Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

That's quite an article, Snuf ....

And it's good to see you back .....

"The Age of the Acquisitors" ......

I think perhaps .....

We may finally be at the other end ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

"Melting ice threatens sea-level rise"

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:18 p.m., Thursday, March 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Earth is already shaking beneath melting ice as rising temperatures threaten to shrink polar glaciers and raise sea levels around the world.

By the end of this century, Arctic readings could rise to levels not seen in 130,000 years -- when the oceans were several feet higher than now, according to new research appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Even now, giant glaciers lubricated by melting water have begun causing earthquakes in Greenland as they lurch toward the ocean, other scientists report in the same journal.

In principal findings:

-- At the current warming rate, Earth's temperature by 2100 will probably be at least 4 degrees warmer than now, with the Arctic at least as warm as it was 130,000 years ago, reports a research group led by Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona.

-- Computer models indicate that warming could raise the average temperature in parts of Greenland above freezing for multiple months and could have a substantial impact on melting of the polar ice sheets, says a second paper by researchers led by Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Melting could raise sea level one to three feet over the next 100 to 150 years, she said.

-- And a team led by Goeran Ekstroem of Harvard University reported an increase in "glacial earthquakes," which occur when giant rivers of ice -- some as big as Manhattan -- move suddenly as meltwater eases their path.

That sudden movement causes the ground to tremble.

Otto-Bliesner and Overpeck wrote separate papers and also worked together, studying ancient climate and whether modern computer climate models correctly reflect those earlier times.

That allowed them to use the models to look at possible future conditions.

The researchers studied ancient coral reefs, ice cores and other natural climate records.

"Although the focus of our work is polar, the implications are global," Otto-Bliesner said.

"These ice sheets have melted before and sea levels rose."

"The warmth needed isn't that much above present conditions."

According to the studies, increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next century could raise Arctic temperatures as much as 5 to 8 degrees.

The warming could raise global sea levels by up to three feet this century through a combination of thermal expansion of the water and melting of polar ice, Overpeck and Otto-Bliesner said.

Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, who was not part of the research teams, said, "One point stands out above all others and that is that a modest global warming may put Earth in the danger zone for a major sea level rise due to deglaciation of one or both ice sheets."

Ekstroem and colleagues reported that glacial earthquakes in Greenland occur most often in July and August and have more than doubled since 2002.

"People often think of glaciers as inert and slow-moving, but in fact they can also move rather quickly," Ekstroem said.

"Some of Greenland's glaciers, as large as Manhattan and as tall as the Empire State Building, can move 10 meters in less than a minute, a jolt that is sufficient to generate moderate seismic waves."

Melting water from the surface gradually seeps down, accumulating at the base of a glacier where it can serve as a lubricant allowing the ice to suddenly move downhill, the researchers said.

"Our results suggest that these major outlet glaciers can respond to changes in climate conditions much more quickly than we had thought," said team member Meredith Nettles of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

------

On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

[Livyjr]

And looping back in time ...

As we are able to do in here ...

Thanks to the massive memory that this FORUM provides us with ....

Coupled with a very handy "search engine" feature ....

We have from back in the "beginning days" of this thread, as follows ......

U.S. National - AP

"AP Poll: U.S. Split Over Handling of Iraq"

Fri Dec 10, 2004

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans remain sharply divided in their views of how President Bush is handling Iraq, and their confidence that a stable, democratic government will be established in that country has eroded, an Associated Press poll found.

Fewer than half, 47 percent, think it's likely Iraq will be able to establish a stable government, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Just over half, 51 percent, say they think it's unlikely.

Those most likely to have lost faith in the chances of a stable, democratic Iraq are those with college degrees, Southerners, city-dwellers, homeowners, Catholics, independents and Democrats.

Asked whether Iraq will be able to establish a stable democracy, Susan Welch of Jasper, Ga., was quick to say:

"No way."

"I don't think that President Bush started off with the right attitude — you cannot beat people into freedom," said Welch, a political independent and a part-time postal carrier.

"I have no problem with the president's handling of Iraq," said Donna Baker, a 56-year-old Republican from Robinson Creek, Ky.

"I haven't heard any plan better."

March 22, 2006

"Bush Concedes Iraq War Erodes Political Status"

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, March 21 — President Bush said Tuesday that the war in Iraq was eroding his political capital, his starkest admission yet about the costs of the conflict to his presidency, and suggested that American forces would remain in the country until at least 2009.

In a quick remark at a White House news conference about the reserves of political strength he earned in his 2004 re-election victory — "I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war" — Mr. Bush in effect acknowledged that until he could convince increasingly skeptical Americans that the United States was winning the war, Iraq would overshadow everything he did.

Later, in response to a question about whether a day would come when there would be no more American forces in Iraq, he said that "future presidents and future governments of Iraq" would make that decision.

That statement was one of the few he has made that provides insight into his thinking about the duration of the American commitment in Iraq, and signaled that any withdrawal of troops would extend beyond his term in office.

Mr. Bush asserted that Iraq was not in a civil war, and took issue with Ayad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister and White House ally, who said Sunday that it was.

The president also said repeatedly that he was convinced that the United States would succeed in Iraq and that he would continue to deliver that message across the country.

"I'm going to say it again: if I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there," he said at the nearly hourlong session in the White House press briefing room.

"I wouldn't put those kids there."

The president's news conference was part of a White House campaign to convince Americans that there is good news in Iraq, not only the daily bloodshed they see on television.

The session with reporters was sandwiched in between a series of presidential Iraq speeches — Washington last Tuesday, Cleveland this last Monday and Wheeling, W. Va., scheduled for Wednesday — and like them, projected a tone of qualified optimism.

Mr. Bush admitted mistakes and acknowledged chaos on the ground, but emphatically asserted that the situation would improve.

"I've heard people say, 'Oh, he's just kind of optimistic for the sake of optimism,' " he told reporters.

"Well, look, I believe we're going to succeed."

"And I understand how tough it is."

"Don't get me wrong."

"I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is."

"I hear it from our troops."

"I read the reports every night."

"But I believe the Iraqis — this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't."

"And that's a positive development."

The speech tactic worked in late 2005 when another series of Iraq addresses helped to stabilize the president's poll numbers temporarily.

But analysts said that with his message now familiar to the nation, it was not clear whether people were listening.

"The problem with the speeches is they get gradually more realistic, but they are still exercises in spin," said Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"They don't outline the risks."

"They don't create a climate where people trust what's being said."

White House officials are hopeful that the communications offensive by Mr. Bush will stop the decline that has sunk his job approval ratings to the lowest levels of his presidency, but some military analysts said they were skeptical because he announced no new policies in his news conference or in his speeches.

"This particular series confuses me about what it is trying to accomplish," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military specialist at the Brookings Institution.

"It's been a bad winter in Iraq, but I also don't think he has enough new to say, and it's too soon after the fall speeches."

The war in Iraq bled into most questions at the news conference.

Mr. Bush once again strongly endorsed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in response to a question about whether he should step down, as some members of Congress are demanding.

"No, I don't believe he should resign," Mr. Bush said.

"I think he's done a fine job of not only conducting two battles, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also transforming our military, which has been a very difficult job inside the Pentagon."

He added: "Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy, not just the war plan we executed in Iraq, but the war plans that we have been executed throughout the history of warfare."

Mr. Bush's mood at the news conference alternated between relaxed and testy, although he appeared to be trying hard not to show his irritation at some reporters.

In one exchange, Helen Thomas, the longtime White House correspondent and Hearst newspaper columnist, asked Mr. Bush why he really wanted to go to war with Iraq.

He curtly replied that "to assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect."

At another point, he took on a peevish tone when asked about Democratic measures in Congress to censure him for his secret surveillance program.

A recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans support the program as long as they believe it is intended to protect them from terrorism.

"I did notice that nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program," Mr. Bush said.

He added, in a formulation similar to his campaign speeches portraying Democrats as soft on terrorism, that "they ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used."

He used the same question to take on Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader, over the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, although no reporter had brought up either the Patriot Act or Mr. Reid.

"He openly said, as I understand, I don't want to misquote him, something along the lines that, 'We killed the Patriot Act,' " Mr. Bush said, referring to Democrats and a handful of Republicans who temporarily held up renewal of the law because of concerns that it was infringing on civil liberties.

"If that's what the party believes, they ought to go around the country saying we shouldn't give people on the front line of protecting us the tools necessary to do so," Mr. Bush said.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, responded that Mr. Bush's remarks were "part of his standard talking points, but the reality is that Senator Reid strongly supported the bill that was signed into law by the president."

Mr. Reid also issued a statement on Tuesday with the headline, "We see no end to Bush's dangerous incompetence."

In the news conference, the president strongly defended his staff against calls from Republicans in Congress for new blood in the White House and complaints that the West Wing is adrift.

