E. J. Dionne Jr.: Rarely does a single action by Congress serve as so powerful an example of how the system is working. The recent budget bill, which squeaked through the House and Senate just before Christmas, is a road map of insider dealing.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705C.shtml

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_U.S._spying_1227.html


Informant: ranger116

Despite all the news accounts and punditry since the New York Times published its December 16 bombshell about the National Security Agency's domestic spying, the media coverage has made virtually no mention of the fact that the Bush administration used the NSA to spy on UN diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq. That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705Y.shtml

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/peas122705.cfm


Informant: binstock

December 27, 2005
latimes.com: National News Single page

THE NATION

Wolves Thrive but Animosity Keeps Pace

Wildlife officials fear that hunters will move in for the kill if federal protection is dropped.

By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer

BOISE, Idaho — Since the first captured Canadian gray wolves bounded out of their cages 10 years ago and disappeared into the trees, the animals that were once hunted to near extinction throughout the West have become a rare success story for the Endangered Species Act. Thanks, in part, to strict federal protection, today nearly 900 wolves roam in scores of packs across their historic range.

The wolf's comeback is all the more remarkable given the hatred that heralded their reintroduction, followed by a campaign of shooting and poisoning that continues today. There is still so much local antagonism that federal wildlife managers are hesitant to remove wolves from the endangered species list, even though the population is many times greater than required to delist.

Of all the recent reintroductions of native animals, none has provoked as much opposition as the wolf. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 66 radio-collared wolves into central Idaho and Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996. Some wolves were immediately killed by hunters opposed to reintroduction, but most flourished, coming together in the wild to form new and surprisingly resilient packs.

The animals are now scattered across parts of Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, a region where earlier this century the much-reviled predator was hunted for bounty and ranchers tacked wolf skins and skulls to their fences.

But now, as the Fish and Wildlife Service ponders a delisting plan that would turn over management of the wolves to the states, federal officials are balking at plans they fear would allow hunters to exterminate whole packs.

In Wyoming, for example, Gov. Dave Freudenthal last April decreed that the Endangered Species Act is no longer in force and that the state "now considers the wolf as a federal dog," unworthy of protection. The governor's declaration reflects the views of hunters and ranchers that the wolves are decimating elk herds and devouring cattle and sheep. Some rural residents say they fear that wolves may prey on children.Idaho, home to the largest population of wolves in the West, has been the least welcoming. Officials say hundreds of wolves have been shot, in violation of federal law. A recent spate of poisonings has not only killed wolves, but dozens of ranch dogs and family pets that ingested pesticide-laced meatballs left along wildlife trails, state wildlife managers say.

Idaho's anti-wolf crusade is expected to intensify in coming weeks with the federal trial of Tim Sundles, an ammunition maker from Carmen, a rural town of 600 in northeast Idaho. He is charged with attempting to poison wolves in the Salmon National Forest last winter, and with placing a pesticide on federal land without permission, both misdemeanors.

Sundles, 47, operates an anti-wolf website that provides detailed instructions on how to "successfully poison a wolf." In a recent interview, however, Sundles said he is innocent of the attempted poisoning charge and decried the law-enforcement search of his home as a "Gestapo-style raid" by "an out-of-control federal agency."

Sundles dismisses the poisoning of pets as "collateral damage" and blasts federal wildlife managers for "dumping" wolves in the state.

"I'm shocked that human blood hasn't been spilled on this issue," Sundles said in an interview. "I'm surprised there hasn't been a gunfight. I'm surprised that the feds who've done this haven't been hunted down and killed," he said of the reintroduction of the wolves.

Sundles is the latest face of Idaho's campaign to eradicate wolves from the state. Ron Gillett, co-chairman of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition, is another.

"Let me tell you something. We will get rid of these wolves, one way or another," Gillett said, his index finger stabbing the air, during a recent interview in Lakefield, a hamlet east of Boise.

"We are law-abiding citizens. We will try it legally. But I'm not going to live with no elk, no deer, no bighorn sheep and no goats, just because some environmentalist someplace wants to hear a wolf howl. No. You either give up or move over, because we are going to run over you. No compromise. No negotiation. No Canadian wolves in Idaho."

But Steve Nadeau, wolf coordinator for Idaho's Department of Fish and Game, said the state's elk population has been stable for years. This year "has been a banner year for elk and deer. Really good hunting," he said.

Nadeau estimated that wolves are responsible for about 1% of elk deaths in Idaho. According to many wolf biologists, hunters aren't seeing as many elk because wolves are driving them into higher country, which is less accessible to humans.In Idaho, data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service indicate that only 35% of sheep deaths are attributable to predators, with wolves accountable for only 0.4% of sheep kills by predators. The data indicate that domestic dogs are responsible for nearly 20 times more sheep kills than wolves.

The same numbers hold true for cattle, where wolves are responsible for 0.6% of predator kills.

