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---> Activists Crawl Through Web to Untangle Bush's Fascist Secrecy
11.30.04 (8:41 am)   [edit]
To combat the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, U.S. citizens have been forced to unearth new sources for information they once read in their daily newspapers. But thanks to a few dedicated individuals and not-for-profit groups -- and the Internet -- such material is easier to come by than ever before.

"The Bush administration has taken secrecy to a new level. They have greatly increased the numbers and types of classified documents," says Steven Aftergood, who conducts one of the most widely used "open government" programs -- the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Project on Government Secrecy http://www.fas.org/sgp/ .

"They have made it far more difficult and time-consuming to obtain documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And they have imposed 'gag rules' on an ever-widening group of government employees," Aftergood added in an interview.

''Open government'' sites on the World Wide Web provide a wide variety of information.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.commondreams.org/h...
 
---> Buffoon-boy Bush: Bubble-Headed Kook Inside A Cocoon Inside A Bubble!
11.30.04 (8:33 am)   [edit]
[b]An American president may indeed be the Most Powerful Man on the Planet but he is also the most isolated. [/b]

So George W. is coming to town. On Wednesday, the U.S. President's jet is expected to touch down -- if ever so gently and even more briefly -- at the Halifax International Airport, so His Georgeness can helicopter and/or motorcade over to perimeter-secured, protester-free Pier 21. There, he will speak over the heads of a cowed crowd of carefully selected but irrelevant local grandees directly into the TV cameras of the world.

[i]They like me, they really like me. Look, see... [/i]

The point of this now-you-see-him-now-you-d on't visit is not really so Bush can say a three-year belated thank you to Nova Scotians for taking in thousands of displaced air travelers after 9/11. The point is for George Bush not to have to spend any more time in our nation's capital than is absolutely necessary.

[b]More [/b]... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
 
---> Right-Wing "Christians" [sic] Stick With Racist, Segregationist Hate-Filled Laws!
11.30.04 (8:27 am)   [edit]
[b]US state with racist history votes to keep 'separate schools for white and coloured children' as part of constitution[/b]

During his inaugural address in 1963, the then Alabama governor, George Wallace, took to the steps of the state capitol and made a promise. Standing on the spot where Jefferson Davis had declared an independent southern confederacy just over 100 years before, he pledged: "In the name of the greatest people that ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say: Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation for ever."

Yesterday it looked as if he might get his wish, after a referendum in the state looked likely to keep segregation-era wording, requiring separate schools for "white and coloured children" in its constitution as well as references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.

A narrow margin of 1,850 votes out of 1.38 million, or 0.13%, in a referendum on November 2, meant the state was obliged to hold a recount, which took place yesterday. But with no accusations of electoral fraud or any other irregularities, nobody last night expected the result to change.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
 
---> Bigotted Right-Wing Racists Attack Jesse Jackson
11.29.04 (11:37 am)   [edit]
The National Legal and Policy Center has submitted a shareholder resolution to Verizon Comunications requesting that the Verizon "Board of Directors to establish a policy precluding future financial support of Jesse Jackson, the Citizenship Education Fund, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and/or any other nonprofit organization founded, headed or primarily identified with Jesse Jackson."

Among several reasons for the action given by the NLPC are, according to the shareholder resolution:

"The Company's relationship with Jesse Jackson creates controversy and impacts the Company's corporate image, brands and reputation. The news media has critically examined the relationship and will continue to do so as long as the Company is publicly identified with Jackson.

In order to demonstrate a sincere commitment to diversity, rather than supporting Jesse Jackson, the Company should support individuals and organizations that promote genuine civil rights and economic empowerment."

The resolution has been proposed for consideration at Verizon's 2005 annual meeting. - http://www.nationalcenter.org...
 
---> Mad King George (& his Brain-Dead Minions) Continues to Divide America ...
11.29.04 (11:28 am)   [edit]
[b]A Fundamental Change In America [/b]

We'll let the customers do most of the work this week. Following is an e-mail from a reader smack in the middle of "Bush Country":

"[i]I read your column about Bush's four more years. I agree with all of it. I, too, lament the scuttling of the greatest successful experiment in human free spirit. But I think there is another side to it.

Regardless of what Mr. Bush did in office or to get reelected, he did not vote himself in. And irrespective of the rigging that probably did happen in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, roughly 59 million people voted for him. Alarmingly, many of these voted based on their faith.

That is scary. They said in essence that while there was looting of taxpayer money to repay campaign contributors, an untruly reasoned war killing thousands abroad and allowing millions to starve at home, and robbing millions more of health care, it was consistent with their faith-based value system.

This is the scary part. I saw this growing up in Pakistan. It is worse to see it repeated here in the U.S.

Bush will go in four years and perhaps some other neo-con will take his place. But if the nation has taught itself to think like religious fanatics, that damage will take years to repair[/i]."

I've omitted the e-mailer's name, to save him from the lynch mobs. When I asked permission to use his letter, he added the following:

"[i]My point in all of this is that beyond anything one or more politicians are doing, there is a sea change in the way a majority of Americans think.

There is a reversion to fundamentalist way of thinking, which, among other things, means that morality is defined narrowly (usually something to do with sex -- somebody else's).

In this way of thinking, as long as you prevent abortions and keep gays from getting married, all the other horrors are okay. I think this is a major change in the way the nation thinks, probably on the level of the one that brought about the Civil War. Unfortunately, it seems the Confederates are winning this time[/i]."

The e-mailer obviously is appalled by what's happening to his country, but a lot of people who e-mail me are delighted by it. My conservative critics (may their tribe increase) keep telling me to wake up and smell the coffee, that their kind of me-first thinking is the new American way, and I'd better learn to live with it.

Maybe they're right. Even if they are, I can't bring myself to stoop to their level. I'll continue to believe what I was taught as a youngster: that strength should be used to protect, not to exploit.

A second e-mailer, who said he was from Europe, had an unusual point of view: He is a liberal happy that Bush won reelection. Read on:

"[i]As I am against the American empire, I am happy that George W. Bush won the election, whatever frauds there might have been.

The U.S. seems to be going the same way the U.S.S.R. did. If, hopefully Bush will be followed by someone like Perle or Cheney, it will not take very long.

It is only sad to see all the ones tortured and murdered in Iraq, Palestine and other places, but hopefully the U.S. regime will attack Iran and Syria, so the empire can fall in less then a decade[/i]."

One letter from a guy who grew up in Pakistan, another from a European. I could put them with the several I've received from Germans who compare modern America with Germany in the 1930s.

A final thought this week concerns the millionaires and multimillionaires in Congress. It's hard to get an accurate count on these things -- they really don't want us to know how wealthy they are -- but it appears there are at least 40 senators worth more than a million and more than 120 House members.

Their financial disclosure forms, which don't include primary residences, give such a wide range of options that it's hard to nail down exactly what these people are worth in dollars.

To give you a hint as to how much some of them hedge, Rep. Tom DeLay, the super wheeler-dealer from Texas, claimed earlier this year that he had, at most, $166,000 in assets. If you believe that, you and I must talk bridges: I have a couple of fine ones for sale here in the Bay Area.

DeLay, incidentally, is a Republican, but congressional wealth crosses party lines.

Both major presidential candidates this year, and their running mates, are multimillionaires.

Here in California, if you want to knock on Sen. Dianne Feinstein's front door, you can try the gingerbread house on Presidio Terrace, or you might have to go to the Sierra, to Aspen, or to Hawaii. Like John Kerry, the lady has houses everywhere; I'd guess I missed a few.

Feinstein admits to at least $26 million in assets. Barbara Boxer, our other senator, is a downright pauper according to her financial disclosures, worth only slightly more than $1.1 million.

San Francisco's representative in the House, minority leader Nancy Pelosi, brings up the average a mite; she and her husband admit to holdings worth at least $22.8 million.

Other well-off California legislators include Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican worth more than $112 million, and Rep. Jane Harmon, a Democrat worth (with her husband) at least $160 million.

My favorite rich legislator is Rep. Kathleen Harris, former secretary of state of Florida. Harris, a Republican, has done well for herself. She admits to assets of at least $11 million.

I have nothing against rich people. Very often the very rich dedicate themselves to public service. They can do that. They don't have to pound away day after day to eke out a living.

But I have to wonder if it's healthy for a democracy to be so overrepresented by wealthy people.

If, as my e-mailers suggest, American democracy is going down the tubes, is there a connection between that and the economic gap separating most of us from those who make our laws?

I don't know. What do you think? - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> It Doesn't Pay To Cross Herr Fuhrer Bush & His Neo-Fascist Nazis -- Newsworthy ...
11.29.04 (11:13 am)   [edit]
[b]Evangelicals to Bush: Payback Time

Christian Conservatives Say They Gave Bush 'Moral Mandate'; Call Him to Act on Their Behalf[/b]

Among some conservative Christians, there is a belief that President Bush received a "moral mandate" to win the recent presidential election — and they are calling on him act on their agenda now.

