By Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler and Brendan Smith

The possibility that high U.S. officials may be guilty of war crimes and may be preparing to commit more raises questions that few Americans have yet faced. These questions go far beyond technical legal matters to the broadest concerns of international security, democratic government, morality, and personal responsibility.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10905.htm

In scandalous times, Bush could learn from Clinton

Fox News/Cato
by Patrick Basham

11/05/05

With the White House shrouded in scandal, the biggest obstacle to George W. Bush’s political comeback is that he’s no Bill Clinton. The heaviest millstone around the president’s political neck isn’t the case against Scooter Libby or the continuing investigation into Karl Rove. Rather, it’s the growing public perception that, unlike President Clinton in the 1990s, Bush is presiding over an unsuccessful, even incompetent, administration. Scandal’s ability to upset the political apple cart is such that some observers argue scandals are now the primary means through which Americans engage in political conflict. What will be the current scandal’s impact on the Bush presidency?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174627,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

America's Future Foundation
by Tim Lee

11/06/05

On the one side is the United States government, which created the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California non-profit, to manage the Internet's address infrastructure. On the other side is the UN, and one of its agencies, the International Telecommunications Union, which is holding a World Summit on the Information Society next week to discuss the future of Internet governance. Many developing countries, including China, India, and Brazil, want ICANN's powers placed in the hands of an international body such as the United Nations. The European Union traditionally supported the existing arrangement, but recently it has signalled that it, too, would like to strip the United States of its current authority. So far, most of the debate has been focused on who should be 'in charge of' the Internet...

http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/020501.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CounterPunch
by Jill Farrell

11/05/05

"Montesquieu, famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, said, 'There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.' The latest test balloon of federal power enhancement comes in the form of public health response to the possibility of an outbreak of pandemic bird flu. ... The gargantuan federal government will never resist the temptation to grant itself additional power. It is up to us at the grassroots level to confront it when it oversteps its bounds. It is incumbent upon us to tell it when it is wrong for the simple fact that they are wrong and not submit to the whims of 'our side'...

http://www.counterpunch.org/farrell11052005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Christopher Brauchli

11/06/05

The reason most of my readers do not give away all their income to charities is because they like to eat and food costs money. So does housing. Many of my readers use most, if not all, of their adjusted gross income, to survive. The only people for whom adjusted gross income is nothing more than a trifle are the very rich. Thus, it turns out that one of the most significant benefits of the Hurricane Relief Act of 2005, goes to Mr. Bush's very wealthy friends and their pet charities. It is amazing how Congress and the president can make things appear to be what they are not...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1105-29.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Free Liberal
by Paul Gessing

11/07/05

Now is the time for building a mainstream antiwar movement. Having failed to stop the war before it started through massive worldwide protests, the antiwar movement needs to look for tools that will appeal to and educate mainstream Americans while demanding that Members of Congress go on record as to whether or not they will uphold their Constitutional responsibilities over the nation’s foreign policy Although they may disagree on an array of other issues, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and independents, not to mention those who typically do not closely follow politics, can and must be integrated into a movement that bases itself on a non-threatening, antiwar message that reinforces what is best about the United States rather than focusing on its shortcomings. As I see it, the biggest single problem facing the nation is the fact that nearly all foreign policymaking power is now held by the executive branch...

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001610.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

11/07/05

Everybody's blaming Rocco, but how in the name of all that's holy does the product of an amateurish scam supposedly masterminded by a has-been-ex-spook get finagled into the White House? The FBI 'investigation,' which seems more like a cover-up, was ended, we are told, when the investigators concluded the whole thing was just a for-profit scheme, 'not an attempt to influence U.S. policy.' Let's see: a document shows up in the nick of time to buttress the administration's case that Saddam was building nukes -- at the very moment when Congress was considering this issue -- and it's all just a great big coincidence. We are supposed to believe that a couple of Italian grifters staged a robbery at the Niger embassy in Rome, cut-and-pasted a 'dossier' of fake evidence that Saddam was purchasing uranium from Niamey, and, a couple of years later, the president of the United States suddenly started spouting the same nonsensical claims. There's a transition missing here, one that explains how two Italian scam artists out to make a fast buck managed to bamboozle not only the White House but the various agencies that vet the intelligence that winds up on Bush's desk...

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7931


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Strike the Root
by Daniel Patrick Welch

11/07/05

[T]he Libby indictment is not about perjury, or Scooter Libby, or even about Valerie Wilson. It is merely a window into a vicious and immoral government that feels itself to be above the law--a long pattern of illegal and repugnant abuse of power to punish perceived enemies and squelch dissent. The ultimate goal, is of course, the worst: to be left unfettered in its prosecution of an illegal and unnecessary war...

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/welch/welch1.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Niranjan Ramakrishnan

11/07/05

The Montgomery Bus Boycott continued for a year. During that time, how many senators, governors and congressmen would you suppose descended on Alabama to lend support to the boycotters? I don't know exactly, but here's my wild guess: less than the fingers on one hand. .... There is nothing less risky than praising a dead icon. There is nothing more risky than standing with a living one who, to use John Kerry's words for Rosa Parks, "speaks truth to power". .... As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan exulted at the memorial, two full planeloads of the US Congress had come to Detroit to pay tribute to Rosa Parks. Buses were missed, but planes were caught. Imagine if two planeloads of the US Congress, containing the same worthies who descended on Detroit with such alacrity, had gone to Texas this summer and camped out in the ditch outside Bush's Ranch... But Cindy Sheehan is alive and troublesome. Rosa Parks is dead and safe. Therein lies the difference...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1105-28.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp