Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
Kiss of Death
by John Nichols President Bush recently traveled to Australia to thank conservative Prime Minister John Howard for making that country a member of the "coalition of the willing" U.S. allies in the occupation of Iraq.
Bush's trip was supposed to shore Howard up as national elections approached. Instead, the president planted what turned out to be a political kiss of death on his most willing accomplice.
When the votes from Down Under were counted Saturday, it was instantly clear that the vast majority of Australians are no longer willing to participate in the American president's misadventure in the Middle East.
US Health Crisis and Our Children's Teeth
by Katrina vanden Heuvel Last Spring, following the death of twelve-year old Deamonte Driver of Maryland whose untreated tooth infection spread to his brain, I wrote about the national epidemic of dental disease and the lack of access to dental care faced by the poor and working class.
Last month, an article in the New York Times painted a horrifying picture of the state of dental care, where bootleggers sell dentures that would otherwise be unaffordable to many people missing teeth; where low Medicaid reimbursement rates perpetuate a dearth of participating dentists; where untreated cavities are a leading cause of kids missing school, people use Krazy Glue to reattach broken teeth, or swish rubbing alcohol to treat an infection, "burning the gums and creating ulcers."
Happy Birthday, Saudi Arabia
by Mona Eltahawy A Saudi woman friend who needed corrective eye surgery visited a doctor in her country a few years ago to see if she qualified for the procedure. As he performed routine tests my friend reminded him that he hadn’t measured the diameter of her pupils. She’d done her homework and knew what to expect.
The doctor told her it was an unnecessary test for women because it measured the clarity of night vision which was crucial for driving in the dark and since women can’t drive in the kingdom, he performed the test on men only.
Congo's Crisis, Congo's History
by Christian Parenti The horrors of violence in the eastern Congo demand some explanation. Reports from the ground paint a picture of a hell on earth, one of the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crises. But too often these reports, providing little context, can leave an implicitly racist aftertaste.
The implication seems to be, “Well, these people are just savages.” Some history makes the madness appear slightly more logical, if no less evil.
Debating for Dummies
by Eric Alterman I've seen debates on TV before, of course, and attended them from journalists' pens and spin rooms. But sitting in the audience of CNN's November 15 Democratic presidential debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, focused my mind on the egregious manner in which our media dumb down the process by which we pick our Presidents.
It was less a debate than a two-hour advertisement; not only did viewers see CNN = Politics graphics everywhere but unbeknownst to the television audience a network producer ran around the stage, ginning up the crowd like a high school cheerleader.
(This backfired when a group of rowdies -- angered by the inanity of the questions -- shouted down Wolf Blitzer and had to be removed from the auditorium.)
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,
We knew we hit a nerve when Rush, Drudge, and O'Reilly unleashed on us the same day. Then, MSNBC censored the McCain health records ad, a Brave New PAC initiative, due to Bill O'Reilly/Fox's pressure.
And why? Because of the work we have all done together to stress the importance of John McCain releasing his health care records. Led by over 2500 doctors from around the country, Republicans, Independents and Democrats, asking important questions about the records, about his health, and stating loud and clear the records should be released.
It seems to me that Americans for at least the past seven years have been stricken with a collective trance such as I have never witnessed in this country in my lifetime. Psychologist, Paul Levy, in his superb article "Spiritually Informed Political Activism" speaks to the necessity of waking up from the spell and speaking the truth about the criminal insanity that is running our nation and our world. He takes this "waking up" many steps further by the end of his article, but for now, I'd like to address the questions: "Why such seemingly impenetrable denial in the American psyche these days? Why are some people almost incapable of awakening?"
Resistance and Hope
by Charles Sullivan If we Americans are nothing more than hopelessly addicted consumers who think of ourselves as an exceptional people with special entitlements; if we see ourselves as god’s morally superior chosen people; if we are selfish and greedy beyond redemption—then we are complicit in all of the horrible crimes that government commits in our name.
The United States has a violent history of atrocity and exploitation that began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on the shores of North America in 1492. It extends all the way to the present and is guided by the same poisoned ideology—Manifest Destiny.
Dam Yankees: The Flow Stops Here
by C. L. Cook The greatest thing about hosting a public affairs radio program is for me the chance to talk with lots of great Americans. I'm certain, should humanity survive this dangerous time, the names of the guests appearing on Gorilla Radio will be of the household variety, and not as they are now, a collection of the most famous people you've never heard of.
I mention this because, for my intense criticism of the Bush administration, (and the Clinton one that preceeded it) some would have me styled as an "anti-Americanist."
Dana Perino, Supermen, bin Laden, and Who Planned 9/11?
by C. L. Cook
In an amazing revelation, White House spokesperson, Dana Perino exonerated the wildly vilified Arab "leader" of terrorist super horror, al Qaida, Usama bin Laden, saying it was in fact tortured terror suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed behind then-crime of the century September 11, 2001.
The iconic "say anything to make it stop" photo of Mohammed released to the world press following his confession under "harsh" interrogation is below the break.
Descending Dark: Felling Canada
by C. L. Cook So it's true; the Laird is fallen?!
Yes, Conrad Black, golden child of Canada's upper crust, cum British peer, Conrad Lord Black of Crossharbour finds himself now far from Fleet Street, lain low in America's second city, brought to ruin in a Chicago courtroom, of all places.
What will next befall our fallen hero? Possibly the rest of his life will be spent behind American bars - though his lawyers will doubtless continue the frantic efforts to have Conrad's Canadian citizenship restored - he rather flamboyantly turfed his passport, you may recall, over then-prime minister Jean Chretien's refusal to allow, contrary to law, a Canadian sit in a foreign government body - in hopes he might do his time in the less horrific Canadian penal system.
Defence Minister, Bill Graham says the plan to re-deploy Canadian operations currently in and around the northern capital city of Kabul are to go ahead. He also announced, an additional 1250 troops by early next year.
Last week, in a speech to the Standing Committee on National
Defence and Veterans Affairs and the Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs, National Defence Minister Graham reiterated how Canada will
face its "new" role in global military affairs.
He cited the completion
of a new Defence Policy Statement and its central document, A Role of
Pride and Influence in the World.
Dear friend, Are you one of the many Canadians increasingly concerned about the situation of our country's media? Media diversity is the cornerstone of democracy, yet in recent years consolidation has left our media in the hands of fewer and fewer big corporations, with ownership (control) among the most concentrated in the industrialized world; the CRTC has advanced consolidation and commercialization while neglecting the public interest and even adopting policy breaking its own legal mandate; insecure and inadequate funding has compromised our public broadcasting, and English CBC now earns most of its revenue from commercial sources.
Join a growing movement of Canadians acting to protect Canadian media. We are rallying around urgent public intervention in the CRTC's Diversity of Voices Proceeding.
This proceeding was created in the wake of major corporate media mergers to examine issues of concentration of ownership and its impact on diversity. It is open to public input until July 18th.
Liberals Want to Know: "Do Canadian Jews Support Boycotting Aid to Palestinians?"
by C. L. Cook
A few weeks ago, Liberal York Centre riding incumbent Ken Dryden
channeled Tory foreign affairs minister, Peter McKay, telling the
crowd gathered at the Beth Emeth synagogue Canada should completely cut
off aid to Gaza.
In his article, 'Israel's Party Mixer,' NOW Magazine's Paul Weinberg
quotes the former Montreal Canadiens star goal-tender saying;
"Stop all aid that flows into Gaza. While that may seem a harsh measure
that will hurt Palestinian civilians… it is the right thing to do at
this time."
imprisoned on corruption charges
by Dana Siegelman I am the daughter of the former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman. He was indicted four years ago on corrupt charges brought forth by U.S. prosecutor Leura Canary, wife of his political opponent's campaign manager.
Leura is married to Bill Canary, former partner and long-time friend of Karl Rove. There is evidence linking Karl, Bill, and current governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, to my dad's case (in addition to the obvious connection with Leura Canary).