"I believe Our Lord elected our president and I believe he put him in office and it is my prayer that he will sustain him in office," said one woman at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Another was asked if she believed that God intervened in the election. "Absolutely," she said.

"Values" voters delivered for the president, and the president must now deliver for them — especially in the courts, said Gary Cass, head of a grassroots political organization affiliated with Coral Ridge, called the Center for Reclaiming America.

"It's about the next 40 years and how the courts are going to affect the world in which my children and grandchildren are going to be raised in," he said.

Cass wants a U.S. Supreme Court that will outlaw abortion and gay marriage. "Do you want to take your children to a National League baseball game for instance and have homosexuals showing affection to one another? I don't want my kids to see that," he said.

[i]Risking God's Wrath [/i]

By one measure, conservative Christians comprised 12 percent of the electorate this year — the same as four years ago. But they see themselves as a crucial piece of the president's political base.

They believe that if their agenda is not implemented quickly — if their concerns are not addressed in a timely fashion — God will be angry.

One leading evangelist recently warned, "God's patience runs out."

Dr. James Kennedy delivers sermons at Coral Ridge which are broadcast to three million homes. He said he knows of no timetable for God's wrath, but wants results fast.

He dismissed the concerns of people who worried about the impact of Christian conservatives on the U.S. government.

Repent," he said with a laugh. "Repent. That's what I'd say."

People who are concerned about the influence of Christianity "have never really surrendered their life to God and submitted themselves to his commandments — and if they did that they wouldn't have so much concern about some court saying again that it's wrong," he said.

Asked about the millions of Americans who are not Christian, or have a different interpretation of Christianity, Kennedy said with another laugh: "I couldn't care less. It's true."

"I think that the idea that the worst sin that somebody can commit is to offend somebody is ridiculous," he said.

Evangelicals say Kennedy may seem intolerant, but there's no greater love than upholding the will of God. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...



 
---> New Poll: Majority of Americans Want Roe V. Wade Upheld
11.29.04 (11:09 am)   [edit]
A majority of Americans say President Bush's next choice for an opening on the Supreme Court should be willing to uphold the landmark court decision protecting abortion rights, an Associated Press poll found.

The poll found that 59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

"While I don't have a strong feeling about abortions personally, I wouldn't want the law overturned and return to the days of backdoor abortions," said Colleen Dunn, 40, a Republican and community college teacher who lives outside Philadelphia.

The preference for Supreme Court nominees who would uphold Roe v. Wade could be found among both men and women, most age groups, most income groups and people living in urban, suburban and rural areas. Fewer than half of Republicans, evangelicals and those over 65 said they favored a nominee who would uphold the abortion ruling.

ush has sidestepped questions about whom he would name to an opening, but has indicated he would pick judges like those he picked in his first term — often young and conservative.

While the public is generally divided on the abortion issue, polling consistently has found a clear majority of people who think abortion should be legal in at least some cases.

While there are no current openings on the high court, only one of the nine justices, Clarence Thomas, is under 65 and Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, has thyroid cancer.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that six in 10 think justices should face a mandatory retirement age.

The appointment of justices without term limits or a mandatory retirement age historically has helped to insulate the court from politics, said Dennis Hutchinson of the University of Chicago Law School. At the same time, that can have the unintended consequence of letting some justices serve beyond their most effective years.

The poll question mentioned no specific retirement age. Appointment of Supreme Court justices for life is dictated by the Constitution and could be changed only by an amendment.

People over 65 were among those most likely to favor mandatory retirement, according to the poll.

"The justices hold office year after year," said Opal Bristow, an 84-year-old Democrat and retired teacher who lives near San Antonio. "Some of them are old codgers who need to get out of the way and let the younger folks with fresh ideas come in."

Most of those who have taken a position on whether a nominee should uphold or overturn Roe v. Wade say they wanted a nominee to state his or her position on abortion before confirmation. Nearly two-thirds of each group said they would want to know.

The survey found that 61 percent of all respondents said Supreme Court nominees should state their position on abortion before being approved for the job.

"In a perfect world they wouldn't have to talk about it," said Kenneth Cole, 39, a consultant from Columbus, Ohio, and a Republican who leans toward wanting Roe v. Wade overturned. "But whoever President Bush nominates, people will know where they stand. They won't be able to avoid the issue."

Another issue the Supreme Court will have to deal with at some point is homosexual marriage.

By 61 percent to 35 percent, people opposed gay marriage, with young adults between 18 and 29 about evenly split. Recent polls have indicated people are about evenly divided on the question of civil unions, which would provide many of the same legal protections as gay marriage.

[b]The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults was taken Nov. 19-21 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

 
---> Neo-Con Right-Wing Bigotry & Fascism on the Rise ...
11.29.04 (11:05 am)   [edit]
[b]Iraq and Damned Statistics [/b]

The Red Crescent has finally been allowed http://www.sierratimes.com/rs... into Fallujah (its earlier exclusion was probably a violation of international law). Its spokesman is saying that less than 200 civilian families appear to still be there. If this estimate is true, it suggests that by the time of the U.S. assault, only about 5,000 persons were left in the city. At least 2,000 were killed, some 1,400 captured, some escaped, and a handful of civilian families remained. If Fallujah was a ghost town before the assault, that would help explain the repeated U.S. military assertion of virtually no civilian casualties (which is still not entirely plausible). But it would also raise a question as to the effectiveness of the assault. Fallujah's population was estimated at between 250,000 and 300,000. If only 5,000 or so were left, then obviously a great many guerrilla fighters, whether full- or part-time, escaped. The few remaining civilian families suffered from lack of food, contrary to earlier assertions of U.S. military spokespersons.

Al-Hayat plays anti-al-Jazeera on Saturday, running an article about how the Fallujans are furious at the "mujahedin" who fought the Americans using their city as a base. One interviewee among the survivors said that if a holy warrior proffered his hand, he'd rip it to pieces with his teeth. The Fallujans complain that the radical Muslim fundamentalists established themselves in the poorest city quarters, paying exorbitant rents, even though residents pleaded with them to fight the Americans outside the city. One said that anyone who made such arguments was tagged by the militants as an American sympathizer and received death threats.

Do I detect sarcasm toward the U.S. military in the column of Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough? They ridicule Centcom for claiming that the Fallujah operation had broken the back of the guerrilla effort and for suggesting that Fallujah was the greatest battle since the fall of Baghdad. They have also drawn up "talking points" for those wishing to defend the operation, which underline how many explosives were in Fallujah; charge that every one of the city's 77 mosques had been used as a weapons storage facility or fortress for attack; and added, "In one sector alone, a Marine unit found 91 caches and 432 IEDs. As a comparison, in October in all of Iraq, the coalition found 130 arms caches and 348 IEDs."

Since there are an estimated 250,000 tons of explosives and munitions missing from the prewar Ba'ath stockpiles, I fear that whatever was found in Fallujah was a drop in the bucket. And a lot of Iraqi cities must be full of such material. And, contrary to the "broken back" imagery, a confidential Marine report suggested that the guerrilla war would grow in intensity and breadth in the buildup to the Jan. 30 elections.

Alas, even Fallujah itself is still a problem. Guerrillas staged a shootout on Friday that killed two Marines (three guerrillas died as well).

Not only were many Iraqis disturbed at the way the Fallujah campaign was conducted, but they were upset about the assault by Iraqi National Guardsmen and U.S. troops on the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad last Friday. Mosque preachers, both Sunni and Shi'ite, universally condemned the raid yesterday in the Friday sermons. Al-Zaman says that Sheikh Adnan Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni Pious Endowments Board, called on the United Nations, the Arab League, and other international organizations to intervene to ensure that no further such attacks on mosques are conducted by the Allawi government or the American and coalition forces. Iraqi Muslims were especially appalled that the attack took place during Friday prayers and resulted in the deaths of two worshippers. The U.S. maintains that the mosque was a center for the guerrilla war.

"The Daily Outrage," at The Nation's Web site, lists some statistics that were not in the New York Times op-ed piece on Friday. For instance, 90 of 540 voter registration stations in Iraq are closed owing to poor security. And here is the coup de grace:

[i][b]"Iraqi Public Opinion
** Only 33 percent of Iraqis think they're better off now than before the war, as a Gallup poll discovered.
** Just 36 percent believe the interim government shares their values.
** 94 percent say Baghdad is more dangerous than it was before the war.
** 66.6 believe the U.S. occupation could start a civil war.
** 80 percent want the U.S. to leave directly after the January elections."[/b][/i]

The [i]London Times [/i]reports http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...,,7374-1376189,00.html that nearly 700 persons die under suspicious circumstances (most of them from bullet wounds) every month in Baghdad. These are not, at least mainly, victims of the guerrilla war. They are mostly victims of crime or revenge. I figure that as 8,400 murders a year in a city of 5 million, or 168 per 100,000 per annum. The highest murder rate in the U.S. for 2003 was 45.8 per 100,000, in Washington, D.C., with Detroit coming in second. That is, Baghdad is nearly four times as dangerous as the most dangerous American cities, more than a year and a half after the fall of Saddam. The U.S. has by its stupid mistakes deprived Baghdad's residents of the basic right to personal security. It is true that Saddam's secret police used to dump bodies at the morgue, of course. But all the polls show that Baghdadis feel themselves substantially worse off in personal security now, and no wonder.

