Guest guest Posted May 9, 2006 Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 Mon, 8 May 2006 22:38:03 -0400 (EDT) OpEdNews: Dump Diebold rob click to read articles http://www.opednews.com/flyer/news_20060508_1.html Newest Articles By Rob Kall Dump Diebold____ At Your Bank Tell your bank to stop using Diebold. Hurt Diebold where their deepest pockets are most vulnerable. By Mark E. Smith What Makes Democrats Cry? The Democratic Party Leadership, Of Course. I'm no prophet, just a citizen who has seen the Democratic Party leadership make Democrats cry so many times that I can predict it as easily as predicting the daily sunrise and sunset. It is such a common phenomenon that I'd be astonished if it didn't keep recurring. By Bill Burkett ;Bush National Guard Story Whistleblower The Good Life The American dream isn't working any more. them off; and the dream was a mirage, not a reality. The door to the " good Life " has been slammed in the faces of Americans with the chill of mythical dreams and failed promises. By JGideon 'Daily Voting News' For May 08, 2006 a run-down of the days elections/voting news from across the country and overseas. By Bob Burnett Zen Mind, Bush Mind The unique Bush decision-making process is best understood by contrasting it with that of the Zen masters. For the first time, here are the secrets of the Bush master. By Doug Thompson Getting Scr*wed In, And By, Washington Porter Goss's decision to quit the CIA cold turkey has a lot of Washington watchers wondering just how deeply involved the former Florida Congressman may be in the growing " hookergate " scandal. By Len Hart Hayden Will Militarize The CIA! Gen. Michael Hayden's role in Bush's warrantless domestic spying program should disqualify him from taking over the CIA. Rather than repair the CIA's soiled reputation, Hayden at the helm could finish it off. By Lynne Glasner Review: Hostile Takeover-How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government -and How We Take It Back, By David Sirota Sirota does for his readers what Bush and his cohorts forgot to do for Iraq: plan not just for the assault but also for the aftermath. Sirota provides a revolutionary's handbook of sorts—The Little Blue Book of How to Take Back Our Government, arming readers with the facts needed to counter the spin and a plan to fix it. By Joshua Frank Challenging Hillary Clinton The antiwar movement isn't letting Hillary get away with murder. By Whitney, Mike Inevitable Collapse Of The Greenback Under the guidance of the Federal Reserve, Bush has increased government spending by 35% while raising the national debt a whopping $3 trillion. By Sam Vaknin The Demise Of The Work Ethic Whatever happened to the work ethic? Where is the pride in the immaculate quality of one's labor and produce? By Robert Jensen " Covering " And The Law A review of Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Kenji Yoshino (Random House, 2006). 282 pp. $24.95. By Mickey Z. The White Washing Of Muhammad Ali™ The man who shocked a nation by changing his name has sold that name for $50 million in cash. By Roy Murtishaw Kudos To Wairadio.com/ardemgaz Icon Critique Of Arkansas-Democrat-Gazette Columnist/Internet Radio Talkshow Host By Richard Mathis W.'s Catching Big Fish His Best Presidential Moment President Bush said his best moment as president was landing a big perch in his own lake. I fully agree that he has had no finer moment as president. By Thomas L. Walsh George W. Bush Cannot Recover By Andrew Bard Schmookler Here's The Statement I Used Today To Launch A Call-in Talk Radio Show Today In Virginia To Get Beyond " Liberal Vs. Conse After enduring a series of mere ad hominem attacks the last time I tried to discuss the lawlessness of this presidency on this radio program in Bush Country, I carefully crafted this statement to launch what I hoped would be a more constructive conversation on the radio today. By Robert Parry Rummy Logic & Enduring Lies Facing hecklers over Iraq War lies, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appealed for renewed faith in George W. Bush's honesty. But Rumsfeld then resumed the Bush administration's long pattern of deceiving the American people with what might be called " Rummy logic. " Yet, even as the public catches on, the mainstream news media continues to act the fool. By Steven Leser Hayden - The Wrong Choice To Head CIA General Hayden tells us ... the NSA needs to be able to wiretap American citizens at the Presidents behest without such pesky requirements as going through any semblance of the legal system, secret or not. Any American who thinks the Constitution and Bill of Rights are more than just a cute idea should recoil at any such suggestion. By Linda Franz, Black Box Voting The Myth Of HAVA With the continuing train wreck that is the intersection where elections and electronic voting machines meet, it