pResident Bu$h spent a lot of whatever political capital he had attempting to privatize Social Security, so that his friends on Wall Street could loot it and leave nothing for the aged. If the Rethuglicans (or Rovians) succeed in stealing the upcoming election and (s)elect John McCain, considering his mob ties, he will probably renew the effort, and considering the spineless cowards in Congre$$, he might even get away with it! It is absolutely ESSENTIAL that the vote be HONEST this time. I suggest a pretty thorough expose of Diebold and Sequoia, and perhaps a Federal demand for a paper trail, uncontaminated by exposure to Rove-tainted machines.

Every republican administration since FDR has done as much as possible to roll back all of the Programs that benefited the "less than rich" in America. The Reagan Administration laid the groundwork for rolling back private and public employee benefits. Reagan implemented two reductions in civil service pensions, started the rollback in health care benefits, and began outsourcing of jobs. The republicans have since worked feverishly to carry on in Reagan's footsteps, trying to see how many jobs, services and benefits they could either eliminate outright, and/or outsource to their corporate friends. The Democrats have alternately failed to stop the pillaging of the middle class and the poor, or they have assisted the republicans in their shift of tax dollars paid by middle class Americans--from benefiting America's citizens to benefiting America's corporations.

Meanwhile, the 110th Democratic Majority in Congress promised accountability, but as soon as they were elected, the Speaker of the House took accountability "off the table".

Brad Jacobson, writing this on the At Largely Blog said (emphasis mine):

"It would appear that not only did the Bush administration lie this nation into war and order documents forged, but they allegedly tried to plant WMD in Iraq."

“…Yet Nancy Pelosi is still saying the case has to made for impeachment…Nancy Pelosi, who at least until last week…has yet to read Dennis Kucinich's multiple articles of impeachment (*cough* isn't that part of her job?!)…

“…The Speaker made it clear she would not support any effort to hold impeachment hearings against George W. Bush Bush saying that he "will be gone in a hundred days..."

"...You know about Pelosi's (and Harry Reid's) miserable failure to hold this administration accountable for its multiple crimes. (Yeah, yeah, they don't have enough votes, yadda, yadda. Hey, they could filibuster, they could take their case to the media, to the people. They could take a stand and support Kucinich's articles of impeachment because it's the right thing to do, regardless of the final vote. It's called leading…"

“…Does Pelosi not comprehend -- or simply not care -- that under her and Reid's leadership Congress' approval rating is miserably low because we expected more from them?”

“…Here's another thing I'd like to ask her: Have you no sense of decency, Madame Speaker? No sense of shame?...”

Sadly, I’ll have to agree with every word of Mr. Jacobson’s article. We, the People, were promised accountablility in 2006, yet all we got was more criminal activity by the Administration and betrayal by the Democratic “leadership”.

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: VINCENT BUGLIOSI: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
Sunday, June 29, 2008

part I

Part II

Part III

Q U E S T I O N:
If, upon completion of their terms, members of this Administration were to be found guilty of ANY crimes they committed while in Office, WHAT WOULD THAT MAKE THE 110th CONGRESS, WHO DID NOTHING...?

A: ACCOMPLICES!

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I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

GOP lawmaker is a big fan of ‘The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.’»

The Washington Post reports that a “southern conservative congressman” is a big fan of Vincent Bugliosi’s best-selling book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,” which makes the case that Bush should be held “criminally responsible” for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. A “source close to the author” told the Post that the lawmaker is Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), who famously coined the term “freedom fries,” but later became a critic of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war. Jones told Bugliosi that he wants to lay low until the election, but afterward, would be “standing there by your side.”

click here

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

I just saw this diary by Ralph Lopez, at the top of the recommended diary list at daily kos: "Breaking: Conyers Calls Committee Back from Summer Recess to Investigate Suskind Allegations"

"...House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers has taken the highly unusual step of
calling his committee back from summer recess in order to investigate allegations by Ron Suskind that the Bush administration forged a letter to buttress the links made between Saddam and 9/11, and Saddam and WMD. The congressional Authorization for the Use of Force Against Iraq, the ""War Resolution" which, as far short as it fell of a congressional declaration of war, gave the invasion its constitutional legal cover, and gave Bush the authorization to invade only after he had certified to congress the existence of these two critical links. If Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and if he did not possess WMD, the war was off..."

I haven't read entire report yet, just wanted to post it now, so that if you're interested you can check it out yourself.

Retired Colonel and foreign affairs expert Andrew J. Bacevich on Bill Moyers speaks about the crises that are threatening our democracy, August 15, 2008.

Full video available HERE.

