"Focus": Das BKA, interne Ermittlungen und manipulierte Terrorismusakten (15.09.05)

Noch stärker als bei anderen Institutionen wird bei Informationen aus oder über Geheimdienstkreise immer wieder davor gewarnt, diese als die reine Wahrheit zu betrachten. Es sei kaum zu durchschauen, aus welchen Motiven Geheimdienste oder bestimmte Medien zu bestimmten Zeiten bestimmte Aussagen an die Medien lancieren. Unter diesem Vorbehalt geben wir hier eine Meldung der Nachrichtenagentur ddp wieder, wonach das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) bei einer internen Ermittlung manipulierte Terrorismusakten in Umlauf gebracht haben soll.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11858

EDM 666

21.07.2005

Rosindell, Andrew

That this House expresses deep concern at the decision by Orange to site a new telecommunications mast in Gidea Park, Romford; notes that the mast has been erected despite continued protests from local residents as well as parents, pupils and staff associated with the Gidea Park College close by; further notes that the Stewart Report suggests that there could be a danger from these masts; understands also that the report recommends that no masts should be sited near schools or nurseries; further notes with concern that the Planning Inspectorate has ignored this advice when allowing Orange to use the site; urges Orange to dismantle the mast; and believes that no further telecommunications mast should be sited near to any building regularly used by young children.

Signatures( 1)

Standard Order Party Groups Alphabetical Order Party Totals

Status

Open signatures All signatures

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMByMember.aspx?MID=455

Rosindell, Andrew

Amanda Wesley

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I have forwarded EDM 666 to Sir George Young requesting him to sign it. I have also asked him if he would be prepared to go forward with a Private Members Bill on telecoms similar to the Richard Spring / Andrew Stunnell bills. Will forward his reply.

Jenny

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Dear All, FYI

Sir George Young has declined to sign EDM 666, as he is 'reluctant to intervene in a planning matter in another constituency.' Also he is of the opinion that EDM's achieve very little if anything. He said he would 'look carefully' at any PMB's on Telecoms, but did not comment on putting one forward himself.

Just to remind people - I have kept GY informed so he is well aware of all the arguments - therefore I haven't gone into any detail in this shortish email to him. Thanks to Amanda I believe most MP's will have this info, but it may be as well to check if you want to request an MP to present a Private Members Bill on telecoms.

Here is my reply.


Dear Sir George,

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, I do appreciate it, though of course I was disappointed that you will not be signing Andrew Rosindell’s EDM. But it is your decision and we must all do what we feel to be right.

I’m very grateful that you have undertaken to look at any new Private Member’s Bills on Telecoms. Obviously I had hoped that you might present a bill on this issue yourself, but as you declined to comment, I assume this would not be the case. Do please let me know if I am mistaken. It is entirely a matter of luck as to who gets drawn, so the more MP’s who choose Telecoms, the greater the chance of success.

More and more MP’s are crossing over to our side of the debate. They have come to realise how flawed the Government / Industry science is, and how much harm local communities across the UK suffer because of the disgraceful planning laws. As a result a PMB is almost certain to be presented again in this parliament.

MP Lynne Featherstone is, I believe considering such action.
Another MP, David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) recently stated that, “Masts in residential areas are a blot on the landscape, and an eyesore, inappropriate and out of character. There are also the health issues to consider. The law must be changed and I will endeavour to support a law change in Parliament.”

MP Dr Ian Gibson is one of the best known and high profile opponents of masts close to schools and in residential areas. There are many others, too numerous to list here, most of whom are deeply concerned about the long term risk to public health. The Richard Spring and Andrew Stunnell bills failed through lack of signatures. We believe this is about to change.

Thank you as always, for your kind support – I hope you will go further and consider presenting a Telecom Bill yourself – a publicly ethical stand against this Government’s unethical policies.


Kindest regards as ever,

Jennifer (Godschall Johnson)


FYI - MP’s responses to Private Members Bills and EDM’s are posted on the Mast Forum nationwide.

Mit der Durchsuchung der Redaktion des Monatsmagazins Cicero setzt sich eine Serie von polizeilichen Verstößen gegen die Pressefreiheit fort.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20946/1.html

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Hausdurchsuchung war rechtswidrig

"Die Polizeimaßnahme gegen die Redaktion der Zeitschrift anti atom aktuell (aaa) war rechtswidrig. Mit dieser Entscheidung stellte sich das Landgericht Lüneburg auf die Seite der Journalistinnen Elisabeth Krüger und Martin Nesemann. Deren Wohnungen im Wendland und die Redaktionsräume der Bewegungszeitschrift waren im August von einem Großaufgebot der Polizei durchsucht und Computer und zahlreiche Unterlagen beschlagnahmt worden..." Presseerklärung von aaa vom 20.09.2005

http://www.labournet.de/solidaritaet/aaa200905.html



»Die Hemmschwelle von Polizei und Justiz sinkt«

Behörden wollen das Kontaktnetz von Journalisten erschließen. Immer häufiger werden Redaktionen durchsucht. Ein Gespräch mit Dr. Thomas Leif , Vorsitzender des »Netzwerks Recherche«, einer Vereinigung, die besonders den Recherchejournalismus fördert, in junge Welt vom 15.09.2005

http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/09-15/023.php
siehe dazu auch die Seite des Netzwerks Recherche
http://www.netzwerkrecherche.de/



Pressefreiheit: Die Hemmschwelle sinkt

„Mit der Durchsuchung der Redaktion des Monatsmagazins Cicero setzt sich eine Serie von polizeilichen Verstößen gegen die Pressefreiheit fort Politisch gesehen ist das konservative Monatsmagazin [extern] Cicero wohl unverdächtig. Die aktuelle Nummer enthält ein Interview mit der Kanzlerkandidatin der Union, Angela Merkel, zudem befasst sich das Heft mit der Debatte um Kinderlosigkeit zwischen Kanzlergattin Doris Schröder-Köpf und Emma-Herausgeberin Alice Schwarzer. Kann eine solche Publikation ein Fall für den Staatsschutz werden? Ja, leider…“ Artikel von Harald Neuber auf telepolis vom 15.09.2005

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20946/1.html


Aus: LabourNet, 20. September 2005

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Kein Anfangsverdacht: Durchsuchung der "anti atom aktuell" war rechtswidrig (20.09.05)

Die Polizeimaßnahme gegen die Redaktion der Zeitschrift "anti atom aktuell" (aaa) war nach Auffassung des Landgerichts Lüneburg rechtswidrig. Mit dieser Entscheidung rügte das Gericht die Durchsuchung der Redaktionsräume und der Wohnungen der Journalisten Elisabeth Krüger und Martin Nesemann. Die Durchsuchung der bedeutendsten Zeitschrift der deutschen Anti-Atom-Bewegung war nach Angaben der Redaktion im August von einem Großaufgebot der Polizei durchsucht und Computer und zahlreiche Unterlagen beschlagnahmt worden. Dagegen hatten die Hamburger Anwälte Schön und Römmig Beschwerde eingelegt. "Das Amtsgericht Dannenberg hat zu Unrecht gegen die Beschuldigten Durchsuchungsbeschlüsse erlassen" heißt es im Beschluss der 6. Strafkammer des Landgerichts Lüneburg, selbst "Anhaltspunkte, die einen Anfangsverdacht rechtfertigen, sind nicht ersichtlich."

