Month: September 2006

Karl Rove says Jack Abramoff was just a casual acquaintance. That’s a Lie.

“On learning in July 2002 that Mr. Rove planned to dine at Signatures with a party of 8 to 10 people, Mr. Abramoff wrote to a colleague: ‘I want him to be given a very nice bottle of wine and have Joseph whisper in his ear (only he should hear) that Abramoff wanted him to have this wine on the house.’ In another e-mail message, Mr. Abramoff directed his restaurant staff to ‘please put Karl Rove in his usual table.’

Let’s make a list of all the little lies this administration has told. This one is still my favorite.

Q Why shouldn’t this be seen as an intelligence failure, that you were unable to predict something happening here?

DR. RICE: Steve, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

But I know you can top it.

     While gathering material for a more detailed diary on a related topic, I came across a blog about Garrison Keillor’s visit to Highland Park Methodist Church, the President’s home church. I had to share it with you.

“I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church,” Mr. Keillor wrote. “It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes’ church and that it would be better if I didn’t talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for “Homegrown Democrat,” but they thought it better if I didn’t mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, “I don’t need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics — I’m a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service.” And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We’ve got ours, and who cares?
The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise, so why should they worry? It’s only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing just fine. If you can’t trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?”

Scott Parks in the Dallas Morning News blog

    I have included only the Keillor quote as reported by Parks. Parks’ disparaging comments can be found at the link.
   Note:  Keillor is not known for political commentary, but since the 2000 election fiasco, he has become more openly and angrily critical of the Right and the Bush administration.

The Christian Science Monitor has produced a massive three part report, Rethinking Plan Colombia, on the status of Plan Colombia, one of America’s forgotten wars that still lingers on. Endlessly killing and sucking billions of dollars down a black hole while costing Colombia and America the lives of our best and most dedicated citizens who become counter-narcotics agents only to be ripped from life violently.

The Monitor enumerates all of the minutia of hectares of coca sprayed. And the billions spent on helicopters, mercenaries and in creating the second largest U.S. embassy in the world. All seemingly, to no avail in reducing either the supply or the demand.

The Monitor never once touches on the economic heart of the issue. Nor do they look at all at the totality of the causes and effects of the drug war policy. A policy that Plan Colombia is only one very small part of.

The rest of the essay.

from todays truthout

To me it sound like a shake down if ever there was one.

Sounds to me like RICO needs to be enacted against all of these guys who do stuff like this.  We are most certainly in dangerous time!  My Constitution means more than this man’s words.  He is part of the mob and one of their henchmen.  To me, he is in cya his and his boss’s ass and he needs to be brought before court for impeachment.  Not to think of all the citizens of America, he is only thinking of those few.  We have to dismantle this way of governing or else we are most certainly doomed.  We must get democrats in congress this year.  It is essential!  Make this administration the lamest duck ever in history!  Bring then to justice, please, my fellow citizens.  

Look, Folks, I know I am preaching to the choir here, but, we must do something and become the ones who save us all from this mess.  We out here in blogging land just have to et the message out what these evil, bad guys are doing to our Constitution and to our Democracy.  It does not take a rocket scientist to see it for what it is.  So, Please…….get tough…get mean, get ready to fight fire with fire, for that is the only thing this kind of régime knows how to fight.   Time is over and done with for giving them enough rope to hang themselves.  They just keep going an doing with their ghastly deeds.  They never seem to learn any lessons.  Lets take them all down…for the health and safety of America and for the betterment of us all!!!

Thanks for letting me rant, but this is sheer and utter breaking the law to do what the head of the DOJ wants to do.  It is really simple…it is wrong.

Cross posted at the front page of My Left Wing.

The Rovewellian brainwash we’re hearing in support of our failed wars is positive proof that the pen is, indeed, mightier than the sword.  The Bush administration continues to use the written and spoken word to garner support for military actions in a conflict that our generals admit has no military solution.  

Remember back when the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) became the Struggle Against Violent Extremism for about five minutes?  

In the summer of 2005, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to rename America’s fight against al Qaeda to more accurately describe the nature of the conflict.  General Richard Meyers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that he had “objected to the use of the term ‘war on terrorism’ before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.”  The solution, according to Meyers, was “more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military,”

But young Mister Bush wasn’t having none of that “struggle” talk.  He didn’t want to be no “struggle-time” president.  No.  You see, people don’t rally round no president in times of struggle.  “Times of struggle” is something Beatles and hippies write songs about.  There’s nothing especial about a struggle.  People struggle every day, even when things are all peaceful like.  Just putting food on the table is a struggle for a lot of folks.  Mister Bush knows all about that.  When he was growing up, some of his parents’ servants’ children actually wore hand me down clothes.  

And it’s hard work coming up with “struggle propaganda.”

Pavlov’s Dogs of War

What’s more, it’s hard to sell the disaster in Iraq if you call it the central front in the struggle on violent extremism, and if you start giving people the idea that the solution can’t be achieved by the military, they might start asking “Then what the hell is our military doing in Iraq?”  They might also start asking why they’re spending $ 2 billion per week on a “war” that isn’t a solution to the “struggle.”

If you have a struggle, you’re struggling against “adversaries” or “competitors.”  Adversaries and competitors, while challenging, aren’t very scary.  No, to get everybody good and scared and rallied around the president, you need to have “enemies,” and in order to have enemies, you need to have a “war.”

