Global Warming Deniers Take A Cue From Big Tobacco – How They Lie And Put Profits Before The Public Welfare

One of the most famous and dramatic events depicted in the motion picture "The Insider", was the testimony of the seven CEOs of Big Tobacco. Their "nicotine is not addictive" testimony, under oath as part of the Congressional Waxman hearings, started the modern day practice of having educated persons of authority disseminate scientifically fraudulent information to the public. Each CEO repeated,

"I don´t believe that nicotine or our products are addictive."

To support the claims of their corporate leaders, Big Tobacco learned how to take revisionist science one step further, buying off scientists to disseminate false data in order to manipulate and mislead the public. Now the big oil companies like ExxonMobil and their right-wing, global warming denying friends are using the same play book, as an unsuspecting public scratches their head and wonders what the truth really is.

Alden Mayer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said recently that . . . 

“ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or cherry-picking facts”. 

Mayer also stated that . . .

"They have manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer."

Big Tobacco knew just how effective it could be, when they used supposedly impartial experts to knowingly disseminate their corporate talking points to the public. The reality was that these experts were far from being impartial. In actuality they were hand-picked industry advocates whose job was to use the media to report distorted, biased information to the public under the guise of it being credible news. In most cases, they were paid exorbitant amounts of money to do so.

In 1993 Philip Morris determined that smoking restrictions were estimated to have decreased their profits by $40 million, knowing this was a result of legal restrictions being put on smokers and where they could smoke. To combat this assault on their corporate profits, they decided that they would initiate a massive campaign to recruit scientists willing to publicly support a position that smoking was not harmful.

They thus made an evil and calculated pact with the devil, signing away their souls when they decided that maximizing corporate profits was far more important than the health and welfare of their customers. Former Philip Morris political affairs director Ellen Merlo said . . .

"If smokers can't smoke on the way to work, at work, in stores, banks, restaurants, malls, and other public places, they are going to smoke less and a large percentage of them are going to quit. In short, cigarette purchases will be drastically reduced and volume declines will accelerate."

In the early 1990s, tobacco companies secretly paid thirteen scientists a total of $156,000 to write letters to influential medical journals with one getting $10,000 for writing a single letter that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A cancer researcher also received $20,137 for writing four letters and an opinion piece for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and the Wall Street Journal.  

Professor Gary Huber was a scientific researcher for the tobacco industry for many years. He had built a career by regularly disputing the growing body of scientific evidence about tobacco's deadly effects and over the years received more than $7 million in money from the tobacco industry. His emphysema project at Harvard was paid for directly by the tobacco law firm of Shook, Hardy and Bacon. 

Having learned well from their corporate big brothers in the tobacco industry, ExxonMobil and their sister oil companies have likewise engaged in a systematic campaign of disinformation and lies to manipulate public opinion on global warming and man’s contribution to it.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to . . .

"create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

They haved pumped millions into think tanks, association, media outlets, and consumer groups and religious organizations to preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe and discredit the science behind global warming. They paid $16 million between 1998 and 2004 and in 2005 alone, shelled out $133 million including $6.8 million for public information and policy research to groups that publicly disputed the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. 

Here are a few of the recipients of ExxonMobil’s money and what they received.

1. Advancement of Sound Science Center - Run by FoxNews.com's Steve Milloy $40,000.

2. American Council for Capital Formation - Says science questions must be addressed before the United States and its allies embark on a path as non-productive as that of the Kyoto Protocol.- Group netted nearly a million dollars from ExxonMobil from 2000-2003 but the real science bashing was in 2001 when they got $250,000.

3. Acton Institute for the Study of Religious Liberty - Calls CO2 caps a misguided attempt to solve a problem that may not even exist. - $155,000.
   
4. American Council on Science and Health - Says Policymakers can safely take several decades to plan a response to global warming -$90,000.
   
5. American Enterprise Institute - Published 2004 climate article titled, 'Don't Worry, Be Happy.' Dick Cheney is a former senior fellow.- $960,000.

6. American Legislative Exchange Council - Launched attack on 'Sons of Kyoto' state legislation in 2004 Published Michaels paper that claims 'global warming could actually save lives.' - $712,200.
   
7. Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy - Says answering questions about global warming takes more than a few thermometers, an agenda and a press release. Honored Senator Inhofe for 'supporting rational, science-based thinking and policy-making' - $427,500

8. Atlas Economic Research Foundation - Said that 'As the science behind global warming becomes increasingly sketchy, many environmentalists clutch even harder to their views.'  - $440,000.
   
9. Cato Institute - One of the modern right's most respected think tanks - $75,000
   
10. Capital Research Center - Right-wing nonprofit watchdog group says, 'scientists disagree about climate change, but you wouldn't know that from the Kyoto treaty' - $115,000.

Today, an educated and aware public needs to be continually on guard and skeptical of corporate pronouncements that seem to go against common sense and reason. In the end, we have to take responsibility for what we believe. The stakes are now too high not to.
 