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11882

Francis A. Boyle Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax) fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)


-----Original Message----- From: archive@blythe.org [mailto:archive@blythe.org] On Behalf Of nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 1:32 PM To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com Subject: [NYTr] After Katrina, We Must Impeach Bush, Cheney, Chertoff

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Francis Boyle - Sep 15, 2005

After Katrina, We Must Impeach Bush, Cheney, Chertoff

by Francis A. Boyle

The longer we delay the necessary and principled impeachment process against Bush Jr. and his neo-conservative apparatchiks, the greater will be the disaster for all the peoples of the world and even here in the United States. Witness the racist and class-based criminal mistreatment inflicted by the Bush Jr. administration upon the victims of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush Jr., Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff must all be impeached immediately for denying Equal Protection of the Laws to the Katrina Victims because they are African Americans and because they are Poor in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Their criminal negligence and resulting mass homicides constitute "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" within the meaning of Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution quoted above.

There is a recent precedent for introducing an Article of Impeachment against an incumbent American President for such Equal Protection violations amounting to massive discrimination on the grounds of Race and Class threatening the lives of American citizens that this author personally advised upon. On 14 January 1991, pursuant to the terms of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the United States Congress authorized President Bush Sr. to use military force against Iraq in order to expel Iraq from Kuwait in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 678 of 29 November 1990. In direct reaction thereto, Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and I agreed to set up a National Campaign to Impeach President Bush Sr. if he went to war against Iraq, initially for the purpose of deterring him from doing so. It was agreed that I would write the Bill of Particulars against President Bush Sr. to serve as the basis for drafting the Articles of Impeachment comprising the Gonzalez Bill of Impeachment. We launched the Bush Sr. Impeachment Campaign on 15 January
1991.

Nevertheless the war started, and the very next day Congressman Gonzalez appeared on the floor of the House of Representatives to introduce his Bill of Impeachment against President Bush Sr. It was my great honor and privilege to serve as Counsel to Congressman Gonzalez on the subsequent course of this impeachment effort that he so courageously and tenaciously investigated and pursued in his capacity as Chairman of the House Banking Committee, a position he held until the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the 1994 congressional elections. In response, President Bush Sr. even unleashed the C.I.A. on this beloved congressman known affectionately to his friends as "Henry B."

I will not review here either the contents or the bases for the 1991 Gonzalez Impeachment Resolution against President Bush Sr. But for the purpose of this Equal Protection impeachment argument with respect to the Katrina victims on grounds of Class and Race, its most salient feature was Article I:

Article I

In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. U.S. soldiers in the Middle East are overwhelmingly poor white, black, and Mexican-American, and their military service is based on the coercion of a system that has denied viable economic opportunities to these classes of citizens. Under the Constitution, all classes of citizens are guaranteed equal protection, and calling on the poor and minorities to fight a war for oil to preserve the lifestyles of the wealthy is a denial of the rights of these soldiers. In all of this George Herbert Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore George Herbert Walker Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

As Congressman Gonzalez so eloquently, presciently and prophetically stated when he introduced his Bill of Impeachment against President Bush Sr. onto the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on 16 January 1991:

.... My resolution has five articles of impeachment. First, the President has violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Our soldiers in the Middle East are overwhelmingly poor white, black, and Mexican-American or Hispanic-American. They may be volunteers technically, but their voluntarism is based on the coercion of a system that has denied viable opportunities to these classes of our citizens. Under the Constitution, all classes of citizens are guaranteed equal protection, and calling on the poor and the minorities to fight a war for oil to preserve the lifestyles of the wealthy is a denial of the rights of these soldiers.

Let me add that since 1981 we have suffered the Reagan-Bush and now the Bush war against the poor, and to add insult to injury, we now are asking the poor to fight while here, as a result of this fight, even the meager programs that the Congress had seen fit to preserve as a national policy will suffer because the money for those programs will be diverted to the cause of this unnecessary war....

Of course the same constitutional arguments apply today to justify the impeachment of President Bush Jr. for his illegal and criminal war against Iraq in order to steal oil that is being waged by poor Whites, Blacks, and Latinos to support the luxurious lifestyles of the White Racist Power Elite who effectively govern this country and criminally abandoned the Black and Poor Katrina victims to their grisly and cruel fate.



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

„Eine Menge Leute berichten über Symptome ähnlich den Ihrigen und es gibt dafür einen Namen: Elektrische Hypersensitivität (Elektro-Hypersensitivität)“, schreibt Chiyoji Ohkubo vom EMF-Radiation Projekt der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) in einem E-Mail an einen Patienten.

Weiter unter:
http://f2.webmart.de/f.cfm?id=2888666&r=threadview&a=1&t=2594409

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Unterschriftenlisten des Freiburger Appells an WHO übergeben

Omega auf unsere Anfrage erhielten wir folgende Mitteilung:

Bzgl. des Appells liegen mir die folgenden Zahlen vor:

36.990 Unterschriften aus dem In- und Ausland, davon mehr als 1.000 Ärzte. Diese Zahl stammt von Fr. Stöcker, die die Unterschriftenlisten der WHO übergeben hat.

Erik Petersen, IGUMED-Geschäftsstelle, Fedelhören 88, 28203 Bremen, tel 0421/498 42 51, fax 0421/498 42 52, http://www.igumed.de

Omega siehe hierzu auch „Freiburger Appell“ unter:
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/943294/

http://counterpunch.org/whitney09122005.html


Informant: friends2b

q/depesche 2005-09-15T17:50:07

Die Niederländer übertreiben da irgendwie - und zwar gründlich. Seit einigen Jahren ist in den Niederlanden ein stetiger Wandel der Gesellschaft weg von allgemeiner Toleranz und Staatsferne hin zu engstirnigeren Auffassungen bezüglich Recht, Ordnung und den Aufgaben des Staates zu verzeichnen. Nun jedoch wird mit einer umfassenden Datenbank das Kind mit dem Bade ausgeschüttet, und zwar direkt in den sprichwörtlichen Brunnen. Bei Geburt ist ein Dossier in Form eines Datensatzes anzulegen, in dem fortan die komplette Entwicklung des Kindes verzeichnet wird: Gesundheit, Bildungsweg, Familiäres Umfeld und Vorstrafen sind die Dinge, die vorerst mal interessant sind. Es darf zwar nicht einfach jeder drauf zugreifen, wir lernten jedoch, dass sich sowas im Laufe der Zeit ändern kann. Krankenversicherer gehören sicher zu den potentiellen Bedarfsträgern mit genügend großer Lobby.

-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/63954

In den Niederlanden soll ab 2007 für jeden Bürger bei der Geburt ein Dossier in einer zentralen Datenbank angelegt werden ("Elektronisch Kinddossier"). Dies hat das niederländische Gesundheitsministerium kürzlich [1]bekannt gegeben. Die Datensätze sollen Informationen zu Gesundheit und Bildungsweg enthalten und über familiäre Verhältnisse und Vorstrafen Auskunft geben. [...] Das zuständige Gesundheitsministerium will damit unter anderem den Informationsfluss zwischen den einzelnen Behörden fördern. So könne der Staat Probleme von Kindern frühzeitig erkennen und entsprechend gegensteuern.