Driving the Riff-Raff
by C. L. Cook The peril of our current reality occurred suddenly to me the other night, revealed, as Shakespeare said many truths often are, in jest; the terminal fate of the human race could not have been made more clear.
* Witness: the University bus exchange - Victoria - night. Waiting to board the perennially overcrowded University bus, (the under-serviced situation there too a symptom of our collective undoing), I saw three bus drivers shooting the breeze, while laying over. Our driver "Dan," as he later identified himself, turned to his fellows and said; "Well, time to go drive the riff-raff."
That would be me, and my fellow sardine-packed transit passengers.
Fortunes of War: Death and Chaos No Problem for Profit-Seekers in Iraq
by Chris Floyd We have long been told that the "security situation" in Iraq is the reason why the loudly promised "reconstruction" of the shattered nation by altruistic Western firms has been thwarted.
Foreign corporations, particularly the oil companies, are eager to come to the aid of the suffering Iraqi people with expertise, technology and massive investment -- just as soon as those quarrelsome Arabs settle down and stop killing each other.
So the story goes. But as usual, the truth is far from that.
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort...
Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said...The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall.
The real story here is the story behind the story. After all, George W. Bush has already authorized his agents to kill American citizens -- without arrest, charge, trial, or even any warning -- if the victim has been designated -- arbitrarily, at the whim of the "Leader," outside any judicial process or oversight -- as an "enemy combatant." This "authority," claimed by Bush in October 2001 (I first wrote about it in print in November 2001) extends to every person on earth, not just Americans, so Iranian "agents" or "Revolutionary Guards" or anyone else Bush or his minions decide to kill has always been fair game. The only new wrinkle here is the specific authority given to the U.S. military to carry out these "extrajudicial" assassinations -- a license to kill that had hitherto been reserved for the security organs..
System of a Down: Powers, Principalities and the Sacred Right to Torture
by Chris Floyd At his Harper's blog, Scott Horton demonstrates how the architects of George W. Bush's filthy torture regimen are now holding positions that allow them to protect themselves and their masters from the legal consequences of their actions.
Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Crouch, a former military prosecutor, was due to testify to a Congressional subcommittee about the Administration's attempt to suppress evidence of torture in "Military Commission" trials of alleged terrorists. But at the last minute, he was blocked from testifying by the Pentagon's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, on specious grounds that Horton blows out of the water.
With the Anglo-American coalition so deeply embedded in dirty war
– infiltrating terrorist groups, "stimulating them into action,"
protecting "crown jewel" double-agents no matter what the cost, "riding
with the bad boys," greenlighting the "Salvador Option" – it is simply
impossible to determine the genuine origin of almost any particular
terrorist outrage or death squad atrocity in Iraq. All of these
operations take place in the shadow world, where terrorists are
sometimes government operatives and vice versa, and where security
agencies and terrorist groups interpenetrate in murky thickets of
collusion and duplicity. This moral chaos leaves "a kind of blot/To
mark the full-fraught man and best indued/With some suspicion," as
Shakespeare's Henry V says.
A Declaration of US Independence from Israel
by Chris Hedges [This is a talk given at the Nassau Club in Princeton by Chris Hedges, former New York Times ME bureau chief. (Photomontage Wolfy, Twisted old tree by Zaki Boulos)
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor.
By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid. - Mary Rizzo]
Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal
by Chris Hedges
The passing of the $850-billion bailout
pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for
air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was
murdered by the Democratic Party.
We are on our own. And don’t
expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for
the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the
ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of
representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering
in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some
of them were Republican.
I have a question for you. Let’s say you’re driving down the road, at night, along a busy highway, 10 miles from the next exit, and the oil warning light suddenly blinks on. What do you do? Are you the sort that pulls over or keeps on driving? If you’re the sort that keeps on driving, upset mainly because you don’t have any black tape to put over that pesky red light, then you might as well stop reading right now because we’re about to pull over.
