Grassroots Actions for Peace

Learn about the African Great Lakes Initiative

The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams strengthens, supports, and promotes peace activities at the grassroots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). To this end, AGLI responds to requests from local religious and non-governmental organizations that focus on conflict management, peace building, trauma healing, and reconciliation. AGLI sponsors Peace Teams composed of members from local partners and the international community.  [read more about the AGLI]
Geographical information: [ view region from space ]

By Councilors Chuck Turner, Felix D. Arroyo, Charles C. Yancey, Sam Yoon and Michael Ross.

Resolved, that the Boston City Council supports gatherings such as the one that will take place in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2007 which show the support of the people of this country for policies such as those outlined above. [ View Resolution ]

One hour video

Dr.Helen Caldicott, M.D. is the Founder & President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. She is also the Founder of Physicians for ... all » Social Responsibility. In her unique style, she makes a compelling case against the use of Nuclear Power. She cuts through the rhetoric and tells it as it is. Filmed at UC Berkeley 2003. [  view video ]

Every Little Thing We Do.

Howard Zinn is one of this country's most celebrated historians. His classic work "A People's History of the United States" changed the way we look at history in America. First published a quarter of a century ago, the book has sold over a million copies and is a phenomenon in the world of publishing - selling more copies each successive year. [includes rush transcript]

...
I became friends a few years ago with an Italian war surgeon named Gino Strada. He spent ten years, fifteen years doing surgery on war victims all over the world. And he wrote a book about it, Green Parrots: Diary of a War Surgeon. He said in all the patients that he operated on in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere, 85% of them were civilians, one-third of them, children. If you understand, and if people understand, and if you spread the word of this understanding, that whatever is told to you about war and how we must go to war, and whatever the threat is or whatever the goal is -- a democracy or liberty -- it will always be a war against children. They’re the ones who will die in large numbers.
....

[  read more ]

WSWS : News & Analysis : Middle East : Iraq

The US media is virtually silent on a new scientific study that estimates the Iraqi death toll from the US war at 655,000. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was posted Wednesday on the web site of the British medical journal, the Lancet. [  read more ]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a brilliant new article [ Was the American Election Stolen? ] about the biggest political story in the history of the United States: An American politician illegitimately took the office of president by outright theft and fraud. Although such high crimes and misdemeanors have been rumored in previous elections, none in the history of the republic have been so thoroughly documented. George W. Bush is not the legitimate president of the United States.   [  read more 

In their rush to cover the long-awaited testimony of Valerie Plame, few reporters apparently bothered to stick around the Capitol Hill hearing room yesterday to witness the just as shocking testimony of a much less heralded (and not so attractive) insider named James Knodell. [  read more ]

President Bush is reopening the fight over government support of public television, unveiling a 2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by nearly 25 percent.   [  read the entrie article ]

Four Steps to Sanity in the Middle East

...Once there we recorded 26 hours of interviews with Jacob Rosen, the Israel Ambassador to Jordan, Iraq Members of Parliament, Dulaymi tribal chiefs from Anbar province, the Jordanian Speaker of the House, two Jordanian Parliamentarians, two Lebanese including a Sunni Parliamentarian who flew to Amman to meet us, a Palestinian woman sent by Mustafa Barghuti, who is mediating the creation of a new unity government in Palestine, a group of Iraqi exiles living in Amman, George Hawatmeh, the former editor of the Jordanian Times. I had asked to meet with secular moderate legislators in order to see if there is a consensus on the way forward. I was there to listen.

...What I heard from the Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians and Israeli, these four points [see article, ed.] could be the skeleton of the new Democratic majority's plan for going forward in Iraq.   [  read article ]

Catastrophe in the midst of a tragedy

The war in Lebanon between Israel and the Lebanese Muslim Shiite group Hizbullah began on 12th July 2006. By the time a ceasefire halted the fighting five weeks later on 14th August, more than 1,300 people had been killed and thousands more injured on both sides of the border. In addition to the human tragedy, the environment in the Middle East took numerous blows. Friends of the Earth Europe is concerned that a "second round" of fighting could start at any moment. We call for a just and peaceful solution to the issues of the conflict, to prevent more losses of innocent lives and the destruction of the environment in Lebanon and Israel. [  read more ]

The quality of health care should never depend on the color of any American's skin.

