By: John Cory  

This war is a lie, a savage and brutal lie, but a lie nonetheless. Each day of loss and devastation forces the liars to revise the words of their deceit. And each destructive day forces a supportive supine press corps to find new ways to avert their eyes from the truth.

Pre-emptive policy is an unholy alliance having its own 'axis of evil' - greed, arrogance, and deception.

Vacations are not to be interrupted for this dime-store President and his nickel-plated cadre of fundraisers. The image of a leader heading to the White House and working in the name of peace and international stability is not as important as the drive for campaign money and supporting the theft of democracy in California and Texas and elsewhere in America. And it is that attitude that explains what is going wrong in Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and throughout the Middle East.

"I have confidence at the professional level that whatever they [the FBI] think is doable will be done... At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."

- Joseph Wilson, at a forum organized by Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington

It's the G.W. Bush "aviator" doll, just in time to degrade every notion of heroism, ever.

By: Mark Morford  

Country's in shambles and economy's gutted and schools are shot and Iraq's a violent bloody mess and joblessness is rampant and it's a proud time indeed to be an American, and hence you might be asking yourself, what, pray what, can I give the hardcore lockstep pseudo-Christian homophobic Republican on my gift list?

What can you give the one who just loves bogus wars and BushCo's lies and thinks SUV's are way bitchin' and believes every bile-filled opinion crammed down their throats via Fox News and Hannity/Coulter/Limbaugh et al, hates them damnable gays and libs and environmentalists and has one hand over his heart while the other gropes the cat?

If you shouted out "a pile of Schwarzenegger DVDs!" or "Lifetime NRA/KKK membership!" or "The Complete Catholic Church Total Absolution/Multimillion Dollar Settlement/Home Enema Kit!" you're only about half right.

Because now we have a new doll, this neat little prefab landfill thing, the George W. Bush "Elite Force Aviator" action figure, to stand proudly alongside your "We Will Rock You" Animated Soldier and your civilian-maulin' "Forward Command Post" toy set from JC Penney! That's right! Collect the whole set!

Protests erupted at KB Toys today...

Editorial from:  

Try as he might, Mr. Ashcroft can no longer dismiss opponents of the USA Patriot Act as a small but whiny band of liberals. Some of the nation's top conservative groups as well as a huge majority of the Republican-led House of Representatives - in other words, the Bush base - are now leading the drive to eliminate portions of the law that allow secret spying on anyone.

So the Attorney General is out stumping in the presidential battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as the first caucus state of Iowa, trying to sell the Patriot Act as vital to the war on terrorism while a Justice Department website seeks to dispel "myths" put out by critics.

This spin control performance is offensive both in its message and its tactics. Mr. Ashcroft, who bullied Congress into granting law enforcement agencies sweeping new powers while the nation was still traumatized by the Sept. 11 attacks, is once again using fear to get his way.

"In presidential campaign news today, President Bush was not given his prompter. No, he was down at his Texas ranch with no public appearances. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Howard Dean is barnstorming the country in his sleepless summer tour. This might explain why a brand new Newsweek poll shows that 49% don't want to see Bush elected, while only 44% do. What exactly does this mean for the President? It means that his coalition of disgraced energy executives, gun dealers, Confederate flag-lovers, and other white guys with prostate problems... won't be enough to get Bush a majority. It looks like he may have to steal this election, like he did in 2000."

- Al Franken, on CNN's Crossfire, Aug. 25, 2003

By: Harley Sorensen  

"Bring 'em on", the man said. He is not a brave man, but he plays one on television.

When it came his turn to fight in a war, he hid behind Daddy. Then he had another drink and hid from the National Guard. Then he had another drink.

When our nation was attacked on Sept. 11, he hid in an airplane, flying to and fro around the country. While our nation was crying for leadership, he was making sure the coast was clear.

He later had his minions blame the Secret Service.

By: Jimmy Breslin  

I was a few hundred yards up on Liberty Street when the Two Tower of the World Trade Center blew. I put my nose inside my shirt and ran through smoke that turned day into night. In the smoke were computers, asbestos, pulverized glass, human bodies, lead. I got on another street and One Tower blew up. Again, the air was black with a pulverized 110-story building.

I did not feel well for two months. I never said anything because I was too embarrassed. A couple of thousand had died. So many others were scorched and broken and maimed. I had no right to open my mouth, I thought. Besides, from the first day, the government's Environmental Protection Agency had announced that air was remarkably clean. Work on. Breathe on. You're fine.

They lied. They lied because the administration did not want people not going to work. They lied the first week and they lied the week after that and they have lied every day of the past two years to the people of this city.

By: Paul Krugman  

Last week a quietly scathing report by the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed what some have long suspected: in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse, the agency systematically misled New Yorkers about the risks the resulting air pollution posed to their health. And it did so under pressure from the White House.

The Bush administration has misled the public on many issues, from the budget outlook to the Iraqi threat. But this particular deception seems, at first sight, not just callous but gratuitous. It's only when you look back at budget politics in 2001 that you see the method in the administration's mendacity.

