to STOP selling their identity out to the "MUDDLED MIDDLE" (copyright right here!) voters "in the heartland" who often VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN ECONOMIC INTERESTS.

This is of course because the right-wing.... the Reactionary political organizations and institutions of the wealthy - have mastered the art of IDENTITY POLITICS, of "us versus them", of playing one group against another; of DIVIDE and CONQUER.

It is the "WHAT's THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?" syndrome. Once the railways were built, giving midwestern farmers access to the great markets of large, eastern cities, (and, as Kevin Phillips points out in his book, "Wealth and Democracy", those great railroad fortunes were built with cheap land from the government... i.e. huge government subsidies to well-connected industrialists), those rail-roads became the center of fierce battles for CONSOLIDATION and CONTROL. Those huge companies DID_NOT_LIKE COMPETITION.... they preferred MONOPOLY CONTROL of the markets. Once the dust of the rail-road consolidation wars had settled, the winning monopoly could FIX grain shipment prices, telling farmers "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT." A western farmer had one of two choices.... let his grain ROT in the fields or silos, or pay the rail-road company what they wanted. Over several decades of such monopolistic control and predatory pricing, the Midwest BECAME A HOTBED of POPULISM, at times radical populism.

To BREAK THE BACK of SHIPPING MONOPOLIES who had a DEATH GRIP on western farmers..... to break the back of electric conglomerates who DID NOT WANT TO RUN COSTLY POWERLINES TO RURAL communities.... to break the back of Wall St. financiers who took bump-and-dump stock schemes as their right.... ALL THOSE PROGRAMS which Americans (especially rural and "heartland) today TAKE FOR GRANTED, REQUIRED PARTISAN, in-your-face, SMASH-MOUTH politics.

TO PROVIDE ELECTRICITY to rural Texas, Congressman & Senator Lyndon B Johnson had to TAKE ON THE ELECTRIC CONGLOMERATES, who RESISTED public, subsidized electric distribution. Johnson allied himself with two German-Texas contractors, Brown and Root, and by creating jobs for workers in those huge electrification and dam projects, Johnson was able to gain enough support to ram his "LIBERAL" if not "SOCIALIST" policies through in Texas, especially during the DEPRESSION years when "liberalism" was extremely popular in Texas. Of course, once a Democratic president and "liberal," socialistic policies had helped guide America out of the Great Depression and through to success in World War II, millions of Texas voters returned to the "conservative", REACTIONARY policies that HAD LANDED TEXAS and America IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION in the first place!

Today, every Democratic senator is the chairman and CEO of a million-dollar company, his or her own re-election campaign. Senators like Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein may pose as Democrats, but they have not been articulating exactly what it is that sets them apart from the reactionary Bush-Cheney Republicans.

It should be remembered, that Republicans won control of the "Super-Trifecta" - control of the House, the Senate, the White House, the US courts and Supreme Court, federal agencies, and much of the "4th Estate" (formerly "liberal media) BY BEING EXTREMELY PARTISAN, by THROWING THEIR identity-groups RED MEAT.

Given that much of the Republican "Red Meat" media- and PR spin was SHEER PROPAGANDA - the Republicans, with scandals like Jeff Ganon, Mark Foley, Jeff Ganon, and Ted Haggard were just as bad as they like to portray "degenerate liberals," and in economic/fiscal policy, President Bush has presided over the greatest DEFICITS in US history.

Democratic "leaders" OWE IT TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS and voters to HIGHLIGHT the REACTIONARY, steal-from-the-poor to give-to-the-rich agenda of the Republicans, and to engage in some good old SMASH MOUTH, "You are NOT STEALING FROM BABIES on OUR watch!" partisanship.

FORGET ABOUT BUSH—AND THE MIDDLE GROUND.
By Paul Krugman
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2007
http://www.slate.com/id/2180178

Here's a thought for progressives: Bush isn't the problem. And the next president should not try to be the anti-Bush.
No, I haven't lost my mind. I'm not saying that we should look kindly on the Worst President Ever; we'll all breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves office 405 days, 2 hours, and 46 minutes from now. (Yes, a friend gave me one of those Bush countdown clocks.) Nor am I suggesting that we should forgive and forget; I very much hope that the next president will open the records and let the full story of the Bush era's outrages be told.
But Bush will soon be gone. What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing—what we need is partisanship.


OK, before I get there, a word about terms—specifically, liberal vs. progressive. Everyone seems to have their own definitions; mine involves the distinction between values and action. If you think every American should be guaranteed health insurance, you're a liberal; if you're trying to make universal health care happen, you're a progressive.
And here's the thing: Progressives have an opportunity, because American public opinion has become a lot more liberal.
Not everyone understands that. In fact, the reaction of the news media to the first clear electoral manifestation of America's new liberalism—the Democratic sweep in last year's congressional elections—was almost comical in its denial.
Thus, in 1994, Time celebrated the Republican victory in the midterm elections by putting a herd of charging elephants on its cover. But its response to the Democratic victory of 2006—a victory in which House Democrats achieved a larger majority, both in seats and in the popular vote, than the Republicans ever did in their 12-year reign—was a pair of overlapping red and blue circles, with the headline "The center is the place to be."
Oh, and the guests on Meet the Press the Sunday after the Democratic sweep were, you guessed it, Joe Lieberman and John McCain.
More seriously, many pundits have attributed last year's Republican defeat to Iraq, with the implication that once the war has receded as an issue, the right will reassert its natural political advantage—in spite of polls that show a large Democratic advantage on just about every domestic issue.
In a way, it's understandable that many political analysts are finding it hard to grasp how much things have changed. After all, not long ago it was conventional wisdom among the chattering classes that America had entered an era of long-term Republican—and conservative—dominance. I have a whole shelf of books with titles like One Party Country and Building Red America, all of them explaining why movement conservatism—the interlocking set of institutions, ranging from the Heritage Foundation to Fox News, that make up the modern American right—is invincible.
And it's true that even now, polls suggest that Americans are about twice as likely to identify themselves as conservatives as they are to identify themselves as liberals.
But if you look at peoples' views on actual issues, as opposed to labels, the electorate's growing liberalism is unmistakable. Don't take my word for it; look at the massive report Pew released earlier this year on trends in "political attitudes and core values." Pew found "increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies." Meanwhile, nothing's the matter with Kansas: People are ever less inclined to support conservative views on moral values—and have become dramatically more liberal on racial issues.
And it's not just opinion polls: Last year, the newly liberal mindset of the electorate was reflected in actual votes, too. Yes, some of the Democrats newly elected last year were relatively conservative. But others, including James Webb of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, have staked out strikingly progressive positions on economic issues.
The question, however, is whether Democrats will take advantage of America's new liberalism. To do that, they have to be ready to forcefully make the case that progressive goals are right and conservatives are wrong. They also need to be ready to fight some very nasty political battles.
And that's where the continuing focus of many people on Bush, rather than the movement he represents, has become a problem.
A year ago, Michael Tomasky wrote a perceptive piece titled "Obama the anti-Bush," in which he described Barack Obama's appeal: After the bitter partisanship of the Bush years, Tomasky argued, voters are attracted to "someone who speaks of his frustration with our polarized politics and his fervent desire to transcend the red-blue divide." People in the news media, in particular, long for an end to the polarization and partisanship of the Bush years—a fact that probably explains the highly favorable coverage Obama has received.
But any attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.
I like to remind people who long for bipartisanship that FDR's drive to create Social Security was as divisive as Bush's attempt to dismantle it. And we got Social Security because FDR wasn't afraid of division. In his great Madison Square Garden speech, he declared of the forces of "organized money": "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."
So, here's my worry: Democrats, with the encouragement of people in the news media who seek bipartisanship for its own sake, may fall into the trap of trying to be anti-Bushes—of trying to transcend partisanship, seeking some middle ground between the parties.
That middle ground doesn't exist—and if Democrats try to find it, they'll squander a huge opportunity. Right now, the stars are aligned for a major change in America's direction. If the Democrats play nice, that opportunity may soon be gone.

Obama's GENERALITIES, PLATITUDES, and "bipartisanship" ARE NOT what Democratic voters and American citizens need in 2008.... Paul Krugman.

Paul Krugman, in his reserved, understated manner, hits this nail on the head: BARAK OBAMA's campaign messages of GENERALITIES, PLATITUDES, and oh-so-wise calls for BIPARTISANSHIP, **ARE NOT** what Democratic voters and American citizens need in 2008.

What Democratic and "independent" voters across America need are LEADERS who can cut through the fog, haze, and miasma of "major media" (non-) reporting, and Republican spin, TO DEFEND the POCKET-BOOKS, education, jobs, health-care, and quality of living of millions of American.




By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/opinion/24krugman.html

Once upon a time, back when America had a strong middle class, it also had a strong union movement.
These two facts were connected. Unions negotiated good wages and benefits for their workers, gains that often ended up being matched even by nonunion employers. They also provided an important counterbalance to the political influence of corporations and the economic elite.

Today, however, the American union movement is a shadow of its former self, except among government workers. In 1973, almost a quarter of private-sector employees were union members, but last year the figure was down to a mere 7.4 percent.

Yet unions still matter politically. And right now they’re at the heart of a nasty political scuffle among Democrats. Before I get to that, however, let’s talk about what happened to American labor over the last 35 years.

It’s often assumed that the U.S. labor movement died a natural death, that it was made obsolete by globalization and technological change. But what really happened is that beginning in the 1970s, corporate America, which had previously had a largely cooperative relationship with unions, in effect declared war on organized labor.

Don’t take my word for it; read Business Week, which published an article in 2002 titled “How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at Bay.” The article explained that “over the past two decades, Corporate America has perfected its ability to fend off labor groups.” It then described the tactics — some legal, some illegal, all involving a healthy dose of intimidation — that Wal-Mart and other giant firms use to block organizing drives.

These hardball tactics have been enabled by a political environment that has been deeply hostile to organized labor, both because politicians favored employers’ interests and because conservatives sought to weaken the Democratic Party. “We’re going to crush labor as a political entity,” Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist, once declared.

But the times may be changing. A newly energized progressive movement seems to be on the ascendant, and unions are a key part of that movement. Most notably, the Service Employees International Union has played a key role in pushing for health care reform. And unions will be an important force in the Democrats’ favor in next year’s election.

Or maybe not — which brings us to the latest from Iowa.

Whoever receives the Democratic presidential nomination will receive labor’s support in the general election. Meanwhile, however, unions are supporting favored candidates. Hillary Clinton — who for a time seemed the clear front-runner — has received the most union support. John Edwards, whose populist message resonates with labor, has also received considerable labor support.

But Barack Obama, though he has a solid pro-labor voting record, has not — in part, perhaps, because his message of “a new kind of politics” that will transcend bitter partisanship doesn’t make much sense to union leaders who know, from the experience of confronting corporations and their political allies head on, that partisanship isn’t going away anytime soon.

O.K., that’s politics. But now Mr. Obama has lashed out at Mr. Edwards because two 527s — independent groups that are allowed to support candidates, but are legally forbidden from coordinating directly with their campaigns — are running ads on his rival’s behalf. They are, Mr. Obama says, representative of the kind of “special interests” that “have too much influence in Washington.”

The thing, though, is that both of these 527s represent union groups — in the case of the larger group, local branches of the S.E.I.U. who consider Mr. Edwards the strongest candidate on health reform. So Mr. Obama’s attack raises a couple of questions.

First, does it make sense, in the current political and economic environment, for Democrats to lump unions in with corporate groups as examples of the special interests we need to stand up to?

Second, is Mr. Obama saying that if nominated, he’d be willing to run without support from labor 527s, which might be crucial to the Democrats? If not, how does he avoid having his own current words used against him by the Republican nominee?

Part of what happened here, I think, is that Mr. Obama, looking for a stick with which to beat an opponent who has lately acquired some momentum, either carelessly or cynically failed to think about how his rhetoric would affect the eventual ability of the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, to campaign effectively. In this sense, his latest gambit resembles his previous echoing of G.O.P. talking points on Social Security.

Beyond that, the episode illustrates what’s wrong with campaigning on generalities about political transformation and trying to avoid sounding partisan.

It may be partisan to say that a 527 run by labor unions supporting health care reform isn’t the same thing as a 527 run by insurance companies opposing it. But it’s also the simple truth.

NANCY PELOSI, through ignorance, incompetence, fear, or greed, COMPLICIT in the Bush DECONSTRUCTION of New Orleans...

NANCY PELOSI, through INERTIA, IGNORANCE, INCOMPETENCE, or OUTRIGHT CORRUPTION, is COMPLICIT with the Bush-Cheney Halliburton/Blackwater DESTRUCITON OF NEW ORLEANS public faciilities and public housing.

Speaker Pelosi, the bible says "by your people shall you be judged." Madam Speaker, you CLEARLY put your PEARLS and MILLION DOLLAR luxury home, and your fellow Congressional leader's million dollar portfolios (richly enhanced by tax-cuts for the rich, and billion-dollar government contracts to war contractors, oil windfalls, credit extortions, and other policies) AHEAD OF THE WELFARE of DEMOCRATIC VOTERS, and American citizens, IN NEW ORLEANS.

FOR SHAME! YOU ARE COMPLICIT with the WARS and ECONOMIC DEPRAVATIONS of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican Party.

=======================================================


The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans
Posted December 21, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/the-shock-doctrine-in-act_b_77886.html

Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that one of the most shameless examples of disaster capitalism has been the attempt to exploit the disastrous flooding of New Orleans to close down that city's public housing projects, some of the only affordable units in the city. Most of the buildings sustained minimal flood damage, but they happen to occupy valuable land that make for perfect condo developments and hotels.
The final showdown over New Orleans public housing is playing out in dramatic fashion right now. The conflict is a classic example of the "triple shock" formula at the core of the doctrine.

- First came the shock of the original disaster: the flood and the traumatic evacuation.

- Next came the "economic shock therapy": using the window of opportunity opened up by the first shock to push through a rapid-fire attack on the city's public services and spaces, most notably it's homes, schools and hospitals.

-Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try to resist these attacks, they are being met with a third shock: the shock of the police baton and the Taser gun, used on the bodies of protestors outside New Orleans City Hall yesterday.

Democracy Now! has been covering this fight all week, with amazing reports from filmmakers Jacquie Soohen and Rick Rowley (Rick was arrested in the crackdown). Watch residents react to the bulldozing of their homes here.

And footage from yesterday's police crackdown and Tasering of protestors inside and outside city hall here.

That last segment contains a terrific interview with Kali Akuno, executive director of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund. Akuno puts the demolitions in the big picture, telling Amy Goodman:

This is just one particular piece of this whole program. Public hospitals are also being shut down and set to be demolished and destroyed in New Orleans. And they've systematically dismantled the public education system and beginning demolition on many of the schools in New Orleans--that's on the agenda right now--and trying to totally turn that system over to a charter and a voucher system, to privatize and just really go forward with a major experiment, which was initially laid out by the Heritage Foundation and other neoconservative think tanks shortly after the storm. So this is just really the fulfillment of this program.
Akuno is referring to the Heritage Foundation's infamous post-Katrina meeting with the Republican Study Group in which participants laid out their plans to turn New Orleans into a Petri dish for every policy they can't ram through without a disaster. Read the minutes on my website:.

For more context, here are couple of related excerpts from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism:

The news racing around the shelter [in Baton Rouge] that day was that Richard Baker, a prominent Republican Congressman from this city, had told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Joseph Canizaro, one of New Orleans' wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar sentiment: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities." All that week the Louisiana State Legislature in Baton Rouge had been crawling with corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those big opportunities: lower taxes, fewer regulations, cheaper workers and a "smaller, safer city"--which in practice meant plans to level the public housing projects and replace them with condos. Hearing all the talk of "fresh starts" and "clean sheets," you could almost forget the toxic stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles down the highway.

Over at the shelter, Jamar Perry, a young resident of New Orleans, could think of nothing else. "I really don't see it as cleaning up the city. What I see is that a lot of people got killed uptown. People who shouldn't have died."

He was speaking quietly, but an older man in line in front of us in the food line overheard and whipped around. "What is wrong with these people in Baton Rouge? This isn't an opportunity. It's a goddamned tragedy. Are they blind?"

A mother with two kids chimed in. "No, they're not blind, they're evil. They see just fine."

...

At first I thought the Green Zone phenomenon was unique to the war in Iraq. Now, after years spent in other disaster zones, I realize that the Green Zone emerges everywhere that the disaster capitalism complex descends, with the same stark partitions between the included and the excluded, the protected and the damned.

It happened in New Orleans. After the flood, an already divided city turned into a battleground between gated green zones and raging red zones--the result not of water damage but of the "free-market solutions" embraced by the president. The Bush administration refused to allow emergency funds to pay public sector salaries, and the City of New Orleans, which lost its tax base, had to fire three thousand workers in the months after Katrina. Among them were sixteen of the city's planning staff--with shades of "de Baathification," laid off at the precise moment when New Orleans was in desperate need of planners. Instead, millions of public dollars went to outside consultants, many of whom were powerful real estate developers. And of course thousands of teachers were also fired, paving the way for the conversion of dozens of public schools into charter schools, just as Friedman had called for.

Almost two years after the storm, Charity Hospital was still closed. The court system was barely functioning, and the privatized electricity company, Entergy, had failed to get the whole city back online. After threatening to raise rates dramatically, the company managed to extract a controversial $200 million bailout from the federal government. The public transit system was gutted and lost almost half its workers. The vast majority of publicly owned housing projects stood boarded up and empty, with five thousand units slotted for demolition by the federal housing authority. Much as the tourism lobby in Asia had longed to be rid of the beachfront fishing villages, New Orleans' powerful tourism lobby had been eyeing the housing projects, several of them on prime land close to the French Quarter, the city's tourism magnet.

Endesha Juakali helped set up a protest camp outside one of the boarded-up projects, St. Bernard Public Housing, explaining that "they've had an agenda for St. Bernard a long time, but as long as people lived here, they couldn't do it. So they used the disaster as a way of cleansing the neighbourhood when the neighbourhood is weakest. ... This is a great location for bigger houses and condos. The only problem is you got all these poor black people sitting on it!"

Amid the schools, the homes, the hospitals, the transit system and the lack of clean water in many parts of town, New Orleans' public sphere was not being rebuilt, it was being erased, with the storm used as the excuse. At an earlier stage of capitalist "creative destruction," large swaths of the United States lost their manufacturing bases and degenerated into rust belts of shuttered factories and neglected neighbourhoods. Post-Katrina New Orleans may be providing the first Western-world image of a new kind of wasted urban landscape: the mould belt, destroyed by the deadly combination of weathered public infrastructure and extreme weather.



Since the publication of The Shock Doctrine, my research team has been putting dozens of original source documents online for readers to explore subjects in greater depth. The resource page on New Orleans has some real gems.

Pelosi and Hoyer's cowering REFUSAL to hold even the most BASIC Impeachments hearings, has ENABLED Bush to be the $700 billion war president...