Debunking The Bunk, The Truth About Al Gore's Lifestyle

Well what do we have here, looks like solar panels on Al Gore's roof! (Yes Billo, it's an actual photo of his roof)

Poor Al Gore, the guy has more holes in him than Harry Whittington, Darth Vader's hunting buddy as he's been subjected to the most pre-meditated, vile and vicious character assassination attempt since Edward Coke brought down Francis Bacon.

Attack the messenger, that's what the reactionary right does when they are no longer able to compete on the field of reasoned intellectual objectivity. It's a time-honored strategy embraced and taught by Karl Rove. Worry not when you are lacking rationality, intelligence, cognitive reasoning and substantive facts. Just attack the messenger, swift boat them and ignore the truth, the people are dumb and won't know it until it's too late. (Please also see the Iraq War, No Child Left Behind, Illegal Wiretapping, Torture, Suspension of Habeas Corpus and Illegal Imprisonment).

It's all they have, as there is no credible debate anymore within the scientific community as to the veracity of the global warming crisis. So armed with supposedly irrefutable evidence of Gore's environmental hypocrisy they line up at Fox Noise like a pack of rabid dogs eager to take their wacks at poor Al. It's actually riveting in a perverse kind of way to watch Billo wipe the drool lovingly from Michelle Malkin's face as she spits all over herself trying to eviscerate Al Gore for daring to care about the stupid planet while there is a war in Iran to plan. Well the gig is up, the truth patrol is on the job debunking your bunk. Al Gore practices what he preaches and the truth is he lead's an exemplary environmental lifestyle. Here are the facts:

1. Al Gore has recently completed renovations to make his residence a model "green" home.

2. This plan has been in the works for a long time and has only recently been made public because of attacks by the right.

3. Gore's home meets Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

4. Al Gore's neighborhood council had zoning laws that previously prohibited the installation of solar panels. That has now changed and Al Gore has installed solar panels on his roof.

5. He has installed a geothermal system that will drastically reduce the cost of his water heating.

6. He has upgraded his windows and ductwork for maximum energy efficiency.

7. He has installed energy-efficient light bulbs.

8. He has created a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

9. Al Gore drives a hybrid vehicle.

10. Al Gore’s family has signed up for 100% percent green power through Green Power Switch.

11. Al Gore espouses a very consistent belief in purchasing carbon offsets to offset his family’s carbon footprint. This is a concept the right-wing fails to understand and I suggest you do some reading before you discount it.

12. Al Gore flies commercial whenever possible. He is also an ex Vice President of the United States and receives numerous threats. Depending upon the security assessment and his schedule he is sometimes precluded from flying commercial.

13. Al Gore is an ex-Vice President who maintains his official office in his home for which requires adequate staff and space. He's has no other offices, making it unnecessary to use energy in separate locations.

14. The Gores' energy bills are in line with others in their part of the country. They live in the South, where extreme heat and humidity make air-conditioning the main drain on energy usage.

15. The Gores purchase, at great expense to themselves, "green" energy for their home (green energy costs 50% more than energy from conventional sources).

16. The Gores purchase carbon-offset credits to help mitigate the effect of their energy use on the environment.

17. One hundred percent of the profits from Al Gore's book and movie “An Inconvenient Truth” are going to a new bi-partisan educational campaign to further spread the message about global warming in addition to having a thousand people offer his slide presentation to groups around the world. Your bunk was junk.

A Thought On Whale Hunting

I think that historically, native peoples living in frozen, arctic locales have hunted whales for sustinence and clothing. The geography and harsh climate does not allow for agriculture, sufficient fishing or keeping farm animals. From my understanding, they take a very limited number of whales and use everything the animal offers. If it weren't for the whale's high blubber and fat content being part of their diet, the native people's probably would not have survived. They revere and respect the animals. On the other hand are the many countries that hunt whales commercially for profit. They are cruel and unecessary. That's my take.

Child Labor Enablers

Well, just when you thought that the Bush administration's sycophantic pandering to their corporate benefactors could go no further . . this from Washington. While negotiating a deal with Walmart to investigate reported child labor abuses, the Labor Department reportedly has agreed to give Walmart a fifteen-day advance notice before inspecting a facility! Way to go Elaine Chao; another heroic move defending the rights of corporations to profit at any cost.

What Progressives Believe

There is a after all is said and done a real difference between the reactionary right and progressive Democrats. We care about ending terrorism not emboldening terrorists, about rejecting torture, about affordable energy costs, about global warming, about education, about tax and election reform, about keeping religion out of government and our schools, about senior citizens, about affordable prescription drugs, about providing equal access to health care for all, about creating jobs, about protecting social security and medicaid, about sexual equality and homosexual rights, about not enabling corrupt and oppressive governments, about a woman's right to chose and a fair immigration policy, about civil rights, about safeguarding the environment and protecting wildlife and about not opting to stimulate corporate profits and malfeasance at the expense of the working class of this country. Say it proudly, it's the moral highground.