[b]By Juan Cole[/b], http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?...
 
---> U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Overturn Massachusetts Gay Marriage Law! Hallelujah!
11.29.04 (8:11 am)   [edit]
The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury," she said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a constitutional amendment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.

The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.

State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a priority of his second term.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, 04-420. - http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,1522523.story?coll=sns-ap-scotus- headlines

 
---> U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Overturn Massachusetts Gay Marriage Law! Hallelujah!
11.29.04 (8:09 am)   [edit]
The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."

Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury," she said.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a constitutional amendment.

The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.

The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.

State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a priority of his second term.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, 04-420. - http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,1522523.story?coll=sns-ap-scotus- headlines

 
---> Godless Hypocrites on the Right!!!
11.29.04 (7:50 am)   [edit]
"I don't believe God loves war…everybody hates war."

– Rev. Jerry Falwell, 11/28/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...

[i][b]VERSUS[/b][/i]

"God is Pro-War."

– Falwell commentary, 1/31/04, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/...

Refer to [b]"A Hypocritical, Blithering Idiot -- Morally Speaking"[/b] on http://www.tblog.com/template...
 
---> Godless Hypocrites on the Right!!!
11.29.04 (7:47 am)   [edit]
"I don't believe God loves war…everybody hates war."

– Rev. Jerry Falwell, 11/28/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...

[i][b]VERSUS[/b][/i]

"God is Pro-War."

– Falwell commentary, 1/31/04, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/...

Refer to [b]"A Hypocritical, Blithering Idiot -- Morally Speaking"[/b] on http://www.tblog.com/template...

 
---> Bush Fakes Death Threats to Divert Attention From His Own Economic Fuck-Ups!!!
11.28.04 (12:18 pm)   [edit]
[b]Does anybody (with a brain)[i] really [/i]think that Bush has[i] seriously [/i]been in danger??? [u]Every President receives Death Threats!!![/u] But [i]now[/i] is the time that Karl Rove deems appropriate to play the[i] SYMPATHY CARD[/i] in order to divert attention from Bush's own Economic Fuck-Ups as he screws-over the American People!!![/b]

Articles in the NYT in the last two days demonstrate the inability of the American political culture to respond to its most pressing economic threats: out of control budget and trade deficits and threats to the dollar. Once the international community loses confidence in the dollar, the U.S. and the world economy is at risk.

The first is an article detailing loss of international support for the dollar (“Foreign Interest Appears to Flag As Dollar Falls,” 11.27.04) and the second is an article on Social security “reform” (Vast Borrowing Seen in Altering Social Security,” 11.28.2004) --a plan that needs no reform, as it continues its decades long surplus, and will continue to pay its way through 2042 and could continue indefinitely with minor adjustments. (See links to the Times articles below.)

The current drive to destroy Social Security is a remarkable demonstration of the ability of the right wing to advance its agenda in the face of facts and common sense. The current plan, not unlikely to become law within a year, is so bad that a year before the 2004 election, a special commission appointed by President Bush to promote it, gave up in despair.

Now, with another brazenly stolen election behind us, there may be no political force in this country strong enough to impede the momentum driving such plans. The only hope is that the international community will pull out of the dollar quickly enough to demonstrate to public at large that increasing the debt involved in a Social Security privatization scheme is as untenable as it is reckless and irresponsible. Another possibility is that the stock market could crash at a politically sensitive moment.

Such reflections only go to show how much pain will be required to interrupt the plans of the radical extremists running our government who repeatedly demonstrate that they are impervious even to the most immediate economic threats not to mention to the most fundamental needs of their people.
***

New York Times
Foreign Interest Appears to Flag as Dollar Falls

November 27, 2004
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Investors and analysts are increasingly worried that the
last big source of support for the American dollar - heavy
buying by foreign central banks - is fading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/business/2 7dollar.html?ex=1102664308&ei=1&e n=1c58f887e4c17fab" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/business/2 7dollar.html?ex=1102664308&ei=1&e n=1c58f887e4c17fab" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...

New York Times
Bush's Social Security Plan Is Said to Require Vast Borrowing

November 28, 2004
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

The plan for personal accounts could require borrowing from
hundreds of billions to
trillions of dollars over 10
years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/2 8secure.html?ex=1102662806&ei=1&e n=d8a48189756234f5" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/2 8secure.html?ex=1102662806&ei=1&e n=d8a48189756234f5" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...

***
For those interested in more of Ronald Bleier's views, see DYSBushTOPIA.
http://dysbushtopia.blogspot.com/" title="http://dysbushtopia.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"http://dysbushtopia.blogspot....

Ronald Bleier
Editor, DESIP
The Demographic, Environmental and Security Issues
Project (DESIP)


 
---> Why 'Weenie' May Start With a Capital DUBYA ...
11.27.04 (3:09 pm)   [edit]
The President of The World is not President of The World for Life, at least not yet. But is he a weenie?

What evidence is there of Dubya's weenieness, apart from him chickening out when it came to going up against the filthy Commies in the skies over the Rio Grande during the unpleasantness in Vietnam?

He was afraid to speak to real, live U.S. voters except in situations where everybody had been required to sign a loyalty oath.

He was afraid to speak to the British Parliament.

The thought of being anywhere near Parliament in Ottawa has scared him speechless.

Every American who heckled him during the election campaign got arrested. But in satellite nations like the United Kingdom, not to mention rogue countries like Canada, it's out of his hands. Anybody could holler anything when he's here next week and get off scot free. This makes him very, very anxious.

In Santiago he did wade into a mob of Chilean security goons to rescue his bodyguard, but while this made him look brave, it was provoked by his fear of not having somebody at his side to protect him against evildoers. At times like that, said his press secretary, he can be "a hands-on kind of guy."

According to David Brooks, the neocon columnist, "he's a towel-snapping kind of guy" too. And if there's one thing we know about guys who are towel-snapping guys, it's that the thing they fear most is having mice nibble on their machismo.

In other words, Dubya's a sensitive kind of guy. If he were subjected to the type of verbal barrage that the owner of the Hamilton Tiger Cats wishes his team's fans would stop firing at the Argonauts, think what might happen.

"Do I suck?"

"You don't, sir, believe me," his press secretary would say. "Look how brave you were in Colombia when they had exactly the same number of troops in the street to protect you as you invaded Falluja with. Look how brave you were when you congratulated your friend Vladimir Putin for his election victory in Ukraine. Ukraine is a democracy, you said, so if 110 per cent of the voters cast ballots, the people have truly spoken."

"What if I suck?"

You see? Heckling could plant a seed of doubt.

The last thing Canadians need when we're hanging by a thread so slender that the President of The World isn't completely sure we're on his side, is for him to develop even more doubts about us.

We should bear the bigger picture in mind, too. Since he has doubts about almost everybody else in the world, shouldn't we do something to ease those?

We have to help Dubya get over his weenieness.

The trick will be to entice him into the Commons.

"Won't that vulgar woman be there?" (Comic relief: Did you hear about the George W. Bush doll? You wind it up and Carolyn Parrish steps on it.)

"Oh, no, sir. The Canadians fitted her with a cement bathing suit and took her swimming in the Ottawa River. As a gesture of goodwill."

"Really? Maybe they're not such evil folks after all."

Then, once he's in there, the minute he starts to speak, everybody jumps up and starts yelling at him. His bodyguard draws his gun. Dubya is about to order him to shoot the varmints, when his press secretary says, "Sir, wait! Listen to what they're yelling."

And Dubya listens. And what they're yelling is, "You the man!" Every last one of them, the MPs, the opposition leaders, the Prime Minister. "You the man!"

"They think I'm the man!" He is awed, and shocked, but in the nicest possible way.

"Yes, sir. Isn't that nice?"

"It's real nice." A tear forms in Dubya's eye. "Maybe I don't suck after all."

We'll have made the world a nicer place.

There is one problem.

Parliament does represent a country that is composed of an embarrassingly consequential number of what Dubya regards as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys."

He can't quite tell the difference between the gallant Royal 22nd Regiment that has just returned from making Afghanistan safe for opium growers, and [i]Les Voltigeurs de Les Tirailleurs de la Force de la Frappé de Gaulle[/i] who have stayed snug at home in gay Paree eating snails gratinée.

"They eat snails, too?" he asks. "Geez, even using them to catch fish would make me nauseous."

We've still got a couple of days. Let me work on this. - http://www.thestar.com/NASApp...
 