...What I put forward in 2004 works. It was a good plan then, and it's a good plan now. The proposal I'm going to fight for this year and next year-- and until it gets done -- lives up to that challenge in a sensible, practical, comprehensive way that will cover all Americans with better quality at lower costs by 2012. [  read more ]

Summary: On June 18, The Washington Post published a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq that detailed the deteriorating conditions observed in Baghdad in recent months. Despite the clear significance of the document, the media have almost entirely ignored its publication.   [ Read More ]

Enron Lies

By Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com

He's Back: Moyers, not Tomlinson

....
We have it in our power to bring the country into the story. We are public broadcasting, right? We're not congressional broadcasting — that's C-SPAN. We're not the White House network — that's Fox News. We're the only broadcasting operation in the country with the words "public" and "service" in our name. That's our constituency — not the politicians and Washington officials — but the public.

I've been around a long time now. What great company all of you have been. But I really think the best is yet to come. We've never been more needed. Democracy is troubled. Our two parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Money and subservient to Big Media. The majority of the American people don't know where to turn, who to trust. Here we are — with a mandate to put the public first. [  read more ]

Will the major media finally cover the electronic election fraud issue?

Iraq and Washington’s ‘seeds of democracy’

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly created a new U.N. human rights body by an overwhelming majority on the 15th, ignoring objections from the United States. [ read more ]

An unclassified draft of a US nuclear doctrine review that spells out conditions under which US commanders might seek approval to use nuclear weapons. [ read more ]

Estabrook Woods

Kucinich: House International Relations Committee Once Again Shuns War Oversight Duties House International Relations Committee Narrowly Rejects Kucinich Resolution of Inquiry On White House Iraq Group (WHIG) [link]

Kucinich Demands IG Investigation Into FBI's Handling Of Investigation Into Forged Niger Documents

04 November, 2005

1 in 4 Iraq Vets Ailing On Return

19 October 2005

These survey results, which have not been publicly released, were provided to USA TODAY by the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine. They offer a window on the war and how the ongoing insurgency has added to the strain on troops.

More at >> USA Today

GAO Report Finds Flaws in Electronic Voting, New Data Shows Widespread Vote Manipulations in 2004

Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine

Wed, 17 September 2005
The White House has used all kinds of ingenious machinations to try to conceal its radical agenda from the American people including Orwellian rhetoric. When they want to destroy the forests, they call it the Healthy Forest Act. When they wanted to destroy the air, they called it the Clear Skies Bill

But most insidiously, they have put polluters in charge of virtually all the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from pollution.

Twenty Things We Now Know Four Years After 9/11

Coalition Builds Momentum on Universal Health Care

...Such a case might be worth consideration if the Bush administration and congressional leaders had demonstrated that they had the integrity, knowledge, foresight, and competence to successfully lead a counterinsurgency war in a complex, fractured society on the far side of the planet. To support the continued prosecution of the Iraq War, however, would require trusting the same politicians who hoodwinked the country into that war in the first place. A growing number of Americans, therefore, have come to recognize that any administration dishonest enough to make the ludicrous pre-war claims of an Iraqi military threat and any Congress that -- through whatever combination of dishonesty or stupidity -- chose to reinforce these false assertions simply cannot be trusted to successfully control the insurgency, extricate the United States from further military involvement, and successfully facilitate Iraq's development as a peaceful, secure, democratic country.  [read more]

(Washington D.C.)- The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.

General Casey said in a September 2005 Hearing, "the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency." General Abizaid said on the same date, "Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is a part of our counterinsurgency strategy."

For 2 ½ years I have been concerned about the U.S. policy and the plan in Iraq. I have addressed my concerns with the Administration and the Pentagon and have spoken out in public about my concerns. The main reason for going to war has been discredited. A few days before the start of the war I was in Kuwait—the military drew a red line around Baghdad and said when U.S. forces cross that line they will be attacked by the Iraqis with Weapons of Mass Destruction—but the US forces said they were prepared. They had well trained forces with the appropriate protective gear.

