49 QuickLinks

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Federal Raids in Minneapolis to Pre-empt Demonstrations
Help! Democracy in crisis! The vote has been stolen from us, the newspapers and TV news are muted, and just at the time when massive demonstrations seem to be the only firewall between here and fascism, a warning shot is fired over the heads of all those who might think of organizing one. The civil liberties community needs a high-profile, concerted response.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Denver Police use Tear Gas on Non-violent Demonstrators
This article appeared in a NYTimes blog, but not in the print edition. I am concerned that the Newspaper of Record doesn't find this worthy of more coverage. The pattern of building jail cells, clubbing photographers, and gasing small groups of non-violent demonstrators suggests a policy decision to use police violence as a deterrent to legitimate political expression.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Gorbachev Exposes Bias in Reporting of Georgian War
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.

Friday, August 15, 2008
War Doesn't Pay - When Will We Learn?
(2 comments) Paul Krugman writes in today's NYTimes that our prosperity and security depend on an international marketplace that cannot be taken for granted. Instability in the Middle East and now in Russia/Georgia underscore the fragility of Western dependence on natural resources from parts of the world that are politically unstable.

Friday, August 15, 2008
The NYTimes pronounces the "I" word
(1 comments) This is a balanced (!) account by Carl Hulse of the pressure on Pelosi to hold impeachment hearings.

Saturday, August 9, 2008
Anthrax - 9/11 - Convenient Suicides - "Terror" as a Ruse
(1 comments) In this editorial, former Reagan cabinet member and WSJ columnist Paul Craig Roberts lays out the big picture along with the evidence that supports it. The Bush Administration has created the specter of an "International Terrorist Threat" from whole cloth as an excuse for the secretive, authoritarian excesses that support their political power.

Friday, August 1, 2008
"Suicide" of Scientist from DoD Anthrax Lab
(7 comments) In the weeks after 9/11/01, deadly, weapon-grade anthrax spores were mailed to Democratic congressional leaders. These bioweapons were traced to US govt labs, but the crime remained unsolved. Was this act of terrorism ordered by the Bush Administration? The man who could tell us was about to face trial, when he conveniently "committed suicide". Call me a conspiracy theorist.

Friday, August 1, 2008
An Israeli academic recommends Nuking Iran on the OpEd page of the NYTimes
(2 comments) Benny Morris is a formerly-progressive historian from Ben Gurion University in Tel Aviv. Here he makes a prominent, irresponsible case for a nuclear first strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Frank Rich on Terrorist Attacks as a Political Influence
(2 comments) No one at the NYTimes has been permitted to approach the truth about 9/11. Frank Rich comes perhaps as close as he dares by highlighting the statement by McCain insider Charles Black that a domestic terrorist attack would be "a big advantage" for his campaign. In private, he is surely gaming this out further, George Carlin-style. What would be the optimum timing? What city should be targeted, from a Republican perspective?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Iraq: Will we ever get out?
ThomasPowers of NYBooks Getting out of Iraq will require the same kind of resolution as it took to get in: a willingness to ignore the consequences. Is it possible that the new president will have that kind of resolution? I think not. Clinton & Obama don't sound drained of hope or bright ideas, determined to cut losses and end the agony. Planning for withdrawals might begin on Day One, but the plans will be hostage to events.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Charges dropped against Gitmo "terrorist" whose Confession was obtained through torture
The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi citizen alleged to have been the "20th hijacker" in the 9/11 attacks. Mohammad al-Qahtani was one of six Guantanamo Bay inmates charged with murder and war crimes in February. Lawyers for al-Qahtani say charges are being dropped because his confession was obtained under torture.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Forget Nuclear
(1 comments) from Rocky Mountain Inst: There's a major propaganda campaign underway to convince us that nuclear power is necessary to replace dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and forestall global warming. The truth is that nuclear power is so expensive that even with massive govt subsidies it cannot attract corporate investment. And this is true before considering the long-term costs of nuclear waste or avoiding attacks or sabotage.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
What nuclear renaissance?
(1 comments) The notion that nukes make sense and are the version of green preferred by grown-ups is being conjured by a slick PR campaign. The truth is that nuclear power was never economically competitive, and that's why huge, new subsidies are being proposed. Nuclear power would make no economic sense, even if it weren't an environmental disaster, carrying a legacy of toxic waste 1,000 generations into the future.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
GOP managing the Dem Primary?
by Ernest Partridge (Crisis Papers) The pre-convention Democratic campaign could not be working out better for the Republicans even if the GOP had planned it this way. Perhaps they did. If so, their wholly-owned subsidiary, the corporate media, appears to be dutifully following their instructions to the letter.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Conviction reversed after 27 years behind bars
The Innocence Project has secured the release of James Woodard based on DNA evidence. He is the 18th convicted man to be cleared in Texas Dallas Cty alone. The case was unique in that the DNA evidence cleared him of rape, and additional evidence was obtained to demonstrate that the same man who raped the victim also murdered her. Slowly, the tide is turning against the travesty of false, often bigoted convictions.