First a set of definitions; when liabilities exceed assets by an amount that cannot be serviced by any conceivable future revenue stream, then one is said to be ‘insolvent’. When current cash flow cannot service current debt payments, then we say an entity is technically bankrupt. And finally, when a debt payment is missed, then a default has occurred, the entity is actually bankrupt and all sorts of legal machinery kicks into high gear.
In my last article I wrote about the fact that United States budgetary and fiscal officials revealed to us that in order for the United States government books to net out to zero there would need to be $53 trillion in the bank, today, earning interest. Of course there isn’t any public money of that sort, or any sort, in the bank.
SCREEEECH!That’s the sound of this article pulling over to the side of the road
Last time out, I detailed some fairly logical reasons why Polonium is a poor choice as a murder weapon.
Not the least of which being that it leaves a trail and puts the poisoner at risk as well as the victim.
You can add one more. If you want to gag somebody - a ‘fierce critic’ - you would hardly choose a slow kill method that lets the dirtbag spend three weeks blabbing to the world’s press. Unless, perhaps, you control the mouthpiece and could doctor the information coming out.
This article is the fifth part of the series: Interviews with Willem Middelkoop. Earlier writings and audio can be found here in both English and Dutch. [1-2-3-4-5]
Following the two interviews on the precarious state
of the economy and the unavoidable fall of the dollar, Willem
Middelkoop and I decide to dig deeper into these issues. Middelkoop
manages quite well to convey enthusiasm for a subject which on the
surface seems to revolve around tedious numbers. For a subject that was
so boring in school, Middelkoop brings it to life by placing everyday
economic reality into a larger perspective. It's then that the numbers
come to life, and it's then that you begin to understand why everything
revolves around money in this world. It's also then that you learn how
to look beneath the surface.
Years of self-study by someone who out of sheer curiosity wanted to
know just exactly what was going on with all that money resulted in an
independent, unacademic look at the fundamental elements of our daily
existence: money, finances, economics. Middelkoop has been a journalist
from the very beginning - before he made his transition to the
financial world, he was a photojournalist for the Dutch daily Het
Parool. That observant eye makes him a nice partner for a conversation.
It's July 18th, a warm summer evening in Amsterdam, the wine is
chilled. I turn on the recorder and begin the conversation with the
fundamental question of what money is. Memories from high school
Economics 101 float to the surface as Middelkoop talks about bartering.
The uncreative cartoons in the study books, the non-communicative
teacher, the scribbling on the chalkboard - it all flashes before my
eyes. It made the subject of economics inaccessible for me, and I was
someone who had more of a knack for language as it was; this didn't
exactly culminate in a love of calculations and economic models.
But as a result of the first two discussions with Middelkoop I once
again find myself on the edge of my seat as soon as the conversation
comes around to the economy. By way of the simplistic question of what
money is, we quickly find ourselves at the concept of bartering and so
that people wouldn't have to trade via the mutual exchange of goods,
they went in search of a valuable unit of exchange. Okay, so then what?
Willem Middelkoop:
"Then there is really only one thing that fits the bill,
and those are the precious metals. Throughout the last 4000 years, gold
has been regarded as having a fixed value in almost all cultures.
Whether you look at the Pharaohs or the Incas, that gold could be found
everywhere. So it seemed to meet all the basic requirements that a unit
of exchange had to quite nicely. Because gold presented practical
problems when transporting it (heavy) and with small transactions (pay
with gold flakes?), paper money was developed as a logical alternative.
But of course you had to be able to exchange that paper for gold, and
that gold had to actually be stored somewhere, otherwise you'd never
accept that paper money. These days we think of it as normal to accept
paper money, but back then you wouldn't just go and sell your cow for
paper."
Later on the people who issued those certificates realized that they
could distribute more certificates/banknotes than were actually
represented in gold.
"Those goldsmiths found out that at the most, five to ten percent of
the population came to collect that gold. And that is actually the
basis of our current monetary system."
So in order to avoid quickly getting into trouble, you could issue ten
times the value of your gold supply - and it's lucrative to boot.
"What we see today - quite a big leap from the year 1200 up until now -
is that the entire financial system revolves around this one
fundamental idea. Basically, we issue much more money than we can
actually answer for. They do this in Japan, they do this in China, we
do it here in Europe and they do it in America. Most money is created
out of nothing, and in this way we create immense prosperity."