[1]
http://www.minvws.nl/persberichten/djb/2005/kabinet-in-operatie-jong.asp

Demand an independent, 9/11 Commission-style investigation into the government's handling of the Katrina disaster.

http://tompaine.com/uncommonsense/index.php#6153

Today Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey is holding hearings that represent a turning point in the progressive movement. That's got Tom Hayden and Joe Biden scared.

http://tompaine.com/uncommonsense/index.php#6163

by Chris Flavin and Molly Hull Aeck, TomPaine.com

Renewable energy can do more than protect the environment. It can also alleviate poverty.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050915/cleaner_greener_and_richer.php

Umweltinstitut München e.V. - Newsletter vom 30. August 2005

In unserem Download-Bereich finden Sie ab sofort drei neue Faltblätter zu wichtigen Aspekten der Agro-Gentechnik: - Gentechnik: Wir wissen nicht, was wir tun... aber wir fangen schon mal an - Gentechnik im Tierfutter: Verbraucher im Dunkeln - Wachsende Gefahr: Pharma-Pflanzen – Weizenfeld, Maisfeld, Pillenfeld http://www.umweltinstitut.org/frames/all/m423.htm Gerne können Sie die Faltblätter als s/w-Kopien bei uns anfordern.

+++ Wahltermin Sonntag, 18. September 2005 +++ Die Wahl am Sonntag ist für den Umweltschutz auf alle Fälle eine Richtungswahl. Die Wählerinnen und Wähler entscheiden, ob wir die Atomkraftwerke bis zur Schrottreife oder bis zum nächsten Gau laufen lassen – nicht einmal der Neubau ist für alle tabu - und ob wir auch in Zukunft gentechnikfreie Lebensmittel kaufen können. Eine Abkehr vom Bioanbau und eine neue Welle der Industrialisierung der Landwirtschaft sowie Rückschritte bei den erneuerbaren Energien sind keine zukunftsfähigen Konzepte. Wir können dafür sorgen, dass Ökologie und Klimaschutz nicht zu Globalisierungsopfern sondern zu Exportschlagern werden. Nutzen Sie Ihr Wahlrecht und machen Sie Ihre Stimme zur Stimme für die Umwelt und Verbraucherrechte. Die nachfolgenden Links sind eine von vielen Möglichkeiten, sich über die Positionen der Parteien zu zentralen Umweltthemen zu informieren:

http://www.boelw.de/uploads/media/Wahlpruefsteine.pdf http://www.naturkost.de/meldungen/2005/050829ov3.htm http://www.greenpeace.de (auf Wahlkompass Umwelt klicken)

+++ Veranstaltungshinweis +++ Vortrag: Zukunftsfähige Landwirtschaft oder Gentechnik? Beispiel Philippinen / Vergleich Europa Die Gentechnik in der Landwirtschaft schreitet massiv voran. Obwohl mindestens 70 Prozent der Verbraucher in Europa gegen Gentechnik in Nahrungsmitteln sind, versuchen Konzerne wie Monsanto mit allen Mitteln, patentiertes Saatgut durchzusetzen. Auswirkungen dieser Politik auf den Philippinen beschreibt Prof. Raymundo Rovillos von der landwirtschaftlichen Initiative SIBAT, die philippinische Kleinbauern dabei unterstützt, Nahrungssicherheit und Artenvielfalt durch nachhaltige Landwirtschaft zu erhalten. Dabei kämpfen sie gegen eine massive „Entwicklungskampagne“ der Regierung, die die Landwirtschaft u.a. mit Hilfe von gentechnisch veränderten Hochertragssorten und Düngemitteln „modernisieren“ und auf Exportkurs bringen will. Referent: Prof. Raymundo Rovillos (Soziologe; Organisator AG „Nahrungssicherheit und Indigene Völker“, Eckart Irion (HERA e.V.; Demeter – Landwirt), Klaus Müller (Greenpeace Gruppe München) Termin: Sonntag, 18. September 2005, 19 Uhr Ort: EineWeltHaus (Großer Saal), Schwanthalerstr. 80, 80336 München Info: Katja Riegger, E-Mail katja.r@attac-muenchen.org Web: http://www.einewelthaus.de http://www.sibat.org Veranstalter: Initiative „Kein Patent auf Leben!“ München; Greenpeace Gruppe München; Attac München u.a.


Hans Ulrich-Raithel, Dipl.- Ing. (FH) Vorstand
Umweltinstitut München e.V. Landwehrstr. 64 a
80336 München
http://www.umweltinstitut.org
hu@umweltinstitut.org

Due to the recent talk about the sun flares, etc., and their effect on us, I add this to the pot. Since EM/scalar energy arrays like HAARP have been in use, much info has been gathered by lay persons as to its ability to control weather, etc. Here are a few resources to contemplate regarding Katrina, contrail/chemtrails, Barium and Aluminum in the air, the war in Iraq, Sun activity, our health, etc.

If significant scalar effects are produced on earth in a "pulse" mode, pulsed disturbance of the earth-sun and earth-moon systems results. Here a danger exists that one or more natural resonances of the coupled system may be excited. If the feedback stimulation of the Sun is not insignificant, for example, large sunspot activity may result sometime thereafter, say in a day or two.

http://www.cheniere.org/books/ferdelance/s24.htm

The contrails are flown to map the sky of these scalar/EM energy signatures and to make what is invisible visible... So this contrail marking program is near real time surveillance of the scalar happening in the sky.

http://www.weatherwars.info/chemtrails.htm

I frequently talk about the atmosphere having been cut-up into a massive grid with each grid section being programmable in both depth and height;... Hurricane Ophelia continues this trend of manufactured weather. ALL of our weather now has some imprint of scalar technology contained within. The above image was taken Saturday September 10th 4:32pm Eastern. This is supposed to be the eye of Ophelia; once again displaying geometry that would be impossible to create naturally within a fluid environment.

http://www.weatherwars.info/katrina.htm

Spraying over Iraq
http://fpiarticle.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-is-us-spraying-over-iraq.html


Informant: Andrew McAfee

The White House has refused to provide the Senate key documents about Roberts’s positions on affirmative action while he was Deputy Solicitor General to Ken Starr in the administration of George H.W. Bush.

http://www.truthout.org/Roberts.shtml


From Information Clearing House

Video

I heard something go BOOM! Real Video
http://www.total411.info/leveeboom.rm


From Information Clearing House

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.

http://snipurl.com/hnxz


From Information Clearing House

I am not African American. Neither are most of my friends and coworkers. It may then surprise our ruling class, of both parties, that we saw our own faces, our own children, our own unburied, bloating, dead loved ones in the streets of New Orleans.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10273.htm

New Orleans provides us with a reliable template for judging what the Bush administration will do in the event of a massive "casualty-producing" terrorist attack.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10276.htm

He wants Congress to look into whether presidential authority should be expanded in times of catastrophes like Katrina.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/12629945.htm


From Information Clearing House

Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen. Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/breaking/091405Katrina_Washington.php


From Information Clearing House

Critics say plan is designed for possible attack against Iran.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0914/dailyUpdate.html


From Information Clearing House

U.S. Deploys Slide Show to Press Case Against Iran:

With an hour-long slide show that blends satellite imagery with disquieting assumptions about Iran's nuclear energy program, Bush administration officials have been trying to convince allies that Tehran is on a fast track toward nuclear weapons.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10271.htm

The Man Beneath The Hood Speaks Out: “They tortured me, they humiliated me".