With an election ALWAYS around the corner, no wonder impeachment is "off the table".
It was "off the table" in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and ad infinitum... because there are always seats to fill, majorities to win, and Committees to Chair. Congress' abdication of their Constitutional role and Authority has enshrined the American Emperor, aka, formerly known as the President of the U.S.A. all on a quest for Political gains to be had. The true definition of Partisan politics. Screw the needs of the Nation, the Republicrats have Power Principles to seek instead.

Of course, this could be the door ajar that is needed to let in the light to begin that necessary dialogue.

I'm anxious to see the Senate discuss how TREASON is an American principle.
I'm anxious to see the Senate discuss how being LIED TO is Patriotic.
I'm anxious to see the Senate discuss the merits to TORTURE.
I'm anxious to see the Senate debate the wisdom of undermining international treaties.

Imagine, Congressman, if all of America saw this debate. Imagine the "SUPER MAJORITY" it would create. Of course, the front runners vying for the next Decider would have to chime in... NO?

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I M P E A C H

Senator Karen Johnson of Az. 08/10/08

Improbable Collapse

Interview With Greg Palast
Investigating Electoral Theft

By Chris Pepus
Monday, August 11 @ 00:00:00 EDT

The American press corps has finally begun to report on illegal activities of the Bush administration. However, the subject of election theft remains largely ignored. In recent years, the Republican Party has used an array of tactics to subtract votes from opposing candidates. These include sending defective voting machines to strongly Democratic precincts and removing low-income and minority voters from electoral rolls.

Reporter Greg Palast has been covering this issue since 2000, when he revealed that Florida officials ensured the election of George W. Bush by illegally suppressing the African-American and Democratic vote. (Learn more about that subject here.) In this interview, I asked Palast about his reports on the GOP’s dirty electoral tricks since 2000 and the possibility that the ’08 election will be stolen. He explained how the Help America Vote Act actually helps crooked Republicans and he previewed his upcoming broadcasts and publications, which will include a free guide with tips for safeguarding your vote.

–Chris Pepus

Chris: Your reports on vote suppression led to a congressional inquiry and the resignation of Tim Griffin, one of President Bush’s U.S. Attorneys.[i] Could you describe how the Bush administration interfered with voting rights in 2004?

Greg: Item one is something that we discovered called caging. There were e-mails written by the Republican National Committee’s chief researcher, a character named Tim Griffin, who was a protégé of Karl Rove.[ii] He was sending out caging lists, which are hit lists of voters to challenge. The way caging works is they send out registered letters to voters and when the voters aren’t around to receive their letters—the envelopes say, “Do Not Forward”—the voters end up being subject to challenge. The particular hit list that we got was substantially filled with voters from the naval air station in Jacksonville (Florida). There are reasons why someone at a naval air station wouldn’t be at their voting address. That’s because, unlike Bush during Vietnam, they are off in a foreign war. Republicans also sent letters to students at black colleges in August knowing that they wouldn’t be there. They illegally challenged their votes. The Republicans challenged three million voters in 2004, which is absolutely unbelievable and unreported. That fact was right there in the records of the Election Assistance Commission of the federal government. Those voters received provisional ballots and a million of those ballots were thrown in the garbage. That is just one of the tricks. There are several and they are being sharpened for 2008.

Chris: But Griffin claimed that he didn’t know what caging was until he read your report. “I had to look it up,” he said.

Greg: Well, actually, I determined that he is correct. He sent out an e-mail saying, “Here is a caging list.” As he said, you have to be an expert in direct-mail marketing to understand what caging is. Now, that means that someone told him to send out an e-mail with caging lists, someone whose orders were so important that he wouldn’t question them, even if he didn’t know what (the list) was. Now, who would know direct marketing and who could give orders to Tim Griffin? Well, before he worked for George W. Bush, Karl Rove was head of Rove & Company, a direct-mail marketing firm. Rove is an expert on caging. Law professor Bobby Kennedy Jr., my co-investigator, says that this was an illegal act. So who ordered this illegal act? Hm, Mr. Rove?

Chris: How did you obtain these e-mails?

Greg:Griffin is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and he copied these e-mails not to GeorgeWBush.com, which was the campaign’s internal e-mail system, but rather to GeorgeWBush.org, a parody web site. The head of that site, John Wooden, knows me. He immediately passed (the e-mails) on to my team. He didn’t know what they were and, frankly, we didn’t know what they were at first either. It took a lot of work to decode.

Chris: Have there been any new developments in the case, other than Karl Rove’s refusal to testify before the House Judiciary Committee?

Greg: I have just returned from a meeting with David Iglesias, a fired prosecutor from New Mexico. Caging and gimmicks like it were behind his firing and the firings of other U.S. prosecutors.[iii] The U.S. press corps, as usual, got it completely wrong. The firing of U.S. Attorneys is not simply about the politics of the prosecutors or even the operations of their offices. Rather, it is about an attempt to force prosecutors to be involved in a scheme to arrest voters under voter-fraud laws to create hysteria to justify vote suppression. I was constantly asking Republicans, “If there are so many criminal voters, why haven’t you arrested them? Why aren’t there prosecutions?” The Republicans said, “Oh, there will be. Talk to David Iglesias.” I called him and other prosecutors and got all this hemming and hawing. So, I’m being told that Iglesias is about to bring prosecutions and he is saying, “I don’t think so.” It’s very clear to me that Iglesias was resisting phony prosecutions. He ran around the bases looking for fraudulent voters and he didn’t find one. Some were in the military, so they were not at their voting addresses.
I just came back from checking out some of the so-called fraudulent voters that Iglesias refused to prosecute. Republican leaders gave me their names. There was one lady, a waitress, who was signed up twice and there were two different signatures of her name. So I spoke to her—this “criminal”—and I said, “Did you register twice?” She said, “Yes.” She explained that, under the law, if you don’t receive formal acknowledgment of your registration, you can and should register again. They don’t put your name on the roll twice. I asked why there were two signatures: “Was there some fraudulent game going on?” She said: “No. One time, I signed at a table. The other time, I signed it on my hand.” This woman was supposed to be one of the six most obvious cases of a fraudulent voter in New Mexico. Governor Bill Richardson signed laws making it harder for people to register because of these so-called frauds. The laws are so horrible that Richardson, a Hispanic Democrat, is being sued by the Brennan Center for Justice for illegally impeding Hispanic voters.
Read more here

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

Out Damn Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell

By Ray McGovern
August 15, 2008

Dear Colin,

You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot…or blot.

It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq.

And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies.

It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that.

That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President’s Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one.

I saw the street smarts you displayed then. The savvy was familiar to me. I concluded that it came, in part, from the two decades you and I spent growing up in the same neighborhood at the same time in the Bronx.

On those Bronx streets, rough as they were, there was also a strong sense of what was honorable —honorable even among thieves and liars, you might say. And we had words, which I will not repeat here, for sycophants, pimps, and cowards.

Your U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 left me speechless, so to speak — largely because of the measure of respect I had had for you before then.

Outrage is too tame a word for what quickly became my reaction and that of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as we watched you perform before the Security Council less than six weeks before the unnecessary, illegal attack on Iraq.

The purpose — as well as the speciousness — of your address were all too transparent and, in a same-day commentary, we VIPS warned President George W. Bush that, if he attacked Iraq, “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

That’s history. Or, as investigative reporter Ron Suskind would say, “It’s all on the record.”

You have not yet summoned the courage to admit it, but I think I know you well enough to believe you have a Lady Macbeth-type conscience problem that goes far beyond the spot on your record.

With 4,141 American soldiers — not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens — dead, and over 30,000 GIs badly wounded, how could you not?

What Did You Know…and When?

Here is what could be good news for you, Colin.

Information that has come to light over the past two years or so could wipe some of the blot fouling your record. It all depends, I guess, on how truthful you are prepared to be now.

Much of the new data comes from former CIA officials who, ironically, have sought to assuage their own consciences by doing talk therapy with authors like Sidney Blumenthal and Ron Suskind.

At first blush, these revelations seem so outlandish that they themselves strain credulity. But they stand up to close scrutiny far better than what you presented in your U.N. speech, for example.

If you now depend on the fawning corporate media (FCM) for your information, you will have missed this very significant, two-pronged story.

In brief, with the help of Allied intelligence services, the CIA recruited your Iraqi counterpart, Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, and Tahir Jalil Habbush, the chief of Iraqi intelligence. They were cajoled into remaining in place while giving us critical intelligence well before the war — actually, well before your speech laying the groundwork for war.

In other words, at a time when Saddam Hussein believed that Sabri and Habbush were working for him, we had “turned” them. They were working for us, and much of the information they provided had been evaluated and verified.

Most important, each independently affirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, information that should have prevented you from making a fool of yourself before the U.N. Security Council.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister

The FCM gave almost no coverage (surprise, surprise!) to the reporting from Naji Sabri, which continues to be pretty much lost in the woodwork.

In case you missed it, we now know from former CIA officials that his information on the absence of WMD was concealed from Congress, from our senior military, and from intelligence analysts — including those working on the infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1, 2002.

That NIE, titled “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for WMD,” was the one specifically designed to mislead Congress into authorizing the president to make war on Iraq.

One question is whether it is true that Sabri’s reporting was also concealed from you.

Tyler Drumheller, at the time a division chief in CIA’s clandestine service, was the first to tell the story of Naji Sabri, who is now living a comfortable retirement in Qatar. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” on April 23, 2006, Drumheller disclosed that the CIA had received documentary evidence from Sabri that Iraq had no WMD.

Drumheller added, “We continued to validate him the whole way through.”