As far as the threat to humans, a 2002 study by Alaska wildlife officials found that there have been only a handful of documented wolf attacks on humans in North America since the 1800s. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police suspect wolves in a fatal attack on a man in Saskatchewan last month. If true, it would be the first such recorded death in 100 years, according to the Alaska study.

Fears about wolves aren't borne out by the facts, insists Suzanne Stone, of the group Defenders of Wildlife.

"It's almost impossible to discuss it rationally," Stone said. "It doesn't have anything to do with logic or reason, it's so steeped in myth. And this mythical wolf really doesn't exist."

Stone runs the Defenders' compensation program, which has paid more than a half-million dollars in the region since 1987, she said. In many cases, the compensation has not softened the attitudes of ranchers who have lost livestock.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-wolves27dec27,0,2947202.story


Informant: binstock

Umkehr eingeleitet

Boliviens gewählte Regierung kündigt die Abkehr von der neoliberalen Politik der vergangenen Jahre an.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21660/1.html

The trick is known to just about every small-time crook in the cellular age: If you don't want police to know where you are, take the battery out of your cell phone when you're not using it. Had that trick been taught at the CIA's rural Virginia training school for covert operatives, the Bush administration might have avoided much of the crisis in Europe over the practice the CIA calls "rendition."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705M.shtml

John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the University of California at Berkeley.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705K.shtml

The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122705J.shtml

Elsy Fors
Prensa Latina

Next year might be decisive for US President George W. Bush, accused of lying, showing total disregard for US and international laws, Constitution violations, living in a bubble, promoting abuses, torture, indefinite detention of and spying on US citizens and foreigners.

For similar crimes, former president Richard Nixon -dabbed as Dirty Dick- was impeached almost thirty years ago as a consequence of what is known as the Watergate scandal.

In the impeachment of Nixon, the argument in its Article 2 said that Nixon committed a crime "by directing or authorizing (intelligence) agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office."

Now, US Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, who was a critical player in the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations into presidential wrongdoing, has introduced a package of resolutions that would censure Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney.

Conyers is seeking much more, and is proposing that Congress use all the powers available to it to hold Bush and Cheney accountable, including the power to impeach the holders of the nations´ most powerful positions and remove them from office.

Jon Bonifaz, attorney and the author of the book: Warrior King: The case for impeaching George Bush, argues that "Now is the time to return to the rule of law and to hold those who have defied the Constitution accountable for their actions."

Senator Robert C. Byrd, on a speech pronounced December 19 in the Senate, expressed his strong concerns about possible violations of the Constitution in the Bush Administration´s admitted practice of spying on American citizens.

"It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our country´s law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution", said Byrd.

Even Senator Arlen Specter, Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee conceded there ought to be an inquiry into the eavesdropping.

Though a far-fletched possibility, impeachment is being mentioned each day with greater force, based on violations committed by Bush and Cheney on the Constitution.

Barroom discourse

When confronted with the accusation of eavesdropping on businesses and private citizens in Europe and the United States, George Bush defended his decision to authorize spying based on his title of Commander in Chief and "the Constitutional authority to protect our country," contained in Article II of the fundamental law.

That was dabbed by some media as barroom skank, because the title of Commander in Chief refers only to the armed forces of the nation, not the citizens.

Pierre Tristam, editorial writer of the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida and editor of Candide´s Notebooks, recalls that Section 2, Article II of the Constitution requires the President to seek advise and consent of Congress on various matters in executive and foreign policy purviews and it addresses presidential impeachment in case of conviction of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanours".

Another cover poorly defended was the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which experts say Bush has also violated. To Bush, even FISA´s rickety requirements weren´t loose enough. He wanted it all, complete authority to spy.

To further dig his grave while seemingly adding a brick or two in his favour, Bush used the tactic of "It´s a new world out there, everything changed with September 11" in the most incoherent and self-defeating response of Monday the 19th news conference. Bush dared affirm that calls targeting al Qaeda ties and affiliates are not intercepted within the country.

Tristam recalled the information published two days before in The Standard Times of Massachusetts that agents of the Homeland Security Department questioned a Darmouth University Student for having requested an inter-library loan for Mao-Tse-Tung´s Little Red Book, on the grounds, said the agents, that the book was on a "watch list" and that the significant time abroad spent by the student triggered them to investigate further.

In his delusion, Bush has a messianic sense of being the law.

Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold and Idaho Republican Larry Craig, who led the filibuster that defeated the Patriot Act´s renewal, said "the president does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow."

However, illegal spying began in November 2001 and from the very first briefing for Congressional leaders by Vice President Cheney, Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were told about it, while information on these activities were kept from reaching the American public.

No wonder Bush and Cheney mistook these undisputed communications to Congress institutions as a green light to their actions.

According to a Zogby poll released November 4, people asked their opinion, "if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment," citizens answered Yes by 53 percent to 42 percent.

Follow the money trail

Impeachment is a political trial, concerning the correlation of forces inside both parties, but also and most important, about the corporate groups supporting a President.