An interview with Shalal el Kaissi, who has become a symbol of U.S. torture.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10270.htm

http://www.democracynow.org/static/Arundhati_Trans.shtml


From Information Clearing House

Supporters of stronger controls on toxic power-plant emissions came within inches of scoring a major victory in the Senate. The narrow, 51-47 loss underscores the degree to which our nation's health policy has been hijacked by polluters and industry special interests.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/091405EB.shtml

A federal judge halted the Bush administration's bid to keep logging 2,000 acres in Giant Sequoia National Monument, saying he questioned the scientific analysis used to justify cutting in a preserve that houses two-thirds of the world's largest trees.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/091405EA.shtml

We are here because the Bush administration refuses to police itself in the midst of criminal and ethical misconduct. We are here because this Congress continues to turn a blind eye to the wrongdoing of this administration. In July 2003, over two years ago, a Bush administration official committed one of the most serious breaches of national security in recent history by disclosing to the press the identity of an undercover Central Intelligence Agency operative. Even worse, it likely was done for political reasons, to retaliate against the operative's husband for successfully challenging the President's claim that Iraq had sought nuclear material in Africa.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091405S.shtml

The victims have been dispersed to states across the country. Many still sleep on cots in arenas, desperately trying to locate family members separated in the furies of Katrina. They are struggling with a staggering psychological toll - destruction of homes, loss of jobs, suffering, abandonment, displacement to a new city, prospects unclear, past literally under water.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091405Q.shtml

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/14/gulfport/index_np.html?x

(salon) 13 Tage nach dem Durchzug des Hurricans Katrina ist in einer der am schwersten verwüsteten Städte der Zivilschut FEMA noch immer unsichtbar. Die einzigen Massnahmen mit denen die Washingtoner Behörde in Erscheinung tritt, bestehen darin, Hilfeleistungen durch absurde bürokratische Vorschriften zu unterbinden.

http://rs.net-hh.de/links.php?lid=22672

By Terry Howcott

Black Commentator

There are no words to express what we have witnessed in news accounts out of Louisiana and Mississippi. Overused terms such as revulsion, horror, terror and outrage just don't compensate. The combined federal abandonment and neglecting to death of perhaps tens of thousands of mostly Black people in hurricane Katrina's affected regions and the failure of a mostly White dominated media to accurately and fairly report their truths in its aftermath have been absolutely stunning.

If we are alert, we're mesmerized by especially Kanye West who called up the wisdom and consciousness to speak up and out about the failure of this administration to act as swiftly and decisively as they did in the Terri Schiavo case. We can feel very free to be grateful to Mr. West for his authentic courage while others mouthed finely articulate, irritatingly comforting, sugar-coated remarks that excuse the President and all his men from having not acted quickly and decisively.

Some White and also some Black self-hating, devotedly-impatient-and-critical-of-other-Black-folk readers should know that no hurricane strength, below sea level foundation, massive flooding, or refusal of some residents to leave their homes and lost family members can account for the suffering and loss of life we are witnessing. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. The accountability for the enormity of this catastrophe goes directly to colossally deficient state and federal planning for an entire population of people - a duty and responsibility that is an established, recognized, documented governmental standard of conduct.

Most of us in possession of historical contextuality are not amazed by this desertion and resulting media propaganda - which serve one another so well. We remind ourselves that the suffering, dying and dead in these areas were neglected long before there was a Katrina. The venerable Julian Bond recently referred to poverty-stricken Black folk in the South as "just as disenfranchised as ever." As recently as August 2005 the Black Congressional Caucus conducted a bus tour of Mississippi to "highlight the growing list of disparities that plague the African American community, focusing on disparities in healthcare, retirement security and affordable housing." They surely know as most do, that much of the North and most of the South including New Orleans was built exclusively by the hand and back of enslaved Black African folk of recent ancestry, and that they are therefore protecting a national treasure.

Steven Lerner writes in Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor (2004), for years before their ultimately successful activism, Louisiana residents "lived in 'Cancer Alley' a Shell Corporation sponsored "inescapable acrid, metallic smell - a 'toxic bouquet' of pollution - and a mysterious chemical fog that seeped into the ir houses."

Juxtaposed with the predominant number of Historically Black Colleges based in the South is the humongous 41% of all U.S. poverty and 40% of all people in the U.S. without a high school education living in the South - mostly along the "Black Belt." (The Southern Black Belt: A National Perspective, Wimberly and Morris)

We embroider together our knowledge of historical conditions with the present and are staggered by the devastating screams of mass hunger and thirst and the sounds of torture we hear from unbearable numbers of Black people. We are keenly aware of the psychological impact of living alongside the dying and dead (as our foremothers and fathers did on slave ships), and the sheer magnitude of our collective loss. We know how the psychosocial development of Black children in the region are being affected every day, and how that will affect us all as a people. We try to imagine how brotha's and sistah's with HIV/AIDS, diabetes and cancers must be suffering with no medication and medical care.

We wonder why horrible rapes of foreign women on their own soil by American "liberating" troops are not as enthusiastically reported as are the shocking rapes perpetrated by the emotionally and socio-economically destitute of New Orleans. We are appalled by reports describing White folks "as American citizens finding goods for their needs" while referencing Black folk who are finding goods for their needs as "looters" and "out of control refugees." We question where the White thieves are, who we know are functioning throughout the area. And, we know the same cable "news" personnel who have presented excellent grounds for disbarment from professional credibility will likely be awarded for journalistic excellence for, among other things, downgrading Black citizen status.

As I watch the Caucus illuminate the experience of those on the ground, I see less in their words, but more in their eyes and in my own that perpetual reflection of how deeply we are bound together as a people - whether some of us like it or not. The souls of my people and the efforts of my ancestors are etched in my consciousness as I contemplate what is happening. My state of being is drained to a slump. I draw upon the rich, distinguished voices of our past for consolation. Among many less famous people like my Grandmothers, I think of Malcolm X before his message was moderated. I hear what a Dr. King might say in a staunch, unmitigated message to the country - his voice filled with exhaustion and layers of valid resentment. I envision Harriet Tubman, who did more to transport people of African descent from the South on foot than a technologically and economically advanced government was able to do with cruise liners, planes, trains, a national fleet of busses, governmental trucks, vans and cars at its disposal. I think of DuBois. I turn to his masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903.

In it, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois' soul speaks to us, describing the "legal and tenant farming system in the south as only slightly removed from slavery" - and referring to a "national neglect." Almost as if referring to the so-called "religious" right, he refers directly to a "sanctifier of the most hateful frauds," and the misuse of Christianity "under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds.had found protection."

As if speaking to a federal hierarchy void of conscious Black public servants, DuBois offers an all too gentle hope that Black folk would serve as "co-workers in the kingdom of culture," that we might use our, "best powers," and, "latent genius." His spirit seems to know that had some Black, brilliant and conscious souls been calling the federal shots with the exact same knowledge in hand, evacuations of hurricane affected areas would have been swift and immense before the storm.

As if speaking directly to the major cable "news" stations, Dubois, in 1903, speaks to the "personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything Black." (capitalization of Black mine).

As if referencing the dexterity and tenacity of Black survivors of Louisiana and Mississippi and to the Black underclass haters, Dr. Dubois writes, "We often forget that each unit in the mass is a throbbing human soul." However much that life may be poverty stricken, he laments, Black southerners "love and hate," "toil and tire," "laugh and weep bitter tears" and look "in vague and awful longing at the grim horizon" of their lives. "These Black thousands," he writes, "work continuously and faithfully for a return, and under circumstances that would call forth equal voluntary effort from few if any other modern laboring class."