Then two other former CIA officers confirmed this account to author Sidney Blumenthal, adding that George Tenet briefed this information to President George W. Bush on Sept. 18, 2002, and that Bush dismissed the information as worthless.

Wait. It gets worse. The two former CIA officers told Blumenthal that someone in the agency rewrote the report from Sabri to indicate that Saddam Hussein was “aggressively and covertly developing” nuclear weapons and already had chemical and biological weapons.

That altered report was shown to the likes of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was “duped,” according to one of the CIA officers.

Worse still, the former CIA officials reported that George Tenet never shared the unadulterated information from the Iraqi foreign minister with you, the Secretary of State and Naji Sabri’s counterpart. Again, whether that is true is a very large outstanding question.

The Chief of Iraqi Intelligence

Again, Colin, I am assuming you take your information from the FCM, so let me brief you, as in the old days, on what else has popped up over the past couple of weeks.

Two other CIA clandestine service officers have told author Ron Suskind that Iraqi intelligence chief Habbush had become one of our secret sources on Iraq, beginning in January 2003.

I hope you are sitting down, Colin, because Habbush also told us Iraq had no WMD. One of the helpful insights he passed along to us was that Saddam Hussein had decided that some ambiguity on the WMD issue would help prevent his main enemy, Iran, from thinking of Iraq as a toothless tiger.

Habbush, part of Saddam’s inner circle, had direct access to this kind of information. But when President Bush was first told of Habbush’s report that there were no WMD in Iraq, Suskind’s sources say the president reacted by saying, “Well, why don’t you tell him to give us something we can use to make our case?”

Apparently, Habbush was unable or unwilling to oblige by changing his story.

Nevertheless, later in 2003, when it became clear that he had been telling the unwelcome truth, Habbush was helped to resettle in Jordan and given $5 million to keep his mouth shut.

Suskind also reveals that in the fall of 2003, Habbush was asked to earn his keep by participating in a keystone-cops-type forgery aimed at “proving” that Saddam Hussein did, after all, have a direct hand in the tragedy of 9/11.

This crude forgery was not unlike the one that originally gave us the yarn about yellowcake uranium going from Niger to Iraq.

You will hardly be surprised to hear there is evidence, much of it circumstantial, that Vice President Dick Cheney was the intellectual author of both incredibly inept forgery operations.

Sorry to have to bring this up, but there is something else about Habbush that you need to know. He had actually been in charge of overseeing what was left of the Iraqi biological weapons program after the 1991 Gulf War, and reported that it was stopped in 1996.

Sabri vs. Curveball

Before the attack on Iraq, Tenet’s deputy, John McLaughlin, was repeatedly briefed on Sabri’s information, but complained that it was at variance with “our best source” — a reference to the infamous “Curveball,” the con-man whom German intelligence had warned the CIA not to take seriously.

You may recall hearing that on the evening before your U.N. speech, Drumheller warned Tenet not to use the information from Curveball on mobile biological weapons laboratories; Tenet gave Drumheller the brush-off.

The CIA artists’ renderings of those laboratories, to which you called such prominent attention during your speech, were spiffy, but bore no relationship to reality. Tenet and McLaughlin knew this almost as well as Sabri and Habbush did.

“We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails,” you will recall telling the world. Later, you lamented publicly that you had not been warned about Curveball either.

McLaughlin seemed to confirm that this was so, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2006: “If someone had made those doubts clear to me, I would not have permitted the reporting to be used in Secretary Powell’s speech.”

This is highly disingenuous, even by McLaughlin’s and Tenet’s standards, since they had deliberately chosen to ignore Drumheller’s warning. I know Drumheller; he is a far better bet for truthfulness that the other two.

Outright Lies

Although I am against the death penalty, I can sympathize with the vehement reaction of normally taciturn Carl Ford, head of State Department intelligence at the time. Ford has revealed that both Tenet and McLaughlin went to extraordinary lengths, and even took a personal hand in trying to salvage some credibility for the notorious Curveball.

In an interview for Hubris, a book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Carl Ford spared no words, asserting that Tenet’s and McLaughlin’s analysis “was not just wrong, they lied…they should have been shot.”

Though I’ve been around a while, I am not the best judge of character, Colin, and perhaps I am being too credulous in giving you the benefit of the doubt concerning what you knew — or didn’t. It could be, I suppose, that you were fully briefed on Naji Sabri, Habbush, Curveball, and all the rest of it, and have been able to orchestrate plausible denial.

If that is the case, I suppose it would seem safer to you to let sleeping dogs lie.

If, on the other hand, what my former colleagues say about your having been fenced off from this key intelligence is true, your reaction seems a bit … how shall I describe it? … understated.

Perhaps you are too long gone from the Bronx. Back there, back then, letting folks use you and make a fool of you without any response was just not done.

