WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A just-released report slams the federal government for failing to coordinate the work of U.S. law enforcement agencies overseas to fight terrorism.
The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.
The GAO did not name the country in its report.
The White House has long issued directives asking that U.S. law enforcement agencies assist foreign nations' anti-terrorism efforts.
But the report finds that embassy and law enforcement officials told the GAO "they had received little or no guidance" on how to accomplish that.
The issue of roles and responsibilities "remains unresolved and is still subject to ongoing debates within the administration," it said.
The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism instructed the State Department to develop and coordinate U.S. counterterrorism policy abroad, but the report says that was not done.
The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act shifted that responsibility to the National Counterterrorism Center and, although a general plan has been drafted, it has not yet been implemented.
"As a result of these weaknesses, LEAs [law enforcement agencies], a key element of national power, are not being fully used abroad to protect U.S. citizens and interest from future terrorist attacks," the GAO concluded.
For national security reasons, the GAO did not name the four countries its investigators visited, describing them only as having "key roles in combating terrorism."
In all four there was more U.S. funding devoted to fighting drugs than to fighting terrorism, the report said
In one country, described as an "extremely high terrorist threat to American interests globally," the State Department provided six times more funding to stop illicit drugs and crime than it did for anti-terrorism assistance, the report said.
In another country, an embassy official said most training and assistance funding from the U.S. was dedicated to counter-narcotics efforts "even though drugs were no longer a strategic concern in that country."
Also, the report revealed that information about terrorists is not always shared or acted on.
Generally, embassies retain "pre-9/11 structures" for information-sharing and collaboration, the report said, and have not been reconfigured "in a collective effort to prevent another terrorist attack on the United States or its interests."
An "extremely high terrorist threat," nation had never been asked to try to identify or disrupt any of the terrorists on the most-wanted lists of the departments of State or Defense, or of the foreign nation itself, an FBI official told the GAO.
The agencies involved blamed these discrepancies on shortages in staffing and funding, according to the report.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Mike Gravel: Presidential Candidate, or Paul Revere, Reincarnated?
Time Is Right for New Pentagon Papers
Posted on Jun 26, 2007
By Amy Goodman
Of the Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Mike Gravel is probably the least well recognized. His dark-horse candidacy may be the butt of jokes on the late-night comedy shows, but that doesn’t faze former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg: “Here is a senator who was not afraid to look foolish. That is the fear that keeps people in line all their lives.”
The famed whistle-blower joined Gravel this past weekend on a panel commemorating the 35th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the Beacon Press, a small, nonprofit publisher affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association. It was this publisher that Gravel turned to in 1971, after dozens of others had turned him down, to publish the 7,000 pages that Ellsberg had delivered to Gravel to put into the public record.
The story of the leak of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times is famous, but how they got published as a book, with Gravel’s face on the jacket, reads like a John Grisham novel.
Ellsberg was a military analyst working for the RAND Corp. in the 1960s when he was asked to join an internal Pentagon group tasked with creating a comprehensive, secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg photocopied thousands of documents and leaked them to The New York Times, which published excerpts in June 1971.
President Richard Nixon immediately got a restraining order, stopping the newspaper from printing more. It was the first time in U.S. history that presses were stopped by federal court order. The Times fought the injunction, and won in the Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. United States. Following that decision, The Washington Post also began running excerpts. Ellsberg gave the Pentagon Papers to the Post on the condition that one of its editors, Ben Bagdikian, deliver a copy to Gravel.
Gravel recalled the exchange, which he set up at midnight outside the storied Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.: “I used to work in intelligence; I know how to do these things.” Gravel pulled his car up to Bagdikian’s, the two opened their trunks and Gravel heaved the boxes personally, worried that only he could claim senatorial immunity should they get caught with the leaked documents. His staff aides were posted as lookouts around the block.
Thwarted in his attempt to read the Pentagon Papers into the public record as a filibuster to block the renewal of the draft, Gravel called a late-night meeting of the obscure Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds, which he chaired, and began reading the papers aloud there. He broke down crying while reading the details of Vietnamese civilian deaths. Because he had begun the reading, he was legally able to enter all 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, once top-secret, into the public record.
Though ridiculed by the press for his emotional display, Gravel was undaunted. He wanted the Pentagon Papers published as a book so Americans could read what had been done in their name. Only Beacon Press accepted the challenge.
Robert West, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association at the time, approved the publication. With that decision, he said, “We started down a path that led through two and a half years of government intimidation, harassment and threat of criminal punishment.” As Beacon weathered subpoenas, FBI investigations of its bank accounts and other chilling probes, Gravel attempted to extend his senatorial immunity to the publisher. The bid failed in the U.S Supreme Court (the first time that the U.S. Senate appeared before the court), but not without a strongly worded dissent from Justice William O. Douglas: “In light of the command of the First Amendment we have no choice but to rule that here government, not the press, is lawless.”
Which brings us to today. Sitting next to West and Gravel, Ellsberg repeated the plea that he is making in speeches all over the United States: “The equivalent of the Pentagon Papers exist in safes all over Washington, not only in the Pentagon, but in the CIA, the State Department and elsewhere. My message is to them: Take the risk, reveal the truth under the lies of your own bosses and your superiors, obey your oath to the Constitution, which every one of those officials took, not to the commander in chief, but to the Constitution of the United States.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Posted on Jun 26, 2007
By Amy Goodman
Of the Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Mike Gravel is probably the least well recognized. His dark-horse candidacy may be the butt of jokes on the late-night comedy shows, but that doesn’t faze former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg: “Here is a senator who was not afraid to look foolish. That is the fear that keeps people in line all their lives.”
The famed whistle-blower joined Gravel this past weekend on a panel commemorating the 35th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the Beacon Press, a small, nonprofit publisher affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association. It was this publisher that Gravel turned to in 1971, after dozens of others had turned him down, to publish the 7,000 pages that Ellsberg had delivered to Gravel to put into the public record.
The story of the leak of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times is famous, but how they got published as a book, with Gravel’s face on the jacket, reads like a John Grisham novel.
Ellsberg was a military analyst working for the RAND Corp. in the 1960s when he was asked to join an internal Pentagon group tasked with creating a comprehensive, secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg photocopied thousands of documents and leaked them to The New York Times, which published excerpts in June 1971.
President Richard Nixon immediately got a restraining order, stopping the newspaper from printing more. It was the first time in U.S. history that presses were stopped by federal court order. The Times fought the injunction, and won in the Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. United States. Following that decision, The Washington Post also began running excerpts. Ellsberg gave the Pentagon Papers to the Post on the condition that one of its editors, Ben Bagdikian, deliver a copy to Gravel.
Gravel recalled the exchange, which he set up at midnight outside the storied Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.: “I used to work in intelligence; I know how to do these things.” Gravel pulled his car up to Bagdikian’s, the two opened their trunks and Gravel heaved the boxes personally, worried that only he could claim senatorial immunity should they get caught with the leaked documents. His staff aides were posted as lookouts around the block.
Thwarted in his attempt to read the Pentagon Papers into the public record as a filibuster to block the renewal of the draft, Gravel called a late-night meeting of the obscure Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds, which he chaired, and began reading the papers aloud there. He broke down crying while reading the details of Vietnamese civilian deaths. Because he had begun the reading, he was legally able to enter all 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, once top-secret, into the public record.
Though ridiculed by the press for his emotional display, Gravel was undaunted. He wanted the Pentagon Papers published as a book so Americans could read what had been done in their name. Only Beacon Press accepted the challenge.
Robert West, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association at the time, approved the publication. With that decision, he said, “We started down a path that led through two and a half years of government intimidation, harassment and threat of criminal punishment.” As Beacon weathered subpoenas, FBI investigations of its bank accounts and other chilling probes, Gravel attempted to extend his senatorial immunity to the publisher. The bid failed in the U.S Supreme Court (the first time that the U.S. Senate appeared before the court), but not without a strongly worded dissent from Justice William O. Douglas: “In light of the command of the First Amendment we have no choice but to rule that here government, not the press, is lawless.”
Which brings us to today. Sitting next to West and Gravel, Ellsberg repeated the plea that he is making in speeches all over the United States: “The equivalent of the Pentagon Papers exist in safes all over Washington, not only in the Pentagon, but in the CIA, the State Department and elsewhere. My message is to them: Take the risk, reveal the truth under the lies of your own bosses and your superiors, obey your oath to the Constitution, which every one of those officials took, not to the commander in chief, but to the Constitution of the United States.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman. Distributed by King Features Syndicate
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
The Sin Of Greed
Perhaps someone should start counting the number of Americans who have suffered and died right here at home because of the spending on this stupid, immoral war and the stunning greed of the military, security, biopweapons contractors.
The Banality of Greed
Posted on Jun 26, 2007
Tie a yellow ribbon: Halliburton spinoff company KBR’s Houston office offers support for workers in Iraq in May 2007.
By Robert Scheer
As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.
This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton’s recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad’s super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations.
Those operations have already produced a litany of condemnation by congressional and administration oversight bodies, and the June 25 report hardly details the company’s most egregious activities. However, the Green Zone, the site of this latest instance of taxpayer fleecing, is instructive because, safely removed from the risks of battle, it deprives these war profiteers of their favorite excuse: that construction in a battle zone is inherently more costly.
While KBR’s Green Zone shenanigans covered by this report may seem small in comparison with the enormous waste attendant to the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq, they are illustrative of the feeding frenzy that has fueled the American effort.
The corrupt reconstruction project has left a wasteland of failed energy, water, educational and political reform plans. As report after report details, garbage is not collected, hospitals are not staffed, schools close soon after they are opened and factories sit idle in shocking refutation of the vaunted efficiency of the United States’ political economic model.
KBR’s role in this fiasco is easily exposed by a basic Google search, beginning with a stop at the website of Henry Waxman, the California congressman who heads up the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Waxman deserves a Medal of Freedom for trying to figure out what happened to those $22 billion that KBR received but are now lost to U.S. taxpayers, as well as to the once hopeful but now bitterly disillusioned Iraqi people. Indeed, six months ago, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., termed the high level of official corruption in Iraq the “second insurgency,” stating that the siphoning-off of U.S. dollars is a major source of funds for the anti-American fighters in the country. It was estimated that last year upward of $100 million in stolen oil funds went directly to the insurgents. In the context of that horrid record of waste and corruption amid the destruction of Iraqi society in which “democratic nation building” transmogrified into fascist mayhem, KBR’s antics in the Green Zone seem petty.
But the fact that KBR played loose with our tax dollars even in the safety of the Green Zone is evidence of the company’s contempt for the sacrifice of U.S. taxpayers. For example, concerning KBR’s mismanagement of the fuel distribution program, the inspector general wrote: “We found weaknesses in KBR’s fuel receiving, distributing and accountability processes of such magnitude that we were unable to determine an accurate measure of the fuel services provided.” Yet, it was paid for by American taxpayers.
Or, take the extra $4.5 million spent on the company’s food service and the cost of billeting 90 percent of KBR personnel in single quarters, as opposed to the doubling-up practiced by regular Army folks.
That was chicken feed compared with other examples of taxpayer rip-offs, as revealed in one case by the Army reducing payments to KBR by $19.5 million following Waxman’s first “fraud, waste, and abuse hearings.” It is hoped that there will be other efforts at forcing accountability for the billions of dollars that have been spent to advertise the efficiency of the United States’ free-enterprise model to a skeptical Mideast public.
It is claimed by American officials that KBR’s accountability issues are being addressed. In one instance cited, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad—a spiraling enterprise well on its way to becoming a nation-within-a-nation akin to the Vatican in Italy—announced that, as a means of avoiding food theft, its personnel would no longer be allowed to bring large bags into the eating halls. Such sacrifice for the mission of securing Iraqi freedom.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
The Banality of Greed
Posted on Jun 26, 2007
Tie a yellow ribbon: Halliburton spinoff company KBR’s Houston office offers support for workers in Iraq in May 2007.
By Robert Scheer
As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American—and many more Iraqi—lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.
This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton’s recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad’s super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations.
Those operations have already produced a litany of condemnation by congressional and administration oversight bodies, and the June 25 report hardly details the company’s most egregious activities. However, the Green Zone, the site of this latest instance of taxpayer fleecing, is instructive because, safely removed from the risks of battle, it deprives these war profiteers of their favorite excuse: that construction in a battle zone is inherently more costly.
While KBR’s Green Zone shenanigans covered by this report may seem small in comparison with the enormous waste attendant to the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq, they are illustrative of the feeding frenzy that has fueled the American effort.
The corrupt reconstruction project has left a wasteland of failed energy, water, educational and political reform plans. As report after report details, garbage is not collected, hospitals are not staffed, schools close soon after they are opened and factories sit idle in shocking refutation of the vaunted efficiency of the United States’ political economic model.
KBR’s role in this fiasco is easily exposed by a basic Google search, beginning with a stop at the website of Henry Waxman, the California congressman who heads up the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Waxman deserves a Medal of Freedom for trying to figure out what happened to those $22 billion that KBR received but are now lost to U.S. taxpayers, as well as to the once hopeful but now bitterly disillusioned Iraqi people. Indeed, six months ago, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., termed the high level of official corruption in Iraq the “second insurgency,” stating that the siphoning-off of U.S. dollars is a major source of funds for the anti-American fighters in the country. It was estimated that last year upward of $100 million in stolen oil funds went directly to the insurgents. In the context of that horrid record of waste and corruption amid the destruction of Iraqi society in which “democratic nation building” transmogrified into fascist mayhem, KBR’s antics in the Green Zone seem petty.
