What's Par for the Libertarians....

Obey the law and keep Bush off the Illinois ballot, say state Libertarians

 

Illinois should obey its ballot access laws -- and keep President George W. Bush off the 2004 ballot.

 

So said the Libertarian Party of Illinois, after Republicans revealed that they would not nominate their 2004 presidential candidate until seven days after the Illinois deadline for certifying candidates for the November ballot.

 

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has requested that the Illinois State Board of Elections ignore the law, and place President Bush's name on the ballot anyway.

 

"The Republican Party needs to abide by the same rule of law as everyone else," said Illinois LP Executive Director Jeff Trigg. "You can be sure if the tables were turned -- and it was the Libertarians nominating their presidential candidate seven days after the deadline -- they wouldn't lift a finger to help us stay on the ballot."

 

The Republican Party will nominate its presidential candidate -- almost certain to be incumbent George W. Bush, who faces no significant opposition and has already announced he will seek re-election -- at its national convention on September 3, 2004. That's 61 days before the November 2 general election.

 

However, Illinois state election law requires presidential candidates to be certified at least 67 days prior to the general election.

 

In response, the RNC has asked the State Board of Elections (SBE) to grant them an "exception" to the law. The board said it would consider the request at an upcoming meeting after getting a legal opinion from Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

 

But Libertarians said the State Board of Elections does not have the authority to grant exemptions -- and thus arbitrarily decide which political parties must follow the law.

 

At a press conference in the State Capitol Press Room in Springfield on May 19, Trigg said the only way Bush can qualify for the ballot is if the Illinois General Assembly changes the law. ...

 

Noting that Libertarian candidates have been kept off the ballot in the past because of restrictive ballot access laws, Trigg said the law should be enforced equally.

 

"Libertarians don't believe President Bush should be kept off the Illinois ballot because of a technicality, any more than they believe their own candidates should suffer the same fate," he said. "But the fact is that Libertarian and other candidates have been taken off the ballot on technicalities -- and the Republican Party needs to abide by the same rule of law as everyone else."

 

If the SBE does grant Bush an exemption to the law, it will merely prove that Illinois has a "double standard," said Trigg. ...

 

Obey the law and keep Bush off the Illinois ballot, say state Libertarians

Libertarian Party

May 28, 2003

 

Posted 6:26:04 PM   Send comment

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Wanna read over my shoulder?

Trucks in Iraq Could Be Linked to Bioweapons, C.I.A. Says

 

The discovery of two Iraqi truck trailers equipped with fermenters is the strongest evidence yet that Saddam Hussein had a biological weapons program, a U.S. intelligence report said Wednesday. But officials still have found no such weapons.

 

So far, I'm bored.  But let's continue...

 

The report by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency comes as the Bush administration faces pressure to prove its justification for the war -- that Saddam had to be disarmed of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs that were an imminent danger.

 

Pressure from whom? Georgie & Rummy don't care if no WMD (that's "weapons of mass destruction" to peons like you and me) are ever found, any more than they care if Osama-Saddama-Rama-bin-Hussladen is/are ever "hunted down and brought to justice."

 

Now, Tony Blair cares -- a lot; Poodle Boy's entire future depends on the discovery of WMD.  (Hope you've got your resumé polished, Tony!)

 

But do you really think -- after telling the rest of the world to go to hell, and dismissing millions of protesters across the globe as nothing more important than mere "focus groups" -- that Junior cares a whit about image?

 

"Examination of the trailers reveals ... an ingeniously simple, self-contained bioprocessing system," the report says. "Both trailers we have found probably are designed to produce BW agent in unconcentrated liquid slurry."

 

"BW" is for "biological weapons." U.S. officials believe Iraqi leaders were interested in developing mobile fermentation units for such weapons.

 

Fascinating.  My cat is an ingeniously simple, self-contained bioprocessing system, too, designed to produce an amazing amount of unconcentrated liquid slurry like you wouldn't believe -- especially after eating a rodent that's disagreed with her delicately-tuned system.  (And if you don't think what comes out of a cat can be considered potential "BW," then you've never cleaned a litter box.)

 

Guess I'd better send Kitty to Syria before the inspectors land in my backyard.

 

There is no evidence the two trailers were ever actually used to make biological weapons, the intelligence officials said. Officials also said they did not expect to find biological agents inside the trucks, which they said the Iraqis probably had decontaminated.