The fund-raising network of wealthy supporters, known as Pioneers and Rangers, that propelled Bush to the presidency included oilmen, lobbyists, developers and agricultural executives. The political financiers made an investment in the Bush family, in George W. for President and Jeb Bush as governor of Florida.

According to the Toledo Blade of Ohio, by 2004, Bush´s reelection campaign had assembled 66 elite fund-raisers in Texas and 55 in Florida. Some of the contributors even acknowledged that being a prolific fund-raiser translates into access for those who want to influence government decisions.

Since 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President´s elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses and lobbying clients, a Blade investigation shows.

In Florida, massive sugar companies and development firms have reaped millions of dollars from government policies, which environmentalists say have sided with sprawl and development over the restoration of the Everglades.

A Blade report released in October showed that Bush´s top fund raisers in Ohio collected more than $1.2 billion in taxpayers´dollars for their companies and lobbying clients.

Besides winning contracts to different government agencies and the Department of Defense, some supporters won high-ranking appointments and ambassadorships from a grateful President.

W.A. "Tex" Moncrief, the longtime owner of Moncrief Oil and a major Republican contributor said he believes one of the "big reasons" Bush decided to invade Iraq was oil. And the decision, he said, will pay dividends for the US oil market.

"The Iraq situation doesn´t look good, but my honest opinion is that if we hadn´t gone into Iraq, then we would be in a worse shape with the oil situation", he said in a quote published by the Toledo Blade of Ohio.

It is understandable then that Bush dared say a few days ago "we are winning the war", because the truth would have taken elite members off his supporters´ list.

In Florida, leading sugar companies have held on to their power by contributing millions of dollars to federal and state candidates, said Nancy Watzman, senior analyst for Public Campaign, which advocates public financing of political races.

To confirm there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans for these executives, Alfonso Fanjul, executive with Florida Crystals Corp, was co-chairman of Clinton´s presidential campaign in Florida, while his brother Jose Fanjul was national vice chairman of finance for the Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole.

Florida sugar companies requested Governor Bush to delay the enforcement of a law amending the state´s Everglades Forever Act, which set a 2006 deadline for the cleanup of phosphorus. Now Governor Bush signed legislation that delays the planned cleanup of phosphorus pollution from the sugar industry by another 10 years.

The Halliburton corporation of which Richard Cheney was CEO before assuming the Vice Presidency is notorious for fraud scandals in overpricing contracts from the Pentagon to supply troops in Iraq.

Examples of wrongdoing are not lacking. Legal grounds for impeachment are there. What honest US politicians and personalities who have come to find the truth kept from public knowledge hope is that these facts come out before more US troops and innocent civilians are killed in Iraq to nourish the greed for money and glory of the Bush Administration and its beneficiaries.

Ef/


Informant: Walter Lippmann



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

http://www.newyorkobserver.com/pageone_offtherec.asp


Informant: William K. Dobbs

From ufpj-news

Christian Science Monitor
by Dante Chinni

12/27/05

In the process of declaring war on terrorism and terrorists and, of course, terror in general, the Bush administration has, inadvertently or not, declared war on the other two branches of government and they are not amused. So expect a contentious and argumentative 2006. The revelation that the administration, without the court's approval, ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to tap phone calls and monitor e-mails going in and out of the country has led to a revolt by the judiciary and the Congress. The most vexing fallout for the White House at the moment is the extremely short-term renewal of the Patriot Act in the Congress. The law will be open for discussion again in five weeks, which is when the Hill will begin to debate the NSA phone-tapping, and the mood will almost certainly grow sourer as the revelations continue to drip out...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1227/p09s02-codc.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CounterPunch
by Lawrence Velvel

12/26/05

At stake in the so-called war on terror is longer just treatment of detainees, but the freedom of Americans. Bush and company have very wrongly used the commander-in-chief power as a lever to make the President far, far too powerful, powerful far beyond anything intended by the framers, who created a government in which the legislature was to be the more powerful branch. John Yoo has despicably abetted this process by writing intellectually corrupt legal opinions, which were to be used to shield officials high and low against the possibility of criminal prosecutions even though their acts plainly are criminal. The legal opinions, moreover, were classified, were all kept secret, in major part because Congress and the public would never stand for what is being done if they were to learn about it by reading the opinions . Congress has been ineffective and cowardly...

http://www.counterpunch.org/velvel12262005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Daily Bulletin
by staff

12/26/05

In the wake of the security-shattering terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, terrified Americans willingly, even gladly, conceded some of their privacy rights to help fight terrorism. Air travelers submitted to long lines and numerous inconveniences with little complaint. The people also, for the most part, supported the reallocation of billions of federal funds to fight domestic terrorism and backed the Patriot Act, which significantly increased the government's ability to investigate possible terrorists, and prevent them from committing more atrocities on American soil. The feeling of most Americans was if that's what it takes to keep the country safe, then so be it. But the revelations in recent days that the executive branch has been authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct secret wiretappings of Americans, sidestepping procedures set up expressly for the purpose of providing proper oversight, is unsettling to say the least...