And finally, as if writing to those who would eagerly stroll past the true conditions disenfranchised Black people face, Dubois writes,

"We seldom study the condition." of Black people, "honestly and carefully." "It is so much easier to assume that we know it all.or perhaps, having already reached conclusions in our own minds, we are loth to have them disturbed by facts." (Italics mine)

The facts are we're witnessing the ravages of living in a racist (sexist, and homophobic) society wherein Black lives are consistently treated less valuably than White life. Most White people simply don't move as quickly, think as lucidly, contemplate as masterfully, or speak as prophetically regarding specifically Black life. Though there is plenty of room to be critical of some White's, FEMA and the federal government as a whole - and I am - this is for those of us who would reduce the force of reality as if devouring a bag of chips for comfort or drinking several cocktails toward intoxication. Many more of us Black folk need to interrupt our own illusions to comprehend that ever-present racism as it hovers all around us clawing away at our past and potential successes. Look, so you can see it evidenced all around you - even through your aloofness and privilege - look. Your seeing, dear reader and your mindfulness might have you intelligently contribute to a plan for our collective survival as solid as our individual household plans for escaping natural disasters. Arguably one of the most brilliant, prolific thinkers of the early 1900's, a Black intellectual superstar, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois saw himself as "bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live within the Veil." We should afford ourselves and our own people no less indulgence in our lifetime.


Terry Howcott is a Master of Social Work, Lecturer, Activist, and Writer. She resides in Detroit, MI and can be reached at Terrylynnh@yahoo.com.


UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545


Informant: Fred Feldman

From ufpj-news

by Ajamu Baraka

The Black Commentator.com

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the debate is already raging on how to deal with those displaced by the disaster and whether to rebuild New Orleans and other coastal communities. Competing interests combined with poor planning and a disjointed response from public and private agencies have created confusion about priorities, funding and other crucial details. It is imperative that a human rights and humanitarian law framework be applied to these discussions and form the basis for all future action.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement provide just such a framework. The principles identify the internationally recognized rights and guarantees of people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and communities due to a number of factors, including natural disaster. According to this set of principles, those who have been displaced from their homes but not crossed international borders are classified as "internally displaced persons," not "refugees" or "evacuees." This is not a mere question of semantics, but an essential definition that establishes the obligations that government has to protect and defend the rights of the Gulf Coast residents who have been dispersed across the country.

The extent to which various aspects of the recovery should be funded will be a topic of much debate among policymakers, especially given the federal deficit and competing economic needs. But the rights of the displaced must be viewed as a separate and overriding issue. Receiving protection and humanitarian assistance from government authorities is not an act of benevolence, but rather is obligatory for displaced people - for the duration of their displacement. This will be especially important to remember after media coverage of Katrina has faded, and we must not compound the plight of the displaced by letting them fend for themselves once the dust has settled. If we accept that it will take years to rebuild New Orleans, we must also accept that it will take no less time to rebuild the lives of the displaced from New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast.

One of the most contentious issues that will emerge in the near future is the fate of the large numbers of people, largely poor and African American who may want to return to their homes and communities but may not have the resources to do so. But as the U.N. guidelines clearly state, "Authorities have the duty and responsibility to assist returned and/or resettled internally displaced persons to recover, to the extent possible, their property and possessions which they left behind or were dispossessed of upon their displacement." We know that there are powerful forces in New Orleans and elsewhere on the coast who would prefer that the poor of those communities not be allowed to return. Low- and middle-income property owners will have particular difficulty meeting their financial obligations and will require protection from creditors; speculators are already targeting the most vulnerable and desperate property owners, offering cash for their holdings at pennies on the dollar. The sharks are circling, and we must ensure that they are not allowed to feed.

In fact, the problems the displaced will face in the future may well dwarf what they've already been through. Assessing and then meeting the individual needs of several hundred thousand people scattered in dozens of states will be a difficult and time-consuming task, the magnitude of which argues strongly for a coordinated response that must begin now. This might well include a role for the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, which has considerable experience with displacement issues, and other international agencies. Regardless of the mechanism, alternatives to dumping the entire recovery burden on FEMA or other already-overextended agency must be explored. Without a coordinated plan that specifically addresses critical long-term issues, the likelihood will only increase in coming months that the most powerless victims of Katrina will be left with nothing.

The disproportionate hardships shouldered by poor, mostly minority residents of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina have been well-documented and acknowledged by most observers. It is not enough, however, to address this reality merely by issuing debit cards, formulating more equitable evacuation plans or otherwise better preparing for future disasters. Rather, as the U.N. principles clearly state, continued relief efforts must be viewed in the context of providing meaningful opportunities for the displaced and their families in the months and years to come. Stories of evacuees airlifted to destinations far from their families and friends, sometimes against their will, reinforce the importance of viewing the emergency measures as a temporary, not a permanent, solution. The idea that evacuees will remain where they've been dropped assumes that they have no other options; providing such options is an essential component of the government's obligation according to the U.N. principles.

Missing from the press conferences and official statements has been any commitment to another of the U.N. principles: that the victims of Hurricane Katrina have the ability to decide for themselves how to reconstruct their lives. As the principles state unequivocally, the displaced have an inalienable right to participate in decisions about their future, and any recovery plan in Katrina's aftermath must therefore include substantive input by those who have the most at stake. This is not a courtesy that can be discarded if it becomes inconvenient, but an absolute necessity.

It is important to note that the United States has consistently upheld the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement when similar circumstances have arisen in other countries. If the fundamental rights of displaced people apply in countries far less able to cope with such disasters as Hurricane Katrina, they certainly apply here.


Ajamu Baraka is Director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, a coalition of more than 170 organizations working on the full spectrum of human rights issues. Formed to promote U.S. adherence to universal human rights standards by building links between organizations as well as individuals across the nation, the Network strives towards building a human rights culture that puts those directly affected by human rights violations in a central leadership role. The Network also works to connect the U.S. human rights movement with the broader U.S. social justice movement and human rights movements around the world. He can be reached at abaraka@ushrnetwork.org.


UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545


Informant: Fred Feldman

From ufpj-news

From: John Calvert
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:19:57 -0700

[ please forward widely ~ another impeachable offense! ]

The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.

"It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff," Haddow said. Brown "is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized."

A former FEMA director under President Reagan expressed shock by the inaction that Chertoff's memo suggested. It showed that Chertoff "does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long," said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was FEMA director from 1985-1989.

"Anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives," Becton told Knight Ridder. "I have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... I don't understand why, except that they were inefficient."


Published on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 by Knight Ridder Chertoff Delayed Federal Response, Memo Shows by Jonathan S. Landay, Alison Young and Shannon McCaffrey

WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0914-04.htm


Informant: Hopedance



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3405/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Report

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-09-14T165633Z_01_KWA452031_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-COSTS-DC.XML


Informant: NHNE

FCNL Iraq: Translating Protest into Persuasion of Congress--FCNL

Tens of thousands of demonstrators will gather in Washington in late September to demand an end to the war and U.S. occupation of Iraq. FCNL hopes to mobilize many of these grassroots protesters to become grassroots lobbyists for the Iraq Sensible Transition to Enduring Peace Resolution. We need the help of our supporters in the field to use the energy, press attention, and focus on Iraq generated by the demonstrations to translate protest into lobbying members of Congress to declare that the U.S. will bring home its troops and close all U.S. military bases. In short, the U.S. cannot abandon the people of Iraq, but U.S. forces must leave.

Public opinion on the war in Iraq has shifted significantly in recent months. This summer, a vigil held outside the president’s ranch in Crawford, TX, by Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, helped to focus intense public attention on the rising death toll in the U.S. occupation. The devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina had shone a spotlight on the domestic consequences of the failure to focus federal funding on human needs as policymakers from both parties have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into fighting a war in Iraq. This week president Bush insisted that the U.S. must stay the course in Iraq, but many are beginning to question what it means to “succeed” in this war. Members of Congress from both parties have now cosponsored legislation calling for a change in course in Iraq: http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/leg_chart.htm

But a majority in Congress are not yet prepared to call for withdrawal. In this shifting climate, FCNL is working to build a congressional consensus that overcomes the polarized climate that characterizes the debate on U.S. Iraq policy. Lacking agreement on when and how the U.S. military presence should end in Iraq, we can build public unity for the goal of no permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq.

Our job is to persuade Congress to take the next step for a sensible transition to enduring peace in Iraq. The Congress needs to formally declare that: “It is the policy of the United States to withdraw all U.S. military troops and bases from Iraq.” This is the starting point to open further dialogue on when and how withdrawal should happen. Continuing the war is not the answer that the Iraqi people need or want.

We need a strong majority of public voices raised to turn around this ill-conceived war and occupation policy. Here are two things you can do to help build this majority:

1. Reach out to your friends, neighbors, and local opinion makers. Print out copies of the FCNL Iraq STEP resolution and distribute them at your local meeting, church, or community organization:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1375&issue_id=35 . Begin dialogues in your churches and communities on U.S. policy in Iraq. Help break down the “with us or against us” posture that has divided local communities. FCNL has tools available to help you speak out and build unity for a public consensus in your divided communities: http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/iraq/septflyer1.pdf .

2. If you are coming to Washington on September 24. Join FCNL in distributing material to protestors urging them to continue substantive work for peace when they go back home. You can download a PDF flyer that can be reprinted and distributed to march participants: http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/iraq/septflyer1.pdf Consider also joining the lobby day on Monday September 26 if you can stay in Washington. (Lobby training will be provided Sept. 25) For more information see http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3074

For more information on the FCNL Iraq program: http://www.fcnl.org/iraq

Thinking ahead: The Senate will not be in session the week of October 11. The Senate recess is a perfect time to schedule lobby visits with your senators back in their home states. Call their offices now to ask for a meeting. See the FCNL grassroots toolkit for more information: http://www.fcnl.org/getin/indx.htm .


The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign, http://www.fcnl.org/iraq

Stop New Nuclear Weapons!
Find out how http://www.fcnl.org/nuclear

Contact Congress and the Administration: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/

Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign bumper stickers and yard signs:
http://www.fcnl.org/newinfo/special_pub.htm http://www.fcnl.org/iraq-war.htm


Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795 fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330


We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.


Informant: Martin Greenhut

It's A Rat Riot In Indiana

MWM: Thanks Brenda. I am so isolated in my Arizona foothills that I don't have much contact with the rat races. It is difficult for me to directly assess what's up with the natives. Observations from readers on this topic are welcome and will be read and relayed through the newsletter in some form.

From: bbush Sender: phoenix-quest
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:08:36 EDT
Subject: Human behavior & solar flares?

Just reporting in. If it is solar flare related, it would make sense. I'm seeing people slammed with "life or death" heavy workloads that are unmanageable, a high level of irritation that is making people distempered, nasty behaviors and major domination of others. Pandora's box is wide open in Indiana, and the environmentis likened to rats running for cover but don't know where to go! A panic...a frenzy!!! This appears to be on every level--workplace, family, even church and school demands. Nothing appears to work right, people can't connect, communications are crossed, promises not kept and the demands are incredible. It is nano speed for everything, mad dashes and desperation...almost like the animals react when they preceive something is going to happen?

I remind myself...not to react...when I can. Something IS going to happen, right?

We just don't know when.....

Brenda
Indiana


Informant: Michael Wells Mandeville,
The Hills of Arizona USA

Sierra Times
by Carl Worden

09/14/05

... FEMA Director Mike Brown has resigned his post after being replaced by a Vice Admiral of the Coast Guard to carry out recovery efforts in the Hurricane Katrina disaster area. What a shock. Brown, as you will recall, was made to stand in front of a firing squad of news cameras, as Department of Homeland Security boss Chertoff announced he'd be replaced with the 'other guy,' the Coast Guard Vice Admiral standing to Chertoff's left. I don't think I can recall a more unjust and humiliating thing to do to a person like Mike Brown, and it goes to further justify my absolute conviction that President George W. Bush and his advisors are some of the most vicious human beings who ever graced this planet, let alone lead this nation. They don't care who they hurt, so long as it makes them look good...

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/09/14/64_136_164_35_65094.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe
by Derrick Z. Jackson

09/14/05

"The Senate confirmation hearings of John Roberts are in the eye of a perfect storm of American hypocrisy. It is largely assumed that Roberts will be confirmed despite his animus for affirmative action for people of color. In 1981 as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, he wrote that affirmative action 'required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates.' Such sentiments will not sink his chances for the high court, not in a nation where affirmative action of inadequately prepared white men is so rampant that we let them manage our two worst disasters. There is Hurricane Katrina, where Michael Brown resigned this week as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Brown had no emergency management experience and did not know that the New Orleans convention center was reeking in squalor, despite media reports. Days before the resignation, he was kicked out of New Orleans by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. That was the unqualified calling the unqualified 'unqualified'...

http://tinyurl.com/93oek


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

San Francisco Chronicle
by Mark Morford

09/14/05

Can you hear that? That low scraping moan, that painful scream, that compressed hissing wail like the sound of an angry alligator caught in a vise? Why, it's the GOP, and they're screaming, 'No, no it can't be, oh my God, please no, this damnable Katrina thing is just an unstoppable PR disaster for us!' After all (they wail), who woulda thought dissing all those poor black people and letting so many of them die in filth and misery in the Superdome while our pampered CEO president enjoyed yet another vacation would cause such an ugly backlash, such harsh criticism of the glorious, rich-über-alles GOP creed? [editor's note: Beyond the raving and the cute rhetoric, this is actualy a fairly well-reasoned analysis - SAT]

http://tinyurl.com/a349c


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Foundation for Economic Education
by Sheldon Richman

09/14/05

Scenes of the devastation and suffering inflicted by Hurricane Katrina will long remain in our memories. Equally horrifying were the pictures of New Orleans residents -- and policemen -- helping themselves to goods from stores. They weren't just taking food, water, and diapers; some were taking television sets, jewelry, and other luxury items. These scenes had a clear message for anyone who understands the role the free market plays in making human life possible: anything that significantly disrupts economic activity disrupts civilization itself. This reveals the intimate relationship between the market and society...

http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=7194


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman

09/14/05

If a private-sector employee performed as badly as the federal, state, and local governments performed before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, he would be summarily fired. But the governments will claim their budgets were too small and proceed to extract more money from the taxpayers. That's how the political world works. And it's part of the reason that governments perform as miserably as they do. Hurricane Katrina should finally disabuse people of the idea that government exists to take care of them, especially the most vulnerable. That self-serving promise was never credible. Do we need more evidence that it was a fraud? With guardians like these, who needs enemies?

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0509d.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Slate
by John Dickerson

09/13/05

Democrats were furious that President Bush didn't take responsibility for the Katrina relief catastrophe. Now they're furious that he did. President Bush's careful admission that he is responsible for the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina 'to the extent that the federal government didn't do its job right' is a familiar Washington gambit: 'turning the page.' Bush's acceptance of responsibility answers cable news' echo-room charge that someone needs to be held accountable. Now the president -- having embraced his inner Truman -- can move on and change the message. ... Pretty soon, the media and the country might start letting Bush off the hook. Now any Democrat who carps on those federal failures can be brushed off as a hack merely playing politics. ... Still, Democrats have been given their best chance in five years to win back the country. Are they going to blow it?

http://www.slate.com/id/2126244/?nav=tap3


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Loose Cannon Libertarian
by Garry Reed

09/15/05

The lawlessness, looting, loss of civility and disintegration of civil society have all been documented day by day ad nauseam in the wake of the wake that washed over the Crescent City and transformed it into a virulent Venice of the South. What has gone grievously underreported, however, is the shocking collapse of Political Correctness that threatens to shred our civilization. The evidence is there, scattered in sound bites and asides and sidebars, but rarely confronted and focused upon as the front-page feature that it is. It's a scandal that begs for the spotlight, and the Pulitzer Prize sits poised to plop into the lap of the first incisively insightful in-depth investigative reporter that unmasks this mean-spirited miasma. Without our Political Correctness we are a people without an ethos...

http://www.freecannon.com/CollapseOfPC.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Liberty For All
by Kevin Tuma

09/15/05

In 1905, the federal government did not make laws that willfully violate the Constitution. There were no surveillance cameras on street signs, nor metal detectors in doorways. People were not strip-searched or frisked for weapons prior to boarding public transportation. Americans back then were allowed to have civil liberties, privacy, and private property. Jurists on the Supreme Court understood the letter of the law embodied in the Constitution, and understood that it was their job to protect it...

http://www.libertyforall.net/2005/sept11/1905.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Free Market News Network
by Ilana Mercer

09/14/05

For a short while, cable-network correspondents spoke truth to power. Now they're back to speaking a lot about power and a little about truth. The raw reports filed from New Orleans have been replaced with hosannas to the military (always magnificent) and the Coast and National Guard (ever masterful). Other fumbling officials have redeemed themselves: having failed to rescue the drowning, the dehydrating, and the dying, they're making up for it by evicting survivors from their homes. The wagons are being circled; the terms of debate decided. Republicans have framed a demand for accountability as an attempt to 'politicize' the Katrina cataclysm. Democrats, as always, refuse to recognize the banality of bureaucratic evil. Their boilerplate battle cry is 'racism.' As the factions settle into their familiar foxholes, it becomes crucial to remind Americans that, irrespective of political fidelity, politicians -- local, state, and federal -- must pay for the lives lost to Katrina. Justice is the only known palliative...

http://www.freemarketnews.com/pview/6115/2621/html/index.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Gordon

09/15/05

I was a captain with the 2nd Battalion 4th Field Artillery during the invasion of Iraq. My active duty commitment to the military ended in May 2004. In January 2003, I requested a transfer to this battalion to fill an officer vacancy because it was the first battalion from Fort Sill to mobilize during the pre-invasion build up. I, like the rest of us, still felt the deep emotions that followed 9/11. I was told of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and links to al-Qaeda. I wanted to do my part to protect America. From March 20 to May 12, 2003, the 4th Field Artillery moved from Kuwait, through the Karbala gap, into Baghdad before the city capitulated, to Tikrit, and finally back to Kuwait. Along the way, I saw firsthand what death and destruction look like. I learned what it feels like to realize that your life may end in a few minutes, but my personal experiences back then pale in comparison to the violence that is currently happening in Iraq every single day. This is not why I oppose the war. I would do it again if my actions were protecting American citizens, but this is not what we are doing in Iraq...

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jgordon.php?articleid=7277


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://tinyurl.com/bkyhl


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91352;show_parent=1
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91353;show_parent=1

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91343;show_parent=1
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91368;show_parent=1

John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court: HARVARD / BUSH / ENRON
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91355;show_parent=1

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91360;show_parent=1

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91305;show_parent=1



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

September 14, 2005 | Issue 41•37

BOISE, ID—Tuber researchers from the Western Root Vegetable Institute reported Monday that they have discovered a strain of microwave-resistant potatoes. "Natural and commercial selection has resulted in strains of potatoes that just won't nuke up," said Dr. Bernard Anderson, standing in front of a Radarange in which a test potato had been rotating unaltered for 90 minutes. "If this mutation proliferates, it could have disastrous implications for the nation's impatient." The new strain is the most significant potato mutation since the emergence of the "inedible" frying potato, which is still in use at most fast-food chains.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40528

No Comment

J


Subject: Contract awarded
From: Eric Braun
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 21:51:35 -0700

Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth

September 14, 2005

HOUSTON—On Tuesday, Halliburton received a $110 million no-bid government contract to pry the gold fillings from the mouths of deceased disaster victims in the New Orleans-Gulf Coast area. "We are proud to serve the government in this time of crisis by recovering valuable resources from the wreckage of this deadly storm," said David J. Lesar, Halliburton's president. "The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40525

As bodies recovered, reporters are told 'no photos, no stories'

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

New Orleans -- A long caravan of white vans led by an Army humvee rolled Monday through New Orleans' Bywater district, a poor, mostly black neighborhood, northeast of the French Quarter.

Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside.

Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.

"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.

Dean Nugent, of the Louisiana State Coroner's Department, who accompanied the soldier, added that it wasn't safe to be in Bywater. "They'll kill you out here," he said, referring to the few residents who have continued to defy mandatory evacuation orders and remain in their homes."

"The cockroaches come out at night," he said of the residents. "This is one of the worst places in the country. You should not be here. Especially you," he told a female reporter.

Nugent, who is white, acknowledged he wasn't personally familiar with the poor, black neighborhood, saying he only knew of it by reputation.

Later Monday, the recovery team collected a body from a green house on St. Anthony Street in nearby Seventh Ward. The dead man, who was slipped into a black body bag and carried out to one of the white vans, had been lying alone on the living room floor for nearly two weeks, neighbors said.

"I told them weeks ago he was in there," said Barry Dominguez, 39, who lives across the street and has refused to leave the neighborhood he grew up in.

After the recovery team took away the St. Anthony Street body, two workers urinated on the side of a neighbor's house.

The CNN suit was in response to comments Friday at a news conference in which officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said members of the news media would not be allowed to witness the recovery of hurricane victims' bodies.

Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security director, had said Friday that the recovery effort would be done with dignity, "meaning that there would be no press allowed." Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore later said there would be zero access to the recovery operation.

During a hearing Saturday morning in U.S. District Court in Houston, a lawyer who represented the government said FEMA had revised its previous plans to limit coverage.

Government agencies may still refuse requests from members of the media to ride along, or be "embedded," on recovery boats as crews gather the dead. "But, to the extent the press can go out to the locations, they're free to do that," said Keith Wyatt, an assistant U.S. attorney, according to a transcript of the hearing. "They're free to take whatever pictures they can take."

Army Lt. Col. Richard Steele said the government's position as explained in court Saturday didn't represent a change in policy. Reporters can watch recovery efforts they come upon, but they won't be embedded with search teams.