Monday, April 21, 2008
NYTimes: Pentagon Shills disguised as TV Experts
(1 comments) Sunday's NYTimes reports that many of the analysts who are regularly quoted and interviewed on the major TV networks are actually paid propagandists, working for the Pentagon and posing as "independent" experts.

Saturday, April 12, 2008
Numbers Racket - playing games with govt economic statistics
Kevin Phillips, a died-in-the-wool Republican, details some of the ways that the definitions of the most important government economic statistics have changed to serve the short-term interests of the White House occupant at the time. Affected are GDP, unemployment, and inflation rates. Every administration since Reagan has partaken. We are poorer and in more debt, with less options for repaying it, than we have been told.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Truckers' Strike - Barbara Ehrenreich
Hundreds of independent truckers blocked traffic around the country to protest high gas prices. It would not be responsible for the MSM to let us know this is happening, because it might encourange other acts of defiance.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Pressure the Dem Candidates to Take a Stand on the War
(2 comments) Naomi Klein: While Clinton and Obama denounce the war with great passion, they both have detailed plans to continue it. It is during a hotly contested campaign that anti-war forces have the power to actually sway US policy.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Too Pretty to be a Fighter
Obama may be the best of the '3 Blind Mice' but we should know better than to expect too much from him. Obama jumped to the defense of Joe Lieberman in his time of greatest shame, and when Dick Durbin denounced torture in Guantanamo on the Senate floor, it was Obama who asked the Senate to forgive his "mistake". The distance he takes from Rev Wright warns us that he is too polite to call America's great injustices by name.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Ruling in Wikileaks case: a narrow victory
(1 comments) Wikileaks.org is a web site designed to make it safe for whistleblowers to disclose anonymously information about criminal behavior to which they are privy. After a lawsuit last month, a court order shut down the entire site! Now the order has been appealed, and the site has permission to re-open. All this attention has given invaluable publicity to the operation.

Sunday, March 2, 2008
United Technologies offers to buy Diebold
The New York Times reports a takeover offer for Diebold Corp from United Technologies. UT is the Federal Government's 6th largest defense contractor. One division of Diebold makes electronic voting machines that count votes in secret. The offer amounts to nearly twice the market value of all Diebold stock. No one is talking about possible conflicts of interest.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Ghost Story
The entire electoral process has become centered on establishing the candidates' "toughness," as if the only "virtue" a leader must fully possess is unflinching willingness to declare war. Never mind the question of whether, since 1945, war makes sense. No surprise that no presidential candidate questions the current Pentagon budget, which surpasses every record set during the Cold War. That would be political suicide.

Saturday, February 16, 2008
Vote Machine: How Republicans Hacked the Justice Dept, by Scott Horton
The first priority of the Bush Jstice Dept was helping Republicans at the polls. One of the ways the dept would accomplish this was by restaffig the branch primarily responsible for making sure Americans are allowed access to the ballot box--the Civil Rights Division--so that it would work actively to PREVENT minorities from voting...Thorough, researched article on Inglesias (NM), Seigelman (AL),&ct with historic perspective.