"These are good, hard-working, decent people," he said.

"And we've dealt with a lot."

He added that there was natural Congressional anxiety in an election year.

"I can remember '02 before the elections, there were a certain nervousness," he said.

"There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04, and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down."

"So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year."

"I understand that."

Asked if he planned to bring to the White House an experienced Washington insider who could quell concerns among Republicans in Congress, Mr. Bush replied, "Well, I'm not going to announce it right now."

[jeffmoskin]

Standard economic theory since the adoption of floating foreign exchange rates in 1973 states that big trade deficits auto-correct by having the currency of the profligate nation depreciate. Thus if Brazil is buying more from, say, South Korea than South Korea is buying from Brazil, there will be more South Koreans with Brazilian reals (earned from the exports to Brazilians ) than there will be Brazilians with won...


...This has traditionally not happened with foreigners holding US dollars. The United States dollar is what is called a "reserve currency", ie, foreigners are willing to hold dollars even though they can't easily use them as the domestic currency in their home markets. Without the selling that would accompany all the exporters to the United States trading their dollars for their home currencies, the US dollar stays higher than the economic fundamentals would theorize it should, and the great American global shopping spree can continue...

As long as BushCo can FORCE all payments for oil to continue to be made EXCLUSIVELY with US Dollars as it has been since 1973-74, the Fed can print more counterfeit money every time the price of oil rises.

Foreign countries need those dollars to buy their oil.

A pretty good racket.

If BushCo can keep it from collapsing.

[Livyjr]

As long as BushCo can FORCE all payments for oil to continue to be made EXCLUSIVELY with US Dollars as it has been since 1973-74, the Fed can print more counterfeit money every time the price of oil rises.

Foreign countries need those dollars to buy their oil.

A pretty good racket.

If BushCo can keep it from collapsing.

A house of cards, jeffmoskin .....

Or that scene in the Wizard of Oz ...

Where the little dog ...

Finally pulls back the curtain ....

To reveal that the MIGHTY WIZARD ....

Is just some little old man ...

(Or in this case, a goofy Texican) ....

Feverishly working a lot of knobs ....

And dials and levers .....

In a futile effort ...

To have the candid world ...

Believe that he is a whole lot bigger ....

Than what reality .....

Finally shows him to be ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

U.S. National - AP

"AP Poll: U.S. Split Over Handling of Iraq"

Fri Dec 10, 2004

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans remain sharply divided in their views of how President Bush is handling Iraq, and their confidence that a stable, democratic government will be established in that country has eroded, an Associated Press poll found.

Fewer than half, 47 percent, think it's likely Iraq will be able to establish a stable government, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Just over half, 51 percent, say they think it's unlikely.

"I have no problem with the president's handling of Iraq," said Donna Baker, a 56-year-old Republican from Robinson Creek, Ky.

"I haven't heard any plan better."

In a futile effort ...

To have the candid world ...

Believe that he is a whole lot bigger ....

Than what reality .....

Finally shows him to be ....

And so .....

TEACHER: Little Johnny, what can you tell me about America?

LITTLE JOHNNY: It has the best government that money can buy of any nation on the face of this earth of OURS .....

TEACHER: Little Suzy, is everyone on Washington, D.C. for sale?

LITTLE SUZY: Well, I'm not sure about everyone ......

But the politicians are ....

Starting right with the Office of the President, it seems ....

And running downhill from there ....

Like sewage on its way to pollute the sea ....

And that is what matters ......

"Candidates Distance Bush, but Not His Cash"

By TOM RAUM

42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Many worried Republicans on the ballot in November have been pushing away from the White House, not wanting to be dragged under by President Bush's sinking approval ratings and growing anxiety over Iraq.

That doesn't mean they're also fleeing his cash offerings, however.

Despite approval ratings in the mid-to-upper 30s, Bush remains the nation's most successful fundraiser.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose poll numbers are even lower than Bush's, is not far behind.

Both have raised tens of millions of dollars for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates running in this year's midterm elections.

Even as some Republicans are becoming increasingly defiant on a range of issues, they're still lining up dutifully for the president's campaign dollars.

"I would be shocked if a legitimate Republican candidate, not just a fringe candidate, who got word that the president was coming to do a fundraiser said, `no, don't come to my district,'" said GOP consultant Rich Galen.

That said, Republican candidates don't want to be forced off message by such a visit and "have to spend the next two or three days talking about the president's policies ... or what happened yesterday in Ramadi (Iraq)," Galen said.

It has resulted in some fancy GOP footwork as candidates in tight races step away from Bush and Cheney on divisive issues but dance toward them when the subject is money.

Bush has scheduled fundraisers Friday for Rep. Mike Sodrel of Indiana at The Murat Centre in Indianapolis and for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., at a private residence in the Pittsburgh area.

He's doing another one at a Washington hotel on Monday for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., where $1,000 will get you in the door, and $10,000 in combined contributions from others will get you a "photo opportunity with the president," according to an invitation.

Bush and Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, are not scheduled to appear together publicly on Friday.

Santorum, trailing Democrat Bob Casey in polls, broke with Bush on a plan to have an Arab company based in Dubai run terminals at some U.S. ports and has raised concerns about the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq.

When Bush went to Cleveland earlier in the week to make a major speech on Iraq, there was a noticeable absence of top Ohio Republicans, including Sen. Mike DeWine, who is locked in a tight re-election race.

Cheney went to Newark, N.J., earlier in the week to help raise $400,000 for New Jersey GOP Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr.

But Kean showed up 15 minutes after Cheney left.

Kean said he got stuck in traffic, a claim critics questioned based on the route he took.

Michael Steele, the GOP Senate candidate in Maryland, skipped Bush's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in November, but joined the president later at a $500,000 fundraiser.

Last month, GOP Senate candidate Mark Kennedy in Minnesota did not attend an appearance by Bush at a 3M Corp. plant outside Minneapolis, but joined him later at a fundraiser.

At a local GOP gathering in Nevada last weekend, Republican Sen. John Ensign tied himself to Ronald Reagan rather than Bush, saying spending under the Bush administration "has upset me."

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who also attended the gathering, told reporters:

"I believe the president has his agenda, his focus."

"I have mine."

"I will always run on mine."

Worries over the Iraq war are weighing down all Republicans and causing strains between Bush and his congressional allies.

"The big issue is now the war," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

In a White House news conference earlier this week, Bush acknowledged the war was dominating the nation's attention.

"So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year."

"I understand that," he said.

A president is typically his party's fundraiser-in-chief, and Bush has embraced the role like no other, besting even the reception-loving Bill Clinton in total dollars collected.

Bush headlined events that raised more than $140 million for Republican Party committees and candidates in each of the 2002 and 2004 election cycles.

In 2005, Bush held 20 fundraising events, raising $75.5 million, while Cheney held 36 events that brought in $15 million.

So far this year, Bush has held six events raising $12.5 million, and Cheney has held 11 events that raised $1.6 million, according to a GOP tabulation.

"The Republicans want to make withdrawals from the White House ATM."

"But at the same time, they don't want to be photographed or be seen being anywhere near the White House at this time," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

But Brian Nick, spokesman of the counterpart National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the large sums of money that Bush and Cheney are able to attract are "indicative of what both the president and the vice president have been willing to do since their election."

"... It shows the dedication to keeping the majority."

Polls show Bush and Cheney remain enormously popular with the GOP base and conservatives.

An AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month showed Bush holding a 74 percent approval rating among Republicans, compared with 37 percent overall.

"He enjoys very strong support there."

"His problem is with swing voters," said Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker.

It is in states like New Jersey and Ohio, where swing voters have the most clout, that the races are the tightest, and where Democrats are working hard to tie Republican candidates to Bush administration policies.

Democrats, for instance, had some fun with Kean missing Cheney at the New Jersey fundraiser, pointing to news accounts that he had taken traffic-clogged Route 1 — at rush hour — rather than driving on the less-congested New Jersey Turnpike.

"We made the photo that Tom Kean Jr. feared," said a Democratic news release with a computer-generated picture of Kean and Cheney standing side by side.

For his part, Cheney seemed to take Kean's absence in stride.

"I do some of my best work when I'm without a candidate," he quipped at the fundraiser.

[Livyjr]

TEACHER: Little Johnny, what can you tell me about America?

LITTLE JOHNNY: It has the best government that money can buy of any nation on the face of this earth of OURS .....

TEACHER: Little Suzy, is everyone on Washington, D.C. for sale?

LITTLE SUZY: Well, I'm not sure about everyone ......

But the politicians are ....

Starting right with the Office of the President, it seems ....

And running downhill from there ....

Like sewage on its way to pollute the sea ....

And that is what matters ......