http://www.dailybulletin.com/opinions/ci_3343389


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Free Market News Network
by Richard Stevens

12/23/05

What these two stories have in common is hope. The common man -- the ordinary American -- is beginning to wake up and realize what is happening around him. He is beginning to notice the society we live in is not the society our Founding Fathers intended. It's a small sign, but that it exists at all is cause for (cautious) optimism. Similar small victories and awakenings are evidenced by the responses we've received regarding Bill of Rights Day celebrations, proclamations, and published letters in newspapers...

http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/105/3265/2005-12-23.asp?nid=3265&wid=105


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)

12/27/05

We're told that Sept. 11 changed everything, that new government powers like the PATRIOT Act are necessary to thwart terrorism. But these are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media. This is a nation that expelled the British, saw the White House burned to the ground in 1814, fought two world wars, and faced down the Soviet Union. Sept. 11 does not justify ignoring the Constitution by creating broad new federal police powers. The rule of law is worthless if we ignore it whenever crises occur. The administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society...

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=8310


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

George Walker Lyndon Baines Johnson Bush

Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland

12/23/05

Although George W. Bush likes to compare his presidency to that of Ronald Reagan, it most resembles that of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Some conservatives and liberals alike may be horrified at the comparison, but that is where the facts lead. Although Ronald Reagan’s efforts to reduce the size of government were mostly rhetorical, his philosophy was one of small government conservatism. Certainly, the deficits Reagan racked up by cutting taxes more than spending and the percolation of his philosophy into public opinion probably played at least some role in reducing the growth of federal spending during the Clinton presidency. In contrast, both George W. Bush and LBJ ran 'guns and butter' presidencies -- that is, spending other people's money was their specialty...

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1642


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Reason
by Julian Sanchez

12/26/05

They know when you are sleeping, they know when you're awake, they know if you've been bad or good: They're the National Security Agency, and as The New York Times reported this Christmas Eve, they've been conducting analysis of telecommunications on a scale far beyond that of the targeted program of eavesdropping on domestic-to-international communications revealed earlier this month. Both programs remain shrouded in secrecy, but there's at least some reason to think that, under the logic of a Supreme Court ruling issued earlier this year, it's the more expansive one that will meet fewer constitutional obstacles...

http://www.reason.com/links/links122605.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe
by Cathy Young

12/26/05

Even as the war in Iraq goes on and the war with a global terror network shows no signs of abating, our domestic political scene seems to have become a war zone as well. It's happening on political websites, where 'debate' often consists of trading invective and where opponents are ridiculed with slurs like 'libs' and 'repugs.' It's happening in mainstream politics, too. Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean slams Republicans as 'brain-dead' people many of whom 'have never made an honest living in their lives.' Republican master strategist and senior Bush adviser Karl Rove slams liberals as wimps whose reaction to Sept. 11 was to 'offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.' Everyone seems to agree that there is far too much nastiness in American political discourse today. And everyone seems eager to blame the other side for it...

http://tinyurl.com/cf53q


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Anthony Gregory

12/26/05

The real threat to American liberty, the defense of which the administration still insists is the purpose of the war on terror, is a federal government without strict checks and limits on its power, whose executives feel comfortable using the military to spy on peaceful Americans, while telling the media not to report their secret and unconstitutional surveillance activities. The use of a military intelligence agency against the American people, with or without judicial oversight, is far more a 'shameful act' than reporting such activities to the American people, who have a right to know...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0512i.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Price of Liberty
by Nathan A. Barton

12/26/05

[O]nce more, it is time to remind all and sundry that IF George W. Bush is indeed walking in the steps of one Abraham Lincoln, that there are more than ever grounds for considering our current president to be nothing more than a dictator and a hypocrite who will use any means to further his aims. For indeed, to most of those familiar with history and not national myth, Abraham Lincoln is indeed that and more. To them, having the face of Abraham Lincoln on the front of Mount Rushmore, that 'Shrine to Democracy' is as inappropriate and upsetting as it would be to have his figure carved on Stone Mountain. Abraham Lincoln was nothing more than an elected dictator, and for that matter, elected by a minority vote even weaker than Bill Clinton's election and even more subject to claims of fraud than either of George W Bush's elections. Far from being a supporter of Black Americans' rights, he was a bigoted racist who cruelly and opportunistically used the abolition of slavery as the means to an end. ... he was nothing less than a tyrant who foreshadowed the totalitarian regimes that drenched the world in blood; and in fact, the blood of more Americans than every other president combined stains his hands...