Jimmy Carter On Iraq

"Going to war without our county being directly threatened is a new policy that's radically changed the basic moral values and ethnical standards of the United States of America. I think it was made long before President Bush was elected president," he says, "and the people that believed that America should be the dominant force in the world, unilaterally, acting militarily if necessary, is another basic change in the principles that have always guided our country and made us great". - President Jimmy Carter

John Dean On Valerie Plame

"I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means." --John W. Dean (Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon)

Stop Junk Mail

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Anne Coulter Funnies

It's getting far too serious out there isn't it? In this sad and often depressing world, we all need a laugh now and then to get through the day. So how about some uproarious levity, brought to you by the smiling, maliciously evil Eva Braun of arch conservatism, Anne Coulter. Here are just a few of her classic and timeless gems; her own uniquely despotic pearls of racist, neocon wisdom designed to give all of you progressives out there the confidence that we are indeed morally and intellectually superior. Writing for the rightwing National Review, she turned in a column offering her final solution to the Muslim problem.

• We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war". (Even the right wing Review fired her! Imagine that!)

• Congress could pass a law tomorrow requiring that all aliens from Arabic countries leave. We should require passports to fly domestically. Passports can be forged, but they can also be checked with the home country in case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males.

• I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. They’re a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to the rest of the world.

• I take the Biblical idea. God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees God says, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.

• She was also fired from MSNBC when she astoundingly told a disabled Vietnam veteran, people like you caused us to lose that war.

• My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times Building.

• Liberal soccer moms are precisely as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as to develop a capacity for linear thinking. Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.

Anti-Land Mine Treaty

An old story that we need to keep in the public eye. How do Americans feel that their country is in bed with China, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan and Russia as the only ones not to sign a treaty banning land mines? I wonder what would be said if they knew that thousands of kids have had their legs blown off by land mines.

The Bush administration of course in their first term rejected a 150-nation anti-land mine treaty. In Afghanistan and Cambodia, among other countries, the buried land mines serve no military purpose and are a menace to farmers, children and other people who accidentally trip over them. The mines maim or kill. Stephen Goose, executive director of the arms control division of Human Rights Watch, said the United States is isolated by its insistence on using land mines in its defense programs. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a leading opponent of land mines said,

On the whole it is a deeply disappointing step backward. This is another squandered opportunity for U.S. leadership on a crucial arms control and humanitarian issue," he said. "Worst of all, in a sharp departure from past policy, it says the United States will continue using land mines indefinitely.

Conservatives are worried about gay folks who love each other getting married, but don't care that their country will countenance killing innocent people with land mines. Makes sense to me.

Environmental Musings

Please take a moment and consider this.

No one seems to care much about the environment and if they do, their concern is often expressed quietly and quickly forgotten. Perhaps since there are no visceral images of people dying, as there are in hurricanes, wars and famine, people just can't wrap their hands around the seriousness of the threat to our planet. It's not nightly news stuff and there are no images and sounds to convey the danger. Just scientists and activists trying their best to get people to care.

I'm going to try to do my part here and if some of my friends and acquaintances are offended, well I am sorry. I particularly want to address this to my friends who are hunters and fisherman and nature lovers and inexplicably . . . conservatives. If you care about the lands you hunt on, the waters you fish in and the air your family breathe, maybe you will set aside your political agenda and unite with us all to save the only earth we have. Or you can shut your eyes and ears to what you cannot see or hear and just go on and live your life without caring what kind of world your children inherit from you.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, our forests, wildlife, the atmosphere that protects us, the all important temperature of the oceans . . . . . they are all in dire danger of being damaged beyond repair. This current administration is supporting legislation and an activist agenda that clearly sacrifices the environment for the benefit of large corporate interests whose bottom line profits are intrinsically tied to exploiting the earth's resources and avoiding the financial commitments to curb their greenhouse gas emissions and polluting.

Corporations engaged in clear-cutting our forests including old growth redwoods, rampant drilling for oil, mining for coal, land development, chemical manufacturing and a myriad of other industries are being given a free pass to do as they will to the environment in pursuit of the bottom line. Aside from threatening this planets physical future, these polluters contribute substantially to lung disorders like asthma, heart disease, increased hospitalizations and medical costs and premature death for millions of unsuspecting people worldwide.

Let's look at some of the facts, not hyperbole but facts:

The Bush administration has recommended opening up all 155 of our National Forests to logging without concern or consideration for the wildlife that inhabits these lands.