REID, PELOSI, and HOYER: The BIGGEST ENABLERS of Bush-Cheney CORRUPTION in the entire world.... Behind these smiles, the trio have just approved SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS in taxpayer total war funding for Mr. Bush, with NO STRINGS, NO OVERSIGHT, and NO ACCOUNTABILIY on even the latest $70 billion appropriation.

In REFUSING to hold the crimes and corruption of President Bush and his administration to the light of congressional investigation and public scrutiny, Speaker NANCY PELOSI, Majority Leader STENY HOYER, and Senate Leader HARRY REID are worth TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars to the Republican PR, media, and campaign machines.
That is TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that the cowering Democrats will beseech from their voters and activists... millions of dollars that will be WASTED because Democratic "leaders" are TOO CORRUPTED or TOO INTIMIDATED to HOLD CRIMINAL ABUSES OF POWER accountable to Ameerican justice...
...and thereby EMPOWER President Bush to be the "war president" SPENDING $700,000,000,000 SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS in the "war on terror" HOWEVER HE SEES FIT - with NO real accountability or oversight - even though the president in ON THE RECORD as saying "I'm not that concerned about [terrorist master-mind and 9-11 planner] OSAMA bin LADEN anymore"!
(So I don't know where he [Osama bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him.... I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.")
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

JUST ONE EXAMPLE of CRIMINAL ABUSES OF POWER snatched from TODAY'S headlines:
"Evidence Mounts of White House TIES to New Hampshire PHONE JAMMING Scheme"
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/20/rnc-phone-jamming-doj/

<< According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, CONGRESS HAS NOW APPROVED nearly $700 BILLIOIN for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. >>


=========================================

Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam
by Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US
Thu Dec 20, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20071220/wl_oneworld/45361563221198183160

SAN FRANCISCO, California (OneWorld) � Congress' approval Wednesday of $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mean the twin conflicts are now more costly to American taxpayers than the war in Vietnam.

According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Congress has now approved nearly $700 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars has now surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam war (which ran to $670 billion)," the group�s Travis Sharp told OneWorld. "It's also more than seven times larger than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the cost of the Korean war ($295 billion)."

As a result of Wednesday�s vote, Sharp said, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will become the second costliest conflict in American history, trailing only World War II.

"But that was a time when 12 million Americans served, as compared with 1.42 million active duty soldiers and just over one million National Guard and reservists today," Sharp added.

Much of the money approved by Congress will go to buy expensive new military equipment: $922 million is earmarked for purchase or alteration of 41 new Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook Helicopters; $813 million will be spent on new Bradley Fighting Vehicles; $455 million for new Humvees; $427 million on new Heavy Tactical Vehicles; and $425 million for M1 Abrams Tanks.

"I think what you�re seeing from Democrats is a resignation to the fact that they�re going to have to wait for the Bush Administration to leave office before they see any serious change in the country�s war policy," Sharp said. "The Democrats just want to play out the clock on this one."

But "playing out the clock" comes with a severe cost for essential services at home.

Even before the new $70 billion dollars was approved Wednesday, the Massachusetts-based National Priorities Project had estimated that the average American household has already spent $4,100 on the Iraq war.

This year alone, US taxpayers spent $137.6 billion on the Iraq war. For the same amount of money, the government could have provided more than 39 million people with health care, built one million units of affordable housing, or outfitted 142 million homes with renewable electricity sources.

"We want to help people comprehend the magnitude of these numbers," said the group�s Pamela Schwartz. "Surely, ultimately, we'd hope that our priorities would shift so that significantly less money is going to war with more money going to programs like heath care, Headstart, and education."

"We want to help people understand that choices are being made here," she added.

To that end, the National Priorities Project has set up a web-site, www.costofwar.com, where taxpayers can learn what the cost of the Iraq war has meant to their community. Visitors to the website can search by state, city, or congressional district and find out how much money the Iraq war has taken out of their community and where the money could have gone instead.

For example, taxpayers in Chicago have spent $4.8 billion on the war in Iraq � money that could have been used to build 567 new elementary schools or build 35,000 units of affordable housing.

In smaller places like George W. Bush�s hometown of Crawford, Texas, war spending has also had a strong impact. Crawford�s taxpayers have spent $1.3 million on the war in Iraq � money that could have been used to provide 180 full scholarships for university students, or hire 30 additional police and sheriff�s deputies.

"The Democrats were elected last year with a certain set of priorities, but President Bush drew a line in the sand," Schwartz told OneWorld. "Rather than drawing their own line, Democrats respected Bush�s line. They met President Bush�s spending limits on domestic programs and gave him a blank check for the Iraq war. That�s the choice they made."

Bush b****-Slaps Nancy Pelosi right out of Washington, 5 days before Christmas 2007...

Bush looks at nominal "leader" of Congress Nancy Pelosi, like the cat that ate the canary.

IN TAKING IMPEACHMENT "OFF THE TABLE," Nancy Pelosi has been an (at least) one-hundred-million-dollar GIFT to Mr. Bush and his Republican Party.

She has ENABLED OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, from Alberto Gonzales PERJURY in front of the Judiciary Committee, to HARRIET MIERS and JOSH BOLTON saying "go ____ yourselves" to those Judiciary Committee Congressional Subpoenaes, to Mr. Bush giving an (all but) PARDON to Scooter Libby, OBSTRUCTING any further prosecution or tying up of the ends (loose threads) of that case. (The entire world, except for Ms. Pelosi and the Democrat 'leadership,' well know that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were at the very core of the CIA-outing scandal, and subsequent OBSTRUCTION OF JUSICE subsequent to that crime. Only a deluded Democrat enabler would think that mega-DC lawyer and experienced bureaucrat Lewis Libby would be a "loose canon" outing CIA operative Valerie Plame's name on his own initiative; besides which, his perjury and obstruction of justice CONVICTIONS established that there was a broad, deep, and wide-ranging effort out of the White House to both "out" Ms. Plame's CIA identity, and to OBSTRUCT the facts of that outing when the FBI and federal prosecutors investiated it.)
Just this week, Nancy Pelosi HANDED OVER ANOTHER SEVENTY BILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, to spend as they see fit in their wars in Iraq... for which Nancy got scolded out of Washington DC today, Mr. Bush blasting Pelosi and the Democrats for "WASTEFUL SPENDING."

YOU GOT THAT, NANCY? YOU, on behalf of the MILLIONS of Democratic Voters who THOUGHT they were getting an oppositon party when they CONTRIBUTED to the damn Democrat Party, and showed up to vote.. YOU JUST HANDED Mr. Bush ANOTHER SEVENTY BILLION no-strings, no-oversight, NO SAFEGUARDS AGAINST FRAUD and CORRUPTION taxpayer DOLLARS - and Mr. Bush B****-SLAPPED YOU right out of Washington, complaining about your "WASTEFUL SPENDING"!

NANCY, we hope when Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and thier AIPAC neo-con allies extend THEIR WARS to IRAN, SYRIA, Uzbekistan, and the other former Soviet Republics, YOUR GRANDCHILDREN will have the HONOR of taking part!
--------------------------------

Bush said:

"When Congress wastes so much time and leaves its work to the final days before Christmas, it is not a responsible way to run this government."

"Another thing that's not responsible is the number of earmarks that Congress included in the massive spending bill," he said, referring to provisions to fund pet projects in lawmakers' home states or districts. He said the omnibus bill includes about 9,800 earmarks, bringing to about 11,900 the number of projects funded this year when a previously passed defense spending bill is included.

"And so, I'm instructing budget director Jim Nussle to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill," Bush said.

PELOSI and REID pile on the Atrocities so quickly, it is impossible to keep up..

NANCY PELOSI and the "Democratic" Congress of 2007, in passing (with only 6 votes against) the atrocious, totalitarian "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act", have actually signalled that she (Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House for the United States 110th Congress) and they (the Congress) are IN COMPLETE ACCORD with the Bush-Cheney doctrine to WAGE WAR, on ANYONE IN THE WORLD, ANYWHERE in the world, at ANY TIME OF THEIR CHOOSING, FOR ANY REASON they deem sufficient - NO Congressional prior approval necessary.

US NSS National Security Strategy articulates in black and white what many critics had been saying for years; the United States owns the world and everyone else is just a guest.
The NSS is an unambiguous declaration of war against any nation that claims the right to to control its own resources or defend its own sovereignty against US interests. The NSS implies that nations' are required to open their markets to western multinationals and follow directives from Washington or accept a place on Bush's “enemies list”. There's no middle ground. You are with us or with the terrorists. The NSS also entitles the United States to unilaterally wage aggressive warfare against any state or group that is perceived to be a potential threat to Washington's imperial ambitions. These so-called “preemptive” wars are carried out under the rubric of the “war on terror” which provides the justification for torture, abduction, ethnic cleansing and massive civilian casualties.

=============================================

THANK YOU, Speaker PELOSI!
American voters in 2006 ENTRUSTED the Democratic Party (if not you specifically) with PROVIDING AMERICA WITH AN OPPOSITION PARTY to resist the insane march-to-wars that are the Bush administration's AIAPC/neo-con/neo-Confederate WAR LUST, which strategy is actually trying to take up where Hitler's armies fell short in the 1940's trying to sieze the oil fields in the Caucuses. See our quotes from Zbigniew Brzezinski's Foreign Affairs/CFR commentary at bottom of this post or by clicking here.)

NANCY PELOSI and HARY REID are ENABLING the Bush-Cheney ASSAULT on the US Constitution so quickly this week before Christmas 2007, that we can't even LIST all their ENABLING, political cowardice.

