By: Julian Borger  

A former U.S. intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The claims came as the Bush administration was fighting to shore up its credibility among a series of anonymous government leaks over its distortion of U.S. intelligence to manufacture a case against Saddam.

This was the first time an administration official has put his name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the State Department's bureau of intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to the classified reports which formed the basis for the U.S. case against Saddam, spelled out by President Bush and his aides.

By: Paul Corrigan  

A majority of Americans support President Bush. That support is faith-based, not fact-based. If you believe that there is a supreme being in the heavens who created the universe and is keeping tabs on all of our deeds, I guess belief in Bush is not so far-fetched. For those of us with our feet and minds planted in reality, having faith in Bush is just plain dumb.

The Washington media are finally reporting that the Bush administration distorted intelligence and manufactured evidence to justify an invasion of Iraq. Of course the Bush administration lied about the need for war. It also lied about the expected benefits from that war. The fact that it lied about the war is consistent with its track record. Bush lied to get elected. He lied to get selected. He lied about the need for a tax cut. He lied about who was getting the tax cut. He lied about the benefits of a tax cut. His administration lied about the need for media consolidation. It lied about the benefits to the country from media consolidation. Virtually every policy statement the administration had made has been disingenuous.

By: Ross Eisenbrey  

The 40-hour workweek was created in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as a way to increase workers' wages and spread jobs around at a time of perilously high unemployment. Before that there was no minimum wage and businesses routinely worked employees 10 hours a day, six days a week. In the midst of the Great Depression, FDR and Congress agreed that shorter workweeks were a necessity, but rather than ban overtime work, they chose to penalize it, making each hour beyond 40 in a week 50% more expensive. For the most part, the law has worked. The 40-hour workweek is an accepted part of our culture and the weekend is an almost sacred part of American life.

Comp time - substituting the promise of time off in the future for overtime pay now - would reduce the cost of overtime to employers in several ways. In some instances, comp time would make overtime even cheaper for employers than regular time. Comp time can be cost-free to an employer who controls the timing of the employees' use of their leave - permitting it, for example, only when business is slow and coworkers can do the work of the absent employee, while paying nothing at the time overtime is originally performed. If overtime is cheaper than regular time, employers will have an economic incentive to demand as much overtime as possible.

"If the Bush regime were held up to the same standard of investigation as the Clinton administration was, the entire bunch of thugs, Bozos, and thieves wouldn't last another day in office. They would scatter like mosquitoes at a frog convention."

- Charles Sullivan, from an article in CounterPunch

Editorial from:  

The Bush administration, long allergic to the idea of investigating the government's failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is now doing its best to bury the national commission that was created to review Washington's conduct. That was made plain yesterday in a muted way by Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor, and Lee Hamilton, the former congressman, who are directing the inquiry. When these seasoned, mild-mannered men start complaining that the administration is trying to intimidate the commission, the country had better take notice.

In a status report on its work, the commission said various agencies - particularly the Pentagon and the Justice Department - were blocking requests for vital information and resources. Acting more like the Soviet Kremlin than the American government, the administration has insisted that monitors from various agencies attend debriefings of key officials by investigators. Mr. Kean is quite correct in objecting to this as a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. Meanwhile, the clock is running for the commission to complete a full report to the nation by next May.

President Bush received a cool reception today in the capital of Africa's largest economic power, as opinion leaders across the continent complained about his policies on Iraq, AIDS, and the International Criminal Court.

The reception for Bush in Africa is not as overtly hostile as those he has received in places such as Germany, where tens of thousands filled the streets to protest what they called his unilateralist and militaristic policies. At the same time, however, the reception contrasts markedly with the large and adoring crowds that greeted former President Bill Clinton five years ago; some still have photos of Clinton in their homes.

By: Dennis Rahkonen  

I believe it's reasonable to postulate that the Bush/Cheney gang, with its obscenely incestuous connection to Big Oil, is callously prepared to sacrifice an interminable number of servicepeople from the United States and allied countries... to try to keep the black gold it acquired via thieving conquest.

The great value of mothers' precious sons and daughters is comparatively small, and expendable, in the minds of those whose eyes widen in avarice over the fabulous profit that retaining Iraq's petroleum reserves would assure them.

The greediest people on earth have the world's richest prize in hand. Nothing except the full-scale social unrest that will surely come with constantly mounting casualties will dissuade them.

By: Clar Ni Chonghaile  

"We are very angry. We didn't even see him", said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour.

N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6 am and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday.

Many residents compared Bush's hour-long visit unfavorably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

"When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced", said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

"Put 'em up! PUT 'EM UP! Which one'aya first? I'll fight'cha both together if you want! I'll fight'cha with one paw tied behind my back! I'll fight'cha standin' on one foot! I'll fight'cha with my eyes closed! Ohhh! Pullin' an axe on me, eh?"