1. The Bush administration wants to change the Clean Air Act to allow 20,000 power plants to release more pollutants into the air.
2. The Bush administration has recommended treating Mercury pollution released by power plants as a non-hazardous substance. There are 45 states currently that post mercury contamination warning signs and mercury is known to cause birth defects and learning disorders.
3. The Bush administration has recommended allowing oil drilling in some of America's most sensitive eco-systems such as Yellowstone Park, Otero Mesa in New Mexico, Canyonlands and Dinosaur National Monument in Utah.
4. The Bush administration is actively supporting logging in Alaska's Tongass Wilderness, the earth's largest remaining rainforest.
5. Cleanup work at toxic waste sites in eighteen states will be severely curtailed or in some cases halted under a Bush administration plan to reduce spending for the nation's Superfund program, according to an analysis by Bush’s own Environmental Protection Agency.
6. The Bush administration has also decided not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and has rejected a 1997 climate treaty broadly accepted by our European allies.
7. We all know by now they support developing the environmentally fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and their energy plan indicates their intention to drill for oil and gas under the Great Lakes.
8. Bush, after faulting the Kyoto climate treaty for excluding developing nations from its requirements, wants to cut U.S. aid for helping Third World countries combat global warming and proposes reducing assistance to other countries by $41 million from last year's $165 million.
9. A major tactic of the Bush administration has been to take advantage of the right wing’s ongoing smear campaign against former president Clinton to rollback many of the environmental safeguards he set in place. For example, the Bush administration wants to put on hold and re-examine a Clinton-era program spelling out federally required state cleanup plans for thousands of lakes and rivers around the nation The broad cleanup plans issued last year were intended to reduce storm water and agriculture runoff polluting about 21,000 lakes, ponds, streams and rivers across the country.
10. Bush wants to scale back a Clinton administration rule aimed at reducing pollution emissions from older coal-fired power plants.
11. Bush has revoked some requirements imposed on developers during the Clinton presidency, including one requiring them to restore or create an acre of wetlands for every acre they fill. This would allow speedy government approval of their projects if their impact on streams or marshes is considered minimal.
12. The corps also eliminated revoked some restrictions on development in flood plains. The Bush administration also proposed cutting NASA's climate change research by $90 million, or almost 8 percent from last year's $1.2 billion and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repealed a Clinton-era rule favored by unions that prevents the government from awarding contracts to businesses that have broken environmental, labor, tax or other federal laws.

Do we care yet?

Bush's Abysmal Environmental Record - What He Can’t Destroy With Bombs, He Destroys With His Pen

President Bush thinks living in a green house makes him an environmentalist. I think not.

I have watched with amusement the latest apocryphal illusion offered up by the anti-global warming wack-pack. Bush is cajoled into building a green ranch house in Crawford and all of a sudden he is extolled by the reactionary right as a model green citizen. In the meantime, Al Gore, the selfless warrior, is vilified for his energy usage in spite of the reality that he leads an exemplary environmental lifestyle while making a Herculean effort to save our planet. What iniquitous irony is this, that Bush builds a clean, green, dream for Barb and the girls, yet hammers away relentlessly against almost every environmentally friendly effort known to man.

According to David Haymann, the environmentalist, architect and associate dean of the University of Texas architecture department who was contracted to design the home,

Every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that's different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place. There's a great grove of oak trees to the west that protects it from the late afternoon sun. Then there is a view out to the north looking at hills, to the east out over a lake, and the view to the south out to beautiful hills.

He was determined to integrate sustainable design into the ranch. The architect presented the contention that,

If you love the land that you inhabit . . . you will do what is necessary to preserve its essence, and implement a design that does not intrude upon the landscape.

Awesome! Good for you Georgie! According to Rob Sullivan, writing in the Chicago Tribune, "Perhaps sound ecological practices are only for those who can afford them. As a self-proclaimed strict constructionist of the U.S. Constitution, Bush must be aware that clean air and clean water are not guaranteed in that glorious document. Perhaps in Bush's Brave New Corporate World, clean natural resources are merely commodities in a free-market economy: if you can pay for them, fine. If not, tough. The rest of us will just have to put up with more toxic dumps and more public lands being turned over to logging, mining and oil companies".

The truth is, there no bigger hypocrite than Bush when it comes to the environment and his shamelessly abysmal record proves it. “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” acts? How stupid does he think we are? Last fall, Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney testified before Congress that,

Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.

According to, Senator Patrick Leahy,

One of their favorite tactics is announcing environmental rollbacks on Fridays or around holidays when they think the American public will not be paying attention. The Administration has announced at least 40 environmental rollbacks alone on Fridays and another 20 on holidays. These rollbacks demonstrate just how far this Administration has gone in waging its environmental assault; gutting the Clean Air Act, ramping up logging in some of most spectacular national forests, dumping more mining waste on public lands and more sewage sludge on private lands.

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Counci report that the Bush administration committed these 300 serious attacks on the environment in his first term alone.

Always eager to submissively prostate himself at the feet of his corporate campaign contributers and Darth Vader's energy advisory board, this in summation is what the Commander In Thief has accomplished for them.