We spend more money on Intelligence than all the countries in the world together, and more on Intelligence than most countries GDP. But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a U.S. intelligence failure and the way that intelligence was misused.

I have been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda and Walter Reed hospitals almost every week since the beginning of the War. And what demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace; the devastation caused by IEDs; being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes; being on their second or third deployment and leaving their families behind without a network of support.

The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to face all threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We can not allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls at our bases in the U.S.

Much of our ground equipment is worn out and in need of either serious overhaul or replacement. George Washington said, "To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." We must rebuild our Army. Our deficit is growing out of control. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being "terrified" about the budget deficit in the coming decades. This is the first prolonged war we have fought with three years of tax cuts, without full mobilization of American industry and without a draft. The burden of this war has not been shared equally; the military and their families are shouldering this burden.

Our military has been fighting a war in Iraq for over two and a half years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, and captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing, with over 2,079 confirmed American deaths. Over 15,500 have been seriously injured and it is estimated that over 50,000 will suffer from battle fatigue. There have been reports of at least 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.

I just recently visited Anbar Province Iraq in order to assess the conditions on the ground. Last May 2005, as part of the Emergency Supplemental Spending Bill, the House included the Moran Amendment, which was accepted in Conference, and which required the Secretary of Defense to submit quarterly reports to Congress in order to more accurately measure stability and security in Iraq. We have now received two reports. I am disturbed by the findings in key indicator areas. Oil production and energy production are below pre-war levels. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled by the security situation. Only $9 billion of the $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction has been spent. Unemployment remains at about 60 percent. Clean water is scarce. Only $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated for water projects has been spent. And most importantly, insurgent incidents have increased from about 150 per week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over time and with the addition of more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revelations at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled. An annual State Department report in 2004 indicated a sharp increase in global terrorism.

I said over a year ago, and now the military and the Administration agrees, Iraq can not be won "militarily." I said two years ago, the key to progress in Iraq is to Iraqitize, Internationalize and Energize. I believe the same today. But I have concluded that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is impeding this progress.

Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists. I believe with a U.S. troop redeployment, the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted shows that over 80% of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and about 45% of the Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis.

I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free. Free from United States occupation. I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process for the good of a "free" Iraq.

My plan calls:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

This war needs to be personalized. As I said before I have visited with the severely wounded of this war. They are suffering.

Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our OBLIGATION to speak out for them. That's why I am speaking out.

Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.

Burning the Law in a Riot of Treason

Dashed Hopes - Part B

"Impeachment May Well Be the Only Remedy"

Impeachment Is Not Off the Table

This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws. [ read more ]

Representative Dennis Kucinich's Statement on Depleted Uranium

National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive

Already this Congress, Kucinich and Conyers have introduced HR 808 and HR 676 — two bills that directly relate to the events of Blacksburg.

HR 808, legislation to establish a Department of Peace and Nonviolence, addresses the issue of domestic violence, gang violence, and violence in the schools, which is reflected in the current homicide rates. HR 808 has 62 cosponsors.
“The bill provides hope for a transformation through education of our children in principles of nonviolence and support for existing community groups and professionals whose dedication would be empowered by a national commitment to peace and nonviolence,” Kucinich said.

A recent study indicates that many perpetrators of murder had histories of mental illness. The lack of parity for mental healthcare remains one of the most serious deficiencies in healthcare in the United States – the system has long been lacking in substantive support of mental health. HR 676, Medicare for All, would establish a universal not-for-profit healthcare system, which would provide full and comprehensive mental healthcare. More than 14,000 physicians support HR 676 and it is cosponsored by 63 Members of Congress.

Kucinich is currently drafting legislation that would ban the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians. A gun buy-back provision will be included in the bill.

“America is being engulfed in violence every day. Let’s show them we have the wisdom and the courage to come from our hearts to meet this challenge,” Kucinich said.

[  read more ]

These two bills: HR 808 and HR 676 deserve serious consideration and enactment if we truly wish to attain peace and justice in our world - [ed.]