But the fact that KBR played loose with our tax dollars even in the safety of the Green Zone is evidence of the company’s contempt for the sacrifice of U.S. taxpayers. For example, concerning KBR’s mismanagement of the fuel distribution program, the inspector general wrote: “We found weaknesses in KBR’s fuel receiving, distributing and accountability processes of such magnitude that we were unable to determine an accurate measure of the fuel services provided.” Yet, it was paid for by American taxpayers.
Or, take the extra $4.5 million spent on the company’s food service and the cost of billeting 90 percent of KBR personnel in single quarters, as opposed to the doubling-up practiced by regular Army folks.
That was chicken feed compared with other examples of taxpayer rip-offs, as revealed in one case by the Army reducing payments to KBR by $19.5 million following Waxman’s first “fraud, waste, and abuse hearings.” It is hoped that there will be other efforts at forcing accountability for the billions of dollars that have been spent to advertise the efficiency of the United States’ free-enterprise model to a skeptical Mideast public.
It is claimed by American officials that KBR’s accountability issues are being addressed. In one instance cited, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad—a spiraling enterprise well on its way to becoming a nation-within-a-nation akin to the Vatican in Italy—announced that, as a means of avoiding food theft, its personnel would no longer be allowed to bring large bags into the eating halls. Such sacrifice for the mission of securing Iraqi freedom.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Dear Mr Matthews
We could not have put it better ourselves so we didn't.
Chris Matthews, Have You No Shame?
Submitted by nyceve on Wed, 06/27/2007 - 12:51.
Coulter, Ann
MSM
Mr. Matthews, I'm not usually at a loss for words. But I am today.
I hope someone will show you this. What I have to say is irrelevant. But the comments that people may make will let you know that you, my friend, are a national disgrace.
Forgive me for saying this, but you are revolting--far more revolting than Ann Coulter's grotesque anatomical references about presidential candidates which I will not repeat again, but clearly thrill you.
Nah, you're not revolting, you're irrelevant, like day old newspaper.
This has been building Mr.Matthews, last night, if we're lucky, will be remembered as the beginning of the end for Hardball.
And any MSNBC executives who happen to read this (very unlikely, I know) you should understand, that though Mr. Matthews may bring in a few bucks for the network, he does nothing--zero, to either educate the American people about the dire state of our nation, or to raise the level of political discourse. Nothing.
Mr. Matthews, sadly I watched Hardball last night. It was bad enough that you had Ann Coulter as a guest. She is more to be pitied than mocked or ridiculed. She is a deeply, deeply troubled individual. Watching her on your show was more like going to a carnival freak show.
Is giving freaks a platform your goal for an hour every night? Because this is what you do. What a sorry use of the public airwaves.
You are also to be pitied, Mr. Matthews. And it boggles the mind that MSNBC allows you to shame yourself night after night. One need only watch your show for a night or two to understand why the American people no longer look to you and your ilk for news. You have absolutely nothing of substance to add to the public debate, so you scream, spin and twist and provide a forum for your friends--one of whom is evidently Ann Coulter.
The same screaming and shouting day in and day out. The same people, I suppose the quid pro quo must be come on Hardball then be sure to send Chris Matthews an invite to some cocktail party. Mr. Matthews, you are useless.
Mr. Matthews, our poorly equipped servicemen and women are fighting a pornographic, illegal and immoral war. We have 47 million American without access to basic health care. And you, Mr. Matthews, dare to turn over precious media time to a person desperately in need of psychiatric care like Ann Coulter. Then you allow her to verbally abuse Elizabeth Edwards with nary a peep. Yes, yes, Chris I know you shed crocodile tears talking with triple amputees while touring Walter Reed and Fisher House. Three cheers for Chris Matthews.
Regardless who you're supporting, Elizabeth Edwards is a woman of rare grace, courage and dignity. She calls and simply asks Ms. Coulter to think before she speaks. Mrs. Edwards made only one mistake, she pleaded with this smarmy piece of human detritus to elevate the discourse in our badly damaged--perhaps mortally wounded county. Ms. Coulter's vile smirk and even worse your countenance of her abusive and mocking response, was a true low point.
Have you no shame, Mr. Matthews?
This is how Elizabeth described her experience on your show last night. It makes me wince even thinking about how she was treated. But Elizabeth has grace and I don't, so she will just take a deep breath and move on. I want you to know the truth.
On Monday, Ann announced that instead of using more homophobic slurs to attack John, she will just wish that John had been "killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
Where I am from, when someone does something that displeases you, you politely ask them to stop. So when I heard Ann was going to be on "Hardball" last night, I decided to call in and ask her to engage on the issues and stop the personal attacks. I told her these kinds of personal attacks lower our political dialogue at precisely the time when we need to raise it, and set a bad example for our children
How did she respond? Sadly, perhaps predictably, with more personal attacks.
Speaking of anatomical references which so interest you, who is your colorist, who puts all that color into your hair? Who is Howard Fineman's colorist, or Tommy Thompson's, for that matter?
Ugh, spare me, Mr. Matthews.
MSNBC, is this really the best you can do?
Here's a link to the MSNBC contact page, if you're so inclined, let them know what you think.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Crossposted at Daily Kos
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Chris Matthews, Have You No Shame?
Submitted by nyceve on Wed, 06/27/2007 - 12:51.
Coulter, Ann
MSM
Mr. Matthews, I'm not usually at a loss for words. But I am today.
I hope someone will show you this. What I have to say is irrelevant. But the comments that people may make will let you know that you, my friend, are a national disgrace.
Forgive me for saying this, but you are revolting--far more revolting than Ann Coulter's grotesque anatomical references about presidential candidates which I will not repeat again, but clearly thrill you.
Nah, you're not revolting, you're irrelevant, like day old newspaper.
This has been building Mr.Matthews, last night, if we're lucky, will be remembered as the beginning of the end for Hardball.
And any MSNBC executives who happen to read this (very unlikely, I know) you should understand, that though Mr. Matthews may bring in a few bucks for the network, he does nothing--zero, to either educate the American people about the dire state of our nation, or to raise the level of political discourse. Nothing.
Mr. Matthews, sadly I watched Hardball last night. It was bad enough that you had Ann Coulter as a guest. She is more to be pitied than mocked or ridiculed. She is a deeply, deeply troubled individual. Watching her on your show was more like going to a carnival freak show.
Is giving freaks a platform your goal for an hour every night? Because this is what you do. What a sorry use of the public airwaves.
You are also to be pitied, Mr. Matthews. And it boggles the mind that MSNBC allows you to shame yourself night after night. One need only watch your show for a night or two to understand why the American people no longer look to you and your ilk for news. You have absolutely nothing of substance to add to the public debate, so you scream, spin and twist and provide a forum for your friends--one of whom is evidently Ann Coulter.
The same screaming and shouting day in and day out. The same people, I suppose the quid pro quo must be come on Hardball then be sure to send Chris Matthews an invite to some cocktail party. Mr. Matthews, you are useless.
Mr. Matthews, our poorly equipped servicemen and women are fighting a pornographic, illegal and immoral war. We have 47 million American without access to basic health care. And you, Mr. Matthews, dare to turn over precious media time to a person desperately in need of psychiatric care like Ann Coulter. Then you allow her to verbally abuse Elizabeth Edwards with nary a peep. Yes, yes, Chris I know you shed crocodile tears talking with triple amputees while touring Walter Reed and Fisher House. Three cheers for Chris Matthews.
Regardless who you're supporting, Elizabeth Edwards is a woman of rare grace, courage and dignity. She calls and simply asks Ms. Coulter to think before she speaks. Mrs. Edwards made only one mistake, she pleaded with this smarmy piece of human detritus to elevate the discourse in our badly damaged--perhaps mortally wounded county. Ms. Coulter's vile smirk and even worse your countenance of her abusive and mocking response, was a true low point.
Have you no shame, Mr. Matthews?
This is how Elizabeth described her experience on your show last night. It makes me wince even thinking about how she was treated. But Elizabeth has grace and I don't, so she will just take a deep breath and move on. I want you to know the truth.
On Monday, Ann announced that instead of using more homophobic slurs to attack John, she will just wish that John had been "killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
Where I am from, when someone does something that displeases you, you politely ask them to stop. So when I heard Ann was going to be on "Hardball" last night, I decided to call in and ask her to engage on the issues and stop the personal attacks. I told her these kinds of personal attacks lower our political dialogue at precisely the time when we need to raise it, and set a bad example for our children
How did she respond? Sadly, perhaps predictably, with more personal attacks.
Speaking of anatomical references which so interest you, who is your colorist, who puts all that color into your hair? Who is Howard Fineman's colorist, or Tommy Thompson's, for that matter?
Ugh, spare me, Mr. Matthews.
MSNBC, is this really the best you can do?
Here's a link to the MSNBC contact page, if you're so inclined, let them know what you think.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Crossposted at Daily Kos
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Domestic Spying
The simple truth of the matter is that the Bush administration is not trusted, period.
Too much water under the bridge, so to speak.
What's worse, more and more, of us are wondering, at this point, whom we can trust. Congress? Oh, puleeze!
Trust in this country, for our government, is in stunningly short supply. Is there any wonder?
Wise-up intelligence
Congress has reason to be skeptical, but some White House changes to an eavesdropping law make sense.
May 9, 2007
WHEN THE BUSH White House proposes changing a law that protects Americans from unchecked electronic surveillance, civil libertarian knees begin to jerk. And understandably so.
This, after all, is the administration that for five years eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens suspected of ties to foreign terrorists without seeking the approval of the special court that was created to oversee such surveillance. The administration complained that the oversight was too restricting, only to discover this year that it could operate within the law after all.
And even as the administration asks Congress to expand its leeway under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the White House continues to insist on the president's inherent power to disregard even his preferred version of that law. No wonder J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, received a skeptical reception from Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee when he testified last week in favor of "modernizing" FISA. But some of what McConnell requested makes sense. The threat of domestic terrorist attack does require greater flexibility, as do changes in technology. FISA was enacted at a time when most international communications traveled by radio or satellite and thus were outside the law's regulation of wire transmissions; today, those same communications move along fiber-optic cables. Likewise, a court order should not be required just because a phone call or e-mail from one foreign location to another happens to pass through the United States.
The problem is that these sensible adjustments are weighed down by two kinds of baggage: the administration's past casualness about privacy, and language in the "modernization" bill that seems to give past and future eavesdropping on Americans too much benefit of the doubt.
For example, the bill defines "electronic surveillance" governed by FISA as the surveillance of "a particular known person" in the U.S., which seems to exempt the monitoring and recording of communications between a foreigner and multiple Americans. And it would unjustifiably immunize from lawsuits companies that provided the National Security Agency with private records between 2001 and the enactment of this legislation.
As it must do in other areas, the administration will have to negotiate with a suspicious, Democratic-controlled Congress to effect changes in FISA. Part of that bargain should be frankness about why it flouted the law for five years.
Going forward, the administration should consider legislation — such as that introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) — that would give the government greater maneuverability under FISA while reaffirming the law as the "exclusive means" for gathering foreign intelligence when that process could compromise the privacy of Americans.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Too much water under the bridge, so to speak.
What's worse, more and more, of us are wondering, at this point, whom we can trust. Congress? Oh, puleeze!
Trust in this country, for our government, is in stunningly short supply. Is there any wonder?
Wise-up intelligence
Congress has reason to be skeptical, but some White House changes to an eavesdropping law make sense.
May 9, 2007
WHEN THE BUSH White House proposes changing a law that protects Americans from unchecked electronic surveillance, civil libertarian knees begin to jerk. And understandably so.
This, after all, is the administration that for five years eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens suspected of ties to foreign terrorists without seeking the approval of the special court that was created to oversee such surveillance. The administration complained that the oversight was too restricting, only to discover this year that it could operate within the law after all.
And even as the administration asks Congress to expand its leeway under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the White House continues to insist on the president's inherent power to disregard even his preferred version of that law. No wonder J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, received a skeptical reception from Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee when he testified last week in favor of "modernizing" FISA. But some of what McConnell requested makes sense. The threat of domestic terrorist attack does require greater flexibility, as do changes in technology. FISA was enacted at a time when most international communications traveled by radio or satellite and thus were outside the law's regulation of wire transmissions; today, those same communications move along fiber-optic cables. Likewise, a court order should not be required just because a phone call or e-mail from one foreign location to another happens to pass through the United States.
The problem is that these sensible adjustments are weighed down by two kinds of baggage: the administration's past casualness about privacy, and language in the "modernization" bill that seems to give past and future eavesdropping on Americans too much benefit of the doubt.
For example, the bill defines "electronic surveillance" governed by FISA as the surveillance of "a particular known person" in the U.S., which seems to exempt the monitoring and recording of communications between a foreigner and multiple Americans. And it would unjustifiably immunize from lawsuits companies that provided the National Security Agency with private records between 2001 and the enactment of this legislation.
