Under Fresh Attack, Media Turns a Blind Eye

New York Observer
Under Fresh Attack,
Media Turns a Blind Eye
By: Niall Stanage

When prosecutors won the right to inspect reporters’ phone records earlier this month—potentially unmasking numerous secret sources—the story barely caused a ripple.

Such a blatant threat to the freedom of the media might once have stirred national outrage, or at least a spirited debate.

But if government intrusion into the media’s rights isn’t receiving the attention it deserves, the press has only itself to blame, with leading outlets like The New York Times weighing in on the subject inconsistently and in a way that seems to be motivated more by political ideology than institutional self-interest.

The recent ruling on phone records was issued by a federal appeals court in New York on Aug. 1. It related to a grand-jury investigation into who told Times reporters that two Islamic charities were going to be the subject of government action in 2001.

Prosecutors contend that phone calls the reporters made seeking comment from the charities tipped off the organizations to forthcoming raids and asset freezes.

One of the reporters was Judith Miller, formerly of The Times. The lead prosecutor in the ongoing case was her “Plamegate” nemesis, Patrick Fitzgerald.

Ms. Miller, reached by The Observer while traveling, responded scornfully to the accusation that she or her colleague tipped off the charities.

“That’s such crap,” she said. “We had to ask them for comment on the story. I don’t know what Fitzgerald knows and what he doesn’t know about journalism, but I presume he knows that much.”

(The other reporter was Philip Shenon, who is still with The Times.)

As for the ruling itself, Ms. Miller said, “I just can’t tell you how ominous this is. If this were to hold, Philip Shenon and Judy Miller and every other investigative reporter is going to have to start acting like a drug dealer, meeting people on street corners and using untraceable cell phones.”

The judgment was the latest big setback for the media. But one of the reasons why the press has failed to effectively resist its adversaries is simple: Its most exalted organs have tied themselves up in knots on the subject of leaks.

The editorial and opinion pages of The Times, in particular, have condemned disclosures that have been helpful to the Bush administration, while defending the broad right of officials to secretly pass on information.

That stance has only served to strengthen the paradigm pushed by the media’s most trenchant critics—that some leaks are morally wrong and thus deserving of punishment.

Two examples stand out. One is the Plame affair, the other the furor in April over the President’s declassification of parts of a prewar National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.).

It is increasingly apparent that no crime was committed in the course of Ms. Plame’s identity being revealed. Moreover, the leak exposed a fact of legitimate public interest—that Ms. Plame had played a significant role in sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, on his now-infamous trip to Niger.

Similarly, the partial declassification of the N.I.E. added to public knowledge about a matter of vital importance.

On the question of where responsibility really lay for the erroneous predictions about Iraqi W.M.D., it was germane to know the general tenor of a document that purported to represent the best thinking of the intelligence community.

The October 2002 N.I.E. expressed “high confidence” that “Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs.”

The problem with these leaks, for at least some in the media, seemed to be that the information they revealed favored Mr. Bush.

In an October 2003 column about “Plamegate,” Maureen Dowd made the blanket assertion that “The issue is the administration’s credibility, not Joe Wilson’s.”

But if the subject under debate is the White House’s alleged mendacity, why is the honesty—or otherwise—of its accuser not relevant?

In an April editorial during the N.I.E. flap, The Times huffed that “this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes.”

The same could be said of almost all Mr. Bush’s critics. Yet The Times, like any other media organization, would not (and should not) complain about briefings by the President’s detractors if the details they revealed were true.

The press’ most esteemed outlets have embraced this selective argument and, in so doing, have ceded precious ground to their tormentors.

That ground will not be easily won back. And m­any reporters will yet have cause to rue the confused rationales offered up by the high priests of their profession.

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US space commander predicts satellite attacks

Reuters
US space commander predicts satellite attacks
By Jim Wolf

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - The Air Force's new top commander for space predicted on Tuesday future attacks on U.S. satellites and called for greatly expanded tracking and identification of payloads launched by other countries.

Currently, U.S. efforts are focused on determining if an overseas launch is a ballistic missile or designed to put an object in orbit, then cataloging it over a period that can take weeks, said Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who heads the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

"I say those days are over," he told an annual conference here on the fledgling, multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield. "If it's a space launch, we can't afford to relax."

"We need to know what the intent of that launch is," he said, including whether an object could jam or otherwise harm satellites or spread micro-satellites that could do so.

Chilton said his goal was to learn all this in the object's first orbit of the Earth so the United States could take unspecified actions "before an adversary can cripple us."

The increased "situational awareness" he had in mind could be achieved largely through improved computer work that would present information in easy-to-understand displays, he said.

Foes would be foolish not to be thinking of how to deny the United States the advantages of space, on which it relies heavily for military and commercial purposes, said Chilton, who took over the space command a month and a half ago.

"And in the future, I'm convinced they'll strike at these capabilities, if nothing else to attempt to level the playing field," he said.

Chilton said the United States had a duty to secure "the entire space domain not just for our own military but for our allies and for the benefit of the free world."

In other remarks to the missile-defense conference, Gil Nolte of the code-making Information Assurance Directorate at the Pentagon's National Security Agency said his agency believed unspecified foreign intelligence agencies had been behind attacks on U.S. computer networks.

He said there had been insufficient investment in cyber security at all levels of the U.S. government while attackers were very well financed and used "a wide range of tradecraft."

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Bush will not endorse Republican opposing Lieberman

Reuters
Bush will not endorse Republican opposing Lieberman

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush gave a boost to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's re-election bid as an independent by taking the rare step of refusing to endorse the Republican candidate running for Lieberman's U.S. Senate seat.

"We are not making any endorsement in Connecticut. The Republican party of Connecticut has suggested that we not make an endorsement in that race and so we're not," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.

It is highly unusual for a sitting president not to endorse a Senate candidate from his own party and suggests the depth of the political machinations over Lieberman's Senate seat after his defeat in last week's Democratic primary by Ned Lamont, a well financed challenger running on an anti-Iraq war platform.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has vowed to launch an independent bid to retain his seat.

The little-known Republican candidate in Connecticut's Senate race, Alan Schlesinger, trails both Lieberman and Lamont in the polls.

Snow would not say why the Bush would not endorse Schlesinger, but other White House officials have made known their displeasure with him as a candidate and the Connecticut Republican Party has urged him to drop out of the race.

There were published reports last month that Schlesinger had once run up large gambling debts and had gambled under an assumed name.

"There have been races in the past where candidates didn't meet the expectations of the local parties and presidents have stayed out, Democrats and Republicans in the past," Snow said.

The White House has said Bush will not support Lieberman's re-election bid because Lieberman has made clear he will vote Democratic.

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Northeast states to act on CO2 where Bush won't

Reuters
Northeast states to act on CO2 where Bush won't
By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seven northeastern U.S. states said on Tuesday they had agreed on a model rule that would create the country's first market for heat-trapping carbon dioxide by curbing emissions at power plants.

The agreement, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is relatively weak compared to the European Trading Scheme, the emissions trading program set up by the European Union to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

But one expert said it was a landmark agreement that may help force the federal government to take action on reducing greenhouse gases.

"It's a good first step, but the road is pretty long, and we are going to need substantive greenhouse gas reductions," said Peter Fusaro, a carbon markets expert and the CEO of Energy & Environment Capital Management LLC in New York. "The limits are mild, pretty negligible," he added.

States in the western U.S. such as California are also trying to form regional regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Fusaro said both regions hope that companies that could face emissions reductions on each coast would lobby for national regulation.

The RGGI would cap carbon dioxide emissions at about current levels at power plants from 2009 until 2015. Emissions at the plants would then be gradually reduced by 10 percent by 2019.

The first round of the Kyoto pact requires developed countries to cut greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.

REGULATION VACUUM

The northeastern states have been working to regulate emissions because the U.S. federal government places no mandatory limits on the gases most scientists believe cause global warming.

In 2001, President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, saying that it would hurt the economy and unfairly left rapidly developing countries without emissions limits in its first round.