"Globalization isn't a natural disaster like a hurricane or AIDS. It is a man-made phenomenon created by capitalist multi-national corporations to force us in the Third World to work in fields and factories for slave wages to produce cheap goods for them. They call that 'productivity'. I say let them keep it."

- Richard Hoad, from his article Global Disaster, in The Nation magazine

By: John Chuckman  

I've read that severe autism involves receiving a storm of sensory perceptions, literally assaulting a mind unable to properly sort them out. It is a terrifying experience, driving sufferers to avoid human contact.

That description of autism resembles what I briefly sometimes experience from the passing parade of political events.

From:  

This week's list is a monument to conservative idiocy. And like Roy Moore's granite behemoth, our list has exactly 10 items. In the number one slot, is Judge Moore himself, who seems to have nothing but contempt for the rule of law. But at least he hasn't killed anybody, which we can't say for Rep. Bill "leadfoot" Janklow (3). Fox News (4, 9) makes two appearances on the list this week, for losing its "fair and balanced" court case and for showing itself to be anything but fair and balanced with regard to the California recall election. And if you didn't think this list was great already, we've got two appearances by Dubya (2, 8), plus Taco Bell (5) and the Nuge(6). Enjoy.

"If a society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

- John F. Kennedy

By: Kimberly Blaker  

With unbelievable boldness, President Bush recently took it upon himself to autograph U.S. flags that were handed to him by employees of Beaver Aerospace and Defense, during his late July visit to Livonia, Michigan.

Those who actually offered U.S. flags to be signed by the President may, to some extent, deserve criticism, themselves. This is especially so given that the few who actually care, at this point, to have the current President's autograph, hold an attitude that they have the market on patriotism.

The outlandishness of it almost leads me to wonder if the supposed-fans just wanted to see whether our genius-President would actually take the bait - which he did. But of all people, the President of the United States is surely aware of what constitutes desecration of our flag.

Pentagon Makes Moves to Contain Complaints From U.S. Troops in Iraq

By: Douglas Quenqua  

After several troops made some highly publicized negative comments to the media about the war effort in Iraq, the Pentagon has taken steps to keep the frustrations of both soldiers and their families out of reports.

Soldiers' families are also being advised not to complain to the media, according to news reports.

"I cannot wait to stand up and remind [Bush] that having a skilled Navy pilot land you on an aircraft carrier in a borrowed suit does not make up for losing 3 million jobs. It does not make up for going back on civil rights. It does not make up for failed economic policies."

- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Editorial from:  

The larger question is why those guys weren't honest with Congress and the American people before the war started. Why did they focus almost exclusively on the supposedly imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? Why not lay out their far more nuanced, ambitious neocon theory about projecting American values into the Middle East and thus beginning a regional transformation? Wolfowitz has said the WMD rationale was chosen for "bureaucratic" reasons; it was the one factor everyone could agree on.

But other neocon writers hint it was for a different reason: They knew they couldn't sell their vision - not to traditional conservatives, as George Will has made clear; not to most liberals, and not to the nonideological middle which would balk at the cost in dollars and human life. So they gussied up the "imminent threat" posed by Iraq's WMD programs and rode that argument into war.

Requires (free D/L)

By: Karen Kwiatkowski  

...while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made.

Those observations changed everything.

What I saw was aberrant, pervasive, and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of "intelligence" found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense...

By: Jane Mayer  

Now there is a new and demonstrable connection, but it is not the kind that the Bush administration had in mind. In fact, it is more likely to fuel the speculations of conspiracy theorists than it is to put their fears to rest. It turns out that a money trail runs - abeit rather circuitously - from the lucrative business of rebuilding Iraq to the fortune behind Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's estranged family, a sprawling, extraordinarily wealthy Saudi Arabian dynasty, is a substantial investor in a private equity firm founded by the Bechtel Group of San Francisco. Bechtel is also the global construction and engineering company to which the U.S. government recently awarded the first major multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct war-ravaged Iraq. In a closed competitive bidding process, the United States Agency for International Development chose Bechtel to rebuild the major elements of Iraq's infrastructure, including its roads, railroads, airports, hospitals and schools, and its water and electrical systems. In the first phase of the contract, the U.S. government will pay Bechtel nearly thirty-five million dollars, but experts say that the cost is likely to reach six hundred and eighty million during the next year and a half.

By: William Greider  

"Bank fraud" is a legal term of art. It means if you were one of those savings and loan hustlers who got nailed in the 1980's S&L crisis, you might go to jail. At least you would be financially ruined in the unwinding. If your name is Sandy Weill of Citigroup or one of those patrician bankers at Chase, the merged Morgan-Rockefeller institution, forget about it. Citi executives at least had the decency to say they felt sorry. The men of Morgan - stiff upper lips, gentlemen - "neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations".

Where is the outrage? This settlement was not a "warning shot to banks", as the New York Times claimed. It was the impotent whimper of a toothless government. The prosecutors and SEC regulators expressed complete confidence that both of these banks were expressly aware of the fraud they were helping to commit. As evidence, the lawmen cited a 1998 e-mail from a Morgan executive: "Enron loves these deals as they are able to hide funded debt from their equity analysts because they (at the very least) book it as deferred revenue or (better yet) bury it in their trading liabilities."