As it must do in other areas, the administration will have to negotiate with a suspicious, Democratic-controlled Congress to effect changes in FISA. Part of that bargain should be frankness about why it flouted the law for five years.
Going forward, the administration should consider legislation — such as that introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) — that would give the government greater maneuverability under FISA while reaffirming the law as the "exclusive means" for gathering foreign intelligence when that process could compromise the privacy of Americans.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Subpoena's Are Flying, Again, in D.C.
But will it do any good?
We are beginning to wonder.........
White House, Cheney's office, subpoenaed
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 27, 1:12 PM ET
The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.
Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.
The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.
Leahy's committee authorized the subpoenas previously as part of its sweeping investigation into how much influence the White House exerts over the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The probe, in its sixth month, began with an investigation into whether administration officials ordered the firings of eight federal prosecutors, for political reasons.
But with senators of both parties already concerned about the constitutionality of the administration's efforts to root out terrorism suspects in the United States, the committee shifted to the broader question of Gonzales' stewardship of Justice and, in particular, his willingness to permit the wiretapping program.
Piquing the committee's interest was vivid testimony last month by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey about the extent of the White House's effort to override the Justice Department's objections to the program in 2004.
Comey told the Judiciary Committee that Gonzales, then-White House counsel, tried to get
Attorney General John Ashcroft to reverse course and recertify the program. At the time, Ashcroft lay in intensive care, recovering form gall bladder surgery.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
We are beginning to wonder.........
White House, Cheney's office, subpoenaed
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 27, 1:12 PM ET
The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.
Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.
The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.
Leahy's committee authorized the subpoenas previously as part of its sweeping investigation into how much influence the White House exerts over the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The probe, in its sixth month, began with an investigation into whether administration officials ordered the firings of eight federal prosecutors, for political reasons.
But with senators of both parties already concerned about the constitutionality of the administration's efforts to root out terrorism suspects in the United States, the committee shifted to the broader question of Gonzales' stewardship of Justice and, in particular, his willingness to permit the wiretapping program.
Piquing the committee's interest was vivid testimony last month by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey about the extent of the White House's effort to override the Justice Department's objections to the program in 2004.
Comey told the Judiciary Committee that Gonzales, then-White House counsel, tried to get
Attorney General John Ashcroft to reverse course and recertify the program. At the time, Ashcroft lay in intensive care, recovering form gall bladder surgery.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Whitman Quit Over Cheney.
Revealed: Bush EPA chief says she quit after Cheney rewrote coal power plant rules
John Byrne
Published: Wednesday June 27, 2007
Christine Todd Whitman is the media darling of talk shows, the conservative former governor of New Jersey and head of President George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency who quit the Bush Administration to "spend more time with her family."
Evidently, that's not true.
In a groundbreaking article today by the Washington Post, the paper alleges that Whitman left the Administration because they pressured her to accept pro-industry coal power plant rules which threatened ghoulish levels of air pollution.
After industry officials complained to Vice President Cheney about Clinton-era rules requiring plants to update their technology when they conducted routine maintenance to comply with air quality standards, Cheney turned to Whitman, she said.
Whitman told the Post she'd "been stunned by what she viewed as an unquestioned belief that EPA's regulations were primarily to blame for keeping companies from building new power plants."
"I was upset, mad, offended that there seemed to be so much head-nodding around the table," she said. She said she had to fight "tooth and nail" to keep Cheney from turning over the rewriting of the rules to the Energy Department.
Whitman says she wanted a return to Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative, but that went nowhere.
Whitman brought two folders to show President Bush. The first was 2 1/2 inches thick, detailing the dangers of raising legal levels of arsenic in drinking water -- another Administration proposal. She pointed to a folder she'd brought "four or five times as thick."
"If you think arsenic was bad," she recalled telling Bush, "look at what has already been written about this."
Nothing changed. After the EPA rewrote the coal power plant standards, the White House essentially rewrote the rules to favor industry. Whitman said she'd had enough.
"I just couldn't sign it," she told the Post. "The president has a right to have an administrator who could defend it, and I just couldn't."
Soon thereafter, a federal appeals court found that the rule change violated the Clean Air Act -- according to the paper, the judges said the administration had redefined the law in a way that could be valid "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
John Byrne
Published: Wednesday June 27, 2007
Christine Todd Whitman is the media darling of talk shows, the conservative former governor of New Jersey and head of President George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency who quit the Bush Administration to "spend more time with her family."
Evidently, that's not true.
In a groundbreaking article today by the Washington Post, the paper alleges that Whitman left the Administration because they pressured her to accept pro-industry coal power plant rules which threatened ghoulish levels of air pollution.
After industry officials complained to Vice President Cheney about Clinton-era rules requiring plants to update their technology when they conducted routine maintenance to comply with air quality standards, Cheney turned to Whitman, she said.
Whitman told the Post she'd "been stunned by what she viewed as an unquestioned belief that EPA's regulations were primarily to blame for keeping companies from building new power plants."
"I was upset, mad, offended that there seemed to be so much head-nodding around the table," she said. She said she had to fight "tooth and nail" to keep Cheney from turning over the rewriting of the rules to the Energy Department.
Whitman says she wanted a return to Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative, but that went nowhere.
Whitman brought two folders to show President Bush. The first was 2 1/2 inches thick, detailing the dangers of raising legal levels of arsenic in drinking water -- another Administration proposal. She pointed to a folder she'd brought "four or five times as thick."
"If you think arsenic was bad," she recalled telling Bush, "look at what has already been written about this."
Nothing changed. After the EPA rewrote the coal power plant standards, the White House essentially rewrote the rules to favor industry. Whitman said she'd had enough.
"I just couldn't sign it," she told the Post. "The president has a right to have an administrator who could defend it, and I just couldn't."
Soon thereafter, a federal appeals court found that the rule change violated the Clean Air Act -- according to the paper, the judges said the administration had redefined the law in a way that could be valid "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Dick Cheney Ordered Stand-down on 9/11?
Norman Mineta Confirms That Dick Cheney Ordered Stand Down on 9/11.
Former Transportation Secretary Disputes 9/11 Commission Report Timetable for Dick Cheney and Reveals Lynn Cheney Was Also in PEOC Bunker Before Attack.
Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta answered questions from members of 9/11 Truth Seattle.org about his testimony before the 9/11 Commission report.
Mineta says Vice President Cheney was "absolutely" already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.
Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.
Mineta is on video testifying before the 9/11 Commission, though it was omitted in their final report. He told Lee Hamilton:
During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?
Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying "When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down."
Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters-- who verified his quotes in written text alongside him-- that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.
After no shoot down took place, it became clear that Cheney intended to keep NORAD fighter jets from responding-- evidence that Cheney is guilty of treason, not negligence for allowing the Pentagon to be hit.
The idea that "the order still stands" matches up with a change in NORAD and Pentagon orders-- issued on June 1, 2001, only months before 9/11. The document revoked the default standing orders to shoot down errant or hijacked aircraft and instructed them instead to stand down until they were given orders by the President, Vice President or Secretary of Defense.
SEE ALSO: Did Dick Cheney Lie About His 9/11 Whereabouts?
Mineta was still in the PEOG bunker when the plane was reported down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
"I remember later on when I heard about the Shanksville plane going down, the Vice President was right across from me, and I said, 'Do you think that we shot it down ourselves?' He said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'Let's find out.' So he had someone check with the Pentagon. That was about maybe, let's say 10:30 or so, and we never heard back from the DoD until probably about 12:30. And they said, 'No, we didn't do it.'"
Of course, Donald Rumsfeld has stated before that the plane over Shanksville was "shot down," though whether it was a mistatement or a freudian slip of the truth is arguable. It certainly would seem that the story presented in United 93-- a dramatized account of the official government story-- is much, much less plausible than the plane simply being shot down.
Norman Mineta's Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission-- which was NOT included in the final report and which DISPUTES the Commission's timetable for Vice President Dick Cheney on 9/11
Also, the two hour time delay is suspicious given the Vice President's own account of the dedicated video communications available that morning, as he told it to Tim Russert of Meet the Press on September 16, 2001.
"We had access, secured communications with Air Force One, with the secretary of Defense over in the Pentagon. We had also the secure videoconference that ties together the White House, CIA, State, Justice, Defense--a very useful and valuable facility. We have the counterterrorism task force up on that net. And so I was in a position to be able to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports and then make decisions in terms of acting with it."
At a bare minimum, this confirmation by Norman Mineta is in gross contradiction to the 9/11 Commission Report and poses serious questions about the Vice President's role in ordering NORAD to stand down on 9/11.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Former Transportation Secretary Disputes 9/11 Commission Report Timetable for Dick Cheney and Reveals Lynn Cheney Was Also in PEOC Bunker Before Attack.
Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta answered questions from members of 9/11 Truth Seattle.org about his testimony before the 9/11 Commission report.
Mineta says Vice President Cheney was "absolutely" already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.
Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.
Mineta is on video testifying before the 9/11 Commission, though it was omitted in their final report. He told Lee Hamilton:
During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?
Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying "When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down."
Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters-- who verified his quotes in written text alongside him-- that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.
After no shoot down took place, it became clear that Cheney intended to keep NORAD fighter jets from responding-- evidence that Cheney is guilty of treason, not negligence for allowing the Pentagon to be hit.
The idea that "the order still stands" matches up with a change in NORAD and Pentagon orders-- issued on June 1, 2001, only months before 9/11. The document revoked the default standing orders to shoot down errant or hijacked aircraft and instructed them instead to stand down until they were given orders by the President, Vice President or Secretary of Defense.
SEE ALSO: Did Dick Cheney Lie About His 9/11 Whereabouts?
Mineta was still in the PEOG bunker when the plane was reported down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
"I remember later on when I heard about the Shanksville plane going down, the Vice President was right across from me, and I said, 'Do you think that we shot it down ourselves?' He said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'Let's find out.' So he had someone check with the Pentagon. That was about maybe, let's say 10:30 or so, and we never heard back from the DoD until probably about 12:30. And they said, 'No, we didn't do it.'"
Of course, Donald Rumsfeld has stated before that the plane over Shanksville was "shot down," though whether it was a mistatement or a freudian slip of the truth is arguable. It certainly would seem that the story presented in United 93-- a dramatized account of the official government story-- is much, much less plausible than the plane simply being shot down.
Norman Mineta's Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission-- which was NOT included in the final report and which DISPUTES the Commission's timetable for Vice President Dick Cheney on 9/11
Also, the two hour time delay is suspicious given the Vice President's own account of the dedicated video communications available that morning, as he told it to Tim Russert of Meet the Press on September 16, 2001.
"We had access, secured communications with Air Force One, with the secretary of Defense over in the Pentagon. We had also the secure videoconference that ties together the White House, CIA, State, Justice, Defense--a very useful and valuable facility. We have the counterterrorism task force up on that net. And so I was in a position to be able to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports and then make decisions in terms of acting with it."
At a bare minimum, this confirmation by Norman Mineta is in gross contradiction to the 9/11 Commission Report and poses serious questions about the Vice President's role in ordering NORAD to stand down on 9/11.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Kissinger and the 1970's coups
New documents link Kissinger to two 1970s coups
Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday June 26, 2007
Release of CIA’s ‘Family Jewels’ provides insight into political juggernaut and Bush Administration adviser
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pushed for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara for an attack on that island in reaction to a coup sponsored by the Greek junta, according to documents and intelligence officers with close knowledge of the event.
Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.
However, the National Security Archive had previously obtained four related documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them public Friday.
“In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid,” Kissinger declares in one of those documents, a White House memorandum of a conversation from Feb. 20, 1975. On the surface, the comment seems innocuous, but the context as well as the time period suggests Kissinger had abetted illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey for its 1974 Cyprus invasion.
In July and August of 1974, Turkey staged a military invasion of the island nation of Cyprus, taking over nearly a third of the island and creating a divide between the south and north. Most historians consider that Kissinger – then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford – not only knew about the planned attack on Cyprus, but encouraged it.
Some Greek Cypriots believed then, and still believe, that the invasion was a deliberate plot on the part of Britain and the US to maintain their influence on the island, which was particularly important as a listening post in the Eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the October 1973 War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
According to columnist Christopher Hitchens, author of the book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, "At the time, many Greeks believed that the significant thing was that [Prime Minister Bulent] Ecevit had been a pupil of Kissinger's at Harvard."
Several intelligence sources, who wished to remain anonymous to maintain the security of their identity, confirmed to RAW STORY that Kissinger both pushed for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara.
However, a former CIA officer who was working in Turkey at the time, suggests that Kissinger's statement in the memorandum about Turkish aid likely means the Ford administration, following Kissinger’s advice, conducted business under the table with right-wing ultra-nationalist General Kenan Evren, who later dissolved Parliament and became the dictator of Turkey in a 1980 coup.
“The implication is that the US government was dealing directly with General Evren and circumventing the [democratically elected] Turkish government,” the former CIA officer said.
“This was authorized by Kissinger, because they were nervous about Ecevit, who was a Social Democrat.”
“We technically cut off military aid for them,” the officer added, referring to an arms embargo passed by Congress after the invasion. “Technically… technically, but this would imply that the military and/or probably CIA aid continued even after the aid was cut off by Congress. This may substantively be what led to the overthrow eventually of Ecevit.”
