Glenn Greenwald: Building the Secrecy Wall higher and higher

There are multiple investigative efforts underway -- Congressional, judicial, journalistic -- seeking to uncover the Bush administration's illegal warrantless eavesdropping activities aimed at Americans, and the administration, in order to keep its conduct concealed, has doggedly sought to impede each of these investigations. The administration's cover up of its behavior has become so severe that the usually meek Arlen Specter actually threatened this week to introduce legislation to cut off funding for the NSA program unless the administration ceased its stonewalling of the Judiciary Committee's investigation.

The latest such obstruction is the administration's invocation of what, prior to the Bush administration, was the rarely invoked "State Secrets Privilege" in order to demand that a federal judge dismiss the lawsuit brought by the libertarian privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T. That lawsuit alleges that AT&T secretly diverts electronic communications to the NSA in order to allow the NSA to monitor those communications without warrants, i.e., in violation of the law.

Let Us Now Spit Upon The Earth

You can do it the old way, or you can do it like Bush -- with smirks, mountain bikes and oil

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, April 28, 2006

Look, see those tire marks? That ungainly footprint? Feel that breath of humid doom upon your skin? Yes, the president was just here. Up in Napa Valley, riding his official Trek Mountain Bike One over the rocks and down the trails and through the cool California mud, a small army of handlers and Secret Service agents and emergency medical personnel by his side and/or rumbling along behind him in big black SUVs. It was very cute, in a fingernail-yanked-with-pliers sort of way.

The Total Information Awareness Project Lives On

"Technology Review: The Big Brother software known as 'Total Information Awareness' has been acquired by the National Security Agency, which is likely running it on you."--BUZZFLASH

Technology behind the Pentagon's controversial data-mining project has been acquired by NSA, and is probably in use.

By Mark Williams

In April, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the advocacy organization for citizens' digital rights, filed evidence to support its class-action lawsuit alleging that telecom giant AT&T gave the National Security Agency (NSA), the ultra-secret U.S. agency that's the world's largest espionage organization, unfettered access to Americans' telephone and Internet communications. The lawsuit is one more episode in the public controversy that erupted in December 2005, when the New York Times revealed that, following September 11, President Bush authorized a far-reaching NSA surveillance program that included warrantless electronic eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails of individuals within the United States.

Barbara Ehrenreich: The Laid-off as Lepers

I just got another letter helpfully explaining how I went wrong in my Bait and Switch job search, this from David in Milwaukee, who writes:

…about the time I got into the third chapter, “Surviving Boot Camp,” I felt like I was reading a work of fiction. My reasons are several. First, I was surprised at your naiveté concerning resumes, internet boards and networking with the unemployed. Second, I couldn’t believe a smart, accomplished woman would be unable to see through the “career coach” scam and avoid it like the plague… Resumes are an outdated, overused form that … are pretty much a waste of paper…

He goes on, at some length, as have many other writers (some of them on this website’s forum.) Career coaches have written to tell me I should have hired them, rather than the ninnies I actually employed, and that they are still available, should I wish to resume my search. Some letter writers have derided me for going to job fairs: What are you – a moron? Many have scolded me for going to networking events attended by other unemployed people. Better to network with the mail carrier.

Digby: Honoring Culture and Heritage

A reader writes in to ask:

Please tell us again why the Spanish translation of the National Anthem is making wingnut heads explode when they all but genuflect at the waving of the Confederate Rebel flag?

Tell me please, which of these was meant to turn hearts to America, and which is meant to tear the country apart?

Digby: "I'm The Delegator"

If anyone has fantasies of what it would be like to see George W. Bush on the witness stand in his own trial, check out his good friend Kenny Boy's performance:

Enron Corp. founder Kenneth L. Lay — Kenny Boy to his friend President Bush — is renowned for his courtliness, his philanthropy, his rise from a dirt-poor boyhood in the Missouri Ozarks to a nine-digit fortune.

Codefendant Jeffrey K. Skilling, who invented Enron's most profitable business and ran the company during most of its heyday, also is known for getting in a bar fight while under indictment and for publicly calling an investment analyst by another name for a sphincter.

Digby: Venting The Hatred In Their Hearts

More sexual sadism from racist pigs:

Prosecutors won't immediately seek hate-crime charges against two white teens accused of brutally beating and sodomizing a 16-year-old Hispanic boy, who was clinging to life after being left for dead, authorities said.

The two attacked the boy after he tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl at an unsupervised house party Saturday night in suburban Spring, authorities said.

Digby: Book Bags

Jane is righteously taking on the wingnut liars today (as she does every day) but this time on the subject of this dumb pissing match about liberal book sales. Just read it. it's so ridiculous it makes you want to laugh.

As she points out, the right has subsidized these lousy writers and thinkers for decades. They buy their crappy books for their crappy book clubs (whining all the way about totalitarian leftists bookstore owners who refuse to sell their crappy crap) and give the impresion that they are successfully indoctrinating the country with their crappy propaganda. From the numbers of rightwing propagandists who are allegedly great authors and thinkers, you would think that the Republicans would rule with an 80% majority. The truth is they have always rigged the numbers.