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/12/26/nathan.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Patrick Baudouin, a lawyer and honorary president of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, argues that lawless repression does not protect us from terrorism, but rather hands terrorists the victory of defeating the principles of human rights and democracy.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122605H.shtml

With signs pointing to a resurgent Democratic Party in New Hampshire, the state's all-Republican congressional delegation is becoming increasingly at odds with the national Republican Party in a state that was long a GOP bellwether, according to an analysis of votes and other actions in Congress over the past year.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122605E.shtml

William Rivers Pitt: The only war on Christmas happening in the last week was fought by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are away from family and in harm's way, many for their second or third tours. Take a silent moment and consider what you will do in the New Year – what you will give - to bring about the peace on Earth that Cindy Sheehan spoke of.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122605A.shtml

The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said it was "seriously concerned" about reports that US aircraft landing at Ireland’s Shannon airport may be carrying detainees to secret locations where they were at risk of torture.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2005-daily/24-12-2005/world/w5.htm


From Information Clearing House

The commander of American-run prisons in Iraq says the military will not turn over any detainees or detention centers to Iraqi jailers until American officials are satisfied that the Iraqis are meeting United States standards for the care and custody of detainees.

http://tinyurl.com/7vso3


From Information Clearing House



Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons:

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made," the paper recalled Wilkerson saying in a speech at the New America Foundation in October.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051224/pl_afp/usiraqcritic_051224173411


From Information Clearing House

It is now more than fifteen years since that fateful meeting on July 25, 1990 between then-US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie and President Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi leader interpreted as a green light from Washington for his invasion of Kuwait eight days later.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11376.htm

With the Republican majority in Congress concerned about the 2006 elections, George W. Bush can't seem to get a break lately. According to this article from France's Le Monde newspaper, 'a President who has lost his aura and will no longer have to face the voters' is in retreat.

http://www.watchingamerica.com/lefigaro000076.shtml


From Information Clearing House

Danger and anti-war stance keep celebrities away.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1673781,00.html


From Information Clearing House

In pictures:

Their portraits and their stories compel attention, not because they have endured worse than others, but because their miseries are so commonplace.

http://tinyurl.com/dxykr


From Information Clearing House

By John Dear

When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their warmaking supporters celebrate Christmas, they mock Christ and his steadfast nonviolence, and carry on the massacre of the innocents.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11378.htm

12/25/05 " Ninemsn"

The top US military commander admitted Sunday that Iraqis wanted US and other foreign troops to leave the country "as soon as possible," and said US troop levels in Iraq were now being re-assessed on a monthly basis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11379.htm

A Review

By Bill McKibben

New York Review of Books Volume 53, Number 1 January 12, 2006

Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains by Mark Bowen Henry Holt, 463 pp., $30.00

Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots by Alanna Mitchell University of Chicago Press, 239 pp., $25.00

The year 2005 has been the hottest year on record for the planet, hotter than 1998, 2002, 2004, and 2003. More importantly, perhaps, this has been the autumn when the planet has shown more clearly than before just what that extra heat means. Consider just a few of the findings published in the major scientific journals during the last three months:

--Arctic sea ice is melting fast. There was 20 percent less of it than normal this summer, and as Dr. Mark Serreze, one of the researchers from Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told reporters, "the feeling is we are reaching a tipping point or threshold beyond which sea ice will not recover." That is particularly bad news because it creates a potent feedback effect: instead of blinding white ice that bounces sunlight back into space, there is now open blue water that soaks up the sun's heat, amplifying the melting process.

--In the tundra of Siberia, other researchers report that permafrost has begun to melt rapidly, and, as it does, formerly frozen methane--which, like the more prevalent carbon dioxide, acts as a heat-trapping "greenhouse gas"--is escaping into the atmosphere. In some places last winter, the methane bubbled up so steadily that puddles of standing water couldn't freeze even in the depths of the Russian winter.

--British researchers, examining almost six thousand soil borings across the UK, found another feedback effect. Warmer temperatures (growing seasons now last eleven days longer at that latitude) meant that microbial activity had increased dramatically in the soil. This, in turn, meant that much of the carbon long stored in the soil was now being released into the atmosphere. The quantities were large enough to negate all the work that Britain had done to switch away from coal to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. "All the consequences of global warming will occur more rapidly," said Guy Kirk, chief scientist on the study. "That's the scary thing. The amount of time we have got to do something about it is smaller than we thought."

Such findings--and there are more like them in virtually every issue of Science and Nature--came against the backdrop of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the now record-breaking Atlantic storm season that has brought us back around the alphabet and as far as Hurricane Epsilon. Because hurricanes draw their power from the warm water in the upper layers of the sea's surface, this bout of storminess served as a kind of exclamation point to a mid-August paper by the MIT researcher Kerry Emmanuel demonstrating that such storms have become more powerful and long-lasting, and would likely continue to increase in destructiveness in the future.