And enemies in wartime are pretty easy to come by.  Heck, you don’t even have to say exactly who the enemies are.  In fact, it’s better if you stay vague on the subject.  That’s why you talk about an “axis of evil,” which is good and scary.  Everybody’s scared of evil, except for evil worshipers, which is what makes them so scary–they’re part of the axis!

Some folks say you can’t have a “war on terrorism” because you can’t wage war against a tactic.  That’s nonsense.  We’ve been waging a war against a tactic for over five years, and there’s no end in sight.  

You see, the advantage to having a war against isms and evildoers is that there’s no end of isms and evildoers.  If you accidentally happen to defeat one evil-ism, you can always find another one to keep the war going.  And if you conduct the war in a way that every “success” creates more evildoers and isms, well shoot, you’re in like a frat boy unsnapping a bra.  

If people start complaining about how much all your foreign wars are starting to cost, all you have to tell them is that if “we” withdraw, “they” will follow us home, and the beauty part is that you don’t even need to explain who “they” are.  “They” are everybody who hates us, who hate our way of life.  And if you’ve spread around enough “hate talk” in the course of conducting your war on hateful evil and alienated all your allies, well then, everybody who hates us is everybody but “us.”

Which means “they” would need one heck of a big navy and air force in order to follow us “here.”  They don’t have a navy or air force that big, and they can’t build one.  There’s a chance “our” folks might figure that out eventually, which is why it’s so important to keep “us” so afraid of what “they” can’t do so that “we” can’t think straight enough to figure out “they” can’t do it.

What do we do about those war critics among “us” who are actually one of “them?”  “We” craft propaganda that accuses “them” of listening to “their” propaganda instead of listening to “ours.”

And who are “we?”  We’re everybody who doesn’t hate America, which is everyone who rallies behind the president in the conduct of his war against “them.”  And since every one of “us” who doesn’t rally around “him” is one of “them,” that gives “him” all the excuse he needs to take away those cherished “freedoms” he’s defending so he can keep “them” from taking away our cherished freedoms away from “us.”  

And why should any of “us” complain about that?  After all, “we” have but one habeas corpus to give for “our” country.

So let’s all get behind young Mister Bush and his cockamamie War on Evil.  After all, he’s a “decider”, not a “divider,” even if he is a “multiplier” of “them.”

Remember, you’re with us or against us.

Who are “you?”

#

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

Back in October of 2004, L. Paul Bremer gave a speech (it was supposed to be off the record) where he said:

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Those were big mistakes. But there were other bigger mistakes. As Woodward reports, Jay Garner told Donald Rumsfeld about them after he returned from Iraq (replaced by Bremer).

On June 18, 2003, Jay Garner went to see Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to report on his brief tenure in Iraq as head of the postwar planning office. Throughout the invasion and the early days of the war, Garner, a retired Army lieutenant general, had struggled just to get his team into Iraq. Two days after he arrived, Rumsfeld called to tell him that L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, a 61-year-old terrorism expert and protege of Henry A. Kissinger, would be coming over as the presidential envoy, effectively replacing Garner.

“We’ve made three tragic decisions,” Garner told Rumsfeld at their meeting.

“Really?” Rumsfeld said.

“Three terrible mistakes,” Garner said.

He cited the first two orders Bremer signed when he arrived, the first banning as many as 50,000 members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from government jobs and the second disbanding the Iraqi military. Now there were hundreds of thousands of disorganized, unemployed, armed Iraqis running around.

Third, Garner said, Bremer had summarily dismissed an interim Iraqi leadership group that had been eager to help the United States administer the country in the short term. “Jerry Bremer can’t be the face of the government to the Iraqi people. You’ve got to have an Iraqi face for the Iraqi people,” he said.

Garner made his final point: “There’s still time to rectify this. There’s still time to turn it around.”

Rumsfeld looked at Garner for a moment with his take-no-prisoners gaze. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think there is anything we can do, because we are where we are.”

He thinks I’ve lost it, Garner thought. He thinks I’m absolutely wrong. Garner didn’t want it to sound like sour grapes, but facts were facts. “They’re all reversible,” Garner said again.

“We’re not going to go back,” Rumsfeld said emphatically.

And with that, whatever chance America ever had in Iraq was over.

There is a revisionist history school of thought about the Vietnam War that holds that we had won the war there by 1972, and simply lost the resolve to keep up the fight. Evidently, and not so surprisingly, Henry Kissinger subscribes to this minority view. Woodward reports that Kissinger has sold Bush and Cheney on this view as well. The Bush administration appears to be refighting the Vietnam war using Kissinger’s revised playbook. This time, they plan on getting it right. This time there won’t be any discussion of troop withdrawals. To even discuss them would encourage the enemy. As for the Americans:

In a meeting with presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in early September 2005, Kissinger was more explicit: Bush needed to resist the pressure to withdraw American troops. He repeated his axiom that the only meaningful exit strategy was victory.

“The president can’t be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece,” Kissinger said. “You may want to reduce troops,” but troop reduction should not be the objective. “This is not where you put the emphasis.”

To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

“Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded,” he wrote.

The policy of “Vietnamization,” turning the fight over to the South Vietnamese military, Kissinger wrote, might increase pressure to end the war because the American public wanted a quick resolution. Troop withdrawals would only encourage the enemy. “It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those who remain, not to speak of their mothers.”