---> Bush Cabinet Moves Seen as Stifling Dissent And Ushering In American Fascism
11.23.04 (11:32 am)   [edit]
WASHINGTON - President Bush is moving to concentrate power as he begins his second term, placing trusted members of his inner circle in key positions, but some analysts believe he risks stifling healthy debate within his administration.

It is understandable that this president, like any president, wants his decisions to be taken as writ," said William Galston, a government professor at the University of Maryland, who served as a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton.

"However this president is running the risk of restricting the range of debate within the administration very seriously," Galston said.

Alarm bells rang in Washington's political circles last week when the new CIA director, Porter Goss, sent a memo to agency employees telling them their job was to "support the administration and its policies."

"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Goss said in the memorandum, which came after several top officers resigned.

Even Republicans criticized that choice of words, saying it was crucial for the CIA to retain its objectivity and ability to "speak truth to power." Democrats, noting that Goss until recently was a highly partisan Republican member of the House of Representatives, saw it as part of a disturbing pattern.

Bush moved swiftly after his Nov. 2 election victory to consolidate power. He installed trusted White House counsel Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and nominated national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, while elevating her deputy, Stephen Hadley, to replace her. Loyalists from the inner circle will also take over as White House counsel and at the Education Department.

Some historians believe that with Republicans securely controlling both houses of Congress, Bush will begin his second term with more power and fewer constraints than any president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

[b]DANGER OF HUBRIS (AND AMERICAN FASCISM)[/b]

David Gergen, who served as White House adviser to four presidents, said the two dangers facing Bush were hubris and group-think, the tendency for everyone in an organization to adopt the prevailing view.

"By closing down dissent and centralizing power in a few hands, he is acting as if he truly believes that he and his teams have a perfect track record, that they know best and that they don't need any infusion of new heavyweights," Gergen wrote last week in The New York Times.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan last week denied that Bush was surrounding himself with "yes" men and women.

"Once a decision is made, the president expects the administration to work together," he said. "But he's always welcomed a wide diversity of views from members of his team."

Gary Schmitt of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, who served in the White House under President Ronald Reagan, dismissed the idea that alternative views would not be heard in inner circles as absurd.

"There's a massive amount of commentary, both inside and outside of government. You can't live in Washington, D.C., and not be exposed to all kinds of views," he said.

But political scientist Dean Spiliotes of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics said history taught that second term presidents often became increasingly impatient with and intolerant of dissenting views.

"Bush seems particularly susceptible to this because of his personal style. He doesn't like people in there playing devil's advocate. The result has been a higher risk of mistakes when you're all staffed with like-minded people," he said.

Bush, however, may not have things all his own way. Republican conservatives have already shown they may be willing to defy him, as they did last weekend by refusing to go along with a bill to reform U.S. intelligence services.

nd there may be enormous institutional resistance from within the 1.8 million strong civil service.

Conservative commentator James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute said Bush Cabinet officers should copy Goss and enforce loyalty.

"How to do that when bureaucrats have the equivalent of academic tenure? Make their lives miserable, transfer them or re-educate them. But don't leave them in place," he said in a recent commentary. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...


 
---> Bush Cabinet Moves Seen as Stifling Dissent And Ushering In American Fascism
11.23.04 (11:30 am)   [edit]
WASHINGTON - President Bush is moving to concentrate power as he begins his second term, placing trusted members of his inner circle in key positions, but some analysts believe he risks stifling healthy debate within his administration.

It is understandable that this president, like any president, wants his decisions to be taken as writ," said William Galston, a government professor at the University of Maryland, who served as a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton.

"However this president is running the risk of restricting the range of debate within the administration very seriously," Galston said.

Alarm bells rang in Washington's political circles last week when the new CIA director, Porter Goss, sent a memo to agency employees telling them their job was to "support the administration and its policies."

"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Goss said in the memorandum, which came after several top officers resigned.

Even Republicans criticized that choice of words, saying it was crucial for the CIA to retain its objectivity and ability to "speak truth to power." Democrats, noting that Goss until recently was a highly partisan Republican member of the House of Representatives, saw it as part of a disturbing pattern.

Bush moved swiftly after his Nov. 2 election victory to consolidate power. He installed trusted White House counsel Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and nominated national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, while elevating her deputy, Stephen Hadley, to replace her. Loyalists from the inner circle will also take over as White House counsel and at the Education Department.

Some historians believe that with Republicans securely controlling both houses of Congress, Bush will begin his second term with more power and fewer constraints than any president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

[b]DANGER OF HUBRIS (AND AMERICAN FASCISM)[/b]

David Gergen, who served as White House adviser to four presidents, said the two dangers facing Bush were hubris and group-think, the tendency for everyone in an organization to adopt the prevailing view.

"By closing down dissent and centralizing power in a few hands, he is acting as if he truly believes that he and his teams have a perfect track record, that they know best and that they don't need any infusion of new heavyweights," Gergen wrote last week in The New York Times.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan last week denied that Bush was surrounding himself with "yes" men and women.

"Once a decision is made, the president expects the administration to work together," he said. "But he's always welcomed a wide diversity of views from members of his team."

Gary Schmitt of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, who served in the White House under President Ronald Reagan, dismissed the idea that alternative views would not be heard in inner circles as absurd.

"There's a massive amount of commentary, both inside and outside of government. You can't live in Washington, D.C., and not be exposed to all kinds of views," he said.

But political scientist Dean Spiliotes of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics said history taught that second term presidents often became increasingly impatient with and intolerant of dissenting views.

"Bush seems particularly susceptible to this because of his personal style. He doesn't like people in there playing devil's advocate. The result has been a higher risk of mistakes when you're all staffed with like-minded people," he said.

Bush, however, may not have things all his own way. Republican conservatives have already shown they may be willing to defy him, as they did last weekend by refusing to go along with a bill to reform U.S. intelligence services.

nd there may be enormous institutional resistance from within the 1.8 million strong civil service.

Conservative commentator James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute said Bush Cabinet officers should copy Goss and enforce loyalty.

"How to do that when bureaucrats have the equivalent of academic tenure? Make their lives miserable, transfer them or re-educate them. But don't leave them in place," he said in a recent commentary. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...


 
---> Arms Control Activists Hail Bush Setback - Too Little - Too Late! Bush Should be Impeached!
11.23.04 (11:26 am)   [edit]
The defeat over the weekend of President Bush's attempts to fund research and possibly development of a new family of nuclear weapons was hailed Monday by arms control advocates as their biggest success in more than a decade.

They were reacting to the approval by the Senate and House of a spending bill that eliminates funding for the nuclear "bunker buster" as well as other "advanced concept" tactical nuclear weapons.

"This is the biggest victory that arms control advocates in Congress have had since 1992, when we were able to place limits on nuclear testing," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the leading opponents of the Bush administration's nuclear arms program. "If we are to convince other countries to forgo nuclear weapons, we cannot be preparing to build an entire new generation of nuclear weapons here in the U.S."

The administration had argued that it was important at least to study such weapons at a time of great threat against the United States. But congressional sources said Republicans joined with Democrats in opposing the program because of the example it would set while the U.S. is trying to compel North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear arms efforts.

In addition, lawmakers were concerned by the budgetary pressure of the costly Iraq war and the spiraling deficit.

The Bush administration, which is likely to continue making the program a priority in the president's second term, had sought $27.6 million to continue work on the bunker buster or Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a nuclear weapon that would be aimed at an enemy's underground sanctuary. The goal would be to deny enemies havens for weapons of mass destruction or to hide from U.S. forces.

[b]Rationale for bomb [/b]

"We want, in some hypothetical future confrontation with a hypothetical generic dictator, to make it absolutely clear that he doesn't have an invulnerable sanctuary," Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said recently.

An agency spokesman acknowledged the congressional action was a setback, but attributed the defeat to legislative procedure.

"We are of course very disappointed that there was not funding for all the administration requests for the NNSA," agency spokesman Bryan Wilkes said. "We think that if the issue had come to a specific floor vote on it we would have prevailed. Instead, it was caught up in the appropriations process."

He said he did not know if the nuclear weapons programs would be included in Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget requests.

The White House had outlined plans to spend more than $500 million on the penetrator project over the next several years, which some analysts said was enough to move the weapon into production.

Bush also had asked for $9 million for further research into the possible development of "advanced concept" low-yield tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on a battlefield.

In addition to eliminating the funding requests, Congress slashed to $7 million from $29.8 million a White House request to build new nuclear warhead facilities, or "pits," and cut $30 million that the administration had planned to use to speed resumption of nuclear testing, if that proved necessary.

Though Brooks argued it was not the intention of the White House to start "some bad new nuclear arms race," critics argued these actions would have precisely that effect.

[b]Russian's observation [/b]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had said that pursuit of these programs would be "a case of letting the genie out of the bottle."

According to the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, Russia still has about 3,400 tactical nuclear weapons left from the Soviet era that the U.S. would like eliminated.

A major stumbling block to the administration's plans was a maverick Republican, Rep. David Hobson of Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy subcommittee, who feared the funding would lead to a new arms race.