According to the former CIA officer, Turkey’s democratically elected President Ecevit had good relations with the Johnson administration, but the Nixon administration, where Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, had issues with Ecevit.
“I don't remember now what all the issues were,” the source said. “But I remember that the White House did not like Ecevit.”
Kissinger could not be reached for comment Monday.
Kissinger, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, then and now
Though no longer a government official, Kissinger remains a powerful force in Washington – particularly within the Bush Administration. Dr. Kissinger was the first choice by President Bush to lead a blue ribbon investigation into the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, he resigned shortly after the 9/11 Family Steering Committee had a private meeting with him at his Kissinger and Associates Inc. New York office and asked him point blank if he had any clients by the name of Bin Laden.
According to Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband Richard in the attacks and who was present as part of the 12-member 9/11 Family Steering Committee during the private meeting, the White House seems to have overlooked Dr. Kissinger's apparent conflict of interest.
"We had the meeting with him... the whole Steering Committee, all 12 of us. Because we are basically doing our due diligence and asking for his client list to be released to see if there was a conflict of interest between his client list and potential areas of investigation," said Gabrielle during a Tuesday morning phone conversation, recounting the events of December 12, 2002.
"We went back and forth with him, discussing his client list... asking him who was on it, if there were conflicts and so forth," she continued.
"Lorie [Van Auken] asked, do you have any Saudi clients on your list? And he got a blank look. Then Lorie asked, do you have any clients by the name of Bin Laden? And he was stuttering and mumbling, and finally said he would maybe, possibly consider releasing the client list to an attorney but not for the public."
Dr. Kissinger did not reveal his client list but withdrew his name the next day without public explanation.
In Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, Kissinger says he met regularly with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice about the war in Iraq. “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy,” Kissinger said.
Cheney, along with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, first came to prominence during the administration of President Ford. Rumsfeld had served in various posts under Nixon before being sent to Europe as the US ambassador to NATO in 1973, a period that included the Cyprus coup. When Ford became president on August 9, 1974, immediately preceding the second wave of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Rumsfeld returned to Washington to serve as his chief of staff, while Cheney became deputy assistant to the president.
Rumsfeld and Cheney gained increasing influence under Ford, reaching their apex of power in November 1975 with a shakeup that saw Rumsfeld installed as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney as White House chief of staff, and George H.W. Bush replacing William Colby as CIA director.
Together, Rumsfeld and Cheney created a bubble not unlike the one that has enveloped President George W. Bush’s White House, surrounding Ford with a close knit group of advisors who worked to head off any possibility of openness about past misdeeds and to turn the administration sharply to the right.
The aid to Turkey referenced in Kissinger’s cryptic remark was precisely the subject of Congressional oversight on the Executive Branch in 1974-75. In a foreshadowing of how Iran Contra would play out a decade later, the White House violated both US and international law in providing arms and financing to the Turks for the Cyprus invasion.
The CIA, through various spokespeople, would not comment on how much additional information with regard to Kissinger, the attack on Cyprus, and the events leading up to the 1980 coup in Turkey with US support would be part of the declassified documents to come out this week. The only thing the agency would say is that “this was a different CIA at a different time,” and “people need to remember that.”
The Chile Coup
Around the time of President Nixon's resignation in August 1974, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh started hearing accounts of illegal foreign and domestic CIA activities. On December 20, 1974, Hersh confronted CIA Director William Colby and received confirmation of everything he had learned. Two days later, Hersh went public with the story.
The Family Jewels were described in a New York Times front page article titled “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years.” According to Hersh, James Schlesinger, who served briefly as CIA director in 1973, had ordered the report in response to the crimes collectively known as Watergate.
Hersh's article stated, “An extensive investigation by the New York Times has established that intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were maintained by a special unit of the C.I.A. that was reporting directly to Richard Helms, then the Director of Central Intelligence and now the Ambassador to Iran.”
Then-CIA director William Colby's initial impulse was to reveal everything in order to give the CIA a clean slate, but President Ford and Kissinger disagreed. By January 3, 1975 when Colby was summoned to the White House for a briefing, they had decided to keep the lid on by forming a blue ribbon commission under Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
The "memorandum of conversation" document released by the National Security Archive, dated January 4, 1975, transcribes portions of a follow-up meeting between Ford and Kissinger the next day.
Kissinger complains to President Ford about Colby's urge to come clean, saying, "You will end up with a CIA that does only reporting, and not operations ... He has turned over to the FBI the whole of his operation."
Former CIA Director Helms "said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg,” Kissinger continues, adding “If they come out, blood will flow." After offering a few examples, Kissinger concludes by remarking mysteriously, "The Chilean thing -- that is not in any report. That is sort of blackmail on me."
The meaning of this remark is far from clear, suggesting as it does that the 693 pages of the Family Jewels were only "the tip of the iceberg" and that among what was left out was a "Chilean thing" that Kissinger perceived as having the potential for blackmail on himself.
It has been known since the revelations of the 70's that prior to Chile's 1970 presidential elections, President Richard Nixon, Kissinger and Helms actively pursued ways to head off the victory of leftist Salvador Allende, including sponsoring an abortive military coup.
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people,” Kissinger famously said at the time.
After Allende was democratically elected and became president, the US put economic pressure on Chile and encouraged further military plots -- a two-pronged strategy similar to that currently being employed against Iran -- while Kissinger a continued to press for stronger action.
The CIA's Directorate of Operations was particularly active in Chile in 1972-73, the period leading up to Allende's violent overthrow in September 1973 in a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Following the coup, Kissinger strongly supported the new authoritarian government.
After Helms left the CIA in 1973 to become ambassador to Iran, he offered a series of vague denials when asked about CIA involvement in Chile. Among Helms' claims were "that the CIA hadn't given money directly to Allende's opponents, that the CIA didn't try to fix the vote in the Chilean Congress because investigation had shown it couldn't be arranged, that the CIA didn't try to overthrow the Chilean government because the Agency failed to find anyone who could really do it."
In 1977, Helms was convicted of perjury for his statements and given a two-year suspended sentence and a fine that was paid by his friends from the CIA. As with the more recent perjury of Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby's concerning the outing of a CIA officer, Helms' had lies served the purpose of protecting his superiors, notably Kissinger.
However, in Prelude to Terror, historian Joseph Trento offers a somewhat different account of Helms' actions, suggesting a deeper Kissinger involvement.
"From Iran, Helms heard enough about the criminal investigation to issue a threat through his old colleague Tom Braden,” Trento writes. “Braden remembered Helms saying, 'If I am going to be charged, then I will reveal Kissinger's role in these operations.'" Trento adds in a footnote that "Helms himself confided to old friend and CIA colleague (from Iran) Tom Braden that he would resort to [revealing embarrassing state secrets] and 'bring down Henry Kissinger' in the process."
Even apart from Trento's assertions, Kissinger's concern with "the Chilean thing -- that is not in any report" hints at involvement in the 1973 coup. But if Trento's claims are accurate, Kissinger might also have been referring to a threat by Helms to bring him down, both in his remark that "Helms said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. If they come out, blood will flow," and in his cryptic description of "the Chilean thing" as "sort of blackmail on me."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday June 26, 2007
Release of CIA’s ‘Family Jewels’ provides insight into political juggernaut and Bush Administration adviser
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pushed for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara for an attack on that island in reaction to a coup sponsored by the Greek junta, according to documents and intelligence officers with close knowledge of the event.
Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.
However, the National Security Archive had previously obtained four related documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them public Friday.
“In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid,” Kissinger declares in one of those documents, a White House memorandum of a conversation from Feb. 20, 1975. On the surface, the comment seems innocuous, but the context as well as the time period suggests Kissinger had abetted illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey for its 1974 Cyprus invasion.
In July and August of 1974, Turkey staged a military invasion of the island nation of Cyprus, taking over nearly a third of the island and creating a divide between the south and north. Most historians consider that Kissinger – then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford – not only knew about the planned attack on Cyprus, but encouraged it.
Some Greek Cypriots believed then, and still believe, that the invasion was a deliberate plot on the part of Britain and the US to maintain their influence on the island, which was particularly important as a listening post in the Eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the October 1973 War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
According to columnist Christopher Hitchens, author of the book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, "At the time, many Greeks believed that the significant thing was that [Prime Minister Bulent] Ecevit had been a pupil of Kissinger's at Harvard."
Several intelligence sources, who wished to remain anonymous to maintain the security of their identity, confirmed to RAW STORY that Kissinger both pushed for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara.
However, a former CIA officer who was working in Turkey at the time, suggests that Kissinger's statement in the memorandum about Turkish aid likely means the Ford administration, following Kissinger’s advice, conducted business under the table with right-wing ultra-nationalist General Kenan Evren, who later dissolved Parliament and became the dictator of Turkey in a 1980 coup.
“The implication is that the US government was dealing directly with General Evren and circumventing the [democratically elected] Turkish government,” the former CIA officer said.
“This was authorized by Kissinger, because they were nervous about Ecevit, who was a Social Democrat.”
“We technically cut off military aid for them,” the officer added, referring to an arms embargo passed by Congress after the invasion. “Technically… technically, but this would imply that the military and/or probably CIA aid continued even after the aid was cut off by Congress. This may substantively be what led to the overthrow eventually of Ecevit.”
According to the former CIA officer, Turkey’s democratically elected President Ecevit had good relations with the Johnson administration, but the Nixon administration, where Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, had issues with Ecevit.
“I don't remember now what all the issues were,” the source said. “But I remember that the White House did not like Ecevit.”
Kissinger could not be reached for comment Monday.
Kissinger, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, then and now
Though no longer a government official, Kissinger remains a powerful force in Washington – particularly within the Bush Administration. Dr. Kissinger was the first choice by President Bush to lead a blue ribbon investigation into the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, he resigned shortly after the 9/11 Family Steering Committee had a private meeting with him at his Kissinger and Associates Inc. New York office and asked him point blank if he had any clients by the name of Bin Laden.
According to Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband Richard in the attacks and who was present as part of the 12-member 9/11 Family Steering Committee during the private meeting, the White House seems to have overlooked Dr. Kissinger's apparent conflict of interest.
"We had the meeting with him... the whole Steering Committee, all 12 of us. Because we are basically doing our due diligence and asking for his client list to be released to see if there was a conflict of interest between his client list and potential areas of investigation," said Gabrielle during a Tuesday morning phone conversation, recounting the events of December 12, 2002.
"We went back and forth with him, discussing his client list... asking him who was on it, if there were conflicts and so forth," she continued.
"Lorie [Van Auken] asked, do you have any Saudi clients on your list? And he got a blank look. Then Lorie asked, do you have any clients by the name of Bin Laden? And he was stuttering and mumbling, and finally said he would maybe, possibly consider releasing the client list to an attorney but not for the public."
Dr. Kissinger did not reveal his client list but withdrew his name the next day without public explanation.
In Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, Kissinger says he met regularly with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice about the war in Iraq. “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy,” Kissinger said.
Cheney, along with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, first came to prominence during the administration of President Ford. Rumsfeld had served in various posts under Nixon before being sent to Europe as the US ambassador to NATO in 1973, a period that included the Cyprus coup. When Ford became president on August 9, 1974, immediately preceding the second wave of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Rumsfeld returned to Washington to serve as his chief of staff, while Cheney became deputy assistant to the president.
Rumsfeld and Cheney gained increasing influence under Ford, reaching their apex of power in November 1975 with a shakeup that saw Rumsfeld installed as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney as White House chief of staff, and George H.W. Bush replacing William Colby as CIA director.
Together, Rumsfeld and Cheney created a bubble not unlike the one that has enveloped President George W. Bush’s White House, surrounding Ford with a close knit group of advisors who worked to head off any possibility of openness about past misdeeds and to turn the administration sharply to the right.
The aid to Turkey referenced in Kissinger’s cryptic remark was precisely the subject of Congressional oversight on the Executive Branch in 1974-75. In a foreshadowing of how Iran Contra would play out a decade later, the White House violated both US and international law in providing arms and financing to the Turks for the Cyprus invasion.
The CIA, through various spokespeople, would not comment on how much additional information with regard to Kissinger, the attack on Cyprus, and the events leading up to the 1980 coup in Turkey with US support would be part of the declassified documents to come out this week. The only thing the agency would say is that “this was a different CIA at a different time,” and “people need to remember that.”
The Chile Coup
Around the time of President Nixon's resignation in August 1974, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh started hearing accounts of illegal foreign and domestic CIA activities. On December 20, 1974, Hersh confronted CIA Director William Colby and received confirmation of everything he had learned. Two days later, Hersh went public with the story.
The Family Jewels were described in a New York Times front page article titled “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years.” According to Hersh, James Schlesinger, who served briefly as CIA director in 1973, had ordered the report in response to the crimes collectively known as Watergate.
Hersh's article stated, “An extensive investigation by the New York Times has established that intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were maintained by a special unit of the C.I.A. that was reporting directly to Richard Helms, then the Director of Central Intelligence and now the Ambassador to Iran.”
Then-CIA director William Colby's initial impulse was to reveal everything in order to give the CIA a clean slate, but President Ford and Kissinger disagreed. By January 3, 1975 when Colby was summoned to the White House for a briefing, they had decided to keep the lid on by forming a blue ribbon commission under Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
The "memorandum of conversation" document released by the National Security Archive, dated January 4, 1975, transcribes portions of a follow-up meeting between Ford and Kissinger the next day.
