And the Pentagon's stunning conclusion?

AUSTIN -- The Pentagon has once again investigated itself! And -- have a seat, get the smelling salts, hold all hats -- the Pentagon has once again concluded the Pentagon did absolutely nothing wrong and will continue to do so.

In this particularly fascinating case, the Pentagon investigated its own habit of paying people to make up lies about how well the war in Iraq is going, and then paying other people to put those lies in the Iraqi media, thus fooling the Iraqis into thinking everything in their country is tickety-boo. Well, if we can't fool them, whom can we fool?

The case revolves around a contract worth several million dollars given by the U.S. military command in Baghdad to the Lincoln Group, a public relations outfit started by two young entrepreneurs, one British, one American, in 2003 in Iraq. Articles were written by American military personnel from the American point of view about the war, to wit, it's going well. Lincoln Group in turn paid Iraqi journalists, some "on retainer," to print the articles without revealing the source.

Today's melt-down anniversary confirms nuke revival as a form of Three Mile Island Insanity

Today's twenty-seventh anniversary of the disaster at Three Mile Island finds the nuclear industry pushing yet another lunatic attempt to revive atomic energy.

This periodic outbreak of industry-financed insanity usually precedes a major disaster, and always reflects a cynical denial of basic economic, public health and ecological reality. This year it also indicates a complete unwillingness to face the fact that renewable energy---especially wind power---has long ago left atomic energy in the radioactive dust.

At 4am on March 28, 1979, an "impossible" series of errors at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Unit Two---which had opened exactly three months earlier---turned a $900 million investment into a $2 billion liability. The plant's owners lied repeatedly about the seriousness of the accident and its emissions. Escaping radiation poured into the surrounding countryside, quickly killing thousands of birds and insects. A plague of death, disease, malformation, stillbirth and spontaneous abortion followed among a host of nearby farm animals.

Infrastructure

Election Hitler

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Unable to topple Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra after weeks of street protests, opponents are venting their fury by portraying him as Adolf Hitler, sparking a denouncement by Israel's embassy.

Thailand's recently emboldened English language newspapers, meanwhile, have plastered their pages with anti-Thaksin stories, rhetoric and vitriol.

"Fuck Thaksin," read graffiti displayed in a front-page photo in the respected Bangkok Post on Thursday (March 23).

That hand-written demand appeared on one of the big, mass-produced "Wanted Dead or Alive" posters waved by protesters to needle Thaksin -- a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush and a former police officer who received a PhD in Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University in Texas.

The popular poster's "reward" offers 73 billion baht (1.8 billion U.S. dollars), the amount Thaksin's family pocketed, tax-free, by selling their Shin Corp. telecommunications empire on February 24 to the Singapore government's investment wing, Temasek Holdings.

Housing cuts for the poor, tax cuts for the rich

President Bush’s 2007 budget that was released last month includes significant cuts in housing assistance. The new budget for the Housing Choice Voucher Program underfunds 70 percent of the state and municipal housing agencies that oversee the program, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Although the Republican Congress has debated the cuts affecting the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it appears unlikely that Mr. Bush’s cuts will be opposed. Ironically, Congress is also considering yet another tax cut for the wealthy.

The voucher program is the country’s largest low-income housing program. It provides poor households with vouchers they can use to rent housing in the private sector. Since 2004 voucher assistance for over 100,000 families have been cut because HUD doesn’t allocate the vouchers based on current needs. Mr. Bush’s 2007 budget relies on the same funding formula that has caused the shortages in the past few years.

Blaming the media for bad war news

Top officials in the Bush administration have often complained that news coverage of Iraq focuses on negative events too much and fails to devote enough attention to positive developments. Yet the White House has rarely picked direct fights with U.S. media outlets during this war. For the most part, President Bush leaves it to others to scapegoat the media.

Karl Rove’s spin strategy is heavily reliant on surrogates. They’re likely to escalate blame-the-media efforts as this year goes on.

A revealing moment -- dramatizing the pro-war division of labor -- came on March 22, during Bush’s nationally televised appearance in Wheeling, West Virginia. On the surface, the format resembled a town hall, but the orchestration was closer to war rally. (According to White House spokesperson Scott McClellan, the local Chamber of Commerce had distributed 2,000 tickets while a newspaper in the community gave out 100.) It fell to a woman who identified herself as being from Columbus, Ohio, to give the Wheeling event an anti-media jolt.

Her husband -- who was an Army officer in Iraq, where “his job while

Bush makes Iraq the vital reason for his impeachment and removal

George W. Bush has clarified the most vital reason why he must be impeached and removed from office as soon as possible: the slaughter in Iraq, and his clear statement that it will not end while he is in the White House.

Bush has made his departure the light at the end of the tunnel.

If he stays, more killing is inevitable. If he goes, a quicker end to the war is not certain, but it is more likely. Nobody expects Dick Cheney to pull out of Iraq if he succeeds Bush. But a successful impeachment and removal will reshape all American politics, and open up the possibilities.

Bush's escalating unpopularity has moved impeachment talk out of the margins, toward the mainstream. Increasingly worried GOP hacks portray it as an attack on Bush's ability to protect the country, and on our soldiers.

But polls now show a majority of US troops in Iraq say the war should end in 2006, not 2009. More than 80% of the Iraqi people want the US out now.

By pledging to prolong the slaughter, Bush endangers both our troops and our national security.

Justice -- not war -- in the Philippines protests Iraq war at military recruitment center

New York City--New York-based Filipinos, students and youth flooded Bronx streets on Sunday, March 19th to denounce the US war on Iraq, a war that has killed approximately 150,000 Iraqis and nearly 2,300 US soldiers. In a march and rally organized by the ANSWER Coalition, a large contingent of Filipino youth, workers and solidarity friends bore placards and banners calling for "Money for Youth and Education, Not for War and Occupation" and "No to HR 4437, Yes to Pro-Immigrant Comprehensive Immigration Program."

Sensenbrenner-King House Resolution 4437 is the bill currently in Congress that, if passed, will criminalize  almost 14 million undocumented immigrants, their families and any who assist them. "Anti-immigrant bills like HR 4437 are meant to scare and silence us," said Leah Obias, member of local Filipino youth organization Ugnayan ng mga Anak ng Bayan. "Meanwhile, military recruitment takes place in poor and immigrant neighborhoods where incentives like college tuition and faster immigration processes are dangled in front of us."

Tell your Senators to Defend the Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act is one of America’s most important and effective environmental laws. Large-scale developers and other powerful industry players are using their money and influence to try to undermine the act. Last September, the House of Representatives passed a destructive bill (H.R. 3824) that would severely weaken protections for imperiled wildlife. Now, the fight over the fate of this law is moving to the Senate. Urge your senators to vote NO on any legislation that would weaken the Endangered Species Act.

March 24, 2006

Your U.S. senators

I strongly support the Endangered Species Act and urge you to vote NO on any legislation that would weaken this landmark law.

The Endangered Species Act has provided a crucial safety net for wildlife, fish and plants on the brink of extinction for more than three decades. The act has helped prevent the extinction of almost every listed species, including the bald eagle, the gray wolf, the grizzly bear and the Pacific salmon. Ninety-eight percent of the species protected under the act still exist today, and many are stable or improving.

Blackwell

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