"Candidates Distance Bush, but Not His Cash"

By TOM RAUM

WASHINGTON - Many worried Republicans on the ballot in November have been pushing away from the White House, not wanting to be dragged under by President Bush's sinking approval ratings and growing anxiety over Iraq.

That doesn't mean they're also fleeing his cash offerings, however.

It has resulted in some fancy GOP footwork as candidates in tight races step away from Bush and Cheney on divisive issues but dance toward them when the subject is money.

"General: War on Terror Will Last for Years"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 39 minutes ago

ANKARA, Turkey - The war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan are stable, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told military officials from around the world Friday.

Speaking at the Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Symposium, Pace called for patience and collaboration, repeating U.S. assertions that it will be a long campaign.

"Iraq and Afghanistan will over time become stable," he said in a keynote address.

"But the war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments."

Pace also told the crowd that military action alone will not be enough.

Economic growth, good education systems and solid governments also are necessary to quell terrorism.

"We are talking about years and years to come of vigilance," said Pace,

"Today's tactical victory does not guarantee tomorrow's strategic success."

Earlier in an interview with NTV, a Turkish all-news television station, Pace fielded questions about the U.S. military's progress in Iraq, and when troops will be withdrawn.

He repeated the Pentagon's assertion that any withdrawal will be based on conditions in Iraq.

He also said the U.S. military is not taking any steps to invade Iran, saying, "there is a lot more to be done before we consider military action."

Asked whether the U.S. will do more to help Turkey fight the PKK, a terrorist organization that has long been a problem here, particularly along the border with Iraq, Pace said the government in Iraq must be stabilized before anything can be done.

Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have recently escalated their attacks in the region.

A bomb set off by a suspected Kurdish suicide bomber earlier this month killed two people and injured 19 in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.

PKK terrorists also operate within Iraq's borders, and he said the U.S. and other countries are working to help Turkey, but he would not go into details.

"Any attacks against the PKK in Iraq are going to have to wait until the security situation in Iraq is more stable," Pace said.

During the interview, Pace also addressed a recent movie that has been very popular in Turkey, which shows American soldiers in Iraq crashing a wedding, pumping a little boy full of lead in front of his mother, and randomly gunning down dozens of people.

"Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," also reportedly fuels anti-Americanism by showing Turkish troops defeating American troops.

"It's pure fiction," Pace said.

"We're friends."

"Any movie ... that would try to paint a different picture in a way that would harm the relations between our two countries is unfortunate."

In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Pace said the U.S. and other countries must do a better job of sharing intelligence to be more effective in the campaign against terror.

"They are certainly trying to come to grips with how much intelligence they can share," Pace said Thursday in an interview aboard a plane flying from Saudi Arabia to Turkey.

"Each country has its own way of collecting data and they need to protect how they do that."

"But the data they collect can be very important to other countries."

On the eve of the counterterrorism meetings in Ankara, Pace said the two-day session would let officials trade information about how individual countries are dealing with terrorism.

That should give others ideas on what works and what doesn't, he said.

Pace said Saudi Arabia has been successful lately tracking down an al-Qaida cell.

Countries are trying to figure out how much intelligence can be shared, and how quickly, he said.

The Saudis, he said, have probably used "some techniques and procedures that will be helpful to other countries."

He noted that much of the discussions on intelligence sharing, among a host of high-raking officials from countries around the region, will be done in small groups and not publicly shared.

The sessions Friday featured officials from countries that are battling terrorism, including Afghanistan and Turkey.

Pace said countries that don't feel threatened by terror will have different views than those that do.

[Livyjr]

"Police probe badge mystery - Gold shield belonging to ranking Albany cop found at home of man indicted in accident scam case"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, March 24, 2006

ALBANY -- A police badge that belongs to a high-ranking member of the Albany Police Department was recovered during a raid at the home of a well-known area prizefighter recently indicted for his alleged role in an elaborate insurance scam.

The badge was not included in a search warrant document that lists 27 other items taken from the Colonie home of 32-year-old Frank Houghtaling on March 15, when he and several members of his family were arrested on sealed felony indictments as their homes were raided by police.

Prosecutors say Houghtaling family members are part of an organized ring that staged accidents and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars at the expense of the victims' insurance companies.

Last week, police raided four residences and a business that belong to the family, seizing computers, accident reports, day planners, wallets, checkbooks, computer discs, Rolodexes and other items.

Inside Frank Houghtaling's home at 337 Sand Creek Road, authorities also found a polo shirt with an Albany Police Department emblem, a police pendant and a gold commander's badge that was issued to Tony Bruno, who is now an assistant chief, according to court records and department sources.

Bruno, a highly decorated police officer, has not been accused of wrongdoing and remains on duty with the department.

It's not clear whether he knows Houghtaling.

The shirt and pendant are listed in the search warrant return that was filed Monday in Albany County Court.

Under law, police agencies are required to file a formal list of everything they seize in a search that is supported by a court-ordered warrant.

The search warrant return, which is treated as a sworn affidavit and was signed by Detective Sgt. Mike Nadoraski, does not list the badge among 27 other items taken by police from Houghtaling's home.

However, the badge is listed in a handwritten Albany Police Department evidence room report that was filled out on the morning of March 15, about five hours after the raid, and that was signed by two officers, according to a copy of the report reviewed by the Times Union.

The entry "Alb PD badge" appears in tiny letters just above an entry for Houghtaling's brown leather wallet.

Department policies require officers to immediately report any lost or stolen badges.

If a badge is lost, a teletype alerting other police agencies is issued on a nationwide law enforcement network, authorities familiar with the policy said.

"I am conducting an investigation, an internal inquiry," Chief James Tuffey said.

"I am looking at an aspect of an item that was recovered at a scene ... I won't confirm who it is."

When asked about the police shirt and pendant, Tuffey said:

"I'm not a believer in any (police) paraphernalia being in anyone's hands."

Houghtaling was arrested on a 37-count sealed indictment along with his parents, wife, sister, brother and sister-in-law.

They are charged with enterprise corruption, insurance fraud, falsifying business records, grand larceny and conspiracy.

The family members were rounded up at their homes by members of an auto fraud task force that began investigating them two years ago.

More arrests are expected, authorities said.

The group allegedly thrived for years by collecting insurance payments, some worth tens of thousands of dollars, for crashes they had caused.

They would pick out victims, including elderly and drunken drivers, at mall parking lots and other locations and then initiate a crash in which the other person would be blamed, authorities said.

Frank Houghtaling is a welterweight champion who lost a headline fight last weekend at the Washington Avenue Armory.

He is also a State Thruway employee, a member of the Air National Guard and an Army veteran.

Houghtaling and his relatives all were released on bail, in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, after their arraignments in Albany County Court.

Wednesday's indictment was based on nine incidents involving fraudulent payouts of about $150,000.

But prosecutors said the family collected nearly five times that amount over a decade and a half based on hundreds of staged incidents.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

TEACHER: Little Johnny, what can you tell me about America?

LITTLE JOHNNY: It has the best government that money can buy of any nation on the face of this earth of OURS .....

TEACHER: Little Suzy, is everyone on Washington, D.C. for sale?

LITTLE SUZY: Well, I'm not sure about everyone ......

But the politicians are ....

Starting right with the Office of the President, it seems ....

And running downhill from there ....

Like sewage on its way to pollute the sea ....

And that is what matters ......

March 22, 2006

"Bush Concedes Iraq War Erodes Political Status"

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Mr. Bush once again strongly endorsed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in response to a question about whether he should step down, as some members of Congress are demanding.

"No, I don't believe he should resign," Mr. Bush said.

"I think he's done a fine job of not only conducting two battles, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also transforming our military, which has been a very difficult job inside the Pentagon."

He added:

"Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy ....."

"Not just the war plan we executed in Iraq ...."

"But the war plans that we have been executed throughout the history of warfare."

Okay, George ....

Yeah, right ....

YADA, YADA, YADA, and then some more YADA's on top of them ....

If YADA's were aces in a game of Poker ....

Where nothing else was "wild" ....

Well, George W. Bush might win then .....

BUT .....

March 23, 2006

NY Times, Editorial

"The Joy of Being Blameless"

The contrast could not have been more stark, nor the message more clear.

On the day that a court-martial imposed justice on a 24-year-old Army sergeant for tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his dog, President Bush said once again that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose benighted policies and managerial incompetence led to the prisoner abuse scandal, was doing a "fine job" and should stay at his post.

We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world:

President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration.

Just this week, Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall provided a bloodcurdling account in the Times of how a Special Operations unit converted an Iraqi military base into a torture chamber, even using prisoners as paintball targets, in its frenzy to counter a widely predicted insurgency for which Mr. Rumsfeld had refused to prepare.

In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of a terrorist network was arrested and beaten repeatedly.

Another man said he had been forced to strip, punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited.

His crime?

His father had worked for Saddam Hussein.

These accounts are tragically familiar.