Kissinger complains to President Ford about Colby's urge to come clean, saying, "You will end up with a CIA that does only reporting, and not operations ... He has turned over to the FBI the whole of his operation."
Former CIA Director Helms "said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg,” Kissinger continues, adding “If they come out, blood will flow." After offering a few examples, Kissinger concludes by remarking mysteriously, "The Chilean thing -- that is not in any report. That is sort of blackmail on me."
The meaning of this remark is far from clear, suggesting as it does that the 693 pages of the Family Jewels were only "the tip of the iceberg" and that among what was left out was a "Chilean thing" that Kissinger perceived as having the potential for blackmail on himself.
It has been known since the revelations of the 70's that prior to Chile's 1970 presidential elections, President Richard Nixon, Kissinger and Helms actively pursued ways to head off the victory of leftist Salvador Allende, including sponsoring an abortive military coup.
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people,” Kissinger famously said at the time.
After Allende was democratically elected and became president, the US put economic pressure on Chile and encouraged further military plots -- a two-pronged strategy similar to that currently being employed against Iran -- while Kissinger a continued to press for stronger action.
The CIA's Directorate of Operations was particularly active in Chile in 1972-73, the period leading up to Allende's violent overthrow in September 1973 in a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Following the coup, Kissinger strongly supported the new authoritarian government.
After Helms left the CIA in 1973 to become ambassador to Iran, he offered a series of vague denials when asked about CIA involvement in Chile. Among Helms' claims were "that the CIA hadn't given money directly to Allende's opponents, that the CIA didn't try to fix the vote in the Chilean Congress because investigation had shown it couldn't be arranged, that the CIA didn't try to overthrow the Chilean government because the Agency failed to find anyone who could really do it."
In 1977, Helms was convicted of perjury for his statements and given a two-year suspended sentence and a fine that was paid by his friends from the CIA. As with the more recent perjury of Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby's concerning the outing of a CIA officer, Helms' had lies served the purpose of protecting his superiors, notably Kissinger.
However, in Prelude to Terror, historian Joseph Trento offers a somewhat different account of Helms' actions, suggesting a deeper Kissinger involvement.
"From Iran, Helms heard enough about the criminal investigation to issue a threat through his old colleague Tom Braden,” Trento writes. “Braden remembered Helms saying, 'If I am going to be charged, then I will reveal Kissinger's role in these operations.'" Trento adds in a footnote that "Helms himself confided to old friend and CIA colleague (from Iran) Tom Braden that he would resort to [revealing embarrassing state secrets] and 'bring down Henry Kissinger' in the process."
Even apart from Trento's assertions, Kissinger's concern with "the Chilean thing -- that is not in any report" hints at involvement in the 1973 coup. But if Trento's claims are accurate, Kissinger might also have been referring to a threat by Helms to bring him down, both in his remark that "Helms said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. If they come out, blood will flow," and in his cryptic description of "the Chilean thing" as "sort of blackmail on me."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Bush /Cheney OR the Republic
Editor's Note: As more of the truth comes out about the past six years, the choice for Americans is boiling down to whether they still want to live in a Republic with inalienable rights or if they are so scared about terrorism that they would prefer a modern-style autocracy in which an all-powerful Executive decides who will have rights and who won't.
In this guest essay, radio host Stephen Crockett suggests the only way to save the Republic is for Americans across the board to reject the idea that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are above the law:
The recent claim by Dick Cheney to have both executive privilege and not to be part of the executive branch of government seems to amount to a claim that Cheney is simply above the rule of law.
It appears that both Bush and Cheney think they rule by divine right like the absolute monarchs of medieval Europe or the dictators of the old Soviet Bloc. Both need to be impeached.
Until they are removed from office, the media, Congress and the courts should be aggressively investigating, exposing and opposing their abuses of power.
Bush has ignored the rule of law repeatedly. He has wiretapped American citizens without court orders in clear violation of the law by claiming nonexistent Presidential authority. Both Bush and Cheney lied to the American public and Congress to take America into an illegal war in Iraq.
Republican politicians helped Bush and Cheney pack our federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice with partisan political hacks who do everything possible to make illegal actions benefiting Republicans appear legal. Elections have been essentially rigged by denying millions of Americans of their right to vote or to have their votes accurately counted.
Corporation channeling money to Republican organizations or candidates have been able to win billions of dollars worth of no-bid government contracts under highly questionable or obviously illegal conditions. Corporate givers were able to ignore government regulations and federal laws concerning oil and mineral leases, environmental considerations, worker safety, consumer rights, fair competition, price-gouging and anti-monopoly concerns.
Congress should immediately repeal the falsely-named Patriot Act because neither Bush or Cheney can be trusted with the powers that law hands to the White House and the Executive Branch. All funding for the White House should be strictly limited and closely monitored by Congress.
White House funding should be conditioned on Cheney revealing all details of his Energy Task Force and all details of Karl Rove’s role concerning the various election scandals seemingly connected to the White House.
All details concerning the outing of CIA agent Valerie Palme and the lies promoted by the White House leading up to the invasion of Iraq should be revealed to Congress. White House involvement in torture and secret prisons should be publicly exposed.
Our national security has been undermined. Our civil liberties threatened. Our traditional political freedoms badly trampled by an out of control Executive Branch actively abetted by Republicans in Congress and Republican federal judges.
Corruption and incompetence dominates the leadership of the Republican Party at the state and national level almost everywhere in America. Investigations are underway in state after state from California to Texas to Ohio of Republican political abuses. Many more are called for in places like Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Partisan political considerations should never trump the rule of law. It is up to Republicans to clean-up the corruption and contempt of American political traditions by their leadership. Republican leaders need to choose between their Party leadership and the future of the American nation!
Stephen Crockett, co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com, can be reached by e-mail at midsouthcm@aol.com or by regular mail at P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
In this guest essay, radio host Stephen Crockett suggests the only way to save the Republic is for Americans across the board to reject the idea that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are above the law:
The recent claim by Dick Cheney to have both executive privilege and not to be part of the executive branch of government seems to amount to a claim that Cheney is simply above the rule of law.
It appears that both Bush and Cheney think they rule by divine right like the absolute monarchs of medieval Europe or the dictators of the old Soviet Bloc. Both need to be impeached.
Until they are removed from office, the media, Congress and the courts should be aggressively investigating, exposing and opposing their abuses of power.
Bush has ignored the rule of law repeatedly. He has wiretapped American citizens without court orders in clear violation of the law by claiming nonexistent Presidential authority. Both Bush and Cheney lied to the American public and Congress to take America into an illegal war in Iraq.
Republican politicians helped Bush and Cheney pack our federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice with partisan political hacks who do everything possible to make illegal actions benefiting Republicans appear legal. Elections have been essentially rigged by denying millions of Americans of their right to vote or to have their votes accurately counted.
Corporation channeling money to Republican organizations or candidates have been able to win billions of dollars worth of no-bid government contracts under highly questionable or obviously illegal conditions. Corporate givers were able to ignore government regulations and federal laws concerning oil and mineral leases, environmental considerations, worker safety, consumer rights, fair competition, price-gouging and anti-monopoly concerns.
Congress should immediately repeal the falsely-named Patriot Act because neither Bush or Cheney can be trusted with the powers that law hands to the White House and the Executive Branch. All funding for the White House should be strictly limited and closely monitored by Congress.
White House funding should be conditioned on Cheney revealing all details of his Energy Task Force and all details of Karl Rove’s role concerning the various election scandals seemingly connected to the White House.
All details concerning the outing of CIA agent Valerie Palme and the lies promoted by the White House leading up to the invasion of Iraq should be revealed to Congress. White House involvement in torture and secret prisons should be publicly exposed.
Our national security has been undermined. Our civil liberties threatened. Our traditional political freedoms badly trampled by an out of control Executive Branch actively abetted by Republicans in Congress and Republican federal judges.
Corruption and incompetence dominates the leadership of the Republican Party at the state and national level almost everywhere in America. Investigations are underway in state after state from California to Texas to Ohio of Republican political abuses. Many more are called for in places like Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Partisan political considerations should never trump the rule of law. It is up to Republicans to clean-up the corruption and contempt of American political traditions by their leadership. Republican leaders need to choose between their Party leadership and the future of the American nation!
Stephen Crockett, co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com, can be reached by e-mail at midsouthcm@aol.com or by regular mail at P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Iraq-gate cover-up contunies
Robert Parry June 25, 2007
In another show trial for Saddam Hussein’s compatriots – followed by more death sentences – an unnoted success for George W. Bush was how the U.S. press corps has continued to avert its eyes from the role of Westerners, including Bush’s father, in aiding and abetting Hussein’s murderous regime.
Major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, reported on the June 24 death sentences meted out to Ali Hassan al-Majeed and two other senior Hussein aides without a single mention of the American role in helping arm and protect the Iraqi regime in the 1980s.
A special Iraqi tribunal handed down the death sentences after a tainted legal process that saw Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki oust the original chief judge for making comments viewed as favorable to the defense. The defendants also were denied the opportunity to call witnesses because of security concerns.
The prospect of real justice was impaired, too, when Maliki rushed Hussein to the gallows on Dec. 30, 2006, eliminating the possibility that the former dictator might offer explosive testimony, including how his regime got the chemical weapons that were deployed against Iranian troops and their Iraqi Kurdish allies during the Iran-Iraq War.
So, when the special tribunal resumed in January 2007, the prosecution could play an incriminating tape recording of Hussein discussing chemical weapons without the risk of him fingering U.S. officials or other Westerners.
Because of the hasty execution, Iraqi judges couldn’t turn to Hussein and question him about the tape’s authenticity or its context. An obvious follow-up would have been how Hussein had obtained the poisons that allegedly killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds.
In that sense, Hussein’s silence was golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and for foreign officials who facilitated the shipments.Former President George H.W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates were among those who could breathe a little easier after the hangman’s noose had choked the life out of Hussein.
The elder George Bush, as Vice President in the 1980s, allegedly oversaw a covert U.S. operation to assist Hussein’s war machine; Rumsfeld, as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, held private chats with the Iraqi dictator about his war needs; and Gates, as a senior CIA official, reportedly rebuffed Israeli protests about U.S. tolerance for third-country military shipments to Iraq, including precursor chemicals.
Unique Witness
Hussein was a unique witness to these events. Perhaps no other Iraqi possessed so much direct knowledge of these high-level discussions and what resulted from them.
Thus, with Hussein dead and with only a truncated defense allowed his surviving co-conspirators, a full historical understanding of Iraq’s chemical weapons program was blocked. A fairer judicial process – and a more complete historical record – might have emerged if the defendants had been turned over to an international court.
But an international court would have eliminated the satisfaction that George W. Bush sought in having Hussein and other Iraqi “evil-doers” drop through the gallows’ trap door and dangle at the end of a noose.
The ghoulish theater of Hussein’s execution captured on a grainy cell-phone camera – including taunts from Shiite guards and Hussein’s haughty response – obscured the other significance of the moment, that important chapters of history were dying with Hussein on the gallows.
Hussein could no longer disclose what Rumsfeld told him at their hand-shake meeting in 1983, or whether he got an alleged message from Vice President Bush in the mid-1980s about how to deploy his air force against Iran, or if his regime knew that deputy CIA director Gates was running interference for Iraq’s military supply line in the 1980s.
Nor could Hussein give his account of the mixed messages delivered by George H.W. Bush’s ambassador April Glaspie before Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Was there an American “green light” or did Hussein just hear what he wanted to hear?
All that history and more might have been salvaged if Hussein had been turned over to an international tribunal at The Hague as was done with other tyrants, such as Yugoslavia’s late dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Instead George W. Bush insisted that Hussein be kept under tight American guard and be tried in Iraq despite the obvious fact that the Iraqi dictator would receive nothing close to a fair trial before being put to death.
The major U.S. news media missed this larger story: how Hussein's hanging, after his conviction for his role in executing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982, silenced a key witness to the larger historical narrative.
In the U.S. press, virtually nothing was said or written about how the Dec. 30 execution amounted to the snuffing of a witness who could have exposed many of the “Iraq-gate” secrets, possibly implicating George W. Bush’s former and current defense secretaries and the President’s father.
With the three latest death sentences, that process – what some might call a cover-up – has now been repeated. Again, the American angle is missing in the U.S. news media.
[For more details on what Hussein might have revealed, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “Missing U.S.-Iraq History” or “The Secret World of Robert Gates.”]
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
In another show trial for Saddam Hussein’s compatriots – followed by more death sentences – an unnoted success for George W. Bush was how the U.S. press corps has continued to avert its eyes from the role of Westerners, including Bush’s father, in aiding and abetting Hussein’s murderous regime.
Major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, reported on the June 24 death sentences meted out to Ali Hassan al-Majeed and two other senior Hussein aides without a single mention of the American role in helping arm and protect the Iraqi regime in the 1980s.
A special Iraqi tribunal handed down the death sentences after a tainted legal process that saw Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki oust the original chief judge for making comments viewed as favorable to the defense. The defendants also were denied the opportunity to call witnesses because of security concerns.
The prospect of real justice was impaired, too, when Maliki rushed Hussein to the gallows on Dec. 30, 2006, eliminating the possibility that the former dictator might offer explosive testimony, including how his regime got the chemical weapons that were deployed against Iranian troops and their Iraqi Kurdish allies during the Iran-Iraq War.