It was the equivalent to running away when someone was messing with your sister. And letting oneself be bullied always set a bad precedent, affirming for the bullies that they can push people around — especially understated ones — and risk nothing.

In sum, the CIA had both the Iraqi foreign minister and the Iraqi intelligence chief “turned” and reporting to us in the months before the war (in Naji Sabri’s case) and the weeks before your U.N. speech (in the case of Tahir Jalil Habbush).

Both were part of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle; both reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

But this was not what the president wanted to hear, so Tenet put the kibosh on Habbush and put Sabri on a cutter to Qatar.

So Here’s Your Opportunity

Either you knew about Sabri, Habbush and Curveball, or you did not. If you knew, I suppose you will keep hunkering down, licking your blot, and hoping that plausible denial will continue to work for you.

If you were kept in the dark, though, I would think you would want to raise holy hell — if not to hold accountable those of your former superiors and colleagues responsible for the carnage of the past five years, then at least to try to wipe the “blot” off your record.

Granted, it probably strikes you as a highly unwelcome choice — whether to appear complicit or naïve. Here’s an idea. Why not just tell the truth?

If House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is any guide, Congress seems quite taken with the explosive revelations in Ron Suskind’s book “The Way of the World.”

On Thursday, Conyers joined Suskind on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” and declared that he is “the third day into the most critical investigation of the entire Bush administration.” (He clearly was referring to the Suskind revelations.)

Conyers emphasized that, even though Congress is in recess, “We’re starting our work, and … I’m calling everyone back. We’ve got a huge amount of work to engage in.”

At the same time, though, Conyers said he is “maybe the most frustrated person attempting to exercise the oversight responsibilities that I have on Judiciary.”

A good deal of his frustration comes from stonewalling by the Bush/Cheney administration, which will surely cite national security or executive privilege to justify withholding any damaging information.

Bush Visits CIA

It was, no doubt, pure coincidence that President Bush made a highly unusual visit to CIA headquarters, also on Thursday, before leaving for Crawford on vacation.

The official line is that he wanted an update on the situation in Georgia and the Russian role there, but Bush did not need to go to Langley for that

Rather, given the record of the past seven years, it is reasonable to suggest that he also wanted to assure malleable Mike Hayden, the CIA director, and his minions that they will be protected if they continue to stiff-arm appropriate congressional committees, denying them the information they need for a successful investigation.

Pardons dangled as hush money? Not so bizarre at all.

Some will recall that George H.W. Bush, just before leaving the White House, pardoned one of your former bosses, Casper Weinberger, who had been indicted and was about to go to trial for lying about his role in the Iran-Contra fiasco.

If past is precedent, sad to say, Conyers is not likely to get to first base, UNLESS he can get knowledgeable witnesses to come forward.

On Thursday he did not rule out a suggestion that Habbush be asked to come before Congress to testify, but the CIA can easily thwart that kind of thing — or delay it indefinitely.

In any case, your own credibility, though damaged, has got to be greater than Habbush’s.

Let me suggest that you offer yourself as a witness to help clear the air on these very important issues. This would seem the responsible, patriotic thing to do in the circumstances and could also have the salutary effect of beginning the atonement process for that day of infamy at the Security Council.

If we hear no peep out of you in the coming weeks, we shall not be able to escape concluding one of two things:

(1) That, as was the case with the White House Situation Room sessions on torture, you were a willing participant in suppressing/falsifying key intelligence on Iraq; or

(2) That you lack the courage to expose the scoundrels who betrayed not only you, but also that segment of our country and our world that still puts a premium on truth telling and the law.

Think about it.

With all due respect,

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

While Congress is still dithering about prosecuting George Bush for lying to Congress and American citizens so he could start an unnecessary war with Iraq, GWB is 6 years into that war, as well as his second ongoing war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, since Congress has failed to hold him accountable for his war on Iraq based on lies--Bush was free as Commander in Chief to direct "US special forces to train the same exact Georgian troops that invaded South Ossetia just days or weeks before the invasion:"

"...And so then I looked and found an article from 1 month ago which discusses these US servicemen obeying their orders to train Georgian troops, the same Georgian troops that turned around and invaded South Ossetia."

"This is an outrage and of course begs the question: what exactly was the Bush administration's involvement in the instigation and lead-up to this invasion during the Olympics and right before an election..."

"...Maybe Conyers should take a look at this war started under false pretenses as well..."

Maybe so, Mr. Chairman. Maybe so.

For the sake of world peace.

For the sake of innocent civilians in countries on the neo-con hit list.

For the sake of US troops being run in the ground and used as cannon fodder by the neocons.

For the sake of the families of those US troops.

For the sake of the American economy that is hemorrhaging from the malfeasance of the bush Administration.

For the sake of decency, morality, ethics, and for the sake of basic humanity.

So, where did that pesky wrabbit duck off to...?