The names and dates change, but the basic pattern is the same, including the fact that this bestiality produced little or no useful intelligence.

The Bush administration decided to go outside the law to deal with prisoners, and soldiers carried out that policy.

Those who committed these atrocities deserve the punishment they are getting, but virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed.

And not a single policy maker has been called to account.

Col. Thomas Pappas, the former intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, testified at the dog handler's trial that the use of dogs had grown out of conversations he had had with military jailers from Guantánamo Bay led by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been sent to Iraq to instruct soldiers there in the interrogation techniques refined at Gitmo under Mr. Rumsfeld's torture-is-legal policy.

Colonel Pappas said General Miller had explained how to use the "Arab fear of dogs" to set up interrogations.

What of General Miller?

He invoked his right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, and Time magazine reported this week that he was exonerated by an Army whitewash.

Apparently he was not responsible for the actions of soldiers operating under rules he put in place.

About the only high-ranking officer whose career has suffered over Abu Ghraib is Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commander in Iraq at the time.

General Sanchez should certainly take responsibility, but he was also a victim of administration blunders.

General Sanchez was vaulted inappropriately from head of the First Armored Division to overall commander because Mr. Bush declared "mission accomplished": the war's over.

He was then denied the staff, soldiers and equipment he needed to deal with the insurgency that quickly broke out and produced thousands of prisoners.

Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors.

Indeed, he has promoted many of them.

And this is not an isolated problem.

It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not matter how egregious.

[jeffmoskin]

As long as BushCo can FORCE all payments for oil to continue to be made EXCLUSIVELY with US Dollars as it has been since 1973-74, the Fed can print more counterfeit money every time the price of oil rises.

Foreign countries need those dollars to buy their oil.

A pretty good racket.

If BushCo can keep it from collapsing.

I think BushCo has bet the farm on this plan.

It is clear that, just as the 20th century was the "American Century," the 21st will belong to either India or China. And our way of life, wasteful as it is, will be unsustainable in years to come. America has outsourced the only enterprises that permit a human being to multiply the value of his/her effort.

The operator of a stamping press at a car factory can be paid $40/hr because look at all the fenders he/she can turn out in that hour.

Ah, you say, but we have a service economy now. Precisely my point: A service employee can only produce ONE hour of output per hour.

Period.

Now, if it happens to be brain surgery, I guess the hourly compensation will be above $40/hr. Even accounting, lawyering, teaching (maybe), computer service. Oops, that one went to India. Sorry.

We Murricans are clearly looking BACK at the good ole days, not forward.

UNLESS WE CAN RIG THE GAME!!!

So here's BushCo's plan:

Force everybody to pay for oil in dollars. Kill anybody who takes any other currency, like Saddam for taking the dreaded Euro for oil.

Since every nation needs dollars, and since the Fed can print them for only 2.3cents per $100 bill, NOW WE HAVE A MANUFACTURING BUSINESS MODEL THAT WORKS.

We manufacture dollars; the rest of the world manufactures things that they can buy.

BushCo hopes that Toto will not pull back the curtain.

He just might get away with it.

This post has been edited by jeffmoskin: Mar 24 2006, 05:42 PM

[Livyjr]

So here's BushCo's plan:

Force everybody to pay for oil in dollars.

Kill anybody who takes any other currency, like Saddam for taking the dreaded Euro for oil.

Since every nation needs dollars, and since the Fed can print them for only 2.3cents per $100 bill, NOW WE HAVE A MANUFACTURING BUSINESS MODEL THAT WORKS.

We manufacture dollars; the rest of the world manufactures things that they can buy.

BushCo hopes that Toto will not pull back the curtain.

He just might get away with it.

One, jeffmoskin, I would say you were right ...

Bushco has "bet the farm" on some plan or other ...

And the farm he bet ........

Was not his to play with .....

To the contrary ...

It was something entrusted to him ...

And he betrayed that trust ...

Because he is essentially a weak man .....

And he has never displayed a sense of trustworthiness ....

That I could ever see, anyway ....

And right now, jeffmoskin ....

The inescapable truth is ....

That George W. Bush is into the wringer with IRAQINAM .....

All the way up to his **** .....

And so .....

No more military adventures for this Bushco, anyway .....

He is out of time ....

And OUR America ....

As a result ...

May well be, too .....

And it is only just begun ....

The end of the AGE OF THE ACQUISITORS .....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"Candidates Distance Bush, but Not His Cash"

By TOM RAUM

Polls show Bush and Cheney remain enormously popular with the GOP base and conservatives.

An AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month showed Bush holding a 74 percent approval rating among Republicans, compared with 37 percent overall.

Simply stated ....

George W. Bush ....

Is immensely popular ...

With a very small percentage of people ....

Here in OUR America .....

Where that small percentage ....

Constitute a political minority .....

Like the Baathists in IRAQINAM when Saddam Hussein was in power .....

That wants to rule .....

Well, guess what, BUSHISTS .....

This is not IRAQINAM, over here ...

And so ....

"Bush and Cheney go after the Democrats"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:15 p.m., Friday, March 24, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launched a one-two political punch against Democrats on Friday, saying they are ill-equipped to handle the economic recovery or the war on terror.

Shouldering dismal poll ratings, Bush worked to frame the debate ahead of this year's congressional elections by telling supporters that "the difference is clear" between the two parties on how to sustain the recovery.

"If you want the government in your pocket, vote Democrat," Bush said.

"If you want to keep more of your hard-earned money, vote Republican."

Cheney, speaking at a GOP fundraiser in Orlando, Fla., took on Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and party chairman Howard Dean by name.

He said leading Democrats have demanded a "sudden withdrawal from the battle against terrorists in Iraq -- the very kind of retreat that Osama bin Laden has been predicting."

"With that sorry record, the leaders of the Democratic Party have decided to run on the theme of competence."

"If they're competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on 'American Idol,'" Cheney said.

The remark drew robust laughter.

"I don't know why that's funny," Cheney said at the event for Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.

Democrats were quick to counterpunch.

"Under this administration's watch, Iraq has become a training ground and launching pad for international terrorism, North Korea has likely quadrupled its nuclear arsenal, bin Laden remains on the loose, terror attacks across the world are on the rise, and Katrina exposed the staggering gaps in the administration's ability to protect America," said Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda said: "Instead of offering a plan for victory in Iraq, the vice president today again resorted to attacks to try to distract from the Bush administration's commitment to a failed strategy."

Bush and Cheney appeared to be repeating a page from the 2004 presidential campaign.

During a campaign stop then in Des Moines, Iowa, Cheney said a vote for Democrat John Kerry would risk another terror attack.

Making the "wrong choice" on Election Day would mean Kerry would follow a pre-Sept. 11 policy of reacting defensively, Cheney said.

Some wary Republicans on the ballot in November have been trying to stay at arm's length from the White House to avoid being tainted by Bush's job approval ratings, in the 30s.

But presidents attract crowds and supporters with deep pockets, and Bush remains the nation's most successful fundraiser.

Cheney, whose poll numbers are even lower than Bush's, is not far behind.

Both have raised tens of millions of dollars for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates running in this year's midterm elections.

Bush spoke at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike Sodrel, raising more than $500,000 to help the freshman Republican beat Democrat Baron Hill.

The race is considered a toss-up in the GOP quest to retain control of the House.

He said the Republicans have an economic record to run on, and he urged Congress to make permanent various tax cuts due to expire within a few years.

He tried to draw a sharp contrast between the two parties' economic policies.

"In 2001, more than 90 percent of the congressional Democrats voted against cutting income tax rates," Bush said, referring to votes on his initial package of tax cuts.

He told the Republican audience that, by overwhelming margins, Democrats also voted to reject his legislation -- which eventually passed -- to provide tax relief for married couples, double the child credit and cut taxes on dividends and capital gains.

Later, the president traveled to an affluent Pittsburgh suburb to raise an estimated $700,000 for Sen. Rick Santorum.

Santorum, trailing Casey in polls, broke with Bush on a plan to have an Arab company based in Dubai run terminals at some U.S. ports and has raised concerns about the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq.

But Santorum met Bush at an airport in Pittsburgh, and the two smiled for cameras.

Democrats are hungry for a victory in Pennsylvania and hope to replace the two-term senator with State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., a Democrat who is against abortion.

"Senator Santorum and President Bush should publicly explain why they've advanced policies that have cost Pennsylvania over 180,000 manufacturing jobs and caused over 700,000 Pennsylvanians to lose their health insurance," said Casey spokesman Larry Smar.

"Senator Santorum should work for the people of Pennsylvania and not be a rubber stamp in order to gain campaign cash."

------

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

http://dr-joe.net/flash-files/Bush-Leno.htm

http://gprime.net/video.php/presidentialspeechalist

TO WHOM ARE GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY SELLING OUT OUR AMERICA IN ORDER TO GAIN ALL THIS CASH FOR THEM AND THEIRS?