 

Or, gee, maybe there never were any biological agents inside the trucks -- ya think?

 

The report's conclusions key on evidence from an Iraqi source, a chemical engineer who claims to have managed one of the mobile production plants.

 

That source has also identified photographs of the captured trailers, the new report says. Three other Iraqi sources also described efforts by Saddam's government to build a mobile biological weapons plant.

 

Oh, you mean like those cartoons of trailers Colin Powell showed the U.N. back in February, that might be used for some nefarious purpose?  That kinda trailer?

 

Intelligence officials who briefed reporters Wednesday on condition of anonymity, said they had considered and discarded possible legitimate uses for the trailers, ranging from the production of hydrogen to pesticides. The trucks would not be able to do any of those very well, they indicated.

 

Ah, but -- says the prosecutor on cross-examination -- they could be used for those things, couldn't they?  Actually, have you inspected them for the existence of, say, a propane burner and a refrigeration unit?  How about a sign that says "Polish Dogs with the Works"?  Because, boys, I'd be more inclined to believe you've stumbled across a roach coach.  (Although, I will admit, the stuff produced by some roach coaches is just as toxic as the biochemical slurry that comes out of my cat.)

 

"The Iraqis had a motivation to inefficiently produce a biological agent," said one intelligence official. "They had no motivation to inefficiently produce anything else."

 

Huh?  Back that truck up -- figuratively, I mean.  "The Iraqis had a motivation to inefficiently produce a biological agent."  You mean they wanted to produce a biological agent that didn't work?  That one's completely over my head.

 

Captured Iraqi scientists have said the vehicles were for producing hydrogen for weather balloons in support of artillery. The report acknowledges the trailers could be used to make hydrogen but says the effort would be inefficient compared with widely available commercial hydrogen generation systems.

 

Okay, and exactly where do you expect the Iraqis are going to get "widely available commercial hydrogen generation systems"?  As I recall, Iraq hasn't been able to buy any "legitimate" war stuff, thanks to U.S.-led sanctions for the preceding twelve years.  Gosh, ya think maybe they just had to make do with lousy, inferior hydrogen generation systems?

 

And, hey, guys, remember those aluminum tubes you were so bloody sure were for deadly bomb-making -- and how you ended up with egg on your face?  Your track record of speculating what an item might be used for hasn't been so hot.

 

At this point, I think my roach coach theory is just as solid as your BW theory.

 

A technical analysis of the trucks showed they could be used, though inefficiently, to complete the early steps of creating a biological weapon, intelligence officials said. Based on information from the source, they believe each truck was part of a two-truck or three-truck system that could create a finished agent.

 

Or the beginnings of a U-Haul franchise.  Okay, okay, go ahead -- I'm listening...

 

Each of those multiple-truck systems -- the CIA believes Iraq had around seven -- could produce a few pounds of biological agent a month. The intelligence officials said they do not know which agent -- anthrax, botulinum toxin or others -- might have been involved.

 

Anthrax?  I thought that'd be the last word you guys would want to mention -- considering how the anthrax used in all those attacks right after 9-11 (on The National Enquirer offices, and then Democratic congresspersons) was traceable to an American source.  But hey, okay, if you want to remind people of that -- and of the high probability that if there were so much as a thimbleful of anthrax in Iraq, it would be because the U.S. sold it to Saddam.

 

The first truck was captured at a checkpoint run by U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in northern Iraq and then was turned over to American forces. The second, already looted, was found by U.S. forces in early May at the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development and Engineering facility in the northern city of Mosul.

 

A third trailer, found in Baghdad, is a mobile toxicology laboratory from the 1980s, the report says. It could have legitimate uses or be part of a weapons program.

 

Okay, I'm starting to get bored again...  Oh, wait!  Look...

 

Information about the trailers, based largely on the Iraqi engineer's description, was a key component of Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations regarding Iraq's alleged weapons programs.

 

The cartoon trailers!  See, I knew that's what we were talking about!  Thanks for clearing that up!

 

The Pentagon had previously reported the trailers' discovery and its suspicions that they were mobile labs.

 

Yeah -- and they reported on the discovery of those pesky aluminum tubes, and a bomb casing that a scary "green band" around it, which was a sure sign of WMD. A sure sign. Sure.

 

The trailers have already been inspected by U.S. and British technical experts and a group of scientists from coalition countries. Another team of international experts arrived in Iraq Saturday to inspect the evidence and will probably need a few more days, U.S. officials in Iraq said Monday.