"The larger point is and the fundamental question is: Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is: Absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power."

- Pretender-in-Thief George W. Bush, July 14, 2003

By: Richard Z  

The blind, the crippled, the burned, the young men shitting in bags... they don't have anything. Those "crowds" of cheering "support the troops" people will move on to other things. There will be no parades for these young mutilated men and women when they finally get out of rehab.

No one will support them. None of these rabid pro-war fanatics will be there to help them bathe, crap, read a book.

Those Republican flag wavers will have moved on to more important things. Cutting "wasteful" government spending - like hazardous duty pay for combat soldiers, like Social Security Disability to pay for their crippled youngmen, like cutting benefits for the wives and children of these dead and crippled brave young soldiers.

By: Bob Herbert  

The credibility of the Bush administration is approaching meltdown. The White House won't level with the American people on the cost of the war, or the number of troops that are really needed, or the amount of taxpayer money that is being funneled to the politically connected corporations that have been given carte blanche for the reconstruction.

While the Bush crowd was happy to let the public believe that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to the Sept. 11 attacks, it won't come clean about the real links between the Saudis and Al Qaeda. And you won't hear from the administration that the phantom weapons of mass destruction were never the real reason for the war, but merely the pretext. The real goals were to establish a military foothold in the region, remake the Middle East, and capture control of Iraq's fabulous oil reserves.

Right now there is no viable plan for securing the peace in Iraq, and no exit strategy...

"I think this is the worst government the U.S. has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for [the American] people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as possible."

- George A. Akerlof, U.S. Nobel Laureate

By: Pat Buchanan  

...Our goal had been to liberate Kuwait. It had been achieved, brilliantly. Saddam's army had been evicted. The 500,000-man army of Desert Storm was ordered home. And the neoconservatives never forgave Bush I for not going to Baghdad.

A dozen years later, the son, at their fanatical urging, invaded Iraq, seized Baghdad, and committed America to building a democracy that would serve as a model for the Arab and Islamic world.

Three months have now elapsed since Baghdad fell. In those 100 days, the wisdom of the father in disregarding the neocons, and the folly of the son in heeding them, have become apparent.

Federal Flag Code: "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."

By: Dennis Rahkonen  

It's very evident the Bush administration fabricated sensationally ominous claims of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction to manipulatively garner public support for an unprovoked war few would have otherwise accepted.

As the WMD fraud has come apart, it's been accompanied by a mawkish rationale shift suggesting Saddam's well-documented "evil" was - in itself - reason enough to invade.

That's utter nonsense.

If bad or even unequivocally wicked national leadership were adequate basis for some countries to aggress others, the world would be beset by a flurry of ostensibly high-minded invasions sharing the common characteristic of blatantly violating international law and global behavioral norms.

"Money doesn't talk, it swears."

- Bob Dylan

From:  

Believe it or not, a series of ridiculous conservative blunders has forced George W. "Super Press Conference Man" Bush down into fourth place this week. At the top of the list we have the Pentagon, who have (well, had) a new scheme to bet on future terrorist attacks. Shame really, because the Transportation Security Administration (2) and House Republicans (3) are gambling that there won't be any more terrorist attacks, at all, ever. And there he is, George W. Bush (4) taking full responsibility for everything he says while simultaneously blaming America's problems on everybody else. Elsewhere on the list this week we have Bill Bennett (6) - obviously there's a bit of a gambling theme this week - the Conservative Caucus (8), who have a really bad nominee for the Supreme Court, and James Inhofe (9), the world's worst person to be in charge of all things environmental. Enjoy.

"All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama Bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia."

- John O'Neill, former FBI deputy director

Editorial from:  

Forget that the President of the United States betrayed a nation, that his staff allegedly destroyed a CIA agent specializing in the tracking of WMD's by outing her for revenge and intimidation, that lies have become the coin of the realm for this administration, that a Congressional report (even one censored by the White House) implies that the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel in trying to prevent an Al-Qaeda attack - forget all this. What Americans need is a grisly shot of the bad guys - a la the famous photo of a dead John Dillinger - laid out on autopsy tables, their bodies crisscrossed with stitches like a beggar's blanket.

And how dare anyone question why the remains of Saddam's sons should suddenly show up the week that the report on 9/11 is issued or during a period when Bush was on the ropes for lying. And how dare anyone ask why the Bush Cartel wouldn't want to try and actually capture Uday and Qusay to obtain information about WMD's, Iraqi war plans, Iraqi bad guys still at large, the location of their father, information on the "alleged" relationship with Al-Qaeda, and so on. Wouldn't they potentially provide the mother lode of information to corroborate all the Bush cartel claims about why Bush led our young men and women to die in Iraq? Come on now, wouldn't the Saddam sons be able to prove all the Bush accusers and doubters WRONG?

Site content © 2001-2003 J. Mekus - - except wherein noted.
All rights reserved.