Digby: It's Getting Hot In Here

Oooh. This is too good. Could Porter Goss be caught up in the developing Duke Cunningham hooker scandal? Justin Rood at The Muckraker thinks it's possible.

Yowzah.

Actually, make that a double-yowzah: Remember that Goss is the one who plucked one of Wilkes' old San Diego friends, the unusual and colorful Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, out of CIA middle-management obscurity to be his #3 at the agency. At the time of Foggo's appointment, no one could figure out where he came from, or how Goss knew him.

Digby: Failing For Jesus

So now they want to dismantle FEMA. Isn't that just perfect? It worked great not five years ago but since the republicans got their hands on it, it's completely gone to shit.

Avedon Carol reminds us that this is, in fact, the plan:

We can still get the story if we dig deep enough in the papers, but you won't see the front page telling us that the purpose of this administration is to eliminate any competence in government to serve the public. No, let's just make sure the EPA doesn't do it's job so Republicans can say, "See? Government can't do anything! You pay taxes for this and you don't get it!" After which they can safely eliminate the programs without lowering your taxes. Eventually, the programs will be gone and you won't be hearing all that anti-tax rhetoric anymore - it will be patriotic to pay taxes, again.

Digby: Portrait of The Racist As A Young Man

Ezra points to this fascinating profile of George Allen in the New Republic by Ryan Lizza. You really have to read it to believe it.

I know little about Allen except that he sounds even dumber than George W. Bush every time I see him speak on television. Yesterday he was blathering on about something and I was struck by how his rosy cheeks and strange purplish hair made him look a little like Reagan. So he has Reagan's looks and Bush's brains. Oh Jesus.

Digby: There Were No Limits

Via Salon, I see that General Geoffrey D. Ripper has skated once again. He baldfacedly lied to the congress and nothing happens. Seems there's a difference between "briefing " someone and "directly discussing" something:

The Army inspector general has concluded that Miller, who set up detention operations at Abu Ghraib just before the infamous abuse there, did brief a top Pentagon intelligence official about his work at the Iraqi prison. Miller had been accused of lying under oath to Congress in May 2004, when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had "no direct discussions" with Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. He later admitted to delivering a briefing to five senior Pentagon officials, including Cambone.

Digby: Preturnaturally Confident

Jane has a great Karl Rove Plamegate primer up tonight in case you've forgotten all the minutia of the case and want to get back up to speed.

Karl has now testified before the grand jury five times, which most lawyers say would never happen in a normal case. Karl, however, believes he can wiggle out of this so he keeps volunteering to go back to the grand jury and explain himself.

Digby: Fantasy Wednesday

So Rove is testifying before the GJ for the fifth time. John Amato says that Norah O'Donnell is reporting that he is going to be issuing a statement later today.

Am I the only one who thinks that's strange? Has any witness to the GJ issued a statement after their testimony? Certainly, Rove hasn't.

Digby: Crying Wolf

I was going to write about this Max Boot column, but Kevin beat me to it. Boot writes:

I want journalists to cover the present struggle as a fight between good and evil. And when the good guys — that would be U.S. officials — say that certain revelations would help the bad guys, I want them to be given the benefit of the doubt. So, I suspect, do most Americans.

Digby: 101st Fighting Keyboarder Uniforms

Whenever you visit a rightwing site, you are sure to see "those" tshirts. I saw an ad for them on the Washington Times the other day. Now, I know that wingnuts have great sense of humor as you can tell by the huge number of successful comedians and humorists on the right. (Dennis? PJ? Are you getting tired?) I assume that these t-shirts are what passes for humor in their lives.

They are big on gun stuff and death and violence but I just can't help but notice that with only a few exceptions, these t-shirts aren't about killing terrorists or fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

Digby: The Lying King And His Money

Matt sez:

The GOP, as we all know, is desperately afraid of the possibility that the 2006 midterms will put Democrats in a position to hold some hearings. If we do get that lucky, I worry a bit that there may be a temptation to engage in overkill -- a hundred hearings a day on a thousand subjects -- when the smart play is to focus in a few key topics. The wildly underexplored subject of what's been going on with the money being spent in Iraq strikes me as something that should be a prime candidate.

Digby: If You Build It

I've always thought that one of the perverse consequences of a libertarian utopian government that does nothing but national defense, policing and dispute resolution would be that this government would naturally seek to expand its powers in those areas. If a state's only function is policing, it functions as a ... police state.

We've watched the fake small government conservatives spend huge sums of money on war profiteering, oily pork and tax breaks for their rich contributors. But where they have really made their mark is with these ridiculously expanded executive and police powers.

Digby: Teen Sex Cults

We've discussed the strange phenomenon of wingnut fascination with bestiality, specifically sex with dogs. And recently we've been treated to the ick inducing sight of seven year old girls dressing up in ball gowns and pledging to their fathers to remain "sexually pure" until daddy turns them over to their husbands.

Via Septic Tank at Kos, here's another peek into the strange, disturbed world of rightwing moralist sexual imagination: teen sex cults.