But the hurricanes also demonstrated another fact about global warming, this one having nothing to do with chemistry or physics but instead with politics, journalism, and the rituals of science. Climate change somehow seems unable to emerge on the world stage for what it really is: the single biggest challenge facing the planet, the equal in every way to the nuclear threat that transfixed us during the past half-century and a threat we haven't even begun to deal with. The coverage of Katrina's aftermath, for instance, was scathing in depicting the Bush administration's incompetence and cronyism; but the President --and his predecessors--were spared criticism for their far bigger sin of omission, the failure to do anything at all to stanch the flood of carbon that America, above all other nations, pours into the atmosphere and that is the prime cause of the great heating now underway. Though Bush has been egregious in his ignorance about climate change, the failure to do anything about it has been bipartisan; Bill Clinton and Al Gore were grandly rhetorical about the issue, but nonetheless presided over a 13 percent increase in America's carbon emissions.

That lack of preparation and precaution dwarfs even the failure to prepare for the September 11 attacks, and its effects will be with us far longer. It's not, of course, that America could in two decades have prevented global warming. But we could have begun taking the steps to keep it from spinning entirely out of control, steps that grow ever more difficult to take with each passing season. The books under review, though neither deals directly with the politics of global warming, help us understand some of the reasons why we've so far done so little.

for the rest of this review, go to
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18616


Informant: Scott Munson

Jack D. Douglas on why the regime needs secrecy, and we need openness.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/douglas6.html

Why the Feds Love Torture
http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy100.html

Viele Alleinerziehende und Alleinstehende ALG-II-Bezieher konnten kein Weihnachten feiern.

"Das Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland hat schwere Vorwürfe gegen die verantwortlichen „Hartz-IV-Macher“ erhoben. Den ALG-II- und Sozialhilfeempfängern hätte eine Weihnachtsbeihilfe ausgezahlt werden müssen. In einer amtlichen Verlautbarung vom 19.12.2003 hatte die Bundesregierung erklärt hatte, dass in den Regelsätzen zu ALG-II und Sozialhilfe, die Kosten der Unterkunft, Erstausstattungen, mehrtätige Klassenfahrten und die Weihnachtsbeihilfe nicht enthalten ist. Deshalb hätten viele Alleinerziehende und Alleinstehende in diesem Jahr erstmalig auf das Weihnachtsfest hätten verzichten müssen, da der ohnehin viel zu knapp bemessene Regelsatz eine Ansparung gar nicht zuließ. Die Initiative weist darauf hin, dass die bisherigen gerichtlichen Eilentscheidungen zur Weihnachtsbeihilfe diesen Umstand überhaupt nicht berücksichtigt hätten..." Pressemitteilung des Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland vom 25.12.05 (pdf)

http://www.erwerbslosenforum.de/presse/25_12_05.pdf


Aus: LabourNet, 27. Dezember 2005

Kommentar von Klaus Fischer in junge Welt vom 23.12.2005
http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/12-23/009.php


Aus: LabourNet, 27. Dezember 2005

Betrieblicher Kampf gegen Privatisierung

Auf Kosten der Schwachen: Privatisierung hessischer Uni-Kliniken beschlossene Sache

„Hessen ist mit der bundesweit ersten Privatisierung einer Universitätsklinik Vorreiter. In dieser Woche wurde vom Wiesbadener Landtag nach einer turbulenten Debatte der Verkauf der Universitätskliniken Gießen und Marburg an einen privaten Konzern beschlossen. Wie die Gießener ver.di-Sekretärin Marita Kruckewitt am Freitag gegenüber jW mitteilte, fordert ver.di jetzt die rasche Aufnahme von Tarifverhandlungen zur Sicherung bestehender Arbeitsplätze und Arbeitsbedingungen…“ Artikel von Hans-Gerd Öfinger in junge Welt vom 24.12.2005

http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/12-24/017.php


Konflikte und Arbeitskämpfe im Hamburger Gesundheitswesen

LBK will sich Millionen für Betriebsrenten stunden lassen. Asklepios: Übernahme der Kliniken schwerer als geplant?

„Die Übernahme des Krankenhauskonzerns LBK Hamburg durch die Firma Asklepios gestaltet sich offenbar holpriger als vom Senat erhofft. Nach Querelen um Personalabbau, den Verkauf des AK Eilbek und das jüngste Millionen-Defizit, gibt es nun ein neues Problem: Die LBK-Geschäftsführung will die Zahlungen in die Unterstützungskasse, aus der die Betriebsrenten gezahlt werden, "aufschieben". (…) In der Belegschaft sorgte die Nachricht für Unruhe. Da der LBK vom Januar an betriebsbedingt kündigen kann, ist die Stimmung unter den rund 12 500 Beschäftigten ohnedies extrem angespannt. Die Betriebsräte lehnten den Antrag auf Stundung der Beiträge zur Betriebsrente jetzt ab. Vorstand und Gremien der Unterstützungskasse waren von der Arbeitgeberseite offenbar gar nicht über die Pläne informiert worden…“ Artikel von Jens Meyer-Wellmann in Hamburger Abendblatt vom 23.12.05