US policy in relation to Ukraine shall not change substantially after November elections, say YES summit discussion participants
12.07.2008

US policy in relation to Ukraine shall hardly undergo substantial changes after this year’s upcoming November presidential elections. The candidates have similar strategies with the key element of supporting Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. The difference between Bush and McCain will mostly concern the approaches and methods their administrations are going to use in realization of US external policy in the region, in case they win. These are the results of “Elections in Russia and the USA: impact on Ukraine and Europe” discussion, held within the Plenary Session of the 5th annual summit of Yalta European Strategy on the Saturday morning.

According to the opinion of Karl Rove, the key strategist of US Republican party election campaigns, Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for Presidency, “knows this part of the world in a good way, he has been visiting the region quite often and has even spent his vacation in Georgia once. He knows the specificities of Ukraine and is aware of its geopolitical role. Suffice it will be to say that his US External Policy Principles Article has seven words that Barack Obama does not have, and one of the words is Ukraine”.

McCain is quite skeptical in relation to Russia and its leadership in the region; his priorities are NATO expansion, development of relations with European Union and building “the line of democracy” with Ukraine and Georgia to become the key elements of it, mentioned Karl Rove. He made an emphasis on the fact that one of the main McCain’s peculiarities is his support of the established free trade regime between USA and other countries. “McCain voted for free trade regime, meanwhile Obama was always against it; and that is the great difference between them”, mentioned the Republicans’ strategists.

Alongside with this, Karl Rove has admitted that there is no much difference between the candidates in the sphere of external policy, especially in relation to Ukraine. “Both candidates stand for NATO expansion; both stand for Ukraine to make steps in that direction”.

Bob Shrum, the chief political consultant of the Democratic Party and the architect of the last seven democratic election campaigns, noted that, although Ukraine is not mentioned in Obama’s articles, the country finds its place in his policy. In terms of external policy, the expert sees its methods of realization as the main difference between the candidates. “Obama has more belief in negotiations with everybody, even with Iran. Although, his openness cannot be called mildness. McCain is skeptical about negotiations and sticks to the point that the United States should not hold negotiations with some of the countries. Even when the administration of George Bush stood for negotiations with Korea in relation to its nuclear program, McCain has been strictly criticizing Bush for that”. As an example, Shrum mentioned the fact that McCain proposes to exclude Russian Federation from The Group of Eight Organization.

Political consultant of the Democrats emphasized that Obama does not want “to force Ukraine into position of choosing between Russia and the United States. Should McCain become the President, my idea is that in this part of the world the situation becomes more complicated and tense”, he said. The main Obama’s advantage is that people are expecting changes in internal and external policy of the USA. “It will not be just a new administration; there will be new relations”, he said.

Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Russia and the Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, taking part in the discussion, has mentioned that it is American nation to decide who is going to be the US President. “Still, the only thing that matters for Ukraine is not to stay beyond debates on the issue of external policy in the new US administration. Ukraine should be in the center of discussion about the situation in the region, especially in USA-Russia-Ukraine triangle”, he said.

As informed, Yalta is hosting the the 5th annual summit of international Yalta European Strategy (YES) network, the greatest and the most influential non-governmental forum for Ukraine and European Union issues. More than 160 politicians, businessmen, public characters, diplomats and journalists from more than 20 countries of the world shall take part in the Summit. The Summit will continue working until July, 13. The Plenary Sessions will be traditionally held in Livadia Palace.

Among the participants of the 5th annual organization Summit are Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia; Marek Siwiec, Vice President of the European Parliament; Aleksander Kwasniewski, the President of Poland in 1995-2005; Mario David, Vice-President of European People’s Party; Victor Chernomyrdin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Ukraine; key strategists of the leading USA political parties – Karl Rove, the republican, and Bob Shrum, the democrat.

Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair, the British politician and public leader, the Prime Minister of the Great Britain in 1997-2007, will be the special guest of the Summit to speak at Vision of Europe and Ukraine Plenary Session on July, 12.

The Ukrainian state at the Summit will be presented by Arseniy Yatseniuk, the Head of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; Raisa Bogatyrova, the Secretary of National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine; Vice Prime Minister on European and International Integration Grygoriy Nemyria.

Yalta European Strategy (YES) is an independent international organization, uniting the famous politicians, business and public opinion leaders, and journalists, with the aim of reforming Ukraine and provision of support to its entering the European Union. The organization was created by Victor Pinchuk, Ukrainian businessman and public figure, in July, 2004.

Annual YES Summits in Yalta act as communication ground to discuss and develop political and economic strategies for Europe and Ukraine. Since the year 2004, William J. Clinton, the 42nd President of the USA; Gerhard Shroeder, the German Chancellor (1998-2005); Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005), Victor Yushchenko, the President of Ukraine, and other personalities took part in Summits’ work.