 

Hey, Georgie wouldn't give U.N. inspectors a few more minutes; what makes you think-- Oh, yeah, I forgot: You're under the gun to justify Georgie's "war."  Sorry, go ahead with your little goose chase.

 

Meanwhile, former Sen. Sam Nunn urged Congress to investigate whether the argument to go to war in Iraq was based on distorted intelligence. He said there was a possibility that President Bush's policy against Saddam influenced the intelligence that indicated Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction.

 

A "possibility"?!  Sam, my man, the Bushy Bunch totally put the thumbscrews to the CIA to come up with something, in spite of all those early warnings from the spooks that the WMD story just wasn't gonna fly!  But, okay, I understand -- you feel you have to be diplomatic, don't you?

 

Well, listen, Sam, I don't presume to have any experience in the Senatorin' bid-ness, but I can tell you this: Being "diplomatic" is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.  I mean, if the Democrats had stopped being so goddamned polite all the time and insisted on proper protocol, we wouldn't have Bush in the White House, the USA Patriot Act in our bedrooms, and--

 

Oops, sorry, getting off-track here.  You just hang in there, Sam, and don't take no for an answer on this investigatin' stuff.

 

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have begun a review of their prewar views of Iraq.

 

What's that mean?  That the CIA is going to look at what it was coerced to do in order to justify Georgie's "war"?  That's what it sounds like to me.

 

Nunn, a Georgia Democrat and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, now heads the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative. He spoke from Paris, where he met leaders about money to fight weapons proliferation.

 

Trucks in Iraq Could Be Linked to Bioweapons, C.I.A. Says

New York Times

May 28, 2003

 

Okay, stopping now -- my head hurts.  But that's what always happens when I try to make sense of what the gov is trying to say.

 

Posted 4:40:28 PM   Send comment

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Big Brother Comes to Akron

Students will scan for meals

 

Akron school board OKs fingerprint system

 

Akron students will be fingerprinted beginning this fall to identify them in school lunch lines.

 

After a lengthy debate, school board members voted 5-2 Tuesday to spend $700,000 on a controversial, modernized cafeteria system.

 

Board members Rebecca Heimbaugh and Mary Stormer voted "no," mirroring the concerns of parents about the cost and privacy issue involved with fingerprinting students.

 

"I do not believe that any parent or any student has ever had the expectation that in order to go through the lunch line or to buy a cookie or carton of milk that they or their children would be requested to first be fingerprinted," said Heimbaugh, who says she will probably refuse to have her three children in the Akron schools fingerprinted. ...

 

The system will replace the meal-ticket method that has been used in Akron middle and high school cafeterias for nearly two decades. It will not be used -- at least initially -- in elementary schools.

 

Students' fingerprints will be put into a scanner that will make a template of binary numbers corresponding with the unique swirls and arches of each print. When students go through the lunch line, they will place their finger on a scanner that will identify them based on the stored template.

 

Designers of the system say the original fingerprints will be deleted.

 

School board members received numerous phone calls and e-mails from parents with privacy concerns about their children being fingerprinted. Those opposed to the system will have the option of having their children use an identification card. ...

 

Board President Linda Omobien said the system will enable cafeteria workers to more easily track the number of free and reduced lunches, which they now accomplish by hand-counting meal tickets. She said this is "ludicrous" in modern times. ...

 

Debra Foulk, coordinator of the Akron schools' Child Nutrition Services, said these methods were less reliable and cost about the same as the one relying on fingerprints. She said children often lose cards -- just as they now misplace meal tickets -- and forget PINs. ...

 

Raymond Vasvari, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said systems like the one adopted by Akron raise serious privacy issues. He said school leaders need to take steps to ensure that the fingerprint images don't end up in the wrong hands.

 

"The question remains -- is there information that would be useful to someone and how can you be sure this information is not shared?" he said.

 

Students will scan for meals

Beacon Journal

May 28, 2003

 

Oh, God forbid some kid should go through the line for an extra Kit-Kat Bar!

 

Now, seriously, folks, this is scary stuff.  If you're already opposed to the idea of a national DNA database, or a national identification card -- or if you're a traditional conservative who actually cares about the individual's right to privacy -- I don't have to explain why this bogus excuse to start collecting bio-info from Akron's schoolchildren is positively bone-chilling.

