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

[Livyjr]

Back in those days when I was a tad younger ....

We used to call it Power to the People!

Hasn't changed.

And God forbid it ever will.

But today's youngins are still clueless.

And now that we are older, Snuf ....

It is POWER BACK AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE AGAIN ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And now that we are older, Snuf ....

It is POWER BACK AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE AGAIN ....

And so ....

One who would guide a leader of men ...

In the uses of life ....

Will warn him against the use of arms for conquest ....

Weapons often turn upon the wielder ....

An army's harvest .....

Is a waste of thorns .....

- Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching

A WASTE OF THORNS, INDEED ....

"Duty's call costs a livelihood - After guardsman's return from Iraq, his businesses are gone and his home is at risk"

By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 6, 2006

COLONIE -- When National Guardsman Tim Schultz headed to Fort Drum in May 2004 to train for a tour of duty in Iraq, he knew he would be in for some hard times: long hours, danger and separation from his wife and two children.

He didn't know he would lose his business.

But when the owner of McCabe's Automotive on Route 9 in Latham returned from Iraq late last year, he found he owed too much money to continue.

For reasons hard to pin down, revenue had dropped in his absence and bills had piled up.

Now, Schultz has liquidated the auto repair business and another company he owned.

He plans to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and expects to lose his Wynantskill home.

"I don't have any regrets of deployment, even though I came back to what I came back to," said Schultz, 41.

"But this is my life."

"It's tough to let it go."

While the federal government protects National Guard or Reserve members who leave their jobs for the call of duty, it seems there is little to protect the business owner.

The U.S. Small Business Administration offers disaster loans for businesses that lose money due to an employee being activated -- and in fact Schultz received a $142,000 loan.

But it wasn't enough to stave off disaster.

"I think the government does not do enough to help veteran small-business owners," said Mathew Tully, an attorney at the Colonie law firm Tully Rinckey & Associates PLLC.

Tully, a National Guardsman who represents reservists who suffer job discrimination upon their return, found his own law firm suffered after he served a six-month stint in Iraq last year.

The firm later got a $172,000 SBA loan to pay for lost business, but it was hard to recoup the accounts that went elsewhere in his absence.

"If it was not for family, friends and a great law partner, I probably would be in the exact situation as Mr. Schultz," Tully said Wednesday.

"My deployment was catastrophic to my law firm."

In the five years since the SBA has applied the disaster loan program to reservists, it has given out 254 business loans nationwide for a total of $23 million, the agency said.

Schultz, a Troy native, served in the Army for four years until 1986.

When he left, he joined the National Guard.

In April 2002, he bought the Latham business from the McCabe family for $98,000.

He also ran a landscaping firm called Schultz Enterprises.

When Schultz took over, the repair business included three technicians and a bookkeeper/manager who also ran the landscaping firm.

When Schultz left for Fort Drum to train for military intelligence, the repair business was bringing in as much as $40,000 a month.

It didn't last long.

Schultz didn't leave for Iraq for another nine months, but by the fall of 2004 it was clear revenue had dropped off considerably.

The garage then dropped to three full-time employees; it would later go to two, including one technician who also had to answer phones and deal with customers.

It's hard to say what was wrong.

Schultz said he thinks customers might have stopped coming when they learned he was leaving.

Probably the lack of his presence -- he regularly worked 70-hour weeks -- had an impact on production.

"It was a difficult thing to go through, worrying about Tim every single day, and then wanting to keep the business open," said Debra Schultz, his wife, who helped run the garage despite having almost no knowledge of cars.

"I know how well it had been doing."

"I wish I knew what happened."

Schultz received the SBA loan in October 2004, putting up his house as collateral.

In Iraq, he was stationed at a base in Tikrit, crunching numbers for 16 hours a day, and had no time to think about home.

It was only when he returned in November last year that he realized how bad things had gotten: $67,000 in monthly expenses, three months behind in rent and little money coming in.

"There was no light at the end of the tunnel," Schultz said.

Dan O'Connell, the SBA representative in Albany, said the agency would not go after Schultz's house unless the bank that holds his original mortgage was threatening to foreclose first.

"I think his situation is horrible," O'Connell said.

"It would seem to me he shouldn't be penalized."

"We should do whatever we can to ease his path."

O'Connell said the SBA would likely sign a compromise agreement with Schultz to allow him to pay off only part of the loan.

But Schultz said he'd rather give up his house than sign an agreement that would leave him facing a lien for years.

Schultz said he plans to look for new opportunities; his wife is considering returning to nursing, her original career.

At the same time, Schultz said he wishes there were more programs that could have helped his business survive.

"I've learned a valuable lesson," he said.

"But I don't hold any grudge."

[Livyjr]

Ah, yes ...

The ECONOMY ....

"Second homes 40% of market"

By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY

Wed Apr 5, 7:05 AM ET

Americans snapping up second homes - as investments or vacation properties - accounted for four out of every 10 sales of existing homes last year, a record that helped drive the real estate market to new highs, according to a report being released today by the National Association of Realtors.

Nearly 28% of homes bought last year were for investment purposes, and an additional 12% were vacation homes, the figures show.

Most of the buyers were baby boomers in their top earning years, looking toward retirement and hoping to build wealth or find a more desirable place to live.

"Baby boomers are such a powerful economic force," said Dave Jenks, co-author of The Millionaire Real Estate Investor.

"They're using their wealth to go buy second homes."

The typical investment buyer last year was 49 years old with annual income of $81,400.

He or she paid $183,500 for the median-priced investment home, up 24% from 2004.

"Real estate, over the past five years, has outperformed virtually every other investment vehicle," said Ron Peltier, president and chief executive of HomeServices of America, the country's second-largest residential brokerage firm.

"A lot of people have just speculated in real estate."

The trend really started after 1997, when Congress changed the tax code, allowing most homeowners to duck capital gains taxes when they sold their homes.

The exemption is $500,000 for married couples, $250,000 for singles, if it was their primary residence for two of the past five years.

Under the old system, the only way to avoid the tax was to "roll" the gains into another home of equal or greater value.

Americans bought bigger and costlier homes.

But now, they can downsize and use the equity built up in their homes to buy second homes.

"That's what spurred all this on in the beginning," says David Lereah, the NAR's chief economist.

"It's like all the stars are aligned."

"The tax situations helped, but at the same time, baby boomers were entering their peak earning years."

"That's why we just boomed in second homes."

He thinks the trend crested in 2005.

With rising interest rates, tighter lending standards and slower price appreciation, Lereah expects second-home sales to drop this year to 30% of all existing-home sales, and maybe into the 20% range.

"What's going to be leaving the market right now are the speculative investors who came into the market and were trying to flip homes," he said.

"They were buying one, two, three or four properties at a time, and that was distorting the numbers."

Sales of vacation homes, though, are expected to stay strong for years, because the youngest baby boomers are only 42 this year.

The typical vacation home buyer last year was 52 years old, earning $82,800 a year, and purchased a property that was about 200 miles from the primary residence.

The median price was $204,100, up 7.4%.

More than three-fourths of the buyers had no interest in renting their property.

About 20% said it would one day be their retirement home.

Joe Klein and his wife bought their first vacation home last year on Lake Wabedo in Minnesota, three hours from their primary residence.

He says he might like to retire there but might have to persuade his wife.

"It's something that we could hand down to the kids," says Klein, 42, a program manager for a medical company.

"But secondly, I see it as an investment."

"If we had to, we could sell it to help pay for their college."

[Livyjr]

Is AMERICA'S SCOOTER accusing America's GEORGE of acting in a lawless, reckless manner with respect to the alleged intentional leaking of the CIA agent's name to the press?

Let's look and see ....

"Papers: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK'd Leak"

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized a leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

The filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also describes Cheney involvement in I. Lewis Libby's communications with the press.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But it points to Cheney as one of the originators of the idea that Plame could be used to discredit her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.

Before his indictment, Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on prewar intelligence on Iraq and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say.

According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

In that meeting, Libby made reference to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

According to Fitzgerald's court filing, Cheney, in conversation with Libby, raised the question of whether a CIA-sponsored trip by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."

The disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday the White House would have no comment on the ongoing investigation.

At a congressional hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information."

Libby is asking for voluminous amounts of classified information from the government in order to defend himself against five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame affair.

He is accused of making false statements about how he learned of Plame's CIA employment and what he told reporters about it.

Bush's political foes jumped on the revelation about Libby's testimony.

"The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of America's security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "The more we hear, the more it is clear this goes way beyond Scooter Libby."

"At the very least, President Bush and Vice President Cheney should fully inform the American people of any role in allowing classified information to be leaked."

Libby's testimony indicates both the president and the vice president authorized leaks.

Bush and Cheney both have long said they abhor that practice, so much so that the administration has put in motion criminal investigations to hunt down leakers.

The most recent instance is the administration's launching of a probe into who disclosed to The New York Times the existence of the warrantless domestic surveillance program.

The authorization involving intelligence information came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for going to war.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated.

The filing did not specify the "certain information."