Monday, February 11, 2008
NYTimes: Mortgage Crisis Spreads past Subprime Loans
Even borrowers with strong credit are feeling the pinch as home values fall and monthly payments rise. People with good credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace. The rise in prime delinquencies, while less severe than the one in the subprime market, nonetheless poses a threat to the battered housing market and to the economy as a whole.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Who cut Internet Cables to the Muslim World?
(1 comments) Disruption of internet service in the Middle East last week required many undersea cables to be severed in a few days' time. The nation most affected is Iran. Who is responsible for this act of sabotage? There are few institutions in the world with the ability and the motivation to stage such a crime.

Monday, January 28, 2008
Global impact of meat consumption
(from NYTimes Science page) Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases - more than transportation... If Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan - a Camry, say - to the ultra-efficient Prius.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Nothing to Fear? What about Fear itself?
Remarkably, the New York Times Science page today reports the obvious: that literally millions of Americans are being killed by physiological effects of fear that are directly traceable to scare tactis from the Homeland Security Dept. (Meanwhile no American has died in a terrorist incident, but returning Iraq vets are involved in a wave of domestic violence, including killing. http://tinyurl.com/26gnb9)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Wave of Violence and Murder when Vets return from Iraq
Post-traumatic stress is taking a huge toll on our society. Trained to hate, annealed in a living hell, returning Iraq vets are not just a nightmare for the VA hospitals; they are bringing a wave of violence to families and communities across America. Congratulations to The NYTimes for a powerful investigative piece that used to be their staple, but is now rare.

Monday, January 14, 2008
Cholesterol drug fails clinical trial
Statin drugs that lower cholesterol are also powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Some medical researchers say that cholesterol levels have no effect on heart attack risk for the great majority of people. If they are right, there are much safer ways to lower inflammation (which everyone agrees is a good thing): I recommend aspirin, fish oil, and tumeric (curcumin).

Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Justice Delayed, by David Cole
(1 comments) On October 29, the Bush Administration abandoned a two-decade effort to deport two Palestinian immigrants. When they were arrested, they were college students, Reagan was president, and they were accused of spreading communist propaganda. The charges against them were changed again and again to keep up with the times. At last, they were charged with violating the Patriot Act 15 years before it was enacted! Now they are free.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Governor Jailed for Questioning his Electoral "Defeat"
(1 comments) Don Siegelman, Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003, has been convicted and jailed in a "bribery" case that sounds a lot like politics as usual. Could it be that the real reason he was charged was that he was getting too close to the conspiracy that altered the vote totals in 2002, where Seligman was "defeated" in a private, midnight "Recount" attended only by Republicans.

Sunday, November 11, 2007
Instant Coup in Pakistan, Slow Coup in America by Frank Rich
The Bush years have brought an effective assault on our democratic institutions from within. The public has not erupted in riots as the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like Musharraf's. To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate ...

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Frank Rich on the Politics of Saber-Rattling over Iran
(3 comments) Joe Biden quipped that there are only 3 things in a Giuliani sentence: "a noun, a verb and 9/11." Meanwhile, Hillary the frontrunning Democrat has voted for a resolution supporting Bush to use force against Iran. Rich warns that this could mean trouble for Hillary in 2008: Noun+verb+9/11 - also Bush's strategy in 2004 - would once again square off against a Democrat who was for a preemptive war before being against it.

Monday, October 22, 2007
Who will rule us after the next 9/11? (Slate article by Ron Rosenbaum)
(2 comments) Our President has issued by fiat a national security directive, NSPD-51, that lays the groundwork for his office to declare a state of emergency, cancel elections, and take over powers of the Legislative and Judicial branches. That's what's in the directive we see. The directive also refers to "Annexes" = additional parts of the directive that are so classified all Congress members have been denied access.