Unlike other military programs, nuclear weapons are overseen by the Energy Department, which is monitored by Congress' energy committees.

"What worries me about the nuclear penetrator," Hobson told one symposium when the administration proposal was being debated, "is that some idiot might try to use it."

Though Bush can seek money for nuclear weapons research in his budget next year, opponents hope Congress' action will make clear that lawmakers are reluctant to go along.

In addition to the financial and diplomatic arguments, critics questioned the new weapons' likely efficiency. The penetrator would not reach deep enough to knock out bunkers far underground, they argued, and it would release deadly radioactive clouds no matter where it was detonated.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called the decision "a consequential victory for those of us who believe the United States sends a wrong signal to the rest of the world by reopening the nuclear door and beginning testing and development of a new generation of nuclear weapons." - http://www.commondreams.org/h...


 
---> Arms Control Activists Hail Bush Setback - Too Little - Too Late! Bush Should be Impeached!
11.23.04 (11:21 am)   [edit]
The defeat over the weekend of President Bush's attempts to fund research and possibly development of a new family of nuclear weapons was hailed Monday by arms control advocates as their biggest success in more than a decade.

They were reacting to the approval by the Senate and House of a spending bill that eliminates funding for the nuclear "bunker buster" as well as other "advanced concept" tactical nuclear weapons.

"This is the biggest victory that arms control advocates in Congress have had since 1992, when we were able to place limits on nuclear testing," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the leading opponents of the Bush administration's nuclear arms program. "If we are to convince other countries to forgo nuclear weapons, we cannot be preparing to build an entire new generation of nuclear weapons here in the U.S."

The administration had argued that it was important at least to study such weapons at a time of great threat against the United States. But congressional sources said Republicans joined with Democrats in opposing the program because of the example it would set while the U.S. is trying to compel North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear arms efforts.

In addition, lawmakers were concerned by the budgetary pressure of the costly Iraq war and the spiraling deficit.

The Bush administration, which is likely to continue making the program a priority in the president's second term, had sought $27.6 million to continue work on the bunker buster or Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a nuclear weapon that would be aimed at an enemy's underground sanctuary. The goal would be to deny enemies havens for weapons of mass destruction or to hide from U.S. forces.

[b]Rationale for bomb [/b]

"We want, in some hypothetical future confrontation with a hypothetical generic dictator, to make it absolutely clear that he doesn't have an invulnerable sanctuary," Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said recently.

An agency spokesman acknowledged the congressional action was a setback, but attributed the defeat to legislative procedure.

"We are of course very disappointed that there was not funding for all the administration requests for the NNSA," agency spokesman Bryan Wilkes said. "We think that if the issue had come to a specific floor vote on it we would have prevailed. Instead, it was caught up in the appropriations process."

He said he did not know if the nuclear weapons programs would be included in Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget requests.

The White House had outlined plans to spend more than $500 million on the penetrator project over the next several years, which some analysts said was enough to move the weapon into production.

Bush also had asked for $9 million for further research into the possible development of "advanced concept" low-yield tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on a battlefield.

In addition to eliminating the funding requests, Congress slashed to $7 million from $29.8 million a White House request to build new nuclear warhead facilities, or "pits," and cut $30 million that the administration had planned to use to speed resumption of nuclear testing, if that proved necessary.

Though Brooks argued it was not the intention of the White House to start "some bad new nuclear arms race," critics argued these actions would have precisely that effect.

[b]Russian's observation [/b]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had said that pursuit of these programs would be "a case of letting the genie out of the bottle."

According to the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, Russia still has about 3,400 tactical nuclear weapons left from the Soviet era that the U.S. would like eliminated.

A major stumbling block to the administration's plans was a maverick Republican, Rep. David Hobson of Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy subcommittee, who feared the funding would lead to a new arms race.

Unlike other military programs, nuclear weapons are overseen by the Energy Department, which is monitored by Congress' energy committees.

"What worries me about the nuclear penetrator," Hobson told one symposium when the administration proposal was being debated, "is that some idiot might try to use it."

Though Bush can seek money for nuclear weapons research in his budget next year, opponents hope Congress' action will make clear that lawmakers are reluctant to go along.

In addition to the financial and diplomatic arguments, critics questioned the new weapons' likely efficiency. The penetrator would not reach deep enough to knock out bunkers far underground, they argued, and it would release deadly radioactive clouds no matter where it was detonated.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called the decision "a consequential victory for those of us who believe the United States sends a wrong signal to the rest of the world by reopening the nuclear door and beginning testing and development of a new generation of nuclear weapons." - http://www.commondreams.org/h...


 
---> Georgey-boy A'W'OL Bush: A National Disgrace ...
11.23.04 (6:53 am)   [edit]
[b]How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush[/b]

Following four community public hearings in Ohio about election irregularities and voter suppression – two in the capitol, Columbus, and one each in Cincinnati and Cleveland – a clear pattern and practice of voter disenfranchisement is emerging.

In order to understand the extent of the voter suppression in the inner city of Columbus and Franklin County, overwhelmingly Democratic wards, start with the phrase: “Machines Placed By Close Of Polls” on the last page of the county’s 17-page voting machine allocation report.

This phrase at the end of the spreadsheet may be the key in unraveling a deliberate and unprecedented plan to repress African American and poor central city voters. In statistics, when you see a bizarre definition or measurement, it sends up red flags. Why doesn’t the Franklin County Board of Elections have a number for “Machines Placed By Opening Of Polls”?

It now appears that the Franklin County BOE placed scores of machines too late in the day to alleviate the long lines of voters who gathered to vote before work and at lunchtime.

To better understand what the BOE did on Election Day, consider the following analogy. The near east side of Columbus needs four buses to move the population to the downtown business district. Each bus will move 100 people. At the start of the business day at 6:30am, there are only two buses running and another one with a dead battery. After a few hours, the third bus is put into use. Finally, towards the close of the work day at 6pm, a fourth bus is deployed. The Central Ohio Transit Authority then reports it had four buses operating by the end of the business day. What matters is not how many buses, or voting machines, were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.

Questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them during the day.

Pacifica reporter Evan Davis reported that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. The county’s own documents reveal that they had 2,866 “Machines Available” on Election Day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day. Ward holds the exclusive three-year contract to deliver voting machines in Franklin County.

If the BOE only had 2,741 placed initially, this would explain the long lines in Columbus and voters leaving the polls during the morning voting rush. According to the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE), in the city of Columbus, where voters waited in the heavily Democratic wards between 2-7 hours to cast the vast majority of their votes for John Kerry, voter turnout was 52.7%. In the affluent white suburbs of Columbus, with far more voting machines available, the turnout figure was 76.15%.

By contrast, 66.31% of registered voters went to the polls in Cincinnati and turnout was 76.82% in the suburbs. In Cincinnati, where more voting machines were available, the difference between the city and suburbs was only 10.5% compared to 23.45% in the Columbus area. Cincinnati and Columbus have similar demographics.

The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on Election Day. In addition, Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on Friday, November 19, that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day.

Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy criticized Damschroder for calling the elections “well-funded and well-planned and that problems could not have been averted, . . .” according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Damschroder, the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party, told the Franklin County Commissioners, “From our perspective, this election was a success.”

Despite an increased registration of more than 167,253 new voters, Damschroder admits he ran the election with a “fixed and exhausted” pool of voting machines, the Dispatch reported. Kilroy pointed out that Damschroder and Franklin County election officials told her “We’re fine, we’re fine” and never requested additional money over the initial allocation.

The Washington Post reported “Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Control’s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system.” Franklin County’s voting machine allocation report shows that Damschroder deployed his Danaher (formerly Shooptronics) voting machines, which have been in use since 1992, in a formula that favored Bush over Kerry.

In precinct 55-B on Columbus’ near east side, there were 1,338 registered voters and, according to Franklin County Board of Elections estimates, 956 active voters who had voted in the last two federal elections. Despite voter registration being up 17%, and by the BOE’s own guidelines the polling place requiring ten machines (one per 100 voters), the polling site had only three machines, one less than for the 2000 elections.

The Election Protection Coalition that visited the voting site between 7:30-8:30 a.m. documented a dozen people leaving the polls, six to go to work and six who were either elderly or handicapped. But things were worse in other areas of Columbus.

In precinct 1-B where there were 1,620 registered voters, a 27% increase in voter registration, the precinct had five voting machines in 2000 and only three in 2004. Where did they go? Out to Republican enclaves like Canal Winchester, where two machines were added since 2000, for a total of five to service 1,255 registered voters? Or were they re-routed to Dublin 2-G where 1,656 registered voters apparently needed six machines, twice the number of Columbus’ 1-B?

Nearby in Dublin precinct 3-C, 910 registered voters were allocated four voting machines. No doubt machines were shifted from precincts like Columbus 44-G with 1,620 voters and registration up 25%, which lost one machine from the 2000 elections to 2004.