#1. Senate Majority "Leader" Harry Reid is going to CONFIRM for the Department of 'JUSTICE' a CERTIFIED REPUBLICAN "vote counter" DISENFRANCHISEMENT HATCHET MAN to be DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL! Reid and Pelosi are DOING THEIR DAMNDEST to BRING SEGREGATION and "MIDNIGHT VISITS" by the Sheriff BACK to America's election process!
<< All you had to know about the newly nominated second in command at the Justice Department, the Deputy Attorney General to AG Mukasey, is the final paragraph of a November 16 Chicago Tribune article: "After clerking for [Antonin] Scalia, [Mark] Filip returned to Chicago rather than stay in Washington and pursue the kind of career track that traditionally leads to a choice government appointment. He did, however, work as a volunteer Republican vote counter in Florida during the 2000 election recount."
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/011
#2. Pelosi, in her craven, cowering determination NOT TO CONFRONT the CRIMES and ABUSES OF POWER of the Bush administration, has ALLOWED the press/media and White House to turn the "DESTROYED CIA TORTURE TAPES" story into ANOTHER MEANINGLESS media-fest TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT... a scandal that goes NOWHERE because NANCY PELOSI DOES NOT STAND FOR THE RULE OF LAW.

#3. Pelosi, Hoyer, and Reid GIVE BUSH FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS to KILL ANYONE HE WANTS TO KILL in Iraq - NO STRINGS ATTACHED, NO OVERSIGHT, Nancy and Harry LOVE HANDING AMERICAN TAXPAYER DOLLARS over to the CHENEY/HALLIBURTON/KBR/BLACKWATER military-industrial-complex Wrecking crew. NANCY, THANKS FOR THE FIFTY BILLION! YOUR "CAMPAIGN DONATION" check from AIPAC, LOCKHEED, and Exxon IS IN THE MAIL!"

#4. And all the above are but a prelude to NANCY PELOSI's CROWNING GLORY. In a legislative ATROCITY that simply blots out the entire sun, NANCY PELOSI had her Congress pass the THOUGHT CRIMES BILL, HR-1959, "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" sponsored by California DEMOCRATIC Congresswoman Jane Harman.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/the-violent-radicalizatio_b_74091.html
Almost as unbelievable as the Democrats (and of course Republicans) passing this bill... is the CENSORSHIP, not just of "Mainstream Media outlets" to NOT REPORT on this APPALLING legislative ATROCITY, but the Washington Post ACTUALLY HAS CENSORED ANY MENTION, NOT EVEN ONE LINK, in its own in-paper web search! Try for yourself: search "S 1959" or "HR 1959", or the above-mentioned "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" in the Washington Post, New York Times, or Yahoo search links.

==============================
Mike Whitney at InformationClearingHouse captures Zbigniew Brzezinski's uber-neo-con "America must take over the world" long-range permanent war strategy:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18926.htm

"....Zbigniew Brzezinski, and has undoubtedly read his master-plan for Central Asia, “The Grand Chessboard”. Brzezinski's recent article in Foreign Affairs, (A publication of the Council on Foreign Relations) “A Geostrategy for Eurasia” summarizes his views on America's future involvement in the region:

“America's emergence as the sole global superpower now makes an integrated and comprehensive strategy for Eurasia imperative.

Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world's most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. ... Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world's population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's.

Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and historical legacy.”

So, there it is. The US is moving into the neighborhood and has no intention of leaving. The war on terror is a fraud; it merely conceals the fact that Bush is sprinkling military bases throughout Central Asia and surrounding Russia in the process. Brzezinski sees this as a “strategic imperative”

Senator Dodd gets 79 Senators to green-light his FILIBUSTER fight, after Congress bombarded with phone calls from irate Americans.....

NEW! More on Bush arm-twisting the "Democrats" in Congress to approve a TOTAL POLICE SURVEILLANCE STATE in America - with the abject cooperation of NANCY PELOSI, HARRY REID, and all the other NEO-CON "Democrats"....
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001937

In yet another sign of how surreal the human race has become, at least in the nominal ranks of "world leading" America, Senator CHRIS DODD THANKS Senate Majority 'LEADER' Harry Reid for allowing Dodd to run a FILIBUSTER FIGHT - against a bill that Reid could simply have PREVENTED FROM HITTING THE FLOOR!

And for some reason, 77 other Senators also GREEN-LIGHTED (approved) Dodd's filibuster fight, for a bill THEY WOULD HAVE PASSED in a New York minute, had Dodd not focused some attention on to the American version of the "Communist East German SECRET POLICE STASI omnipresent SPYING and SURVEILLANCE bill" -

- A bill which would enable the government to read ALL BUSINESS PLANS and FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS in REAL TIME, with NO oversight or accountability! Theoretically, government agents could STEAL A PATENT APPLICATION being discussed by e-mail between a design team before it hit the patent office; or MUSCLE IN on a buy-out plan before the company commits to that buyout; or any of ten-million other potential cases where GOVERNMENT SPYING would be like LETTING YOUR BUSINESS COMPETITORS LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER as you go about your company's business!

WELCOME TO THE SCARED, COWERING AMERICA of NANCY PELOSI and HARRY REID's 100th Congress complete, abject SERVILITY to corporate/neo-con BushCo...- an America where we Americans MUST ALL SUBMIT to the Dear Leader and his dear minions, or else we are AIDING THE TERRORISTS - the Al Qaida terrorists that THEY allowed to escape from Tora Bora (so they wouldn't loose their precious excuse to invade Iraq) at that!

=================================================

Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill
Sam Stein The Huffington Post
December 17, 2007 07:56 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/17/dodds-filibuster-threat-_n_77220.html

Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance.

The measure was part of a greater bill to reorganize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Earlier on Monday, the Senate, agreed to address a bill that would have overhauled FISA, authorized the monitoring of people outside the United States, given secret courts the power to approve aspects of surveillance, and granted telecom companies retroactive immunity for past cooperation.

But the threat of Dodd's filibuster, aimed primarily at the latter measure, persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim period.

"We have tried to work through this process and it appears quite clear at this stage on this bill that we're not going to be able to do that," said Reid. "We are at the last few hours of the last few days of this year's session of Congress... I think its very clear we're not going to be able to move into the amendments.... I've spoken with a number of Senators and we feel it would be in the best interest of the Senate to take at look at this when we come back next year."

A smile on his reddened face, Dodd was at once gracious and joyful by the turn of events. He had been arguing his case for approximately eight hours.

"I want to thank the leader [Sen. Reid]," he said. "This is an awkward time. We want to get the bill done. My longstanding concerns were over retroactive immunity. Look forward to coming back in January. And hopefully between then and January a suggestion can be made to compromise without granting full immunity...I appreciate the fact that we will not have to pursue this further."

Dodd flew back from Iowa last night to personally rally against the amendment to the Protect America Act. After the Senate agreed, by a vote of 79 to 10, to move to debate, Dodd took to the floor. Over the course of the day, the Connecticut Democrat criticized the idea of granting immunity. Expanding on similar remarks made by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, he noted that that the original FISA bill already included an immunity clause and that the courts, not Congress, should decide whether telecom companies deserve legal protections.

While he never technically conducted a filibuster, according to aides, Dodd left the floor only once, to address a press gathering. He did, on occasion cede time to his Democratic colleagues. But even then, they say, he remained engaged in the debate.

"Everyone who spoke on the floor said they were grateful for Dodd taking a stand," said a staffer to the Senator who asked not to be named. "They said if it weren't for him they wouldn't be having this much-needed debate."

Dodd was the one Senator currently running for the White House who left the campaign trail to debate the Protect America Act, an absence he hinted at while on the Senate floor.

"I respect immensely the people who spend a lot of time on these issues. But this is a critical moment," Dodd said. "This is one of these moments you need to be here for this, to engage in this debate and discussion. They don't happen everyday, but this is an important one. This goes right to the heart of who we are. This isn't about selling your soul, it's about giving it away, in my view, if you don't stand up for these rights."

Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph Biden did offer their rhetorical support for the filibuster. Dodd, according to aides, will rejoin the three on the campaign trail tomorrow.

LYNCH-MOB America: COWARDLY REID, PELOSI PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE fraudulent prosecution and conviction of Ala. Gov Siegelman in 2002....

New: MORE on the KARL ROVE DIRECTED prosecutorial LYNCHING of Alabama Governor-elect DON SIEGELMAN.. ROBBED of his election win, and THROWN INTO PRISON, by the old-style Southern segregation politics, "OUR GUY AIN'T GONNA HAVE NO OPPOSITION!"
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001940
NANCY PELOSI and HARY REID, under orders from their Neo-Con War Party lobbyists, PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE the DEVOLUTION of American rights under Mr. Bush's grotesquely corrupt "War on Terror."

(Here video of Don Seigelman, ROBBED of his 2002 Alabama Gov. re-election win, and then victimized by a trumped-up prosecution by Karl Rove's partisan Republicans...
Just another "doesn't count" American marched off to the Gulag of Bush-Rove-Cheney police state America, as Democrat "Leaders" PELOSI and REID PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE...