Digby: The First Stab

I have had the privilege of reading Glenn Greenwald's new book, "How Would A Patriot Act" and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is not just a litany of the gross abuse of power, the novel unconstitutional theories or the excessive fear mongering of the Bush years, although he lays them all out in frightening simplicity. This book is about how these actions debase our national character. I would submit that in this unpredictable era of global change, an immensely powerful nation like the US cannot lead, or even participate in any positive way, if the world believes it to be crassly amoral.

Digby: Playing By The Rules

Republican style...

Amid all the partisan rancor of congressional politics, the softball league has for 37 years been a rare case of bipartisan civility, an opportunity for Democratic and Republican aides to sneak out of work a bit early and take the field in the name of the lawmaker, committee or federal agency they work for.

This year, the league will be missing something: a lot of the Republicans.

Digby: Disgrace

Thanks to reader Samela for pointing out this incredible series in the Chicago Tribune outlining contractor abuses in Iraq. It's rather surprising that no other papers or any of the networks have bothered to report the story (at least that I'm aware of) but I can understand it. The sheer volume on inhumane activity that the Bush administration has endorsed or perpetrated is so huge that it's hard to keep up.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of human-trafficking laws and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

[...]

The State Department launched an investigation and promised other actions earlier this year in response to a series published Oct. 9-10 by the Tribune, "Pipeline to Peril," that detailed many of the abuses now cited in the memos.

Digby: Agitating for a Crackdown

I wrote yesterday about the re-emergence of the shrieking harpies as the Republicans go down to defeat. I was speaking specifically of the wingnut gasbags, but Robert Parry points out that it is more than rhetoric. They are agitating to criminalize dissent. He cites this column by Tony Blankley:

The upcoming, unprecedented generals' "revolt" described by Mr. Holbrooke, if it is not against the law, certainly comes dangerously close to violating three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:

Article 94 -- Mutiny and sedition Text
(a) "Any person subject to this chapter who (1) with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuse, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny; (2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition; (3) fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition."

Digby: The Shake Up

So, aside from rearranging the deck chairs, Josh Bolton has a new plan:

Deploy Guns and Badges

This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an atv."

I wonder what costume he'll put on for that photo-op. Chuck Norris is his favorite actor so I'm thinking Texas Ranger suit.

Digby: Gilligan Security

Mike Stark at Calling All Wingnuts had a chance to talk to Joe Klein and he asked him about why he believed that nuclear war should be on the table.He said:

Joe: Oh… Oh… OK. I said that it should be an option. And I do believe that it should be an option. But let me tell you what I actually believe about this. First of all, it should be an option and I think it doesn’t do us any harm for the Iranians, if they are going to go around saying crazy things, to think that we might act crazily as well.

Mike: So it’s not really an option…

Digby: Insurance Policy

Do the American people know what they signed on to?

If you want an image of what America's long-term plans for Iraq look like, it's right here at Balad. Tucked away in a rural no man's land 43 miles north of Baghdad, this 15-square-mile mini-city of thousands of trailers and vehicle depots is one of four "superbases" where the Pentagon plans to consolidate U.S. forces, taking them gradually from the front lines of the Iraq war. (Two other bases are slated for the British and Iraqi military.) The shift is part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to draw down U.S. ground forces in Iraq significantly by the end of 2006. Pentagon planners hope that this partial withdrawal will, in turn, help take the edge off rising opposition to the war at home—long enough to secure Iraq's nascent democracy.

Billmon: The Politics of Scarcity

This just in from CNN:

President Bush's approval ratings have sunk to a personal low, with only a third of Americans saying they approve of the way he is handling his job, a national poll released Monday said.

In the telephone poll of 1,012 adult Americans carried out Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, 32 percent of respondents said they approve of Bush's performance, 60 percent said they disapprove and 8 percent said they do not know.

If this continues, cholera is going to end up with a higher approval rating. It looks to me like the only "five point" plan that could possibly revive Shrub's political fortunes is the star on the end of Tinkerbell's little wand.

Billmon: Profiles in Chicken Shit II (GOP edition)

Bush Orders Probe Into Gas Pricing

President Bush has asked the Energy and Justice departments to investigate whether gasoline prices have been illegally manipulated, he announced in a speech this morning . . .

This year, Republicans, who are traditionally more sympathetic to the pleas of Big Oil, are lambasting the oil companies, with some calling for the consideration of a windfall-profits tax on the firms.

There was a time when no Republican worth his Adam Smith tie would have dared advocate something as flagrantly socialistic as a windfall profits tax — not with Ronald Reagan around to hear it. I can almost hear St. Ronnie now: "A tax on profits? What is this, France?"

Billmon: Squealer

All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.

George Orwell
Animal Farm
1946

I don't know what Karl Rove was doing -- or saying -- in front of the grand jury yesterday, any more than anyone else who wasn't in the room at the time. Consensus opinion among the Plamegate experts seems to be that Karl is still trying to talk himself out of a jam -- the one created by his sudden attacks of temporary amnesia during his initial FBI interview and in his first appearance before the grand jury.