 

But, hey, if you need some talking points for your born-again, Bush-lovin' family or co-workers (or just want to scare them half to death -- which can be fun, too), you could always remind them that this is just the first step toward Revelation 13:16-18:

 

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

 

Of course, if they're really fanatical, they'll just welcome this as a sign of the coming Rapture... the belief in which, actually, contributed significantly to putting Bush into the White House in the first place.

 

Huh?  How can I say such a crazy thing?  Well, one of these days -- I promise -- we'll delve into how Bush -- and in fact, the bulk of U.S. foreign policy -- is driven by Christian fundamentalistism (as well as the Bush administration's willingness to exploit American Christianity for all it's worth).

 

But this isn't the time to get into the scary world of religious fundamentalism -- you've got enough real facts to think about this morning.

 

Enjoy your conversation around the water cooler today. :)

Posted 10:08:17 AM   Send comment

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Do Ya Think It's Sexy?

Iraq weapons dossier 'rewritten'

 

A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it "sexier", a senior British official has told the BBC.

 

The claim - hotly denied by Downing Street - came as Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first Western leader to visit post-conflict Iraq. ...

 

The intelligence official told the BBC the dossier had been "transformed" a week before it was published on the orders of Downing Street.

 

He said: "The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes.

 

"That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn't reliable.

 

"Most things in the dossier were double source but that was single source and we believe that the source was wrong." ...

 

Responding to the BBC report, Defence Minister Adam Ingram rejected suggestions that the US-led coalition had effectively gone to war on a false pretext.  He said the allegation that Downing Street had demanded changes to the dossier was untrue. ...

 

Mr Blair has said he is still absolutely sure that weapons of mass destruction will be found. "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists," he said on Wednesday. ...

 

The new questions over the dossier came as CBS reported that the bunker that the US attacked in the hope of killing Saddam Hussein at the beginning of the war never existed.

 

The American network quoted US Army Tim Madere, who is in charge of inspecting key sites in Baghdad, as saying there was no trace of a bunker or of any bodies at the Dora Farms.

 

Iraq weapons dossier 'rewritten'

BBC News

May 29, 2003

 

Oh, didja miss that story about the nonexistent bunker?  It's right here.

 

Now, I promised you a real shot of Big Brother today, didn't I?  Well, here it comes...

 

Posted 10:00:26 AM   Send comment

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What Elephant? Part 2

Still with me?  Good.  Now, take a deep breath, and get ready for a real revelation.

 

Look, I know -- talk of the economy is usually a coma-inducer to most of us, because most of us aren't economists who really get their rocks off on all those mind-numbing little details that go into the complex world of finance.  Regular folks like you and me want to cut to the chase, and get to the real bottom line; i.e., will we have a paycheck next week (or next month, or next year)?

 

But trust me on this -- you've got to read it, because this is the stuff impeachment trials are made of:

 

White House shelved deficit report

 

Study commissioned by O’Neill sees $44 trillion in red ink

 

The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the U.S. currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44 trillion in current U.S. dollars.

 

Wait.  Stop.  Read that again.  Yes, it says $44 trillion.  Not million, not billion, but trillion.  Do you have any idea how much $44 trillion is?  I certainly don't.  I mean, I can you tell it's got 12 zeroes in it, but I can't conceive of just how much money that is in terms of buying power, and, I expect, neither can you.

 

Okay, once that inconceivable amount of money has sunk in, read on -- because the dollar amount doesn't matter half as much as the fact that BushCo buried a report you should have heard about:

 

The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the U.S. government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the “baby boom” generation’s future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

 

Emphasis on the "then" in "then-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill."  Now can you figure why O'Neill was sacked (canned, fired, given his walking papers) in December?

 

But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.

 

The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the U.S. is to meet benefit promises to future generations.

 

"Future generations," boys and girls.  That means your kids, and their kids, and their kids, and... you get the picture.  And if you give half a whit about anybody's kids, you darn well ought to give a whit about the fact that Bush does not.  Give a whit, that is.  The only thing the Boy King appears to care about (besides oil money and world domination) is pushing through his completely unrealistic tax cut -- which is going to kill us economically, as confirmed by O'Neill's report.

 

It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 percent across-the-board income tax increase.

 

The study was being circulated as an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350 billion tax-cut package he welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy.

 

The analysis was spearheaded by Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr. Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: "When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget."