Besides annual summits, YES acts as initiator and organizer of public opinion surveys, forums and discussions on actual Ukraine-European Union relations issues, provides public opinion polls in EU countries concerning the European integration perspectives of Ukraine.

So, while no longer in an official role as a member of the White House, can Karl Rove act in any official capacity in foreign relations matters on behalf of the White House? Oh, I see... he was acting as a GOP liaison? And this took precedence over a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee? Was this the "vacation" his lawyer claimed he had scheduled and had informed Ms. Sanchez about?

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With a special dedication to John and Nancy

Mr. Chairman, perhaps you, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and the other Committee members who Mr. Rove has defied and disrespected, would like to join this effort by Common Cause to book an appearance by Mr. Rove. Here's background and an action link, by which you and the Committee members can help the People get the accountability we've been demanding for years: (emphasis mine)

"...Pop quiz: How can you get Karl Rove to show up and answer questions about his role in the politicization of the Justice Department?

"1) Issue a congressional subpoena compelling him to testify
2) Hire him as an analyst for your "fair and balanced" cable news network
3) Book an appearance through his website, Book Appearance by Karl Rove at rove. com.

"We already know that #1 doesn't work. Rove refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, despite a subpoena.

"#2 could work – he recently appeared on Fox News to answer questions from Sean Hannity.* But unfortunately, we don't own a cable network.

"So let's try #3! Karl Rove's website says you can book him for an event to talk about "public issues and controversies." We have some questions that fit that bill:

"...Karl Rove refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena – but he's taking "booking requests" through his website. So let's book him."

"Help us reach our goal of 20,000 signatures on our booking request.

"We, the undersigned members of Common Cause, request an appearance by Karl Rove before the House Judiciary Committee when the Congress reconvenes in September. We would like to book Mr. Rove for a few hours of questioning about his involvement in Justice Department scandals and the politically motivated prosecution of former governor Don Siegelman.

"The Judiciary Committee and the American people deserve answers. We see that Mr. Rove has found the time to address the National Association of Convenience Stores, a Yahoo! conference and has made multiple appearances on Fox News. We believe it is time for him to comply with a congressional subpoena and book a date and time with the House Judiciary Committee."

"Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter."

What about it Mr. Chairman? If the Judiciary Committee won't utilize Constitutional tools to check the rogue Mr. Rove, will they at least add their names to the Common Cause efforts to book an appearance by Mr. Rove to appear before the Judiciary Committee?

Valerie Plame Wilson, the former covert CIA officer whose leaked identity resulted in a national scandal that reached all the way to the White House, appears in her first interview since her cover was blown. Katie Couric reports.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Where is the Justice when TREASON is excused for political convenience...
... from the DEMOCRATS?

What good is an opposition Party when they join hands and sing kumbaya with those they claim to oppose?

America sees that the cover provided to these criminals is coming from the Democrats!

THE PEOPLE SHALL REMEMBER
COME VOTING TIME NOVEMBER!

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or RESIGN!!!

The Secret Deal For Iraq's Oil

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
Friday, August 15, 2008

Four months before the United States invaded Iraq, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp., on a secret deal that would give the world's second largest oil services company total control over Iraq's oil fields, according to interviews with Halliburton's most senior executives.

Previously undisclosed Halliburton documents obtained by The Public Record confirm that controlling the world's second largest oil reserves was a top priority for the Bush administration. Additionally, the deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root to operate Iraq's oil industry saved Halliburton from imminent bankruptcy.

Hmmm...imminent bankruptcy

So, Dick just really wanted to save his retirement money. Sounds like something you should look into, Congressman.

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

Q: What does A.Q. Khan, Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Musharraf, and G.W.Bush with a shadow of R.B. Cheney buy America...?

A: Got Osama?

POLITICS: Bush Covered up Musharraf Ties with Qaeda, Khan
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (IPS) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W. Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with U.S. security interests.

It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.

What has not been reported is that the Bush administration covered up the Musharraf regime's involvement in the activities of the A. Q. Khan nuclear technology export programme and its deals with al Qaeda's Pakistani tribal allies.

The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al Qaeda. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al Qaeda "was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army".

If there was a state sponsor of al Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.

Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservative-dominated Bush Pentagon were aware of the intimate relationship between Musharraf's regime and both the Taliban and al Qaeda. But al Qaeda was not a high priority for the Bush administration.

After 9/11, the White House created the political myth that Musharraf, faced with a clear choice, had "joined the free world in fighting the terrorists". But as Asia expert Selig S. Harrison has pointed out, on Sep. 19, 2001, just six days after he had supposedly agreed to U.S. demands for cooperation against the Taliban regime and al Qaeda, Musharraf gave a televised speech in Urdu in which he declared, "We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban."