- Cowardly Lion, in the Wizard of Oz

By: Schuyler Ebbets  

Recently Bush's handlers again instructed him to make noises about charging Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants with war crimes. With characteristic hypocrisy Bush's condemnations of Hussein came at a time when he was facing charges of war crimes himself from Belgium's Justice Ministry, and they came when the world is starting to realize that America's use of Depleted Uranium weapons is a war crime.

According to an August 2002 report by the U.N. Sub Commission, the laws which are violated by the use of DU weapons include: the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which specifically bans the deployment of "poison or poisoned weapons", and "arms, projectiles, or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering".

By: Philip Shenon  

The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony.

The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, with the commission's chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.

By: Robert Scheer  

They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document - now known to be a crude forgery - that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either.

What is startling in Wilson's account, however, is that the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Vice President's office were all informed that the Niger-Iraq connection was phony. No one in the chain of command disputed that this "evidence" of Iraq's revised nuclear weapons program was a hoax.

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic."

- John F. Kennedy

Mod Man's Note: This is a real image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

By: James Carroll  

...What is permitted to be done in the name of "ridding the world of evil"?

Is lying allowed? Torture? The killing of children? Or, less drastic, the militarization of civil society? The launching of dubious wars? But wars are never dubious at their launchings. The recognition of complexity - moral as well as martial - comes only with "the distance of history", and it is that perspective that has begun to press itself upon the American conscience now.

Having forthrightly set out to rid the world of evil, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, has the United States, willy-nilly, become an instrument of evil? Lying (weapons of mass deception). Torture (if only by U.S. surrogates). The killing of children ("collaterally", but inevitably). The vulgarization of patriotism (last week's orgy of bunting). The imposition of chaos (and calling it freedom). The destruction of alliances ("First Iraq, then France"). The invitation to other nations to behave in like fashion (Goodbye, Chechnya). The inexorable escalation ("Bring 'em on!"). The made-in-Washington pantheon of mythologized enemies (first Osama, now Saddam). The transmutation of ordinary young Americans (into dead heroes). How does all of this, or any of it, "rid the world of evil"?

"As a mother of one of our brave troops in Iraq, may I just say, Mr. President, Perhaps you truly do believe in the invincibility of our military; however, the next time you invite attacks on my son, and others, kindly stand in front of our soldiers, rather than hiding behind."

- from a letter to the editor, in the Tennessean

By: Frank Rich  

Such flag-waving for personal and corporate profit has gotten so out of hand that last month, when the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration for the umpteenth time, I for once found myself rooting for the Senate to follow suit. It would be fun to watch TV executives hauled on to Court TV. If NBC's post-9/11 decision to slap the flag on screen in the shape of its trademarked peacock wasn't flag desecration, what is?

As patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, so the coercive patriotism of this historical moment is the last refuge of cynics. In The Story of American Freedom, the historian Eric Foner observes that a similar phenomenon occurred a little over a century ago, uncoincidentally enough, in tandem with "America's triumphant entry onto the world stage as an imperial power" during the Spanish-American War. It was in the 1890's that "rituals like the Pledge of Allegiance and the practice of standing for the playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' came into existence", as well as Flag Day. Our leaders were then professing to spread democracy to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines with the same blithe self-assurance that our current leaders promise to bring the American way to Iraq and its neighbors.

By: Matthew Rothschild  

Airport security insisted that he go to "a protest area on the verge of a highway, a good half mile from the hangar where the President would be speaking", the New York Times reported on April 27.

But Bursey wanted to be closer so the President or his entourage might actually see the sign. Airport security told him "to go the free speech zone". Bursey said: "I was in it: the United States of America", the Times reported.

Eventually, "an airport policeman told him he had to put down his sign... or leave", the story said. "You mean, it's the content of my sign?" Bursey asked. The policeman said: "Yes, sir, it's the content of your sign", Bursey recalled to the Times reporter.

"The world expects something more of an American President than to prance around on a flight deck dressed up like [a] pilot. He's expected to be a leader. That's my fundamental issue with it. It doesn't reflect the gravitas of the office. Furthermore, it's a little phony."

- Gen. Wesley K. Clark, in an interview for Newsweek

Continued hubris in high places heightens risks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Editorial from:  

U.S. soldiers are dying and dodging guerrilla bullets in a hot and hostile country and their Commander-in-Chief says: "Bring 'em on"?

Mr. President, do you live in a play house or the White House?

No matter how Ari Fleischer tries to spin it, childish taunts such as that are not the calibrated words demanded of the United States President at this turn of history's wheel.

Calibrated does not mean sterile or soft. But a President's words have global impact. And these words have people here and abroad scratching their heads about this war that's supposedly over, but clearly continues.

By: A.F. Nariman  

I believe that the Republican Party makes a good case in suggesting that since the rich pay more in income taxes, they should therefore get back more in income tax cuts. I think it is important for the Democratic Party to accede to this statement of fact. And, if these tax cuts were indeed from "income tax surpluses", then I guess I could keep this note short and sweet and end here.