Billmon: Sex Pistols

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the news (from Harper's via TPM Muckraker) that Porter Goss, director of the CIA, may be implicated in a hooker service for corrupt (and horny) congressmen paid for by defense contractors and run out of -- you really gotta love this part -- the Watergate Hotel.

So what are we supposed to call this new scandal? Watergategate?

Billmon: Nine Fingers

More on Whoregate from the San Diego Union Tribune:

As [the paper] reported in December, the suites – first at the Watergate Hotel and then at the Westin Grand Hotel – had several bedrooms where lawmakers and other guests could relax.

You can almost see the air quotes around that "relax."

The Union Trib also has more (much) on the CIA angle. It doesn't bring Goss into the picture -- at least not yet -- but it gets pretty close:

People who were present at the games said one of the regular players was Kyle Dustin “Dusty” Foggo, who has been Wilkes' best friend since the two attended junior high school in Chula Vista in the late 1960s. In October, Foggo was named the CIA's executive director -- the agency's third-highest position.

It was Porter, of course, who did the naming -- plucking Foggo from deep within the bowels (there's that metaphor again) of the agency's procurement bureaucracy and dragging him up to the director's office.

Paul Krugman: The Crony Fairy

The New York Times

Friday 28 April 2006

The U.S. government is being stalked by an invisible bandit, the Crony Fairy, who visits key agencies by dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees. There's no way to catch or stop the Crony Fairy, so our only hope is to change the agencies' names. That way she might get confused, and leave our government able to function.

That, at least, is how I interpret the report on responses to Hurricane Katrina that was just released by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Billmon: Cheaper By the Dozen

Actually, it's more like the old joke about government contracting: Why buy one when you can get two for three times the price?

Except this is no joke.

Projected Iraq War Costs Soar

The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week . . .

When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War.

I guess we can only give thanks that the casualty count (on both sides) hasn't matched the "inflation-adjusted" total for Vietnam -- yet.

Bush Approves Dubai Defense Purchase

By Caren Bohan
Reuters

Friday 28 April 2006

Washington - President George W. Bush approved Dubai's $1.24 billion takeover of Doncasters, a British engineering company with U.S. plants that supply the Pentagon, the White House said on Friday.

The decision, announced by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, followed a congressional uproar over security fears that scuttled another Dubai state-owned company's plan to acquire operations at major U.S. ports.

Bush Rejects Tax on Oil Companies' Profits

By Terence Hunt
The Associated Press

Friday 28 April 2006

Washington - President Bush on Friday rejected calls by some lawmakers for a tax on oil company windfall profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent gains into finding and producing more energy.

"The temptation in Washington is to tax everything," Bush said in an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden. "The answer is for there to be strong reinvestment to make this country more secure from an energy perspective."

With gasoline at over $3 a gallon in some areas, Bush said there was "no evidence" of price-gouging of consumers.

Michael Kinsley: Well, Well

You don't have to hate oil companies to want an excess-profits tax.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Friday, April 28, 2006, at 6:16 AM ET

In, I guess, the early 1990s, when I worked for CNN, I found myself one evening at a Washington reception, chatting with an oil-company executive and another from a defense contractor. The oil man said, "How's business?" How's business! Delighted and emboldened by the discovery that businessmen actually say this to one another, I arched a conspiratorial eyebrow and said, "Well, we could use another war."

The defense contractor said, "So could we."

Podcasting: A new weapon for the right

Are conservative think tanks and advocacy groups glomming on to podcasting as they did with talk radio?

After Apple Computer announced its new video-capable iPod, the San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford, a funny, controversial and ever-iconoclastic columnist, enthused that the new "sexy" and "delicious" device would usher in a future where pornography would be available at the flick of a finger.

Morford isn't the only one imagining the future of podcasting. Jennifer Biddison, the Coalitions Manager and Associate Editor for Townhall.com -- one of the oldest and most successful right wing networking websites -- maintains that while podcasting has already become a useful political tool for the conservative movement its potential has yet to be tapped.

Conservatives Bow to Industry, Block Amendment to Scan All Shipping Containers

Early this afternoon, conservatives in the House Homeland Security Committee voted down an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) that would have mandated 100 percent scanning of American-bound shipping containers for radiological weapons.

The vote followed an “aggressive lobbying campaign” by a “coalition of industry groups” who pressed conservative members to oppose the amendment. Yesterday, committee chairman Peter King (R-NY) announced that he was caving to industry interests. His excuse was that Markey’s plan was “not realistic“:

Cisneros independent counsel shutting down office

Finally!--Dictynna

Web Posted: 04/27/2006 12:00 AM CDT

Gary Martin
Express-News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Independent counsel David M. Barrett said Wednesday his office would close after a 10-year, $21 million probe into former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros and Clinton administration officials.

The office of the independent counsel will officially close next week, a decade after he was appointed to investigate whether Cisneros lied to the FBI during the background check for his Cabinet appointment.

Barrett, who was unavailable for comment, released a statement announcing the closure, which was confirmed by an official with the Administrative Offices of the United States Court.