It’s hard to even know where to start with this madness. It seems to have never occurred to Kissinger that there were countless ways in which the U.S. Government’s dishonesty (about the reasons for our involvement in Vietnam, the conditions there, and the progress there) were instrumental in damaging the resolve of the American people and the Congress. That is the mistake they have repeated.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. There were no WMD in Iraq. The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive was a great military victory. But the very fact that it could be launched belied the rosy stories the government had been telling the American people. The Tet Offensive was devastating to U.S. ambitions in Vietnam only because of U.S. dishonesty. Had the American public been emotionally prepared for such a possibility, they would have seen nothing but a decimated North Vietnamese capability (which was the truth). But Kissinger, Bush, and Cheney don’t draw the proper conclusions.

And so we discover that the Pentagon deliberately defrauded Congress by issuing them a completely misleading report on Iraq.

In May, President Bush spoke in Chicago and gave a characteristically upbeat forecast: “Years from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat.”

Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that contradicted the president’s forecast.

Instead of a “long retreat,” the report predicted a more violent 2007: “Insurgents and terrorists retain the resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through the next year.”

A graph included in the assessment measured attacks from May 2003 to May 2006. It showed some significant dips, but the current number of attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraqi authorities was as high as it had ever been — exceeding 3,500 a month. (In July the number would be over 4,500.) The assessment also included a pessimistic report on crude oil production, the delivery of electricity and political progress.

On May 26, the Pentagon released an unclassified report to Congress, required by law, that contradicted the Joint Chiefs’ secret assessment. The public report sent to Congress said the “appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007.”

How is Congress supposed to feel about this? Are they supposed to show increased resolve now? Naturally, GOP lockstep aside, the Congress is going to lose confidence in the mission if it is going so badly that they are not even allowed to see the assessments of the Joint Chiefs.

It isn’t the American people that are the problem. It’s the situation on the ground in Iraq. They can’t hide that situation forever. And they obviously can’t be trusted with our foreign policy, or to tell the truth to Congress or the American people.

It’s a good thing Congress used their last day before the elections to give Bush more power.

Steven D recently posted a frontpaged diary called Three Simple Words: That’s a Lie! that I found to be more than a little simplistic.

It stated that if “we” only answered the Ratpub’s statements with a simple “That’s a LIE” response, “we” would win.

Aside from the classic Tonto response to the Lone Ranger when surround by hostiles…”Who ‘WE’, white man?”…there are other problems with this idea. The lying goes on from both sides of the aisle. It is directed from the back rooms, who are themselves directed by the boardrooms, and it is propagated by the mass media.

In toto.

“We” are now living in Admerica.

And Admerica is about to die. One way or another.

R.I.P?

No.

L.I.P.

Lie in Peace

Read on.
Sorry, Steven D, but I have to call bullshit on this one.

Why?

Because with the exception of a VERY few people, there in literally no one in office or running for office in the United States of Admerica who can truthfully say “I oppose the political, economic, social, international and domestic policies of this administration.”

Chavez can say it.

George Galloway can say it.

I can say it, and so can any number of OTHER people who stand absolutely no chance of ever successfully getting to a level where they can run for national office.

But the political establishment as it is defined by the media? As it is COVERED by the media?

No way.

All they have to do is say something like this and their opponents can quite truthfully say “That’s a LIE.”

Examples?

Sure.

Hillary Clinton, John “Small K” kerry, etc. -“I oppose the Iraq War.”

Opponent: “That’s a LIE. Check their voting records.”

General Clarke: “I oppose the use of military force to impose economic imperialist ends on foreign countries.”

Opponent: “That’s a LIE. He was a company cop for imperialism and has the blood of thousands on his hands in the service of the Great Game, late 20th century style.”

ANY GODDAMNED CANDIDATE WHATSOEVER-“I oppose the control of this government by corporate money.”

Opponent: “That’s a LIE. Check out where the campaign money comes from.”

And on and on and on.

The campaign operatives who counsel “moderation” do so because they know damned well that the whole game is fixed. It is fixed by the media and the corporate money that owns it. Their job is to GET THE CANDIDATE ELECTED. Which means, in this system, getting the candidate on the winning side of the fix.

Their other job, of course, is feeding their families and otherwise making a fortune. They are merely advertising execs. And as would be perfectly obvious if anyone stopped to think about it, one of the primary jobs of ad people if they are to be successful is to chose a client that is advertisable. Now if the advertising media…the news media, in this case…will not accept ads for a product as they are written and are quite likely to not only refuse to run those ads but instead run massive COUNTER-advertising campaigns demeaning the worth of the product (“ARRRRGH!!!” went the media when Dean ran, for example. And HE was a moderate!!!), then that product will not feed said ad execs’ families and therefore will at best attract inferior advertising people.

And that is the Darwinian truth of the matter. That is what is happening here in Admerica.

“That’s a LIE?”

In a nation of criminals, only the honest are found guilty.

And when EVERYTHING is a lie, then the truth is the only “lie” possible.

“Everything I say is a lie.”

One version of the Liar Paradox, a concept that stops all rational thought and discourse dead in its tracks.

Which is where we stand right now.

Here in Admerica.

Stopped dead in our tracks, running around in little circles.