is instructive to review what HAVA actually says and does not say and why what it does NOT say has become generally understood as the law. By Greg Grandin The Wide War From Tomdispatch today: Greg Grandin, " The Wide War, How Donald Rumsfeld Discovered the Wild West in Latin America " http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=82089 This is a wide-ranging, important essay by historian Grandin. He takes us on a journey into the strategic brain of the Pentagon as well as the " lawless " tri-border area of Latin America. By JGideon E-VOTE TRAIN WRECK 2006: Another Week, Another Wild – And Unfortunate – Ride… This has been another week of " Train Wrecks " across the country. Three states had major primaries with mixed success and failure, a few states had local elections with failures, and some states are preparing for May primaries..... By JGideon 'Daily Voting News' For May 07, 2006 a run-down of the days elections/voting news from across the country and overseas. By Len Hart GOP Pollster: " This Administration May Be Over! " Republican pollsters have seen the handwriting in the polls if not the wall. As the movement toward impeachment grows, Democrats may be willing to let Bush take down the GOP. By Allen L Roland ANOTHER VIEW ON FLIGHT 93 There is something unsettling about watching a heroic and obviously patriotic film interpretation of an event that is still shrouded by many questions as well as an incomplete 9/11 investigation. By David Swanson RNC Attack On John Conyers Demands Action From Democrats The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched an aggressive campaign to smear Congressman John Conyers. By Mike Whitney Not One Drop Imagine oil depots smoldering in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Iraq and Iran. Now, imagine oil at $350 per barrel and $14 per gallon at the pump. This is what we can expect if Bush goes ahead with his blinkered-plan to attack Iran. Maybe Bush will welcome the hellfire as fulfillment of his Biblical mission? By Todd Huffman, M.D. Stem Cell Funding Ban: Five Years On This summer, President Bush's moratorium on federal funding for stem cell research turns five. By Rev. Bill McGinnis A Summary Of Golden Rule Ethics: The Underlying Rule For All Right And Wrong Treat Others As You Would Like To Be Treated By Joel Peskoff, NY Activist Hillary Clinton: Too Much Of A Clinton Democrat? Even though she represents the second most liberal state in the union, she's a particularly uncourageous candidate... By David Swanson Atheists For Peace With the exception of Jews and African-Americans, no demographic group in the United States voted more heavily against Bush and for Gore and Kerry than did atheists, who make up 10 percent of the electorate. Atheists tend to be disproportionately progressive. So do atheistic countries. By Richard Mathis Kill Those Sinners For Jesus The " Left Behind " fundamentalist series of doomsday novels will soon add a graphically violent video game to its arsenal. By OriginsUSA Honor Women As Mothers On Mother's Day Mothers and their babies are human beings. Women are not baby-production equipment. OriginsUSA - an organization of family members separated by adoption - speaks out against " birthmother's day " and discrimination against single parent families. By Walter Brasch Silent Protest, Vocal Response In Danville, Pa., high school students learned about tolerance and bigotry when they said they would silently protest intolerance. By JERRY TENUTO I COULD RETIRE ON $400 MILLION… MAYBE The CEO of EXXON/Mobil retires with a package worth an unseemly $400 Million today, who knows how much in 10 years. Is any man's work worth that much remuneration? Plus, blight-upon-free thought Ann Coulter ignores facts, blaming the victims of tragedies and their families for the evil that befell them. Just another week in Right-wing run media America. By Danny Schecter The Media Shift From Them To Us Mapping out the contours of the emerging media system is now on the agenda of consumers and creators in consciousness industries all over the world. Suddenly, many major media combines—perhaps still more outside America than in—have put aside their institutional arrogance and realized that their traditional approach is no longer selling. By Roy Murtishaw From Non Brain-Dead Arkansans Of America Reader Response To A Rare Progressive In Red State America Best News Links from the Web By USA TODAY/Gallup Poll -- Only 31 % Approval -- Lowest Yet The survey of 1,013 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush's standing down by 3 percentage points in a single week. His disapproval rating also reached a record: 65%. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points...fueled by erosion among support from conservatives and Republicans. Moderates gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals of 7%. By The Last Gasp Of The Dollar? Overnight the story of Iran's proposed oil bourse has slipped into the mainstream press exposing the real reasons behind Washington's ongoing hostility towards Tehran By Top 10 Reasons Why Gore Will Run America's faced with mounting economic and military challenges. Al Gore has shown that he has the experience and passion to go all the way. And he also has timing on his side. By Full Frontal Assault On John Conyers Launched Over The Weekend By GOP & Friends In The Media Apparently the GOP's pliant cohorts in the media, including Russert, Stephanopolis, Matthews, the front page of the New York Times and, of course Fox, were all to happy to lend a hand to their efforts. Here's a round-up of a few of the most obvious efforts...(Don't believe it? See for yourself. Videos included.) By Feeney/St. Andrews/Abramoff And Ney/HAVA/Abramoff Connections Still Flying Beneath The Radar ....More pointedly, however, we've reported on the roll Abramoff and Diebold played, in both passing HAVA in the first place, and ensuring it stayed intact as Diebold needed it to. That story has also been overlooked by the media in general. If they care to pick up that ball now, they can find a lot of still-uninvestigated open ends in our report right here. By VIDEO - GOP Roadkill: Dean Buries DeLay's Rotting Political Corpse We posted this video from ABC's This Week at Crooks and Liars yesterday. If you are a fan of DNC Chairman Howard Dean then you'll enjoy this video. For those that get physically sick at the sight of DeLay, you might want to skip the first 5 minutes. By Bush Actually CAN Go Lower. One point away from the lowest rating of any president. By Norman Solomon: Opening The Debate On Israel The extended controversy over a paper by two professors, " The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, " is prying the lid off a debate that has been bottled up for decades. By FBI's Goss Man # 3: Foggo Goes Feel like I'm locked in some kind of " Trilogy of the Thongs " FBI crisis? Oh the horror...oh, the terror!!] By With Multiuses In Mind, BLM Knocks At The Backdoor To Grand Canyon My gawd...is there a " back end " safe in America today? By FBI Puts SOA Watch Under " Counterterrorism " Surveillances The FBI has been keeping tabs on SOA Watch, the human rights group that monitors the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. By NOT AGAIN! The Importance Of `Nine Fingers': 2nd Powerful Goss Aide Linked To Wilkes Parties Over the weekend, Newsweek magazine revealed the identity of another CIA official — previously known only as " Nine Fingers " — who reportedly attended the poker parties, that allegedly featured prostitutes, thrown by corrupt defense contractor Brent Wilkes His name is Brant Bassett. He is identified by Newsweek only as " a former Goss aide, " but that's an understatement. Congressional expenditure reports show he was actually the staff director of the House Intelligence Committee while Porter Goss was committee chairman. Bassett is the second Goss aide to be linked to the parties, in addition to Kyle " Dusty " Foggo. [Just " who " is running the FBI today? By Behind The Goss Toss - W's OWN 'alarmed' Panel Sealed Top Spy's Fate A little-known White House advisory board convinced a reluctant Bush to launch yet another high-profile shakeup of the nation's intelligence community and can CIA Director Porter Goss, sources said yesterday...The result was the awkward Oval Office announcement Friday at which neither Goss nor Bush gave a specific reason for Goss' return to Florida. Goss told CNN yesterday his resignation was " just one of those mysteries. " A LIE...Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself. [Those FBI guys...so much " tail-getting " so little time. Expect Gannon/Gluckert to re-emerge as a central figure in " hookergate " anyday. Guess these guys missed some WH prayer meetings?] By NPR Wrongly Suggested Reid, Stabenow Face " ethics Allegations " Over Abramoff Contributions NPR's Andrea Seabrook reported that one of Democrats' " big problems right now " is " convincing voters that the so-called 'culture of corruption' is a Republican thing. " According to Seabrook, " there's a growing list of ethics allegations against Democrats in Congress, " and as examples, she noted: " Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV], Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, and others took campaign contributions from Indian tribes that were associated with [disgraced former lobbyist] Jack Abramoff. " In fact, neither Reid nor Stabenow are facing allegations of ethical misconduct regarding Abramoff contributions, and the mere receipt of contributions from Abramoff clients is not an indication of corruption. By USDA Ordered To Use " Iraq Talking Points " To Paint A Rosy Pic For Bush In All Public Speeches Career appointees at the Department of