"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller — getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection," the papers added.

Plame's husband, a former U.S. ambassador, said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

After Wilson publicly attacked the administration on Iraq on July 6, 2003, "Vice President Cheney, defendant's immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," the papers said.

After a 2002 CIA-sponsored trip to Africa, Wilson said he had concluded that Iraq did not have an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Libby spoke to Miller on July 8, 2003, and Fitzgerald's filing identifies Cheney as being instrumental in having Libby speak again four days later to Miller as well as to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper regarding Wilson.

In all three conversations, Libby told the reporters about Wilson's wife, both Miller and Cooper have testified.

Her CIA status was publicly disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak eight days after her husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

Libby says he needs extensive classified files from the government to demonstrate that Plame's CIA connection was a peripheral matter that he never focused on, and that the role of Wilson's wife was a small piece in a building public controversy over the failure to find WMD in Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the new court filing that Libby's requests for information go too far and the prosecutor cited Libby's own statements to investigators in an attempt to limit the amount of information the government must turn over to Cheney's former chief of staff for his criminal defense.

The court filing was first disclosed by The New York Sun.

[Livyjr]

And we start out in here today with what I call ....

"Hope for the future of OUR America ....."

A hope that good sense and rationality will return to the fore ...

Here in OUR America .....

After apparently being beaten back into the shadows .....

By the FORCES OF RIGID DOGMA AND IDEOLOGY AND IRRATIONALITY .....

That propelled the OLD TESTAMENT PROPHET "HEZEKIAH George W. Bush" .....

Into the White House .....

Here in OUR America ....

Where that one man alone ....

Has made a bigger mess out of OUR America ....

In just a short amount of time ...

Than any other man ....

In the history of this nation ...

Has been able to ....

From the time that this nation was born ....

Until now, today ....

HAS AMERICA FINALLY BEGUN TO WAKE UP ...

AND COME TO ITS SENSES ...

ASSUMING IT STILL HAS ANY?

Which this following article would seem to indicate it has .....

"Bush, GOP Approval Ratings Hit New Lows"

By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer

2 hours, 18 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush's approval ratings hit a series of new lows in an AP-Ipsos poll that also shows Republicans surrendering their advantage on national security — grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power.

Democratic leaders predicted they will seize control of one or both chambers of Congress in November.

Republicans said they feared the worst unless the political landscape quickly changes.

"These numbers are scary."

" We've lost every advantage we've ever had," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said.

"The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan."

"The bad news is they may not need one."

There is more at stake than the careers of GOP lawmakers.

A Democratic-led Congress could bury the last vestiges of Bush's legislative agenda and subject the administration to high-profile investigations of the Iraq war, the CIA leak case, warrantless eavesdropping and other matters.

In the past two congressional elections, Republicans gained seats on the strength of Bush's popularity and a perception among voters that the GOP was stronger on national security than Democrats.

Those advantages are gone, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted this week for The Associated Press by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

• Just 36 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling.

By contrast, the president's job approval rating was 47 percent among likely voters just before Election Day 2004 and a whopping 64 percent among registered voters in October 2002.

• Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency.

That's down 9 points from a year ago.

Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.

• Just 35 percent of the public approves of Bush's handling of Iraq, his lowest in AP-Ipsos polling.

"He's in over his head," said Diane Heller, 65, a Pleasant Valley, N.Y., real estate broker and independent voter.

As bad as Bush's numbers may be, Congress' are worse.

Just 30 percent of the public approves of the GOP-led Congress' job performance, and Republicans seem to be shouldering the blame.

By a 49-33 margin, the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress.

That 16-point Democratic advantage is the largest the party has enjoyed in AP-Ipsos polling.

On an issue the GOP has dominated for decades, Republicans are now locked in a tie with Democrats — 41 percent each — on the question of which party people trust to protect the country.

Democrats made their biggest national security gains among young men, according to the AP-Ipsos poll, which had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

The public gives Democrats a slight edge on what party would best handle Iraq, a reversal from Election Day 2004.

"We're in an exceptionally challenging electoral environment," said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former GOP strategist.

"We start off on a battlefield today that is tilted in their direction, and that's when you have to use the advantages you have."

Those include the presidential "bully pulpit" and the "structural, tactical advantages" built into the system, Cole said.

One of those advantages is a political map that is gerrymandered to put House incumbents in relatively safe districts, meaning Democrats have relatively few opportunities to pick up the 15 seats they need to gain control.

In the Senate, the Democrats need to pick up six seats.

"I think we will win the Congress," Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said, breaking the unwritten rule against raising expectations.

"Everything is moving in our direction."

"If it keeps moving in our direction, it's very reasonable to say there will be a Democratic Senate and House," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Strategists in both parties say it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances for Democrats to seize control of Congress.

First, the elections would need to be nationalized.

Democrats hope to do that with a burgeoning ethics scandal focused on relationships between GOP lobbyists and lawmakers.

Secondly, the public would need to be in a throw-the-bums-out mood.

It's unclear whether that is the case, but 69 percent of Americans believes the nation is headed in the wrong direction — the largest percentage during the Bush presidency and up 13 points from a year ago.

Third, staunch GOP voters would need to stay home.

Nobody can predict whether that will happen, but a growing number of Republicans disagree with their leaders in Washington about immigration, federal spending and other issues.

Bush's approval rating is down 12 points among Republicans since a year ago.

Six-in-10 Republicans said they disapproved of the GOP-led Congress.

"I'd just as soon they shut (Congress) down for a few years," said Robert Hirsch, 72, a Republican-leaning voter in Chicago.

"All they do is keep passing laws and figuring out ways to spend our money."
___

Trevor Tompson, manager of news surveys for The Associated Press, and AP writer Will Lester contributed to this report.

[Snuffysmith]

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=11311

Another Surreal Day in the Age of Bush

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.” - Samuel Beckett
Major league baseball is as American as apple pie. For the first time in the history of the storied Cincinnati Reds’ franchise, a sitting president, George W. Bush, threw out the “ceremonial” opening day pitch, on April 3, 2006. Comedian Jay Leno said on the “Tonight” show that evening, that the presidential toss at the National League game against the Chicago Cubs, like Bush’s politics, went off to the “far right.” Instead of walking to the pitcher’s mound by himself to toss the ball back to the catcher, Bush jaunted out with a number of returning Iraqi War veterans by his side. By using them for cover, he avoided the strong possibility of being booed by the crowd. Isn’t the swaggering cowboy from Crawford, TX, a clever buck-oh?

On the same day, April 3rd, nine more brave Americans died in Iraq-one for every inning that Bush was at that ball game. This brought the total of military dead in the unjust, immoral and illegal conflict to 2343. (1) Since the Liar-in-Chief, Bush uttered his infamous “mission accomplished” statement, on May 1, 2003, 2206 more American soldiers have been killed. (2) The latest U.S. war casualties made it to p. 12 A of the “Baltimore Sun. Its front page was reserved for perky Katie Couric, a news reader for NBC TV’s “Today” program. Reportedly, she will soon sign a contract for a $17 million-a-year gig with CBS to “read” the evening news. Her main claim of note to date as a journalist, (I’m not making this up), is that her own (yuk) colonoscopy was televised! She has also been a rabid cheerleader for the Iraqi War. The air-headed Couric, like Barbara Walters, signifies what is wrong with TV broadcast journalism. There is simply too much emphasis on its entertainment aspect and not enough on the hard news that the people need to hear.

How terribly absurd, too, all of this is. Bush is out enjoying himself at a professional baseball game, while the blood stained war he chose to start, based on a pack of rotten lies, continues to claim American and Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of tax dollars to boot, with no end in sight. (3) Now, the U.S. troops’ mission in Iraq is not to find those phantom WMD, but to create “a stable government,” while a vicious civil war is also raging in that beleaguered land. In addition, “67 journalists and 24 media workers have been killed on duty in Iraq since March 2003.” (4) Nevertheless, it’s Couric, a pseudo-journalist, who reaps the monetary rewards in her profession. She will do so, too, from the safety of her plush Manhattan office. In my opinion, Couric wouldn’t make a pimple on the great Walter Cronkite’s you-know-what.

Meanwhile, the 9/11-related federal show trial of an obviously very sick, and deeply troubled man, Zacarias Moussaoui, continues in Alexandria, VA. What a spectacle this has been. It reads like a play by Samuel Beckett. The jury returned a verdict, on April 3rd, saying Moussaoui is eligible for execution. He screamed at prosecutors, ”You’ll never get my blood. God curse your souls!” At the next stage of the trial, the jury will have to decide if the defendant should be executed. According to the Feds, he was one of the 9/11 coconspirators, but arrested prior to that tragic day. Lucky for the government, Moussaoui, who some believe is suffering from schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to the charges. This trial has been a bungled farce from round one.

If the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that 9/11 happened the way the White House said that it did, this criminal case may have collapsed on its face. (5) As it is now, it hangs on a very thin legal thread that asserts that “but for” Moussaoui’s lies to FBI investigators, 9/11 could have been prevented. Testimony produced, however, by the government itself at the trial contradicts that dubious theory by showing the FBI ignored “ample warnings” about 9/11 from its own agents in the field. Counsel for the defense should have called Secretary of State, Condi Rice, to testify. She knew, when she was acting in the capacity of Bush’s National Security Advisor, more about potential hijacking of airplanes, prior to 9/11, and their use for terrorist purposes, then anybody else in the Bush-Cheney Gang. The grossly incompetent Rice ignored reliable warnings of such a distinct possibility, (6) and, many other higher ups in the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA, did so as well. (7)

On another offbeat front, one of the leading GOP War Hawks in the Congress, Rep. Tom DeLay, announced that he will not be seeking reelection. Like that crook, ex-Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA), DeLay was another phony law & order type. He had dumped the draconian USA Patriot law on the American people, without a public hearing. DeLay was aided and abetted in that foul deed by bogus Democrats, such as Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT).

DeLay has been feeding at the public trough for 11 terms on Capitol Hill. He is presently under indictment in Texas for laundering campaign funds. His former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, recently copped a plea to federal conspiracy and corruption charges arising out of a lucrative scheme he was running right out of DeLay’s congressional office. Rudy, like DeLay, has close ties to the confessed felon, lobbyist and wheeler-dealer, the cunning Jack Abramoff. When Bush was advised of DeLay’s resignation, he told another bald faced lie. He said, the Republican Party would continue to succeed because, “We’re the party of ideas.” (8) Sure, it is a party of ideas all right, like what: a preempted U.S. attack on Iran? More tax cuts for the superrich? Adding another multibillion dollar subsidy for “Big Oil?” How about ignoring more warnings about global warming and/or that another Katrina-like hurricane could strike the Gulf Coast in late 06?

Finally, Bush’s visit to the Ohio town of Cincinnati wasn’t any help to the home team Reds. They were hammered by the Cubs by a score of 16-7. As for April 3, 2006, It was just another one of those surreal days in the Age of Bush.

Notes:

1. http://antiwar.com/casualties/ 2. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/ 3. Video, “George Bush is a Liar,” at: http://homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/iMovieTheater138.html 4. Trudy Rubin’s “Journalists Do Dangerous Job in Unstable Iraq,” 04/04/06, Baltimore Sun. 5. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848. This video gives an alternate view of 9/11-America’s second “Pearl Harbor,” which you will never see on the “CBS’s Evening News with Katie Couric.” Were we set up by the Wire Pullers? If so, how did they do it? Here’s another site which is raising a lot of 9/11 related questions: http://www.911proof.com/index.html. For me, the “Five Dancing Israelis” is one of the mysteries of 9/11. It has continued to intrigue. For background on that episode, see, http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html. It was “Bawa Wawa” Walters, herself, who “whitewashed” that important, and relevant, story. Why? Who was she shilling for? Check out: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j062402.html 6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...0020516-13.html 7. http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/911bush.html 8. “DeLay to Resign from Congress,” Washington Post, 04/04/06.

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net.



By : William Hughes
April Thursday 6th 2006

[Livyjr]

The AGE OF BUSH, indeed ....

"White House faces barrage of leak queries"

By PETE YOST, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:26 p.m., Friday, April 7, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The White House faced a barrage of questions Friday over the timing of President Bush's decision to declassify intelligence that was then leaked to the press by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

In a tense briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked repeatedly to explain his statement from three years ago that portions of a prewar intelligence document on Iraq were declassified on July 18, 2003.

Ten days earlier, Cheney's top aide had leaked snippets of intelligence from the document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller in order to rebut allegations by Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, the aide has told prosecutors according to documents revealed this week.

I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, said he had passed the information to Miller after being told to do so by Cheney, who advised Libby that Bush had authorized it, stated a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

McClellan told reporters on July 18, 2003, that the material being released on Iraq "was officially declassified today."

On Friday, McClellan interpreted his own words to mean that's when the material was "officially released."

Asked when it was declassified, McClellan refused to answer, saying that the matter was part of Fitzgerald's ongoing CIA leak probe that has resulted in Libby's indictment.

Libby faces charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Valerie Plame affair.

He is accused of making false statements about how he learned of her CIA employment and what he told reporters about her.

The declassification issue marks the second time in the CIA leak probe that the White House's previous public statements have been called into question.

After checking with Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove, McClellan said in 2003 that neither aide was involved in the leak of the CIA identity of Wilson's wife.

Rove remains under investigation in the leak probe.

Administration critics said the president's actions were a misuse of the declassification process.

Bush's "selective declassification of highly sensitive intelligence for political purposes is wrong," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi said a presidential executive order requires a uniform system for classifying, declassifying, and safeguarding national security information and asked, "Why didn't President Bush follow this protocol before authorizing the selective leak of highly sensitive intelligence?"

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., called for a House Intelligence Committee investigation and for the president to explain in person to Congress.

Last year, a commission appointed by Bush to look into the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq cautioned against leaks for political purposes.

"Policymakers who leak intelligence to the press in order to gain political advantage ... may do so without fully appreciating the potential harm that can result to sources and methods," the commission said.

It said the intelligence community should consider implementing "a widespread, modern-day equivalent of the `Loose Lips Sink Ships' campaign to educate individuals about their legal obligations and possible penalties to safeguard intelligence information."

On Friday, McClellan said there's a difference between providing declassified information when it's in the public interest, and leaking classified information that could jeopardize national security.

"Now, there are Democrats out there that fail to recognize that distinction or refuse to recognize that distinction," said McClellan.

"They are simply engaging in crass politics."

The intelligence Libby was authorized to leak to Miller stated that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

Administration officials said in the run-up to the war they were concerned about Iraq building a nuclear weapon.

------

Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And coming right hard on the heels of Scottie "BOY" McClellan in here tonight ....

Is the INCOMPETENT Secretary of WAR of the United States of America and Saddam Hussein's good buddy, Donald "THE GASMAN" Rumsfeld .....

"Lawyer says Rumsfeld 'messed up' Guantanamo trials"

By Jane Sutton

2 hours, 29 minutes ago

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his appointees set rules that violate President George W. Bush's order to hold fair trials for prisoners charged with terrorism in the Guantanamo tribunals, a military defense lawyer said on Friday.

"We can't help it that the secretary of defense and his delegees (sic) have messed this thing up, but they have," military lawyer Army Maj. Tom Fleener told the presiding officer at one of the hearings.

"If the rules don't provide for a full and fair trial, then they violate the president's order."

Fleener was trying to persuade the presiding officer, Col. Peter Brownback, to let a Yemeni defendant act as his own attorney on charges of conspiring to attack civilians and destroy property.

Tribunal rules set by the Pentagon require the defendants to have U.S. military lawyers who are authorized to see secret evidence that the accused may not be allowed to view.

Pentagon officials have refused to allow self-representation, which Fleener called a fundamental right in nearly every court on Earth.

Fleener was appointed to defend Ali Hamza al Bahlul, an acknowledged al Qaeda member charged with conspiring to commit terrorism by acting as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and making al Qaeda recruiting videos.

Bahlul refuses to cooperate with any lawyer appointed by the U.S. military.

He asked to act as his own attorney or to have a Yemeni lawyer, and declared a boycott when the request was denied during an earlier hearing.

He did not attend his hearing on Friday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Fleener said Bahlul cannot get a fair trial unless the rules change.

"As the world looks at this system, it's going to have no legitimacy whatsoever," he said.

TRIBUNALS CRITICIZED

Two other defendants have also asked to act as their own attorneys.

The prosecution agrees they should have that right, said the chief prosecutor, Col. Moe Davis.

"Give him the opportunity."

"If he screws it up, then he had his opportunity," Davis said of Bahlul.

Bush created the tribunals to try foreign terrorist suspects after the September 11 attacks, and directed Rumsfeld and his delegates to draft rules that ensure full and fair trials while protecting national security.

The chief prosecutor said those requirements had been met and described some of the angry courtroom complaints from defense attorneys as theatrical performances.

"The presiding officers have bent over backwards to protect the accused," Davis said.

Military defense lawyers and human rights groups have called the tribunals fundamentally unfair and stacked to ensure convictions.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard a challenge to their legitimacy last month and is expected to rule by the end of June on whether the trials can proceed.

Defense lawyers say other Pentagon rules violate Bush's order, including one that gives only the presiding officer the right to act essentially as judge, rather than all the tribunal members sharing that role.

Ten of the 490 Guantanamo detainees have been charged by the tribunals and would face life in prison if convicted.

Four had pretrial hearings this week, including 19-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr, who is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier by throwing a grenade at him in Afghanistan.

Khadr threatened on Wednesday to boycott the tribunal to protest his move from group housing to a solo cell where it was more difficult to meet with his lawyers.

His attorneys said on Friday they had received assurances from prison camp officials that the move was not punitive.

They said Khadr agreed to participate in future proceedings.

[Livyjr]

And this following story was accompanied by a photograph of HEZEKAIH George W. Bush doing an imitation of Alfred E. Nuemann .....