• Toxic Releases Are Up
• Environmental Enforcement Is Down
• Pollution-Related Beach Closings Are Up
• Mercury Contamination Warnings Are Up
• Hazardous Waste Cleanups Are Down
• Perchlorate Contamination Is Widespread
• There is Less Oversight of Refineries
• They Legalized Sewage Dumping in Our Waterways
• Manage National Forests for Forestry Companies
• Drinking Water Contamination Remains Unregulated
• Ceded Public Lands to Energy Companies
• EPA Exempts Pesticides from Clean Water Act

Dubya may strut around on his ranch like the Jolly Green Giant, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that he has routinely introduced legislation and issued executive orders that have served to decimate the environment everywhere else; coordinating a systematic campaign to annul and eviscerate America’s most significant environmental safeguards.

The argument that Bush is a more credible steward of the planet than Al Gore is incongruous burlesque and theatre of the absurd at best.

A Time To Speak Out

In this tumultuous political climate and rapidly changing world, more often then not many have opted for shutting up rather than speaking out. We don't want to offend our neighbors, co-workers, friends, even our parents and close family. This instinct to keep one's beliefs close to the vest was exacerbated by the wave of jingoistic patriotism and fear that followed 9-11 and many were afraid. Not of the terrorists, but of our own government.

The world and US citizens were told, "you are with us or you are against us" and a slim, dubious at best electoral win turned into an indefensible toe-the-line and do what we say thinly veiled threat, colored by blanket indictments of non-patriotism for even mouthing a contrarian opinion. The power of the people to redress their grievances along with most everything else ever espoused by monsieur’s Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin was forgotten with the pathetic complicity of the press (God forbid we don't get a good seat at the press briefing) and even more amazingly, the Democratic party. Herr Limbaugh, and Hannity et al mouthed the talking points of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz egged on to a cacophonous hysteria by the likes of Ann Coulter and Micheal Regan.

All the time Bush dangled feebly at the end of his puppet strings with his voice never quite matching his mouth. Ever the optimist I think that just perhaps the defense has held and the sleeping giant that is an American public that still believes in true patriotism and justice; has awakened. Katrina, Iraq, and the rest may have finally pushed the people too far and just maybe the press are pissed off as well at their manipulation, un-wanted subpoenas and the lies they spread. One can only hope the people are back in the game and will sustain the drive to retake our democratic republic with fervor supported by moral certitude and the backbone that has been missing for six years. It's not too late; almost, but we can recover.

There is a difference . . . stand up and make your voice heard and do it now. You're an American, it's your birthright, it's your obligation and it's time to speak out!

What Do We Deserve?

Never before has there been such a serious dearth of leadership in this country. On the domestic front, inflation might be rearing it's ugly head once again; has anyone even noticed the Fed's steady rate increases which are predicted to continue for the foreseeable future? Gasoline is hovering around $3 per gallon and the bottom has started to fall out of the housing market which many credit for artificially propping up our economy. The middle class is under a steady attack and the gap between the wealthy and the poor is wider than ever before. Nothing has been done to address the serious issues that face us such as health care, tax reform, and immigration policy in this country and Bush's faux brand of compassionate conservatism has only served to exacerbate another widening gap in this country, the one between secularists and the religious right. Seeking no common ground, the Bush administration has instead driven wedge issues such as gay marriage and abortion rights deep between them and is stacking the court with right-wing ideologies to insure these divisive issues continue to plague America for decades to come. With his poll numbers hovering around 30% and the White House under siege due to the ongoing Iraq debacle; Bush's administration has never been so ineffectual but beware the wounded beast and the power of presidential decrees.

On the world stage, Bush's foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster with previously supportive governments practically shunning the US president as of late. It is as if they were saying to him; you are irrelevant and we are waiting for you to leave the world stage. Iraq continues to be a huge problem, costly in both human life and US prestige and world tensions have never been so obvious and troubling. Our attacking of a sovereign country on false premises served only to embolden terrorists and their recruiting. It will be interesting to say the least and revelatory to see what statements if any the American people make in 2008. Try as they may to run, Republicans wear the cloak of the Bush administration and hopefully the American people are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. If not, if apathy and hopelesness prevail, well, we will get what we deserve . . . again.

We Don't Torture, More Lies From Bush/Cheney

Here we go again, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Yesterday, The White House announced an Executive Order that would let the CIA resume what they refer to rapturously as “severe interrogation methods for questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas”.

Oh yeah, never mind that the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that American prisoners should be treated according to Geneva Convention standards prohibiting torture. Heck I'm the decider. I'll just issue this executive order, take Scalia out for a drink and then off to get the colon washed out while Dick plans his Iran war.

We do not torture? Anyone believe anything shrubya says anymore?  This president is not to be believed about anything, under any circumstances and especially when it comes to denials that we torture.

It’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that during the last five years, the US has been torturing on a massive scale. Renditions, secret detention centers, routine torture of detainees, Bush and Cheney have just unilaterally and illegally stopped complying with the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and the United Nations convention against torture. The Bush policy can be summed up quite easily, America must not allow itself to be weakened by respect for human rights.