Most scientists believe greenhouse gases are causing global warming that could lead to catastrophic consequences such as stronger storms, heat waves and flooding as warmer temperatures melt glaciers.

The RGGI was initiated in 2003 by fellow Republican New York Gov. George Pataki.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island dropped out of the group late last year, saying the agreement could boost electricity rates. The RGGI said in a statement on Tuesday that homeowners would pay at most an additional $21 annually and would eventually save money as the plan helps power plants become more efficient.

Many Massachusetts legislators expect the state will rejoin the pact when Gov. Mitt Romney, also a Republican, leaves office. Romney is not seeking reelection in 2006.

The states participating in RGGI are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont. Maryland recently adopted legislation requiring the state to join RGGI by June 2007. The states now each have to approve the model rule.

Several bills in the U.S. Congress seek to create a national greenhouse emissions market.

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Plame lawyer plans to force Cheney, Rove testimony

Reuters
Plame lawyer plans to force Cheney, Rove testimony
By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A lawyer plans to use a legal precedent that allowed President Bill Clinton to be sued while in office to force Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify in a lawsuit brought by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband.

California attorney Joseph Cotchett said he will ask a federal court to order Cheney, his ex-chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Rove to testify in depositions about their role in disclosing her classified status.

The civil lawsuit accuses them and others of conspiring to publicly identify Plame as a CIA agent to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for writing in an op-ed piece that the Bush administration twisted intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Cotchett, who took over as trial counsel in Plame's case on Tuesday, said legal precedent for whether Cheney and the others could claim legal immunity in the case comes, in part, from Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against Clinton.

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling that neither Clinton "or any other official has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity."

In order to be dismissed from the case or avoid testifying, Cotchett said, lawyers for Cheney and the other men would have to argue that they were acting on government business if they are found to have leaked Plame's name to the media.

Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a covert agent.

A hearing on motions to dismiss the case and on immunity for the defendants are expected in a month or two, Cotchett said.

The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Washington, came after Libby's indictment last October on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in an ongoing federal investigation into who leaked Plame's identity to the media in 2003. He is so far the only person criminally charged in the case.

The CIA-leak case flared after Wilson accused the administration of leaking his wife's name to the media after he criticized the government in a New York Times opinion piece.

Rove was also named as a source by conservative columnist Robert Novak, who first revealed Plame as a CIA operative.

Cotchett, a longtime Democratic Party supporter and legal adviser, is best known for winning a $3.3 billion jury verdict in a case involving the failure of Lincoln Savings and Loan in the 1980s.

Court documents show that Cheney has hired Emmet Flood, a lawyer from Clinton's impeachment defense team, to represent him in the Plame case.

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Greenland's ice cap is melting at a frighteningly fast rate

San Francisco Chronicle
Greenland's ice cap is melting at a frighteningly fast rate
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

The vast ice cap that covers Greenland nearly three miles thick is melting faster than ever before on record, and the pace is speeding year by year, according to global climate watchers gathering data from twin satellites that probe the effects of warming on the huge northern island.

The consequence is already evident in a small but ominous rise in sea levels around the world, a pace that is also accelerating, the scientists say.

According to the scientists' data, Greenland's ice is melting at a rate three times faster than it was only five years ago. The estimate of the melting trend that has been observed for nearly a decade comes from a University of Texas team monitoring a satellite mission that measures changes in the Earth's gravity over the entire Greenland ice cap as the ice melts and the water flows down into the Arctic ocean.

"We have only been watching the ice cap melt during a relatively short period," physicist Jianli Chen said Thursday, "but we are seeing the strongest evidence of it yet, and in the near future the pace of melting will accelerate even more."

The same satellites tracking Greenland's ice cap also are monitoring the melt rate of Antarctica's ice cover, and there too the melting is adding to the global rise in sea level, according to another team of scientists.

Next to Antarctica, Greenland is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth and holds about 10 percent of the world's supply. The increasing flow of fresh water -- most of it from glaciers melting on Greenland's eastern coast -- is already beginning to change the composition of the ocean's salt water currents flowing past Northwestern Europe, the scientists say.

The result could be a critical change in the composition of the main ocean current that flows past Europe's northern edge, blocking off warmer waters that normally flow there and -- ironically -- making Northern Europe's weather colder than normal, at least temporarily, while the rest of the globe continues warming.

The report on Greenland is being published today in the on-line edition of the journal Science by the University of Texas scientists at Austin, including Chen, aerospace engineer Byron Tapley and geologist Clark Wilson.

According to the researchers, surface melting of Greenland's ice cap reached 57 cubic miles a year between April of 2002 and November of 2005, compared to about 19 cubic miles a year between 1997 and 2003.

"The sobering thing is to see that the whole process of glacial melting is stepping up much more rapidly than before," said Tapley in a statement.

If the Greenland ice cap ever melted completely -- a highly unlikely event, at least in the foreseeable future -- the scientists estimate it would raise world's sea level by an average of 6.5 meters, or about 21 feet, more than enough to drown all the world's low-lying islands and even some entire nations, like Holland.

The possibility of future sea level rises becomes even more evident when Antarctica's huge ice sheets are considered.

Only last March two University of Colorado physicists used the same satellite system to measure melting of ice on the Antarctic continent. Although earlier evidence using other techniques appeared to show that the East Antarctica ice sheet was actually thickening, satellite data gathered by Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr at Boulder found that melting -- primarily from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- had turned at least 36 cubic miles of ice to fresh water each year from 2002 to 2005.

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- known as the IPCC -- estimated that during all of the past century worldwide melting ice from global warming had raised sea levels by only two-tenths of a millimeter a year, or about 20 inches for the entire century.

But, according to Chen and his Texas team, the melting of Greenland's ice cap is already raising global sea levels by six-tenths of a millimeter each year, and the Colorado group estimates that melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone is adding up to four-tenths of a millimeter of fresh water to sea levels each year. In other words, the global sea level, due to melting of the ice in Greenland and Antarctica combined, is already rising 10 times faster than the IPPC's tentative estimates, the two analyses indicate.

Both the Texas and Colorado groups have been obtaining their data from two satellites known as GRACE, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which fly in orbit 137 miles apart and determine with extraordinary accuracy just how the mass of even small regions of the Earth change as ice melts and flows away from the land to the sea.

The GRACE satellite mission is due to end next year, but the Texas team is awaiting NASA approval for a new and improved satellite system to continue the work, using laser beams rather than microwaves to measure ice cap melting, Chen said.

In a recent summary of the ice cap melting problem and its effect on sea levels reported by Richard Kerr in Science, geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton said, "The time scale for future loss of most of an ice sheet may not be millennia," as glacier models have suggested, "but centuries."

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Stranger Than Fiction

deconsumption
Stranger Than Fiction
Steven Lagavulin

Bush has headed off on his 10-day vacation to his home in Crawford, TX, during which time the press often likes to ask "so what is the President reading?" It's generally presumed that it'll be somehow enlightening to know which books are most strongly calling to our Commander in Chief's attention during these rare moments of personal time. The traditional answers given are a well-scripted list of titles regarding the lives of great past-Presidents, the lessons of ancient history and diplomacy, and with often a nod or two to something of more popular contemporary relevance.

Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation

"US President George W. Bush quoted French existential writer Albert Camus to European leaders a year and a half ago, and now he's read one of his most famous works: "The Stranger."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Bush, here on his Texas ranch enjoying a 10-day vacation from Washington, had made quick work of the Algerian-born writer's 1946 novel..."

Alright. So does anyone else find the possibility that Camus might be one of Bush's favorite writers deeply, deeply alarming?

Now if this is just an ill-conceived feint toward literary erudition, then the best we might say is...well, that it's very ill-conceived. But the hint from this little press blurb is that Bush likes Camus, that he wanted to read The Stranger before all other books, that he's stimulated by and appreciates what Camus has to offer him during rare moments when he can be truly alone with himself. That leads me to believe he feels a genuine identification with Camus' classic tale...

