Top Republicans and Democrats exchanged sharp new words over the Iraq war today, as President Bush dismissed as "pessimists" those raising questions about his strategy and calling for a troop withdrawal.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705L.shtml

It would be hard to imagine a more sudden and thorough tarnishing of the Bush administration's credibility than the one taking place here right now. There have been too many reports in the news media about renditions - including one involving a Lebanese-born German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, kidnapped in Macedonia in December 2003 and imprisoned in Afghanistan for several months on the mistaken assumption that he was an associate of the September 11 hijackers - for blanket disclaimers of torture to be widely believed.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705K.shtml

Robert Scheer writes: To see behind the scenes as Christian-right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grassroots "pro-family" followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives, is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportion.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120705J.shtml

Common Dreams
by Andrew Bard Schmookler

12/06/05

[W]hen I feel sorry for myself for this burden of having to battle against the Bushites: I remind myself of what my parents' generation had to sacrifice to meet the challenge of World War II. They, too, had lives they wanted to be living -- work they wanted to be doing, sweethearts they wanted to stay with -- but were instead compelled by what history had dealt them to set all that aside. Men of my father's generation not only had to interrupt their lives, they had to risk having no life at all -- and hundreds of thousands of them never returned -- in order to meet the threat posed to all they valued by the rise of evil. Looking at their example, I am able quickly to silence the voice of that inner baby-boomer who feels somehow entitled to have things the way he wants. The ease of our lives -- all that we've been able to take for granted for so long -- is the exception and not the rule in human experience. We have no good reason to suppose that we were promised a rose garden, that history would not some day call upon us to deal with dark and dangerous things...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1206-25.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Eagle Tribune
by Nat Hentoff

12/06/05

Dec. 15 is Bill of Rights Day, celebrating the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, without which our founding document would not have become the law of the land. Begun in Northampton, Mass., in November 2001, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, led by Nancy Talanian, has allied with the American Civil Liberties Union and a range of conservative libertarian organizations. Currently among those insisting on essential Patriot Act reforms are the American Conservative Union, the American Library Association, and such business groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.These business organizations have joined with civil libertarians to focus on the Patriot Act's sweeping expansion of government powers to obtain a huge range of personal information by claiming only that the records are "relevant to an authorized investigation" on terrorism...

http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/15/etstory.pl?-sec-Editorial+fn-hentoff.1206


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Liberty For All
by Ed Lewis

12/07/05

There is a great risk one takes when one searches for the truth. Granted, the truth will set you free, but it may not be without great pain caused by severe mental anguish. You see, the truth may be in opposition to what one has believed all of one's life. It may, in fact, be the exact opposite of what one has believed. The writer, as have millions of other people, grew up believing that America was the greatest, purest country of all countries that ever existed. He believed that the American people were not evil, that the land held the most moral, ethical, and honest people that had been created...

http://www.libertyforall.net/2005/dec18/beautiful.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Institute for Health Freedom
by staff

12/05

Since the federal government now is the largest payer for health care in the United States, it has the ability to coerce physicians into implementing anti-privacy practices they might not set up in a truly free-market system. Citizens should watch to make sure the federal government does not use its Medicare muscle to apply financial penalties to physicians who do not write electronic prescriptions. All told, a national mandatory (or coerced) electronic prescribing system would make it much easier for Big Brother to tag and track citizens' use of prescription drugs...

http://tinyurl.com/9d2n6


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Bert McLachlan

12/06/05

Congress is treating the deficit as a big joke, but surely most people aren't so stupid as to think that 'deficit reduction' is really that. Congress has outspent its own income in 45 of the last 50 years, thereby running up deficits by over $5 trillion. But $4 trillion of those deficits were in just the last 20 years. And then President Bush's budget submission this last February projected $3 trillion more of deficits in just the next 6 years. That is how much Congress itself actually spends in excess of its own income tax revenue...

http://www.mises.org/story/1963


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

WorldNetDaily
by Walter E. Williams

12/07/05

Economic ignorance, misconceptions and superstition drive us toward totalitarianism because they make us more willing to hand over greater control of our lives to politicians. That results in a diminution of our liberties. Think back to the gasoline price controls during the 1970s. The price controls caused shortages. To deal with the shortages, restrictions were imposed on purchases. Then national highway speed limits were enacted. Then there were more calls for smaller and less crashworthy cars. With the recent gasoline supply shocks, we didn't experience the shortages, long lines and closed gas stations seen during the 1970s. Why? Prices were allowed to perform their allocative function -- get people to use less gas and get suppliers to supply more...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47781


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

LewRockwell.Com
by Tom Engelhardt, Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith

12/07/05

"How has the Bush administration gotten away with such apparently illegal acts as hiding intelligence reports from Congress, creating secret prisons, establishing death squads, kidnapping people and spiriting them across national borders, and planning unprovoked wars? Part of the answer lies in the administration's deliberate effort, initiated even before September 11, 2001, to tear down any existing legal and institutional means for preventing, exposing, or punishing violations of national and international law by American officials...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt141.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp