If there continue to be unsecured hackable electronic voting machines with no paper trails and no procedures in place for transparent routine audits of ballots--how can any voter be assured that their vote is accurately counted, even when they are allowed to vote?

Reposted from last thread. I’m sorry to be repetitive, but this topic is still pertinent, as our neighbor and ally Canada will now be checking any of their citizens detained by the US for signs of torture—despite president bush’s claims that “America doesn’t torture”. Apparently Canada believes that it does—even though Congress is still dithering about accepting responsibility for putting a stop to this shameful practice.

Silence and/or Talk without Action = Complicity = Shared Guilt. Speaker Pelosi? She spoke today, and said again that Congress is doing so many important things—they’re just too “busy” for Impeachment. Speaker Pelosi? Guilty ….

Those who stand by and allow such sameful acts to be committed by the leaders of this country--when they have the power to bring them to trial for these, and many, many more criminal acts-- share the guilt of those who commit these acts.

If Congress members are trying to deny their complicity by mouthing half-hearted scoldings and sending Sternly Worded Letters--with no "teeth", they are just fooling themselves. If they hope to distract citizens with long-drawn out legal procedures and a series of SWL's, unfortunately the citizens have seen through the smoke and mirrors. We see only weak, lukewarm, spiritless, perfunctory showmanship, which we know is designed to make us believe that something is being done, when in fact--nothing is being done.

THIS is what must be done--the only thing that can be done to stop the criminals: 206, 752 citizens have signed Representative Wexler's Petition calling for Impeachment. These citizens do not wish to be guilty of complicity in such crimes as torture and spying on fellow citizens--Nor Do They want their elected "representatives" to continue to be complicit in such despicable crimes. Disenfranchisement?

There is not enough soap in the world to wash the blood off the hands of those who stood by and allowed it to be spilled, when they could have stopped it.

But it's better than declaring election fraud, during wartime, a terrorist act.

Subverting the will of "we the people", with dirty tricks, is a fucking terrorist act that should supercede this temporary elective war against Shiite Muslims. If the war is merely generational, it's temporary.

If it weren't for an act of domestic terrorism, George Bush would be having sex with farm animals in Crawdad. Of course, I have no proof of this, but I have no proof of God either. That doesn't mean I can't believe.

You helped create the Patriot Act, use it for good...rather than evil.

Why won't you prosecute these fuckers as terrorists?

Or is the Patriot Act for Just-Us?

SS Agent: “We Broke the Law in Cheney Incident” and Cheney Evades Oversight

Then there’s this: “Press or Propaganda—You Decide”: regarding the apparently deliberately hyped report of an incident between US Navy ships and Iranian ships in the Gulf, reported coincidentially just as president bush was going to the Middle East to badger leaders of countries he visited to unite against Iran:

"...So Bryan Whitman held an off-the-record briefing (which technically means that information provided could not be used on the record).. Okay, so clearly Whitman was not sitting in the bowls of the DOD splicing fake audio to go along with doctored video. In other words, this was an operation that included more than just Whitman and since domestic propaganda is illegal, then this is evidence of a conspiracy to mislead the public and Congress..."

"...What is interesting too is that although the DOD reporters are not there to investigate stories, they are still supposed to actually ask questions, not just parlay unofficial government positions into stories using a single, unnamed source of information…”

"...I have to ask another serious question about this. What role did Stephen Hadley play in fixing this new propaganda around the policy? As we know, he briefed the President that morning..."

"...but we were told that all of the "bad apples" were gone. Should these people not be all identified and held accountable for at the very least violating propaganda laws? To say nothing of the other laws relating to fraud and tampering with evidence that should also be considered. Now if these people did not act alone, rather, they were following orders - then whose orders were they following? Was Stephen Hadley part of that chain? Who else was part of that chain?..."

But apparently we’ll never know, because Speaker Pelosi and the Chairman have “more important things” to do than to prevent bush, cheney and members of their administration from starting another needless war.

207, 320 Citizens--and still counting--are calling for Accountability, Oversight and Consequences for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article II

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
(emphasis MINE)

Section 1, no where states the Office of the Vice President of the U.S.A. is a different Office from that of the President's. Yet, the current V.P. is given "A PASS" by Congress.

Section 1 does not say the SCOTUS may decide who the electorate voted for.

Section 1, affirms the Oath of Office for the President, to the Constitution, it's preservation, protection and defense. No where does Section I affirm the defense of "THE HOMELAND".

Section 2, states equivocally, he is NOT the commander of the Nation, it's people or Government, but of ONLY the military.

Section 2 requires the consent of the Senate to affirm ALL TREATIES. No where does it state that the President may dismiss ANY TREATIES for political convenience.

Section 3, requires that he address BOTH Houses of Congress. No where does it say he may LIE to a convened meeting of both Houses.

Section 3 requires that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed". No where does it say that he may order Constitutional laws to be violated.

Section 4 requires CONSEQUENCES for Bribery, Treason or HIGH CRIMES and MISDEMEANORS.

Q U E S T I O N:
WHY DOES CONGRESSMAN CONYERS AND SPEAKER PELOSI ACT AS IF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A. ARE ABOVE THE LAW...
UNTOCHABLE? UN-INPEACHABLE?

==============
I M P E A C H
or RESIGN !!!

Find the Truth About Bush's Wars

Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!

By Richard Behan

When people who honestly believe a lie
learn the truth, they will either cease believing,
or they will cease being honest.

--anonymous

17/01/08 "Counterpunch" --- - Speaker Pelosi, President Bush could have achieved his goal of "regime change" in Iraq quickly and without the violence of war. Saddam Hussein offered, weeks before his country was invaded, to leave Iraq and go into exile. President Bush withheld this offer from public view-and refused it. Nor did the President need to invade Afghanistan to apprehend Osama bin Laden. On five different occasions, George Bush refused a standing offer from the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden-three times before 9/11 and twice thereafter, again without public disclosure.

No, the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are not directed against terrorism. They are territorial in nature. Mr. Bush intended from his first days in office to invade the two countries: as early as late January, 2001, his Administration was developing the decisions and beginning the preparations for both military incursions. 9/11 was in the distant future, so the conflicts cannot be exercises in counter-terrorism, as the Bush Administration frequently and dishonestly insists. They are premeditated wars of unprovoked conquest and occupation.

Madam Speaker, if you know this, and if you continue refusing impeachment, then you are a criminal accomplice in violating the trust of the American people-and in violating both U.S. and international law.

If you do not know this truth about the wars, Madam Speaker, you must learn its details and embrace it, and then you must seek with dispatch and justice to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.

You claim you don't have the votes. But to say that is to canvass the jury before the trial begins, before the evidence is presented and scrutinized. When the hideous truth of these wars is finally exposed-as it will be in the impeachment process-you will have the vote of every honest and patriotic member of the House of Representatives, Democrat and Republican alike.

Why isn't the truth already widely known? There are two reasons. The Bush Administration is infamous for its pathological lying and secrecy: they have done everything in their power to distort or suppress the truth. And the mainstream press has become an engine of entertaining, not informing the American people: it is indifferent to the truth.

But the truth is always there, and it can be discovered in foreign news outlets, in the domestic alternate press, in book-length treatises, and in the passion for truth and unconstrained inquiry displayed by people posting to the Internet. These are the sources for the exposition to follow.

Madam Speaker, if you will not impeach, then you must refute this history, if you can.

THE WARS ARE NOT ABOUT TERRORISM

The Bush Administration's Curious Behavior

Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush told the world the United States would take the fight directly to the terrorists and the states that harbored them. Thus the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" was born.

Less than a month later, on October 7, Mr. Bush launched a savage aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. He had the support of a shocked American citizenry and a sympathetic world, all of whom expected justice to be delivered soon to the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the harboring state embodied in the Taliban.

The incursion into Afghanistan was sold as the first action in the "War on Terror." It was a brilliantly executed charade.

Flashback to October 12, 2000, a year earlier. The USS Cole, an American Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, has suffered heavy damage from a terrorist attack, perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Three weeks later officials of the Clinton Administration met with theTaliban in the Sheraton Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. To avoid a violent retaliation of furious bombing, the Taliban offered the unconditional surrender of Osama bin Laden.

Before the details of the transfer were completed, however, a Supreme Court ruling gave George W. Bush the White House, and the message was passed: the actual handover of bin Laden will be deferred until the Bush Administration is sworn in.

Once in office, the new Administration asked the Taliban to delay the handover of Osama bin Laden at least until February. As winter faded into spring, and spring into summer, the Administration demurred twice more.

Then Osama bin Laden struck again, on September 11, 2001.

On September 15, Taliban officials were flown in U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the deal was sweetened. The standing offer of surrendering Osama bin Laden was renewed, but now the Taliban would also oversee the closure of bin Laden's bases and training camps.

This time the White House simply rejected the offer out of hand. It did so again when the offer was repeated several weeks later, and days after that President Bush ordered the violence to begin.

The invasion of Afghanistan was something vastly different than a quest to apprehend a terrorist..

Sources for this section:

1. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over," Guardian Unlimited (UK), October 14, 2001.

2. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Surrender bin Laden," Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), October 15, 2001.

3. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.

4. "How Bush Was Offered bin Laden and Blew It," Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch, November 1, 2004.