The war in Iraq needs to wind down, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich has a 12 point plan to charter a new course for the United States and the world.
"A war without reason, without conscious, without international law"
See the YouTube video, Play Video

In late September, it was reported that the National Intelligence Estimate for April said the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists: "A large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists ... are increasing in both number and in geographic distribution. If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."

The administration has released three pages of the 30-page report. We may see the rest of it, but not until after the November election. [  read more ]

Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006

Under-sampling of Democrats in the House Exit Poll and the Corruption of the Official Vote Count, by Jonathan Simon, JD, and Bruce O’Dell1, Election Defense Alliance:

Unfortunately the evidence forces us to a very different and disturbing conclusion: there was gross vote count manipulation and it had a great impact on the results of E2006, significantly decreasing the magnitude of what would have been, accurately tabulated, a landslide of epic proportions. Because virtually all of this manipulation appears to have been computer-based, and therefore invisible to the legions of at-the-poll observers, the public was informed of “isolated incidents and glitches” but remains unaware of the far greater story: The electoral machinery and vote counting systems of the United States did not honestly and accurately translate the public will and certainly can not be counted on to do so in the future.   [ read more ]

Associate Publisher: Public interest in news topics beyond control of mainstream media

What really happened in Florida on 9/11

Where's the accountability? What Will It Take?

Democrats pledge fight over Net neutrality

Gore urges moral crusade against global warming

Think about this: Californians could buy back their elected representatives at a cost of about $5 or $6 per California resident. Nationally we could buy back our Congress and the White House with full public financing for about $10 per taxpayer per year. You can check this out on the website Public Campaign. [ www.publicampaign.org ]

Public funding won’t solve all the problems. There’s no way to legislate truly immoral people from abusing our trust. But it would go a long way to breaking the link between big donors and public officials and to restoring democracy to the people. Until we offer qualified candidates a different source of funding for their campaigns – “clean,” disinterested, accountable public money – the selling of America will go on. From scandal to scandal.

The people out across the country on the front lines of this fight have brought the message down to earth, in plain language and clear metaphors. If a player sliding into home plate reached into his pocket and handed the umpire $1000 before he made the call, what would we call that? A bribe. And if a lawyer handed a judge $1000 before he issued a ruling, what do we call that? A bribe. But when a lobbyist or CEO sidles up to a member of Congress at a fund raiser in a skybox and hands him a check for $1000, what do we call that? A campaign contribution.

Representative Barney Frank likes to say of Congress: “We are the only people in the world required by law to take large amounts of money from strangers and then act as if it has no effect on our behavior.”  [ read more at TomPaine.com ]

See also Public Campaign - Help support clean elections
             Election Fraud links at The Crisis Papers
             and Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006  

What I Heard about Iraq

James Carroll Concludes the Pentagon Is Our Out-of-Control 'House of War'

War and Other Horrors

What I Didn't Find in Africa

Kucinich: Congress Must Protect The Media's First Amendment Rights

Bush Is Not Incompetent (the Conservative Agenda Flourishes)

Access of Evil

Fatal Inaction

Unquestioned Answers

Experts: Bush Presidency Is A Failure

Greenpeace calls the Summit for Life on Earth a Failure

You would think that promising new research that could bring lifesaving cures to millions of Americans - and that reflects our best values and highest ethical standards - would be embraced by all leaders, regardless of political party. But sadly, that's not the case when it comes to unlocking the healing potential of stem cells.

Last year, Democrats and Republicans joined together in the House of Representatives to pass responsible legislation to stop the Bush Administration's obstruction of this vital research. They said that rather than allowing embryos to be thrown away, we should permit them to protect life, and aid those who suffer from Alzheimer's Disease, cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes and many other debilitating and deadly illnesses.

But that was a long year ago. And since then, Senate Republican leaders have joined with the President to allow right wing partisanship to stand in the way of promising new cures.

It's time for hope.

Millions of families are counting on us to make a difference for those who are seriously ill or injured. They want us to support ethical research that offers the promise of longer and fuller lives to their loved ones. A Senate vote is the only thing standing in the way of sending this bill to the President - and yet the Senate Republican leadership continues to stall.