With a painting of George Washington looking over his left shoulder ...

And George Washington has a very perplexed look on his face .....

Apparently wondering exactly who or what HEZEKAIH George is supposed to be ....

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHET ....

Or madman ...

Or what ....

"Bush, GOP struggle for public approval"

By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:37 p.m., Friday, April 7, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has hit new lows in public opinion for his handling of Iraq and the war on terror and for his overall job performance.

Polling also shows the Republican Party surrendering its advantage on national security.

The AP-Ipsos survey is loaded with grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction -- the largest percentage during the Bush presidency and up 13 points from a year ago.

"These numbers are scary."

"We've lost every advantage we've ever had," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said.

"The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan."

"The bad news is they may not need one."

Democratic leaders predicted they will seize control of one or both chambers of Congress in November.

Republicans said they feared the worst unless the political landscape quickly changes.

There is more at stake than the careers of GOP lawmakers.

A Democratic-led Congress could bury the last vestiges of Bush's legislative agenda and subject the administration to high-profile investigations of the Iraq war, the CIA leak case, warrantless eavesdropping and other matters.

In the past two congressional elections, Republicans gained seats on the strength of Bush's popularity and a perception among voters that the GOP was stronger on national security than Democrats.

Those advantages are gone, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted this week for The Associated Press by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

On an issue the GOP has dominated for decades, Republicans are now locked in a tie with Democrats -- 41 percent each -- on the question of which party people trust to protect the country.

Democrats made their biggest national security gains among young men, according to the AP-Ipsos poll, which had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

The public gives Democrats a slight edge on what party would best handle Iraq, a reversal from Election Day 2004.

As for Bush's ratings:

--Just 36 percent of the public approves of his job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling.

By contrast, the president's job approval rating was 47 percent among likely voters just before Election Day 2004 and a whopping 64 percent among registered voters in October 2002.

--Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency.

That's down 9 points from a year ago.

Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.

--Just 35 percent of the public approves of Bush's handling of Iraq, his lowest in AP-Ipsos polling.

"He's in over his head," said Diane Heller, 65, a Pleasant Valley, N.Y., real estate broker and independent voter.

Some past presidents' job approval ratings have dropped lower than Bush's.

Harry Truman in 1952, Richard Nixon in 1974, Jimmy Carter in 1979 and the first George Bush in 1992 saw their ratings fall to the mid- to high 20s, according to Gallup polling.

Many have sunk as low as this president.

Bill Clinton was at 39 percent in the late summer of 1994 -- before midterm elections that were disastrous for Democrats.

Ronald Reagan was at 35 percent in January 1983 before rebuilding his support.

Lyndon Johnson was at 36 percent in March 1968, just before announcing he would not run for re-election during the Vietnam War.

As bad as Bush's numbers may be, Congress' are worse.

Just 30 percent of the public approves of the GOP-led Congress' job performance, and Republicans seem to be shouldering the blame.

By a 49-33 margin, the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress.

That 16-point Democratic advantage is the largest the party has enjoyed in AP-Ipsos polling.

"I think we will win the Congress," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said, breaking the unwritten rule against raising expectations.

Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., head of the House Republican campaign committee, said Bush's woes won't hurt GOP candidates.

"When we get to the ballot this year, there's not going to be President Bush on the ballot, and there's not going to be in my view, 'Do you want to vote with the Republicans or Democrats?'"

"It's going to be, 'How do you feel about your member of Congress?'"

"And if our members are doing their work and our candidates are connecting with the issues of those districts, they're going to do fine," Reynolds said.

Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate for control, no easy task in the best of circumstances.

The Democratic strategy is to nationalize the elections around a throw-the-bums-out theme keyed to a burgeoning ethics scandal focused on relationships between GOP lobbyists and lawmakers.

Democrats also need hordes of GOP voters to stay home on Election Day out of frustration.

Nobody can predict whether that will happen, but a growing number of Republicans disagree with their leaders in Washington about immigration, federal spending and other issues.

Bush's approval rating is down 12 points among Republicans since a year ago.

Six in 10 Republicans said they disapproved of the GOP-led Congress.

------

Trevor Tompson, manager of news surveys for The Associated Press, and AP writer Will Lester contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

"TEN YEARS AGO, a study by the Joint House-Senate Subcommittee on Investigations estimated the costs of white-collar crime at MORE THAN forty-four BILLION dollars".

"The incidence of white-collar crime has not abated in the last decade; instead, it has spiraled ever-upward as economic crime has become increasingly profitable and sophisticated!"

"The effects of major economic crime can be devastating: THE WHOLE SOCIETY suffers as crimes against business become crimes against consumers."

"GREEDY, WHITE-COLLAR PROFITEERS WILL NOT BE STOPPED until we adopt strong measures to stop them!"

- Governor's Approval memorandum, New York State Legislative Annual -1986, p.236

Gas up here is edging on to $3.00 a gallon right now ....

And the summer driving season is far away ...

At least up here .....

"$3 a gallon could soon be a bargain - Experts fear rise in gas prices as driving season, hurricane season near"

By KEVIN G. HALL, Knight-Ridder
First published: Saturday, April 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Gasoline prices have reached $3 a gallon in some parts of the nation, and crude oil is hovering close to last summer's record high.

With peak summer-driving season and hurricane season approaching, experts fear that today's high prices might look like a bargain later this year.

There are many culprits -- including us, American consumers.

Despite higher prices for crude oil and gasoline, U.S. demand for fuel continues to grow.

It was up by more than a full percentage point in March and is expected to climb still more when the peak driving season begins in May.

That will keep gas prices between $2.50 and $3 a gallon -- if there are no major disruptions in supply, experts said.

"We may look back at the day fondly when we paid $3 a gallon," said Phil Flynn, a vice president and energy expert at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

Gasoline prices have been rising again after dropping from last summer's record of $3.05 on average for a gallon of regular unleaded.

AAA said Friday the price now stood at $2.60, 27 cents higher than a month ago and 35 cents higher than April 2005.

Crude oil prices flirted with $69 a barrel this week on the New York Mercantile Exchange, approaching the all-time high of $70.85 last Aug. 30 immediately after Hurricane Katrina.

What moved prices this week was a report by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, that showed a larger-than-expected draw-down of U.S. gasoline stocks.

That spooked energy traders because it suggested either that refiners can't keep pace with the demand for gas or companies -- fearing shortages -- are hoarding.

Some price increase this time of year is expected as refiners partially shut down and retool to switch from winter formulas for gasoline to summer formulas to meet evaporation standards.

But an unusual confluence of events is driving the large difference between last year's price and this year's.

Chief among them is environmental concern over a common additive known as methyl tertiary butyl ether.

Some states -- most notably California, New York and Connecticut -- have banned MTBE because it contaminates groundwater, and on May 5 the federal government no longer will require refined gasoline to contain at least 2 percent by weight of additives such as MTBE.

Many refiners, unable to sell in some states and fearing future environmental claims in others, are no longer putting MTBE in their gasoline, which could reduce the volume of the nation's fuel supply by about 1.6 percent, a large amount in a tight market.

Last summer's hurricanes remain a problem.

Refineries operated by Murphy Oil and ConocoPhillips in Louisiana and British Petroleum's refinery at Texas City, Texas, are still inoperable or only partly running.

Together the three refineries accounted for almost 4.5 percent of the nation's refining capacity, said Robert Slaughter, the president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.

Crude oil production also still lags in the Gulf of Mexico; 87 platforms that previously produced 340,000 barrels a day still aren't operating, the Interior Department reported this week.

Fear is pushing up prices, too.

The new storm season begins June 1.

With researchers at Colorado State University this month forecasting nine hurricanes for 2006, at least five of them intense, oil traders are stockpiling for the worst.

They also are bidding up prices on worries of political turmoil in several oil-producing countries -- Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela.

It all adds up to a volatile market.

end quotes

What it adds up to for me ...

Is one more extravagence that I don't need in my life ..

SO ...

All you oil speculators ...

GO POUND SAND ....

[Livyjr]

All you oil speculators ...

GO POUND SAND ....

"U.S. Envoy's Car Pelted in Venezuela"

By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer

Fri Apr 7, 6:59 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela - Supporters of President Hugo Chavez threw eggs and fruit at the U.S. ambassador's car Friday and motorcyclists chased his convoy for miles, at times pounding on the vehicles.

The U.S. State Department swiftly accused Caracas city officials of complicity.

Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez was summoned to the State Department in Washington and told that Venezuela was in violation of an international convention that requires host countries to ensure the safety of foreign diplomats, department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Brian Penn, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, said Venezuelan police escorts did not intervene as a car carrying Ambassador William Brownfield was pounded and pelted.

No one was hurt.

"We're being attacked by groups of motorcyclists while we're traveling in an embassy car," Penn told The Associated Press by cell phone shortly before the motorcycles stopped chasing the four-car convoy.

"It's a very violent demonstration by a small group of people who appear to be organized by the mayor's office," Penn said.