5. "Did Bush try to stop bin Laden in his first eight months in office?" MSNBC Countdown, September 28, 2006.

The War in Afghanistan

The commitment to invade Afghanistan was made long before 9/11.

The Bush Administration wanted to secure for American energy companies-notably the Enron and Unocal Corporations-the strategic pipeline route across Afghanistan to the Caspian Basin. But the Taliban had signed a contract in 1996 with the Bridas Corporation of Argentina, preempting the route.

Scarcely settled in Washington in early 2001, the Bush Administration immediately pressed the Taliban to rescind the Bridas contract, and undertook planning for military intervention should negotiations fail. Administration officials and the Taliban met for talks three times throughout the spring and summer, in Washington D.C., Berlin, and Islamabad-but to no avail.

At the last session, in August, 2001 the Administration threatened a "carpet of bombs" if the Taliban did not comply. The Taliban would not. Soon thereafter-still weeks before September 11-President Bush notified Pakistan and India he would attack Afghanistan "before the end of October."

Then 9/11. Then two more refusals of Osama bin Laden's head. Then, on October 7, the Bush Administration looses the carpet of bombs.

Since then Afghanistan has been supplied with a puppet government, the Bridas contract is history, and the country is dotted today with permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to the pipeline route. It was a war of conquest and occupation.

Counter-terrorism is scarcely visible. Osama bin Laden remains at large, the yield of "terrorists" to date consists of several hundred iconic and badly treated wretches in Guantanamo Bay, and terrorism in the Middle East has intensified, not diminished.

Sources for this section:

1. "Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas, Unocal, and the Afghanistan pipeline," Larry Chin, Online Journal, March, 2002.

2. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism, Paul Sperry, WND Books, 2003.

3. Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, February 23, 2003.

4. "A Timeline of Oil and Violence: Afghanistan", see the website, http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm

5. "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat," New York Times, September 24, 2006.

6. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.

THE WARS ARE ABOUT AMERICAN HEGEMONY-AND OIL

The War in Iraq

The template for the invasion of Iraq was crafted in 1992, in Richard Cheney's Defense Department during the first Bush Administration. It was a document advocating a U.S. posture of singular global dominance in economic, diplomatic, and military power. The authors were Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Their document spoke explicitly about the need to secure "...access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil," and Iraq was in the crosshairs.

In 1996, the Project for the New American Century was created, touting the term "global hegemony," and seeking to maintain America's status as the world's only superpower, using preemptive war if necessary. Among the founders of the PNAC were the earlier advocates of world dominion: Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush were founding members as well.

In a 1998 letter to President Clinton the PNAC people once again sought the invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and 15 others signed the letter.

In September of 2000 the Project for the New American Century once more advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Then four months later, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis "Scooter" Libby-and 24 others from the PNAC-moved into top positions in the Bush Administration.

The commitment to invade Iraq was made at the first meeting of President Bush's National Security Council in January of 2001.

The rationale was ideological, apparently: by means of a preemptive war, to take an initial step toward global hegemony. A more tangible objective would soon emerge.

Sources for this section:

1. "Empire Builders: Neoconservatives and their blueprint for U.S. Power," Christian Science Monitor , a series appearing June, 2005.

2. The website of the Project for the New American Century. See http://www.newamericancentury.org/

3. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2004.

4. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.

Regime Change

In December of 2002, 3 months before his country was invaded, Saddam Hussein invited the Bush Administration to send U.S. troops into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he said he could prove Iraq was not involved in 9/11. His entreaty was turned aside by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Two months later Hussein promised unlimited access to the FBI to search for WMD's, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, and even some limited rights to Iraq's oil. All this was rejected. Finally, in desperation Saddam Hussein offered personally to depart Iraq for exile in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Once again he was refused by the White House, and soon thereafter cruise missiles pounded Baghdad and U.S. tanks rolled across the border from Kuwait.

Regime change was not the objective: that could have been achieved bloodlessly with Saddam Hussein's exile. Combating terrorism couldn't possibly have been the objective, either: when President Bush invaded Iraq, there was no sign of al Qaeda in the country at all. There had to be some other purpose.

Sources for this section:

1. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.

2. "Llego el momento de deshacerse de Saddam," El Pais (Spain), a transcript of a conversation between George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Jose Maria Anzar in Crawford, Texas, February 22, 2003. Published September 26, 2007.

Oil

Within weeks of taking office the Bush Administration was studying maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and undeveloped oil exploration blocks. A National Security Council document dated February 3, 2001 spoke of "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." Later in the year the Bush State Department undertook the "Future of Iraq Project," in one element of which Administration bureaucrats and oil company representatives planned the postwar deconstruction of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. It would be replaced by a clever form of privatization, hugely favoring American and British oil companies. This planning was underway in October of 2001, exactly a year before Congress authorized military force in Iraq.