Little circles of lies.

Little CLOSED circles.

Solution?

The only one that I can see is going to be so big a truth that it shatters the lies. But it will have to be SO big that it shatters the whole system.

We shall see…

It certainly will not be the fact that our entire government and all its corporate sponsors are bone-deep corrupt. That sort of information is already available all over the world except in the American media where it might count for something. It won’t be the lies of this administration or the votes of its so-called opponents or the sexual misadventures of the perverts who staff it or the truly massive financial corruption and line-level incompetence of both parties.

My guess?

Financial collapse brought about by any number of interrelated factors.

Or…the nuclear truth of the matter.

Death does not lie.

We shall see.

Let us pray.

Later…

AG

Representative Mark Foley’s arrest photo supplied by anonymous Palm Beach, FL authorities

Palm Beach, FL (Rotters) – Florida Congressional Representative Mark Foley was arrested by federal authorities upon his return to his home district in Palm Beach Florida, late last night. He has been charged as a sexual predator for inappropriate e-mail messages sent to a 16-year-old male congressional page. Foley has reportedly been cooperating with authorities but has angrily denied the charges stating, “I did not have virtual sex with that young man.”

The initial story of the sexualized e-mails was broken by ABC news late last night in conjunction with the weekend end of cycle bad news dump, but the story shows no evidence of disappearing over the weekend.

congressional disciplinary committees in place to deal with such matters. Both today adamantly denied any interventions upon Foley’s behalf and lauded the representative from Florida for his action in resigning his position yesterday. “The fact that my formerly esteemed colleague has been called to the carpet is further evidence of the effectiveness and necessity of the warrantless wiretapping bill for the security of America that we will be handing to the president, next week,” stated Hastert.

Hastert and Boehner present Foley with a congressional award sponsored by “My Space.Com” for his work on a congressional page mentorship program earlier this year.

Hastert and Boehner praised Foley for his years of service, and his work at promoting legislation against child predators, but stopped short of defending his behavior with the 16-year-old page. Both professed ignorance to Foley’s activities, earlier in the year as they had presented them with an award for his efforts in a mentorship program for congressional pages.

In a related story, conservative bloggers have uncovered and published the name and address of the congressional page in question in an effort to force him to come forwards and confess his degree of complicity in what they describe as the online seduction of representative Foley.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW:

Cheney Wrests Control from Bush in Bloodless Coup over Concerns of Rampant Defeatism

President bush escorted from undisclosed location

Washington, DC (APE) – The United States of America early this morning, became the second democracy to fall victim to a bloodless coup in the past month, following closely in the footsteps of the military coup in Thailand. Details are sketchy at present, but at apparently 6 a.m. this morning, Vice President Dick Cheney wrested control of the presidency from the 43rd President George W. Bush.

Tank moved into place overnight at the White House

White House spokespersons urged the American public to remain calm during a time of necessary transition. They stated that President Cheney would likely be making a statement to the public later in the morning after necessary security measures had been taken. Tanks were seen patrolling barricaded streets in downtown Washington, and had assumed defensive positions around the White House itself.

Cheney introducing Libby as the new temporary Vice President

Cheney spoke briefly to a handful of selected Fox News reporters and photographers from an undisclosed location. He announced that his personal assistant, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, would be assuming temporarily the position of Vice President.

Cheney urging patience for the transitional government, and encouraged soldiers to greet the public with a sneer

“Sadly, the rumors of the president’s growing mental instability are true,” stated Cheney. “There has been a progressive decline in function, but he has noticeably deteriorated over the past week, as evidenced by his release of a highly classified national intelligence estimate to the public yesterday. In my capacity as vice president, I found it necessary to act aggressively at that point in the best interests of the security of America. I take no pleasure in assuming the mantle of the leader of the free world, but it is my sworn duty.”

Cheney described the damage done by the recent leaks of the NIE as “incalculable” in the ongoing war on terror, and vowed that everyone involved would be “hunted down and punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Bush shouted repeatedly, “This is just wrong!”

President Bush was seen in handcuffs and shackles, leaving a side exit to the undisclosed location. “I am the president, and this is just wrong,” he shouted, interspersed with fits of profanity. Bush was rapidly placed in the presidential limousine, and the heavily escorted motorcade sped away. White House sources refuse to comment on the disposition of Mr. Bush.

Cheney went on to state that both houses of Congress would likely be dissolved over the next few days in light of its failure to expedite needed measures in the ongoing war against terror. He promised free elections in the newly reformed government as soon as humanly possible when terrorist threats to America throughout the world had been completely dealt with. “This cancer of defeatism will be surgically removed from around the heart of America,” stated Cheney.

“To Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Jong Il,” stated Cheney, “consider yourselves on immediate notice. You have exactly one week to cease-and-desist with all activities which we have deemed a threat to the United States, or face nuclear consequences.”

Bush being escorted to a waiting limousine

The whereabouts of administration officials who had been close to the president was not immediately known. Rumors indicated that presidential assistant Karl Rove and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were still at large and in hiding. Donald Rumsfeld apparently remained in charge at the Pentagon.