The Caracas mayor's office, however, denied any involvement.

"No official authorized by the mayor's office participated," said Luis Martinez, a spokesman for Mayor Juan Barreto.

Brownfield has faced protests at recent appearances.

Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of conspiring to overthrow him, an accusation U.S. officials have denied.

The U.S. Embassy has asked the Venezuelan government to improve security for the ambassador, saying it's legally bound to do so, Penn said.

He said the protest began when Brownfield visited a baseball stadium in southern Caracas to hand out bats and other donated equipment to a youth league.

During the event, a Chavez supporter who wore an identification badge of the pro-Chavez mayor's office walked up and said the people in the area wanted Brownfield to leave, Penn said.

He stayed and finished the event, by which time a protest by a few dozen people had formed outside, chanting "Go home! Go home!"

Penn said the barrage of tomatoes, eggs and other items began when the convoy pulled out and drove through an adjacent market.

He said National Guard troops were on hand and pushed the crowd back as the cars passed through.

"Our car is stained all over," Penn said.

"They were pounding on the cars, including pounding on the ambassador's car while they were driving."

"There was no one stopping them."

He said the motorcyclists chased the convoy for three or four miles.

"The motorcyclists were throwing things at us for at least 10 minutes, and the police did nothing," Penn said.

"It was serious."

end quotes

Oh, quit your incessent whining, will you .....

Start treating people better ...

And maybe in return ...

You will get some respect ...

Keep putting your fists and bayonets in people's faces, however ....

[Livyjr]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...campaign/withus

[Livyjr]

And first ....

Some background ....

The Kashmir Telegraph, March 2004, Vol 3, No 10

P E R S P E C T I V E

"Nepal & Bush Administration: Into thin air"

Conn Hallinan

Tucked into the upper stories of the Himalayas, Nepal hardly seems ground zero for the Bush administration's next crusade against “terrorism,” but an aggressive American ambassador, a strategic locale, and a flood of U.S. weaponry threatens to turn the tiny country of 25 million into a counter-insurgency bloodbath.

More than 8,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996, and the death rate has sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns, accompanied by U.S. advisers, high-tech night fighting equipment, and British helicopters.

For most Americans, Nepal, birthplace of the Buddha and home to Everest, the world's high mountain, is a charming tourist haven.

For the native Nepalese, 42% of whom, according to the World Bank, live below the poverty line, Nepal is a land enchained by caste, riven with ethnic rivalries, and dominated by a feudal landlord class.

The central protagonists in the current war are King Gyanendra, who abolished an elected parliament last year, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPNM), which is leading a rural insurrection, and a group of five political parties that found themselves out in the cold when the monarchy took over.

The Bush administration has concluded that the civil war threatens to make Nepal a “failed state” and a haven for international terrorists, leading it to place the CPNM on the State Department's “Watch List,” along with organizations like al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

U.S. Ambassador to Nepal, Michael E. Malinowski, compares CPNM leader, Baburam Bhattarai, to Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Malinowski, whose track record includes service in Afghanistan and Pakistan, advocates an all-out military offensive aimed at the insurgency, and recently told the New York Times that the CPNM, “literally have to be bent back to the table.”

But it was the Nepalese government's attempt to crush rural unrest that sparked the civil war in the first place, and virtually no one thinks there is a military solution to the insurrection.

“The government forces, under the present policies, could win a couple of battles here and there,” writes analyst Romeet Kaul Watt in The Kashmir Images, “but will never win the war.”

Roots of War

The present war finds it roots in both the ongoing poverty of a nation that is 85% rural, and the failure of the government to institute land reform measures following the restoration of representative government in 1990.

King Mahendra, father of the present King, dismissed an elective government in 1960.

He ruled until his death in 1972, when his son, King Birendra, took over, and eventually restored democracy.

But when conditions did not improve in rural areas, peasants began agitating against onerous rents.

The government responded by sending the military into the countryside--Operation Romeo and Operation Kilo Sera II--that did little more than radicalize poor farmers and recruit members for the CPNM.

The war, like most civil wars, has been brutal.

While most of the civilian deaths are attributed to government forces, Amnesty International accuses both sides of “unlawful criminal deaths.”

The CPNM has assassinated government supporters and police, and occasionally bombed Kathmandu.

The government has “disappeared” opponents, razed villages, and executed CPNM members and their supporters.

Over the past two years the Royal Nepal Army has beefed itself up to 72,000, but it isn't large enough to win a war against the CPNM's 4,000 core members and 15,000 or so militia supporters.

In any case, most of the Army is concentrated near the capital, Kathmandu.

However, with the recent influx of U.S. M-16s, Belgium FAL submachine guns, and British helicopters, the army has grown more aggressive, and death rates have climbed.

A government massacre of 19 villagers set off the latest round of fighting.

In the first month following the collapse of a seven-month cease-fire, civilian deaths tripled.

According to the Nepal human rights group, Informal Sector Service Centre, 800 of the 1,100 deaths since the end of the cease fire have been inflicted by government forces.

A major culprit in the escalating death rate is the appearance of modern assault rifles, the real “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Since 1990, more than five million people have died in wars around the globe, upwards of 90% of them from AK-47s, M-16s, FALs, German G3s, and Israeli Uzis.

According the Red Cross, more than 60% of civilian casualties are caused by submachine guns, and the United Nations Development Program estimates that small arms kill 300,000 people a year.

Modern assault rifles are far more deadly than the previous generations of weapons because they combine rapid-fire power with high velocity ammunition.

The combination of “Rounds Per Minute” (RPM)--the AK-47 delivers 600 RPMs, the M-16 up to 950 RPMs--and the enormous speed of the bullets, is a deadly one.

Fatalities from wounds have skyrocketed, particularly in places where medical care is primitive.

At $13.3 billion a year, the U.S. is the number one arms dealer in the world, far ahead of the Russians ($5 billion) and the French ($1 billion).

The bulk of that--$8.6 billion--goes to developing countries like Nepal.

Small, Savage Wars

Besides killing and wounding civilians, these small but savage wars inflict enormous indirect damage.

Studies on Cambodian and Bosnian refugees by Richard F. Mollica, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, found that more than two-thirds suffered from clinical depression and almost 40% from Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.

But efforts to curb the small arms trade have met with stiff resistance.

A recent proposal by Canada to ban the sale of small arms to “non-state actors” was derailed by the Americans, who have used such forces as an extension of foreign policy in places like Afghanistan and Central America.

Our ally in this war hardly fits the alleged aim of promoting democracy the Bush administration talks so much about.

One of King Gyanendra's first acts was to dismiss the elected government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Dueba for alleged “incompetence.”

Kathmandu has been the focus of demands for democracy and the reinstatement of parliament ever since, including one demonstration that drew 8,000 in late December.

The Nepalese daily, Rajdhani, reported Jan. 25 that the five political parties had thrown their support behind a growing student movement demanding a republic.

According to Rajdhani, “The parties decided to support protests of women, labourers, farmers, intellectuals, and different professional organizations as well.”

Krishna Sitaula, central committee member of the Nepal Congress Party, warned that the attempt by the King to impose an autocracy would backfire and hinted that the insurrection in the countryside and the protests in the cities might have common ground.

“Right now, the country is moving towards a republic,” he said, adding, “Maoists will give up violence and join us in the movement.”

Whether the CPNM would actually do that remains unclear.

The U.S. has once again aligned itself with absolutism in its war on “terror,” a war that is not only costing Nepalese lives, but has wrecked the economy and tanked the lucrative tourist trade.

For the second year in a row, the Nepalese economy shrank.

It is also heating up an area of the world with explosive potential.

Nepal borders both India and China (Tibet).

Both generally support the royalist forces, but neither is too happy about the growing U.S. involvement.

According to the Asia Times, last summer Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwai Sibal warned against “outside assistance” to Nepal, and the Indian press is grumbling about the U.S. ignoring a 1950 Friendship agreement--one that greatly favored India--between New Delhi and Kathmandu.

Publicly India and China have soft-pedaled their opposition to U.S. intervention, but if the war expands, it could spill over into both countries.

Tibet is restless under Beijing 's rule, and northern India has a number of long-standing separatist movements.

According to the New York Times, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) is exploring ways to add another $14 million in “insurgency relevant” aid to the $17 million in current U.S. military aid.

AID was one of the main funnels for the U.S. government's support for the South Vietnamese regime.

While it seems a stretch to compare Vietnam to Nepal, replace “terrorism” with “Communism,” and the parallels are disturbingly similar.

In his book “In Retrospect,” former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara admitted that the U.S. was “wrong, terribly wrong,” about Vietnam.

He recently told Doug Saunders of the Globe & Mail (Canada) pretty much the same thing about the U.S. in Iraq:

“It's just wrong what we're doing."

"It's morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong.”

One can only hope that 30 years from now we don't read similar words about U.S. intervention in Nepal.

Conn Hallinan is the provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus

[Livyjr]

And first ....

Some background ....