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8757

March 25, 2006
Are the Neocons Losing It?

by Patrick J. Buchanan
While President Bush appears serenely confident about Iraq, the same cannot be said of the War Party propagandists who were plotting this conflict when Dubya was still a rookie governor of Texas.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard now demands the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. William F. Buckley, whose National Review branded the antiwar Right "unpatriotic conservatives" who "hate" America, now calls upon Bush for an "acknowledgement of defeat."

Richard Perle says the administration "got the war right and the aftermath wrong." Self-described "humiliated pundit" Andrew Sullivan confesses to "a sense of shame and sorrow." Michael Ledeen says of Bush's war, "Wrong war, wrong time, wrong way, wrong place."

Frank ("The End of History") Fukuyama concedes that "Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at."

But it is a March 20 essay in The Wall Street Journal that suggests the neocons may be coming unhinged. Written by Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes, the piece urges Bush to begin the "rejuvenation of his presidency by shocking the media and political community with a sweeping overhaul of his administration."

The purge Barnes recommends would have caused Stalin to recoil.

Barnes calls on Bush to fire press secretary Scott McClellan, chief of staff Andy Card, political adviser Karl Rove, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary John Snow – and Vice President Richard Cheney.

"The trickiest issue is how to handle Karl Rove," says Barnes.

I don't think so, Fred. I think "the trickiest issue" will be how to handle Dick and Lynne when they are told by Dubya they must give up a constitutional office to which Cheney was elected by the nation, vacate the vice presidential mansion and turn the keys over to Condi Rice.

That's right, Barnes urges Bush to appoint Condi vice president and "anoint" her as "presidential successor."

Who would replace Condi at State? Pro-war liberal Joe Lieberman.

I should like to be in earshot when Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hears that he has been passed over for secretary of state by the junior Democratic senator from Connecticut.

"Mr. Cheney would probably be happy to step down and return to Wyoming," Barnes assures us.

Is he sure? Why would Cheney not regard any such attempt by Bush as a stab in the back by a friend to whom he has given years of service? For if Cheney is forced to quit his office, he goes down in history as a failed vice president and, along with Rumsfeld, the Bush-designated scapegoats of the Iraq war.

What, other than poor poll ratings, would be the rationale for removing Cheney, who is infinitely more qualified than Condi Rice by philosophy, experience and knowledge to take over the presidency?

All of Cheney's problems are tied to Iraq. But so are Bush and Condi tied to Iraq. Her failure at the National Security Council to screen the intelligence and ensure that Defense did due diligence for the occupation produced today's crisis. And what has Condi's crusade for democracy produced, other than historic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas on the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Moqtada al-Sadr and the Shia clerics in Iraq?

Exactly what qualifies her to be president?

Well, says Barnes, it would be a "spectacular move."

I'll say. Putting Rice directly in the line of succession to the Oval Office would detonate an explosion far more ruinous to Bush than the Dubai ports deal. It would instantly jump-start the presidential campaign of 2008. Conservatives who consider Condi weak on life and a pro-affirmative-action social liberal would start carving her up before she reached the Senate hearing room.

Did not the firestorm over the Dubai deal wake these Beltway dreamers up?

Would John McCain stand aside for Rice? Would George Allen? Would the evangelical Christians? All would move to block her. And no one would worry about any damage this would do to a George Bush who was so arrogant as to try to impose, as his choice for the 2008 nominee of the GOP, another ex-staffer and spinster like Harriet Miers.

That Bush is in trouble is undeniable. But his people are not Bush's problem. His policies are. It is these policies, not his advisers, that have given us huge deficits and a no-win war that is bleeding our country.

If Bush should follow Barnes' advice and throw his most loyal people to the wolves as a P.R. stunt, he will have earned their lasting contempt, and that of the country. For all will know he was scapegoating them for his own failures – failures that come of having listened to the neocons who are even now slipping out of camp, rehearsing alibis and blaming Bush for not heeding their brilliant advice.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[Livyjr]

"Bush and Cheney go after the Democrats" 
 
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:15 p.m., Friday, March 24, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launched a one-two political punch against Democrats on Friday, saying they are ill-equipped to handle the economic recovery or the war on terror.

"If you want to keep more of your hard-earned money, vote Republican."

"If they're competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on 'American Idol,'" Cheney said.

Bush and Cheney appeared to be repeating a page from the 2004 presidential campaign.

"Russia denies giving intelligence to Iraq"

By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press
Last updated: 8:35 a.m., Saturday, March 25, 2006

MOSCOW -- Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service on Saturday denied that Moscow provided information on U.S. troop movements and plans to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The statement came a day after the release of an unclassified Pentagon report that cited two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.

The report also said the Russian government had sources inside the American military command as it planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"Similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia's intelligence have been made more than once," Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov said, according to a duty officer in his department.

"We don't consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications."

The unclassified report does not assess the value or accuracy of the information Saddam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, also said Friday the allegations were false.

"To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridiculous," she said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report.

"Somebody wants to say something, and did -- and there is no evidence to prove it."

Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected independent Moscow-based military analyst, said Friday that the report was within the realm of possibility.

"It's quite plausible," he told The Associated Press.

He said a unit affiliated with the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department, known by its abbreviation GRU, was actively working in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The unit apparently was shut down after the fall of Baghdad.

He said at that time a Russian Internet site called "The Ramzay Files" was causing a stir in Moscow's military and diplomatic community.

The site, which was shut down after the invasion, posted striking insights, predictions and analysis into U.S. military activities as well Iraqi military and intelligence activities, he said.

He said former GRU officials told him that the type of information that was being posted -- both on the Iraqis and on the Americans -- appeared to be the kind of information that only highly placed Russian intelligence officials in Iraq would have had access to.

Russian intelligence officials repeatedly have denied having any links with Iraqi spy services.

[Snuffysmith]

9/11 & Bush's 'Negligence'
By Robert Parry
March 24, 2006


In the U.S. government’s pursuit of the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, FBI officials have inadvertently revealed how an even mildly competent George W. Bush could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people – and set the country on a dangerous course for revenge.

FBI agent Harry Samit, who interrogated Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, sent 70 warnings to his superiors about suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative had been taking flight training in Minnesota because he was planning to hijack a plane for a terrorist operation.

But FBI officials in Washington showed “criminal negligence” in blocking requests for a search warrant on Moussaoui’s computer or taking other preventive action, Samit testified at Moussaoui’s death penalty hearing on March 20.

Samit’s futile warnings matched the frustrations of other federal agents in Minnesota and Arizona who had gotten wind of al-Qaeda’s audacious scheme to train pilots for operations in the United States. But the agents couldn’t get their warnings addressed by senior officials at FBI headquarters.

Another big part of the problem was the lack of urgency at the top. Bush, who had been President for half a year, was taking a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and shrugged off the growing alarm within the U.S. intelligence community.

Separate from the FBI field agents, the Central Intelligence Agency was piecing the puzzle together from tips, intercepts and other scraps of information. On Aug. 6, 2001, more than a month before the attacks, the CIA had enough evidence to send Bush a top-secret Presidential Daily Briefing paper, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.”

The CIA told Bush about “threat reporting” that indicated bin-Laden wanted “to hijack a US aircraft.” The CIA also cited a call that had been made to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May 2001 “saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.”

“The system was blinking red” during the summer of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet later told the 9/11 Commission.

Bush’s Justice Department and FBI headquarters were in the loop on the CIA reporting, but didn’t reach out to their agents around the country, some of whom, it turned out, were frantically trying to get the attention of their superiors in Washington.

Then-acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard told the 9/11 Commission that he discussed the intelligence threat reports with FBI special agents from around the country in a conference call on July 19, 2001. But Pickard said the focus was on having “evidence response teams” ready to respond quickly in the event of an attack.

Pickard “did not task field offices to try to determine whether any plots were being considered within the United States or to take any action to disrupt any such plots,” according to the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Contrasting Styles

Amid this bureaucratic inertia, Bush’s role was crucial. As President, he was the best-positioned official to force the various parts of the government to undertake a top-down review of what was known, what evidence was being missed, what could be done.

Richard Clarke, who had been President Bill Clinton’s counterterrorism chief and stayed in that job after Bush took office, said the Clinton administration reacted to such threats with urgent top-level meetings to “shake the trees” at the FBI, CIA, Customs and other relevant agencies.

Clarke said senior managers would respond by going back to their agencies to demand a search for any overlooked information and to put rank-and-file personnel on high alert, as happened when an al-Qaeda plot to bomb Millennium celebrations was thwarted in 1999.

“In December 1999, we received intelligence reports that there were going to be major al-Qaeda attacks,” Clarke said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” two years ago. “President Clinton asked his national security adviser Sandy Berger to hold daily meetings with the attorney general, the FBI director, the CIA director and stop the attacks.