Lt. Ehren Watada, for those who don't already know, became the first
commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to the unlawful war
and occupation in Iraq. While doing this on June 22, 2006, Watada said,
"As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as
well, I must refuse that order."
Despite the fact that independent journalist Sarah Olson's reporting of
Lt. Watada's statements are publicly available, the U.S. Army has
subpoenaed her to testify in the court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada.
Even though Dahr Jamail simply transcribed and published one of Ehren
Watada's speeches - which was recorded and available anyway - Dahr
Jamail has been placed on the witness list and may also be forced to appear.
In this interview, Amy Goodman speaks with the two journalists. Sarah
and Dahr explain why forcing journalists to testify against their
sources is a chilling new attack on journalism and free speech in the US.
Listen Here!
Thursday, 04 January 2007 | 1439 Hit(s)0 comment(s)
New Operation Gets Surprise Support
by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
A massive military operation in Diyala province has underscored the military and political gains by the Sahwa militia, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's earlier attempts to thwart them. Maliki has now apparently come around to involving the Sahwa rather than opposing them.
The Sahwa are the 'Awakening Forces' created and paid by the U.S. military to co-opt militants and to fight al-Qaeda, but which have become a force of their own parallel to the military and the police.
Running Out of Water in Rising Heat
by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.
Water supply has been hit by power failures. The central pumping station has been running short of electricity supply over the last two years.
The pumping station is located between two districts in conflict -- Hwaider, which is predominantly Shia, and Jupenat, mostly Sunni. For two years now, fighting between Sunnis and Shias here has led to reduced water supply.
Nature Adds to Occupation Blows
by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.
Nothing now seems more difficult in Iraq than the business of farming.
"The shortage of water is the biggest threat that Iraqi agriculture has ever faced," an employee in the directorate-general of irrigation for Diyala province, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "It threatens not only food but also employment in this city [Baquba, capital of the province.]
Watching the slow-motion march to war against Iran is a bit like watching a terminal cancer patient in a hospice. We know how it's going to end. We know it's going to be tragic and ugly. But we are powerless to stop it.
There is a difference of course.
For the cancer patient, there really is no alternative.
For us, there is an alternative to the catastrophe which President Bush and his regent, Dick Cheney, are preparing for us all.
We could rise up as a nation and demand that our elected representatives pass a Boland-type amendment banning any use of the military in Iraq. We could demand that a resolution be passed revoking the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq. We could demand the revocation of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force which the president has improperly cited as giving him extra-Constitutional powers. And we could demand that Congress tell the president and vice president that if they attack Iran without explicit congressional authorization they will both be immediately impeached.
While Republican vultures hover shamelessly over the hospital where Sen. Tim Johnson, the South Dakota Democrat remains in critical condition following emergency brain surgery, progressives are in a lather worrying that if Johnson doesn't recover, or if he dies, South Dakota's Republican governor would appoint a Republican to finish out his term, handing control of the U.S. Senate back to the just ousted Republican Party.
There were fears of the same possible outcome back in early November, when pseudo-Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), defeated in an August primary for his party's nomination, succeeded in winning re-election running as an independent. It was feared--and to some extent is still feared--that Lieberman could jump over to the GOP in January, handing Republicans control of the Senate. Lieberman has played this fear like a virtuoso violinist, wresting a promise that he will chair the Homeland Security Committee in the 110th Congress if he stays in the party fold.
Progressives should take a deep breath and relax, though. The truth is, all this angst is really just about Democratic Senators looking to maintain their own newfound power and their own marketability to the big donors who they hope will fill their campaign coffers. If they lose control of the Senate, and don't get to chair all those committees and subcommittees, they don't get the big bucks.
Reverting to form, Democrats in Congress are cautiously trying to have it both ways so as to avoid having to take a stand on any of the issues that matter.
Faced with President Bush's own disastrous decision to go "double or nothing" on his losing Iraq War by adding another 20,000 or more troops to the front, House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid chose to…write a letter to the White House "urging" the president not to go that route.