           

Allen Campaign Pushes Back Aggressively against Racism Charges

Virginia Senator George Allen speaking in a casual moment with Rotters reporters

Washington, DC (Rotters) – In what appears to be a dramatic reversal in strategy from the George Allen Senatorial reelection campaign, Senator Allen, this morning stepped forwards and admitted that he had indeed used the “n-word” in the past, and with some frequency in the present times. He insisted that charges that this has been done in a malicious or racist intent were just “ludicrously false”. He wrote off his previous denials to bad campaign advice, and vowed to set the record straight.

Allen’s reversal comes in the wake of multiple assertions from past friends and acquaintances within the past week, who have come forward to recount their recollections of Allen’s usage of the racial epithet.

Of note, Allen, as well, has recently had to admit and embrace his mother’s Jewish upbringing, of which he insists that he was not aware.

Allen: “I have amassed a huge amount of political bling”

“This really changes nothing,” stated Allen. “If anything, it gives me greater freedom to present the voters my true character and have them decide for themselves. If former President Clinton can admit on national TV that he made a mistake by not killing Osama Bin Laden, then this is a small but significant contribution by comparison to furthering the cause of honesty in politics. To those who have already begun to discount me in this race, I would counter that I have amassed a huge amount of political bling from my constituents in Virginia, and I’m going to cash it in.”

          *

Bin Laden Niece Demands Access to His CIA Pension Plan

Bin Laden niece Wafa Dufor speaking with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and CIA chief Michael Hayden

New York, NY (APE) – CNN news is reporting, in an exclusive interview, that singer-songwriter Wafa Dufor, the niece of Al Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden is demanding that the CIA grant her access to Bin Laden’s retirement and pension plan with the agency as Bin Laden’s survivor. Dufor insisted that the rumors of Bin Laden’s death had been confirmed and that she now wanted to have the CIA honor its commitments to agency family members in regards to pension, retirement, and death benefits.

Dufor produced documents showing that Bin Laden had early on taken advantage of retirement packages offered by the CIA upon his enlistment as a mujahedin in the 1980s in the efforts against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Her calculations indicated that Bin Laden had done well with an aggressive portfolio targeted towards early retirement, which had significantly outperformed most investment firms.

CIA chief, Michael Hayden was interviewed, and commented that the agency was performing a full review of Dufor’s claims. He insisted, however that any disbursement would first be weighed against claims resulting from the ongoing war on terror and the original 9/11 World Trade Center attack. He expressed optimism that the magnitude of the accumulated funds involved might be sufficient to satisfy the interests of all parties, including Dufor.

In possibly related news, in a quiet ceremony this morning, another star was carved into the CIA’s wall of secrecy.

         

Clinton Detained by Fox Security in Wake of Wallace Interview

Former President Clinton handcuffed and taken into custody by Fox Security

CLICK TO ENLARGE

New York, NY (Rotters) – Former President Bill Clinton was detained outside of his New York City office after a brief scuffle in which his small Secret Service detail was overwhelmed by a greater number of Fox Network Security personnel. His detention comes a day after his lambasting of Fox news anchor Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday”.

In the interview with Wallace, Clinton aggressively defended his record on terrorism against what he described as a coordinated right-wing conservative attack launched two weeks ago through an ABC fictional movie “The Path to 9/11” which was followed closely and elaborated upon by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News network.

Fox News adamantly denied the allegations of conspiracy and stated that they were in discussions with Alberto Gonzales and the Department of Justice about how best to proceed with possible charges against the former president. Fox News described the former president’s behavior as “sadly scurrilous, and bordering upon slander”. Fox Security stated that the Justice Department would be investigating the possibility of charging the president with “aiding and comforting the enemy” through his nationally televised tirade, which also called into question the actions of the Bush administration.

“My heart really goes out to Chris,” stated popular Fox Network celebrity Bill O’Reilly. “You really do take a chance when you bring some of these far left nut jobs on to your show. But, Chris is young, and I think he’s probably learned something from all of this. And to the former president Clinton, and I use that term loosely, I say to you sir, “Have you no sense of decency?” Show some respect for the office that you used to hold. A conspiracy? This is America, sir, and let this be a lesson to you and all of your left wing terrorist sympathizer friends that the reputation of Fox News is not one to be trifled with. Olbermann, I hope you’re watching.”

Fox Security refused to disclose the location of Mr. Clinton, stating only that the former president was cooperating at this point, and it was uncertain whether he would be turned over to federal authorities.

          *

Bush Confirms Death of Osama Bin Laden

President Bush, verifying the death of Al Qaeda commander Osama Bin Laden

Washington, DC (APE) – President Bush early this morning confirmed rumors of the death of Osama bin Laden, stating that, reluctantly, Bin Laden had died at the hands of foreign interrogators, not affiliated with the CIA. Bush stated that the CIA had been working fairly closely with the unnamed foreign government agency, but assumed no responsibilities for the treatment of Bin Laden.

Bush displayed pictures of the deceased bin Laden and stated that the body would be released to family members in time for full respect of Muslim burial customs, perhaps seeking to soften an anticipated backlash from Islamic extremists.

Rumors of Bin Laden’s death had been spreading among major news associations today, citing sources from Saudi Arabia and France who had suggested that he had died earlier this month from typhus. The White House stated that it was simply trying to keep the record straight, while critics pointed to the announcement as possibly an effort to rebuke criticism over the administration’s perceived lack of concern over Bin Laden and Al Qaeda prior to this November’s coming election.