The State Department's plan was codified in a model "hydrocarbon law" drafted during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with direct participation of the American and British oil companies. The law was not translated from English into Arabic until elections had been held; then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet approved the law on February 15, 2007 and submitted it to Parliament for passage.

The hydrocarbon law when passed will grant immensely profitable access for international oil companies to an estimated 81% of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. The favored companies are Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Royal Dutch/Shell, and BP/Amoco.

Enactment of the hydrocarbon law was proposed as a mandatory "benchmark" by President Bush in a speech on January 10, 2007. The benchmark was made statutory when the Democratic Congress passed the Iraq Accountability Act a short time later.

The tangible objective for invading and occupying Iraq was suspected early by the war's opponents and it is now confirmed: to secure access to the country's immense oil and gas resources. Evidence of success is everywhere. Iraq now has a puppet government and five permanent American "mega-bases" to house 100,000 troops for 50 years. The American embassy in Baghdad is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world. And in November, President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki signed a document called The Declaration of Principles, to assure an "enduring relationship" between their governments.

Sources for this section:

1. For copies of the Iraqi oil field maps, see the website of Judicial Watch, at: http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps

2. "Contract Sport," by Jane Mayer,The New Yorker, Issue 23, February 16, 2004.

3. Crude Designs: the Ripoff of Iraq's Oil Wealth, Gregg Mutitt, ed., the Platform Group, United Kingdom.

4. "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil," by Joshua Holland, published on the AlterNet website, October 16, 2006.

5. "Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil," Erik Leaver and Greg Mutitt, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 18, 2007.

6. "Imperial Opportunities for U.S. Builders," Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times, November 6, 2007.

7. "An 'Enduring' Relationship for Security and Enduring an Occupation for Oil," Ann Wright, truthout website, December 5, 2007.

And so, Speaker Pelosi, here we are after six years of fraudulence, engaged in two wars of conquest and occupation the Bush Administration orchestrated in defiance of honesty, decency, morals, and law. Half a million lives and half a trillion dollars have been poured into the cesspool of their lies and deceit.

Truth and justice are the bedrocks of our existence as a nation. The Bush Administration has trampled truth. We cannot tolerate the withholding of justice as well. Madam Speaker, you must impeach.

Or can you refute this history?

Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island, off the northwest coast of Washington state. He can be reached at rwbehan@rockisland.com .

(This essay is deliberately not copyrighted: it may be reproduced without restriction.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19095.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations,” she said.

The freedom of information request had not been initiated by Edmonds. It was made quite separately by an American human rights group called the Liberty Coalition, acting on a tip-off it received from an anonymous correspondent.

The letter says: “You may wish to request pertinent audio tapes and documents under FOIA from the Department of Justice, FBI-HQ and the FBI Washington field office.”

It then makes a series of allegations about the contents of the file – many of which corroborate the information that Edmonds later made public.

FBI denies file

Hey John Conyers, they got Al Capone on tax evasion, what about Bush?

“Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)”...

excerpt

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of sports teams, talk about President Bush and where you believe, really, ultimately, he got his wealth.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, it isn’t a function of belief, Amy. I’ve got the documents. President Bush, who will go down in history as the great tax cutter, owes almost all of his fortune to a tax increase that was funneled into his pocket. What happened is, an oil man named Eddie Chiles wanted to sell his money-losing Texas Rangers baseball team. They played in a little stadium, smaller than the one we have here in Rochester, New York, and of course couldn’t make any money. So George Bush put together a group of very wealthy investors to buy the team. He put up himself $600,000 of borrowed money. The partners then gave him a 10 percent stake as the managing partner. That’s a very common arrangement in business. Then they held a special election in January of the year in question to increase the sales tax in the town of Arlington, Texas, by one half-cent. That money was used to build a new baseball stadium. It’s an incredibly nice baseball stadium.

Then the power of government to seize land by eminent domain—and I go back to what was talked about in Kenya, the leader there can give you land, he can presumably therefore also take it away—the government used its power of eminent domain to seize land from people, not for a public purpose—not for a military base, for a school, for a highway, for a sewer plant—but because it was coveted by President Bush and his friends, and they were unwilling to go into the market and buy it through market economics. So the government seized this land. People were paid far less than they were owed, and we know that because one family fought back, and a jury, after being out just a matter of minutes, awarded them about six times what they had been offered by the government of Arlington.

The value of this subsidy, according to Ray Hutchison, who is the husband of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a prominent Republican insider in Texas and is the leading authority on municipal bond finance in Texas, was $202.5 million. The profit that President Bush and his partners made when they sold the team was $164 million. What does that tell you? Every single penny of additional money President Bush got from that investment, his gain, came from the taxpayers. He did not add one cent to the value of that team through his skill as an MBA manager. This gets repeated all over the country.

And then when President Bush filed his tax return, he should have reported that the 10 percent share he had, the one that was given to him as compensation for being general manager, was wage income. And, of course, we tax wages at a higher rate than we do capital income, like capital gains. President Bush therefore shorted the government $3.4 million. Under our system, you sign your tax return subject to audit. If you’re not audited and you don’t pay the government the right amount, if it’s too much, the government keeps it, if it’s too little, you short the government, but nothing happens to you.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/18/free_lunch_how_the_wealthiest_americans

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Congressman,
Will this bill to prohibit caging affect the 2008 elections?
Why did you wait until now to introduce, let alone begin to act on election fraud issues?

In 2006, the Democrats took control of both Houses on the PROMISE OF CHANGE:
~ End the war(OCCUPATION) in Iraq... INCOMPLETE!
~ Administer accountability WITH Oversight... INCOMPLETE!
~ Election integrity... INCOMPLETE!
~ Restore the Constitution... INCOMPLETE!
(let alone not even address why the Constitution needs restoration)

I would be thrown out on my ass from Community Collage for a report card filled with INCOMPLETE grades such as this. Why should we NOT do the same to the 110th Congress, who works on the communities dime?

In fact, on your watch, Habeas Corpus has been renditioned and lock up from people.
On your watch, warrantless is becoming legal.
ON YOUR WATCH, TORTURE IS BECOMING NORMALIZED!

What do you support and defend if NOT the Constitution, it's Rights for the People, and it's principles of the Nation?

Why bother? Look what has happened to the FISA law. Look what has happened to torture laws. Look what has happened to habeus corpus. Look what has happened to the Geneva Conventions. Look what has happened to spying on Americans? And on and on and on.

A "look what has happened" in advance: immunity for the law breaking phone companies.

Until you remove the dictators from occupying the White House, save your energy on useless legislation, letters threatening actual action, and all the rest of the BS. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT LAWS!!!!! AND WE HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH LIES AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT.

The Bush Debacle: One Year to Go?

By Robert Parry
January 20, 2008

The political calendar indicates that in one more year – on Jan. 20, 2009 – the presidency of George W. Bush will come to an end. However, the worst consequences of his disastrous reign, including the Iraq War, may be nowhere near ending.

Today’s presidential frontrunners, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, were early prominent supporters of the Iraq War and appear to have suffered little political damage for lining up behind Bush in 2002 when he was at the peak of his power.

For his part, McCain – who campaigns with neoconservative independent Sen. Joe Lieberman – has no plan to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, indeed talks about keeping U.S. troops there for centuries. Clinton, who was a late convert to an anti-war position, now vows to “start withdrawing” U.S. troops by early spring 2009.

So, it seems a sure bet that a McCain presidency would continue Bush’s Iraq policies indefinitely. And it looks like a gamble whether Clinton would press ahead with her “hope” of bringing “nearly all the troops out by the end of” 2009 – or revert to the neocon-lite position that she embraced from 2002 until the start of the Democratic campaign in 2007.

Might Hillary Clinton be to George W. Bush on Iraq what Richard Nixon was to Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam, a President who continued a war for years while gradually moving to wind it down?

Ironically, the politician taking the most heat on the Iraq War today is Barack Obama, who opposed the war resolution in 2002. In recent days, he has come under harsh criticism from former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Clinton for not consistently joining with the staunchest war opponents in the Senate.

Bill Clinton has called Obama’s anti-war position a “fairy tale,” and Sen. Clinton, who helped make the Iraq War possible, has attacked Obama for not immediately supporting a cutoff of funds for the war when he entered the Senate in 2005, even though that was a position he shared with Clinton.

Amazingly, it looks like – if any politician is going to be held accountable on the Iraq War – it may be Obama, who was an early and vocal opponent.

Think Tank Consensus

Meanwhile, in the U.S. news media and in influential Washington think tanks, Iraq War supporters are consolidating their positions and – just like in 2002-03 – are baiting Iraq War critics as “defeatists” who won’t admit the “reality” of Bush’s successes, particularly the modest gains of the troop “surge.”

At the New York Times, apparently to give himself protection from right-wing pressure groups, publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. recruited prominent neoconservative writer William Kristol as a new op-ed columnist. In one of his first columns, Kristol accused Iraq War critics of wanting to “snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.” [NYT, Jan. 14, 2008]

Not to be outdone, another Times columnist, Roger Cohen, penned an op-ed praising McCain for his wisdom in supporting the surge. In a flashback to the intolerant mood of 2002, Cohen accused American liberals of “hypocrisy” for not backing the invasion of Iraq to oust the dictator, Saddam Hussein.