“Every day they went back from the White House to the FBI, to the Justice Department, to the CIA and they shook the trees to find out if there was any information. You know, when you know the United States is going to be attacked, the top people in the United States government ought to be working hands-on to prevent it and working together.

”Now, contrast that with what happened in the summer of 2001, when we even had more clear indications that there was going to be an attack. Did the President ask for daily meetings of his team to try to stop the attack? Did (national security adviser) Condi Rice hold meetings of her counterparts to try to stop the attack? No.”

In a March 19, 2006, speech in Florida, former Vice President Al Gore also noted this contrast between how the Clinton administration reacted to terrorist threats and how the Bush administration did in the weeks before Sept. 11.

“In eight years in the White House, President Clinton and I, a few times, got a direct and really immediate statement like that (Aug. 6, 2001 warning), in one of those daily briefings,” Gore said.

“Every time, as you would want and expect, we had a fire drill, brought everybody in, (asked) what else do we know about this, what have we done to prepare for this, what else could we do, are we certain of the sources, get us more information on that, we want to know everything about this, and we want to make sure our country is prepared.

“In August of 2001,” Gore added, “such a clear warning was given and nothing – nothing – happened. When there is no vision, the people perish.” [To see Gore’s speech on C-Span, click here.]

Gone Fishing

After receiving the CIA’s Aug. 6, 2001, warning, Bush is reported to have gone fishing and cleared brush at his ranch. There is no evidence that he did anything to energize or coordinate the government response to the expected attack.

“No CSG (Counterterrorism Security Group) or other NSC (National Security Council) meeting was held to discuss the possible threat of a strike in the United States as a result of this (Aug. 6) report,” the 9/11 Commission wrote. “We have found no indication of any further discussion before Sept. 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al-Qaeda attack in the United States.”

Talking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on April 4, 2004, the commission’s chairman and vice chairman, New Jersey’s Republican former Gov. Thomas Kean and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., said they believed the Sept. 11 attacks were preventable.

“The whole story might have been different,” Kean said, citing a string of law-enforcement blunders including the “lack of coordination within the FBI” and the FBI’s failure to understand the significance of suspected hijacker Moussaoui’s arrest in August 2001 while training to fly passenger jets.

However, from the recent testimony at Moussaoui’s sentencing hearing, it’s now clear that FBI agents in Minnesota did grasp the significance of the flight training and did send alarming messages to Washington-based FBI officials responsible for counterterrorism. But those officials at headquarters apparently missed or ignored the warnings.

Moussaoui’s defense attorney, Edward B. McMahon Jr., asked Michael E. Rolince, who was chief of the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section, if he was aware that FBI agent Samit had sent a memo to Rolince’s office on Aug. 18, 2001, warning that Moussaoui was a potential terrorist.

“No,” Rolince answered. “What document are you reading?”

Samit’s report “sent to your office,” McMahon replied. Rolince said he never saw the urgent memo. [Washington Post, March 22, 2006]

When the 9/11 Commission interviewed Rolince for its 2004 report, Rolince “recalled being told about Moussaoui in two passing hallway conversations but only in the context that he [Rolince] might be receiving telephone calls from Minneapolis complaining about how headquarters was handling the matter,” though the calls never came, the report said.

But Rolince was not the only senior FBI official oblivious to the missed clues. The 9/11 report said acting FBI director Pickard and assistant director for counterterrorism Dale Watson weren’t briefed on Moussaoui prior to Sept. 11, either.

The significance of the new information from Moussaoui’s hearing – which followed his guilty plea to charges that he had conspired with al-Qaeda to commit acts of terrorism – is that there’s no longer any doubt that key pieces of the puzzle were tantalizing close to the FBI officials who could have done something.

FBI headquarters also blew off a prescient memo from an FBI agent in the Phoenix field office. The July 2001 memo warned of the “possibility of a coordinated effort by Usama Bin Laden” to send student pilots to the United States. The agent noted “an inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest” attending American flight schools.

No action was taken on the Phoenix memo before Sept. 11.

How Incompetent?

Yet, if President Bush had demanded action from on high, the ripple effect through the FBI might well have jarred loose enough of the pieces to make the overall picture suddenly clear, especially in view of the information already compiled by the CIA.

Ironically, that is almost the same argument that federal prosecutors are making in seeking Moussaoui’s execution. It’s not that he was directly involved in the Sept. 11 plot, they say; it’s that the government might have been able to stop the attacks if he had immediately confessed what he was up to.

To some civil libertarians, the case raises troubling Fifth Amendment issues by creating a precedent for putting someone to death who didn’t promptly confess and thus didn’t provide clues that might have prevented a separate murder that the defendant didn’t specifically know about and wasn’t directly involved in.

In effect, the government is basing its demand for Moussaoui’s death on the notion that the failure to do something that might have prevented the tragedy of Sept. 11 should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

However, the Bush administration has taken almost the opposite position on its own culpability. Despite a strong case for criminal negligence – beginning with FBI officials and reaching up to the Oval Office – Bush and other senior officials have insisted they have nothing to apologize for.

Indeed, Bush has made his handling of the Sept. 11 terror attacks the centerpiece of his presidential legacy. Arguably, he rode the whirlwind from the attacks right through the war in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq to his second term as President.

Only recently – after a similar case of botched leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster – has the air whooshed out of the Bush balloon. Add in the disastrous decisions around the Iraq War and many Americans see a pattern of arrogant, incompetent leadership that fails to give adequate heed to evidence or attention to details.

For other Americans, the theory of Bush’s incompetence doesn’t go nearly far enough to explain the breathtaking lapses that let the Sept. 11 attacks happen.

Some 9/11 skeptics have come to believe that the destruction of the Twin Towers and the damage to the Pentagon must have been an “inside job” with some elements of the Bush administration conspiring with the attackers to create a modern-day Reichstag Fire that would justify invading Iraq and consolidating political power at home.

The new Moussaoui evidence, however, tends to support the theory of incompetence, though of a kind so gross that it would border on criminal negligence, at the FBI as well as the White House.

Perceptive field agents did their job in sending up warning flares to Washington, but a vacationing President and an inattentive FBI bureaucracy failed to take note or take the necessary actions to head off the tragedy.

Then, with the Twin Towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, Bush and his neoconservative advisers saw in the nation’s anger and fear the emotions needed to implement an agenda of authoritarian rule at home and preemptive wars abroad.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/colu.../printstory.jsp
Worldview | Bush gives new life to failed doctrine

By Trudy Rubin


If you were wondering what the White House has learned from three years of Iraq errors, the past week won't offer much comfort.

President Bush has been giving speeches assuring Americans that things are going well, with a few speed bumps. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that "the terrorists... are losing." But the most unsettling event was the unveiling of a new national security strategy that reaffirms the 2002 Bush doctrine of preemptive war.

Preemptive war, you may recall, is the concept that America will attack its enemies - whether state or terrorist group - before they attack us, especially if we think they may use weapons of mass destruction. "We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur," the strategy reads, "even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."

On the surface, there is nothing exceptional about the doctrine. For example, in 1967, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Syria after Egypt had blocked one of Israel's main waterways and kicked out U.N. observers. One could imagine U.S. forces attacking terrorists who were sheltered by a weak state and were plotting to bomb an American city.

But the Bush doctrine is a much more explosive strategy that has already gotten us into big trouble in Iraq; it goes way beyond the concept of getting them before they get you.

In Iraq, the preemption doctrine was used to overthrow a ruler based on speculation about what he might do in the future. The assumption was that Saddam would get nuclear weapons and hand them off to terrorists who would use them against us. This was preventive war against a highly unlikely threat for which good intelligence was lacking. If other countries tried preventive war, imagine our reaction.

Everyone should know by now that most White House premises for the war were specious. Even in 2002, the administration knew that intelligence about Saddam's nuclear weapons program was thin. It was ludicrous to think he would give a bomb to radical Islamists who wanted to destroy him, and whose bomb could be traced back to him.

The White House could have made a different case against Saddam: that he was an international pariah, in flagrant violation of U.N. resolutions, who would revive his nuclear program once sanctions were lifted and threaten the entire Mideast.

But the President chose to invoke a broad new doctrine that gave America carte blanche to overthrow any regime on the basis of evidence we chose. This doctrine unnerved even close allies. When we failed to find WMD in Iraq, it shredded Bush's credibility abroad.

Yet the doctrine of preemption survives as the guts of Bush's security strategy. More to the point, in a 49-page document, the doctrine is spelled out just two pages before the U.S. case against Iran.