The Kashmir Telegraph, March 2004, Vol 3, No 10

P E R S P E C T I V E

"Nepal & Bush Administration: Into thin air"

Conn Hallinan

Tucked into the upper stories of the Himalayas, Nepal hardly seems ground zero for the Bush administration's next crusade against “terrorism,” but an aggressive American ambassador, a strategic locale, and a flood of U.S. weaponry threatens to turn the tiny country of 25 million into a counter-insurgency bloodbath.

More than 8,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996, and the death rate has sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns, accompanied by U.S. advisers, high-tech night fighting equipment, and British helicopters.

The Bush administration has concluded that the civil war threatens to make Nepal a “failed state” and a haven for international terrorists, leading it to place the CPNM on the State Department's “Watch List,” along with organizations like al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The present war finds it roots in both the ongoing poverty of a nation that is 85% rural, and the failure of the government to institute land reform measures following the restoration of representative government in 1990.

The government has “disappeared” opponents, razed villages, and executed CPNM members and their supporters.

However, with the recent influx of U.S. M-16s, Belgium FAL submachine guns, and British helicopters, the army has grown more aggressive, and death rates have climbed.

A government massacre of 19 villagers set off the latest round of fighting.

A major culprit in the escalating death rate is the appearance of modern assault rifles, the real “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

At $13.3 billion a year, the U.S. is the number one arms dealer in the world, far ahead of the Russians ($5 billion) and the French ($1 billion).

The bulk of that--$8.6 billion--goes to developing countries like Nepal.

But efforts to curb the small arms trade have met with stiff resistance.

A recent proposal by Canada to ban the sale of small arms to “non-state actors” was derailed by the Americans, who have used such forces as an extension of foreign policy in places like Afghanistan and Central America.

Our ally in this war hardly fits the alleged aim of promoting democracy the Bush administration talks so much about.

One of King Gyanendra's first acts was to dismiss the elected government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Dueba for alleged “incompetence.”

Kathmandu has been the focus of demands for democracy and the reinstatement of parliament ever since, including one demonstration that drew 8,000 in late December.

The Nepalese daily, Rajdhani, reported Jan. 25 that the five political parties had thrown their support behind a growing student movement demanding a republic.

According to Rajdhani, “The parties decided to support protests of women, labourers, farmers, intellectuals, and different professional organizations as well.”

The U.S. has once again aligned itself with absolutism in its war on “terror,” a war that is not only costing Nepalese lives, but has wrecked the economy and tanked the lucrative tourist trade.

For the second year in a row, the Nepalese economy shrank.

It is also heating up an area of the world with explosive potential.

According to the New York Times, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) is exploring ways to add another $14 million in “insurgency relevant” aid to the $17 million in current U.S. military aid.

AID was one of the main funnels for the U.S. government's support for the South Vietnamese regime.

And from that background ....

We zoom forward to today ....

Where this BU-shite toady over there in Nepal is turning into one more George W. Bush "ABSOLUTIST NIGHTMARE" out there in OUR world .......

Bent on crushing democracy .....

And thinking people .....

With the support of GEORGE ...

And OUR UNITED STATES TREASURY ....

So as to have the UNITARY EXECUTIVE rule forever .....

A la George W. Bush ....

And the REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE WORLD ....

According to whims ....

And not laws ...

Nor constitutions ..

But by force of arms alone ...

Thanks to the bloodthirsty and avaricious BUSHCOS ....

Who have made VIOLENCE one of OUR America's PRIME EXPORTS ...

And as a result, according to America's GEORGE ....

HIS ECONOMY IS BOOMING ....

SO ...

So what if some people in the world have to die ...

American investors are getting richer as a result ...

And that is going to TRICKLE DOWN to us some day ...

Or maybe to our children ...

Or maybe to their grandchildren ...

And so ...

In the meantime ....

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld are doing quite alright, thank you very much ....

Selling death and destruction ...

And so ...

All is right with THEIR WORLD .....

And so ....

BUSH-o-cracy is coming ......

BUSH-o-cracy is coming .....

RUN LIKE HELL ...

GET YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN UNDER COVER ...

BEFORE THE BUSH-O-CRATS TORTURE AND KILL THEM ...

And so ....

Here is one of GEORGE's acolytes in action right now ....

"Nepal King Orders Protesters Shot on Sight"

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA, Associated Press Writer

52 minutes ago

KATMANDU, Nepal - Protesters demanding a return to democracy postponed a rally that had been expected to draw thousands on Saturday, after the king imposed an all-day curfew and ordered violators shot on sight.

One person was killed and at least two wounded when security forces fired at demonstrators in Pokhara, a resort town 125 miles west of the capital, Katmandu, said Gangadhar Baral, who was among those wounded.

"We were protesting and some of us were throwing stones at the soldiers."

"Suddenly, the soldiers fired shots at us."

"One of my friends was killed instantly," Baral said.

He spoke from the town's main hospital.

Khadga Prasad Oli, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal, called the curfew "unnecessary, illegal and illogical" and said the protesters would try to hold the rally on Sunday.

Seven main political parties organized the rally as the high point of a four-day general strike that has shut down Katmandu, where King Gyanendra's refusal to give up absolute rule has led to growing unrest.

Protesters clashed with police in Katmandu and surrounding areas on Thursday and Friday.

Hundreds of people were arrested and dozens were injured.

The protesters have the backing of communist rebels, who are separately fighting against the king's rule and formed a loose alliance with the political parties in December.

Gyanendra dismissed the prime minister in February last year, saying he needed full powers to check the communist insurgency, which has killed some 13,000 people since 1996.

The rebels bombed government buildings and attacked a jail in the southwestern town of Taulihawa on Friday night, freeing 104 prisoners, officials said.

Insurgents also attacked security bases in the nearby town of Butwal.

Officials said the curfew was in response to information that the rebels would try to infiltrate the rallies and wage terror attacks against government targets.

Streets quickly emptied as the curfew began at 10 a.m. Saturday, except for soldiers patrolling the streets in vans, pickup trucks and armored cars.

Tourists were cooped up inside hotels and allowed to travel only if they were going to or from the airport.

The curfew was to continue until 9 p.m. Saturday in Katmandu and two suburbs, the government announced on state-run Radio Nepal.

Violators would be shot, it said.

"We strongly oppose this," said Oli, whose party is not linked to the rebels.

Authorities have cracked down forcefully on the protests.

On Friday, police used batons and tear gas to beat back hundreds of demonstrators in Katmandu, many of whom who were throwing rocks.

A post office in Katmandu was set on fire Friday, and students at the capital's Tribhuwan University ransacked the dean's office and briefly held several officers hostage.

The students were joined by workers, professionals and business owners, in what the opposition said was a sign of building momentum against the king.

Protest organizers said the curfew order and other restrictions, for example on cell phone use, show the government is nervous.

"It proves that we have been able to startle the government."

"We have not decided how we are going to respond to the curfew order but we will not be deterred by the government using these means to try quash our movement for democracy," Subash Nemwang, another communist party member.

Of the more than 750 people arrested the past three days, 115 were sent to prison under a tough public safety law that allows authorities to jail people without charge for 90 days, Home Minister Kamal Thapa said.

"The government is using minimum force to control the situation," Thapa told reporters.

The rebels have promised not to carry out attacks in Katmandu during the strike, but have stepped up attacks elsewhere.

Gyanendra called for calm in a speech live Friday on national radio and television.

"Let us all pledge today to devote time for establishing permanent peace," he said.

"It is the need of today to establish permanent peace."

The remarks were the king's first public comments on the daily protests and the escalating violence.
___

Associated Press writer Neelesh Misra contributed to this story.

[Livyjr]

And so ....

BUSH-o-cracy is coming ......

BUSH-o-cracy is coming .....

RUN LIKE HELL ...

GET YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN UNDER COVER ...

BEFORE THE BUSH-O-CRATS TORTURE AND KILL THEM ...

And so ....

And speaking of OUR America's ABSOLUTIST UNITARY EXECUTIVE .....

Who is bound by no laws whatsoever ...

Nor constitutions ....

Nor anything, actually ...

But continued PROFITS for his pack of GREEDY PROFITEERS .....

Who, you know ...

Well ...

Let's be honest here, folks ...

I mean ...

Well ...

You know ...

It is "dog-eat-dog" out there .....

So you can't really fault the BUSHCOS for shooting first, can you ...

I mean ...

Well, if not them ...

Likely it just would have been someone else ...

And so ...

Better the GREEDY PROFITEERS that you know ....

Than some other crowd from somewhere else .....

And so ....

"Data leak called legal - White House says Bush release of information was in public interest; timing raises questions"

By MICHAEL KRANISH, Boston Globe
First published: Saturday, April 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The White House, facing a barrage of questions about President Bush's authorization to leak a CIA intelligence report to a New York Times reporter in 2003, sought to defuse the matter Friday by saying the release was legal and in the public interest.

But White House officials did not deny that Bush approved the leak 10 days before the classified report was made public.

Democrats, meanwhile, stepped up their criticism, saying the selective leak proved their long-held belief that Bush had cherry-picked intelligence to justify the war.

Some renewed calls for a congressional investigation into whether the President knowingly misled the public about Iraq's capability to use weapons of mass destruction.

In court papers filed earlier this week, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was quoted as saying that Bush gave him approval in early July 2003 to leak key findings from a classified CIA report called the National Intelligence Estimate.

The report said Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nuclear weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, whose office had refused to comment on the matter for a day, found himself at the center of the questions of whether Bush had followed accepted procedures in declassifying the report.

At a July 18, 2003, news briefing -- at least 10 days after Bush had authorized the leak -- McClellan announced that the report was "just, as of today, officially declassified."

Asked by reporters Friday about the discrepancy, McClellan said he would "have to go back and look at the specific comments, but I'm not changing anything that was said previously."

He added that he believed he had been referring to when it was "declassified for the public."

McClellan then sought to turn the tables on Democrats, saying the opposition party was wrong to equate Bush's approval of the leak with past instances of government officials releasing classified information that harms national security.

"Declassifying information and providing it to the public when it is in the public interest is one thing," McClellan said, "but leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious."

"And there is a distinction."

"Now, there are Democrats out there that fail to recognize that distinction, or refuse to recognize that distinction."

"They are simply engaging in crass politics."

"Let's make clear what the distinction is."

McClellan said Bush still "believes the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter."

But Democrats said Bush was violating his own admonition against leaking.

"For years, President Bush has denied knowing about conversations between his top aides and Washington reporters, conversations where his aides -- like Scooter Libby -- sought to justify the war in Iraq and discredit the White House's critics by leaking national security secrets," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement.

"He must tell the American people whether the Bush Oval Office is the place where the buck stops or the leaks start."

Some observers said Bush's authorization of the leak proves allegations that a group of top administration officials came up with a plan to leak only intelligence that buttressed their case for war, and not the expressions of doubt.

The Libby case stemmed from administration efforts to discredit a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Joseph C. Wilson, who had written in a New York Times Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, that Bush's assertion that Iraq had obtained nuclear material from Africa was baseless.

In an effort to undermine Wilson's assertion, Bush within two days authorized the release of the Iraq intelligence information to Judith Miller, who then was a reporter for The New York Times.

Libby met with Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed the information, but the court papers provide no indication that he told Miller about footnotes in the report in which the State Department said it was "highly dubious" about the contention that Iraq obtained nuclear material from Niger.

At around the same time, Libby and other White House officials were discussing with reporters the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA official -- information that was disclosed in a Robert Novak column on July 14, 2003.

Four days later, with questions swirling about whether prewar intelligence justified the decision to invade Iraq, the White House released the National Intelligence Estimate, including the doubts raised by the State Department.

"We always want to share facts with the American people," McClellan said on that day, explaining the release of the report.

"And this information was just, as of today, officially declassified, and it was an opportunity to share with them some information that showed the clear and compelling case that we had for confronting the threat that Saddam Hussein posed."

Libby has been indicted on charges of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about the identity of Valerie Plame.

He is not charged with leaking classified information, but those leaks have become a central focus of the case.

end quotes

The MOUNTAIN OF LIES from the BUSHCOS continues to grow and grow and grow and grow .....

With Scottie "BOY" McClellan doing what he does best .....

Fertilizing forty acre fields in a matter of minutes ...

With just the output of his mouth alone .....

And so ....

Give that boy a cigar ...

And vote REPUBLICAN ...

And the lies and corruption will continue ...

And all will be right with the world as a result ..

Because the rest of us will be dead .....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

SO ...

So what if some people in the world have to die ...

American investors are getting richer as a result ...

And that is going to TRICKLE DOWN to us some day ...

Or maybe to our children ...

Or maybe to their grandchildren ...

And so ...

In the meantime ....

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld are doing quite alright, thank you very much ....

Selling death and destruction ...

And so ...

All is right with THEIR WORLD .....

And so ....

BUSH-o-cracy is coming ......

BUSH-o-cracy is coming .....

RUN LIKE HELL ...

GET YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN UNDER COVER ...

BEFORE THE BUSH-O-CRATS TORTURE AND KILL THEM ...

And so ....

Does anyone still remember a world before IRAQINAM?

"Official: Iraq in 'Undeclared Civil War'"

By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 28 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb killed six people Saturday near a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad, and the death toll from the deadliest attack of the year rose to nearly 90.

A senior official warned Iraq was in an "undeclared civil war" that can be curbed only by a strong government and greater powers for security services.

With sectarian tensions rising, U.S. Marines on Saturday beat back the largest attack in weeks by Sunni Arab insurgents in the western city of Ramadi — another sign of the crisis facing this country three years after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces.

The car bomb exploded at a small shrine in the Euphrates River town of Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad.

Police said most of the six dead and 14 wounded were Shiite pilgrims visiting the shrine.

Fears of more attacks are running high in Shiite areas following the Thursday car bombing that killed 10 in the Shiite holy city of Najaf and the suicide attack the following day against a Shiite mosque in Baghdad — the deadliest attack in Iraq this year.

The attacks on houses of worship have stoked tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, especially after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, an act that triggered reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.

Despite the violence, U.S. officials have discounted talk of civil war.

However, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday that an "undeclared civil war" had already been raging for more than a year.

"Is there a civil war?"

"Yes, there is an undeclared civil war that has been there for a year or more," Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal told The Associated Press.

"All these bodies that are discovered in Baghdad, the slaughter of pilgrims heading to holy sites, the explosions, the destruction, the attacks against the mosques are all part of this."

Kamal said the country would still be spared from all-out sectarian war "if a strong government is formed, if the security forces are given wide powers and if they are able to defeat the terrorists."

"Then we might be able to overcome this crisis," he said.

The death toll from the Friday bombing of the Buratha mosque in north Baghdad rose to 85 because some of the wounded died, Dr. Riyadh Abdul Ameer of the Health Ministry said.

Officials said the death toll could rise because of severe injuries among the 156 people wounded in the attack by suicide bombers, including one dressed as a woman.

Also Saturday, Sunni insurgents launched their strongest attack in six weeks against the Anbar provincial government headquarters in Ramadi, 75 miles west of Baghdad. '

There were no U.S. casualties, Marines said.

A U.S. Air Force F-18 fighter bombed insurgent positions, unleashing thunderous explosions that shook the city.

U.S. Marines guarding the government headquarters fought back with anti-tank rockets, machine guns and small arms fire.

Sporadic shooting occurred around the government building after sunset, and an Iraqi soldier was killed Saturday in a separate fight in Ramadi, U.S. officials said.

Three Iraqi soldiers were wounded in a clash with insurgents in Fallujah, about 30 miles east of Ramadi, police said.

The U.S. military reported Saturday that a U.S. Marine died from wounds suffered in hostile action the day before in Anbar province but gave no further details.

The New York Times reported in its online edition Saturday that an internal staff report by the U.S. Embassy and the military command rated overall stability of six of Iraq's 18 provinces "serious" and one "critical."

The report was dated Jan. 31, the Times said.

The newspaper said provinces where overall stability was rated "serious" included Baghdad and oil-rich Basra, where Shiite militias wield considerable influence.

Anbar province, which includes Ramadi and Fallujah, was rated "critical," the newspaper said.

"This report should be seen in the broader context of development in Iraq as it relates to the economy, governance and security," Dan Speckhard, the U.S. reconstruction chief for Iraq, said in a statement.

He said significant progress was being made in economic development and local governance after "decades of mismanagement" by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Efforts to form a strong, broadbased government including Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds have stalled over Sunni and Kurdish opposition to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite candidate to lead the next administration.

Opponents accuse al-Jaafari of failing to stem sectarian violence.

However, al-Jaafari has refused to step aside, and his Shiite coalition has been reluctant to reconsider his nomination for fear of splintering their ranks.

Shiite officials were to meet, possibly as soon as Sunday, to discuss the stalemate at the urging of the country's top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Al-Jaafari's allies suggested the meeting would be to affirm the prime minister's nomination, which he won by a single vote during balloting last February among Shiite lawmakers who won seats in parliament in the December elections.

"So far, we still have one candidate ... and that is Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari," Jawad al-Maliki, a key member of the prime minister's Dawa party said.

"If there is an opinion to be discussed within the alliance, then it must be discussed through ... democratic means."

Al-Maliki said he understood that al-Sistani wanted the alliance to resolve the crisis "but I did not hear a call" for al-Jaafari to step down.

But he added that "anything is possible."

Khalid al-Attiyah, an independent member of the Shiite alliance, said several options were under discussion, including replacing al-Jaafari with Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who lost the February vote.

But al-Attiyah said al-Jaafari's party would oppose that.

Abdul-Mahdi is a member of the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Other proposals include naming another candidate from Dawa or someone not affiliated with either of the two big Shiite parties, al-Attiyah said.

In other developments Saturday:

• Police found four headless bodies showing signs of torture that were dumped on a farm about 20 miles north of Baghdad.

• A mortar round hit a house near the Education Ministry in central Baghdad, killing two men, police said.