The promise of stem cell research has gone unfulfilled for too long. Join the DCCC's call for a Senate vote, and bring hope to the American people:

http://www.dccc.org/get_involved/petitions/stemcell

The Senate leadership shelved the stem cell bill last year, assuring supporters it would be one of the first items this year to get a vote. Time is running out for those who are clinging to hope that stem cell research will provide the cure they need to extend their lives.

Strong support by our government is the only way to assure that the highest ethical standards are followed and that lifesaving breakthroughs will be passed on those who need them.

It's time for the Senate to do the people's business. Sign the DCCC's petition and tell the Republican leadership to stop obstructing stem cell research:

http://www.dccc.org/get_involved/petitions/stemcell

There is much to do in the coming weeks, and I look forward to working with you on a broad range of topics. But our goal is clear: bringing hope to the American people by restoring their faith in our government.

In 2006, we can take back Congress - but until then, we must hold the Republican leadership accountable. Thank you for your participation.

Sincerely,
Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Jonathan Schell writes that the imperial presidency of George W. Bush, a misbegotten war and presidential law-breaking at home have put our Republic at mortal risk. Will the Constitution survive? Or are we in the midst of a transmutation in which the balance of powers and our personal freedoms will be canceled?

In a April 2003 pitch to DuPont, The Weinberg Group proposed a strategy to help defuse the growing controversy over the health impacts of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a compound used to make Teflon. Weinberg's Vice-President of Product Defense, P.Terrence Gaffney, said, "DuPont must shape the debate at all levels." One of his suggested strategies was to facilitate the "publication of papers and articles dispelling the alleged nexus between PFOA and teratogenicity as well as other claimed harm." (Teratogenicity is used to describe the damaging effects of an agent on a fetus.) Gaffney also proposed to "develop 'blue ribbon panels' of thought leaders on issues related to PFOA" and to "coordinate the publishing of white papers on PFOA, junk science and the limits of medical monitoring." DuPont confirmed to reporter Paul D. Thacker that they had hired the Weinberg Group to help with "scientific third party experts," probably on PFOA issues.

Website: Environmental Science and Technology, February 22, 2006
URL: http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/feb/business/pt_weinberg.html.

Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening. [ read more ]

The public-relations gloss that has long wrapped the Bush administration is fast becoming a blemish on the White House, according to lawmakers who have uncovered some $1.6 billion in federal funds spent on promoting various administration-sponsored programs.   [ read more ]

APN) ATLANTA–25 US Representatives–including two members of the Georgia delegation–have now signed on as co-sponsors of H. Res 635, demanding a probe which could recommend Bush’s impeachment, including the initial sponsor, US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Atlanta Progressive News has learned. [ read more ]
Note: No Massachusetts congressmen have signed on todate.

.... In the case of Iraq, nothing could be more concrete - though less generally discussed in our media - than the set of enormous bases the Pentagon has long been building in that country. Quite literally multi-billions of dollars have gone into them. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of several billion dollars being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Since then, the base-building has been massive and ongoing.
....
There are at least four such "super-bases" in Iraq, none of which have anything to do with "withdrawal" from that country. Quite the contrary, these bases are being constructed as little American islands of eternal order in an anarchic sea. Whatever top administration officials and military commanders say - and they always deny that we seek "permanent" bases in Iraq - facts-on-the-ground speak with another voice entirely. These bases practically scream "permanency."   [ read more ]

In the first installment of this series, I offered 42 names to begin what now seems an endless -- and ever-growing -- list of top officials as well as beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who quit their government posts in protest or were ridiculed, defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted, or driven to retire by Bush administration strong-arm tactics, cronyism, and disastrous policies. In the second installment, I added what turned out to be a modest 175 further casualties to the rolls of "the Fallen." With this latest installment, TomDispatch's tally of the battling bureaucracy's casualties stands at approximately 243 -- and rising (so please continue to send your suggestions of deserving legionnaires to: fallenlegionwall@yahoo.com).