Agriculture were stunned last week to receive e-mailed instructions that include Bush administration " talking points " -- saying things such as " President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq " -- in every speech they give for the department. The career people, we are assured, are not being asked to spread the great news on Iraq in their talks to food stamp recipients, disadvantaged farmers, enviros or other folks. No, they are just being asked to blow a huge butt-full of lies up other peoples' arses!! Must read... USDA TALKING POINTS ON THE IRAQ WAR By Pollster Suggests Bush Moves Might Be Too Little, Too Late A prominent GOP pollster thinks that the recent White House shake-up was an attempt to jump-start the admin. and boost Bush's rock-bottom approval ratings, but the efforts have come too late to salvage the presidency. A new poll by RT Strategies, the firm headed by Tarrance and Democratic pollster Thomas Riehle, shows that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, while 36 percent approve -- a finding in line with other recent polls. Tarrance said it would be extremely difficult for any president to bounce back this late in his administration and reassert influence on Capitol Hill when his approval rating barely exceeds his party's base support and half of all adults surveyed said they " strongly disapprove " of his performance. An overwhelming 73 percent of independents disapprove of Bush's performance, and two-thirds of those " strongly disapprove. " By Pentagon Takes To The Skies To Find Fresh Cannon Fodder Hit by one of its most difficult recruiting periods in decades, the Defense Department is paying United Airlines to show passengers a Pentagon-produced video touting military jobs. The 13-minute video " Today's Military " is played between standard in-flight programming, such as NBC sitcoms or Discovery Channel productions, the Chicago Tribune reported. By Dubya Claims He'd Like To Close Gitmo's Prison Camp President George W. Bush told German television he'd like to close the controversial terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. And there will be pork in the treetops by morning. By CIA Nominee Hayden Linked To MZM - Cunningham Scandal While director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden contracted the services of a top executive at MZM, the company at the center of the Cunningham bribery scandal, according to two former employees of the company...MZM was owned and operated by Mitchell Wade, who has admitted to bribing former Rep. Randy " Duke " Cunningham with $1.4 million in money and gifts. Wade has also reportedly told investigators he helped arrange for prostitutes to entertain the disgraced lawmaker, and he continues to cooperate with a federal inquiry into the matter. By Democratic National Committee To Sue Secret Service For Records In Abramoff Lobbying Scandal The Democratic National Committee will file suit against the Secret Service today in an effort to obtain entry and exit logs for several prominent figures in the Abramoff lobbying scandal By Strongmen Of South America Flex Their Muscles Officials in Washington wanly acknowledged that US influence in South America was at a dangerously low ebb, with allies of Chavez jockeying for power in elections in Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico. The stage has been set for a protracted standoff between western consumers worried about rising prices and South American oil producers whose newfound enthusiasm for bashing foreign companies may spread to Africa, Asia and elsewhere. By US, Seoul Parting Ways Over North Korea The more US officials claim to be getting along just fine with South Koreans, the more sharply their differences emerge on anything and everything to do with North Korea...the chasm between the two is widening constantly and soon may be unbridgeable. The differences emerge at every twist and turn in the complex, convoluted process of bringing North Korea back to six-party talks in Beijing on giving up its nuclear program. By Arab Regimes Have To Take Action Before Iraq's Nightmare Spreads The situation in Iraq is spiraling out of control. Each day brings news of more killings, mounting sectarian strife, and increasing interference from Iran and Turkey. The Arab world faces a powerful onus to help defuse the crisis, even if it had little or nothing to do with its creation. Arab leaders who wash their hands of the entire affair might enjoy a short-term sense of satisfaction at leaving the United States to wallow in a morass of its own making, but the reality is that events in Iraq stem from circumstances that exist in many countries across the Middle East. Like Iraq, virtually every country in the region contains some form of ethnic and/or religious mix of the sort that undermines national unity. Also like Iraq, none of these countries enjoy