Sunday, October 21, 2007
Suicide is Not Painless
Rich's exposé this week is a grand tour of corruption and profiteering in the Iraq War, with lots of footnotes and historic references. War is the costliest kind of graft, as each dollar of profit for Haliburton or Blackwater costs thousands of public dollars, in addition to lost lives and human tragedy. Corruption is endemic, extending to the White House. Does the connection to Hillary still surprise us?

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Rove Masterminded Vote Theft
This video was broadcast last week in England. It's the kind of news that gets routinely censored in the US. By creating a web address that was similar to the one the White House used for their secret Greg Palast cleverly intercepted emails that with mis-typed addresses, including some of the "caging lists" used to target minority voters for exclusion.

Friday, July 27, 2007
New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed
(14 comments) Pat Tillman died a hero's death, fighting for his country. No, that story was a cover-up: Pat Tillman died in a friendly fire accident in Afghanistan. Not this either? New evidence indicates that Tillman was executed mob-style by his own commanders to prevent his returning to the states and becoming an anti-war icon.

Friday, July 20, 2007
NY Times: Holt and Feinstein election reform bills scrapped for now
(2 comments) Those of us who have fought against HR811 and SB1487 have won a mixed blessing. The bills will not go forward. This means that the 2008 election will be conducted under the Federal rules we have now, and our next job is to work for transparency in elections at the state and county levels.

Thursday, July 19, 2007
A Wake-up Call, by Paul Craig Roberts
(6 comments) The Republican Party is toast if an election is held in 2008 after another year of failure in Iraq. Will the Rove team stand idly by and allow this to happen, or will they orchestrate another terror attack on US soil to galvanize support for the Administration? Michael Chertoff has predicted a terror attack soon. Rick Santorum has hinted the same thing a week earlier. Maybe they know something we don't.

Monday, June 25, 2007
More "free speech" for corporate dollars
The Supreme Court loosened rules on corporate advertising to promote political candidates.

Monday, June 25, 2007
Less free speech for students
The Supreme Court today upheld censorship of student posters in schools.

Saturday, May 5, 2007
Health Care in America - Snap out of it! by Atul Gawande
(1 comments) Cancer grows slowly, and often a patient won't seek medical care until the tumor is huge. Similarly, health care in the US is a crisis in slow motion. Will we wake up and fix it before it's too late?

Thursday, April 19, 2007
Administration pursued aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout,
For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
That was an Anti-war Vote? by Alexander Cockburn
When Congress attached a 'withdrawal deadline' to the supplemental appropriation bill for the war in Iraq, their gesture was even weaker than has been reported. Not only does it require no change for a full year and a half, but even after September, 2008, troops are permitted to remain in Iraq for diplomatic protection, counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi Security Forces. Doesn't this sound like Bush's surge?

Friday, March 30, 2007
More potential 2004 election illegalities rock Ohio's Hocking County as Cleveland braces for a legal firestorm
(1 comments) Free Press, Fitrakis & Wasserman: Three of the four election board members in Cuyahoga Cty, Ohio (Cleveland) have resigned under pressure from newly elected Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Holding out is Robert Bennett, chair of the BoE and chair of the Republican State Committee. Bennett has close ties to Karl Rove in the White House, and he is suspected of being a prime architect of the 2004 election theft in Ohio.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Robert Parry: WPost's Editorial Fantasyland
(1 comments) Why is the Washington Post Editorial Page repeating the White House's fabricated version of the Plame leak and the role of Joe Wilson in discrediting the Niger/Uranium connection?

Sunday, February 4, 2007
Europeans may know more than Americans about Bush's intentions in Iran
(2 comments) As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Massive undervote throws a Florida Congressional Race
(3 comments) Sarasota County, FL reported a 13% undervote rate in the hotly-contested Congressional race where Chris Jennings sought to unseat Vern Buchanan. Buchanan won by 368 votes in the latest count, but there were 18,000 undervotes in Sarasota Cty alone.