Autopsy photos of Bin Laden showing post mortem markings from various “stress postion” interrogation techniques

“While this administration does not condone torture of any type,” stated Bush, “this evil killer seems to have gotten what he deserved… the Lord, or Allah works in mischievous ways. This just further illustrates the need for Congress to whip into shape and pass this administration’s anti-terror legislation. Who knows what kind of useful information we could have gotten from him if his interrogation had been done right.”

Bush brushed off questions of the announcement as being an anticipated “October Surprise” for the coming elections. “Well, he didn’t really last until October, now did he?” Bush quipped with reporters, “We finally got number one, and we’re looking forward to the next one… bring ’em on.”

The administration refused to answer questions as to how long Bin Laden had been in the custody of the unnamed foreign security agency, or what, if any information, Bin Laden had given up, citing security concerns.

God knows, I’ve offered up this advice before, and never seen it take hold with candidates too timid to respond to the slanders and smears being hurled their way, but maybe this time it will be different. Maybe some of them will ignore their well paid, well dressed beltway consultants who always urge caution, and moderation in the face of brazen insults to their reputation and honor. Maybe this time, after seeing the what having a little spine looks like in President Clinton’s stand up performance against Fox News, they will abandon the advice promoted by those who have lead this party to defeat after defeat in our elections. Perhaps, the next time they are confronted with Republican smears and slanders in Republican campaign commercials, and/or parroted by smug television pundits and anchors, they won’t just sit back and take it.

So what should they do? Commit these three simple words to memory and then use them over and over again, as many times as needed:

“That’s a LIE.”
Harsh? Overly blunt? Too intemperate? Hardly. It’s merely the truth, and someone defending themselves against lies should be a clear as possible. They shouldn’t sugar coat their responses with mealy mouthed euphemisms, that, in effect, suggest to many people there may be some substance to the scurrilous charges slung at them by amoral, “say anything to win” Republicans. When you are being attacked by rabid dogs, the time for “niceties” and “polite debate” is long over.

Here are a few examples of how Democrats can turn nasty, abusive and lying GOP talking points on their head by using these three simple words when they are attacked with them:

Example One: Don’t you support the terrorists when you promote a policy that seeks the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq?”

“That’s a LIE.” It’s the Republicans who cut and ran from Osama Bin Laden when they had him trapped at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. When our commanders in the field wanted more troops to capture Osama and destroy the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters with him, he refused because he was more interested in invading Iraq than capturing the killers who murdered 3000 of our people. Now he lives peacefully in western Pakistan, because our ally, President Musharraf won’t go after him, and neither will President Bush. Meanwhile Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters have renewed their fierce attacks on Afghanistan and its government because George Bush cut and ran rather than bring these murderers to justice.

Example Two: Aren’t you preaching a policy of defeatism to Americans when you suggest we abandon Iraq, which President Bush has called the central front in the War on Terror?

“That’s a LIE.” Iraq is only the central front in George Bush’s imagination. Our troops are fighting for their lives each day in the middle of a civil war which George Bush and his administration did nothing to prevent because they failed to plan for it. Despite numerous warnings from military and intelligence experts on Iraq regarding what would happen if we invaded, all their expert advice was ignored by President Bush and his advisors. Now he won’t even admit that he made a mistake, even as our own intelligence agencies confirm that our presence in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism against America and Americans. Staying in Iraq makes us less safe, not more.

Example Three: Doesn’t the President need these tough interrogation practices to defend us against an enemy as ruthless as Islamic extremists, and isn’t your opposition to the bill which was just passed by Congress misguided, naive and simply wrong given what happened on 9/11? And isn’t your opposition to these effective interrogation methods providing comfort and support to our enemies?

“That’s a LIE.” We didn’t need torture to defeat the Nazis in World War II, or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. No one can tell me Osama Bin Laden is a more dangerous or evil enemy that the Nazis or the Soviets. The Nazis killed millions in the Holocaust, and in their wars against the other peoples of Europe, and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy our country many times over, but in neither case did we consider it necessary to abandon our moral and Constitutional principles in order to torture prisoners. If we didn’t need it then, when our very existence was threatened why do we need it now?

What’s more every expert I’ve ever talked to tells me torture is ineffective. It gives you bad information, because tortured people will say anything make the torture stop. And they will especially tell you what you want to hear. Some of the intelligence President Bush relied upon to show a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq came from tortured Al Qaeda members who simply told their interrogators what they wanted to hear. And we now know that there was no connection. Saddam hated Al Qaeda, and never cooperated with them. So don’t tell me President Bush needs a law which lets him violate the Geneva Conventions and our own Constitution in order to keep us safe because that’s a lie.

Example Four: The Republicans, and I’m thinking here of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, specifically, but there are others, have charged that a Democratic victory this Fall will provide aid and comfort to the terrorists and make our country more vulnerable to another terrorist attack. They say you don’t understand the true nature of the threat posed by this enemy, because if you did you wouldn’t attack the President’s policies in Iraq? How do you respond?

“That’s a LIE.” It’s the Republicans, and Mr. Bush who don’t understand this threat. Who after all was in charge when the 9/11 attack occurred? Who ignored the warnings of his August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”? Who down played the seriousness of the terrorist threat, and ignored the plan prepared by the Clinton administration for dealing with Al Qaeda? And afterwards, who let Osama escape because he wanted to invade Iraq, a country with no connection to 9/11? Who insists that we remain in Iraq, where more and more of our troops die in are horribly wounded each day fighting a war that our own intelligence analysts in the CIA have told us is making the threat of terrorism greater? It was President Bush and the Republicans.