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

This is only one of two major LYNCH-MOB atrocities that the cowering "DEMOCRATIC" "LEADERSHIP" pretends not to notice... the other is QWEST executive David Nacchio, who is now IN PRISON because he REFUSED TO COMPLY with the Bush Administration's demands that Qwest PARTICIPATE IN ILLEGAL SPYING on American citizens, at the administration's lawless request. (In retaliation for Nacchio refusing to grant illegal surveillance access to Qwest's network, the administration BLACKLISTED Qwest from getting communications contracts that were in the works, which apparently had a huge impact on Qwest's earnings and thus stock prices.) A third example would be MARTHA STEWART, but through the Bush administration's "Department of 'Justice'" meat grinder for dumping $55,000 dollars of ImClone stock on a stock tip.... a company Ms. Stewart had NO CONNECTION WITH. By comparison, when George H.W. Bush (Sr.) was president, his son, George W. Bush, "DUMPED" two-thirds of a million dollars of HARKEN ENERGY STOCK on the market,in advance of a revised, SEC ordered Profit/Loss statement, a revised P/L statement that went from asserting a Harken Energy POSITIVE CASH FLOW (profit) to a NEGATIVE cash flow (losses). At the time he "DUMPED" his Harken shares, George W. Bush sat on both the Board of Directors, AND the AUDIT COMMITTEE - while holding a Harvard MBA masters in business administration degree. Mr. Bush's defense to the charges that he had engaged in illegal dumping on an unsuspecting market were that he; #1 was not aware that Harken's "profits" were an accounting chimera; and #2. that he was not aware of SEC regulations requiring board members to obtain prior SEC approval before selling shares of companies that they were board members of. For "dumping" his shares of Harken, in advance of a revised profit/LOSS statement, Mr. Bush got only a wrist-slap reprimand from the SEC commissioner, who had been installed in that office by his father. For "dumping" $55,000 in shares of a company she had NO CONNECTON WITH, MARTHA STEWART WENT TO PRISON.

THE Cowardly CRAVEN inside-the-beltway Neo-Con "DEMOCRATS" are SO CORRUPT for CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, that they will SELL EVEN Democratic PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, gubernatorial candidates, executives, and ordinary citizens DOWN THE RIVER TO FALSE PROSECUTIONS, rather than stand up and fight for those victims of the justice system turned into a partisan DISENFRANCHISEMENT machine.


http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2007/12/siegelman-speaks-ex-gov-calls-02.html

SIEGELMAN SPEAKS! EX-GOV CALLS '02 ELECTION "STOLEN" BY THE WHITE HOUSE! EXCLUSIVE TO NEWS FROM UNDERGROUND
Here is some amazing video: a very candid interview with Don Siegelman, who spoke to Julie Sigwart of Take Back the Media on Sept. 13, 2004--months before the Governor was finally put away on trumped-up charges by the Alabama GOP.

As he himself makes clear, Siegelman's ordeal began back in 2000, when he came out early on, and publicly, against the presidential bid of his fellow governor, George W. Bush, and backed Al Gore instead. It was a move that Karl Rove never did forget, and never would forgive, says Siegelman.

Rove's long drive to destroy the Alabama governor resulted in the theft of the 2002 election for Republican Bob Riley. Here Siegelman describes that theft--which took place primarily in Baldwin County--and also talks about his handling of that matter.

So far, the mainstream press coverage of Don Siegelman's ordeal has pointedly ignored the theft of the 2002 election. Clearly, Siegelman himself does not regard that theft as a side issue, but as a major crime, and one that is quite relevant to his whole story.

Today, the Alabama governor is not allowed to speak up on his own behalf. He's locked away inside a federal prison cell, and, for good measure, has been silenced by the Alabama courts. As Scott Horton has so aptly put it, Don Siegelman is the Man in the Iron Mask.

So let's do everything we can to get this interview played far and wide, so that his fellow citizens can finally hear him, and see him, talk about the criminal campaign against him.

MCM

SENATOR DODD to LEAD FILIBUSTER vs Bush and Sen. Harry Reid's TELECOM SPYING IMMUNITY BILL!!

CHRIS DODD for SENATE MAJORITY LEADER! -
Harry Reid is a CERTIFIED WIMP, and CERTIFIED BUSH-CHENEY TOADY!

Senator Reid, YOU DID NOT GET a MANDATE from DEMOCRATIC VOTERS to be a Bush-Cheney TOADY! YOU ARE ROBBING US of a full, vocal, competent, and CONFIDENT OPPOSITION PARTY, BY EVEN LETTING THIS DAMN FISA retroactive telecom immunity SPYING bill GET TO THE FLOOR of your damn senate.

FOR SHAME! Senator Reid... "Leaders" like you are the main reason that George W, Bush has a smirk on his face despite low-20s approval ratings, and that he controls tens of billions of dollars of federal government spending, UNENCUMBERED by ANY Democratic, congressional oversight. FOR SHAME!

For more on Reid's shameless, FISA (illegal, warrantless spying surveillance) servillity if not TREACHERY clikc here...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/14/reid/index.html

SENATOR DODD's FILIBUSTER COMMENTS HERE:
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4175
"....Providing retroactive immunity to companies that may have violated the law will set a dangerous precedent,” said Dodd. “Companies who violated the trust of thousands of their customers will be immune to prosecution and the details of their actions will stay hidden. The President, and his Administration, has consistently used scare tactics in an attempt to force Congress to pass FISA legislation that provides retroactive immunity. I urge my colleagues to stand up to this administration and this President and say enough is enough.”

Greenspan:"CASH IS AVAILABLE, to ASSIST INDIVIDUAL home mortgage holders" to SAVE ECONOMY... First time in a dozen years we have agreed with Greenspan

This comment by former Fed Chairman ALAN GREENSPAN marks the first time in at least a half-dozen years where we agree with the former fed chief.
During that time, he knew full well that Bush's tax-cuts for American multi-millionaires and billionaires would lead to huge treasury DEFICITS and INFLATION (much less with the ADDITIONAL BURDEN of a half-trillion dollar global 'war on terror' shipping billions of US taxpayers dollars overseas on a weekly basis) - but as a "Conservative Republican" (and, more to the point, as an inside-Washington pro-war neo-con) Greenspan FAILED to speak out then against Bush's budget-busting treasury looting and Mad-Hatter job outsourcing (for the benefit of corporate profits at the expense of American jobs and the American long-term tax-base.)

Well, better late than never.

BUT catch Mr. Greenspan's comments now, while you can, because, as sure as it will snow in Alaska, President Bush will direct his "mortgage rescue economic package" towards the banks and S&L's and executives who enticed buyers (into purchasing the skyrocketting ARM adjustable rate mortgages, and similar "teaser" loans guaranteed to put thousands of home-buyers into lifetime debt), instead of towards the home-buyers themselves....
And Mr. Greenspan's future opposition to such an inflationary, unproductive (Bush) bailout of the banking industry will vanish into the wind, as his opposition to deficits and inflation has melted in the past.

(Just as Bush's post 9-11 AIRLINE BAILOUT sent BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars TO AIRLINE EXECUTIVES, with almost no crumbs left over for workers or busnesses laid off by the 9-11 attack's impact on travel and travel related businesses.)

=========================================

Greenspan: Give Homeowners Financial Aid
by KEVIN FREKING
December 16, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071216/greenspan-economy/

WASHINGTON — Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, suggested Sunday that a tax break or other government financial help for homeowners facing the mortgage crunch would be the best political fix for the economy.
He cautioned against meddling with home prices or interest rates to address the housing problem.
Greenspan did not specifically call for a tax cut. Instead, he called for the government to apply money to the severe housing market slump. Such a cash infusion would typically come through a tax break or a new government spending program.

"CASH IS AVAILABLE and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this," Greenspan said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week."

Separately, Greenspan said he is concerned about signs of a resurgence of inflation.
"Core inflation is up. Wholesale prices had their highest increase I think in a generation. That raises the specter of stagflation again," said Greenspan, referring to a simultaneous stagnant economy and upward pressure on prices.

Lieberman to Endorse WAR-HAWK John McCain for president.... because Lieberman is first and foremost a neo-con War Hawk....

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE, for those 70% of American voters who reject the open-eneded, blank-check, unlimited blood-and-treasure war, to DEMAND that their Democratic candidates and elected officials NOT cave in to, or abjectly JOIN THE WAR PARTY? Connecticut Democratic voters HAD AN OPPORTUNITY to reject the NEO-CON, endless-war priorities of Joe Lieberman... but thousands of them voted for Lieberman anyways, thinking (based on millions of dollars of his corporate-funded campaign advertisements) that Lieberman was "a moderate" who would provide a restraining influence on the Bush-Cheney-Republican War Party.

Once again, we point out the BEDROCK of American politics this decade: the ALLIANCE of AIPAC neo-cons in the Democratic Party, with the most authortarian, unilateral, totalitarian, extra-legal elements of the Bush-Cheney-Republican Party.
At the 'bipartisan" annual AIPAC convention in Washington DC this past March 2007 that featured speakers from the top tiers of both Democrat and Republican parties, AIPAC attendees gave STANDING OVATIONS and APPLAUSE for Vice President Dick Cheney's MOST BOMBASTIC "BOMB IRAN NOW!" rhetoric:
http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/Learn_About_AIPAC/2841_5081.asp

In his "New Confederate Century," "Armegeddon," and "A Choice of Traditions" chapters, author Michael Lind LAYS OUT IN DETAIL the ALLIANCE of the AIPAC/Likudnik NEO-CONS with the Southern, reactionary-right neo-Confederates in the landmark book "MADE IN TEXAS: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics."
(click our link, or search "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and Southern..." for the google-books link)
(Unfortunately, the Googlebooks free on-line preview does not include those most important chapters.) The similarities of these two "Herrenvolk" nation/clans is that they both believe in exterminating or subjugating the enemy; they are both unapologetic about slavery or economic exploitation, and they both believe that they have god in their hip pocket, and that indeed in bringing about world-wide confrontation (if not conflagration) they are doing 'his' work.

=============================================

Lieberman to endorse McCain

By: Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin
Dec 16, 2007 02:57 PM EST
Updated: December 16, 2007 04:56 PM EST
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7418.html

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), who was on the national Democratic ticket in 2000, will cross the aisle to endorse Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tomorrow, Republican sources said.