The strategy paper states that America faces "no greater challenge from a single country than Iran"; speculation is rife as to whether Iran is the next candidate for preemption. The paper says America's concerns with Tehran's nuclear program can be solved only if Iran opens up its political system. This feeds the global buzz over whether America intends to bomb Iran's nuclear sites and topple the regime.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, insisted last week that the doctrine was not aimed specifically at Iran. He said preemption should not be seen "in the context of regime change," and he argued that America preferred to use diplomacy with Iran.

But the preemption doctrine is associated with Iraqi regime change, at which we have proved hapless. Americans are not cut out to play a British-style imperial role. Yet Bush's language on Iran sounds as if we want to try it again in Tehran.

Even if Iraq has dulled the President's enthusiasm for regime change, making preemptive war the centerpiece of security doctrine is still a very bad idea - especially with Iran.

Such a doctrine no doubt has increased Tehran's appetite to build a nuclear weapons program swiftly. Presumably, Iran noticed that the doctrine doesn't threaten North Korea as harshly - perhaps because North Korea already has several bombs. The doctrine has certainly increased Iran's incentive to make trouble for Americans inside Iraq.

Moreover, as Francis Fukuyama points out in his new book, America at the Crossroads, preventive strikes aren't likely to destroy budding nuclear programs. Iran learned a lesson from Israel's destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor and has dispersed its program underground.

Fukuyama, a leading neocon turned critic of administration policy, adds another caution. Although an attack might slow Iran's nuclear program, the political damage would be immense. Nationalistic Iranians would rally round their regime. "The doctrine as a whole needs to be... revised," Fukuyama says.

In other words, a broad preemption doctrine will rile our allies, whom we need by our side to isolate Iran. It will make more problems for national security than it solves. Iraq would seem a glaring case study of its failure.

However, there it stands, the centerpiece of our national security doctrine. Lessons not learned.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact columnist Trudy Rubin at 215-854-5823 or trubin@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/trudyrubin.

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/ritter/33788/

It's criminal

Posted by Scott Ritter at 9:59 AM on March 20, 2006.


Impeachment is the only recourse that can bring a halt to the madness in Iraq, and the insanity being planned in Iran and elsewhere. Blog Tools

As America reaches the third anniversary of President Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq, there is for the first time the unsettling realization brought about by the clarity of acts that emerges only after the passage of time that something horrible has happened.

This awakening of collective awareness on the part of the American people is reflected not only in the numerous polls which show President Bush's popularity plummeting to all-time lows, largely because of the war in Iraq, but also the collective shrug of the shoulders on the part of the one-time cheerleaders for the war in Iraq -- the mainstream American media -- when covering the hollow rhetoric of the President as he tries to rally a nation around a cause that has long since lost its allure.

No amount of flowery language and repeated pulls at the patriotic heartstrings of America, no repeated assault on the senses and sensibilities through repetitious referral to the events of 9/11 can jump start a second phase of the kind of mindless nationalistic fervor that greeted the erstwhile Cowboy President when he first herded a compliant America down the path of war with Iraq three years ago.

Looking back on the string of unfulfilled objectives, broken promises, squandered dreams, shattered bodies and eviscerated lives that was and is the war in Iraq, one thought emerges plain and clear. This isn't simply a result of bad governance. This is criminal.

Bad governance is telling the American people that a war with Iraq would be concluded in a manner of months, and would cost the American taxpayer less that $2 billion, when in fact the war has gone on for three years now, with no end in sight, and over a quarter-trillion dollars have been expended, with untold billions more to be spent.

Criminal governance is the fabrication of a justification for war (weapons of mass destruction), hiding the President’s true intentions from the American people and the Congress of the United States (Bush signed off on the Iraq war plans in late August 2002, and yet continued to publicly state that no decision for military action had been made), and shredding international law by waging an aggressive war of pre-emption void of any United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing such actions.

Bad governance is manipulating war planning on the part of military professionals so that we enter into a conflict with far too few troops for the task, with no plan for how to proceed once the fighting ended and the reality of occupation set in.

Criminal governance is violating every principle of the laws of war in the conduct of the occupation of Iraq, manipulating the economic and political direction of Iraq, suppressing its population, and engaging in wanton acts of widespread murder, torture and abuse of the Iraqi people.

The fact is the war in Iraq has degenerated into one giant hate crime.

American soldiers and Marines are being thrown into a cauldron of our own making, scalded by a conflict with no purpose or direction, with the end result being that in order to survive these fighting men and women have dehumanized the totality of the Iraqi people.

The ancestors of ancient Babylon have become nothing more than "sand "epithet deleted"", "rag-heads", "camel jockeys", "ninja women" or "haji" in the hearts and minds of American fighting men who are now killing Iraqis in ever increasing numbers. Gone is any talk of rebuilding Iraq. We are there to destroy it. The criminal nature of the war in Iraq is starting to become common knowledge among observers of the war.

It has long sense been common knowledge on the part of those waging it. In Vietnam Americans were shocked by the revelations of Mai Lai and the murder of innocent Vietnamese civilians by American fighting men. But Mai Lai is repeated in bits and pieces every day in Iraq, with the American military occupation slaughtering family after family of Iraqis in the name of bringing peace and security.

The realization that something has gone horribly wrong in Iraq, however, has not translated into any kind of discernable action on the part of the American people. While pundit after pundit breaks ranks with the Bush administration on Iraq, often repudiating their own pre-war chest beating and encouragement of the war, the fact is that the manifesto which manifested itself in the invasion of Iraq -- the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States -- continues to dictate the manner and nature of America's interfacing with the rest of the world in unquestioned fashion.

Indeed, President Bush has, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Iraqi war, promulgated a new, improved version of this manifesto, the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States, which re-affirms America's commitment to the principles of pre-emptive war. In short, the President has re-certified America as the greatest threat to international peace and security in modern times, especially when one considers that even as America is engaged in the brutal rape and occupation of Iraq, President Bush has his eyes firmly set on another war of aggression in Iran.

What are the American people doing in response? There is a huge difference between becoming aware and taking action. While poll numbers on Iraq reflect a growing unease about the war, this unease has not manifested itself into any discernable reaction of consequence. The Democratic Party has remained largely mute, largely because of the culpability on the part of much of its membership in facilitating and sustaining the Iraqi war and its underlining doctrine of global domination by the United States.

But in the face of the near total subservience on the part of the Republican Party in supporting the policies of President Bush no matter how illegal and harmful they are to America and the world, the Democratic Party must shake itself free of the doldrums it currently finds itself stuck in. The time for passive recognition that the war in Iraq has gone bad is long past.

The time for concrete political action has arrived. The Democrats need to recognize that the political struggle in America today is not a trivial extension of the partisan Red State-Blue State nonsense the American media likes to bandy about, but rather a far more serious struggle of national survival, if one in fact defines the American nation as being reflective of the ideals and values set forth by the Constitution of the United States.

The Iraq War, if anything, is a reflection of the total abrogation of constitutional responsibility and process by the Congress of the United States. As a result, the President has led a nationdown the path of illegal war of aggression which has damaged America's reputation abroad, and its very fabric here at home. The Republican-controlled Congress has done little to stop this collective march towards national self-destruction, rubber-stamping the president's illegal actions with little regard to either the rule of law or Congress's status as a second but equal branch of government.

This must end.

The fact is that America today stands on the brink of having everything we stand for as a nation being swept away by a power-crazed President and a compliant Congress, both of whom are Republican. Whatever direction the Democratic Party takes in the future, it must be with the recognition that the hopes and dreams of saving the United States as a nation of laws founded in the words and principles of the Constitution rest heavily on their shoulders. The Democratic Party must become laser-like in its rejection of the war in Iraq, resolute in condemning this war for what it is, an illegal war of aggression,and determined in fighting for the concept of a nation governed by the rule of law by holding President Bush accountable for his illegal actions.

In short, the rallying cry of the Democratic Party must become impeachment. Given the magnitude of the crimes committed by the United States in Iraq under the direction and leadership of President Bush and his administration, there is simply no other recourse that can bring a halt to the madness in Iraq, and the insanity being planned in Iran and elsewhere.

The remedy is clear. The question now is whether the Democratic Party is up to the task.

Scott Ritter served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until his resignation in 1998. He is the author of, most recently, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Nation Books, 2005).

[Livyjr]

"9/11 & Bush's 'Negligence'"

By Robert Parry

March 24, 2006

Then, with the Twin Towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, Bush and his neoconservative advisers saw in the nation’s anger and fear the emotions needed to implement an agenda of authoritarian rule at home and preemptive wars abroad.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

BINGO, Snuf .....

[Livyjr]

Good day all!

My name if Livyjr, and I am a recent arrival here from the former John Kerry forum, which I thought revolutionized communications between ordinary citizens in America, in ways unseen or likely unheard of since the Forum of Rome, back in the days of my namesake, Titus Livius, or plain Livy, some two thousand years in the Republic of Rome, and then in the ensuing Empire under Augustus, son of Julius Caesar.

Why Livy?