The Stranger, if you haven't read it, is about a man who kills an Arab. But to be a little more precise, he kills an Arab for no reason. Absolutely no reason at all. Indeed that's the whole point of Camus' story. The protaganist--a rather formless individual by the name of Meursault--has become so completely disconnected from any sensation of reality that he is literally drawn as sleepwalking through his days. While others pretend and pantomime to having heartfelt feelings and relationships, the "truth" through Meursault's eyes is that he's little more than the shell of a human being "going through the motions" of living.

Ultimately the grindingly oppressive and detached atmosphere Camus draws-out for us leads Meursault with a calm fatalism to the moment where he shoots the nameless Arab. But don't let my own third-rate critical analysis mislead you; let me turn instead to the popular GradeSaver.com, which provides free online study guides for popular literary works, all written and edited by Harvard University students:

"[Meursault] is as removed from reality and social context at this moment as every moment. He squeezes the trigger without intent. Each small act is singular. He realizes that he has shattered his happy harmonious life -- so why fire four more times? What kind of monster can this be? He will later stress to the reader that he is really like everyone else. What does this say about man and our struggle in the world? Is there another solution to living than blame or indifference? The shots are the peak of Meursault's physical life. In order to transcend this blurred dazed drunkenness he consumes, he must knock "on the door of unhappiness."

So I'll put the question again...what does it mean to you that "The Decider"--a leader residing at the fulcrum of an era seemingly defined by incessant crisis and catastrophe--should "make quick work" of The Stranger on his first days of vacation? I mean is it just me? Am I simply being a literary bigot? Conjuring up a tempest in a teapot? Or am I justified in having a dark foreboding that perhaps this doesn't speak well to our President's maintaining the mental fortitude needed to determine the beneficent course of world events?

"Sir can you tell us what the President is reading during his vacation?

Of course Jim. I noted Mr. President thumbing through a small selection of books on the drive to the ranch...Goodwin's new whopper on the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, Kissenger's "Diplomacy" of course...and as the President has long been a fan of poetry I noticed he was most eagerly devouring "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath..."

If it is indeed true that Bush turns straight to Camus for solace during his down-time, then for myself I can only heed it as a warning sign. I don't say this as a political statement or criticism--I take every opportunity to remind readers that I've never felt it's prudent to identify oneself with any particular political party. Rather I see this as a distinctly personal concern, because it may well signal that there's danger at the helm. It might even be a cry for help.

The existentialist writers like Camus and Sartre, for all their expressive talents, were really only an anomaly on the philosophic scene. They came out of a Europe that had directly perceived the frailty of human civilization, a shattered realization that "Armageddon" wasn't merely a figure of speech. On both a spiritual and intellectual level these people wrestled with devils using pen and paper as weapons, striving to make sense of the psychically humiliating possibility that individual life might very well be devoid of any purpose or meaning. And The Stranger, let's suffice it to say, wasn't a particularly glorious battle in that war.

So for a grown man in a position of inestimable daily stress, a man who must recognize underneath it all that he was born on third-base never having hit a triple, a young man whose family life was less than nurturing, and whose lifelong struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse is common knowledge...it would only be prudent to take this as a sign.

Certainly a lot could be made of the opening scenes in The Stranger, which show the protaganist dozing-off repeatedly at his mother's funeral, unable to recall even on what day she had died--and seeing as we're talking about G. W. Bush here a lot could be made of it. But it's those final closing passages that leap to my mind right now:

"For the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world...For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

"Thereupon G. W. slowly, almost lingeringly, closed the book and stared toward the window and out at the night sky. "...to feel less alone, I had only to wish that...they greet me with cries of hate." Before long however this pensive mood was captured by the gentle chirping of Texas crickets on the lawn outside the ranch..."

Of course there's also a third theory we should probably entertain as well. It's rather far-fetched to be sure--and I'm bringing it up only for the sake of completeness. Only because...well, we're dealing with NeoCons here after all....

Perhaps the President's reported reading material was not simply a bungled PR bullet-point.

And perhaps it was in fact a signal--but not actually an indicator of his personal mental state.

Perhaps Camus' The Stranger was intended to be a kind of sick joke. A subtle message if you will--to those who follow these types of things--that the plan is still in place and that it's still proceding more or less according to schedule. A publicly expressed wink-and-a-nod to the counter-counter-intelligences of the world. A brief but sharply whispered "We know that you know...and we want you to know that we know that you know". You know?

But I'm not saying that that's it at all. Indeed, like Camus' Meursault himself, I sometimes feel that I'm at a loss to know what is real about anything this administration says or does anymore. I'm just saying that sometimes real-life can seem much stranger to our senses than even the most classic literary works of fiction.

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Bottle Bombs: It's 1916 all over Again

Huffington Post
Chad Millman
Bottle Bombs: It's 1916 all over Again

Should we be more afraid now that terrorists have learned household items make good bombs? Or relieved that the bad guys are so stupid it took them this long to figure that out?

When I was researching my recent book The Detonators , about a 1916 terrorist attack on New York Harbor, I learned that, as far back as 90 years ago, mixing benign chemicals into a combustible bomb was the enemy's weapon of choice.

World War I was two years old at the time. President Wilson had declared that the U.S. was neutral. He also interned all German ships and sailors who were unlucky enough to dock in US ports, claiming that letting them go after re-supplying in the U.S. would be tantamount to America joining the fight. New York Harbor became so crowded with German ships that German sailors leaving for war would shout, "I'm going to heaven, hell or Hoboken."

But American companies were selling their wares to the war's highest bidder, and Wilson did little to stop them. Coal, food and munitions flowed from New York Harbor to the flush British and French armies by the boatload. All the while, German sailors looked on in anger, until their government decided to strike.

Funded by the Kaiser, German sailors turned spies snuck onto the docks in New York and loaded small bombs with rudimentary timing devices onto the supply ships headed for the front. In the middle of the ocean, the ships would catch fire, the supplies and the crews would be lost forever. But the bombs were conspicuous. Soon longshoremen began recognizing them as they loaded the boats, and then threw them overboard. The Germans needed a new plan.

In 1916, a German chemist named Walter Scheele had been living in the U.S. for more than 20 years. He had been an artillery lieutenant in the German army until 1893, when he was assigned to the United States to study chemistry for two years and report new advances to his superiors. Scheele's reports proved so invaluable that he was told to stay in the U.S. and keep studying. For this, he was paid $1,500 a year.

Once the war began, Scheele's knowledge became more valuable, and the German military attaché based in the U.S. gave him $10,000, and simple instructions from the Kaiser: manufacture chemical bombs. Scheele, living in Hoboken, opened an office under the name of New Jersey Agricultural Chemical Company. Inside, in a room filled with test tubes and jars full of chemicals, he put into practice the lessons he had been gathering during the previous two decades.

He created a time-bomb, made from a four-inch long piece of lead pipe, the same length and width as a cigar. He placed an upright, slim copper disc in the middle, dividing the pipe into two equal halves. Scheele then poured sulfuric acid into one end and into the other end chlorate of potash or picric acid or some other flammable chemical. Both ends were then sealed with wax or tin. The sulfuric acid would eat through the copper and, once it mixed with the other chemical, the pipe would burst into flames at both ends. The heat would be sufficient to destroy the pipe itself, and if anything flammable was nearby, an inferno was possible.

The Germans were fearless. And they manufactured these bombs on a ship docked right in New York Harbor, called Frederick the Great. At first, they planted their new weapons on ships and in smaller munitions depots around the country. Then emboldened by early success, they plotted to blow up Black Tom Island, the largest munitions depot in the country, located in New York Harbor.

Shortly after midnight on July 30, 1916, three German spies planted their chemical-filled bombs in boats, railroad cars and buildings filled with shells and dynamite headed to the front. Within moments, white flames were reaching for the sky. Within hours, New York Harbor looked like a European battlefield. The Statue of Liberty was pelted with shrapnel. The roof at Ellis Island caved in. Windows in buildings as high as 42nd street in Manhattan were blown out and all the way to Maryland people felt the ground shake. Police officers responding to the scene were killed by flying bullets and barges in the harbor, as well as the hundreds of immigrants living in them, were incinerated.