So, when the special tribunal resumed in January 2007, the prosecution could play an incriminating tape recording of Hussein discussing chemical weapons without the risk of him fingering U.S. officials or other Westerners.
Because of the hasty execution, Iraqi judges couldn’t turn to Hussein and question him about the tape’s authenticity or its context. An obvious follow-up would have been how Hussein had obtained the poisons that allegedly killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds.
In that sense, Hussein’s silence was golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and for foreign officials who facilitated the shipments.Former President George H.W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates were among those who could breathe a little easier after the hangman’s noose had choked the life out of Hussein.
The elder George Bush, as Vice President in the 1980s, allegedly oversaw a covert U.S. operation to assist Hussein’s war machine; Rumsfeld, as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, held private chats with the Iraqi dictator about his war needs; and Gates, as a senior CIA official, reportedly rebuffed Israeli protests about U.S. tolerance for third-country military shipments to Iraq, including precursor chemicals.
Unique Witness
Hussein was a unique witness to these events. Perhaps no other Iraqi possessed so much direct knowledge of these high-level discussions and what resulted from them.
Thus, with Hussein dead and with only a truncated defense allowed his surviving co-conspirators, a full historical understanding of Iraq’s chemical weapons program was blocked. A fairer judicial process – and a more complete historical record – might have emerged if the defendants had been turned over to an international court.
But an international court would have eliminated the satisfaction that George W. Bush sought in having Hussein and other Iraqi “evil-doers” drop through the gallows’ trap door and dangle at the end of a noose.
The ghoulish theater of Hussein’s execution captured on a grainy cell-phone camera – including taunts from Shiite guards and Hussein’s haughty response – obscured the other significance of the moment, that important chapters of history were dying with Hussein on the gallows.
Hussein could no longer disclose what Rumsfeld told him at their hand-shake meeting in 1983, or whether he got an alleged message from Vice President Bush in the mid-1980s about how to deploy his air force against Iran, or if his regime knew that deputy CIA director Gates was running interference for Iraq’s military supply line in the 1980s.
Nor could Hussein give his account of the mixed messages delivered by George H.W. Bush’s ambassador April Glaspie before Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Was there an American “green light” or did Hussein just hear what he wanted to hear?
All that history and more might have been salvaged if Hussein had been turned over to an international tribunal at The Hague as was done with other tyrants, such as Yugoslavia’s late dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Instead George W. Bush insisted that Hussein be kept under tight American guard and be tried in Iraq despite the obvious fact that the Iraqi dictator would receive nothing close to a fair trial before being put to death.
The major U.S. news media missed this larger story: how Hussein's hanging, after his conviction for his role in executing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982, silenced a key witness to the larger historical narrative.
In the U.S. press, virtually nothing was said or written about how the Dec. 30 execution amounted to the snuffing of a witness who could have exposed many of the “Iraq-gate” secrets, possibly implicating George W. Bush’s former and current defense secretaries and the President’s father.
With the three latest death sentences, that process – what some might call a cover-up – has now been repeated. Again, the American angle is missing in the U.S. news media.
[For more details on what Hussein might have revealed, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “Missing U.S.-Iraq History” or “The Secret World of Robert Gates.”]
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
MoDo: Cheney = Voldermort
Hey, MoDo, that was our name for Cheney!
A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Sunday 24 June 2007
It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month.
Harry's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice's culture of invisibility.
I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet - a separate entity from the White House.
I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution.
Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he's blowing off his own administration.
Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress's ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney's chicanery.
On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it?
Cheney's office denied doing anything wrong, but Cheney's office is also denying it's an office. Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch, instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders.
"It's absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don't apply to him," Representative Waxman told me. "The irony is, he's taking the position that he's not part of the executive branch."
Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn't have to worry every night that she'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over.
"Your decision to exempt your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Cheney.
Of course, it's doubtful, now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk, that he'll suddenly listen to reason.
Cheney and Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.
Cheney, they argue, is the president of the Senate, so he's also part of the legislative branch. Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera, an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster. It's a new level of gall, to avoid accountability by saying you're part of a legislative branch that you've spent six years trying to weaken.
But gall is the specialty of Addington, who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king. He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects, and he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission. He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy.
Dana Perino, a White House press spokeswoman, had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney's bizarre contention that he is his own government. "This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate," she said.
I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors - I'm visualizing dedicated "We the People" wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors - they pushed back.
Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Sunday 24 June 2007
It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month.
Harry's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice's culture of invisibility.
I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet - a separate entity from the White House.
I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution.
Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he's blowing off his own administration.
Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress's ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney's chicanery.
On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it?
Cheney's office denied doing anything wrong, but Cheney's office is also denying it's an office. Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch, instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders.
"It's absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don't apply to him," Representative Waxman told me. "The irony is, he's taking the position that he's not part of the executive branch."
Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn't have to worry every night that she'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over.
"Your decision to exempt your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Cheney.
Of course, it's doubtful, now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk, that he'll suddenly listen to reason.
Cheney and Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.
Cheney, they argue, is the president of the Senate, so he's also part of the legislative branch. Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera, an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster. It's a new level of gall, to avoid accountability by saying you're part of a legislative branch that you've spent six years trying to weaken.
But gall is the specialty of Addington, who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king. He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects, and he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission. He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy.
Dana Perino, a White House press spokeswoman, had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney's bizarre contention that he is his own government. "This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate," she said.
I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors - I'm visualizing dedicated "We the People" wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors - they pushed back.
Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Gonzo Not Fit To Rule On Cheney Role
Hell, Gonzo isn't fit for anything but horse-whipping!
Rahm Emanuel is a hoot and a half. I hope he succeeds with his amendment, but let's face it, Cheney has made enough of his war to fund a small nation, so I doubt he will give a damn about being de-funded. He will probably just run the Iran war from the senate.
Schumer: Gonzales Not Fit to Rule on Cheney's Role
By Elana Schor
The Hill
Monday 25 June 2007
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step aside from the Justice Department's internal debates over whether Vice President Cheney is violating an executive order on protecting classified information, Senate Democratic Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) said on Monday.
The classification controversy opens another front for Democrats in their clash with the embattled Gonzales, who survived a recent Senate vote of no confidence but continues to weather multiple congressional investigations of his office. Schumer contended that Gonzales is too close to the White House to evaluate whether Cheney must follow other executive agencies and report on his office's use of classified national-security data.
"It's clear to just about everyone in America that the attorney general has lost the faith and trust of the American people in making impartial decisions when it affects the president and vice president," Schumer said.
The senior Judiciary Committee member also blasted Gonzales for taking nearly six months to respond to a request from the little-known Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) that his department clarify Cheney's role in the government. The vice president's office claims that as the president of the Senate, Cheney is exempt from ISOO's check on the executive branch.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) plans a push to cut executive-branch appropriations for Cheney's office, effectively heeding the vice president's interpretation of his role. Schumer expressed interest in a similar move in the Senate but said he would need to examine Emanuel's effort further.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Rahm Emanuel is a hoot and a half. I hope he succeeds with his amendment, but let's face it, Cheney has made enough of his war to fund a small nation, so I doubt he will give a damn about being de-funded. He will probably just run the Iran war from the senate.
Schumer: Gonzales Not Fit to Rule on Cheney's Role
By Elana Schor
The Hill
Monday 25 June 2007
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step aside from the Justice Department's internal debates over whether Vice President Cheney is violating an executive order on protecting classified information, Senate Democratic Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) said on Monday.
The classification controversy opens another front for Democrats in their clash with the embattled Gonzales, who survived a recent Senate vote of no confidence but continues to weather multiple congressional investigations of his office. Schumer contended that Gonzales is too close to the White House to evaluate whether Cheney must follow other executive agencies and report on his office's use of classified national-security data.
"It's clear to just about everyone in America that the attorney general has lost the faith and trust of the American people in making impartial decisions when it affects the president and vice president," Schumer said.
The senior Judiciary Committee member also blasted Gonzales for taking nearly six months to respond to a request from the little-known Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) that his department clarify Cheney's role in the government. The vice president's office claims that as the president of the Senate, Cheney is exempt from ISOO's check on the executive branch.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) plans a push to cut executive-branch appropriations for Cheney's office, effectively heeding the vice president's interpretation of his role. Schumer expressed interest in a similar move in the Senate but said he would need to examine Emanuel's effort further.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Waxman Nails W.H. On Security Lapses
Seems there is far more to this than Cheney just being a butthead, and Waxman aims to get to the bottom of it.
Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney just hope to run out the clock. Unless formal impeachment hearings are begun, they are liley to get away with it.
I wonder if anyone in Washington remembers what happened to Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon and let him get away with behavior that wasn't much compared to what Cheney and Bush have done.
Chairman Waxman Writes to White House Counsel Fielding on Security Violations
June 26th, 2007 by Jesse Lee
Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who produced the initial report on Vice President Cheney’s disregard for rules governing the handling of classified information, has written has a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding indicating that contrary to the recent claims of White House spokesperson Dana Perino, there is evidence that the White House has repeatedly failed to investigate security violations, take corrective action following breaches, and appropriately protect classified information.
The full letter (pdf):
June 26, 2007
The Honorable Fred FieldingCounsel to the President
The White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Fielding:
Last week, I wrote the Vice President about evidence that he violated Executive Order 12958 by blocking the National Archives from conducting security inspections in his office. In response, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said: “The president and the vice president are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and making sure that it is safeguarded and protected.” She asserted that the only part of Executive Order 12958 that was not being followed by the White House and the Vice President’s office was the “small portion” giving oversight responsibilities to the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives.
I have received information that casts doubt on these assertions. There is evidence that both the White House and the Office of the Vice President have flaunted multiple requirements for protecting classified information, not just the section related to the responsibilities of the Information Security Oversight Office. According to current and former White House security personnel who have contacted my staff, White House practices have been dangerously inadequate with respect to investigating security violations, taking corrective action following breaches, and physically securing classified information.
I have received information that:
• White House security officials have been blocked from inspecting West Wing offices for compliance with procedures for handling classified information. The White House has its own security office that functions independently of the Information Security Oversight Office in the National Archives. According to several security officials who have worked in this White House office, the Bush White House blocked the White House security officers from conducting unannounced inspections of the West Wing. This is a departure from the practices of the prior administration, which allowed these inspections.
• The White House regularly ignored security breaches. The security officers described repeated instances in which security breaches were reported to the White House Security Office by Secret Service or CIA agents, but were never investigated. In one case, the White House Security Office took no action after receiving a report that a White House official left classified materials unattended in a hotel room. In numerous instances, reports that White House officials left classified information on their desks went uninvestigated.
• The President’s top political advisor received a renewal of his security clearance despite presidential directives calling for the denial of security clearances for officials who misrepresent their involvement in security leaks. Under guidelines issued by President Bush, security clearances should not be renewed for individuals who deny their role in the release of classified information, regardless of whether the disclosure was intentional or negligent. Contrary to this guidance, the White House Security Office renewed the security clearance for Karl Rove in late 2006.
• The White House has condoned widespread mismanagement at the White House Security Office. According to the White House security officers, the White House allowed the White House Security Office to be run by managers who ignored basic security procedures and allowed other White House officials to do so also.
The Oversight Committee has been seeking to interview or take the deposition of White House officials with knowledge of these security matters since I wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about them in April. While I do not question your good faith in seeking to negotiate the terms of these interviews, further delay would not be in the interests of the nation. I am therefore writing to advise you that unless we are able to schedule these interviews promptly, I will bring before the Committee on Thursday, June 28, a motion to subpoena the relevant officials for depositions.
Background
I wrote to Vice President Cheney last week regarding his decision to exempt himself from the President’s executive order that establishes a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified information. In response to my letter, White House spokesperson Dana Perino explained that the Vice President is complying with most sections of the executive order, stating: “There’s no question that he is in compliance, in terms of the meat of the issue, which is … the handling of classified documents. It’s just simply a matter of a small portion of an executive order regarding reporting requirements, of which he is not subject to, and the interpretation of the EO.”
Ms. Perino repeatedly reiterated this point, stating: “The President and the Vice President are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and are making sure that it is safeguarded and protected,” “the Vice President’s Office says that they are in compliance, and I can tell you on behalf of the President that we are in compliance, with all matters regarding classified information,” and “I don’t think there’s a question of the handling of the documents. There’s a question of the reporting. In the handling of the documents, we are confident that we are in full compliance.”
These statements do not appear to be accurate. After the Committee’s hearing in March into the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, several former and current employees of the White House Security Office informed my staff of multiple White House violations of the rules for safeguarding classified information. If their statements are true, the White House has repeatedly disregarded basic requirements for protecting our national security secrets.
Blocking Inspections by White House Security Officials
Last week, White House spokesperson Dana Perino asserted that the Information Security Oversight Office in the National Archives “is not the only agency that can check” whether White House offices are in compliance with the security procedures established by the President’s executive order. On this issue, Ms. Perino is right. Within the Executive Office of the President, there is a White House Security Office that is supposed to ensure that all White House officials comply with the requirements for protecting classified information.