Torture was common practice at the military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, Abu Graib and Guantanamo as well as at many other secret gulags around the world. According to eyewitness accounts, prisoners were routinely beaten, sexually abused, humiliated,  kicked in the groin, slammed into walls, and had water forced into their mouths until they could not breathe. Many died.

Aside from being legally indefensible, abhorent and revolting, our torture of detainees has completely eviscerated what little moral standing we had left in the world.

Until the smirking chimp and Dr. Evil are gone and we regain our sanity and start acting like the moral country that we used to be, we will continue to be targeted and flounder dangerously in an increasingly perilous world.

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The Truth About Reagan, Race And The GOP

The GOP’s difficulties attracting minority voters to their camp today is in large part rooted in the anti-minority policies espoused by Ronald Reagan.

Oscar Eason, Jr., former president of the Seattle branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says,

During Reagan's administration, the issues and concerns of the Dixiecrats became principally those of the Republican Party. It was precisely at this juncture that the Republican Party ceased being the Party of Lincoln and evolved into what it is today to the vast majority of black America, almost racially exclusive and dedicated to protecting and maintaining the status quo.

Yet, it’s commonplace for the GOP presidential candidates to be in a perpetual state of reverential delirium, knocking each other over while frenetically stampeding to prostrate themselves drooling at the alter of Ronald Reagan. Each one claims to be the sole and rightful heir to the hallowed throne of the Gipper, the keeper of the conservative holy grail.

As each day goes by, the political canonization of Ronald Reagan becomes more indelibly etched into American political folklore. It has taken on an ethereal life of it’s own and has become one of the most reprehensible mischaracterizations and public relations scams in history. What’s particularly disturbing is not that the reactionary right embraces him as the second coming, to be expected, but that some Democrats and the media have also been sucked into buying the hallucinatory propaganda about Reagan as well. Oh, how nostalgic we are, he was just a harmless nice man who made everyone in the country feel good. Well, not everyone.

The Lies That Led Us To War – For Them, Let Us Never Forget

"Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it" -- George Santayana

Almost five years into the invasion and occupation of Iraq, we are now focused rightfully on extricating ourselves from the quagmire there, saving more lives from being lost and trying to repair the harm done our reputation and moral standing in the world. But, as the Presidential election of 2008 approaches, let us keep fresh in our minds and never forget the lies of the Republican administration in power that took us down this disastrous path. We have to remember in order to make sure that it never happens again. Those on the GOP side who still support this misadventure in Iraq need to be held accountable; we owe it to the young men and women coming home in flag draped coffins.

Let's take a look at the facts . . .

According to the great majority of the American people, there is no longer any doubt that the Bush Administration's pre-war claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were manipulated to mislead the country. The evidence shows that the decision to go to war was the culmination of a long-term plan to attack Iraq. This plan included falsifying evidence, ignoring intelligence conclusions not condusive to their position, manipulating intelligence reports and knowingly disseminating false information to the United Nations, Congress and the American people.

The Downing Street memo, minutes of a Tony Blair meeting with senior advisers in July 2002, nearly eight months before the war began has proved that the White House, as the head of British intelligence put it, was determined to fix "the intelligence and facts" around it’s predetermined policy of going to war in Iraq. We now know the president knew that the intelligence he cherry-picked was wrong, but used it anyway to sell us the war.

There were no WMD's in Iraq nor was their a connection between the 9-11 highjackers, Al Qaeda and Iraq. George W. Bush and his administration, namely Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice made their case for war with Iraq to the American people and the world in a series of strongly worded accusations. They said with no ambiguity that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and were a clear and present danger to the United States.

To be fair, at first it was hard to ascertain with reasonable certitude whether such accusations were the truth, lies, biases, or whether Bush and his administration were simply not competent. That’s why many well meaning Democrats extended their faith in what this administration told them; it was unimaginable that the any administration would intentionally deceive Congress. Authorizing the right to take military action is one thing, taking it when there were other options for peace still available is another. Now we know that there were a series of deliberate deceptions. The Congress, the people of the United States and the world were deceived and we went to war under false pretenses, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens and emboldening terrorists like never before. Let there be no doubt, this is George Bush's and the GOP's war.

After the indictment of Scooter Libby and the outing of Valerie Plame, the world got a peek at just what this administration would do to attack and destroy people speaking the truth about Iraq who they considered their enemy. The case for war was made based on a number of speeches Bush made including his State-Of-The-Union address and Collin Powell's ill-advised presentation to the United Nations. Let’s look at the facts again and not at the hyperbole as the Bush administration’s justification for war is stripped naked for all to see.

Here are the specifics:

BUSH LIE: The administration said that Iraq had chemical weapons and that satellite photos of buildings, bunkers, and trucks showed secretive movement to hide missiles and chemical/biological weapons. The US said that trucks at two sites were decontamination vehicles for use with chemical weapons.