No traces of the bombs were ever found. And for 20 years, no one was prosecuted. It seemed, at the time, no one considered an explosive wouldn't look like an explosive.
That's no longer the case.

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Bush Administration Politicizing British Success Arresting Terrorists and Endangering Americans at Home

eatatjoesplace
Bush Administration Politicizing British Success Arresting Terrorists and Endangering Americans at Home

British officials involved in the break-up of the terrorism plot say that they wanted to continue surveillance for another week to increase the number of terrorists arrested, but the Bush Administration pressured them to arrest only the first 21 terrorists a week early. They were forced to arrest them before the terrorists bought plane tickets or got passports. Apparently the Bush Administration needed news of the capture just after Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut to torpedo his campaign.

[T]he Bush Administration and leaders of Congress knew about the danger of liquid explosives aboard planes for months (or years as this report says) but did nothing until now. Conservative Aviation Security Expert, Michael Boyd, explains (in this video and in this Congressional Report) that the Bush Administration is still doing little to protect Americans from airline terror.

Right wingers here in the US are trumpeting the British arrests as evidence that Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens worked. The only problem is that all of the wiretaps in this case were the result of court issued warrants proving that warrentFUL wiretaps work stopping terrorists. Again these arrests prove that getting warrants leads to successful arrests of terrorists. British law enforcement officers got warrants in British courts and US law enforcement officers got warrants from the FISA courts for wiretaps. Just the way it’s supposed to work—and IT DID WORK! Proving there is no need for warrantless wiretaps.

Conservative news host Lou Dobbs reports that the Bush Administration Defense Department and FAA lied to America and the 9/11 Commission about the events of September 11 and the two men Bush appointed to lead the 9/11 Commission agree saying Americans still don’t have the complete story from the administration.

ABC News reports:

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department’s own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

Homeland Security’s research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.


Think about that: the Bush Administration tried to divert the money to detect the type of explosives British terrorists tried to smuggle aboard US bound planes and Homeland Security’s research arm is a rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course to protecting Americans according to both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Do you really trust your family’s safety to Bush and the Republicans who repeatedly ignore threats to US safety? If not, you need to vote for change in November for a safer tomorrow. Your life and your family’s lives may depend upon it.

!!!!!! Update !!!!!: British officials are furious with the US Administration for “jumping the gun” by declaring that al-Qaeda was behind the airline terror plot according to British sources.

It is understood that Britain asked the US to avoid making any such assertion, but diplomats believe that the request was ignored by Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief. There is suspicion that the speed with which the US linked al-Qaeda to the plot was motivated by political considerations because, before the November mid-term Congressional elections, Republicans are keen to stem voter anger against the Iraq war by focusing on national security.

One senior UK source said that with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, “al-Qaeda is a term which is understood by swing voters”. He added: “We regard this as simplistic.”

On Thursday morning Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, used a press conference to point the finger of blame directly at al-Qaeda. Initially, he picked his words carefully, saying that the sophistication of the operation was “suggestive of alQaeda”, while acknowledging this was a “sensitive area for the British legal system”.

He later said that the plan was reminiscent of that “hatched by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [the al-Qaeda mastermind behind 9/11] in the 1990s” to blow up aircraft travelling over the Pacific.

Chertoff and other Bush Administration officials were saying the same thing on all of the news programs on Sunday in the US. Once again PROOF POSITIVE that the Bush Administration is politicizing terrorism to try to get votes in the 2006 election. If a Democratic president tried to pull this crap he'd be impeached!

None of the US news programs on Sunday featuring Chertoff and other Bush Administration officials making these claims were challenged by reporters. The Subservient Lapdog Corporate Mainstream Media in the US just airs these claims without question. Any wonder who the Corporate Owners of those stations favor? I didn’t think so. Why is it that British people get this news (from the conservative Times of London no less), but American voters are shielded from this information? Vote Democratic in November and write to the media telling them that you won’t buy from their advertisers as long as they continue to censor the news from American viewers.

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Seven dwarfs more famous than US judges: poll

Seven dwarfs more famous than US judges: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Show White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday.

According to the poll by Zogby International, commissioned by the makers of a new game show on pop culture called "Gold Rush," 57 percent of Americans could identify J.K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as Harry Potter, while only 50 percent could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair.

The pollsters spoke to 1,213 people across the United States. The results had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Just over 60 percent of respondents were able to name Bart as Homer's son on the television show "The Simpsons," while only 20.5 percent were able to name one of the ancient Greek poet Homer's epic poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 percent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only 37 percent knew that Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.

Respondents were far more familiar with the Three Stooges -- Larry, Curly and Moe -- than the three branches of the U.S. government -- judicial, executive and legislative. Seventy-four percent identified the former, 42 percent the latter.

Twice as many people (23 percent) were able to identify the most recent winner of the television talent show "American Idol," Taylor Hicks, as were able to name the Supreme Court Justice confirmed in January 2006, Samuel Alito (11 percent).

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Linda Ronstadt stands by anti-Bush statements

Linda Ronstadt stands by anti-Bush statements
MSNBC

Linda Ronstadt isn’t changing her tune.

The “Desperado” singer made international headlines when she was ejected from a casino in Las Vegas in 2004 after praising Bush critic and filmmaker Michael Moore as a “great American patriot.” Now Ronstadt is doing an encore.

“The Dixie Chicks said they were embarrassed he was from Texas,” Ronstadt recently said while touring in Canada. “I’m embarrassed George Bush is from the United States.”

“He’s an idiot,” Ronstadt told the Edmonton Sun, adding, “He’s enormously incompetent on both the domestic and international scenes.” She also defended performers’ rights to talk about politics. “Was it wrong for people like Peter, Paul and Mary or Joan Baez to speak out against racism? I think they educated a lot of people about something that was terribly unfair,” she said. “Now the fact that we were lied to about the reasons for entering into war against Iraq and thousands of people have died — it’s just as immoral as racism.”

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Army recalling 300 troops to Iraq who just arrived home in Alaska

USA TODAY
Army recalling 300 troops to Iraq who just arrived home in Alaska

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 300 Alaska-based soldiers sent home from Iraq just before their unit's deployment was extended last month must now go back, the Army said Monday, setting up a wrenching departure for troops and families who thought their service there was finished.

About 300 Alaska-based soldiers sent home from Iraq just before their unit's deployment was extended last month must now go back, the Army said Monday, setting up a wrenching departure for troops and families who thought their service there was finished.

The soldiers — all from the 172nd Stryker Brigade — are among the close to 380 troops who had gotten home to Fort Wainwright and to Fort Richardson when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the unit to serve four more months. The remaining 80 will not have to return to Iraq.

Army officials sent a team of personnel and pay experts to Alaska to help sort out all of the soldiers' vacations, school enrollments and other plans torn apart by the decision to return them to Iraq. The unit is now being stationed in Baghdad, one of the most violent parts of the country.

Maj. Gen. Charles Jacoby, commander of U.S. Army Alaska, said 301 soldiers will be returning to Iraq, and most are either infantry troops or cavalry scouts needed for the Baghdad mission.

"From a military standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world," said Jacoby, speaking to Pentagon reporters from Alaska, where he was surrounded by a few soldiers and family members affected by the decision. "The brigade needs these soldiers back."

Mary Cheney — no relation to the vice president — was sitting nearby and said she wasn't happy when she learned her husband, Staff Sgt. Anthony Cheney, would be in Iraq for another four months. But she said she knew when she married him that things like this could happen.

"I would never question his dedication to his career," said Cheney, who had a baby just a few weeks ago and has three other children. "His heart is with his family, but his mind and his dedication" are with his extended family of fellow soldiers.

The bulk of the 172nd Brigade was still in Iraq when Rumsfeld extended their deployment as part of a plan to quell the escalating violence in Baghdad. Overall, the brigade has about 3,900 troops.