But, alas, the argument of conservatives makes no sense in the context of the recently passed $350 billion tax cut (actually, it is closer to $840 billion minus the "sunset" gimmicks), which was not taken out of income tax surpluses since there are none, nor for that matter from regressive FICA tax surpluses (borrowed to the hilt to pay for George W. Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut in 2001). Instead, the President's third tax cut in two years comes by borrowing from the public by raising the debt ceiling and increasing the national debt by close to $1 trillion.

Bogged down in a guerrilla war, Iraq may be George Bush's Little Big Horn.

By: Eric Margolis  

Asked on TV this week about steadily mounting attacks on U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, President Bush narrowed his eyes, and hunched forward aggressively - thrilling his ardent fans from Biloxi to Paducah - and growled: "Bring 'em on!" - a call to battle worthy of the famously dimwitted American general, George Armstrong Custer who, like Bush, knew what he knew and didn't need advice.

Bush's claims that mounting attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq are the work of Saddam Hussein loyalists and "terrorists" belong in the same trash bin as White House propaganda about weapons of mass destruction. Yes, there are some Baath party loyalists fighting U.S. occupation, but so are many more ordinary Iraqis who are reacting as would any other proud people to an invasion of their country.

George Bush has well and truly stuck the U.S. into twin quagmires in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These ongoing guerrilla wars, and their logistical support, now tie down some 175,000 men, fully one third of total U.S. ground forces. Back in the 1980's, Osama bin Laden preached that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world was to bleed it in a score of small guerrilla wars. Bush, who now threatens to attack Iran, is falling right into bin Laden's strategic trap. Bravo, Mr. President.

By: Peggy Noonan  

The second Gulf War will not be quick. And one senses no one will doubt, when it was over, that every medal was earned.

But the long haul is going to mean and demonstrate more than that. A resentful world is about to see that America had to fight for it. They are about to see America could fight for it - that we had and have the stomach for a struggle. Our implacable foes and sometimes doubting friends will see that America's armed forces don't just shock and awe, we stay and fight.

The world will be reminded that America still knows how to suffer. In a county as in an individual, the ability to withstand pain - the ability to suffer - says a great deal about character. It speaks of maturity and courage, among other things. The world knew half a century ago that America will absorb pain to reach progress. It is not all bad that they are seeing it again.

Americans too may be heartened to see that we know how to absorb pain...

By: Maureen Dowd  

I went online to take "Dr. Grohol's Psych Central Adult ADD Quiz". The questionnaire asked if: "My moods have high and lows." Well, yes.

It asked if: "I am distressed by the disorganized way my brain works." You bet.

Reading over the questions, I realized America has AADD. The country has always had a pinball attention span, even before the Internet and cable TV accelerated it.

The New Republic recently dubbed this "historical attention deficit disorder", when a country gets distracted from focusing on any one place for very long. Our scattered consciousness is the reason we're so bad at empire, too impatient to hang around hot climes trying to force cold natives to like us.

By: BartCop  

But the Number One Most Patriotic Place in America is now... Ground Zero in downtown New York, where the World Trade Centers once stood when the Unelected Idiot went on another month-long vacation. The CIA and FBI told Bush something BIG was coming, but the lazy bastard went on another vacation instead of doing the job he spent $100,000,000 to steal - and the press forgives him so people aren't reminded.

They tried to stick that shit on Clinton too.

Remember the bombing at the LA Airport?
Remember the horrific bombings as the millenium turned?
Remember the bombing of the tunnels in New York?

No, you don't, because they didn't f-ing happen!

Clinton did his job and stopped terrorism on American soil, where he had power. Clinton was smart and earned his job and worked 80 hour weeks at it.

"The higher up a monkey climbs, the easier it is to see his ass."

- Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf

By: Mike McArdle  

History will record that two months after declaring victory in a made-for-TV photo-op aboard an aircraft carrier, the man who started the war in Iraq responded to continued attacks on Americans by, well, encouraging more attacks.

Given the character that this man has exhibited since he's been in office I don't think we should be at all surprised when he so cavalierly dismisses the safety of U.S. service people by using them as an excuse to display the type of class that Mike Tyson exhibits at a weigh-in. But at least Iron Mike has to face the person he taunts in a boxing ring. Bush is taunting the Iraqis from 6000 miles away and behind a phalanx of Secret Service guards. Hell, even Harry Callahan had the bad guy in front of him when he told him to make his day. Bush apparently can only play tough guy when somebody else is going to have to suffer the consequences.

Report from:  

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the world's weather is going haywire.

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from an impeccably respected U.N. organisation that is not given to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

It should be noted that every Democratic President on this chart had job growth of AT LEAST 2.3% per year (Kennedy) and every Republican President had job growth of AT MOST 2.2% (Nixon) per year.

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