 

The study’s analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington’s “deafening” silence about the future crunch.

 

President Bush signed into law a $350 billion tax-cut package on Wednesday saying:"We can say loud and clear to the American people: You got more of your own money to spend so that this economy can get a good wind behind it." ...

 

Yeah, there's a lot of "wind" behind it, all right.  (Insert your own snarky pot-shot here, folks -- I can't choose between making some amusing remark about Gone with the Wind, or taking the lower road and going right for the flatulence joke.)

 

An administration official said the study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion — one among many left every year on the cutting-room floor — and noted the budget’s extensive discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls.

 

White House shelved deficit report

Financial Times via MSNBC

May 29, 2003

 

Well, there goes my Social Security (and yours, and your kids', and their kids') -- but, hey, I knew that.  And good thing I'm not relying on the fed to take care of my failing health in my old age -- which is, oh, just about 25 years off... or due to begin about the time that first "future generation" is really starting to feel the brunt of a (swallowing hard) $44 trillion deficit.

 

There is some good news in this bad news -- at least this article gives you a virtual outline of talking points the next time some Bush-worshipping right-winger accuses you of being anti-tax-cut because you're anti-Bush.  Your reponse is now spelled out for you:

 

"I am against Mr. Bush's $350 billion tax cut because it contributes to the $44 trillion deficit projected by the 2002 Treasury Department report that Mr. Bush chose to ignore in order to push through his own agenda.  In order to rectify the damage already done, we would need an immediate tax increase of more than 66%.  If we do not reign in this recklessness right now, your grandchildren and mine will be spitting on our graves as they attempt to make up for our mistakes.  Is that what you want?"

 

Okay, so you might want to change the "spitting on our graves" line.  And you might want to hone the whole thing down into shorter sentences; your opponents are even more bored by this economy stuff than you are -- and most Bush-worshippers can't digest more than ten or twelve words strung together.  Nah, I'm not saying they're stupid -- I'm saying they're used to having their information pre-digested for them, and regurgitated in short, easy-to-understand sound bites.  That's why Faux News and CNN (the Conservative News Network) are so popular -- they relieve viewers of the burden of thinking.

 

In any case, be prepared for a fight -- Bush drones tend to get very hostile when presented with facts.

 

But, wait!  We're not done yet, folks!  If I've failed to amaze you with the first two stories of the morning, perhaps you'll be more interested in the Iraq campaign -- no, silly, not the "war" campaign, but the Iraq disinformation campaign.  Stay tuned!

 

Posted 9:31:54 AM   Send comment

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What Elephant? Part 1

Don't you just hate those mornings when you wake up super-early, realize you have another hour and a half to sleep... and then make the mistake of checking the news for just one teeny-tiny moment -- and are sucked right into half a dozen fascinating items?

 

Well, I don't hate it -- it's what gets news junkies like me primed and pumped for the day.

 

It's a real 1984 kind of morning, folks -- one just bursting with half-truths, quarter-truths, outright lies, coverups, convenient memory losses, and various sundry acts of chicanery, all topped off with a fat, red, gleaming cherry of Big Brotherism.

 

We begin with September 11th, 2001 -- and an amazing revelation:  No, not the revelation that somebody's not telling the whole story, as that is neither a revelation, nor amazing, but the almost inconceivable idea that the right-wing mouthpiece known as MSNBC is actually printing Newsweek's June 2 piece on the vexing secrecy of the 9-11 non-investigation:

 

Classified: Censoring the Report About 9-11?

 

Bush officials are refusing to permit the release of matters already in the public domain—including the existence of intelligence documents referred to on the CIA Web site.

 

Why is the Bush administration blocking the release of an 800-page congressional report about 9-11? The bipartisan report deals with law-enforcement and intelligence failures that preceded the attacks. For months, congressional leaders and administration officials have battled over declassifying the document, preventing a public release once slated for this week. NEWSWEEK has learned new details about the dispute.

 

Among the portions of the report the administration refuses to declassify, sources say, are chapters dealing with two politically and diplomatically sensitive issues: the details of daily intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 and evidence pointing to Saudi government ties to Al Qaeda. Bush officials have taken such a hard line, sources say, that they’re refusing to permit the release of matters already in the public domain—including the existence of intelligence documents referred to on the CIA Web site.