Another 300 soldiers from the unit had left Iraq and gotten to Kuwait, and were about to board flights home when they were called back.

Before Monday's announcement, the troops who had already returned home to Alaska had been told that decisions on their fates would be made on a case-by-case basis.

Army officials said they recalled just one other time during the three-year-long Iraq war when the Pentagon so quickly recalled soldiers who had served a year on the battlefront and gotten home.

Other units have had their deployments extended anywhere from a week or two to a few months.

The 300 soldiers recalled from Alaska on Monday got to spend between three and five weeks at home, and will head back to Iraq in the next week or so. Most of the brigade is expected to leave Iraq by the end of the year, although Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Monday there are no assurances the unit's stay will not be extended again.

A second extension, however, would be very rare.

For some, the return to Iraq may mean they will miss the holidays or much-anticipated vacations. For others, it means rescheduling military or civilian college classes, or postponing long-planned moves out of state or to different Army units.

Soldiers who serve more than 365 days on the warfront will receive $1,000 more per month — $800 for incentive pay and $200 for additional hazardous duty pay.

Last week eight Army officials went to Alaska to meet with the soldiers and their families to work out scheduling conflicts and other problems brought on by the sudden change. Hotlines also have been set up to assist family members.

About 50 of the approximately 80 soldiers who do not have to return to Iraq were the advance team that headed back to Alaska early to prepare for the unit's return. They will stay in Alaska and plan for the unit's eventual return late this year.

The other 30 or so included soldiers who were not sent back for a variety of reasons, including medical conditions, school requirements or emergency leave.

Sectarian violence has rocked Baghdad, bringing it to what some believe is the brink of civil war. In response, U.S. and Iraqi military leaders have shifted thousands of troops into Baghdad, targeting four critical regions wracked by attacks between Sunni insurgents and Shiite extremists.

The new offensive has driven the number of U.S. troops in Iraq up to 135,000 — reversing a trend of declining personnel levels that had begun earlier this year. And, the increased level dampens hopes of a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of the year, just as members of Congress returned to their home districts to voters growing increasingly weary of the war.

Rumsfeld must approve any deployment that is longer than a year on the ground in Iraq.

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FEMA: Same key could open as many as 118,000 hurricane evacuee trailer homes

USA TODAY
FEMA: Same key could open many hurricane evacuee trailer homes

WASHINGTON (AP) — FEMA will replace locks on as many as 118,000 trailers used by Gulf Coast hurricane victims after discovering that the same key could open multiple mobile homes, the agency said Monday.

Some keys could open as many as 50 different locks — causing a security risk in heavily populated trailer parks in Louisiana and Mississippi.


"We're aggressively stepping out to minimize the risk," said Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Pat Philbin. He said FEMA worked though the weekend after discovering the problem last Friday at a Baton Rouge, trailer park that has hurricane victims.

It is unknown how many trailers will need to have their locks replaced, Philbin said.

In all, FEMA has issued about 150,000 travel trailers and mobile homes to evacuees since hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed into the Gulf Coast last year. But about 32,000 have been taken out of service, Philbin said.

The snafu stems from a limited number of lock makers — three — that trailer manufacturers use when building mobile homes, FEMA officials said. That increases the likelihood of locks being the same, they said.

FEMA bought 13 different kinds of travel trailers for hurricane evacuees, the officials said.

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$400 Million FEMA Contracts Now Total $3.4 Billion

washingtonpost.com
$400 Million FEMA Contracts Now Total $3.4 Billion
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer

Four no-bid contracts awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees have ballooned in value from $400 million to about $3.4 billion, prompting renewed scrutiny from Congress and federal auditors about the disaster agency's management of the aftermath of the storm.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general is, for at least a second time, reviewing the contracts with construction and engineering firms Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc., Fluor Corp. and the Shaw Group Inc. to provide 150,000 trailers for hurricane victims, even as FEMA expects to competitively award at least $1 billion for similar work in future contingencies within days.

A review is underway into how the contracts were awarded, the parties involved and their documentary support, according to Marta Metelko, spokeswoman for Inspector General Richard L. Skinner. She cited the "dollars and risk associated with sole source contracts."

The contracts, which were quickly awarded as Katrina approached and hit the Gulf Coast, have been repeatedly faulted by Skinner's office, congressional auditors and a Senate investigation for poor safeguards and high costs. FEMA valued the contracts at $2 billion last fall and winter, but the agency has raised the limit for each firm over the past several months.

FEMA Director R. David Paulison and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised Congress last October to re-bid the pacts and spun off $3.6 billion in maintenance and future dismantling of the trailers to 36 small and minority-owned firms in March. But the agency's critics say that has not addressed the entire problem.

Members of Congress say FEMA is unresponsive to complaints and warnings of mismanagement. Outside analysts say that the Department of Homeland Security's staffing shortages and increasing dependence on larger contracts to handle complex new missions feeds an unhealthy cycle, in which firms vying for an ever-growing flow of taxpayer dollars raid agency staff for expertise, weakening FEMA's ability to independently carry out its missions.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., FEMA's deputy director since April, said he tracks reports every week of how quickly FEMA is hiring and filling contract management jobs, and said the contracts are large and extremely complex. "I understand . . . how complex [the issues] are, and how many contracts our small staff is asked to complete," he said. "I see nothing that indicates there is any favoritism whatsoever."

FEMA deputy operations director Deidre Lee said the contracts' growth was justified "given the scope of Katrina. We ended up putting over 150,000 trailers and this for all the work, hauling, installing, prepping and set-up."

Spokesmen for Bechtel, which has its headquarters in San Francisco; CH2M Hill, of Englewood, Colo.; Fluor, of Irving, Tex.; and Shaw, of Baton Rouge, La., said they had received no information or requests from the DHS inspector general's office about a review, but routinely cooperate with audits by the office.

"We have delivered on every task they asked us to perform," CH2M Hill spokesman John Corsi said.

Shaw spokesman Chris D. Sammons said: "We are confident that our activities are fully in compliance with respect to all of those [federal and state] regulations."

In May, numerous protests of inflated prices and awards to a Fluor subsidiary led Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to call on Skinner to begin another inquiry.

"It's hard to overstate the incompetence involved in all of these contracts," Dorgan said. "We have repeatedly asked them for information, and you get nothing."

The initial contracts began under murky circumstances. Two FEMA officials have said the four firms were tapped even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, and the Shaw Group announced on Aug. 30, one day after the hurricane struck, that it was in contact with FEMA to mobilize assistance. Its stock rose 21 percent in two days and 32 percent that week after the news.

FEMA publicly announced contracting with the firms for housing on Sept. 8, in what company and government officials have said were letter contracts or agreements worth as much as $100 million. FEMA this week said that the initial contracts had a ceiling of $500 million each, and were awarded Sept. 3 to Fluor and Sept. 30 to the other three companies.

FEMA raised the ceilings of the contracts -- to $950 million for Shaw in February, to $1.4 billion for Fluor in March and to $575 million for Bechtel last month. It expects to raise the CH2M Hill contract to $530 million. FEMA has paid the firms $1.9 billion, and obligated $1 billion based on company charges, whose payment is subject to negotiation.

Skinner told Congress in February that the initial awarding of the housing contracts appeared justified by the emergency, but he concluded in a formal March report that "FEMA had not adequately defined the roles, responsibilities, expectation for deliverables, or performance measures for contractors," leaving taxpayers vulnerable to poor performance and abuse.

Shaw has installed 34,500 of 35,700 housing units expected to be completed by Sept. 30; Fluor, 49,000 of 53,000 units; Bechtel, all 36,000 units; and CH2M Hill, 23,000 of 28,000 units, FEMA said last week. The contracts will end "a couple of months" later, FEMA said.

In total, FEMA has contracted to pay as much as $7 billion for the 150,000 trailers, or about $46,000 per trailer. By law, the agency is required to provide storm victims housing for 18 months, although that term could grow.