The two will appear together on NBC's "Today" show tomorrow, then at an 8 a.m. town hall meeting in Hillsborough, N.H. They will talk with reporters after the meeting.

The move, which will help cultivate McCain's moderate status, is an effort to draw attention to the McCain campaign, which needs a splash. Otherwise, it does not make sense for McCain because it will only remind core Republicans why they distrust him.

Pelosi IGNORANT, INCOMPETENT, or CORRUPT: $32 million for Iraq base that WASN'T BUILT, but she hands over BILLIONS MORE to Bush's corrupt war spending

HELPING BUSH, CHENEY and the neo-cons war-lovers FLEECE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS, RUN UP TRILLION-DOLLAR DEFICITS, and IGNORING GROSS CORRUPTION and CRIMINAL CONDUCT from the Bush White House, IS WHAT NANCY PELOSI, STENY HOYER, and the inside-the-beltway Democrats ARE ALL ABOUT.

U.S. paid $32M for Iraqi base that wasn't built
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-13-Iraqcontract_N.htm

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military paid a Florida company nearly $32 million to build barracks and offices for Iraqi army units even though nothing was ever built, Pentagon investigators reported.

CHUCK SCHUMER and DIANNE FEINSTEIN ENABLED Bush's AG, Mukasey to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE. Neo-cons united to DESTROY America's Constitutional democracy...

CHUCK SCHUMER and DIANNE FEINSTEIN, in siding with Pres. Bush to CONFIRM Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite Mukasey's less than candid pledges to comply with constitutional produres and full disclosure of any criminal conduct from within the Justice Department, have ENABLED Bush's and the Justice Department to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE.

Schumer and Feinstein are PREDICTABLY following the TREACHEROUS example of Senator Joe Lieberman:
...neo-cons uniting to DESTROY America's Constituional democracy...

In Voting for Lieberman, Feinstein, Schumer, Pelosi, and others inside-beltway "Democrats," voters THOUGHT THEY WERE GETTING DEMOCRATIC Representatives and Senators. Little did they know that they were getting Republican neo-con War Party wolves in sheep's cothes. Wolves PERFECTLY PREPARED to shaft American taxpayers with BILLION OF DOLLARS of Bush's grossly CORRUPT war spening, ON TOP OF TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY... that is the price the Neo-cons force American citizens to pay in order to get American in the Mideast with open-ended license to kill.

========================

Justice Dept. [threatens Dems in Congress] - Back off on CIA tapes
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec 15, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_videotapes;_ylt=Aicj4Dewmd.WF3z5g1zkpXOs0NUE

WASHINGTON - The controversy over destroyed CIA interrogation tapes is shaping up as a turf battle involving the courts, Congress and the White House, with the Bush administration telling its constitutional coequals to stay out of the investigation.
The Justice Department says it needs time and the freedom to probe the destruction of hundreds of hours of recordings of two suspected terrorists. After Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused congressional demands for information Friday, the Justice Department filed late-night court documents urging a federal judge not to begin his own inquiry......

The administration argued it was not obligated to preserve the videotapes and told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about them "could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter."

The documents represent the first time the government has addressed the issue in court. In the papers, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz said Kennedy lacked jurisdiction and he expressed concern that the judge might order CIA officials to testify.

Congressional inquiries and criminal investigations frequently overlap and it is not uncommon for the Justice Department to ask lawmakers to ease off. The request for the court to stand down is more unusual. Judges take seriously even the suggestion that evidence was destroyed, but they also are reluctant to wade into political debates.

Legal experts say it will be up to Mukasey, a former judge who was only recently took over as the nation's chief law enforcer, to reassure Congress and the courts during his first high-profile test.

"We're going to find out if the trust Congress put in Attorney General Mukasey was well placed," said Pepperdine Law professor Douglas W. Kmiec, who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. "It's hard to know on the surface whether this is obstruction or an advancement of a legitimate inquiry."

Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos, which involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Bucholtz argued that the tapes were not covered by Kennedy's court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.

Lawmakers had reacted angrily to Mukasey's refusal Friday to give Congress details of the administration's investigation. He explained that doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry was vulnerable to political pressure and said his department generally does not release information on pending cases.

"It's clear that there's more to this story than we have been told, and it is unfortunate that we are being prevented from learning the facts. The executive branch can't be trusted to oversee itself," according to a statement by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, Reps. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

They said "parallel investigations occur all of the time, and there is no basis upon which the attorney general can stand in the way of our work." Mukasey's decision, lawmakers said, blocks congressional oversight of his department.

David Remes, a lawyer who represents a Yemeni national and other detainees, has called for a court hearing. He says the government was required to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.

Even if Kennedy agrees that the government did not violate his order, he still could schedule a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in "pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

Those are serious matters, but Kennedy does not necessarily have to hold a hearing right away, said K. Lee Blalack, a Washington defense lawyer and former counsel to a Senate investigative committee.

"If the department takes six months on this and reports back, nothing prevents the judge from taking up the issue then," Blalack said.

Kmiec said much will depend on how much confidence Kennedy has in the Justice Department. The judge also might order a private hearing to protect national security, Kmiec said.

Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. He told his interrogators about alleged Sept. 11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks.

Al-Nashiri is the alleged coordinator of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. Like Zubaydah, he is now at Guantanamo.

Reid and Pelosi make it official: BETRAYING Democratic voters across America, THEY ARE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ALLIES in treachery....

Harry Reid doesn't merely CAVE IN to Bush and Cheney on ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE on AMERICAN CITIZENS... HE BRINGS UP THE RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FISA bill - i.e. UNLIMITED TELECOM SPYING and govermental SURVEILLANCE on EVERY American's electronic communications in America - when, as Majority "Leader," he simply could have DONE NOTHING.
Over in the House, NANCY PELOSI HANDED OVER MORE TAXPAYER BILLIONS to the Bush White House.

AND, COWARDLY NANCY PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE the STILL FESTERING Department of 'Justice' PURGE-GATE SCANDAL - where the evidence is building that Democratic Alabama gubernatorial candidate DON SIEGELMAN was ROBBED of his election victory, then PROSECUTED and convicted by a PARTISAN REPUBLICAN LYNCH MOB at the personal directoin of KARL ROVE - with Nancy Pelosi GIVING HER TACIT APPROVAL.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/14/bush-league-justice-using-the-doj-to-disappear-your-rivals/
The "Democrat" Party under Pelosi, Reid, Rockefeller, Kerry, Lieberman, Clinton, and other estalishment Pro-War wimps, is SO CORRUPT, that it is QUITE IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THEIR FRAUDS, TREACHERIES, and SELL-OUTS.

NANCY PELOSI CAVES IN to Bush... AGAIN! $50 billion BLANK CHECK for Bush's war to spend ANY WAY HE WANTS! THANK YOU, NANCY, for your "Leadership"!!

IF it is a story about Nancy Pelosi, it must be MORE NEWS that America DOES NOT HAVE A FUNCTIONING OPPOSITION PARTY, and that we are therefore a ONE-PARTY STATE. (Which, in time of the so-called "Global War On Terror," means were are effectively an imperial DICTATORSHIP.)

The ONE accomplishment that the Pelosi 110th Congress can claim is that Bush and Cheney have NOT YET ATTACKED, INVADED or dropped NUCLEAR BOMBS on IRAN... yet. BUT... with every passing day, PELOSI BECOMES MORE OF A WAR-PARTY neo-con pro-torture, pro-spying, pro-gulag, pro-unilateral attacks-and-bombings WAR PARTY neo-con Apologist and bona-fide WAR PARTY SUPPORTER.

And every day, as the neo-con War Party agenda becomes ever more EMBDEDDED in America's cultural consciousness (due to the pro-war, pro-imperial 'major media narrative' produced by the neo-cons in the media, eg safire/sulzberger/kristol/krauthammer/kurtz/podhoretz/libby/wolfowtiz/perle/feith/
wurmser/judithMiller/davidBrooks/etc etc etc), the Democrats become LESS POPULAR among the "Democratic base," and they thus CEDE POWER and POPULARITY BACK TO THE REPUBLICANS - as TOM DASCHLE DID in 2002, in REFUSING to prompt Joe Lieberman to hold a meaningful ENRON investigation in Lieberman's Govt. Affairs Committee, Senate Majority Leader Daschle effectively ROBBED Democratic voters, activists, and candidates of their BEST ISSUE in 2002, the opportunity to TIE George W. Bush to ENRON CORRUPTION. In REFUSING to have Lieberman pursue and aggressive investigation of Enron, and thus robbing Democratic candidates of THEIR BEST 2002 campaign issue, DASCHLE HELPED "lead" the DEMCORATIC DEFEAT in that election.... including MAJORITY LEADER Daschle, himself, GETTING THE BOOT from his South Dakota constituents! AND GOOD RIDDANCE! WEAK LEADERS are WORSE than NO LEADERS, because WEAK LEADERS LEGITIMIZE REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION.


========================================

Democrats Bow to Bush's Demands in House Spending Bill
Billions Trimmed From New Requests
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 13, 2007; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121201791.html?hpid=topnews

House Democratic leaders yesterday agreed to meet President Bush's bottom-line spending limit on a sprawling, half-trillion-dollar domestic spending bill, dropping their demands for as much as $22 billion in additional spending but vowing to shift funds from the president's priorities to theirs.

The final legislation, still under negotiation, will be shorn of funding for the war in Iraq when it reaches the House floor, possibly on Friday. But Democratic leadership aides concede that the Senate will probably add those funds. A proposal to strip the bill of spending provisions for lawmakers' home districts was shelved after a bipartisan revolt, but Democrats say the number and size of those earmarks will be scaled back.