either the appropriate political institutions or the necessary legal structures to keep such competing interests from exploding into violence. Should the Arabs continue to sit on their hands, therefore, they can expec! t Iraq's problems to get worse - and then they can expect the same problems to spill over into other states across the region. By Poorly Protected Oil Facilities Leave West Vulnerable With oil prices already stretched to record highs, a terrorist attack targeting vital oil installations would have immediate global consequences, experts say... " Without Iraq, there is very little spare oil in the world: Every bit of oil is in use, " Klare said. " Even a small interruption in the supply of oil would push prices up. " That's why the American military is increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service. " By Thief-In-Chief: Funny Money On Iraq Bush is trying to score unearned points for fiscal rectitude by railing against the Senate's outsize $109 billion supplemental spending package, which includes money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as hurricane relief. But the real scandal is Mr. Bush's own preference for financing much of the cost of the Iraq war outside the normal budget process. That is convenient for the administration, which does not have to count the money when it is pretending to balance the budget. But Iraq is not some kind of unexpected emergency, like Hurricane Katrina. It is a highly predictable cost, now amounting to about $100 billion a year, or just under 20 percent of total military spending. Moving the war's financing off budget is no mere technical distinction. For one thing, it subjects the military's spending requests to less careful Congressional committee scrutiny than they would receive during the usual budget process. More important, this fiscal sleight of hand make! s it that much easier for the Pentagon to duck the hard choices it desperately needs to be making between optional and costly futuristic weapons and pressing real-world needs. By Official Testified That Rove Emphasized The " Political " Importance Of Discrediting Wilson & Plame Over Pre-War Intel One former government official said he testified that Rove talked with White House colleagues about the political importance of defending the prewar intelligence and countering Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. It was Wilson who accused Bush of twisting intelligence about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear material from Africa. The official refused to be named out of fear of angering Fitzgerald and the White House. By Pentagon Loyalist As Head Of Spook Agency Will Make Neocon Junta Complete The choice of a career military officer to lead the CIA was criticised by Republicans and Democrats yesterday for concentrating control of intelligence in the Pentagon. {We all know how well that served us in the run up to the Iraq War ,,, anybody seen any WMDs? That pesky mushroom cloud? Those tons of bioweapons? Cheney and Rummy cherry-picked the Itaq intelligence and they are already cherry-picking the intelligence for Iran...Hayden just the whipped cream on top of the Bush Sundae-from-Hell! By Did Bush Force British Minister Jack Straw Out? Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran...The newspaper reports that friends of Straw believe Mr. Bush was extremely upset when Straw pronounced any use of nuclear weapons against Iran " nuts. " Both The Independent and the Guardian write that Straw's " fate was sealed " after a White House phone call to Blair. By Blair: Nuking Iran Would Be Absurd Prime Minister Tony Blair says that any consideration of a nuclear attack against Iran would be " absolutely absurd, " and said the issue had no bearing on his decision to demote his foreign secretary. Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, had described alleged U.S. contingency plans for a tactical nuclear strike against Iran as " completely nuts. " By House Intel Panel Chief Opposes Hayden A leading Republican came out against the front-runner for CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, saying Sunday the spy agency should not have military leadership during a turbulent time among intelligence agencies. Members of the Senate committee that would consider President Bush's nominee also expressed reservations, saying the CIA is a civilian agency and putting Hayden atop it would concentrate too much power in the military for intelligence matters. By Baghdad Death Squads Deepen Divisions Bombs Sunday killed at least 30; some 45 men were found slain in the capital. A Baghdad health official says there have been at least 2,500 murders in the capital since the Samarra shrine attack, adding that those numbers don't include the victims of mass-casualty attacks like those Sunday. Today, Baghdad appears to be more divided and war-torn