Steven L. Schooner, co-director of George Washington University Law School's Government Procurement Law Program, said Homeland Security's high visibility and urgent needs dramatize a government-wide failure by Congress and recent administrations to solve a worsening contract workforce crisis.

"In both gulfs, Iraq and Louisiana, Congress seems to be able to find money to send auditors and inspector generals onto the battlefield after the fact to bayonet the wounded," Schooner said. "But nobody seems to find money to put contracting officers on the ground to do it right the first time."

Chertoff has championed the re-engineering of FEMA to tap private expertise for tasks including registering victims and clearing debris. Prearranging contracts, for example, could have avoided FEMA's post-Katrina spending of $1.8 billion to provide hotel rooms and cruise ship cabins to storm victims at three to six times the cost of what it paid them to rent apartments, and to buy 26,000 mobile homes, many of which could not be used under agency rules.

Nevertheless, the agency has been slow to carry out such changes, even though its housing needs were identified after four hurricanes hit Florida in 2004.

FEMA's Johnson acknowledged, "We do need more contracting staff and more procurement staff."

Since Katrina, FEMA has boosted the number of contracting officers from 50 to 90, aiming for a total of 134, plus 30 more who may be available in emergencies, said Lee, who joined FEMA in April.

DHS procurement chief Elaine C. Duke said FEMA is working on 70 new contracting projects to help with emergencies, dealing with logistics, government aid, housing inspections and more. "If you look at all that's been done, a year -- or, really, 10 months -- had been a really short time," she said.

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White House Vague About Bush Support for GOP Senate Candidate in Connecticut

ABC News
White House Vague on Conn. Senate Race
White House Vague About Bush Support for GOP Senate Candidate in Connecticut
By ANDREW MIGA
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush isn't exactly eager to lend his support to the Republican nominee in Connecticut's tumultuous Senate race.

The White House was circumspect on Monday when asked whether Bush would support Republican Alan Schlesinger in the three-way fall contest that includes Democratic nominee Ned Lamont and three-term incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman.

"The president supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut and wishes them a successful election in November," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Bush routinely backs Republican candidates in races all across the country.

Lieberman has won praise from the Bush team for his unwavering support of the Iraq war and is seen by some Democrats as too close to the president. He began an independent bid to keep his seat after losing the Democratic primary last week to anti-war challenger and political newcomer Lamont.

Snow was asked whether Bush was balking at supporting Schlesinger because he liked Lieberman or wanted to stay out of the contest because Schlesinger was trailing badly in the polls.

"There may be a whole host of reasons the president I'm just not going to play," Snow replied.

He suggested the Connecticut race was unique.

"I think that there are some peculiar characteristics going on in the Republican Party with the Republican candidate," Snow said. "And why don't you wait and see what happens?"

Schlesinger said he wasn't surprised by the White House's hesitancy. Republican leaders have been praising Lieberman and now they can't suddenly abandon him, he said.

"I don't think the Republican Party can turn around and say, 'Don't vote for Joe,'" Schlesinger said in a telephone interview. "We've got to let this thing die down a little."

Schlesinger said he was confident he could move up in the polls once some of the attention shifted away from the Lieberman-Lamont primary fight.

"When the Republican leadership in Washington also starts believing I have a shot, you'll see some support coming in," Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger is considered a longshot candidate. There has been speculation that Republicans might try to find a stronger candidate, but no names have emerged.

Schlesinger's campaign stumbled in July after it was learned that he used a fake name to gamble at a Connecticut casino and had been sued over gambling debts at New Jersey casinos. Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, urged him to drop out of the Senate race, but Schlesinger called the gambling a "non-issue" and stayed in.

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Poll Shows Republicans Don't Trust Bush

Huffington Post
Rick Jacobs
Poll Shows Republicans Don't Trust Bush

With all of the sturm and drang (that's Joe Lieberman talk for hand wringing) over Iraq as some sort of twisted Achilles heel for the Democrats, we now have news that even Republicans don't trust their own party to tell them the truth about Iraq or to ask the right questions about it.

In a poll conducted 2-3 August by Courage Campaign and MyDD.com following up on research we did last month to find out just why Francine Busby lost in the 50th Congressional District in California, we learned the following.

1. 63% of Republican voters believe that Bush has made some or a lot of mistaks in Iraq and fully 24% believe he has made "a lot of mistakes" in Iraq . (Makes you kind of wonder who the rest are.)

2. One third of Republicans think Bush has not told the truth about Iraq and should be held accountable for what he has done there.

3. Interestingly, nearly a half (48%) believes that the Democratic Party will hold Bush accountable for what he has done in Iraq, versus only 19% who believe that the Republicans will do so.

National polls continue to show that the American people have lost patience with President Bush's occupation of Iraq. This poll, focused on one single district where Republican registration exceeds Democratic registration by fourteen points, puts a very fine point on the "message question" that plagues many Democrats and that brought down Joe Lieberman. Quite simply, the people again lead the politicians. While incumbents distance themselves from a president whom they did not have the courage to question, their own party loyalists stand up first for patriotism rather than partisanship.

Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia, a man who understands first hand better than anyone in the Bush White House when and how to use the military for national defense, puts it best: "How long does the president plan to continue the occupation of Iraq?" So far, neither his opponent George Allen nor the president nor any of the party in power has figured out how to answer that question.

In the meantime, the good people of San Diego County set the trend, telling us that they want answers. The current one party regime has neither the capacity nor the confidence of the American people to answer those questions. If the Republicans and Independents of a "red" county think this way, it's time for the Democrats to lead this way.

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Fraudulent Words and Images: The Accountability Double Standard

Huffington Post
Arianna Huffington
Fraudulent Words and Images: The Accountability Double Standard

Accountability -- it's all the rage. At least you'd think so if you've been following the story of the Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj, who doctored photos from the war in Lebanon. Once a fraudulent image of Beirut was first exposed by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, Reuters canned the photographer.

Hooray for accountability.

But before we start popping champagne corks, let's take a look at the gigantic double standard when it comes to journalistic deceit.

I brought up the latest instance -- a particularly odious one -- this morning on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz and Charles Johnson:

KURTZ: Arianna Huffington, you're obviously on a different side of the political fence than Charles Johnson, but do you think this is another example of bloggers, you know, holding the mainstream media accountable?

HUFFINGTON: Absolutely. In fact, I want to congratulate Charles. That is exactly what bloggers should be doing. It was outrageous what Reuters allowed to appear. And the fact that they fired the photographer, it was the only legitimate response.

And I want to take this a step further and say that we should hold all journalists accountable, whether they are photojournalists or not, for deceptive statements, whether they're images or words.

I mean, you had your own headline anchorman, Chuck Roberts, describe Lamont as the al Qaeda candidate. This is an equally deceitful, fraudulent, fabricated statement. There should be zero tolerance for all those deceits, whether in images or words.

KURTZ: Well, what Chuck Roberts said, according to the transcript, was that some are calling Ned Lamont the al Qaeda candidate. But it's certainly not a formulation I would have used.

HUFFINGTON: You cannot find a single person who called Lamont the al Qaeda candidate, except Chuck Roberts. And what have been the consequences when it comes to Chuck Roberts? Has he been demoted to be covering Paris Hilton or entertainment news? … It's about time that there is that same kind of accountability that Charles is demanding from photojournalists from journalists, as well.

Indeed, an exhaustive Lexis Nexis search confirms that no one has called Lamont "the Al Qaeda candidate." Except for Chuck Roberts. In fact, you know what you find if you Google “Al Qaeda candidate”? A lot of references to John Kerry being smeared by the RNC and its cronies during the 2004 election. Clearly, Lamont as “tha Al Qaeda candidate” is the latest rendition of an old G.O.P. tune.

The question is: why do the media play along?

Sure, it's great that Reuters will no longer be using Hajj, but it's not just fraudulent images that are damaging but fraudulent statements as well, fabrications claiming to reflect reality.