Disgusting "news" - American Bar Assoc. names PERJURER Alberto Gonzales "Lawyer of the Year"!

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, then Attorney General ALBERTO GONZALES testified that HE DID NOT GO to the hospital room, late at night, of JOHN ASHCROFT, (who at that time was the Attorney General, and was under a sedation medication intravenous drip for recovery from serious surgery) TO DISCUSS the whole scale NSA NATIONAL SPYING WITHOUT SUBPOENAS program that was the centerpiece of the Bush-Cheney White House's "war on terror" - (WHILE, it should be noted, president Bush had stated "I'm NOT THAT CONCERNED ABOUT bin LADEN anymore." The President and Vice President were MORE CONCERNED WITH SPYING ON AMERICANS, than with FINDING bin LADEN!)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

It is hard to describe which is worse; the President and Vice President of the United States concentrating their efforts on SPYING ON AMERICANS, WHILE giving Osama bin Laden FREE REIGN to wander while PLOTTING HIS NEXT TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICA...
or the nation's ATTORNEY GENERAL LYING about that survillance/spying operation, in Senate testimony Mr. Gonzales stated under oath "I DID NOT GO TO Mr. Ashcroft's hosital room at 11:00 at night TO DISCUSS THE SURVEILLANCE/wire-tapping program"... and then, a few moments later, he was forced to admit "I HAD IN MY HANDS the PAPERS TO AUTHORIZE THAT VERY SURVEILLANCE OPERATION for Ashcroft to sign."

BEING A PERJURER in SERVICE TO THE EMPEROR, is ALL THE QUALIFICATIONS one needs to 'win' the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION "Lawyer of the Year" award!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22219820/

NEXT UP: HANGING, DRAWING, and QUARTERING of (previously tortured) PRISONERS, in the public square, WILL, by Royal order BE THE NEW SATE-SANCTIONED EXECUTION and ENTERTAINMENT forum. BRAVO! for the Royalists at the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION! The never really meant any of that "Declaration of Independence" and "US Constitution and Constitutional Rights" stuff anyways!

Pelosi's Cowardly House 'leadership" bears its first Congressional Fruit: REPUBS TWO, Democrats ZERO.

Bush VETOES HEALTH CARE for poor children.... NANCY SMILES and HANDS HIM _ANOTHER_ $50 billion no-strings-attached war check! BRAVO, Nancy!

WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK IT?
With BOTH HILLARY CLINTON and NANCY PELOSI pleading "WE ARE TOO DUMB TO KNOW about any gross abuses of power (much less CRIMINAL CONDUCT) from the Bush-Cheney administration" and
"WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT ANY such ABUSES OF POWER even if we did!" - THEY ARE BOTH TANKING!

In a Special Election held in Virginia and Ohio this Tuesday, Republicans WON BOTH ELECTIONS, Pelosi/DCCC Democrat candidates ZERO!
GOOD GOING, NANCY!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121200677.html

WHERE THE HELL did the CRAVEN, COWERING, STUPID, COMPLICIT Democrats get the idea that IGNORING the BLATANT CRIMES, CORRUPTION, LIES, and INCOMPETENCE of Bush-Cheney co. would be a WINNING election formula for them in 2008???

Oh yeah... from formerly "OUTRAGED at Republican corruption and malfeasance" Democrat strategist and former political street-fighter JAMES CARVILLE... who married uber-Republican spin-miester Mary Matlin. Since then, Carville has been all but FORBIDDEN by his wife from making the truth stick to Republicans guilty of malfeasance. (Especially regarding Matlin's boss, Dick Cheney, ties to OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE from his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby's conviction, or Cheney's role in the "making intel fit the policy" Lies-to-War.)

Oh yeah - from the AIPAC LOBBY! Who LOVE Cheney's lust for WIDER WARS in the Mideast (and GESTAPO and SS powers at home and abroad) and who now OWN both Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi "the AIPAC GIRL" (according to Pat Buchanan):
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21270952.shtml
At AIPAC annual conference in Washington DC, March 2007, "bipartisan" attendees WILDLY APPLAUD Vice President Dick Cheney's MOST BOMBASTIC "BOMB IRAN NOW!" rheoric. (Cheney's speech saying in essence, "MORE WAR NOW on the AMERICAN TAXPAYER's DIME.")
http://www.aipac.org/about_AIPAC/Learn_About_AIPAC/2841_5081.asp

And as we just pointed out, "DEMOCRAT" strategist (and current Hillary campaign advisor) JAMES CARVILLE is NOW just ONE PERSON REMOVED from AIPAC's favorite despotic American war lord, DICK "5 deferments from Vietnam war, and I love eating live kittens, or killing tame gamebirds by the dozens" Cheney!

GOOD GOING, NANCY! Before you are done, AMERICAN DEMOCRACY will be nothing but roadkill, a fondly remembered RELIC OF HISTORY. Well, we hope that AIPAC is paying you well for your SELLING OUT TO THE WAR PARTY, and the related GESTAPO police-state powers for the War Party's GWOT.

===========================================

Republicans Retain 2 Vacant House Seats

By JOHN SEEWER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121200677.html

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Republicans maintained control of both congressional seats that were up for grabs in special elections Tuesday in Ohio and Virginia, disappointing Democrats who had hoped to extend their gains in the House.

In Ohio, a state representative defeated a Democrat making her third run for the seat. And in Virginia, a first-term state legislator easily won.



Republican State Rep. Bob Latta talks with colleagues before the start of the Ohio House session Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007, in Columbus, Ohio. Latta faces Democrat Robin Weirauch in a special election Dec. 11, 2007, to fill the 5th Congressional District seat of the late U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, who died last September. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete) (Jay Laprete - AP)

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Both elections were to fill seats left vacant by deaths. Jo Ann Davis, who had represented a southeastern Virginia district for seven years, died of breast cancer in October. Rep. Paul Gillmor, first elected in a northwest Ohio district in 1988, died in a fall in September.

The winners of both races will complete the terms of Gillmor and Davis.

Democrats, who won control of the House last year 233-202, had hoped to benefit from the low turnout typical of special elections.

In Ohio, Republicans have held the state's 5th District since the 1930s. At times, Democrats have all but conceded the seat by spending little money and trotting out candidates with limited political experience.

Bob Latta, a Republican state representative, had 57 percent of the vote and Democrat Robin Weirauch had 43 percent with 100 percent of the vote counted.

"I hope to continue representing this district in the same honor and integrity of Paul Gillmor and my father before him," Latta said in a statement.

Latta ran for Congress in 1988, trying to replace his father, Delbert Latta, who held the seat for 30 years. But he lost in the GOP primary to Gillmor by 27 votes.

Weirauch, 50, was on her third run for the seat. Last year she received more votes _ 43 percent _ than any other Democrat in the district's history.

In Virginia, Rob Wittman, a first-term Republican state legislator, got about 61 percent of the vote over Democrat Philip Forgit's nearly 37 percent, with 100 percent of votes counted. Only about 15 percent of registered voters turned out.


Wittman had a nearly 4-to-1 fundraising advantage and the benefit of being a Republican in a district where President Bush got 60 percent of the vote in 2004.

Forgit, a teacher, is a decorated military veteran in a district that includes the Quantico Marine base, the Army's Fort A.P. Hill and a Navy weapons testing center. Forgit went to Iraq with his Naval Reserve unit, returning in 2006.

___

Associated Press writer Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

Pelosi's FRAUD: Nancy Pelosi and her Congress PRETEND they can't stop Bush administration CRIMINAL conduct. That farce has now been exposed as FRAUD

Speaker of the House and "opposition party" "leader" NANCY PELOSI - all PEARLS and SMILES for Bush. In a rare photo that cuts through thousands of pages of "major media" narrative and official Washington spin, Nancy Pelosi shows her true colors: living the life of an American millionaire power-broker is far more important to her than taking a principled stand against the in-your-face lies, abuses of power, and outright atrocities of the Bush-Cheney administration.

The two favorite themes of inside-the-Beltway official- (government) and major-media Washington are:

#1. "NOTHING WRONG HERE!" - We here at DemNationUSA sound deranged just trying to outline Mr. Bush's gross abuses of power. His gross neglect of responsibilities to the public and US Constitution; his outright criminal conduct over the past 80 months since he took office in the White House on the heels of the atrocious Scalia-court ruling voiding Florida election law... after Mr. Bush went running to the US Supreme Court in the first place, delaying a legal Florida vote recount for over three weeks, until the Supreme Court ruled that it was too late to run the statewide vote recount as Florida election law demanded (for all elections where the winning margin was less than .5%, at the request of the losing candidate).
Among the many other atrocities besides the stolen votes of election 2000 that the "Major Media" paints as underserving of consideration or comment (much less outrage) was Mr. Bush's ONE MONTH VACATION before 9-11, when both Bush and Cheney were warned, in person, by CIA Director George Tenet that not only had Al Qaida gone unpunished as of July 2001 for the October 2000 suicide bomb attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole in a Yemen harbor, but that Al Qaida was now planning a new, MORE SPECTACULAR ATTACK on AMERICA ITSELF.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's ONLY response to this KNOWN THREAT (a threat that should have been amplified when Al Qaida CALLED IN A THREAT to hijack an airliner over Europe in order to use it as a flying bomb to attack the presidents asembled at the G8 economic summit in early July 2001) was to "order" Attorney General Ashcroft to STOP FLYING PUBLIC AIRLINERS that same month, late July of 2001...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
....WHILE LEAVING the AMERICAN FLYING PUBLIC and AIRCREWS EXPOSED TO THAT KNOWN THREAT!
(LIKE BAIT for a terrorist attack on America? Such a terrorist attack would provide a CAUSUS BELLI and justification for a war that the PNAC "Project for a New American Century" think-tank had dreamed up and obsessed upon for an invasion of Iraq, which goals Mr. Cheney himself had expressly signed on to with his signature on the PNAC "Statement of Principles"STATEMENT of PRINCIPLES" on June 3rd, 1997, and which 8 months later (if without Cheney's express signature for that 2nd PNAC document) would call for "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power" by US military force.)
http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
The gross, if not deliberate, dereliction-of-duty leading up to the 9-11 attacks, and the LIES-to-WAR (corrupted, alarminst WMD 'intel') used by Mr. Bush and his administration to push America in to attacking Iraq (with what can only be described as a cruel, incompetent, if not sadistic occupation plan) are only two of the major issues that the Washington and National Media REFUSE TO TALK ABOUT -
WITH THE COMPLICITY of the "see no evil, hear no evil, and for heaven's sake, SPEAK NO EVIL" Congressional Democrats.
(Who, indeed, were perfectly willing to let the Bush-Cheney White House OBSTRUCT the creation of a 9-11 Commission, until 9-11 widows did the heavy lifting to drum up support for such an investigation into the gross failures leading to and on 9-11-2001.)
These are only two examples of the "Major Media" having a relentless ability to say "NOTHING WRONG HERE, MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG" which the Democrat "leadership" continually buys in to and legitimizes as "sound policy."