“I still believe Iraq’s freedom outweighs [the war’s] terrible price,” Cohen wrote. “So does McCain.” [NYT, Jan. 17, 2008]

(The New York Times’ other columnists who were big supporters of the Iraq War include David Brooks and Thomas Friedman. Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s editorial pages have been long dominated by war enthusiasts, such as editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, Charles Krauthammer and David Ignatius.)

On Washington’s think tank front, from the American Enterprise Institute to the Brookings Institution, wannabe assistant secretaries of state for either a McCain or a Clinton administration have been carefully positioning themselves as optimists vis-à-vis the “surge.”

As historian Andrew J. Bacevich wrote in a Washington Post Outlook article, the pro-Iraq War “fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the ‘surge’ is working. …

“AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht assures us that the moment to acknowledge ‘democracy’s success in Iraq’ has arrived. To his colleague Michael Ledeen, the explanation for the turnaround couldn’t be clearer: ‘We were the stronger horse, and the Iraqis recognized it.’ … Frederick W. Kagan, an AEI resident scholar and the arch-advocate of the surge, announces that the ‘credibility of the prophets of doom’ has reached ‘a low ebb.’”

Bacevich, a professor of history at Boston University, added: “Presumably Kagan and his comrades would have us believe that recent events vindicate the prophets who in 2002-03 were promoting preventive war as a key instrument of U.S. policy.

“By shifting the conversation to tactics, they seek to divert attention from fragrant failures of basic strategy. Yet what exactly has the surge wrought? In substantive terms, the answer is: not much.” [Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2008]

Political Success

The most significant achievement of the “surge” and the modest decline in Iraq’s horrific violence may be inside the U.S. political process, by making continuation of the indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq (what Bush once called “stay the course”) possible.

While on his eight-day trip to the Middle East, Bush indicated that when the 30,000-troop “surge” ends this spring, he is prepared to keep U.S. troop levels at about 130,000, which is where they were a year ago.

A year from now, given the pathetic state of American politics and the U.S. news media, one can almost envision the start of a George W. Bush nostalgia as his presidency comes to an end. Neocon columnists and think-tank experts are sure to hail his courage and wisdom.

It’s also unlikely that either a President McCain or a President Clinton would do much to set the record straight. Whether the pattern is like 1988 (when George H.W. Bush succeeded fellow Republican Ronald Reagan) or like 1992 (when Democrat Bill Clinton followed George H.W. Bush), the focus will be on the future, not the past.

Rose-colored glasses will be put firmly in place about George W. Bush, just as they were regarding Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in order to avoid bitter partisan disputes about their legacies.

As the Clinton team told me back in 1993, “we don’t want to refight the old battles of the 1980s.” Many of the same players show no indication that they would take a different position regarding the battles of the Bush II presidency.

The sad reality about America’s historical amnesia – if not outright hostility toward the hard truths of history – will mean that few, if any, lessons will be learned from the eight years of George W. Bush. That, in turn, will leave open the likelihood that the same mistakes will be repeated again.

That is one of the key reasons that we have tried to put as much of the lost history of this troubling era into our books, from Lost History to Secrecy & Privilege to Neck Deep. Our goal has always been to establish an honest record of what has occurred and what it means, whether the facts are politically popular or not.

In effect, we have tried to establish a truthful narrative for the past three decades as a challenge to the dominant false narrative that infuses the pages of the major American newspapers, the TV pundit class and Washington’s think tanks.

However, as Campaign 2008 takes shape with McCain and Clinton emerging as the frontrunners, the likelihood of any profound changes in the political/media structure of Washington looks dimmer and dimmer.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/012008.html

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Hey JC! Remember me?

I will be in Detroit for the 6th Iraq Moratorium Day demonstration on February 15 arriving sometime around the 10th or 11th. Feline is coming, too, and we will be staying with Alma and we'll all be meeting with the local peace groups to build a monstrous demonstration.

We hope to arrange a meeting with you while we are there. I feel that it would be such a thrill and an honor to meet you. How's your schedule? Also, can you attend the demonstration? We'll keep you and your bloggers informed here.

More information at http://iraqmoratorium.org

Sorry I've been neglecting you but you'll be able to see that I've been very, very busy with the Moratorium.

We The People Won't Back Down!

Dis hyer dun be de year dat we dun loss the Constitution, fo sho. Dey ain't gwinna be no impeachment, cose de Democrats dun took it offen de table. Dey ain't gwinna be no investigations, cose de Democrats gonna keep sending 'strongly worded letters' dat Bush juz gonna wipe his az on till November 2008.