A subtler example is the headline on the August 11th New York Times story by Adam Nagourney:

"Arrests Bolster G.O.P. Bid To Claim Security as Issue"

Really? Do they? How do we know they do?

When you read the story you find out that the reason we know they do is because, yes, the G.O.P. told us so. Nagourney writes: "The developments played neatly into the White House-led effort, after Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, lost on Tuesday to an antiwar primary challenger, to remind voters of the threats facing the nation and to cast Democrats as timid on national defense."

No, it's not “the developments" that played neatly into "the White House-led effort," it's Adam Nagourney who did.

The White House fabricated a connection and a neat fit between the “developments” and the “Democrats.” But isn’t it up to the mainstream media to expose fraudulent connections instead of endorsing them as fact?

The truth, which, sadly, you won't find in the New York Times story, is that in no way do the arrests in Britain bolster the GOP's claims to be the party to best defend America. And the only way they will is if the media swallow Ken Mehlman's talking points and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In fact, given that we know for a fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that we currently have over 130,000 troops in Iraq, and have spent over three hundred billion dollars there, the Occam's Razor interpretation of these “developments" would be that they demonstrate how badly the White House has squandered our resources and how much the War on Terror is, as even George Will admitted today on This Week, “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation.”

When will the mainstream media finally start holding elected officials and fellow journalists accountable for fraudulent words the way they rightly held Hajj, Reuters, and others accountable for fraudulent images?

And how about starting by holding Chuck Roberts accountable?

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"Swift Boat" Veterans Set Sights on Rep. Murtha

"Swift Boat" Veterans Set Sights on Rep. Murtha

The Iraq war looms over another race, as the group that helped defeat John Kerry targets the antiwar lawmaker.

By Noam N. Levey / Los Angeles Times

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Two years after a cadre of veterans helped sink the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), they have found a new target in the old steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania: Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha.

In a fight that organizers say will feature rallies, TV ads and an aggressive Internet campaign, these activists are promising to make Murtha pay for his criticism of the Iraq war.

"I will do my best to 'Swift boat' John Murtha," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said at a recent news conference here, invoking the 2004 campaign against Kerry that took its name from Vietnam War-era Navy vessels.

Few believe that Murtha, a Vietnam veteran who has represented his district since 1974, is in much danger of being driven from office.

But in the wake of Sen. Joe Lieberman's defeat in Connecticut's Democratic primary last week, Murtha's showdown with an increasingly vocal group of opponents provides more evidence of the prominent role the Iraq war is playing in this year's midterm campaign.

Unlike Lieberman, whose support for the war cost him Democratic voters, Murtha confronts a challenge sparked by his repeated calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Long among the most hawkish Democrats in Congress, the once media-shy Murtha has become a standard bearer for the party's antiwar wing since airing his criticism of the Bush administration's commitment in Iraq. And on street corners and town squares of this Rust Belt district, a small but committed corps of volunteers has joined Bailey, a North Carolina resident, in trying to make sure Murtha's constituents remember it — and vote against him in November.

Murtha has brushed aside the attacks.

"It's ludicrous," he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last week. "What they are trying to do is distract from the [Iraq] issue…. There is no one who supports the military more than me."

Murtha's allies, led by a veterans group based in Richmond, Va., held a counter-rally in Johnstown that largely overshadowed Bailey's news conference. The pro-Murtha event featured former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), who lost three limbs while serving in Vietnam.

The battle over Murtha's opposition to the Iraq war is unfolding in a place where support for the military has been an article of faith at least since the Civil War. The communities that form Murtha's district were among the first to send volunteers for the Union war effort — a distinction proudly noted on a memorial in Johnstown's town square.

Today, 15.3% of the district's residents are veterans, slightly above the national average of 12.6%, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

And when a Pennsylvania National Guard battalion stationed outside Johnstown returned in June from a yearlong deployment in Iraq's Anbar province, some 1,000 well-wishers turned out to show their support, according to a unit spokesman.

For years, Murtha has been the embodiment of that spirit, many locals say.

A decorated Marine wounded in action, Murtha became the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress. He backed the first Persian Gulf War and has been a longtime champion of robust defense spending.

Perhaps most critically for Johnstown, the congressman helped bring home defense-related jobs. Firms such as Lockheed Martin, DRS Technologies and Concurrent Technologies have opened facilities in the new industrial park on the hills above the city.

"What you find here is a tradition that goes way back with the military," said Robert Layo, president of the Greater Johnstown/Cambria County Chamber of Commerce. "His position has always been in line with that."

But Murtha, 74, established a new persona on Nov. 17, when he called a news conference to declare that, in his view, U.S. troops had become "the primary target of the insurgency" in Iraq and that it was "time to bring them home."

Murtha almost immediately became an antiwar icon — a role he has embraced in the months since.

Now a regular on news talk shows, Murtha made headlines again in May when he said that Marines in Iraq had killed more than a dozen civilians "in cold blood." His comments caused one Marine under investigation in the Haditha killings to file a libel and invasion of privacy lawsuit against him last week.

With Congress on its summer break, Murtha is spending much of his time crisscrossing the country, headlining the nationwide Democratic push to take control of Congress in November's election. And he recently contributed an item on the war to the Huffington Post, a leading liberal website edited by Brentwood's Arianna Huffington.

Murtha's new identity has made him a prime target in a national Republican campaign to portray Democrats as defeatists. Some Pennsylvanians in Murtha's 12th Congressional District agree with that assessment.

In tiny Charleroi, Pa., Nikki A.C. Sheppick, a 54-year-old housewife who served as an Army personnel officer in 1972-73, has made a series of dining-table-sized panels with cartoons, text and photos attacking Murtha for his comments about the alleged civilian massacre in Iraq.

"You just don't talk about the troops that way," said Sheppick, who recalled how hurtful criticism of soldiers was during the Vietnam era.

She is helping organize an effort called "Operation Street Corner," in which volunteers are to take the cartoon panels to fairs, shopping centers and other public places.

About 75 miles away in Johnstown, Murtha foes are working on plans for a rally in October, which they hope will draw thousands.

The organizers stress that theirs is largely a local campaign. But they have linked with Bailey, who from his North Carolina home is reassembling members of the national team that took on Kerry, including a Web expert in Texas and a Georgia developer who is helping bankroll the "Boot Murtha" effort.

For fundraising help, Bailey also has joined with an Iowa political action committee — Iowa Presidential Watch — that touts its efforts to "hold accountable" Democratic presidential candidates.

And he has invited the participation of John O'Neill, the Houston lawyer who was a founder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that ran ads questioning Kerry's military record in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Murtha's Republican challenger, county commissioner Diana Irey, is making Murtha's comments on the war a focal point of her campaign. "That's the issue that people come up to me and talk about," she said in a recent interview.

At Point Stadium in Johnstown, where thousands converge every summer for the All American Amateur Baseball Association championships, Jeff Katarski said the issue bothers him.

"I think [Murtha's] talking out of both sides of his mouth," said Katarski, who served in the Navy for five years in the late 1970s and early '80s. "To me, he should know better than to criticize the administration and the troops during war, at least openly…. It hurts morale."

But even Katarski concedes that Murtha's opponents will have a hard sell.

At the VFW post in Uniontown, another aging industrial city that was the birthplace of World War II hero Gen. George C. Marshall, retiree Joe Hawkins said he doesn't know many people who question Murtha's judgment.

"I think he's doing a hell of a job," Hawkins said.

Murtha may reflect the feelings of a large portion of his constituents, said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the polling institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, which polls extensively across the Northeast.

Opposition to the war "emerged earlier [in the region] than it did in other parts of the country," Richards said.

Murtha, who was in San Francisco on Friday visiting House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) after campaigning for Democrats in Connecticut and New York, said he is confident the public is with him.

"The average person goes out of their way to tell me they want change…. What am I supposed to do? Say everything is all right?" Murtha asked before flying to Tennessee to attend a dinner for former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.

"I'm not going to say everything is all right if everything isn't all right."