THE TRUTH: The facts say otherwise. These sites had been inspected about 500 times by U.N. inspectors and Hans Blix reported that his inspectors found no evidence that contraband had been evacuated. Norwegian U.N. inspector Jorn Siljeholm also told AP that he had followed up on similar intelligence and found that the vehicles were ordinary fire trucks and water trucks, that's all. Since that time of course, there have been no reports of anything being found.

BUSH LIE: This administration also said that Iraq had VX a nerve agent where a single drop on the skin is fatal within minutes.

THE TRUTH: In fact, most of the 4 tons of VX Iraq was supposed to have was destroyed in the 1990's under U.N. supervision. Iraq tried to prove before the war began that the rest had been destroyed by chemically analyzing soil samples at the VX dump site. British experts indicated that pre-1991 VX probably would have degraded to a safe compound by now, and there has been no post-war report that VX has been found.

BUSH LIE: The US also said that by conservative estimates, Iraq had a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents and a CIA report from October, 2002 made a similar statement without specific evidence.

THE TRUTH: A DIA report from September, 2002 said that there "is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons." No such weapons were used against US troops and none have been reported to have been found.

BUSH LIE: Powell also said to the UN that Iraq had chemical weapon shells and warheads, namely unused 122-mm shells designed to carry chemical agents. Powell said these might be the "tip of the iceberg".

THE TRUTH: No reports indicate that additional shells or warheads have been found. Those found through U.N. inspections were from the 1980's and were empty, still in crates and never used.

BUSH LIE: The Bush administration in addition made the case that the Iraqis dispersed rocket launchers and warheads holding biological weapons to the western desert, hiding them in palm groves and moving them every one to four weeks.

THE TRUTH: Nothing has been reported found, after months of searching by U.S. troops in the desert. Iraqi presidential science adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi suggested the story of palm groves and weekly-to-monthly movement was lifted from an Iraqi general's written account of hiding missiles in the 1991 war.

BUSH LIE: The US said Iraq had stockpiled biological weapons like Anthrax and were getting ready to use them. Iraq declared that it produced 8,500 liters of anthrax before 1991 and U.N. inspectors estimated it could have made up to 25,000 liters. Powell said that none has been "verifiably accounted for".

THE TRUTH: No anthrax has been found. A confidential DIA report from September, 2002, said that the agency believed Iraq had biological weapons but had no information on types, quantities, or readiness for use. Three weeks before the war began, Iraq reported that soil samples confirmed its contention that a particular site had been used to dispose of anthrax stocks, and it supplied a list of witnesses to verify quantities. The war began before these witnesses could be interviewed.

BUSH LIE: The US also reported that defectors reportedly described mobile biological weapons factories using trucks and train cars. Powell displayed an artist's conception of one. After the war two semi-trailers were found which the Bush administration says were such labs.

THE TRUTH: The Iraqis say they were used to manufacture hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. Various U.S. and British intelligence teams disagree with identification of these as mobile labs. One of the most credible reports came from a Defense Intelligence Agency engineering team, which concluded that the trailers were in fact small-scale hydrogen factories. Records in England showed that British Marconi sold the same type of equipment in the trailers to Iraq in 1987 for production of hydrogen.

BUSH LIE: Powell showed a video of an Iraqi Mirage F-1 simulating delivery of anthrax by spraying from a belly tank. He said that four tanks were unaccounted for and that Iraq was building small unmanned aircraft (drones) for delivery of chemical and biological weapons.

THE TRUTH: U.N. inspectors reported that the Mirage video predated the 1991 war, the Mirage was destroyed in that war, and 3 of the 4 spray tanks were destroyed in the 1990's. No drones have been found with the capability to deliver chemical weapons. The known Iraqi drones are small, with an 8-meter wingspan.

BUSH LIE: Powell said "classified" documents found at a nuclear scientist's Baghdad home were dramatic confirmation of intelligence saying prohibited items were concealed this way.

THE TRUTH: U.N. nuclear inspectors later said the documents were old and irrelevant, some administrative material and some from a failed and well-known uranium enrichment program of the 1980s. Powell also said that, "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program." Mohammed El Baradei reported to the United Nations Security Council that the International Atomic Energy Agency had "to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq." Since then no additional evidence has been reported to support a current or recent nuclear program. Former Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri reported that Iraq's nuclear program was shut down in 1991.

BUSH LIE: Of course there is the now infamous attempt to acquire uranium from Africa. This item was not part of Powell's presentation to the U.N., its best known presentation was by George Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address. It is included here for convenience in producing a single reference for the most important points of the Bush administration's WMD assertions. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

THE TRUTH: This claim was based on forged documents portraying an attempt by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger. The documents were easily identified as a forgery, the IAEI reached this conclusion only hours after it was granted access to the documents. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson went to Niger at the request of Vice President Cheney's office and the CIA in February, 2002, a year earlier to investigate the validity of this source. He reported that U.S. ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick felt that she had already refuted these claims in reports to Washington based on her factual knowledge.