http://www.abendblatt.de./daten/2005/12/23/516479.html


Von Menschen, Häusern und Autos. Wie die deutsche Kliniklandschaft gesunden soll

„Anfang Dezember veröffentlichten das RWI Essen und die Unternehmensberatung ADMED den Krankenhaus Rating Report 2006, eine Studie zur Wirtschaftlichkeit der stationären Versorgung, die von mehreren großen Tageszeitungen vorgestellt wurde. Dabei interessierte offenbar weder, von wem die Untersuchung mit welchen Interessen finanziert wurde, noch, ob sie überhaupt repräsentativ ist. Stattdessen bietet die Studie Anlass, düstere "Pleiten für die Gesundheit" (FAS) an die Wand zu malen…“ Artikel von Sebastian Klinke in Freitag vom 23.12.2005

http://www.freitag.de/2005/51/05510502.php


Aus: LabourNet, 27. Dezember 2005

by Ralph Nader

Published on Saturday, December 24, 2005
by CommonDreams.org

Richard Cohen, the finely-calibrated syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a column on October 28, 2004 which commenced with this straight talk: "I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for one, it would be 'Impeach George Bush'."

Cohen stated the obvious then. Bush and Cheney had plunged the nation into war "under false pretenses." Exploiting the public trust in the Presidency, Bush had persuaded, over the uncritical mass media, day after day, before the war, a majority of the American people that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical, biological weapons and nuclear weapons programs, was connected to al-Qaeda and 9/11 and was a threat to the United States.

These falsehoods, Cohen wrote, "are a direct consequence of the administration's repeated lies - lies of commission, such as Cheney's statements, and lies of omission."

Fourteen months later, no widely syndicated columnist or major newspaper editorial has called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Not even Cohen again. Yet the case for impeachment is so strong that, recently, hardly a day goes by without more disclosures which strengthen any number of impeachable offenses that could form a Congressional action under our Constitution. An illegal war, to begin with, against our Constitution which says only Congress can declare war. An illegal war under domestic laws, and international law, and conducted illegally under international conventions to which the US belongs, should cause an outcry against this small clique of outlaws committing war crimes who have hijacked our national government.

An illegal, criminal war means that every related U.S. death and injury, every related Iraqi civilian death and injury, every person tortured, every home and building destroyed become war crimes as a result - under established international law.

There are those on talk radio or cable shows who scoff at international law. They rarely tell their audiences that the United States has played a key role in establishing these treaties, like the Geneva Conventions, and the United Nations Charter. When these treaties are agreed to by the U.S. government, they become as binding as our federal laws.

By these legal standards and by the requirements of the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, the war-declaring authority), George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are probably the most impeachable President and Vice President in American history. An illegal war based on lies, deceptions, cover-ups and their repetition even after being told by officials in their own administration - not to mention critical retired generals, diplomats and security specialists - of their falsity should have prodded the House of Representatives into initiating impeachment proceedings. But then, Bush did not lie under oath about sex.

A majority of the American people have turned against this war-quagmire, against its intolerable human and economic costs, against the increased danger this war is bringing to our nation's interests. They want the soldiers to return safely home. In increasing numbers they sense what Bush's own CIA Director, Porter Goss, told the U.S. Senate last February. He noted, along with other officials since then, that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are like a magnet attracting and training more terrorists from more countries who will return to their nations and cause trouble. Many national security experts have said, in effect, you do not fight terrorists with policies that produce more terrorists.

Now comes the most recent, blatant impeachable offense - Bush ordering the spying on Americans in our country by the National Security Agency. This disclosure stunned many N.S.A. staff who themselves view domestic surveillance as anathema, according to Matthew M. Aid, a current historian of the agency.

Domestic eavesdropping on Americans by order of the President to the National Security Agency violates the 27-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act unless they obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. This court meets in secret and has rejected only four out of 19,000 applications.

So why did Bush violate this law and why does he defiantly say he will continue to order domestic spying as he has since 2002? Not because the FISA Court is slow. It acts in a matter of hours in the middle of the night if need be. The law actually permits surveillance in emergencies as long as warrants are requested within 72 hours or 15 days in times of war.

Bush violated the law because of the arrogance of power. Ostensibly, he believes that a vague Congressional resolution after 9/11 to fight al-Qaeda overrides this explicit federal law and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Bush even claims he can unilaterally decide to domestically spy from the inherent powers of the Presidency to fight wars. (To him Congressionally-undeclared wars are still wars).

Other than his legal flaks in the White House and Justice Department making such transparently specious arguments as "good soldiers", the overwhelming position of legal scholars is that Bush and Cheney have violated grave laws protecting the liberties of the American people.

The crime, says Professor David Cole of Georgetown Law School, is "punishable by five years in prison." Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School said that the President ordered such a crime and ordered US officials to commit it..this is a serious felony..what happened here is not just a violation of Federal law, it's a violation of the U.S. Constitution.an impeachable offense."