We ain't gwinna hyer bout immediate troop withdrawal, or universal, single-payer healthcare, or repealing Nafta, becaze de media dun picked de Democratic candidates fo us. At dis point, dat uppity nigga, Denise Kucinich, wouldn't make de evening news iffen he set hisself on fir on de flo of de Congress.

Naw suh. We in fo eight mo years of Republican or Republican Lite. De laws dat Bush dun broke gonna be de law of de lan, fo sho, en we ain't gots no one to blame but ourselves en de Democrats we hoped elect back in 2006.

We dun loss de way chillren. En may God have mercy on our souls and our country.

Why is your name not on the list, John? C'mon, make it an even ten...

National Lawyers Guild President on Impeaching Cheney
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2008-01-22 00:24. Impeachment

Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction in House Judiciary Committee
By Marjorie Cohn

Nine out of 23 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee favor starting impeachment hearings against Vice-President Dick Cheney. Six of the nine are co-sponsors of H.R. 799, which contains three articles of impeachment.

Articles I and II of H.R. 799 accuse Cheney of purposely manipulating intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people about a fabricated threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, respectively. Article III charges Cheney with openly threatening aggression against Iran absent any real threat to the United States. All three articles say Cheney's actions have damaged our national security interests.

Three of the nine Judiciary Committee Democrats who advocate launching impeachment hearings against Cheney, Reps. Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.), co-authored an op-ed that appeared on December 27 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

They wrote, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that, if proven, may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under the Constitution. The allegations against Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens."

There is also credible evidence that policies set in Cheney's office authorized the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody, in violation of three treaties the United States has ratified, as well as the U.S. Torture Statute and War Crimes Act. The policies on the treatment of prisoners emanating from Cheney's office triggered the abuse and torture, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff.

"It was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the Vice President's office through the Secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field," Wilkerson, a former colonel, said on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

In November, the House of Representatives sent the impeachment resolution to the House Judiciary Committee for further proceedings. However many Democrats oppose impeachment, citing the year and a half of testimony about Bill Clinton's personal relations. They think impeachment will detract from Congress's other pressing business.

Yet, the three congresspersons noted, the Clinton impeachment "must not be the model for impeachment inquiries. A Democratic Congress can show that it takes its constitutional authority seriously and hold a sober investigation, which will stand in stark contrast to the kangaroo court convened by Republicans for Clinton."

And, they argue, the hearings would "involve the possible impeachment of the vice president - not of our commander in chief - and the resulting impact on the nation's business and attention would be significantly less than the Clinton presidential impeachment hearings."

Seventy percent of American voters think Cheney has abused his powers and 43 percent say he should be removed from office, according to a Nov. 13 poll by the American Research Group. Organizations, including the National Lawyers Guild, have called for the impeachment of Dick Cheney.

Impeachment hearings against Cheney would not only fulfill the Constitution's command that high officials who commit high crimes and misdemeanors be brought to justice. It would also deter the vice president from committing additional crimes that threaten the national security of the United States.

Any impeachment proceeding would have to start in the House Judiciary Committee. The nine Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who favor impeachment hearings are: Robert Wexler, Fla.; Luis Gutierrez, Ill.; Anthony Weiner, N.Y.; Tammy Baldwin, Wisc.; Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas; Steve Cohen, Tenn.; Keith Ellison, Minn.; Maxine Waters, Calif.; and Hank Johnson, Ga.

Here is a list of the entire House Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.house.gov/CommitteeMembership.aspx

For information about the campaign to impeach Dick Cheney, see http://impeachcheney.org

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the President of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30309

Also...

Impeachment Resolution Wins Washington State Senate Committee Vote
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2008-01-22 00:37. Impeachment

Great news! SJM 8016 has passed out of the WA State Senate Gov't and Op's Committee! All five Democrats on the committee vote yes. Now Senator Oemig's bill to impeach Bush and Cheney will head over to the Senate Rules Committee.

Thank you Chair Fairley, Senator Oemig, Sen. Kline, Sen. Pridemore and Sen. McDermott!

** Speaker Frank Chopp in the WA State House is the single most important person to contact right now. Please be relentless in your requests that he schedule a hearing for Rep. Chase's companion bill, HJM 4027. (360) 786-7920 Chopp.frank@leg.wa.gov

Washington State says "Impeach them!"
Linda Boyd
Washington For Impeachment

________

SJM 8016 PASSED COMMITTEE VOTE! Senator Eric Oemig's bill, SJM 8016, asking Congress to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney was voted to proceed out of the Senate Gov't and Op's Committee today. It will now proceed to the Senate Rules Committee.

