The real problem with Bush's leak

Politicians, pundits, journalists and bloggers have been debating President Bush's ultimate motivation for authorizing the leak of classified information about the Iraq war to Scooter Libby. But the central issue in the case is not whether or not Bush broke the law per se, or whether he sought isolated revenge against Joe Wilson. What's important to understand and determine here is whether or not this leak is part of a much broader scandal; part of the Bush administration's cover-up of a pre-planned invasion of Iraq, and the cherry-picking of intelligence to fit that mission.

Gangster government: a leaky president afoul of 'Little Rico'

It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual.

'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you.

OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a BIGGER crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail.

Censure movement catching fire

The media has largely been ignoring the fact that the Feingold Resolution to censure George W. Bush has been gaining support among leading Democrats. The Corporate Mainstream Media made it a huge story that the Feingold Censure Resolution did not immediately gain massive public support from other Democratic Senators. Senate Democrats are starting to rally behind the resolution after exploring the issue and examining public opinion on the issue.

Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa are now co-sponsors of the Feingold Censure Resolution. Senator Harkin has written an excellent article on the subject titled “Why I Fully Support Bush Censure”.  This article can be read at Tom Harkin.com http://www.tomharkin.com . Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina recently declared his support of the resolution.

Stunning grassroots congressional challenge may unseat pro-war democrat

Marcy Winograd has strong words for Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman: "She is pro-war and has voted for the Patriot Act three times. Do we really need her in Congress?"

Winograd, 52, is a grassroots activist who has just won a stunning victory in her challenge for Harman's southern California Congressional seat. In a district pre-endorsement meeting, Winograd won 35% of the delegate vote, denying Harman the 70% she needed to enter the statewide Democratic convention with a clear home district endorsement.

"It's almost unheard of for a six-term Congressional incumbent to walk into the Democratic party convention without a pre-endorsement," says Winograd. "Harman can't possibly feel like she has the backing of the people of the district."

Are mainstream churches finally standing up to the GOP’s hateful “Christian” blitzkrieg?

Right-wing church movements have been a staple of American politics since well before the 1692 witch trials at Salem. But only in the past few decades has the extremist church served as the grassroots base for a new breed of corporate totalitarianism. That unholy union has been nowhere more powerful than here in Ohio, and it has finally provoked a response from the state’s mainstream churches.

With huge torrents of cash from Richard Mellon Scaife, the Ahmanson family and other super-rich ultra-rightists, the fundamentalist church has formed the popular network that has spawned the Bush catastrophe. The totalitarian alliance between pulpit, corporation and military is unique in U.S. history.

DEMAND VOTING RIGHTS FOR KATRINA SURVIVORS

New Orleans Stands Up By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. 4/4/2006 - Tribune Media Services
Thousands of New Orleans residents marched on Saturday to demand the right to vote. They marched across the Mississippi River Bridge where Gretna police had repelled residents as they tried to escape the horrors of Katrina. Forty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, African Americans once more must march to gain the right to vote.

There's an election called for New Orleans on April 22, but the South has always had elections. After centuries of slavery and segregation, the reason for the Voting Rights Act was to defend the right of blacks to vote. The Act requires the federal government clear ahead of time - preclearance - any changes in voting procedures to protect against any trick or scheme that would dilute the voting rights of minorities in those areas of the country with a history of discrimination.

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH

The ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH by the Center for Constitutional Rights (Melville House). Impeachment Book can serve as a useful handbook. It states the case for impeachment clearly, concisely, and persuasively. It is not a polemic, and you don’t have to be an attorney to comprehend what it says. It includes:

€ the case exactly as it could be presented by the House of Representatives to the Senate . . .
€ necessary evidence and legal precedents for each article of impeachment . . .
€ what the Constitution says about impeachment . . .
€ a brief history of impeachment . . .
€ the rules of procedure . . .
€ the articles of impeachment brought against previous presidents, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, for comparison . . .
€ a “webliography” including links to numerous other resources and groups on the Web . . .

Melville House Publishing has launched a campaign on its website where people can send a copy to their congressperson and the publisher will pay the shipping and handling costs.

No clothes, no shame

With scant forethought beyond doing what his father had not, topple Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush launched his war into Iraq.  Now mired in the fourth year of this misadventure, Bush's litany of justifications has him sounding like the perpetual delinquent that thinks he can talk his way out of anything.

As shortsighted now as before, Bush spins out his broken-record mantra: "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein." If Bush can find a silver lining in a manmade disaster of his doing, surely he might be able to detect great purpose in a catastrophe of Mother Nature's making.

To wit, if a tsunami had swept up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and had gotten Saddam Hussein, but in the bargain also took the lives of thousands of Iraqis, killed over 2,000 of our troops, permanently maimed untold more, seriously damaged our nation's hard-gained reputation, and cost our people billions upon billions of dollars, we might expect George W. Bush to place much value in the devastating wall of water and to take credit for its course.

An interview with Norman Birnbaum

“Our empire in general makes us less secure since it consumes moral and material resources better used for domestic reconstruction. . .”

Norman Birnbaum served as an adviser to the Kennedy Presidential Campaign, a consultant to the National Security Council, an adviser to the United Automobile Workers, the chair of the Policy Advisory Council of the New Democratic Coalition, and as a member of the editorial board of Partisan Review. His writings include The Crisis of Industrial Society, Toward A Critical Sociology,The Radical Renewal, The Politics of Ideas in Modern America, and After Progress: A Century of American Social Reform and European Socialism. He is a member of the editorial board of The Nation, founding editor of the New Left Review and publishes frequently in the American and European press. He has a distinguished academic career including as a Professor Emeritus of Georgetown University Law Center, and teaching at Amherst College, the London School of Economics, Oxford University, the University of Strasbourg among others. He is a founding committee member of the Campaign for America's Future and advisor to members of the Congress and Senate.

Closing the secret school

Something was missing when Father Roy Bourgeois and several companions traveled through South America last month: fear.

Or rather, as he said it, almost reverently, "FEAR-R-R-R" - a big, lingering, life-shaping word, clotted with grief and inexpressible rage. As he spoke the word, it was alive with the memory of midnight knocks and disappeared loved ones, the reality of life under the oligarchies and terror regimes that subdued the poor in Latin America for so long.

When I talked to Bourgeois the other day, he couldn't conceal his wonderment at its absence: "I remember the fear that I had when I left there years ago. To see fear replaced by hope . . ."

Indeed, something remarkable is happening in the Southern Hemisphere, news of which we in El Norte get only in heavily filtered, ludicrously distorted doses. Women and indigenous people are suddenly ascending to ranks of power. In Uruguay, a former human-rights attorney is now defense minister. Unimaginable possibility is dawning, and the wounded and imprisoned of earlier decades are grieving openly for the first time and crying "Nunca mas!" - never again.

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