Two-tiered Internet: Panel paves way for fees

By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter
Thursday, April 27, 2006 - Updated: 02:04 AM EST

A Republican-controlled House committee yesterday rejected a measure by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Malden) that would have barred telecommunication companies from socking Web sites with extra fees based on bandwidth usage.
Markey’s so-called “Internet neutrality” amendment was defeated on a 34-22 vote by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

With defeat of the amendment, Markey warned yesterday that America is moving closer to a two-tiered Internet system in which telecom firms such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and other firms can start giving special price deals to some users - while hitting others with higher fees.

The Great Bush Reclassification Project

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted April 28, 2006.

Why does the FBI want to go through a dead man's files and reclassify public information?

It's nice to know that the investigative reporter Jack Anderson is still under investigation, although seriously dead.

Anderson died last year, and for 19 years before his death he suffered from Parkinson's disease and was increasingly less active as a reporter. Now that he's safely deceased, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to go through nearly 200 boxes of his files to see if there are any classified documents in there. If it's classified, they want it back -- even though Anderson was in the habit of printing anything he ever got that was of any interest.

CIA warns ex-agents over talking to media

This is one way to stifle embarrassing information. --Dictynna

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: April 26 2006 22:05 | Last updated: April 26 2006 23:51

The Central Intelligence Agency has warned former employees not to have unapproved contacts with reporters, as part of a mounting campaign by the administration to crack down on officials who leak information on national security issues.

A former official said the CIA recently warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission. He added that while the threats might be legally “hollow,” they were having a chilling effect on former employees.

Climate change: 20th century the wettest in Pakistan for 1,000 years

Human cause likely

This press release is also available in German.

Since the beginning of industrialisation the amount of precipitation in Pakistan has increased considerably. This is shown by what is the first evaluation worldwide of isotopes in the annual rings of juniper trees which are more than 1,000 years old. In the currrent issue of the journal 'Nature', scientists from the Swiss Research Institute WSL, the Potsdam Geo Research Centre, the Jülich Research Centre and the University of Bonn report that these show that the 20th century was the wettest century in the past millennium in northern Pakistan. The reason could be global warming: when the temperature rises, the atmosphere can store more humidity, which in turn results in more snow and rain falling. The increase in precipitation is unprecedented, at least for the last 1,000 years. The researchers therefore conclude that human influence is not unlikely.

Is There a Double Standard on Leak Probes?

By Murray Waas
The National Journal

Tuesday 25 April 2006

When the CIA announced on Friday that it had fired an employee who the agency claims "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence" with a newspaper reporter, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, immediately praised the agency's action, saying that "unauthorized disclosures of classified information can significantly harm our ability to protect the American people."

Roberts, one of the staunchest defenders of the Bush administration's effort to stop the flow of sensitive information to the press, said in a statement that "[t]hose who leak classified information not only risk the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods, but also expose the brave men and women of the intelligence community to greater danger. Clearly, those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Percentage of Uninsured Americans Rising

NEW YORK - The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage, a study released on Wednesday found.

Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.

Majority in Army Times poll think Rumsfeld should resign

RAW STORY
Published: Tuesday April 25, 2006

According to a poll at ArmyTimes.com, a majority of respondents believe that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign, RAW STORY has found.

At the time of this writing, 2985 readers have voted in the latest Army Times poll (link), with 1,889 (63.28%) agreeing that the "U.S. war effort is grounds for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign."

996 (33.37%) voted no and 100 (3.35%) had no opinion.

18 rich families pay for campaign to kill estate taxes

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Sabrina Eaton
Plain Dealer Bureau

Washington -- Eighteen of America's wealthiest families, including the Timkens of Canton, are bankrolling efforts to permanently repeal estate taxes that would save their families a total of $71.6 billion, according to a report released Tuesday by public interest groups.

Groups funded by the super-rich have engaged in a deceptive campaign to convince the public that estate taxes cause widespread problems for small businesses and family farms when they actually affect about one in 370 estates, said the report released by Public Citizen and Boston-based United for a Fair Economy.

Source: Rove to Testify in CIA Leak Case

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago

Top White House aide Karl Rove prepared to testify Wednesday for a fifth time before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity, two people familiar with the case said.

Rove consulted with his private lawyers before a scheduled afternoon court appearance and was to answer questions about evidence that emerged since his last grand jury appearance last fall, the people said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy rules.

Arianna Huffington: George Bush: Foreign Policy from God, Energy Policy from Big Oil

The president may turn to God when it comes to shaping his foreign policy, but his energy policy is strictly courtesy of the Men Upstairs at Big Oil.

Which is why it is beyond comical to watch Moe, Curly, and Larry -- sorry, I mean Bush, Hastert, and Frist -- getting all blue in the face about skyrocketing gas prices, and calling on the Energy and Justice Departments to look into possible market manipulation by oil companies.

US privacy campaigners fear mark of the beast (Radio Tags)

James Sturcke
Wednesday April 26, 2006

A decision by the Bush administration to proceed with what is believed to be the largest radio frequency tagging programme in history has triggered protests from US privacy campaigners.

