May 27, 2004
The Diebold Ad You Never Saw
.. and other great parody from:
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm
May 26, 2004
The Temporary President
from the Dean Nation blog:
Temporary was George W. Bush's nickname in the Skull and Bones Society at Yale. Why? Because he was too lazy to think of one for himself:
[Bush], never fond of Eastern elitism, seriously considered joining a different secret society at Yale less known for ancient rituals than for its parties. Although he acceded to his father's wishes, he became a relatively unenthusiastic member who did not even bother thinking up the requisite Bones name for himself. He ended up being called Temporary.
Given the latest polls, I think it still fits. In fact, given Bush's governing style, it really fits. I think a Google-bomb is in order.
Repeat after me: George W. Bush: the temporary president.
Army kept whistle-blower in locked ward
WASHINGTON, May 25 (UPI) -- The Army kept a soldier whistle-blower in a locked psychiatric ward at its top medical center for nearly two weeks despite concern from some medical staff that he be released, according to medical records.
The Army then charged him nearly $6,000 for the stay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, billing records show.
"They are definitely retaliating against me," said Army Reserve Lt. Jullian Goodrum, a 16-year veteran of the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Doctors say Goodrum suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or combat stress, from Iraq. Last summer Goodrum asked for an investigation into the death in Iraq of a 22-year-old soldier in his 212th Transportation Company. He was also quoted in a United Press International article about poor medical care at Fort Knox, Ky., that helped spark investigations in Congress.
READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AT:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040525-111343-1697r
May 14, 2004
Unanswered Questions about Berg Beheading
From INN World Report :
In a "perfect timing", an unknown group tries to distract from Torturegate. It is linked to Ahmad Fadeel Nazal Al-Khalayleh, known as Abu Musa’ab Al-Zarqawi, who didn't show his face in this video. In this video, Berg is wearing an orange jumpsuit, as US prisoners wear .
There is one problem. Al-Zarquawi is believed to be dead since April 2003, as AsiaTimes wrote 2 months ago.
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=185
From CBS News :
Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March 24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in "suspicious activities," Senor said. He refused to elaborate, except to confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody.
Berg was released April 6 and "was advised to leave the country," Senor added. Instead, Berg checked into a Baghdad hotel.
Berg had told friends he was arrested by Iraqi police in Mosul because he had an Israeli stamp in his passport. In e-mails released by his family, Berg wrote about his experiences in trying to track down and later meet an in-law in the Mosul area.
In Mosul, police chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi insisted Thursday that his department had never arrested Berg and maintained he had no knowledge of the case.
"The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American," al-Barhawi told reporters. "Take it from me ... that such reports are baseless."
Since Iraq remains under U.S. military occupation, it seems unlikely that the Iraqi police would have held Berg, or any other American, for such a length of time without at least the tacit approval of U.S. authorities.
"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do," Berg's father, Michael Berg told the AP. "Who do they think they're kidding?"
The younger Berg told his family that U.S. officials took custody of him soon after his arrest and he was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer, his father said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/11/iraq/main616842.shtml
May 11, 2004
Searchable Database of Lies
The Lies Are Compounding Exponentially! (Is that possible?)
In case you missed it . . .
Previously posted by DUG, 4/30/04:
New Searchable Database Charts Bush/Cheney Lies
As the September 11th Commission grills President Bush and Vice President Cheney about their contradictory statements today, we wanted to alert you to a powerful new tool to help journalists, activists and the public compare the Bush administration's claims against well-documented facts.
The Center for American Progress today launched a comprehensive Claim vs. Fact database that documents statements from conservatives like President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Members of Congress and Fox News personalities, and compares those statements to the facts.
Each fact is sourced, and in many cases includes a web link directly to that source. The database has more than 400 entries so far, but they need your help building it.
If you know of a lie, distortion or dishonest statement from a Bush Administration official or another conservative that isn't already in the database, please go to their submission page
HERE or HERE.
There you can submit an entry for addition to the database, so that the tool grows and becomes a real-time tracker of lies.
Peter Schurman and the MoveOn team
MoveOn.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
http://www.americanprogress.org
courtesy of Veralynne at A-Changin' Times (ACT)
http://achangintimes.com
May 07, 2004
Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility
Washington Post, Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A34
THE HORRIFIC abuses by American interrogators and guards at the Abu Ghraib prison and at other facilities maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced, in part, to policy decisions and public statements of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured and murdered -- and in which, until recently, no one has been held accountable.
The lawlessness began in January 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan "do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions. That was not the case: At a minimum, all those arrested in the war zone were entitled under the conventions to a formal hearing to determine whether they were prisoners of war or unlawful combatants. No such hearings were held, but then Mr. Rumsfeld made clear that U.S. observance of the convention was now optional. Prisoners, he said, would be treated "for the most part" in "a manner that is reasonably consistent" with the conventions -- which, the secretary breezily suggested, was outdated.
READ THE REST OF ARTICLE AT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5840-2004May5.html
May 05, 2004
Betrayal Of A Diplomat
BOOK REVIEW: The Betrayal Of A Diplomat
The Politics of Truth; Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity
Joseph Wilson vents his professional and personal rage at the Bush administration in 'The Politics of Truth.'
By Tim Rutten, LA Times, May 1, 2004
No administration in history ever has approached its reelection campaign with so many insider accounts of its most sensitive deliberations freely circulating through the country's bookstores and libraries. To the expanding shelf of books that propose descriptions of how President Bush and his advisors did or did not meet the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and of how and why they marshaled the march to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, we now can add former ambassador Joseph Wilson's "The Politics of Truth," which goes on sale today...
...His account of his service in Baghdad and of his fierce, face-to-face encounters with Hussein and his foreign minister, Tarik Aziz, are frankly gripping. Wilson's conduct of that mission was deemed heroic by then President George Bush, whose warmly congratulatory letter the author still hangs on his office wall. His work was similarly regarded by then Secretary of State James A. Baker III and national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. Moreover, Wilson is nobody's fool when it comes to dealing with Hussein. He strongly supported the Persian Gulf War and, up until recently, argued that if evidence of Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction were found, the dictator, whom Wilson flatly labels "a sociopath" had to be confronted with force.
Wilson's point, which is repeated at rather too much length in too many fashions in the book's concluding section, is that the administration distorted and lied concerning our intelligence on these issues and then behaved abominably toward his family and others when it was discovered. The author's rage over this alleged bad conduct - indecency, really - is what animates "The Politics of Truth." He is, at the end of the day, a patriot and a public servant, and he is furious over what he feels is a betrayal of those things. Fair play, trust and good manners matter in the world in which he chose to live his life. This is dissent then not from the radical fringe but from the heart of the establishment...
READ IT ALL AT:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-rutten1may01,1,6136422.story