The idea seems to be that if he goes ahead and sends the additional troops into the cauldron and things go from bad to worse, Pelosi and Reid will be able to say that they opposed the idea, while they will be immune from right-wing charges that they undermined the commander in chief, since they didn't do anything concrete to block his insane plan.
The truth is that Democrats could, if they had any principle and if they honored the wishes of the electorate, bring U.S. involvement in the Iraq War to a screeching halt. How? They could vote to cut off all funding for the Iraq War except for the costs of safely withdrawing all troops from the country. Nobody could accuse them, were they to do this, with putting American troops at risk. But they would have to face those who would accuse them of "cutting and running."
David Howell was born in 1972 in Elmhurst, Illinois. He started drawing shortly afterwards. In 1998, he moved to San Francisco where he attended art school, accumulated a lot of debt, graduated with an MFA, fell in love, and got married. He now lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife.
Dear folks in Canada; I have been banned from entering Canada for the next year by Canadian authorities, as of April 25th. I thought I'd shoot off some initial thoughts on the subject since many people are curious, and since I think it's pretty outrageous behavior on the part of the Canadian government.
I made many trips to Canada throughout the 1990's and was waved through every time, as far as I recall. Having a US passport generally makes international travel embarrassingly easy (as with other passports of First World countries). And still up to this day, at border after border around the world, the agent will usually ask me how long I'm staying, I respond, and my passport is stamped and I'm through. I walk past the room where other people are being taken aside for questioning, and it's always full of darker- skinned people from somewhere in the world where crossing borders is usually difficult or impossible. But with my US passport it's generally a breeze.
by David Swanson The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs is
prepared to follow in Dick Cheney's footsteps and shoot a friend in the face. I
just sat through a hearing on Iran, and there is apparently universal bipartisan
agreement in the committee that Iranians feel kindly toward Americans and
welcome them as friends, and that Iranians should be brutally punished by the
toughest economic sanctions possible. This simple truth went unstated: sanctions
kill.
Unlike the previous majority party in Congress, the Democrats who take power today know their weaknesses. They know they're not very good at the whole press conference thing where you're supposed to stand there and say something people care about. So they've announced an open-mic policy.
And it seems to be working. It turns out that an ordinary person who's not been through our campaign bribery system and not agreed to a list of positions acceptable to Washington strategists is much more interesting to listen to than Rahm Emanuel. Speaking at Congressional press conferences could become a regular stop for tourists of our nation's Capital as well as for locals who enjoy karaoke.
Congressman Emanuel had not been informed of the new policy yesterday, but we knew he'd appreciate it. So, while he was in the middle of trying to impress employees of Disney and GE with his commitment to banning lobbyists from donating small islands to Congress Members except on weekends (or something), Cindy Sheehan livened things up by beginning a chant of
Nothing reminds us more of how much the American constitutional system has been transformed, of just how extreme the "imperial presidency" has become, than Congress's generally woeful record in the second half of the last century and in the first years of this one to exert any significant control over or brakes on White House wars abroad. On such issues, Congress has generally lagged well behind public opinion -- as in Vietnam, where its greatest power, the power of the purse, led to partially successful defunding efforts only in 1973 after all U.S. combat forces had been withdrawn and as the American war was limping toward its end.
Democrats on Capitol Hill see the world through bureaucratic shades and have been circulating this self-congratulatory Email:
"Over the last four years,the Republican Congress failed to conduct oversight on the Iraq war and failed to hold the Administration accountable for the conduct of the war. In contrast to this dismal record, in the last five weeks, the new Democratic-led Congress is already exercising vigorous oversight and demanding accountability from the Administration on the Iraq war. Attached is a list of 52 House and Senate hearings that have already occurred on issues related to the Iraq war. There will be numerous other hearings by both House and Senate committees on issues related to the Iraq war over the next several months."