The US department of agriculture (USDA) wants to keep track of all livestock production and movements in what it claims is an attempt to improve the traceability of disease outbreaks.

By 2009, 40m cattle will have been tagged, and the scheme is to be extended to include the billions of chickens and other animals farmed every year in the US.

Daily Kos: BREAKING: Air Force Censors Liberal Websites, But Leaves Conservative Ones Alone

by AmberJane

Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 09:31:33 PM PDT

Earlier today, a friend of mine who flies for the Air Force sent me an email reporting that sometime in the middle of the day today, the Air Force's IT people put a block on DailyKos. He was on a coffee break and wanted to show a colleague a diary about energy policy, so he told me (probably one of Jerome à Paris'). Although it was possible to do that this morning, by around two o'clock (or however they say that in the Air Force) DailyKos was blocked.

So was Atrios.

Abuser of Science Nominated for Top EPA Job

The Issue
President Bush has nominated William Wehrum to be Assistant Administrator for Air & Radiation at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. A former lawyer with Latham & Watkins, Wehrum currently serves as Acting Assistant Administrator for Air & Radiation.

Over the past five years, as a political appointee within the EPA, Wehrum has acted to weaken public health and environmental protections, run afoul of the Clean Air Act, distorted objective analyses in favor of political agendas, and marginalized the roles and criticisms of agency experts and outside advisors.

The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee will decide on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 whether or not to approve the nomination and send it to the full Senate for a vote. Please call your senator today to urge him/her to vote against Wehrum’s confirmation.

More left-baiting from the "religious" right …

Posted byJoshua Holland on April 25, 2006 at 1:23 PM

According to the Washington Post, part of the Republicans' attempt to recover from the mess of … well, everything they've touched will be a hot summer full of wedge-issue nonsense:

Worried about conservatives sitting out the November elections to protest spending, White House and top congressional officials are planning a summer push for legislation on abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research to excite social conservatives.

Sludge recycling sends antiseptic soap ingredient to agriculture

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health measured levels of an antibacterial hand soap ingredient, triclocarban, as it passed through a wastewater treatment facility. They determined that approximately 75 percent of the ingredient washed down the drain by consumers persists during wastewater treatment and accumulates in municipal sludge, which later is used as fertilizer for crops.

What Kind of Card is Race?

The Absurdity (and Consistency) of White Denial

By Tim Wise

Published on Counterpunch, www.counterpunch.org, April 24, 2006

Recently, I was asked by someone in the audience of one of my speeches, whether or not I believed that racism--though certainly a problem--might also be something conjured up by people of color in situations where the charge was inappropriate. In other words, did I believe that occasionally folks play the so-called race card, as a ploy to gain sympathy or detract from their own shortcomings? In the process of his query, the questioner made his own opinion all too clear (an unambiguous yes), and in that, he was not alone, as indicated by the reaction of others in the crowd, as well as survey data confirming that the belief in black malingering about racism is nothing if not ubiquitous.

FEMA's Dirty Little Secret: A Rare Look Inside the Renaissance Village Trailer Park, Home to Over 2,000 Hurricane Katrina Evacuees

By Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!

Monday 24 April 2006

Earlier this month, Democracy Now went down to Louisiana and had a chance to take a rare look inside Renaissance Village - a trailer park on the outskirts of Baton Rouge that houses over 2,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The trailer park has been described in the Louisiana press as "Fema's Dirty Little Secret" in part because of FEMA's tight control over who has access to the park. Prior to being kicked out of the trailer park by private security guards, we managed to speak to Donna Azeez who lives at the trailer park.

* Donna Azeez, resident of Renaissance Village.

Rush Transcript

Amy Goodman: We are going to continue now to look at New Orleans and the problems facing citizens who are displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this month, Democracy Now! went down to Louisiana. We had a chance to take a rare look inside Renaissance Village, a trailer park on the outskirts of Baton Rouge that houses more than - close to 2,000 Katrina evacuees. The trailer park has been described in Louisiana press as "FEMA's dirty little secret," in part because of FEMA's tight control over who has access to the park. Prior to being kicked out of the trailer park by the private security guards in charge, we managed to speak Donna Azeez, who lives at the trailer park.

Donna Azeez: Couple of my things got flooded. My car got flooded. My refrigerator was gone. And I had a shed in the back with my washing machine, my dryer and a lot of other stuff. All that got destroyed.

A Democratic Internet

Art Brodsky
April 25, 2006

Art Brodsky is communications director for Public Knowledge , a public interest group working at the intersection of information and technology policy.

Right now, you’re reading TomPaine.com because you want to, and because you can. Those two principles have been the reason the Internet as we know it has been so successful for almost 20 years. The Internet as we know it provides infinite choice to those who use it, and easy access to customers and consumers for those who have a service to provide. No printing presses are needed, no buying of paper, no distribution. Those major expenses, which for years had to be borne by publications, have all disappeared with the World Wide Web. All TomPaine.com —or any website—needs (technically speaking, of course) are computers, servers and access to the Internet.