It matters not that a Republican-dominated Congress has no present interest in moving to impeach Bush-Cheney. What matters is that impeachment in this case - based on the authority of Congress to charge the President and Vice President with "high crimes and misdemeanors" - is a patriotic cause rooted in the wisdom of our founding fathers who did not want another King George III in the guise of a President.

As Senator Russell Feingold said a few days ago: The President is not a King, he is a President subject to the laws and Constitution of the land. Apparently, George W. Bush seems to believe and behave as if his unlimited inherited powers flow from King George III, given the way he has shoved aside both federal law and the nation's Constitution.

Both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should resign. They have disgraced their office and bled the nation. They have shattered the public trust in so many serious ways that will only become worse in the coming months.


Informant: bdpoe

Bush Arrogantly Ignores FOIA Demand After 500,000 Citizens signed + a petition
http://www.rense.com/general69/foia.htm

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NSA - Monitored New Mexico Gov. Richardson's Phone Calls with Collin Powell !!!

The Albuquerque Tribune: Local / State Government
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local_state_government/article/0%2C2564%2CALBQ_19859_3736152%2C00.html

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Powell, Himself Wiretapped, Says It's Legit? (They must have the photos of Powel with Gannon?)
http://www.rense.com/general69/legit.htm


Informant: ranger116

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

In the time it took to type this sentence, the digital numbers on my slick, new, credit-card-size national debt clock rose from $8,165,949,483,500 to $8,165,950,071,500. That long row of numbers, more than $8 trillion, is what the U.S. government owes.

To put it more succinctly, that amount is more than $100,000 for every American family of four, or $27,000 for every man, woman and child in America. At the end of 2005, despite all the warnings of recent years, the debt is growing at the rate of $10,500 per second.

In the four minutes or so it took to write those paragraphs, the mesmerizing digital figures of my keen new debt clock never stopped, rising to $8,165,951,814,500. That's another $2.33 million.

What is Congress doing about it? It congratulated itself last week for cutting the deficit by $40 billion — over five years. It wasn't even cutting, really, since about half the $40 billion is actually new money from higher pension premiums and selling rights to the broadcast spectrum. And shaving $40 billion from the deficit won't reduce the $8 trillion national debt because the $40 billion doesn't come close to balancing even this year's budget, which is still more than $300 billion out of whack.

But Congress isn't through. In January, Congress is about to take up $100 billion in tax cuts. So the deficit — and the debt — probably will go up, not down. "Today's successful vote on the Deficit Reduction Act is a victory for the American people, and for future generations," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire. "Yes, there is more to be done, but it is a step in the right direction. We simply cannot continue on the path to higher deficits, saddling our children and grandchildren with this generation's fiscal obligations. They deserve better than that." If only.

Not everyone is fooled. Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, told Investors Business Daily that the Herculean struggle needed to pass the modest cuts "makes you wonder if they're ever going to be able to do something substantial."

Just look at what happened when President Bush tried to take on Social Security but tied it to private accounts. That made Democrats think that he really was trying to do away with the whole program, which he probably was. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Unfixed, Social Security will be a big part of our future debt as the Baby Boomers begin to claim what they thought would be rightfully theirs. You think they rioted during the '60s? Wait till you see them riot in their 60s.

The debt clock came to me courtesy of Mr. Bixby's group, which has enlisted bipartisan support to draw attention to the coming calamity. The group's president is Pete Peterson, a Republican investment banker and former commerce secretary under President Nixon. Speaking last year, he called the term Social Security Trust Fund an oxymoron. "In the first place," Mr. Peterson said. "The Social Security Trust Fund should not be trusted, and it is not funded."

It's the other big entitlement program, Medicare, however, that really alarms economists. Mr. Peterson cited Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, putting the chance of a financial crisis in America at 75 percent in the next five years — and that was last year. The debt will continue to grow as entitlement payments exceed the amount coming in.

As Mr. Peterson said, "We anesthetize the public with highly reassuring long-term statements that the trust funds are solvent for decades. Yet, we do not tell the public that the payroll taxes of our children and grandchildren would have to double to cover the costs of Social Security and Medicare. That is an unthinkable burden."

Two years ago, I wrote about the nation's coming debt burden. Buy gold, I suggested, especially if you doubt the government's ability to exert control over its irrational ways. The national debt stood at $7 trillion then and gold hovered at $350 an ounce. Now, the debt tops $8 trillion, and gold has topped $500 an ounce.

My debt clock makes no sound as its digital numbers flash. As the day ends, it reaches $8,166,193,776,500. That's a quarter-billion higher than the start of the work day. The clock's silent progression doesn't mean Americans shouldn't hear it.

Debt clocks are not for sale, but the Concord Coalition is distributing them free to its members. To sign up, go to
http://www.concordcoalition.org.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/12/27/a8a_engelhardtcol_1227.html


Informant: beefree

Mobilfunkstudie

Medizinische Leitung:
Dr. med. Hans-Christoph Scheiner

Melatoninstudie


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Melatonin