#2. Washington, DC favorite MYTH number two:
"THE POOR DEMOCRATS CAN'T do ANYTHING about it"!

BOTH of these notions - that there is nothing wrong in America, and that the Democrats COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT any wrongs even if there were any - are COMPLETE PROPAGANDA.

In fact, Nancy Pelosi is now what experienced DC commentator PAT BUCHANAN calls "THE AIPAC GIRL" - she is now a CHARTER MEMBER of the neo-con WAR LOBBY.
http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=11&num=70952 Pelosi is now FULLY COMMITTED to the NEO-CON AGENDA, the agenda of THREATS and FORCE as the FIRST TOOLS of American diplomacy and international policy; of America DICTATING its desires to ANY country in the world, and to backing up those desires with IMMEDIATE THREATS of military or economic confrontation.
But sadly, Nancy Pelosi's pathetic "WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT Mr. Bush's War and international threats" neo-con corruption extends far deeper than merely following Senator Joe Lieberman's example of RUNNING as an ANTI-WAR MODERATE, and then RULING (or legislating taxpayer dollars and military lives) as a CHICKEN-HAWK CONSERVATIVE.

For, as author PETER BREWTON wrote in his landmark book "THE MAFIA, THE CIA, and GEORGE BUSH" in 1992 about the first President Bush (Sr.) - DEMOCRATIC CORRUPTION is INSTITUTIONAL.
From 1992 to 2001 to 2007, the top circle of the "Democratic" Party are EVERY BIT AS MUCH ABOUT FLEECING TAXPAYERS on behalf of big-donor corporate lobbyists, as the Republcian Party's avowedly kleptocratic agenda (tax cuts for billionaires at public expense, i.e TRANSFERRING WEALTH from America's working-class citizens TO THE WEALTHY) is.
Which makes the Democrats, who PRETEND to be about progressive taxation and economic fairness, far worse.

Here is author Brewton's summary:

The [1980a Savings-and-Loan scandal] was a MASSIVE TRANSFER of WEALTH from the American taxpayers to select groups of extremely rich, powerful people.
For unlike Watergate and Iran-Contra, this was a BI-PARTISAN SCANDAL. There was NO OPPOSITION PARTY to push for an INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION. In fact, the same group of wealthy, powerful businessmen, centered in Houston, that encircle Republicans like George Bush and James A. Baker III, also encircle Democrats like Jim Wright and Lloyd Bentsen.

ONE OF THE REASONS [Bush won the presidential campaign in 1988] WAS HIS ABILITY TO KEEP THE S&L DEBACLE _OUT_ OF THE POLITICAL DEBATE.
This S&L scandal is the vehicle for telling the story about these leading American politicians and businessmen. But the relationships between these individuals and HOW THEY CONTROL and MANIPULATE PUBLIC and PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS IS THE BIGGER STORY. Unless we know who these people see, and understand how they operate, we can all look forward to MORE S&L-type DEBACLES TO COME.

JUST AS LLOYD BENTSEN _HELPED_ Vice President George H.W. Bush KEEP THE S&L SCANDAL _OUT_ of the DC press corpse and national news, SO TOO DOES NANCY PELOSI _HELP_ George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove KEEP THEIR CRIMINAL SCANDALS _OUT OF THE NEWS_ (much less do they endure any serious consequences.)

Note how Mr. Brewton writes, in 1992, that there WILL BE REPEAT INSTANCES of Democratic "leaders" ENABLING REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION.

Note how, in 2007, Nancy Pelosi and her CORRUPT "moderate" Democrats, in both the House and Senate, USE THE EXCUSE of Mr. Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq AS COVER to help the Bush-Republican Party ram BILLION DOLLAR SUBSIDIES and outright gifts for corporate America down American taxpayer throats, from the multi-billion dollar BIG PHARMACEUTICAL boondoggle (that stopped American grandparents from crossing the border into Canada to purchase the identical prescription drugs at cheaper prices, at that) to the "CREDIT REFORM" bill which legalized userous credit terms and predatory credit policies; to of course using the multi-billion dollar WAR SPENDING ITSELF - which the Bush administration has repeatedly shown is usually a CASH COW for its own crony, connected contractors, companies like Halliburton, Blackwater, Bechtel, and Enron (before it collapsed from fraud).
HELL - NANCY PELOSI and the DC Democrats are SO CORRUPT, they can't even expose the links between DICK CHENEY's HALLIBURTON STOCK OPTIONS and the way Mr. Cheney's options GO UP IN VALUE with every billion-dollar no-bid, no-oversight contract Cheney hands to his 'former' company!

DON'T BELIVE US? JUST ASK Speaker Pelosi to ACCOMPANY YOU ON A TRIP DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS.. and ask her "HOW CAN BILLIONS of TAXPAYER DOLLARS have been spent on the 'RECONSTRUCTION' of New Orleans... when they HAVEN'T EVEN REMOVED TONS and TONS of trash and debris that is still stinking up entire neighborhoods there TWO YEARS LATER?"

Maybe we should call those piles of stinking, decaying flood debris in New Orleans neighborhoods "THE BUSH-PELOSI MONUMENT TO AMERICAN CORRUPTION, 2007."

=============================================

Peter Brewton, introduction to "The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush" 1992
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a389b6a173e33.htm

Something very significant happened during our country's savings-and-loan crisis, the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression. It happened quietly, seretly, without any fanfare and attention. It happened before our eyes, yet we knew it not.

What we all missed was the massive transfer of wealth from the American taxpayers to select groups of extremely rich, powerful people. What these people had in common - unknown to the American public - were their symbiotic relationships to the Mafia and the CIA, and to the two most prominent, powerful politicians from Texas, President George W. Bush and Senator Lloyd Bentsen.

This small cabal of businessmen realized that the S&Ls were going the way of the dinosaurs. They recognized that S&L's couldn't survive under rapid inflation and high interest rates. So they decided to exploit the situation for their own purposes, with help from, and rewards for, the Mafia, the CIA, and their favorite politicians. They probably figured that the insulation and protection these powerful institutions and individuals conferred upon them, in addition to all the endemic protection within the financial, judicial, political, and journalistic systems, made them invulerable. They were probably right.
For unlike Watergate and Iran-Contra, this was a BI-PARTISAN SCANDAL. There was NO OPPOSITION PARTY to push for an INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION. In fact, the same group of wealthy, powerful businessmen, centered in Houston, that encircle Republicans like George Bush and James A. Baker III, also encircle Democrats like Jim Wright and Lloyd Bentsen.

This information enables one to view the 1988 election, in which not one cross word was ever spoken about the savings-and-loan debacle, in a whole new perspective. It was not merely a fortuitous coincidence that both Bush, the Republican nominee for President, and Bentsen, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, were part of, and beholden to, the same group of Houston businessmen. Even if the Democrats lost the presidential election, as they did, Bentsen could still win re-election to his Senate seat under the so-called "LBJ rule." The Houston boys, as usual, had their bets covered.
(If Democrats had won in 1988, this book would be entitled "The Mafia, the CIA, and Lloyd Bentsen," for Bentsen and Bush are two interchangeable peas in a pod. They have many friends, business associates and campaign donors in common. The story of the most important ones they share begins this book.)
BUT BUSH WON IN 1988, AND ONE OF THE REASONS HE DID WAS HIS ABILITY TO KEEP THE S&L DEBACLE _OUT_ OF THE POLITICAL DEBATE. He was assisted in this by none other than Bentsen, as we shall see. They both had much to hide. Bush in particular. Not only were the many of the President-to-be's friends involved - along with his two sons - but Bush himself, as Vice President, had PERSONALLY INTERVENED in the federal regulation of a dirty Florida savings and loan that was being looted by people with connections to the Mafia and CIA. This S&L ultimately failed, costing taxpayers nearly $700 million.

This S&L scandal is the vehicle for telling the story about these leading American politicians and businessmen. But the relationships between these individuals and HOW THEY CONTROL and MANIPULATE PUBLIC and PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS IS THE BIGGER STORY. Unless we know who these people see, and understand how they operate, we can all look forward to MORE S&L-type DEBACLES TO COME.

Pete Brewton, Introduction to "The Mafia, CIA & George Bush: The untold Story of America's Greatest Financial Debacle" 1992.