The result has been the most unique explosion of creativity in history. This was all made possible because the Internet was open to anyone who wanted to go looking for interesting material or who wanted to create interesting material, and because anyone with a good idea could put it out there and see what happens. Google happens. Yahoo happens. YouTube happens.

Asia Times: Tehran insider tells of US black ops

By an Asia Times Online Special Correspondent

TEHRAN - A former Iranian ambassador and Islamic Republic insider has provided intriguing details to Asia Times Online about US covert operations inside Iran aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the regime - or preparing for an American attack.

"The Iranian government knows and is aware of such infiltration. It means that the Iranian government has identified them [the covert operatives] but for some reason does not want to show [this]," said the former diplomat on condition of anonymity.

The Flight of the American Dream

You can't stuff the real world into a cramped ideology. It took the Radicalized Republicans 30 years to put their master plan into operation, underwritten by millions of dollars of patronage by far-right foundations and large injections of private wealth. It's only taken less than two years for the plan to catch fire and burn.

Narrow ideology is no substitute for ideas coupled to action, for minds coupled to heart. George Bush had neither. He knew what he wanted to do on taxes -- cut them for the privileged; on government -- turn it into a piggy bank for his cronies; on Social Security and Medicare -- "reform" them into submission; on what to do with kids -- test them into cookie-cutter conformists. But he just sat there when Al Qaeda slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center. He just sat there when his buddies in the Congress sent the deficit plunging into the depths. He just sat there when Hurricane Katrina destroyed a major American city. He just sat there while his bureaucrats rubber-stamped the Dubai ports deal. His ideology couldn't serve up the ready answers to those crises. Nor could his neocon ideologues. They sit there while Iraq spins into hemorrhage of lives, squandered money, and lost opportunities.

Radioactive School Site Is Tip Of New Jerset Toxic Iceberg

For Immediate Release: April 24, 2006
Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337

Trenton – A scheme to purchase land and build a high school on a highly contaminated former Manhattan Project site in Union City was not vetoed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Instead, the former uranium processing facility is one of as many as 200 contaminated sites that have been expedited for school construction under a secret “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) between the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the state’s Schools Construction Corporation (SCC). State officials have refused to disclose the list of all known contaminated school sites purchased by the SCC and reviewed by DEP under the MOU agreement.

The full extent of environmental and financial malfeasance that has engulfed the $8 billion program, one of the nation’s largest public works programs, now appears to be finally dawning on top aides to Governor Jon Corzine. Earlier warnings sent by PEER, including one sent as late as February 9, 2006, that the agreement between DEP and SCC should be rescinded appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

The Bible Bench

The message from fundamentalists to state jurists is clear: Judge conservatively, lest ye not be a judge.

By Margaret Ebrahim

ON THE MORNING of November 14, 2003, Iowa District Judge Jeffrey Neary met with lawyers to approve routine court orders. One of the cases before him was a divorce. It was uncontested, and Neary didn’t think twice about signing the papers dissolving the marriage. Then he glanced at the couple’s names and realized the breakup was anything but typical. He turned to the lawyer for one of the parties and exclaimed, “These two people are ladies!” Neary had just signed divorce papers for Kimberly Brown and Jennifer Perez, a lesbian couple who had entered into a same-sex civil union in Vermont. Same-sex unions are not recognized in Iowa, but instead of withdrawing the order, Neary amended the paperwork to indicate that he had terminated a civil union and settled property disputes between the women.

Paul Krugman: CSI Trade Deficit

--The New York Times, April 24, 2006

Forensics are in. If you turn on the TV during prime time, you're likely to find yourself watching people sorting through clues from a crime scene, trying to figure out what really happened.

That's more or less what's going on right now among international finance experts. The crime in question is the U.S. trade deficit, which according to the broadest measure reached an amazing $805 billion last year.

Fatal Disease From Flavoring Raises Flags

Mon Apr 24, 10:09 PM ET

BALTIMORE - A potentially fatal lung disease linked to chemicals used in food flavorings poses a growing health risk, according to government scientists who are questioning the food industry's willingness to protect its workers.

Bronchiolitis obliterans first emerged as a threat within the food industry in 2000, when the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health was called to a southwest Missouri popcorn plant to investigate lung illnesses among workers.

Excerpt: Conned

By Sasha Abramsky, AlterNet. Posted April 25, 2006.

In this excerpt from his new book, Sasha Abramsky reveals what really happened during the 2000 Election voter 'purge.'

A few months before Election 2000, disturbing stories began surfacing in the Florida media about the electoral rolls being "scrubbed," or "purged."

Hundreds of thousands of Floridians were technically not allowed to vote because they had been convicted of a felony at some time in the past; yet the state was worried that several thousand of these men and women (though still less than 10 percent of the state's total number of felons) might have registered to vote anyway and that county officials might have failed to notice that these people were ineligible to vote. And so state officials decided to clean up the rolls.

Delft mathematician enhances protectiveness of military uniform

Until now, little was known about the physiochemical processes that determine the protective qualities of military uniforms (for example, for protection against poisonous gases). Delft University of Technology researcher Michal Sobera has changed all this, however, through the use of computer modeling. He believes that within a few years it will be possible to calculate a realistic model of the human body with protective clothing. On April 25, Sobera will receive his PhD based on this research subject.