In his memoirs, published in 2006, Musharraf revealed the seven specific demands he had been given and claimed that he had refused both "blanket overflight and landing rights" and the use of Pakistan's naval ports and air bases to conduct anti-terrorism operations.

Musharraf also famously wrote that, immediately after 9/11, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if Musharraf didn't side with the United States against bin Laden and his Afghan hosts. But Armitage categorically denied to this writer, through his assistant, Kara Bue, that he had made any threat whatsoever, let alone a threat to retaliate militarily against Pakistan.

For the next few years, Musharraf played a complicated game. The CIA was allowed to operate in Pakistan's border provinces to pursue al Qaeda operatives, but only as long as they had ISI units accompanying them. That restricted their ability to gather intelligence in the northwest frontier. At the same time, ISI was allowing Taliban and al Qaeda leaders to operate freely in the tribal areas and even in Karachi.

The Bush administration also gave Musharraf and the military regime a free ride on the A. Q. Khan network's selling of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran, even though there was plenty of evidence that the generals had been fully aware of and supported Khan's activities.

Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wrote in their book "The Nuclear Jihadist" that one retired general who had worked with Khan told them there was no question that Khan had acted with the full knowledge of the military leadership. "Of course the military knew," the general said. "They helped him."

But the Bush administration chose to help Musharraf cover up that inconvenient fact. According to CIA Director George Tenet's memoirs, in September 2003, he confronted Musharraf with the evidence the CIA had gathered on Khan's operation and made it clear he was expected to end its operations and arrest Khan.

The following January and early February, Khan's house arrest, public confession of guilt and pardon by Musharraf was accompanied by an extraordinary series of statements by high-ranking Bush administration officials exonerating Musharraf and the military of any involvement in Khan's activities.

That whole scenario had been "carefully orchestrated with Musharraf", Larry Wilkerson, then a State Department official but later Colin Powell's chief of staff, told IPS in an interview last year. The deal that had been made did not require Musharraf to allow U.S. officials to interrogate Khan.

But the Bush administration apparently conveyed to the Pakistani military after that episode that it now expected the Musharraf regime to deliver high-ranking al Qaeda officials -- and to do so at a particularly advantageous moment for the administration. The New Republic magazine reported Jul. 15, 2004 that a White House aide had told the visiting head of ISI, Ehsan ul-Haq, that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of any HVT [high value target] were announced on 26, 27 or 28 July." Those were the last three days of the Democratic National Convention.

The military source added, "If we don't find these guys by the election, they are going to stick the whole nuclear mess up our a**hole."

Just hours before Democratic candidate John Kerry's acceptance speech, Pakistan announced the capture of an alleged al Qaeda leader.

Meanwhile, Musharraf was making a political pact with a five-party Islamic alliance in 2004 to ensure victory in state elections in the two border provinces where Islamic extremist influence was strongest. This explicit political accommodation, followed by a military withdrawal from South Waziristan, gave the pro-Taliban forces allied with al Qaeda in the region a free hand to recruit and train militants for war in Afghanistan.

Yet another deal with the Islamic extremists in 2006 strengthened the pro-Taliban forces even further.

But Bush chose to reward Musharraf by designating Pakistan a "Major Non-NATO Ally" in 2004 and by agreeing to sell the Pakistani Air Force 36 advanced F-16 fighter planes. Prior to that, Pakistan had been denied U.S. military technology for a decade.

In July 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that al Qaeda's new "safe haven" was in Pakistan's tribal areas and that the terrorist organisation had reconstituted its "homeland attack capability" there. That estimate ended the fiction that the Musharraf regime was firmly committed to combating al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Had the Bush administration accurately portrayed Musharraf's policies rather than hiding them, it would not have avoided the al Qaeda safe haven there. But it would have facilitated a more realistic debate about the real options available for U.S. policy.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

(END/2008)

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Like they do in Pakistan!!!

... But instead, Got Miers?

Miers: From Supreme Court Nominee To Pakistan Lobbyist
By Kate Klonick - August 19, 2008

Harriet Miers, former White House counsel, one-time Supreme Court nominee and current partner at Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, can now add lobbyist for the Pakistan People's Party and the Embassy of Pakistan to her resume, according to documents filed with the DOJ earlier this month.

In May of this year, Locke Lord Strategies signed a one-year $900,000 agreement to lobby for the Embassy of Pakistan. On her foreign agent registration short form, Miers listed the "Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Asif Ali Zardari, Co-Chairperson of PPP and his children" as clients. The group's ongoing work lobbying for the PPP continues on a pro bono basis.

In case you're wondering if this has anything to do with the current events in Pakistan, The Blog of Legal Times has your answer:

What does President Pervez Musharraf's resignation mean for Locke Lord? Probably not much. The firm has represented Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and an opponent of Musharraf, since March, when the firm was retained to promote democracy and pressure Pakistan's government to investigate former PPP head Benazir Bhutto's assassination.