What: SJM 8016-2007-08, Senator Oemig's revised petition calling for a full investigation and trial of alleged misdeeds by President Bush and Vice President Cheney passed a vote in the Senate Government and Operations Committee.

When: Monday, January 21, 2008.

Where: State Capitol Campus in Olympia, 426-14th Ave. SW, Olympia, Washington 98504

Committee Chair: Senator Darlene Fairley (D)

Bill sponsor and vice chair: Senator Eric Oemig (D)

Committee members voting in favor of SJM 8016: Senator Eric Oemig , Senator Darlene Fairley, Senator Adam Kline; Senator Joe McDermott; Senator Craig Pridemore

SJM 8016 2007-08, revised for 2008, calls on Congress to initiate impeachment hearings for the President and Vice President. The bill, first introduced Feb. 15, 2007, was heard before the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee on March 31st, 2007 with over 500 pro-impeachment citizens in attendance.

The bill cites serious allegations of misdeeds by the Office of the Executive. It includes a long list of violations to the US Constitution, including domestic wiretapping, manipulating intelligence to mislead the Congress and the people about the reasons for attacking Iraq, Torture and extraordinary rendition, and subverting the rule of law.

The bill states that, " The citizens of Washington state expect and require their highest elected officials be subject to the laws of the land, like any citizen, and uphold the constitutional oath taken by them upon assuming office."

Rep. Maralyn Chase authored a companion bill in the WA State House, HJM 4027, cosigned by Rep. Hasegawa, Rep. Moeller and Rep. Dickerson. It has been referred to the House Government and Tribal Affairs Committee. No hearing has been scheduled yet in the House.

“All of us took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. This memorial is how we tell history, and the rest of the world, that we do not sanction illegal war, we do not sanction unlawful spying, and we do not sanction torture. This memorial is how we honor our oath and protect our great country.” Senator Eric Oemig, January 17, 2008

"State Legislatures have a long standing tradition of sending requests to Congress," says Linda Boyd, Director of Washingon For Impeachment, "Articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney were introduced by Congressman Kucinich in the US House in April. The citizens of Washington State are proud of their strong legislators, and call on Congress to simply investigate serious allegations regarding abuses of power in the Office of the Executive."
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30310

Yes, John, simply investigate!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Well John, it looks like America is on a course to rule the world.

I have a question?

Wars cost a lot of money to run. In some cases, they run long enough to bankrupt superpowers. While the superpower itself goes bankrupt, the defense contractors grow amazingly rich.

Are there Democratic Defense contractors and Republican contractors? Under Bush, companies like the Bin Laden Group in the Middle East flourish. Is there a competing company for Democrats to support, so the generational bleeding of the American taxpayer will promote the concept of open and competitive markets?

An open comptitive market system, is the bedrock of capitalist democracies. If we know all of our money will eventually go to support the war effort, shouldn't we ensure that Democrats have the opportunity to determine which way the money flows too? Can we limit the length of defense contracts to no longer than one year following the next Presidential election?

Making defense contractors renegotiate with each new Presidency, instead of allowing BushCo to award groups like Blackwater and Halliburton generational contracts, would ensure that every company that specializes in death, will have an equal opportunity to enrich the investor class.

Maybe you could start Democratic wars and redirect the money to other fronts. Don't break the GOP contract, downsize it in favor of the "new and improved" war. You can keep it a war of terror, just create different revenue streams so all Americans can profit, instead of just Halliburton, Blackwater, the Bin Laden Group, and their various subsidiaries.

How can America maintain an open competitive market system, based on death and occupations in other sovereign nations, if only GOP defense contractors get our tax dollars?

It might not seem important now, but in thirty years, it might.

Are there enough progressive weapons manufacturers to ensure Bush and "Top Gun" Cunningham's friends don't finance the destruction of the Democratic Party with defense contractor kickbacks?

If not, we'll need progressive liberal Democratic wars too. We can't let Bin Laden get all the cash now can we?

But I guess the CIA was friends with the Bin Laden's before they were enemies of Bin Laden's. I suppose the whole World Trade Center thing worked out OK for them after all.

Anybody excavate Tora Bora yet? Maybe we can hire a Democratic contractor to do it. John, have you got a bulldozer? I'll do it and give you half back as a campaign contribution.

For the record, that was a joke. I don't even know how to run a bulldozer. But I can shovel pretty good.

All the Iraqi's murdered, almost 4,000 of our troops.
What's it going to take?

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

Study: False statements preceded war

Study: False Statements Preceded War

WASHINGTON — A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements _ amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts _ was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists _ indeed, even some entire news organizations _ have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.
click here

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...