In Cleveland, where a public hearing was held on Saturday, November 20, there was a different pattern of voting irregularities. These include heavily Democratic wards with abnormally low reported rates of voter turnout, three under 20%. In Precinct 6-C where Kerry beat Bush 45 votes to one, allegedly only 7.1% of the registered voters cast ballots. In precinct 13-D where Kerry received 83.8% of the vote, only 13.05% reportedly voted. In precinct 13-F where Kerry received 97.5%, the turnout was reported to be only 19.6%.

One explanation comes from Irma Olmedo, who provided the Free Press with a written statement of her activities in the heavily Hispanic ward 13, which contained the three low voter turnout precincts.

“Ohio does not have bilingual ballots and this disenfranchises many Latino voters who are not totally fluent in English . . . there were 13 poll workers at the school and none knew Spanish. Some could not even find the names of the people on the list because they couldn’t understand well when people said their names. . . . Some people put their punch card ballots in backwards when they voted and discovered that they couldn’t punch out the holes. They had not read the instructions which were in English, that they had to turn the card around in order to vote,” Olmedo stated.

Olmedo translated at precinct 13-O, where 90% of the votes were for Kerry and only 53 votes were counted. The turnout of 21% was due to the lack of Spanish instructions and the misspelling of names: “I noticed that one named Nieves was misspelled as Nieues and the pollworkers were not able to find his name, these people were told to complete a provisional ballot because their names were not on the list.”

In Cuyahoga County, according to the Secretary of State’s website there are 24,788 provisional ballots, most of them from the city of Cleveland, not its surrounding suburbs. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell served as Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Ohio reelection committee.

There also seems to be an abnormally high vote count for third party candidates who received less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote total combined. For example, in precinct 4-F, the right-wing Constitutional Law candidate Peroutka received 215 votes to Bush’s 21 and Kerry’s 290. In this precinct, Kerry received 55% of the vote where Gore received 91% of the vote in the year 200. These numbers suggest that Kerry’s votes were inadvertently or intentionally shifted to Peroutka.

In Cincinnati, sworn testimony was taken on vote buying, the lack of machines in African American neighborhoods and the deliberate destruction of new voter registration cards by a private company hired to process the forms.

Exit polls on Election Day from both the polling firm Zogby International and CNN projected John Kerry winning the state of Ohio. University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven Freeman calculated the odds that the exit polls in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania all being wrong are 250,000,000 to one. Pollster John Zogby, President of Zogby International, is quoted as telling the Inter Press Service of Stockholm that “something is definitely wrong.”

Zogby commented that he was concerned about the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote tallies stating “We’re talking about the free world here.”

The Alliance for Democracy-Ohio is preparing a lawsuit challenging the outcome of Ohio’s election results due to the massive voting irregularities that have emerged in sworn testimony and affidavits.

--
[b]Bob Fitrakis has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. He is a lawyer working with the Alliance for Democracy-Ohio and the Editor of the Columbus Free Press. Reporting in this article also came from Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D and Joe Knapp (http://copperas.com/fcelectio...). For additional documentation, visit http://freepress.org/departme...[/b] - http://freepress.org/columns/...

 
---> Dictator: Tommy-boy DeLay (Bush's Fascist Slut) Said: "I am the federal government" ...
11.23.04 (6:53 am)   [edit]
David Brooks (conservative columnist) writes ([i]see below[/i]) that Tom DeLay "has been a thoughtful majority leader." Would that thoughtfulness have been on display when he said that "guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence"? When he mocked people with foreign-sounding names during a House floor debate? When he called Medicare a "failed program"? When he told a government employee who was trying to get him to stop smoking on government property that "I am the federal government"? When he used the word "overreacting" to describe House colleagues disgusted by images from Abu Ghraib?

Presumably there are limits to Mr. Brooks's and the G.O.P.'s tolerance for Mr. DeLay's brand of thoughtful leadership. I look forward to learning what those might be.

[b]A Scandal Waiting to Happen

By DAVID BROOKS[/b]

Tom DeLay is bleeding and he doesn't even know it.

This week, House Republicans bent their accountability rules to protect their majority leader from what they feel is a partisan Texas prosecutor. But they hated the whole exercise. They sat in a conference room hour after hour wringing their hands. Only a few members were brave enough to stand up and say they shouldn't bend the rule. But afterward, many House Republicans came up to those members and said that secretly they agreed with them.

Somewhere in the psychology of the caucus something shifted. That ineffable thing called political capital began seeping away from DeLay. Someday people will look back and say this could be the moment when his power begins to ebb.

It's shifted because many House Republicans know that DeLay has been playing close to the ethical edge for years. They've noticed the number of scandals - the latest involving lobbying fees for some Indian casinos - that trace back to DeLay cronies. They still remember that delicious feeling of possibility when they arrived in Washington and vowed they would not turn into the corrupt old majority they had come to replace. They know Delay symbolizes their descent from that reformist ideal.

Why didn't more members get up and say something against DeLay?

There are several reasons. The most obvious is self-interest. DeLay and the leadership can take away your hopes of getting a chairmanship or a vote on your bill.

But there's also the fact that most House Republicans like DeLay. It's always important to remember that most of the mythology that surrounds the Hammer is total nonsense. He is not the behind-the-scenes power who controls the House. Speaker Dennis Hastert controls the House and feels free to overrule DeLay.

He is not the vicious strongman who terrorizes members and reduces them to tears to get their vote. Roy Blunt and Eric Cantor are the whips, not DeLay, and they are anything but vicious.

He's not even a terror to his peers. He can be firm, but he and his staff are noted for their graciousness. Connecticut moderate Chris Shays, who has tangled with DeLay more than anyone else, believes that DeLay is actually uncomfortable with personal confrontations. He's much better at offering carrots than wielding sticks.

In fact, DeLay has been a thoughtful majority leader. He rarely keeps the House in session beyond its scheduled hours. That means members, especially those with young families or marginal seats, can spend more time in their districts. That is deeply appreciated.

Finally, House Republicans did not rise up to denounce DeLay because while they know he represents some of the political tendencies they came to Washington to reform, none of them is pure enough to cast the first stone. They've all voted for the big deficits they vowed to combat. They've all watched the walls between the public servants and the private lobbyists get washed away.

If Republicans are going to recover the reformist spirit, they're going to have to do more than lessen the influence of Tom DeLay.

But let's face it, the problem starts there. Tom DeLay is a scandal waiting to happen. He casts himself as the enemy of Washington, but he's really a conventional (if effective) pol who wants to use dollars to entrench power. He represents the greatest danger the Republicans face, bossism. He wants to be the G.O.P.'s Boss Tweed.

Deep in the recesses of their minds, many Republicans know that voters around the country may never hear of Tom DeLay, but if the Republicans become just another self-dealing power clique, there will be hell to pay.

You could begin to hear a slight shift in Republican voices yesterday. Several were looking around and noticing that they have a very good and effective leadership team even without DeLay. Hastert has gone from being obscure to being beloved. Roy Blunt is efficient and smooth. Eric Cantor of Virginia is a rising star.

When people start gossiping about what the world would be like if you were gone - as Republicans are now starting to do with DeLay - you are in the first stages of political decline. It means that members start regarding you with a little less awe, and they start regarding your potential successors with a little more.

He doesn't face an immediate threat. But the next time a scandal licks up against him, DeLay will find his support is not as strong as he thought it would be. He'll turn around and find that his caucus has remembered its core values. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...


 
---> Dictator: Tommy-boy DeLay (Bush's Fascist Slut) Said: "I am the federal government" ...
11.23.04 (6:51 am)   [edit]
David Brooks (conservative columnist) writes ([i]see below[/i]) that Tom DeLay "has been a thoughtful majority leader." Would that thoughtfulness have been on display when he said that "guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence"? When he mocked people with foreign-sounding names during a House floor debate? When he called Medicare a "failed program"? When he told a government employee who was trying to get him to stop smoking on government property that "I am the federal government"? When he used the word "overreacting" to describe House colleagues disgusted by images from Abu Ghraib?

Presumably there are limits to Mr. Brooks's and the G.O.P.'s tolerance for Mr. DeLay's brand of thoughtful leadership. I look forward to learning what those might be.

[b]A Scandal Waiting to Happen

By DAVID BROOKS[/b]

Tom DeLay is bleeding and he doesn't even know it.

This week, House Republicans bent their accountability rules to protect their majority leader from what they feel is a partisan Texas prosecutor. But they hated the whole exercise. They sat in a conference room hour after hour wringing their hands. Only a few members were brave enough to stand up and say they shouldn't bend the rule. But afterward, many House Republicans came up to those members and said that secretly they agreed with them.

Somewhere in the psychology of the caucus something shifted. That ineffable thing called political capital began seeping away from DeLay. Someday people will look back and say this could be the moment when his power begins to ebb.

It's shifted because many House Republicans know that DeLay has been playing close to the ethical edge for years. They've noticed the number of scandals - the latest involving lobbying fees for some Indian casinos - that trace back to DeLay cronies. They still remember that delicious feeling of possibility when they arrived in Washington and vowed they would not turn into the corrupt old majority they had come to replace. They know Delay symbolizes their descent from that reformist ideal.

Why didn't more members get up and say something against DeLay?

There are several reasons. The most obvious is self-interest. DeLay and the leadership can take away your hopes of getting a chairmanship or a vote on your bill.

But there's also the fact that most House Republicans like DeLay. It's always important to remember that most of the mythology that surrounds the Hammer is total nonsense. He is not the behind-the-scenes power who controls the House. Speaker Dennis Hastert controls the House and feels free to overrule DeLay.

He is not the vicious strongman who terrorizes members and reduces them to tears to get their vote. Roy Blunt and Eric Cantor are the whips, not DeLay, and they are anything but vicious.

He's not even a terror to his peers. He can be firm, but he and his staff are noted for their graciousness. Connecticut moderate Chris Shays, who has tangled with DeLay more than anyone else, believes that DeLay is actually uncomfortable with personal confrontations. He's much better at offering carrots than wielding sticks.

In fact, DeLay has been a thoughtful majority leader. He rarely keeps the House in session beyond its scheduled hours. That means members, especially those with young families or marginal seats, can spend more time in their districts. That is deeply appreciated.

Finally, House Republicans did not rise up to denounce DeLay because while they know he represents some of the political tendencies they came to Washington to reform, none of them is pure enough to cast the first stone. They've all voted for the big deficits they vowed to combat. They've all watched the walls between the public servants and the private lobbyists get washed away.

If Republicans are going to recover the reformist spirit, they're going to have to do more than lessen the influence of Tom DeLay.

But let's face it, the problem starts there. Tom DeLay is a scandal waiting to happen. He casts himself as the enemy of Washington, but he's really a conventional (if effective) pol who wants to use dollars to entrench power. He represents the greatest danger the Republicans face, bossism. He wants to be the G.O.P.'s Boss Tweed.

Deep in the recesses of their minds, many Republicans know that voters around the country may never hear of Tom DeLay, but if the Republicans become just another self-dealing power clique, there will be hell to pay.

You could begin to hear a slight shift in Republican voices yesterday. Several were looking around and noticing that they have a very good and effective leadership team even without DeLay. Hastert has gone from being obscure to being beloved. Roy Blunt is efficient and smooth. Eric Cantor of Virginia is a rising star.

When people start gossiping about what the world would be like if you were gone - as Republicans are now starting to do with DeLay - you are in the first stages of political decline. It means that members start regarding you with a little less awe, and they start regarding your potential successors with a little more.

He doesn't face an immediate threat. But the next time a scandal licks up against him, DeLay will find his support is not as strong as he thought it would be. He'll turn around and find that his caucus has remembered its core values. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...


 
---> Impeach Bush for War Crimes: Another Round of Misery for the Children of Iraq!
11.23.04 (6:41 am)   [edit]
Before the Iraq war, Physicians for Human Rights had warned about the serious public-health and human-rights risks to the already vulnerable Iraqi population, should the war take place.

Its predictions have been recently, and sadly, confirmed by an article in the medical magazine The Lancet. According to the article, there have been in excess of 100,000 civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including a substantial number of children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the death of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

In addition, the country has suffered from over 12 years of comprehensive United Nations' sanctions and from Saddam Hussein's perverse policies to use funds for personal gain rather than to improve the basic-services infrastructure in the country.

Prior to the present conflict, Iraqi children were already highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under 5 years of age was chronically malnourished, and one in eight children died before their fifth birthday. This was happening in a population with almost half the inhabitants under the age of 18.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled compared with before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of 10 children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea, which leads to a loss of nutrients and often to death if not properly treated.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water-cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water being pumped into homes is extremely poor and leads to more-frequent illness and malnutrition among children. The collapse of the water and sewage systems is probably the cause of an outbreak of a virulent form of hepatitis that is particularly lethal to pregnant women.

It is estimated that 270,000 children born after the war have had none of their required immunizations and routine immunization services were all but disrupted. In addition, the existing stock of vaccines became useless as a result of the destruction of the vaccines' refrigeration system.

Antibiotics of minimal cost in the international market are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures.

As a consequence of all these public-health failures, Iraq has the distinction of being the country that has least progressed in reducing child mortality since 1990.

In the 1990s, the most significant increases in child mortality occurred in southern and central Iraq, where under-5-year-old child mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1,000 live births. Due to lack of security, many babies are now delivered at home, and many mothers do not receive any prenatal care. There is a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 49.2 per 100,000 for neighboring Turkey.

In the main cities, every day children are killed or injured when in contact with unexploded ordnance, land mines and other kinds of live ammunition littering the country. In Baghdad alone, there are approximately 800 hazardous sites containing cluster bombs and dumped ammunition. Anti-personnel landmines have caused the deaths of both U.S. and allied soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Education Survey, carried out by the Iraqi government with support from UNICEF, describes how children's educational opportunities have been affected by the war. In the most affected governorates, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack water service. The survey shows that since March 2003, bombing has damaged over 700 primary schools, more than 200 have been burned and over 3,000 have been looted.

After a year and a half of hostilities, the suffering of civilians seems only to increase, affecting all sectors of the population.

Even more poignantly, that over half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces are women and children is a severe indictment against the war.

[b]Dr. César Chelala, an international public-health consultant in New York City, writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> Impeach Bush for War Crimes: Another Round of Misery for the Children of Iraq!
11.23.04 (6:41 am)   [edit]
Before the Iraq war, Physicians for Human Rights had warned about the serious public-health and human-rights risks to the already vulnerable Iraqi population, should the war take place.

Its predictions have been recently, and sadly, confirmed by an article in the medical magazine The Lancet. According to the article, there have been in excess of 100,000 civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including a substantial number of children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the death of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

In addition, the country has suffered from over 12 years of comprehensive United Nations' sanctions and from Saddam Hussein's perverse policies to use funds for personal gain rather than to improve the basic-services infrastructure in the country.

Prior to the present conflict, Iraqi children were already highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under 5 years of age was chronically malnourished, and one in eight children died before their fifth birthday. This was happening in a population with almost half the inhabitants under the age of 18.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled compared with before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of 10 children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea, which leads to a loss of nutrients and often to death if not properly treated.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water-cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water being pumped into homes is extremely poor and leads to more-frequent illness and malnutrition among children. The collapse of the water and sewage systems is probably the cause of an outbreak of a virulent form of hepatitis that is particularly lethal to pregnant women.

It is estimated that 270,000 children born after the war have had none of their required immunizations and routine immunization services were all but disrupted. In addition, the existing stock of vaccines became useless as a result of the destruction of the vaccines' refrigeration system.

Antibiotics of minimal cost in the international market are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures.

As a consequence of all these public-health failures, Iraq has the distinction of being the country that has least progressed in reducing child mortality since 1990.

In the 1990s, the most significant increases in child mortality occurred in southern and central Iraq, where under-5-year-old child mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1,000 live births. Due to lack of security, many babies are now delivered at home, and many mothers do not receive any prenatal care. There is a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 49.2 per 100,000 for neighboring Turkey.

In the main cities, every day children are killed or injured when in contact with unexploded ordnance, land mines and other kinds of live ammunition littering the country. In Baghdad alone, there are approximately 800 hazardous sites containing cluster bombs and dumped ammunition. Anti-personnel landmines have caused the deaths of both U.S. and allied soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Education Survey, carried out by the Iraqi government with support from UNICEF, describes how children's educational opportunities have been affected by the war. In the most affected governorates, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack water service. The survey shows that since March 2003, bombing has damaged over 700 primary schools, more than 200 have been burned and over 3,000 have been looted.

After a year and a half of hostilities, the suffering of civilians seems only to increase, affecting all sectors of the population.

Even more poignantly, that over half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces are women and children is a severe indictment against the war.

[b]Dr. César Chelala, an international public-health consultant in New York City, writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> Impeach Bush for War Crimes: Another Round of Misery for the Children of Iraq!
11.23.04 (6:41 am)   [edit]
Before the Iraq war, Physicians for Human Rights had warned about the serious public-health and human-rights risks to the already vulnerable Iraqi population, should the war take place.

Its predictions have been recently, and sadly, confirmed by an article in the medical magazine The Lancet. According to the article, there have been in excess of 100,000 civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including a substantial number of children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the death of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

In addition, the country has suffered from over 12 years of comprehensive United Nations' sanctions and from Saddam Hussein's perverse policies to use funds for personal gain rather than to improve the basic-services infrastructure in the country.

Prior to the present conflict, Iraqi children were already highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under 5 years of age was chronically malnourished, and one in eight children died before their fifth birthday. This was happening in a population with almost half the inhabitants under the age of 18.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled compared with before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of 10 children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea, which leads to a loss of nutrients and often to death if not properly treated.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water-cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water being pumped into homes is extremely poor and leads to more-frequent illness and malnutrition among children. The collapse of the water and sewage systems is probably the cause of an outbreak of a virulent form of hepatitis that is particularly lethal to pregnant women.