BUSH LIE: The US also contended that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were for use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment, for nuclear weapons.

THE TRUTH: IAEA inspectors, Energy Department experts, and the State Department's intelligence bureau did not believe this was likely. Substantial modification would be needed to adapt the tubes to centrifuge use, but their specifications precisely match those used in for the Italian Medusa 81 artillery rocket. Identically matched characteristics include alloy, length, diameter, wall thickness, and anodized coating. IAEA inspectors observed a factory in Iraq which was using these tubes to manufacture artillery rockets.

BUSH LIE: Multiple intelligence sources indicted that Iraq was trying to buy magnets for use in uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

THE TRUTH: IAEA inspectors traced about a dozen types of imported magnets to their end users. Neither the inspectors nor post-war investigators have found magnets for use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

BUSH LIE: Intelligence sources say Iraq has a secret force of up to a few dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles, a program to build newer missiles with 600-mile range, and had put a roof over a rocket test stand to block view from spy satellites.

THE TRUTH: No Scud-type missiles have been found. In the 1990s U.N. inspectors accounted for all except two Scuds formerly possessed by Iraq. No program to build new, longer-range missiles has been found. The Iraqis reported that the roofed test stand had been converted from vertical firing to horizontal firing and was roofed for the obvious reason, things get very hot in the sun.

BUSH LIE: Iraq was violating a U.N. resolution by rejecting U-2 reconnaissance flights according to Powell's United Nations presentation.

THE TRUTH: Iraq did object to U-2 over flights at the time of Powell's presentation. However, it authorized U-2 over flights 5 days later, on February 10, 2003. U-2 reconnaissance flights began on February 17, about a month before the war started.

BUSH LIE: US says that Iraq was violating a U.N. resolution by rejecting private interviews with scientists by U.N. inspectors. Powell suggested that scientists withheld information on weapons of mass destruction due to fear of Saddam Hussein's regime. When interviews with scientists began news reports typically indicated that the scientists themselves had requested presence of Iraqi "minders". Fear of the regime probably was involved, but by early March 12 scientists had been interviewed privately.

THE TRUTH: Since Saddam Hussein was deposed all known reports indicate that scientists have continued to insist that no WMD programs had been active for a minimum of several years, with most shut down in 1991. One former Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to Canada in 1998, Imad Khadduri, has always insisted that the nuclear program never recovered from the 1991 war, and was stopped at that time.

(Factual reporting and information for the above was obtained from Charles Hanley of the Associated Press and from many other sources.)

World Poverty Under The Microscope

Never before in history have the poor financed the rich on such a massive scale and paid so dearly for their servitude as today.

- John Pilger

There is something profoundly wrong with a world in which the 400 highest income earners in the United States make as much money in a year as the entire population of 20 African nations with more than 300 million people . . . . and where the five richest men in the world have accumulated wealth equaling 168 billion dollars. According to the World Poverty Report, the gap between the affluent and the poor is growing larger every day and the despair that accompanies poverty is seen by many scholars as the primary cause of many of the world's most serious problems. Terrorism, disease, war, political unrest, hunger, malnutrition, polluted water, racial intolerance, crime, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide all can be traced to poverty. Nothing will test the moral foundation of humanity more than how mankind addresses this issue and nothing will be more important to our physical and spiritual survival.

Donkey Or Elephant

In thinking about the 2008 elections, think about the past and let there not be any confusion about the differences between Democrats and Republicans. It’s as plain as the largess of an Elephants ass. In the last Congress The Bush House of Representatives voted to approve $56 billion in tax cuts over five years, just one day after it passed other tax cuts totaling $39 billion over five years. That’s almost 100 billion in tax cuts in two days; ignoring the biggest deficit in US history. The biggest provision extended President Bush’s 2001 tax cut for stock dividends and capital gains for two years at a cost of $20 billion. All of the House’s maverick Republican conservatives, who had criticized their party leaders earlier for being too soft about spending cuts, voted enthusiastically for the tax cuts, which add up to nearly twice as much as the spending cuts passed last month. The budget plan, which also passed the House jcut about $51 billion over five years from programs like Medicaid, food stamps, farm subsidies and child-support enforcement programs aimed at deadbeat parents. The biggest expiring tax cut was one that would prevent the alternative minimum tax from applying to millions of additional families with incomes above $100,000 a year. Democrats accused the Republican majority of expanding tax cuts to the nation’s very richest families while cutting programs to help the poor. Representative Sander Levin, Democrat of Michigan said this,

The choice is clear, tax relief that goes to people making a million bucks or more, and cutting student loans, cutting food support for people who need it and cutting child support.

This is what a Republican President and Congress would mean again.