Despite this toll, now into the hundreds and counting, it seems that we've barely scratched the surface. In fact, since the last installment, other commentators have increased our knowledge of these folks by digging into what Tom Engelhardt has aptly called the Bush administration's "war with the bureaucracy" -- a battle between the Bush administration and the career civil servants (sometimes even the president's own appointees), who constitute "the only significant check-and-balance in our system since September 11, 2001."   [ read more ] 

The president admitted to a national problem, but stopped well short of committing our country to a full recovery program. We already have the technology. What we desperately need is the courage to act now. It is time for nothing short of a national intervention, and a 12-step program to break America's oil addiction. Here's how: [ Read More ]

With the most secretive, power-hungry administration in recent history, George W. Bush has generated a cornucopia of theories. Many of them are ridiculous while others, like the assorted conspiracies relating to Skull and Bones, simply confirm suspicions about frat boys and prove that privilege and networking do, in fact, catapult people into high places.
Some theories, however, have Tina Turner-strength legs. For your consideration:.
[ Part 1 ],    [ Part 2 ]

BRITAIN is laying secret plans to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq.

Ministers and military officials are in negotiations with their American counterparts over the British contribution to the long-term effort to maintain peace and stability in post-Saddam Iraq once the country is handed over to its newly elected government.   [read more]

NEW YORK While most Americans remain preoccupied with war, terrorism, high gas prices--or the coming Pitt-Jolie baby--an issue that may dwarf all of those concerns receives major attention on the front page of the Sunday editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

One story raises a nightmare global warming scenario for the end of the world, at least as we know it, while the other suggests that the Bush administration doesn't want anyone to know about that.  [  read more ]

Reality Check: .... imagine pushing your car 20 or 30 miles. That is the service performed for us by a single gallon of gasoline, for which we currently pay $2.65. That gallon of fuel is the energy equivalent of roughly six weeks of hard human labor.

To avoid the worst-case scenario we must begin today to reduce our dependence on oil.  [ read more ]

...today's agriculture does not allow the soil to enrich itself, but depends on chemical fertilisers that don't replace the wide variety of nutrients plants and humans need. [ see more ]

,,,,the founders intended for the Congress to question, challenge and constrain the president and his aides so that never again would Americans be subjected to the illegitimate, unwarranted and illegal dictates of a King George

This mandate, so well-established and so thoroughly grounded in history and tradition, places a particularly high demand on the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. It is in the House, the Constitution tells us, that the work of holding an out-of-control president to account, must begin -- and it is on the Judiciary Committee that the process is initiated.

,,,,,

So far, however, Sensenbrenner has allowed his partisanship to prevent him from even beginning to execute his Constitutional duties.When Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee demanded that the body conduct an inquiry into illegal spying by the Bush administration, Sensenbrenner refused them.

Because of the consequence of the issues involved, Representative John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), the ranking Democrat on the committee, convened an extraordinary session last week without the official sanction that only the committee chairman can convey.

,,,,, 

Members of Congress who attended the hearing -- Conyers and a half dozen other Democrats -- heard George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley refer to the wiretapping ordered by the president as ''an intelligence operation in search of a legal rationale."Without a doubt, Turley added, ''What the president ordered in this case was a crime," said Turley, who bluntly told the gathering that Sensenbrenner and other House Republicans have set a dangerous precedent by refusing to permit oversight hearings.  [ read more ]

Legal experts, privacy advocates and Democratic lawmakers on Friday called for congressional and independent investigations into whether the Bush administration broke the law by authorizing a secret program to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens without a court order.
....
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said he agrees a special counsel is needed. "If you're dealing with what appears to be a criminal conspiracy by the president, the vice president, the attorney general and others, you cannot ask the attorney general and the people under him to fairly investigate," Nadler said. "Obviously, they will dismiss this out of hand because they will not admit how real this is."  [  read more ]

Without a serious leap of imagination, particularly with the list of those under surveillance not available to anyone outside the NSA and the Pentagon, it is also possible to project that political critics of the Bush administration could end up among those being tracked. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state.   [read more]

Diebold has always insisted that its electronic voting machines are so reliable that there is no need for paper records of votes that can be independently verified. Fortunately, the American people feel otherwise.    [read more]

.... But [Rep. Norm] Dicks says the intelligence was "doctored." And he says the White House didn't plan for and deploy enough troops for the growing insurgency.