 

One document is called the PDB, the President’s Daily Brief. The congressional report contains details of PDBs provided to Bush (and top national- security aides) prior to 9-11. The PDBs included warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda. (One PDB was given at the presidential ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 6, and dealt with the possibility that Al Qaeda might hijack airplanes.) But an administration review committee overseen by CIA Director George Tenet has refused to declassify anything that even refers to the existence of PDBs—though they are described on the CIA’s own Web site (www.CIA.gov). A U.S. intelligence official said the review committee must consult with the White House before releasing anything. But the official denied charges by Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate, that Tenet’s review committee was covering up White House embarrassments. “We’re not playing politics,” the official says. “Our concern is national security.”

 

The other hot-button issue is the Saudis, sources say. The report discusses evidence that individuals with Saudi government connections may have provided the hijackers aid. One of them is Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi student who helped two hijackers get apartments in San Diego. The administration won’t declassify references to al-Bayoumi even though, in response to a NEWSWEEK story, an FBI spokesman confirmed last November that he was being investigated. The report also includes interviews with U.S. officials about Saudi cooperation in the war on terror. Many were critical of the Saudis. The administration is declassifying only the response by former FBI director Louis Freeh praising Saudi assistance on the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing case. The U.S. intelligence official said that, in response to a letter cosigned by Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, House Intelligence Committee GOP chair, the review committee was considering allowing more portions of the report to become public.

 

Classified: Censoring the Report About 9-11?

Newsweek via MSNBC

May 29, 2003

 

Now, if you've been following the story thus far (and if you have, you're in the minority), none of this should come as any surprise.  The only surprise here is that it's hitting the American media, big-time.  That's bad for Georgie Boy -- and good for the people of the United States -- especially some 3,000 families who deserve to know why their loved ones got blown to bits the morning of September 11th for doing nothing more than getting out of bed and going to work.

 

Speaking of burying information, stay with me this morning, and let's do some more digging -- not into the rubble of the World Trade Center, but into the rubble of a once-thriving U.S. economy.

 

Posted 8:50:53 AM   Send comment

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Luuuuuuucy! You Got a Lotta 'Splainin' to Do!

I was just finishing up a particularly snarky entry about the absense of WMD in Iraq, when I came across this blockbuster -- or should I say bunker-buster?

 

No Bunker where U.S. Bombs Targeted Saddam - CBS

 

The Baghdad bunker which the United States said it bombed on the opening night of the Iraq war in a bid to kill Saddam Hussein never existed, CBS Evening News reported Wednesday.

 

The network quoted a U.S. Army colonel in charge of inspecting key sites in Baghdad as saying no trace of a bunker or of bodies had been found at the site on the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, known as Dora Farms.

 

"When we came out here, the primary thing they were looking for was an underground facility, or bodies, forensics, and basically, what they saw was giant holes created. No underground facilities, no bodies," Col. Tim Madere said.

 

CBS, saying it was the first news organization to visit the site, reported that the CIA had searched it once and Col. Madere had searched it twice as part of efforts to find traces of DNA that could indicate if Saddam or his sons had been killed or wounded.

 

The network said the main palace in the compound remained standing despite the surrounding destruction. It quoted Madere as saying anyone who had been in the building could have survived the raid.

 

Shortly after the attack, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters: "There's no question but that the strike on that leadership headquarters was successful. We have photographs of what took place. The question is, what was in there?"

 

The United States effectively acknowledged that the March 20 raid failed to kill Saddam when it launched a second air attack aimed at the Iraqi president on April 7.

 

The fate of Saddam and his sons Uday and Qusay is still unclear.

 

Rumsfeld said earlier this month, "If you don't have evidence he's dead, you've probably got to assume he's alive."

 

No Bunker where U.S. Bombs Targeted Saddam - CBS

Reuters

May 28, 2003

 

What -- you're not impressed?  Don'tcha see?  After drilling it into our skulls for the past two months that they were so bloody sure there was a bunker there, and they bombed it -- even if Saddam wasn't in it -- now they're admitting there never was any bunker in the first place.  I think that's pretty amazing.

 

Well, you know what they say about the first casualty of war.  Not, mind you, that I've ever taken anything that comes from the collective maw of the Bush administration with more than a grain of salt -- but I didn't think the cracks in the mighty Dam of Disinformation would get so big, so fast!

 

See, this is why I'm a news junkie -- every once in a while, you just turn up something really good... like, the truth.

Posted 12:57:02 AM   Send comment

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