What Ms. Perino did not mention is that former and current employees of the White House Security Office have informed my staff that they have been blocked from conducting inspections in the West Wing of the White House, where most of the President’s most senior advisors work.
Under Executive Order 12958, every entity in the executive branch that handles classified information is supposed to have a security office that administers the classified information program. The White House Security Office fills this role in the White House, overseeing White House compliance with the order. Its responsibilities under the executive order and implementing regulations and guidance include issuing security clearances, conducting security education and training programs, and maintaining an ongoing self-inspection program.
During the previous administration, security specialists working for the White House Security Office were given access to all White House offices, including those in the West Wing. According to the security officers, this access was revoked by the Bush Administration. As a result, only the senior management of the White House Security Office (such as the Director and Deputy Director) retained the authority to enter the West Wing without advance notice to and assistance from West Wing personnel. The security officers objected to the loss of access, but Security Office management denied their requests to restore access to the West Wing.
The denial of access to the West Wing has serious adverse effects, according to the security officers. The officers report that they and other security officers working in the White House Security Office do not have the ability to perform basic security functions, such as conducting unannounced inspections of West Wing offices. The result is that security violations are disclosed only when the incidents are self-reported by the violators or happen to be noticed and reported by Secret Service or other officials with access to the West Wing.
Ignoring Security Violations
The security officers also described a systemic breakdown in procedures for responding to reports of security violations in the West Wing. The officers identified multiple instances of security breaches that were reported to the White House Security Office by concerned officials, such as Secret Service agents, but ignored by the White House Security Office. According to the security officers, the practice within the White House Security Office was not to document or investigate violations occurring in the West Wing or to take corrective action.
This failure to respond to reports of security breaches would appear to be a direct violation of Executive Order 12958. Under the executive order, one of the fundamental responsibilities of security offices is to investigate reported security breaches and “take appropriate and prompt corrective action.”
The security officers provided several examples of White House security breaches that were never investigated by the White House Security Office. One high-profile example cited by the officials was the failure of the White House to initiate its own investigation into the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity. It took months before a criminal investigation into this breach was initiated by the Justice Department. Yet according to the security officers, no White House investigation into the breach was initiated during this critical period.
In another example described to my staff, a junior White House aide reported that a senior assistant to the President improperly disclosed “Sensitive Compartmented Information” to the junior aide, even though the aide had no security clearance. Although SCI is the highest level of security classification, the White House Security Office took no steps to investigate or take corrective action.
In a third example, a security officer reported that a White House official left classified material behind in a hotel room during a foreign trip with the President. Although the CIA recovered the material and reported the incident, the White House Security Office did not investigate, seek remedial action, or discipline the responsible official.
The security officers also described numerous examples of White House officials failing to physically secure classified information within the White House in accordance with applicable security requirements. The officers related that they had received numerous reports of White House officials leaving classified information out on their desks, rather than in secure locations. Yet according to the officers, the White House Security Office made no effort to investigate these violations or implement any remedial actions.
Renewal of Karl Rove’s Security Clearance
On March 16, 2007, I wrote to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to ask about the renewal of Karl Rove’s security clearance. You wrote back on April 16, 2007, to say that Mr. Rove did undergo a review for the renewal of his security clearance last year. According to your letter:
My office has confirmed that these processes and security clearance renewals continued uninterrupted for all White House officials, including for Karl Rove. Although Mr. Knodell testified he had no “first-hand knowledge” of whether a reinvestigation of Mr. Rove’s security clearance was initiated, my office has confirmed that it was initiated. Upon conclusion of the reinvestigation process in late 2006, Mr. Rove’s security clearance was continued by the Office of Security and not altered in any respect.
This renewal of Mr. Rove’s security clearance would appear to be another example of a questionable White House security practice. Under guidelines approved by President Bush in 2005, the “deliberate or negligent disclosure” of classified information can be a “disqualifying” condition. Moreover, these guidelines provide that an individual’s response to a potential security breach may be just as important as the breach itself. Under the guidelines, a lack of candor, even about unintentional breaches, can be grounds for terminating access to classified information.
Under these standards, it is hard to see how Mr. Rove would qualify for a renewal of his security clearance. At a minimum, his disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s status as a CIA officer would appear to be a disqualifying “negligent” disclosure under the executive order. In addition, he told White House spokesman Scott McClellan in September 2003 that there was “no truth” to the allegations that he was involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame’s identity. This misrepresentation would appear to be an independent ground under the President’s guidelines for denying his clearance renewal.
Mismanagement of the White House Security Office
Another area of concern involves the management of the White House Security Office itself. The current and former security officials reported that James Knodell, who until recently was the Director of the White House Security Office, and Ken Greeson, the Deputy Director, routinely violated basic security guidelines. They also said that these officials were poor managers who were loath to assert authority over White House security practices or to take actions that could embarrass White House officials.
One example cited by the officials involved security procedures in the White House sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). The security officers said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson habitually brought their Blackberry devices and cell phones into the SCIF in the White House Security Office in violation of the rules. The officials said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson also allowed others, such as visiting White House personnel, to bring their Blackberries and cell phones into the SCIF. According to the officials, these improper practices were allowed to continue even after security officers repeatedly informed Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson that the practices violated security rules and set a poor example.
According to the security officers, the poor management and bad examples set by Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson caused extreme frustration and plummeting morale among White House security officers, resulting in the departure of more than half of the White House security officers within the last year.
Request for Interviews
I wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about many of these issues on April 23, 2007, when I urged Mr. Card to appear voluntarily before the Committee to address inadequate White House security procedures. In your letter to me on April 24, 2007, and in subsequent meetings, you proposed that the Committee first interview lower-ranking White House officials. You expressed the hope that these interviews could “obviate the need to further consider your request for Mr. Card’s appearance.”
I do not doubt your good faith in proposing that the Committee consider interviews with other White House officials before seeking testimony from Mr. Card. But it has now been over two months and the Committee still has not been able to arrange an interview with Alan Swendiman, the Director of the Office of Administration; Mark Frownfelter, a former White House security officer; and Jeff Thompson, the former Director of the White House Security Office. This continued delay is impeding the Committee’s inquiry and is not in the nation’s interest.
I respectfully request that the interviews that the Committee has been seeking be scheduled without further delay. If this cannot be accomplished, I will recommend to the Committee the issuance of subpoenas at our next business meeting, which is currently scheduled for June 28.
If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact me or ask your staff to contact Michael Gordon or David Rapallo of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,
Henry A. WaxmanChairman
cc: Tom DavisRanking Minority Member
Footnotes and citations available here (pdf) >>
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney just hope to run out the clock. Unless formal impeachment hearings are begun, they are liley to get away with it.
I wonder if anyone in Washington remembers what happened to Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon and let him get away with behavior that wasn't much compared to what Cheney and Bush have done.
Chairman Waxman Writes to White House Counsel Fielding on Security Violations
June 26th, 2007 by Jesse Lee
Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who produced the initial report on Vice President Cheney’s disregard for rules governing the handling of classified information, has written has a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding indicating that contrary to the recent claims of White House spokesperson Dana Perino, there is evidence that the White House has repeatedly failed to investigate security violations, take corrective action following breaches, and appropriately protect classified information.
The full letter (pdf):
June 26, 2007
The Honorable Fred FieldingCounsel to the President
The White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Fielding:
Last week, I wrote the Vice President about evidence that he violated Executive Order 12958 by blocking the National Archives from conducting security inspections in his office. In response, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said: “The president and the vice president are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and making sure that it is safeguarded and protected.” She asserted that the only part of Executive Order 12958 that was not being followed by the White House and the Vice President’s office was the “small portion” giving oversight responsibilities to the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives.
I have received information that casts doubt on these assertions. There is evidence that both the White House and the Office of the Vice President have flaunted multiple requirements for protecting classified information, not just the section related to the responsibilities of the Information Security Oversight Office. According to current and former White House security personnel who have contacted my staff, White House practices have been dangerously inadequate with respect to investigating security violations, taking corrective action following breaches, and physically securing classified information.
I have received information that:
• White House security officials have been blocked from inspecting West Wing offices for compliance with procedures for handling classified information. The White House has its own security office that functions independently of the Information Security Oversight Office in the National Archives. According to several security officials who have worked in this White House office, the Bush White House blocked the White House security officers from conducting unannounced inspections of the West Wing. This is a departure from the practices of the prior administration, which allowed these inspections.
• The White House regularly ignored security breaches. The security officers described repeated instances in which security breaches were reported to the White House Security Office by Secret Service or CIA agents, but were never investigated. In one case, the White House Security Office took no action after receiving a report that a White House official left classified materials unattended in a hotel room. In numerous instances, reports that White House officials left classified information on their desks went uninvestigated.
• The President’s top political advisor received a renewal of his security clearance despite presidential directives calling for the denial of security clearances for officials who misrepresent their involvement in security leaks. Under guidelines issued by President Bush, security clearances should not be renewed for individuals who deny their role in the release of classified information, regardless of whether the disclosure was intentional or negligent. Contrary to this guidance, the White House Security Office renewed the security clearance for Karl Rove in late 2006.
• The White House has condoned widespread mismanagement at the White House Security Office. According to the White House security officers, the White House allowed the White House Security Office to be run by managers who ignored basic security procedures and allowed other White House officials to do so also.
The Oversight Committee has been seeking to interview or take the deposition of White House officials with knowledge of these security matters since I wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about them in April. While I do not question your good faith in seeking to negotiate the terms of these interviews, further delay would not be in the interests of the nation. I am therefore writing to advise you that unless we are able to schedule these interviews promptly, I will bring before the Committee on Thursday, June 28, a motion to subpoena the relevant officials for depositions.
Background
I wrote to Vice President Cheney last week regarding his decision to exempt himself from the President’s executive order that establishes a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified information. In response to my letter, White House spokesperson Dana Perino explained that the Vice President is complying with most sections of the executive order, stating: “There’s no question that he is in compliance, in terms of the meat of the issue, which is … the handling of classified documents. It’s just simply a matter of a small portion of an executive order regarding reporting requirements, of which he is not subject to, and the interpretation of the EO.”
Ms. Perino repeatedly reiterated this point, stating: “The President and the Vice President are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and are making sure that it is safeguarded and protected,” “the Vice President’s Office says that they are in compliance, and I can tell you on behalf of the President that we are in compliance, with all matters regarding classified information,” and “I don’t think there’s a question of the handling of the documents. There’s a question of the reporting. In the handling of the documents, we are confident that we are in full compliance.”
These statements do not appear to be accurate. After the Committee’s hearing in March into the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, several former and current employees of the White House Security Office informed my staff of multiple White House violations of the rules for safeguarding classified information. If their statements are true, the White House has repeatedly disregarded basic requirements for protecting our national security secrets.
Blocking Inspections by White House Security Officials
Last week, White House spokesperson Dana Perino asserted that the Information Security Oversight Office in the National Archives “is not the only agency that can check” whether White House offices are in compliance with the security procedures established by the President’s executive order. On this issue, Ms. Perino is right. Within the Executive Office of the President, there is a White House Security Office that is supposed to ensure that all White House officials comply with the requirements for protecting classified information.
What Ms. Perino did not mention is that former and current employees of the White House Security Office have informed my staff that they have been blocked from conducting inspections in the West Wing of the White House, where most of the President’s most senior advisors work.
Under Executive Order 12958, every entity in the executive branch that handles classified information is supposed to have a security office that administers the classified information program. The White House Security Office fills this role in the White House, overseeing White House compliance with the order. Its responsibilities under the executive order and implementing regulations and guidance include issuing security clearances, conducting security education and training programs, and maintaining an ongoing self-inspection program.
During the previous administration, security specialists working for the White House Security Office were given access to all White House offices, including those in the West Wing. According to the security officers, this access was revoked by the Bush Administration. As a result, only the senior management of the White House Security Office (such as the Director and Deputy Director) retained the authority to enter the West Wing without advance notice to and assistance from West Wing personnel. The security officers objected to the loss of access, but Security Office management denied their requests to restore access to the West Wing.
The denial of access to the West Wing has serious adverse effects, according to the security officers. The officers report that they and other security officers working in the White House Security Office do not have the ability to perform basic security functions, such as conducting unannounced inspections of West Wing offices. The result is that security violations are disclosed only when the incidents are self-reported by the violators or happen to be noticed and reported by Secret Service or other officials with access to the West Wing.
Ignoring Security Violations
The security officers also described a systemic breakdown in procedures for responding to reports of security violations in the West Wing. The officers identified multiple instances of security breaches that were reported to the White House Security Office by concerned officials, such as Secret Service agents, but ignored by the White House Security Office. According to the security officers, the practice within the White House Security Office was not to document or investigate violations occurring in the West Wing or to take corrective action.
This failure to respond to reports of security breaches would appear to be a direct violation of Executive Order 12958. Under the executive order, one of the fundamental responsibilities of security offices is to investigate reported security breaches and “take appropriate and prompt corrective action.”
The security officers provided several examples of White House security breaches that were never investigated by the White House Security Office. One high-profile example cited by the officials was the failure of the White House to initiate its own investigation into the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity. It took months before a criminal investigation into this breach was initiated by the Justice Department. Yet according to the security officers, no White House investigation into the breach was initiated during this critical period.