Well, for the context, mainly.

And who was Livy?

While a short biography of Livy follows, the fact is that Livy was around at the end of the Roman Republic, the time when Julius Caesar was killed, or assassinated, depending on your point of view, and Livy talked about or chronicled that time for us in the future to read about, and I am of a similar bent, only in here, talking about these days of our Republic of America, rather than the Forum of Rome.

What is history?

History is what we are doing in here right now, and what we are doing each and every minute of our collective days.

That is history!

We are history!

In Livy's day, 59 BC to 17 AD, simple people in Rome and Italy, for that matter, did not get to write history, and even come into the record by name.

The lives of the common man and woman of that era are largely lost to us two thousand years later in 2004.

Not so with us today, however, at least as long as these computer forums continue to exist, and a record continues to be made of the days of our passing, here in our America.

On the John Kerry Forum, we had many people dropping by from European countries, and probably many other places in the world as well, to read about our daily lives, because the world is a very large place, and it is very difficult for any of us to know much of what is happening around us just ten miles down the road, anymore, let alone across the great nation of America, which is over 3,000 miles from coast to coast, or across the world, for that matter.

When peoples of other nations can hear our own thoughts directly, without any filters imposed, then they learn about us as people, rather than a perceived ideology, and they see that in many ways, we are just like them.

This is good, because it serves to promote peace and harmony throughout the world in ways that our established governments seem totally unable to do.

Never before have we been able to have such a speedy dialogue across such great distances.

In 1969, for example, I was in Viet Nam, as a soldier, and then, it took over a week for any news from home to reach me, so that what I was reading was already old news!

If someone had been sick, or had died, it was long since over by the time that I read about it over there.

Now, 30 years later, I am communicating almost instantaneously with people across America and around the world.

To an older American like me, who was born into an era in America where there still were no telephones and televisions in many or most rural American homes, this instant internet communications is like a miracle!

So then the question is how to use the miracle and keep it as such!

Hence this thread!

On the John Kerry Forum, this same thread format had over ten thousand visitors, and so it survived the test of time over there, before the elections.

Will it do so here, now that the elections are over, and peoples' minds have gone on to new places?

Who knows?

Just have to wait and see.

But here is where I want to start anyway, with this initial posting, right after the history of Livy, of an article concerning George W. Bush, and what he is now promising us, the American people, for the next four years!

Will any of it happen?

Will any of us ever see one word of what he says come true?

Who knows?

We'll just have to keep coming back to our daily lives here in America day after day to find out, because while history is what we are doing right now in America, that only hints at what is to come; it does not tell us for certain what will transpire.

Only the passage to time can do that, tell us where we have been!

And once again ...

As is my habit .....

I have gone "back to the beginning" .....

Of this thread, anyway ...

What it was that I was thinking ....

Way back when ...

When I came onto this brand new forum ....

And introduced myself ...

And this thread ....

Which has become several volumes since then ...

And so ....

I myself am just a common human being, actually ....

I was never a power forward for the Boston Red Sox ....

Nor did I play short-stop for the Toronto Maple Leafs .....

And I was never a CEO of a fortune-five-hundred company, either ...

And so ....

Actually ...

Like the peasants ....

And serfs ....

And plebeians ....

Of days of yore ....

I am really quite obscure as regards being a DANCER ....

On life's stage .....

And actually ...

I kind of like it that way ...

To be truthful ...

HOWEVER ....

Unlike the serfs and peasants of days of yore ....

I AM AN AMERICAN ...

And so ...

I bring into here ...

ALL THAT I BELIEVE ....

THAT ONE WORD CONNOTES ....

And so ....

When I was young ....

I was taught at a very early age ...

That being an American ....

Was one of the hardest things ....

That I would ever have to confront ....

BECAUSE AMERICANS ARE FREE ....

And freedom is one of the hardest things that there can ever be ...

To have to deal with ...

BECAUSE FREEDOM CANNOT EXIST ...

WITHOUT RESPONSIBILTY ....

And so ...

MINE was to learn ...

At that early age ...

What responsibility ...

Really was all about ...

At least in MY COMMUNITY ....

Or classroom at school ...

And so ...

That is how I was "made" ....

Me ...

And since that time ...

Well ...

Suffice to say ...

Times have changed ...

In some cases ...

To me, anyway ...

An admitted PROVINCIAL, here in OUR America ...

Radically so ....

BUT ....

To me ....

An admitted PROVINCIAL here in OUR America ....

One who has spent some time learning about OUR America ...

And my place in it ...

At least from the perspective of my own teachers ...

When I was young ....

THAT WAS ALWAYS THE PROMISE ....

That when people here in OUR America ....

No longer chose to be knowledgeable ....

About OUR America ...

OUR REPUBLIC ...

And what is required of each citizen by that REPUBLIC on a daily basis ...

Something that I would simply call "OUR EXCELLENCE" on that day ...

At that moment in time ....

That we would be in danger of losing that REPUBLIC ...

AND ITS PROMISE ...

And so ....

WHERE ARE WE ON THAT ROAD TODAY?

That is the "question" ....

That underlies this thread ....

And so .....

WHAT WILL THE ANSWER BE?

And the answer to that is and remains ....

WHO REALLY DOES KNOW?

Outside of the Shadow, of course .....

And since he is never definitive as to what he really does know ...

As for the rest of us ...

We will just have to .....

STAY TUNED ....

And see ...

Live ...

Unrehearsed ....

Totally spontaneous ....

As it happens ....

Life ...

In OUR America .....

WHAT WILL IT BE?

And why ....

And that America ...

Is up to you ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

"Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer

A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

"Feingold's Censure Call Gives Him Boost"

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer

Sun Mar 26, 11:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON - While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions.

But he does challenge Democrats who argue it will help energize Republicans.

"Those Democrats said that within two minutes of my announcing my idea," Feingold said in a telephone interview last week.

"I don't see any serious evidence of that."

A Newsweek poll taken March 16-17 found that 50 percent of those surveyed opposed censuring Bush while 42 percent supported it, but among Democrats, 60 percent favored the effort.

Feingold's resolution would censure the president for authorizing a warrantless surveillance program, which the senator contends is illegal.

Co-sponsors are Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California.

Other Democrats have said bringing up such a punishment is not helpful before an investigation of the eavesdropping program is complete.

"I think to say that you should censure the president before you have had the inquiries is premature, so I don't think it's helpful to reach that conclusion at this point," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., agreed that it is too early to consider censure.

He would not, however, rule out voting for such a measure if the Bush administration stonewalls a congressional investigation.

"It's a close case," Kennedy said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

The White House argues that Bush was authorized to order eavesdropping on American citizens under his wartime powers as commander in chief.

Feingold said his sole purpose was to hold Bush accountable, but he argued that it's also good politics.

"These Democratic pundits are all scared of the Republican base getting energized, but they're willing to pay the price of not energizing the Democratic base," he said.

"It's an overly defensive and meek approach to politics."

Some Democrats have accused Feingold of putting his 2008 presidential ambitions over helping Democrats try to recapture the House and Senate in this year's midterm elections.

Should Feingold run, his opposition to the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and the spying program would help position him as the liberal candidate.

Many also see his effort as a distraction at a time when the administration was on the ropes over Iraq and a since-scuttled port deal.

"It just takes us off discussions we ought to be having in this country on issues that really matter in people's lives," said Rep. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Ohio who is running for Senate.

Some Republicans have been thanking Feingold for what they consider a political fumble.

"This is such a gift," Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show.

The National Review came to the same conclusion.

In an online editorial titled, "Feingold's Gift to the GOP," the conservative magazine wrote that Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman would hug Feingold if given the chance.

The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing Friday on Feingold's resolution.

Mehlman, visiting Wisconsin last week, skipped the hug and instead criticized Feingold.

That reinforced an RNC radio ad buy in the state, in which a narrator says, "Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he's more interested in censuring the president than protecting our freedom."

Feingold's response, essentially, is bring it on.

"I welcome their attempt to make a campaign issue of the question of whether there will be accountability for the president's breaking the law," he said.

"They will remind people every minute that the president thumbed his nose at the law."

end quotes

STAND YOUR GROUND, SENATOR FEINGOLD ....

DON'T LET THE CRAVENS IN YOUR PARTY DRAG YOU DOWN ....

AND AS TO MEHLMAN AND THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE ....

THEY ARE JUST A BUNCH OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL ...

THEY HAVE NO INTEGRITY ...

THEY HAVE NO CREDIBILTY .....

THEY CERTAINLY HAVE NO PLAN TO KEEP OUR AMERICA SAFE ....

AND THEY HAVE MADE A DOG'S DINNER OUT OF IRAQINAM .....

AND THEY ARE THE VERY EMBODIMENT ....

OF CORRUPTION IN OUR GOVERNMENT ....

AND SO ....