"We're not going to bar, impede or prevent" the media from telling the story, he said. "We're just not going to give the media a ride."

Chronicle news services contributed to this report. E-mail Cecilia Vega at cvega@sfchronicle.com .


Informant: Michael Mandeville

http://www.sobran.com/columns/2005/050825.shtml


Informant: Lew Rockwell

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3406/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

By Rep Cynthia McKinney

9-11-5

I mentioned the word impeachment on the House Floor Thursday late afternoon, but I don't see it in the official Congressional Record transcript. I was chided by the Speaker that it was out of order to question the President's motives. I didn't question motives, I questioned actions: from lack of actions on Katrina to cutting the budget of safety net programs, to rewarding the rich to the detriment of all the rest of us. This transcript directly from the Congressional Record is mangled and omits that word!!!! I can't believe this. [...] One of our bravest Representatives does not let Republicans off the hook for their misdeeds. This article appears on rense.com: http://www.rense.com/general67/specorder.htm


© Virginia Metze



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

By Marianne Williamson
Editorials & Opinions
The Detroit News

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Something very important is happening here -- something more than simply a hurricane, or the suffering of thousands who were neglected by their government during a time of great need. Most worldly occurrences reflect deeper truths. What is happening is a gigantic reckoning, as Americans are forced to come to terms with how very, very naked is the emperor who we thought had such incredible clothes.

We are raised in the United States of America to believe our government is the strongest in the world, that as Americans we are basically protected, and that our country is basically good. It is cognitive dissonance for us to be confronted with evidence to the contrary, and yet such evidence has been piling up fast and furiously during this odd and potentially catastrophic phase of American history.

There is nothing strong about rushing into a unilateral war based on faulty intelligence, squandering the resources necessary with which to take care of your own people; there is nothing protective about a government that apparently didn't monitor events on the ground in New Orleans any better -- in fact, less well -- than the average viewer of CNN; and there is nothing good about taking care of the rich at the expense of the poor. [...] This gal is putting it right on the line! Go Girl! http://tinyurl.com/b5bjo


© Virginia Metze

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: September 12, 2005
New York Times

From the political perspective of the White House, Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than an enormous swath of the Gulf Coast. The storm also appears to have damaged the carefully laid plans of Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, to make inroads among black voters and expand the reach of the Republican Party for decades to come.

Many African-Americans across the country said they seethed as they watched the television pictures of the largely poor and black victims of Hurricane Katrina dying for food and water in the New Orleans Superdome and the convention center. A poll released last week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center bore out that reaction as well as a deep racial divide: Two-thirds of African-Americans said the government's response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the victims had been white, while 77 percent of whites disagreed.

The anger has invigorated the president's critics. Kanye West, the rap star, raged off-script at a televised benefit for storm victims that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in Miami last week that Americans "have to come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a significant role in who survived and who did not." [...] Read the rest at the New York Times web site: http://tinyurl.com/9fpnu


© Virginia Metze

Do some of you feel like you have been through a wringer? I know I do. It is very difficult to tolerate the usual NeoCon babble that comes out of the White House in light of the suffering in New Orleans. And all too often people express racist attitudes which seem especially offensive now. I hope that the Republicans feel as burned out and depressed as Democrats do, but somehow I doubt it. Remember that old joke, "Stop the world, I want to get off" Well, it doesn't seem to be much of a joke any more.

There has been a lot of talk about companies receiving contracts for cleanup and reconstruction efforts in the hurricane disaster area because of their political ties to the administration. Halliburton is especially scrutinized because of the costliness of their work in Iraq on a non-bid contract. The government is allegedly investigating.

What do you want to bet that the first thing rebuilt will NOT be public housing? It would be only fair to allow some of the displaced people to work, but apparently they are not going to. Though Bush has been very definite about tax cuts to the rich, he has issued an order that the companies do not have to honor the prevailing wage. Tell your union activists.

Almost from the beginning there have been rumors about places being found in the levees where explosives were used to take them down.

There was news today that Bush has accepted responsibility for what happened in the hurricane to the extent they were involved. And I did see a picture of Bush walking through New Orleans -- he looked almost human in the picture I saw. However, I cannot imagine his changing his stripes. Compassion and understanding do not happen over night. Several women posting on the internet said that he looked EXACTLY like their kids that they were teaching to apologize. The mother of the two year old said she couldn't tell if the kid didn't want to apologize or didn't know what it meant.


© Virginia Metze



By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com

Monday, September 12, 2005; 1:33 PM

Amid a slew of stories this weekend about the embattled presidency and the blundering government response to the drowning of New Orleans, some journalists who are long-time observers of the White House are suddenly sharing scathing observations about President Bush that may be new to many of their readers.

Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you've been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?
Maybe not so much .

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test. [...] Read it all at: http://tinyurl.com/7aaay

Chicago
September 9, 2005
The AGE
Australia

Increasingly, parents are using high-tech methods to track everything from where their children are and how far they are driving to what they buy, what they eat and whether they've shown up for class.

Often, the gadget involved is a simple cell phone that transmits location data. The details get delivered by email, cell phone text message or the web.

Other times, the tech tool is a debit-like card used at a school lunch counter, or a device that lets parents know not only how far and fast the car is going, but also whether their child has been braking too hard or making jackrabbit starts.

Ted Schmidt, a father in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois, uses the mobile phone method to track his four children, including two in college. [...] Read more at http://tinyurl.com/dxzjk


© Virginia Metze

In a message dated 9/14/05 7:58:33 AM, andersonlane:

In case you missed last Friday's HBO's "Late Night with Bill Maher," here was his open letter to the President:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: "Take a hint."

As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.

President Eisenhower's Farewell Speech 1961

Santa Barbara Vets For Peace
http://www.vfpsb.org

International VFP
http://www.veteransforpeace.org

Vietnam Veterans Against the War
http://www.vvaw.org



In a message dated 9/10/05 12:08:01 PM, jc writes:

Video highlights from the latest edition of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher

"Recall Bush" ... skip to 4min 35sec into the recording...

RealPlayer
http://www.wakahiru-me.com/media/vid/hbo/hbo_maher_newrules_recall_bush_rant_050909a.ram

Window Media
http://www.wakahiru-me.com/media/vid/hbo/hbo_maher_newrules_recall_bush_rant_050909a.wmv



Informant: Hopedance

Between unilateralism and arrogance, Washington has never really cooperated with the international institution.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305H.shtml

The biggest gathering of leaders in history unfolds this week at the United Nations, as they preen and boast about how much they're helping the world's poor. Nicholas D. Kristof says that, it may be the greatest assembly in history - of hypocrites. The fact is that with just a few exceptions, the presidents and prime ministers coming to the UN summit are doing a disgraceful job in helping the poor.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305G.shtml

Dozens of detainees have joined a hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, bringing the number refusing food to 128, US officials say. Eighteen prisoners have been hospitalized, including 13 who are being tube-fed.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305D.shtml

Two associates of US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) were indicted Tuesday on additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in the 2002 legislative races. The indictments were the latest charges from a grand jury investigating the use of corporate money in the campaigns that gave Republicans control of the Texas House.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305C.shtml

John Pilger explores the connection between Bush's disregard for the suffering in New Orleans with other truths behind The Facade.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305B.shtml

Memo Shows

The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305A.shtml

http://vdare.com/taylor/050913_crime.htm


Informant: MsKitty