Democrats have long had a plan to fight terrorists that doesn’t involve wasting billions of dollars on no bid contracts to corrupt Republican campaign contributors for the failed reconstruction of Iraq. We have a plan to improve the security of our ports, and other vulnerable facilities such as chemical and nuclear plant. We have a plan to improve funding to our first responders, police, firefighters and paramedics, money that is desperately needed to prepare for any future attack. We have a plan to improve our intelligence agencies, so that we get better and more timely information on terrorist threats. We have a plan to increase cooperation with our allies and other nations threatened by terrorists, so that more terrorist cells can be disrupted and individual terrorists brought to justice. Rather than create more enemies by pursuing the failed strategy of stay the course in Iraq, we would re-deploy our military forces to where they can do the most good — in Afghanistan tracking down Al Qaeda and Taliban killers.

See, that wasn’t so hard. Just call a spade a spade, or in this case a lie a lie, and then tell the truth about how President Bush and the Republicans have failed America, and what Democrats are going to do to fix things. I’m sure you could think of many more examples of GOP talking points, and generate better responses to them than I can. But it all starts with three little words. Let me hear you say them, now, and don’t be shy about it:

“That’s a LIE.”

Republican Talking Points

Republican Lies

Democratic Responses to republican Talking Points

President Bush

2006 election

Iraq

War on Terror

Democrats

Part IV of FDR and the Unfinished Agenda

by Chris White with AvaHome
for ePluribus Media

Editors’ Note: On September 30, 1934 FDR had his sixth fireside chat with the nation. With that anniversary coming up, and when many of us feel that our nation is on the brink of a different type of disaster, FDR’s words hold hope and inspiration for us all.

Writer Chris White and researcher Ava Home have prepared a 5-part series looking at the FDR legacy, especially in light of the current administration’s disasterous record. The entire series is on the ePluribus Media Journal in the FDR and the Unfinished Agenda feature.

The Free Market money crowd has tried to set itself up as the ultimate historical judge of FDR’s policies impact on the country suggesting that: "it didn’t work you know, was all incompetent." The silence, perhaps, comes from the continuing legacy the McCarthy witch-hunt.. But, who really were the "reds"? All too often it was people who had been supporters of FDR during the 1930’s and the war. Which beds were they under? Democratic ones, of course.

Witch-hunts are a traditional method of cutting off the transmission of ideas and interfering with the succession of generations. It was not so different than what the radical right did to the Democrats with the continuous, more than 8-years worth, sliming of Bill Clinton, and has continued to do since 9/11, with their fear mongering, slanders, innuendoes and half-truths. They are truly the vicious children and grand-children of the union of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohen.

A summary assessment begins by distinguishing between the institutional political legacy of FDR and his personal legacy.

To reassess the first, one could highlight FDR’s leadership, which won the war against Hitler’s fascism. Compare FDR’s leadership between Dec 7th1941 and May 8th1945 with Bush’s between September 11thth 2001 and September 11thth 2006. Who mobilized 18 million into the Armed forces, became a beacon for democracy, produced a world wide alliance, and kept the home economy going and growing, by drawing on unused capacity, like the women who went to work, while their men went to fight?

Who took the country from circumstances (not unlike those that the challengers of Joe Louis found themselves in, flat out and almost flat-lined) to become the power which fought and won a world war in the brief 12 years from 1933-1945? The von Mises Society — bitter opponents of FDR and his New Deal policies? The Heritage Foundation? If either of these organizations — financial and economic orthodoxies had been pursued, that 12-year transformation from the bottom to world leadership would not have occurred.

Or, one could highlight the continued effect of FDR’s programs like Social Security, which has survived all attempts at its destruction, including last year’s campaign by this President, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Or, one could look into "institutional areas" which are more contentious and probably less discussed, and perhaps one of the reasons for McCarthy’s post war red-baiting of FDR Democrats. It was FDR who encouraged Black voters on Democratic rolls in the South. It was FDR who enabled Black farmers to vote on his proposed agricultural policies along with white farmers. It was FDR who opened the armed services to Blacks in the war. It was FDR who brought Blacks into his government, where they organized their presence through the so-called "Black Cabinet." 1

Although FDR did not support his wife’s campaign against lynching and did not back the legislation in Congress to outlaw it, his wife did and so did her friends. And she supported Marian Anderson when the Daughters of the American Revolution would not let her sing at Constitution Hall. Eleanor Roosevelt proudly presented the singer with the NAACP’s leading achievement award later that year.2

Diversity? It was FDR who brought Frances Perkins into his administration as the first female cabinet member and Secretary of Labor. It was FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), with the Title 1 encouragement of collective bargaining which encouraged John Lewis to go to his members in the United Mine Workers (UMW) and say "Mr. Roosevelt wants you to organize." And it was Senator Wagner from New York, whose activities in Washington on labor questions during the Hoover administration had complemented what FDR was trying to achieve as Governor, who really opened the door for trade union organizing for the first time. Not surprisingly, the Wagner Act was one of the earliest casualties of the attacks on FDR’s legacy.