It is estimated that 270,000 children born after the war have had none of their required immunizations and routine immunization services were all but disrupted. In addition, the existing stock of vaccines became useless as a result of the destruction of the vaccines' refrigeration system.

Antibiotics of minimal cost in the international market are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures.

As a consequence of all these public-health failures, Iraq has the distinction of being the country that has least progressed in reducing child mortality since 1990.

In the 1990s, the most significant increases in child mortality occurred in southern and central Iraq, where under-5-year-old child mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1,000 live births. Due to lack of security, many babies are now delivered at home, and many mothers do not receive any prenatal care. There is a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 49.2 per 100,000 for neighboring Turkey.

In the main cities, every day children are killed or injured when in contact with unexploded ordnance, land mines and other kinds of live ammunition littering the country. In Baghdad alone, there are approximately 800 hazardous sites containing cluster bombs and dumped ammunition. Anti-personnel landmines have caused the deaths of both U.S. and allied soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Education Survey, carried out by the Iraqi government with support from UNICEF, describes how children's educational opportunities have been affected by the war. In the most affected governorates, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack water service. The survey shows that since March 2003, bombing has damaged over 700 primary schools, more than 200 have been burned and over 3,000 have been looted.

After a year and a half of hostilities, the suffering of civilians seems only to increase, affecting all sectors of the population.

Even more poignantly, that over half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces are women and children is a severe indictment against the war.

[b]Dr. César Chelala, an international public-health consultant in New York City, writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> Impeach Bush for War Crimes: Another Round of Misery for the Children of Iraq!
11.23.04 (6:37 am)   [edit]
Before the Iraq war, Physicians for Human Rights had warned about the serious public-health and human-rights risks to the already vulnerable Iraqi population, should the war take place.

Its predictions have been recently, and sadly, confirmed by an article in the medical magazine The Lancet. According to the article, there have been in excess of 100,000 civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including a substantial number of children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the death of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

In addition, the country has suffered from over 12 years of comprehensive United Nations' sanctions and from Saddam Hussein's perverse policies to use funds for personal gain rather than to improve the basic-services infrastructure in the country.

Prior to the present conflict, Iraqi children were already highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under 5 years of age was chronically malnourished, and one in eight children died before their fifth birthday. This was happening in a population with almost half the inhabitants under the age of 18.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled compared with before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of 10 children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea, which leads to a loss of nutrients and often to death if not properly treated.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water-cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water being pumped into homes is extremely poor and leads to more-frequent illness and malnutrition among children. The collapse of the water and sewage systems is probably the cause of an outbreak of a virulent form of hepatitis that is particularly lethal to pregnant women.

It is estimated that 270,000 children born after the war have had none of their required immunizations and routine immunization services were all but disrupted. In addition, the existing stock of vaccines became useless as a result of the destruction of the vaccines' refrigeration system.

Antibiotics of minimal cost in the international market are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures.

As a consequence of all these public-health failures, Iraq has the distinction of being the country that has least progressed in reducing child mortality since 1990.

In the 1990s, the most significant increases in child mortality occurred in southern and central Iraq, where under-5-year-old child mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1,000 live births. Due to lack of security, many babies are now delivered at home, and many mothers do not receive any prenatal care. There is a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 49.2 per 100,000 for neighboring Turkey.

In the main cities, every day children are killed or injured when in contact with unexploded ordnance, land mines and other kinds of live ammunition littering the country. In Baghdad alone, there are approximately 800 hazardous sites containing cluster bombs and dumped ammunition. Anti-personnel landmines have caused the deaths of both U.S. and allied soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Education Survey, carried out by the Iraqi government with support from UNICEF, describes how children's educational opportunities have been affected by the war. In the most affected governorates, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack water service. The survey shows that since March 2003, bombing has damaged over 700 primary schools, more than 200 have been burned and over 3,000 have been looted.

After a year and a half of hostilities, the suffering of civilians seems only to increase, affecting all sectors of the population.

Even more poignantly, that over half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces are women and children is a severe indictment against the war.

[b]Dr. César Chelala, an international public-health consultant in New York City, writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> Impeach Bush for War Crimes: Another Round of Misery for the Children of Iraq!
11.23.04 (6:35 am)   [edit]
Before the Iraq war, Physicians for Human Rights had warned about the serious public-health and human-rights risks to the already vulnerable Iraqi population, should the war take place.

Its predictions have been recently, and sadly, confirmed by an article in the medical magazine The Lancet. According to the article, there have been in excess of 100,000 civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including a substantial number of children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the death of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

In addition, the country has suffered from over 12 years of comprehensive United Nations' sanctions and from Saddam Hussein's perverse policies to use funds for personal gain rather than to improve the basic-services infrastructure in the country.

Prior to the present conflict, Iraqi children were already highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under 5 years of age was chronically malnourished, and one in eight children died before their fifth birthday. This was happening in a population with almost half the inhabitants under the age of 18.

A limited post-war nutritional assessment carried out by UNICEF in Baghdad found that acute malnutrition has nearly doubled compared with before the war. That assessment also found that seven out of 10 children suffered from various degrees of diarrhea, which leads to a loss of nutrients and often to death if not properly treated.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are still pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every day. Because water-cleaning chemicals have been looted or destroyed, the quality of water being pumped into homes is extremely poor and leads to more-frequent illness and malnutrition among children. The collapse of the water and sewage systems is probably the cause of an outbreak of a virulent form of hepatitis that is particularly lethal to pregnant women.

It is estimated that 270,000 children born after the war have had none of their required immunizations and routine immunization services were all but disrupted. In addition, the existing stock of vaccines became useless as a result of the destruction of the vaccines' refrigeration system.

Antibiotics of minimal cost in the international market are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures.

As a consequence of all these public-health failures, Iraq has the distinction of being the country that has least progressed in reducing child mortality since 1990.

In the 1990s, the most significant increases in child mortality occurred in southern and central Iraq, where under-5-year-old child mortality rose from 56 to 131 per 1,000 live births. Due to lack of security, many babies are now delivered at home, and many mothers do not receive any prenatal care. There is a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 49.2 per 100,000 for neighboring Turkey.

In the main cities, every day children are killed or injured when in contact with unexploded ordnance, land mines and other kinds of live ammunition littering the country. In Baghdad alone, there are approximately 800 hazardous sites containing cluster bombs and dumped ammunition. Anti-personnel landmines have caused the deaths of both U.S. and allied soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

The Iraq Education Survey, carried out by the Iraqi government with support from UNICEF, describes how children's educational opportunities have been affected by the war. In the most affected governorates, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack water service. The survey shows that since March 2003, bombing has damaged over 700 primary schools, more than 200 have been burned and over 3,000 have been looted.

After a year and a half of hostilities, the suffering of civilians seems only to increase, affecting all sectors of the population.

Even more poignantly, that over half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces are women and children is a severe indictment against the war.

[b]Dr. César Chelala, an international public-health consultant in New York City, writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues[/b]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...


 
---> Why Pre-Emptive Invasions Encourage Soldiers to Commit War Crimes
11.21.04 (10:21 am)   [edit]
[b]The implications of shooting dead a wounded Iraqi in cold blood[/b]

Crime came to the city of Fallujah last week and it was committed under the unforgiving gaze of a television camera, giving it international prominence. When a tense and battle-weary US Marine lifted his assault rifle and fired at a wounded Iraqi, killing him instantly during mopping up operations, he was not only doing a bad thing, he was breaking the law as it is applied to the business of warfare.

The US has not signed up to the International Criminal Court, precisely because it wants to protect its troops from prosecution in peace enforcement operations, but the assault on Fallujah was part of a series of military operations in an internal war and should therefore be subject to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Under their terms, wounded or incapacitated combatants must be treated humanely and protected from the summary justice of the casual head-shot. The conventions are quite clear on this point. Murder of stricken opponents is not allowed: it is a war crime.

The case is being investigated and no doubt the marine will be punished, but his action symbolizes the hopeless muddle that the post-conflict operations in Iraq have become. It also brings into sharper focus the problems facing the coalition forces on the ground. What kind of war are they fighting and what are its rules? Having been outed on the lack of weapons of mass destruction President George W Bush hides behind the fig-leaf of the interventionist war: it was right to mount a pre-emptive strike against a greater threat, in this case Saddam Hussein. Prime Minister Tony Blair has fallen in line with the policy and sees no reason to change his mind. The intervention in Iraq might be unpopular, the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has called it “illegal”, but both leaders say that it is a just conflict.

However, if US and British soldiers are engaged in a war – Blair claims that it is now in its second phase – then rules must apply. So far, the US has shown little inclination to pay heed to the Geneva Conventions, witness the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and the impending appointment of Albert Gonzales as attorney-general. This is the lawyer who advised the Bush administration that the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant because the war against terrorism “renders quaint som