than at any point since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. [Neocons kill and destroy everything they touch -- total incompetence. By DOA - Bush Tries To Put CIA Under Military Leadership In one flex of that drug and alcohol addled brain, the Idiot-in-Chief Bush has re-ignitied the debate over his ill-conceived, ILLEGAL domestic surveillance program that his new CIA apointee, Hayden, oversaw as the onetime head of the National Security Agency. By Iran Signs Its Own Death Warrant? Last week, Iran's oil ministry granted a license to establish an Iranian oil bourse on the Gulf island of Kish, an economic free zone, to price and trade oil in the Euro, not in the dollar. This idea – strongly backed by the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – may well be the final straw that draws the United States into war against Iran. By The Real Oil Story: The Oil In Iraq BOOK REVIEW: Oil is pretty slippery stuff. The press is playing up $3 a gallon gasoline, record oil company profits, and the $400 million retirement package for Exxon's former CEO. But these stories are trivial compared to the oil story they have ignored all along. The war in Iraq. It's an oil war. And you don't have to take my word for it. Read former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips new book, " American Theocracy " : the Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. " The corporate media may have failed us but authors like Phillips are providing the needed analysis. By Jimmy Carter: Punishing The Innocent Is A Crime Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life. By Iran Sends Unprecedented Letter To Bush Iran's leader has written to President Bush proposing ''new solutions'' to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian head of state to an American president in 27 years, a government spokesman said Monday. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss ambassador on Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told The Associated Press. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran houses a U.S. interests section. By Ex-aide To To Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney Expected To Plead Guilty A former top aide to Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney is expected to plead guilty on Monday in connection with corruption investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a source familiar with the case said. The source said Ney's former chief of staff, Neil Volz, is expected to plead guilty at a federal court hearing to conspiracy to commit fraud and to violating the one-year ban on lobbying after leaving congressional employment. By Battle Expected As Bush Nominates Hayden Bush on Monday nominated Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA chief, setting up a likely battle with some members of the U.S. Congress over having a military man head the civilian spy agency. By Don't Feed The Beast: Bush Should End This Tax Cut Myth Rauch cites William Niskanen, an economist who worked in the Reagan White House and now chairs the Cato Institute. Niskanen has crunched the numbers between 1981 and 2005, testing for a relationship between tax cuts and government spending, and controlling for levels of unemployment, since these affect spending and taxes independently. Niskanen's result punctures his own party's dogma. Tax cuts are associated with increases in government spending. The best strategy for forcing cuts in government is actually to raise taxes. By NPR Wrongly Suggested Dems Face " ethics Allegations " Over Abramoff Contributions NPR's Andrea Seabrook reported that one of Democrats' " big problems right now " is " convincing voters that the so-called 'culture of corruption' is a Republican thing. " According to Seabrook, " there's a growing list of ethics allegations against Democrats in Congress, " and as examples, she noted: " Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV], Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, and others took campaign contributions from Indian tribes that were associated with [disgraced former lobbyist] Jack Abramoff. " In fact, neither Reid nor Stabenow are facing allegations of ethical misconduct regarding Abramoff contributions, and the mere receipt of contributions from Abramoff clients is not an indication of corruption. By Al Gore Might Yet Join 2008 Contenders Mr. Gore, who turns 60 in 2008, could remain noncommittal and enter the presidential fray late, given his fame and fund-raising potential -- unlike lesser-known Democrats already stumping in the early-nominating states to be the Clinton alternative, such as former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. If Mr. Gore ran -- or were drafted, as Ms. David suggests -- the longtime Washingtonian would run as an outsider, Democrats expect, helped along by his relationship with Internet-savvy MoveOn.org activists. There would be no small irony in Mr. Gore re-emerging with a crusade against global warming. In 2000, he played down the issue he had so long been identified with in Congress, on his consultants' advice. They feared the younger Bush, like his father, would use the issue to reinforce an image of Mr. Gore as a bloodless wonk, and make it a jobs question for voters in swing industrial and! coal-mining states. " The campaign took this issue off the table and robbed him of seeming 'big' and visionary, " says former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. " I think he regrets that. " By Did Bush Force British Minister Out? Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran. The newspaper reports that friends of Straw believe Mr. Bush was extremely upset when Straw pronounced any use of nuclear weapons against Iran " nuts. " Both The Independent and the Guardian write that Straw's " fate was sealed " after a White House phone call to Blair. By E-vote Train Wreck 2006: Another Week, Another Wild-and Unfortunate-ride... Is Anyone There? Does Anyone Care? his has been another week of " Train Wrecks " across the country. Three states had major primaries with mixed success and failure, a few states had local elections with failures, and some states are preparing for May primaries and they are meeting the " oncoming locomotive " as they can't get machines or software for the machines and are having to revert to paper ballots or lever machines. Elections Systems and Software (ES & S) is now facing investigations, lawsuits, or just plain pissed-off elections officials in West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and other jurisdictions. And now we learn that Diebold has a huge security vulnerability that all voting systems experts who know the details are very concerned about. By ES & S Meltdown: MO Counties Going Back To Paper, Lever Voting as company failures continue to pile up around the country. As Diebold implodes on the latest news that all of their touch-screen voting machines contain a perhaps-uncorrectable flaw being described as a " major national security threat, " the largest of the country's Electronic Voting Machine Companies, ES & S continue to meltdown all across the nation. On the heels of similar failures in Indiana, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Arkansas and elsewhere, Missouri now joins the crowd as the latest state to report failures by ES & S to deliver ballots, machines and software programming in time for elections this year. By An Apology From A Bush Voter A must-read by Doug McIntyre, Host, McIntyre in the Morning, Talk Radio 790 KABC. " So, I'm saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he's the worst President, period. After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I've reached the conclusion he's either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. " By CIA Frontrunner: Wrong Man, Wrong Time? For once, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree... By No Place Like Home A musical political cartoon based on the Wizard of Oz. You'll get a chuckle out of it, I promise! By Bush Theocracy At Work Cartoon strip aptly describing Bush's view of legislation passed by Congress. By FL: State House Candidate Arrested In Alachua City Hall... A state political candidate, fresh out of jail Tuesday after a controversial arrest by the Alachua police department, said he has solid evidence that the recent Alachua election was run improperly and that numerous election laws were broken. By Goss Leaves A Wrecked CIA Behind The sudden departure of Porter Goss has refocused attention on the dictatorial nature of the Bush administration —an administration obsessed with control and secrecy. Most importantly, it is an administration obsessed with justifying —ex post facto if necessary —Bush's various crimes. Clearly that was the task that had been assigned to Porter Goss and just as clearly the effort has backfired. Goss leaves behind a weaker CIA and more tragically for the nation — a compromised national security. By Last Question Is Obstruction For Fitzgerald, Rove Hundreds of pages of emails and memos " discovered " by the White House in February and turned over to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald show that Karl Rove played a much larger role in the Valerie Plame Wilson leak case than he had previously disclosed to a grand jury and FBI investigators. By WaPo: Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures and reinstate lapsed bu! dget deficit controls. By Mr. Limbaugh, Thank You For Your " Limbaugh Laws " On Immigration (and Good Luck With That Conviction For Illegal Drug Use click to read articles http://www.opednews.com/flyer/news_20060508_1.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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