None of these by themselves were really big steps. But of such first small steps come big ones and then movements — such as the movement for civil rights among the vets who came back from World War II, who had successfully fought against Hitler’s fascism. Why then did Americans fight for freedom in Germany, if they are not going to have it here?

Just as FDR made these many institutional changes to the country and world, which have endured, he also made changes to the culture. His work broadened access and opened the way for the exercise of rights by those who did not have them.

FDR left an agenda, which is as yet unfinished, which includes providing security for those years when a person cannot work, namely, childhood, sickness and old age. Finally, he left a vision for a comfortable living standard for all who work.

None of these things have yet been achieved. Maybe it is because people have attempted to do these things piece by piece, as technical measures, without fully realizing that all this unfinished agenda is part of a coherent design of broadened political rights secured against those who still insist on seeing the ‘citizen’ as only the moral equivalent of property. Those who have only their labor, whether physical, mental or spiritual, to offer their country and their fellows, are still not on a level playing field with the investment class and the money powers. FDR however, like Lincoln, fought for the idea that the rights associated with the citizen are primary. The exercise of citizenship cannot be supplanted through contractual and other relations associated with working for a living. Perhaps we are all only waiting for someone to stand up with the imagination to say, there is a missing element in these technical prescriptions. The human element. Perhaps we need someone to step forward and take up the struggle to secure those political rights (which our forefathers have tried to do three times so far).

More profound than these legacies is what FDR did to help the world conquer polio. Hugh Gregory Gallagher’s book, FDR’s Splendid Deception, is about FDR and polio.  FDR fought, from the time soon after he came down with the disease in 1921 when he first went to Warm Springs, Georgia, , to build up a therapeutic center for fellow sufferers of the disease. He sank his own money into doing it, despite the opposition of his mother and wife, who were concerned that he not go off what they thought was the deep end. He built Warm Springs, actively encouraging therapeutic work done there.

Warm Springs depended on large contributions. But during the Depression these contributions began to dry up. FDR’s staff thought of organizing local birthday parties for FDR to raise smaller sums, kept in the localities to help fund further treatment centers and research. It was in this effort, in the mid to late 1930s that Jonas Salk, who later discovered the polio vaccine, got involved. The birthday party idea had its limits too, but then came Eddie Cantor with the name for the March of Dimes.

One of the prime movers was Basil O’Connor, 4 FDR’s law partner, who was part of the "Brain Trust." O’Connor over the course of the 1930s and the war, transformed this fundraising activity into a highly-focused and well-funded research program. Those who had been ashamed of the ravages of the disease on their families found the strength to "come out." Doctors were more encouraged to include polio and its effects in their diagnostic profiles because people were no longer ashamed as they had been.. This change augmented the funding of research and therapeutic centers – all made possible by FDR’s example.

After FDR died, O’Connor kept up the work of this campaign to find a cure and defeat the disease. By this point it had become a multimillion dollar operation. Salk’s research was funded to a successful conclusion. And in about a generation after FDR himself had contracted the disease, it was largely eradicated. Would this have happened without FDR? Probably not. Would it have happened if FDR had not so inspired those who were his closest political collaborators? Probably not. Does this story tell us something about the kind of people that FDR and his collaborators were? Absolutely it does. And, absolutely, the kind of concentration, compassion, and love, which organized the fight against that disease, is the same which went into the political fight against property rights.

FDR’s is legacy to be proud of as Americans: it is certainly not one to be hidden away, as if it itself is still suffering from some strange disease we don’t talk about. FDR wasn’t some charming old con man, but someone with the all too human ability to affect his world through the people around him, and to continue doing so, in beneficial ways, after his own death. A real image for a person’s ability to rise above adversity, and keep rising, and bringing others along too.

[1]Mary McLeod Bethune, appointed director of Black Affairs for the National Youth Administration became the acknowledged leader of the unofficial "Black Cabinet" which met at her home every Friday. She led support for the "Scottsboro Boys," for the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, the New Negro Alliance (boycotts of stores where Blacks could not work), supporter of the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign, and known as the "First Lady of the Struggle." Blanche Wiesen Cooke "Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol II, the Defining Years, 1933-1938" page 160. NY 1999.

[2] When the DAR banned Marian Anderson from singing at Constitution Hall in 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the organization, and with Harold Ickes, and others, organized a concert for Ms. Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, which was attended by 75,000. Conrad Black "Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom" NY 2003, page 392.

[3] "To begin meeting this demand, the Foundation (National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis set up September 23rd 1937) established various fellowship programs for doctors and scientists. An early beneficiary of such a program was Jonas Salk, later to be a developer of the polio virus vaccine." Hugh Gregory Gallagher "FDR’s Splendid Deception" NY 1985, page 149. The section on the campaign for a cure is a summary of Gallagher’s Chapter XIV "The March of Dimes"

[4] O’Connor’s role in the campaign from the late 1920’s is detailed in Gallagher’s chapter. "In the early 1950’s, the Foundation raised over $50 million dollars a year. Even these immense sums were not enough, and O’Connor authorized the Foundation to go into debt to finance the final push necessary to prove and produce the serum." Gallagher, p.cit. p151.

Key Research by: AvaHome

ePluribus Media editors and fact checkers for this article: JeninRI, Aaron Barlow, Cache, standingup, cho, stoy, Roxy, GreyHawk and Vivian.

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