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Republicans are using the terror plot news and Lieberman’s defeat to paint Dems as weak. But the Connecticut result doesn’t bode well for Republicans

Fear Factor
Republicans are using the terror plot news and Lieberman’s defeat to paint Dems as
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Aug. 11, 2006 - The foiled terrorist plot to explode airliners over the Atlantic reminds voters that the horrors of warfare they see unfolding on their television screens in Iraq and Lebanon could yet come home to America. There is no doubting the seriousness of the threat the British security forces uncovered, yet there is something disquieting about the way Republicans jumped on the story to reinforce their message coming out of the Connecticut primary that anti-war Democrats can’t be trusted with national security.

This week’s victory of political unknown Ned Lamont over Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman prompted a familiar refrain from the GOP playbook about a party hijacked by its left wing, too weak to respond to terrorism, stuck in the Vietnam era of George McGovern. Never mind that more than 30 years have passed since McGovern ran for president on an anti-war platform. His name is still a potent symbol along with such phrases as cut and run, which the GOP is hammering home to voters in a lame defense of the Iraq war.

“They’ve been playing that angle so long, the politics of fear,” McGovern told NEWSWEEK in a telephone interview from Montana, where he is spending the summer. “Nixon used to say people don’t vote on faith; they vote on fear. For 50 years, they used the fear of communism to beat Democrats and liberals and to discourage any kind of dissent. I hope we don’t have 50 years of terrorism for them to do the same thing.” If Lieberman stays in the race as an Independent, he will carry the GOP’s message that the Democrats have returned to the days of McGovern, and that there is no room in the party for a pro-war, muscular Democrat. “They’ve done that for 50 years—saying Democrats are soft on communism, now they’re saying Democrats aren’t tough enough on terrorism. That argument is beginning to wear thin,” says McGovern, who served in World War Two as a bomber pilot.

Republicans are whistling past the proverbial graveyard if they think the Connecticut results bode well for them. The high turnout reflects voter anger with the war and with President Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress, meaning that Rep. Chris Shays and two other moderate Republicans in the state will likely be swept away in the tide of anger come November. “Bush is poison; that’s the overarching message of this election,” says Paul Equale, a Democratic lobbyist. “Everything else is parlor talk.” Illinois Democrat Rahm Emanuel, who chairs the Democratic congressional campaign committee, called Lieberman Bush’s “love child.” His point is that the election is a referendum on George Bush, “and the person standing closest to Bush gets burned,” a spokesman explained.

Democrats desperately want Lieberman to step aside and not create a sideshow that diverts attention from Bush. But that will take finesse backed up by poll numbers. “Democrats need to take it easy on Lieberman, not go and hammer on him 12 hours after he’s eked out a defeat that’s much narrower than was forecast,” a party strategist told NEWSWEEK. “Better to wait for the court of public opinion and build a prima facie case with the right messenger [to deliver it]: Bill Clinton, [Connecticut Senator] Chris Dodd—or better yet, someone who has resonance with Hadassah [Lieberman’s wife.] She’s got a major say in this.” That will take time as well as Lieberman’s realization that winning as a pro-war Independent is unlikely in the current climate. “Some things in politics are done in a flash; some are done more glacially; this is closer to glacial,” says the strategist.

Hillary Clinton got out ahead of the storm with her sharp attack last week on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Critics on the left called her an opportunist, but in the world of politics, is there anybody who isn’t? “The way she took on Rumsfeld was great for her,” says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “She took on the manager rather than the war itself—how it’s administered. “You criticize the process rather than putting out an alternative.” Luntz says if he were strategizing for the Democrats, he would keep the party’s more strident anti-war voices in the background and put [Illinois Senator] Barack Obama on television. “It’s one thing to be anti-war and another to be seen on the fringe,” he says.

Hillary supported Lieberman in the primary, but wrote Lamont a $5,000 check from her HILLPAC the day after the election. “Maybe this will put a little spine in the backs of Democrats,” says McGovern. Hillary and Bill worked on McGovern’s presidential campaign in ’72, and he says he has “lasting personal affection for her,” but doesn’t like her careful positioning on the war and wishes she were “a little more gutsy.” What Hillary is doing works for now; it won’t work for the primaries in ’08. A lot will change by then, and if the Bush administration gets the message, there may not be a war for Democrats to kick around.

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Conn. Senate Hopeful Lamont Says Lieberman, Cheney Playing Terrorism for 'Partisan Advantage'

ABC News
Lamont Decries Lieberman Terror Remarks
Conn. Senate Hopeful Lamont Says Lieberman, Cheney Playing Terrorism for 'Partisan Advantage'
By ANDREW MIGA
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who toppled Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, says he was surprised by Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney's claims that his victory could embolden terrorists.

"My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive," Lamont said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.

After British officials disclosed they had thwarted a terrorist airline bombing plot on Thursday, Lieberman warned that Lamont's call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be "taken as a tremendous victory" by terrorists.

Cheney suggested Wednesday that Lamont's victory might encourage "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task."

Lamont said Lieberman's swipe at his candidacy "sounded an awful lot" like Cheney.

"It surprised me," he said. "It seemed almost orchestrated. It's sort of demeaning to the people of Connecticut. ... I thought the senator and the vice president were both wrong to use that attack (strategy) on the voters of Connecticut."

The Lieberman camp Sunday brushed aside Lamont's comments.

"All Lieberman did was point out an important difference between his approach to national security and Ned Lamont's, which is what campaigns are all about," said Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said Lamont was the one seeking to score political points with the terror war.

"Sounds like he's the one playing politics at a time the president is trying to build national unity and cooperation in fighting a determined and murderous enemy an enemy whose tactics and hatred we got to glimpse again last week, an enemy that continues to plot in the shadows and to probe weaknesses," McBride said.

Lamont's upset victory last week, fueled in part by liberal bloggers, was viewed by many as a referendum on Iraq and President Bush's handling of the war. The debate has placed his candidacy in the national spotlight.

Lamont, who was in Washington for appearances on two Sunday TV news talk shows, is reaching out to the Democratic Party establishment for help in what is expected to be a bruising general election fight against Lieberman.

Many top Democrats, including national party chairman Howard Dean and leading senators, have abandoned Lieberman, the party's 2000 vice presidential nominee. They have lined up behind Lamont in the general election, a three-way fight that also includes Republican Alan Schlesinger.

Some Democrats are urging Lieberman to drop his independent bid to clear a path for Lamont.

"It would be better for the Democratic Party, it would be better for the people of Connecticut, it would be better for the country" if Lieberman got out of the race, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said on ABC's "This Week."

Lamont said he had no idea whether Lieberman might reconsider his candidacy.

"It's not helpful," he said of the possibility Lieberman could play the role of the spoiler.

Lamont also said he doubted that Republicans would find a stronger candidate than Schlesinger, who trails far behind both Lamont and Lieberman in recent polls.

"My hunch is they're not going to do that," Lamont said.

Lamont's previous political experience was serving in local offices such as selectman in Greenwich, Conn. He said he had no plans to tailor his campaign message in the fall race to appeal to independents or moderates in both parties.

"I'm not changing my message one iota now," Lamont said. "It is a message that resonates. It's not just Democrats who think that we need real change in Washington, D.C."

Lamont, 52, is a great-grandson of the former chairman of JP Morgan & Co. He has estimated that he's worth $90 million to $300 million. In 1984 he founded a company that wires college campuses for cable television.

Lamont spent about $4 million of his own money in the primary. He said he doubted he would have to provide a similar-sized cash infusion for the general election, but he vowed to remain competitive in terms of fundraising.

"We're not going to be badly outspent," said Lamont.

Lieberman has about $2 million in campaign funds for the fall race after spending roughly $5 million during the primary, according to campaign spokesman Gerstein. "We will raise enough to win," Gerstein said.

On the Net:

Ned Lamont: http://www.nedlamont.com/

Joe Lieberman: http://www.joe2006.com/

Alan Schlesinger: http://www.schlesinger2006.com/

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