Of course, the American public would very much like to see real investigations into the war, especially into the lies that launched it. But that's not what this list of 52 hearings is about. The vast majority of these hearings are simply ordinary day-to-day business
Advertise 
President Bush recently traveled to Australia to thank conservative Prime Minister John Howard for making that country a member of the "coalition of the willing" U.S. allies in the occupation of Iraq.
Last Spring, following the death of twelve-year old Deamonte Driver of Maryland whose untreated tooth infection spread to his brain, 
A Saudi woman friend who needed corrective eye surgery visited a doctor in her country a few years ago to see if she qualified for the procedure. As he performed routine tests my friend reminded him that he hadn’t measured the diameter of her pupils. She’d done her homework and knew what to expect. 
I've seen debates on TV before, of course, and attended them from journalists' pens and spin rooms. But sitting in the audience of CNN's November 15 Democratic presidential debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, focused my mind on the egregious manner in which our media dumb down the process by which we pick our Presidents.
It seems to me that Americans for at least the past seven years have been stricken with a collective trance such as I have never witnessed in this country in my lifetime. Psychologist, Paul Levy, in his superb article "
So it's true; the Laird is fallen?! 
Dear friend, Are you one of the many Canadians increasingly concerned about the situation of our country's media? Media diversity is the cornerstone of democracy, yet in recent years consolidation has left our media in the hands of fewer and fewer big corporations, with ownership (control) among the most concentrated in the industrialized world; the CRTC has advanced consolidation and commercialization while neglecting the public interest and even adopting policy breaking its own legal mandate; insecure and inadequate funding has compromised our public broadcasting, and English CBC now earns most of its revenue from commercial sources.
I am the daughter of the former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman. He was indicted four years ago on corrupt charges brought forth by U.S. prosecutor Leura Canary, wife of his political opponent's campaign manager. 
The peril of our current reality occurred suddenly to me the other night, revealed, as Shakespeare said many truths often are, in jest; the terminal fate of the human race could not have been made more clear.
At his Harper's blog, 
With the Anglo-American coalition so deeply embedded in dirty war
– infiltrating terrorist groups, "stimulating them into action,"
protecting "crown jewel" double-agents no matter what the cost, "riding
with the bad boys," greenlighting the "Salvador Option" – it is simply
impossible to determine the genuine origin of almost any particular
terrorist outrage or death squad atrocity in Iraq. All of these
operations take place in the shadow world, where terrorists are
sometimes government operatives and vice versa, and where security
agencies and terrorist groups interpenetrate in murky thickets of
collusion and duplicity. This moral chaos leaves "a kind of blot/To
mark the full-fraught man and best indued/With some suspicion," as
Shakespeare's Henry V says.
The passing of the $850-billion bailout
pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for
air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was
murdered by the Democratic Party. 
I have a question for you. Let’s say you’re driving down the road, at night, along a busy highway, 10 miles from the next exit, and the oil warning light suddenly blinks on. What do you do? Are you the sort that pulls over or keeps on driving? If you’re the sort that keeps on driving, upset mainly because you don’t have any black tape to put over that pesky red light, then you might as well stop reading right now because we’re about to pull over.
Last time out, I detailed some fairly logical 
Let’s stop all the heavy breathing.
Reverting to form, Democrats in Congress are cautiously trying to have it both ways so as to avoid having to take a stand on any of the issues that matter. 
Dear folks in Canada; I have been banned from entering Canada for the next year by Canadian authorities, as of April 25th. I thought I'd shoot off some initial thoughts on the subject since many people are curious, and since I think it's pretty outrageous behavior on the part of the Canadian government.
The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs is
prepared to follow in Dick Cheney's footsteps and shoot a friend in the face. I
just sat through a hearing on Iran, and there is apparently universal bipartisan
agreement in the committee that Iranians feel kindly toward Americans and
welcome them as friends, and that Iranians should be brutally punished by the
toughest economic sanctions possible. This simple truth went unstated: sanctions
kill.
Nothing reminds us more of how much the American constitutional system has been transformed, of just how extreme the "imperial presidency" has become, than Congress's generally woeful record in the second half of the last century and in the first years of this one to exert any 