Prototype for revolutionary one-metre wide vehicle is developed

I want one!--Dictynna

The prototype of a revolutionary new type of vehicle only one metre wide specially designed for cities has been developed by a team of European scientists. The vehicle combines the safety of a micro-car and the manoeuvrability of a motorbike, while being more fuel-efficient and less polluting than other vehicles.

The CLEVER (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) vehicle is a £1.5 million collaborative project which has involved nine European partners from industry and research, including the University of Bath

The three-year international project has produced a tilting three-wheeled vehicle that is fully enclosed and has seats for the driver and a passenger. Its strengthened frame protects the driver in a crash and the vehicle has a top speed of approximately 60 mph (about 100 kph) and an acceleration of 0-40 mph (60 kph) in seven seconds.

Digby: Disgrace

Thanks to reader Samela for pointing out this incredible series in the Chicago Tribune outlining contractor abuses in Iraq. It's rather surprising that no other papers or any of the networks have bothered to report the story (at least that I'm aware of) but I can understand it. The sheer volume on inhumane activity that the Bush administration has endorsed or perpetrated is so huge that it's hard to keep up.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of human-trafficking laws and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

Bill Moyers: A Time for Heresy

TomPaine.com
Wednesday 22 March 2006

Bill Moyers is President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. This is the prepared text of his remarks delivered on March 14 upon the establishment by Marilyn and James Dunn, of the Wake Forest Divinity School, of a scholarship in religious freedom in the name of Judith and Bill Moyers.

When Dean Bill Leonard asked James Dunn to join him here at Wake Forest's new Divinity School, my soul shouted "Yes!" These two men personify the honesty and courage we need to meet the challenge of faith in the fundamentalist dispensation of the 21st century as radical interpretations of both Islam and Christianity seek, in the words of C.Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, "to take over the government and use cause structures to advance the ideology, hierarchy, and laws" of their movement.

James Dunn and Bill Leonard are Baptists. What kind of Baptist matters. At last count there were more than two dozen varieties of Baptists in America. Bill Clinton is a Baptist. So is Pat Robertson. Jesse Jackson is a Baptist. So is Jesse Helms. Al Gore is a Baptist. So is Jerry Falwell. No wonder Baptists have been compared to jalapeno peppers: one or two make for a tasty dish, but a whole bunch together will bring tears to your eyes.

Secrets of the CIA

By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff
Newsweek

Monday 24 April 2006

A former colleague says the fired Mary McCarthy 'categorically denies' being the source of the leak on agency renditions.

A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK.

The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, "categorically denies being the source of the leak," one of McCarthy's friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine. A national security advisor to Democratic Party candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, Beers worked as the head of intelligence programs on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff and later served as a top deputy on counter-terrorism for President Bush in 2002 and 2003. McCarthy, a career CIA analyst, initially worked as a deputy to Beers on the NSC and later took over Beer's role as the Clinton NSC's top intelligence expert.

The Politics of Definition

Exclusive: A path-breaking and challenging new study on how progressives and Democrats can close the “identity gap,” being published on our site in four parts. Part I: the lay of the land, and progressive strengths.

By John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira
Web Exclusive: 04.20.06

Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, John Halpin of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Ruy Teixeira of CAP and the Century Foundation (and co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority) undertook research on the state of the Democratic Party and progressive politics in America. Their chief concern: To get to the bottom of the question of why so many Americans don’t have a firm sense of what progressives and the Democratic Party stand for today.

The result of their efforts is this paper, The Politics of Definition: The Real Third Way. The paper can be read in part as a 2006 answer to The Politics of Evasion, the landmark 1989 study by William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, which described a more centrist politics and helped lay the groundwork for Bill Clinton’s ascendancy (and which they updated last year in The Politics of Polarization). Today, Halpin and Teixeira take a different view, and this work represents the authors’ definitive attempt to burrow into the available data and, from them, reach conclusions about what progressives and Democrats need to do to address what they call the “identity gap.” Without giving away the ending, I’ll just say here that their conclusions are similar to my own in my essay Party in Search of a Notion, from the May issue of the Prospect; Halpin and I discovered, quite accidentally at a conference in late March, that we’d been thinking along similar lines.

Bush Brandishes Jail Time at Critics

By Robert Parry
April 23, 2006

Over the past five-plus years, the American people have gotten a taste of what a triumphant George W. Bush is like, as he basked in high approval ratings and asserted virtually unlimited powers as Commander in Chief. Now, the question is: How will Bush and his inner circle behave when cornered?

So far, the answer should send chills through today’s weakened American Republic. Bush and his team – faced with plunging poll numbers and cascading disclosures of wrongdoing – appear determined to punish and criminalize resistance to their regime.

Removing America's Blinders

By Howard Zinn, The Progressive. Posted April 24, 2006.

If Americans were more aware of how often our leaders have lied in order to wage war, would anyone have believed this president's justifications for attacking Iraq?

Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans -- members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen -- rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.