"A lot of us relied on [former CIA director] George Tenet. We had many meetings with the White House and CIA, and they did not tell us there was a dispute between the CIA, Commerce or the Pentagon on the WMDs," he said.

He and Murtha tended to give the military, the CIA and the White House the benefit of the doubt, Dicks says. But he now says he and his colleagues should have pressed much harder for answers. ....   [  read more ]

The War on Civilization: Destroying the global village to save it

Tehran Times Opinion Column, Jan. 15, By Hamid Golpira
....In 2003, the United States and its allies launched a war on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Today, the only WMD to be found in Iraq is the uranium dust blowing in the breeze from the U.S. military’s depleted uranium weapons. ....  [  read more  ]

Is Impeachment an Option? Not if the Press has its way

by Dave Lindorff, www.smirkingchimp.com
writes on the 'The missing polls, inquiries and bills: How the US press squelches Bush impeachment drive.

Alito and the Ken Lay Factor

by Robert Parry, Consortium News - January 12 2006
....The "unitary executive" applies as well to the President's authority to interpret laws as he sees fit, especially in areas of national security where right-wing lawyers argue that the commander-in-chief powers are "plenary," which means "absolute, unqualified."

So, when Alito assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that no one, not even the President, is "above the law," that palliative answer had little meaning since under the "unitary" theory favored by Alito the President effectively is the law.

Since his days as a lawyer in Ronald Reagan's White House, Alito has pushed this theory. At a Federalist Society symposium in 2001, Alito recalled that when he was in the Office of Legal Counsel in Ronald Reagan's White House, "we were strong proponents of the theory of the unitary executive, that all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the President." ....   [ read more ]

Torture ban still faces political interpretation

January 08, 2006
Nothing short of breathtaking: President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year’s weekend, the president said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement — a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, the president has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power — and not just on national security issues. “It’s nothing short of breathtaking,” said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. “In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary.”   [  read more ]

by Pascal Riche | January 5, 2005
Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes and Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz calculate that the war is likely to cost the United States a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars and potentially over $2 trillion. This is far higher than earlier estimates of $100-200 billion.

The study expands on traditional budgetary estimates by including costs such as lifetime disability and health care for the over 16,000 injured, one fifth of whom have serious brain or spinal injuries. It then goes on to analyze the costs to the economy, including the economic value of lives lost and the impact of factors such as higher oil prices that can be partly attributed to the conflict in Iraq. The paper also calculates the impact on the economy if a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war were spent in other ways, including on investments in the United States   [ read more ]

.... Meanwhile, several climate research studies released in December show that the impacts of climate change are coming faster than predicted. This suggests that the worst case disaster scenarios may be the most likely unless there is concerted global action to reduce emissions.

Satellite photos taken this year revealed that there was 20 percent less Arctic sea ice compared to the first pictures taken in 1978, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

The loss of ice is not too surprising given the four degrees C rise in average winter temperatures in the Arctic. However, the extent and speed with which the Arctic ice is melting is unprecedented. ....   [ read more ]

No, we're not literally running out of oil -- about a trillion barrels remain beneath the earth. "Rather, the theory of peak oil derives from a simpler but less widely understood question: How fast can the stuff be pumped out of the ground?" In other words, the concern is with "capacity" -- "the amount of oil that can be pumped to the surface on a daily basis." .   [  read more ]

Helen Thomas, arguably the nation's best known print journalist and dean of the White House press corps, said that there is a lot of soul searching going on now among news professionals about uncritical coverage since 9/11 of the Bush administration and its policies. [ read more ]

What is going on in the News industry since the 1986 demise of the Fairness Doctrine?  [ read more ]

Over time, however, the inch that government first takes becomes a mile, and that also appears to have been the case, .....
One powerful piece of evidence that it got out of hand is the fact that surveillance has been government-wide in the last few years. American groups involved in nothing more than traditional protest and activism have been infiltrated and followed, by the FBI red-flagged by military intelligence agencies. There is a culture of surveillance now, not a few carefully limited operations against severe and immediate threats...... [ read more]