_Gunmen killed a Shiite cigarette vendor and police found the body of a man killed by a roadside bomb near a highway.
___

Associated Press correspondents Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Todd Pitman in Ramadi contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And the weather ...

And it is early, yet ...

Barely into April ...

And the hot weather that is yet to come ...

And the violence that the warm air can be a source of ......

"Crews Seek Survivors After Deadly Storms"

By JOHN GEROME, Associated Press Writer

43 minutes ago

GALLATIN, Tenn. - Emergency teams spray-painted damaged houses with "X" signs Saturday after checking them for bodies or survivors and crews moved in dump trucks to haul away the wreckage piled up by tornadoes blamed for 12 deaths.

Bystanders were warned not to smoke because of leaking gas while police patrolled to ensure there was no looting.

Tornadoes were spotted in about 10 Tennessee counties on Friday, the second wave of deadly storms to hit the state in less than a week, weather officials said.

The worst damage appeared to be in Gallatin and other suburbs northeast of Nashville.

Steve Hurt and eight other people survived by taking shelter in a fireproof room with concrete walls at Lee Electric Supply Co. in Gallatin.

"You could hear people yelling and screaming outside and the debris hitting the walls," said Hurt, who said one of his co-workers was killed.

One of the tornadoes that hit the area chewed up a path 150 to 200 yards wide and at least 10 miles long, estimated Jimmy Templeton of the Sumner County Sheriff's Department.

Nearly 170 homes and eight businesses in Gallatin and Sumner County were damaged or destroyed, said Sonny Briggance, rescue chief for the county's emergency management agency.

Several multimillion-dollar homes were pulverized in one subdivision.

"I'm amazed we didn't have more fatalities," Briggance said.

"Although the number is high, we are still very lucky."

Gallatin resident Dora Freeze said her best friend, Crystal Graves, died not long after she got home from work.

"When I stand here and look at it all, I just can't believe it," Freeze said.

Seven people were killed in Sumner County and three were killed in Warren County, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.

Two more people died during the night in a Gallatin hospital, state Emergency Management Agency spokesman Randy Harris said Saturday.

Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries.

Harris said a preliminary count showed that 700 to 900 homes in Sumner County and another 500 to 700 in Warren County were damaged or destroyed.

The National Guard was helping both areas with the cleanup.

Gov. Phil Bredesen toured the destruction Saturday.

Most people rummaging through the rubble in Gallatin hunted for photographs and other keepsakes; a few looked for pets.

Diesel smoke filled the air as work crews used heavy equipment to clear paths through the debris.

Clumps of yellow insulation hung from trees like Spanish moss, and the sound of helicopters, chain saws and trucks created a loud, steady rumble.

Last weekend, thunderstorms spinning out dozens of tornadoes killed 24 people in western Tennessee and four others in Missouri and Illinois.

Nashville Electrical Service reported hundreds of electrical lines down and power outages affecting up to 16,000 customers, mostly in Goodlettsville.

The number of customers blacked out was down to 1,100 Saturday, but some people might have to wait a week for their service to be restored, NES spokeswoman Laurie Parker said.

Later Friday and early Saturday, another line of severe thunderstorms rolled through Alabama and Georgia.

Homes and businesses were damaged in the Atlanta suburbs, but the National Weather Service had not confirmed whether the area was hit by tornadoes.

"Several businesses are totally destroyed."

"Trees literally are sitting inside of houses," Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said.

Several people were injured in Alabama, two by falling trees, but no deaths were reported, officials said Saturday.

A store was destroyed in Ohatchee, near Anniston, and homes and apartments were damaged in the Birmingham area.

Storms also pounded southern West Virginia, blacking out more than 16,000 customers, utilities said.
___

Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.

Man can do all he wants to the environment ...

And the environment don't much care ....

And much of what man does to the environment ....

Simply comes back to make life for man much harder ....

Or it comes back to kill him ...

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And once again ..

Another day dawns ....

Cold and clear ...

At least up here where I am right now in OUR America ...

A land that is being ravaged by MOTHER NATURE .....

I would say ..

IN RETALIATION FOR AMERICA RAVISHING HER FIRST ....

But since there is no definitive proof that such a thing as NATURE even exists in the first place ...

Well ...

Suffice to say that if you ask a WHITE HOUSE LAWYER ...

About any of my commentary in here on anything at all ....

Including the contents of all of these news items that I post in here on a daily basis ...

They will tell you that I am plumb full of **** ....

And so ....

But that don't confront me none .....

Since the "truth will out" eventually .....

And so .....

This following just came into me from the internet ...

And while I cannot and will not vouch for its authenticity .....

At the same time ...

It sure does seem plausible ...

BUT AS ALWAYS ...

You must be the judge for yourself ....

And so ....

Without further ado ....

From the internet ....

"George W. Bush said he was sick of people accusing him of lying us into war..."

"Today he met with a gentleman from the CIA to administer a lie detector test to settle the matter once and for all."

"The agent explained the test to Bush."

"He told him that he would ask a series of questions."

"He told Bush that when he told the truth the light would turn green, and if he told a lie, then the light would turn red."

"After explaining that to him, the agent asked Bush if he understood, and Bush said, 'Yes'."

"The light turned red."

[Livyjr]

And since we are on the subject of WHITE HOUSE lawyers ....

And lies by the gross that have been told to us by this Bush REGIME .....

Since before 2000 ....

In all likelihood .....

We have what looks like a little bush-league liar realizing his own inadequacies ....

And thus ....

Leaving the task of telling the REAL BIG WHOPPERS ....

To a real MAJOR LEAGUE EXPERT at the TRADE ....

And so ....

EXPERTISE IS ...

As EXPERTISE DOES ...

And so ....

"Lawyer: Bush left leak details to Cheney"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:26 a.m., Sunday, April 9, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House.

The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said.

It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place.

The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified document that detailed the intelligence community's conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The new information about Bush and Cheney's roles came as the president's aides have scrambled to defuse the political fallout from a court filing Wednesday by the prosecutors in the complex, ongoing investigation into whether the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame was disclosed to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an Iraq war critic.

Wilson had accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the weapons threat in Iraq.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in the filing that Libby testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from the intelligence estimate.

Libby faces trial, likely in January, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury and investigators about what he told reporters about Plame.

Fitzgerald did not say in the filing that Cheney authorized Libby to leak Plame's identity, and Bush is not accused of doing anything illegal.

Fitzgerald's aim with the filing was to counter Libby's defense that he innocently forgot about conversations he may have had with reporters about Plame by showing that the White House's concern about the war criticism was so consuming it would be difficult to forget.

But by suggesting that the leak of Plame's name may have been set in motion by the president, however indirectly, the documents reverberated much more broadly.

Democrats unleashed a storm of criticism against Bush, saying he appeared to have misused the declassification process for political gain.

On Friday, the White House argued there is an important different between disclosing sensitive information to further a public debate and leaking classified information that compromises national security.

But the attorney said Saturday the president's instructions were not as specific as it might seem from both Fitzgerald's description of Libby's testimony and news accounts of it.

Because Bush declassified the intelligence document, the White House does not view Libby's conversations about it as a leak.

But that determination is difficult to make without knowing precisely when Bush decided to declassify the information.

Libby passed the information about the document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003.

It was 10 days later, on July 18, when the same portions of the document that Libby discussed with Miller were released publicly.

[Livyjr]

And where is OUR America today with respect to all these lies that have been told to us by the BUSHCOS for all these years since they have come into ABSOLUTE POWER here in OUR America?

Well ...

Let's take a look and see ....

Keeping in mind that OUR America has been split on this issue since before the 2004 presidential elections .....

When a slight majority of those in OUR America ....

Felt that they would rather have LIES and CORRUPTION continue as OPERATIVE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLICY ...

Here in OUR America .....

Than the integrity and truthfulness and forthrightness that those of us in the NON-POLITICALLY ALIGNED MINORITY were aiming at ...

And so .....

"Poll: Immigration, Wars Trouble Americans"

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Rising anxiety has pushed immigration close to the economy in the public's view of the most important problems facing this country, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Those issues ranked slightly behind war in Iraq and elsewhere.

Immigration's rise in the latest survey about the nation's top problems suggests the public is keeping close watch on the immigration debate in Congress and reaction around the country.

Efforts in the Senate to pass sweeping immigration legislation faltered Friday, leaving in doubt the prospects for passage of a measure that offered the hope of citizenship to millions of men, women and children living in the United States illegally.

When people were asked this past week to name the top national problem that came to mind, 13 percent said immigration — four times the number who said that in January.

Roughly the same number, 14 percent of those polled, named the economy, according to the poll of 500 adults conducted April 3-5.

The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

More than 11 million illegal immigrants are believed to be in this country now, with thousands more coming in all the time.

About 1.2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended last year along the nation's southwest border with Mexico, according to immigration officials.

As immigration concerns have grown, economic worries have dipped.

Only 14 percent now say the economy and related issues are their top concern, compared with 24 percent in October.

About one in five, 19 percent, said they view war as the nation's top problem.