In another example described to my staff, a junior White House aide reported that a senior assistant to the President improperly disclosed “Sensitive Compartmented Information” to the junior aide, even though the aide had no security clearance. Although SCI is the highest level of security classification, the White House Security Office took no steps to investigate or take corrective action.
In a third example, a security officer reported that a White House official left classified material behind in a hotel room during a foreign trip with the President. Although the CIA recovered the material and reported the incident, the White House Security Office did not investigate, seek remedial action, or discipline the responsible official.
The security officers also described numerous examples of White House officials failing to physically secure classified information within the White House in accordance with applicable security requirements. The officers related that they had received numerous reports of White House officials leaving classified information out on their desks, rather than in secure locations. Yet according to the officers, the White House Security Office made no effort to investigate these violations or implement any remedial actions.
Renewal of Karl Rove’s Security Clearance
On March 16, 2007, I wrote to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to ask about the renewal of Karl Rove’s security clearance. You wrote back on April 16, 2007, to say that Mr. Rove did undergo a review for the renewal of his security clearance last year. According to your letter:
My office has confirmed that these processes and security clearance renewals continued uninterrupted for all White House officials, including for Karl Rove. Although Mr. Knodell testified he had no “first-hand knowledge” of whether a reinvestigation of Mr. Rove’s security clearance was initiated, my office has confirmed that it was initiated. Upon conclusion of the reinvestigation process in late 2006, Mr. Rove’s security clearance was continued by the Office of Security and not altered in any respect.
This renewal of Mr. Rove’s security clearance would appear to be another example of a questionable White House security practice. Under guidelines approved by President Bush in 2005, the “deliberate or negligent disclosure” of classified information can be a “disqualifying” condition. Moreover, these guidelines provide that an individual’s response to a potential security breach may be just as important as the breach itself. Under the guidelines, a lack of candor, even about unintentional breaches, can be grounds for terminating access to classified information.
Under these standards, it is hard to see how Mr. Rove would qualify for a renewal of his security clearance. At a minimum, his disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s status as a CIA officer would appear to be a disqualifying “negligent” disclosure under the executive order. In addition, he told White House spokesman Scott McClellan in September 2003 that there was “no truth” to the allegations that he was involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame’s identity. This misrepresentation would appear to be an independent ground under the President’s guidelines for denying his clearance renewal.
Mismanagement of the White House Security Office
Another area of concern involves the management of the White House Security Office itself. The current and former security officials reported that James Knodell, who until recently was the Director of the White House Security Office, and Ken Greeson, the Deputy Director, routinely violated basic security guidelines. They also said that these officials were poor managers who were loath to assert authority over White House security practices or to take actions that could embarrass White House officials.
One example cited by the officials involved security procedures in the White House sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). The security officers said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson habitually brought their Blackberry devices and cell phones into the SCIF in the White House Security Office in violation of the rules. The officials said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson also allowed others, such as visiting White House personnel, to bring their Blackberries and cell phones into the SCIF. According to the officials, these improper practices were allowed to continue even after security officers repeatedly informed Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson that the practices violated security rules and set a poor example.
According to the security officers, the poor management and bad examples set by Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson caused extreme frustration and plummeting morale among White House security officers, resulting in the departure of more than half of the White House security officers within the last year.
Request for Interviews
I wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about many of these issues on April 23, 2007, when I urged Mr. Card to appear voluntarily before the Committee to address inadequate White House security procedures. In your letter to me on April 24, 2007, and in subsequent meetings, you proposed that the Committee first interview lower-ranking White House officials. You expressed the hope that these interviews could “obviate the need to further consider your request for Mr. Card’s appearance.”
I do not doubt your good faith in proposing that the Committee consider interviews with other White House officials before seeking testimony from Mr. Card. But it has now been over two months and the Committee still has not been able to arrange an interview with Alan Swendiman, the Director of the Office of Administration; Mark Frownfelter, a former White House security officer; and Jeff Thompson, the former Director of the White House Security Office. This continued delay is impeding the Committee’s inquiry and is not in the nation’s interest.
I respectfully request that the interviews that the Committee has been seeking be scheduled without further delay. If this cannot be accomplished, I will recommend to the Committee the issuance of subpoenas at our next business meeting, which is currently scheduled for June 28.
If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact me or ask your staff to contact Michael Gordon or David Rapallo of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,
Henry A. WaxmanChairman
cc: Tom DavisRanking Minority Member
Footnotes and citations available here (pdf) >>
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Protest Restrictions to be Lifted in G.B.
BROWN TO LIFT PROTEST RESTRICTIONS
Sunday June 24,2007
Gordon Brown is to hold out an olive branch to opponents of the Iraq war by reinstating the right to demonstrate and march outside the Houses of Parliament, it has been claimed.
Restrictive legislation introduced by Tony Blair will allegedly be reversed by the Chancellor soon after he enters Number 10 next week.It is understood to be one of a raft of initiatives planned for Mr Brown's first 100 days in office, which are designed to distance him from his predecessor's most unpopular policies.
Mr Brown is keen to take a more sympathetic attitude to critics of the military intervention, but the move will not satisfy those who have been calling for an immediate withdrawal of British troops.The relaxation of rules on peaceful protesting will also not mean that "permanent eyesores" can be set up in Parliament Square, or that policemen and passers-by can be "abused" through loudhailers, according to allies of the Premier-in-waiting.
MPs have expressed concern at the distraction caused by noisy demos outside the Commons, and last week Mr Brown's car was punched and kicked by an anti-war activist.The Sunday Times said it had seen a memo from Sir Richard Mottram, chairman of the joint intelligence committee, indicating that the change in the law was to be accompanied by plans to bolster defences at key Westminster sites with walls and bollards. The government introduced legislation in July 2005 banning unauthorised protests within half-a-mile of Parliament. The law makes a demo unlawful unless you have written police approval 24 hours, and provoked an outcry amongst anti-war protestors.A spokesman for Mr Brown said: "We're not going to comment on every piece of speculation."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Sunday June 24,2007
Gordon Brown is to hold out an olive branch to opponents of the Iraq war by reinstating the right to demonstrate and march outside the Houses of Parliament, it has been claimed.
Restrictive legislation introduced by Tony Blair will allegedly be reversed by the Chancellor soon after he enters Number 10 next week.It is understood to be one of a raft of initiatives planned for Mr Brown's first 100 days in office, which are designed to distance him from his predecessor's most unpopular policies.
Mr Brown is keen to take a more sympathetic attitude to critics of the military intervention, but the move will not satisfy those who have been calling for an immediate withdrawal of British troops.The relaxation of rules on peaceful protesting will also not mean that "permanent eyesores" can be set up in Parliament Square, or that policemen and passers-by can be "abused" through loudhailers, according to allies of the Premier-in-waiting.
MPs have expressed concern at the distraction caused by noisy demos outside the Commons, and last week Mr Brown's car was punched and kicked by an anti-war activist.The Sunday Times said it had seen a memo from Sir Richard Mottram, chairman of the joint intelligence committee, indicating that the change in the law was to be accompanied by plans to bolster defences at key Westminster sites with walls and bollards. The government introduced legislation in July 2005 banning unauthorised protests within half-a-mile of Parliament. The law makes a demo unlawful unless you have written police approval 24 hours, and provoked an outcry amongst anti-war protestors.A spokesman for Mr Brown said: "We're not going to comment on every piece of speculation."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free
How to Stop Our Political and Economic Systems From Stealing Our Future
AlterNet: Paul Hawken: How to Stop Our Political and Economic Systems From Stealing Our Future:
Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, discusses what he sees as the largest social movement in human history, and why that movement is so invisible to the media -- and itself.
Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, discusses what he sees as the largest social movement in human history, and why that movement is so invisible to the media -- and itself.
Sicko: Can Transform This Nation
But only if We, the people, want it badly enough to fight for it, and I do mean fight!
Critical Condition:
Call me non-intellectual but I've always believed that the power and intensity of a single piece of Art, properly timed, on rare occasions can transform a nation.
The right-wing rap sheet
The law and order party has morphed into the anything-goes Goopers.
The right-wing rap sheet | Campaign for America's Future:
By now most of the world should know that Rudolph Giuliani's South Carolina campaign chair is not a cocaine dealer. No, none of that. He's merely alleged to have given the stuff away.
One of our minor obsessions here at The Big Con is how, when it comes to conservative failure, obvious patterns - the sinkhole epidemic, right-wing terrorism - get reported, in our 'liberal media,' merely as isolated incidents, one after the other after the other.
The case of the Palmetto State Party Boy reminds me of another: that the Republican Party, and especially its presidential campaigns, is staffed stem to stern with alleged criminals.
Romney's got two. His director of operations is a loon with a habit of impersonating police officers for his own freakish purposes, a crime carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison. More gravely, the co-chairman of his Utah finance committee is being sued for alleged 'physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse' of the residential boarding schools he operated.
The right-wing rap sheet | Campaign for America's Future:
By now most of the world should know that Rudolph Giuliani's South Carolina campaign chair is not a cocaine dealer. No, none of that. He's merely alleged to have given the stuff away.
One of our minor obsessions here at The Big Con is how, when it comes to conservative failure, obvious patterns - the sinkhole epidemic, right-wing terrorism - get reported, in our 'liberal media,' merely as isolated incidents, one after the other after the other.
The case of the Palmetto State Party Boy reminds me of another: that the Republican Party, and especially its presidential campaigns, is staffed stem to stern with alleged criminals.
Romney's got two. His director of operations is a loon with a habit of impersonating police officers for his own freakish purposes, a crime carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison. More gravely, the co-chairman of his Utah finance committee is being sued for alleged 'physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse' of the residential boarding schools he operated.
What A Fool Believes
Americans will believe anything the TeeVee says, even when all evidence points to the contrary.
What A Fool Believes | Campaign for America's Future:
Big Con readers may enjoy my cover article in The Nation on how the notion that the nation is fundamentally conservative is, um, a big con. Don't miss the quote from the Campaign for America's Future/Media Matters joint report on 'Why a Conservative America Is a Myth' about how the stubborn oxen in the mainstream media botch the job: 'Democratic victories are understood as a product of the Democrats moving to the right, while Republican victories are the product of a conservative electorate.'
Here's an example that demonstrates the problem in spades: the inaccurate-beyond-words New York Times op-ed by Melinda Henneberger, 'Why Pro-Choice Is a Bad Choice for Democrats.' She tries to make an argument about how devotion to abortion rights is somehow losing Democrats voters by the boatloads.
What A Fool Believes | Campaign for America's Future:
Big Con readers may enjoy my cover article in The Nation on how the notion that the nation is fundamentally conservative is, um, a big con. Don't miss the quote from the Campaign for America's Future/Media Matters joint report on 'Why a Conservative America Is a Myth' about how the stubborn oxen in the mainstream media botch the job: 'Democratic victories are understood as a product of the Democrats moving to the right, while Republican victories are the product of a conservative electorate.'
Here's an example that demonstrates the problem in spades: the inaccurate-beyond-words New York Times op-ed by Melinda Henneberger, 'Why Pro-Choice Is a Bad Choice for Democrats.' She tries to make an argument about how devotion to abortion rights is somehow losing Democrats voters by the boatloads.
Remember Checks And Balances?
We do!
Whether or not the D.C. people do is doubtful.
TomPaine.com - Remember Checks And Balances?:
The executive branch has relied upon the state secrets privilege to claim that the disclosure of certain evidence in court would jeopardize national security, and therefore cannot be reviewed by private parties, the attorneys or even the judge. As one might expect, without this evidence cases are usually dismissed.
The Supreme Court first recognized this privilege in 1953 in United States v. Reynolds, when it denied the widows of three civilian Air Force contractors access to an accident report. The Air Force had claimed that the report was confidential, noting that the personnel aboard the plane “were engaged in a highly secret mission of the Air Force.” When the report surfaced decades later, it became clear that the only sensitive information therein was evidence of negligence by the Air Force that may have caused the men’s deaths. The lower courts in Reynolds had ordered that the government submit the accident report to the trial court, so it could assess whether the document in fact contained state secrets that could not be disclosed. But the Supreme Court overruled this determination. Sadly, this Supreme Court precedent permitting the executive branch to assert the state secrets privilege without any independent review of the evidence still stands, and judges continue to give the Executive an alarming degree of deference.
Whether or not the D.C. people do is doubtful.
TomPaine.com - Remember Checks And Balances?:
The executive branch has relied upon the state secrets privilege to claim that the disclosure of certain evidence in court would jeopardize national security, and therefore cannot be reviewed by private parties, the attorneys or even the judge. As one might expect, without this evidence cases are usually dismissed.
The Supreme Court first recognized this privilege in 1953 in United States v. Reynolds, when it denied the widows of three civilian Air Force contractors access to an accident report. The Air Force had claimed that the report was confidential, noting that the personnel aboard the plane “were engaged in a highly secret mission of the Air Force.” When the report surfaced decades later, it became clear that the only sensitive information therein was evidence of negligence by the Air Force that may have caused the men’s deaths. The lower courts in Reynolds had ordered that the government submit the accident report to the trial court, so it could assess whether the document in fact contained state secrets that could not be disclosed. But the Supreme Court overruled this determination. Sadly, this Supreme Court precedent permitting the executive branch to assert the state secrets privilege without any independent review of the evidence still stands, and judges continue to give the Executive an alarming degree of deference.
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