skippy the bush kangaroo

did you hear the one about the guy at starbucks? no? okay. a guy walks into the starbucks at connecticut avenue and r street nw on sunday to get his favorite latte, and sits down at a table.

on the table, he spots four pieces of paper. one is stationery with the heading "office of the secretary of defense," and right under that "the special assistant."

it has a penciled map of directions from the pentagon to defense secretary donald h. rumsfeld's house in northwest washington. another sheet says, "eric's telephone log." someone has written "conf. call" at the top and some notes, some in partial shorthand, on one side. these apparently were taken by eric…

our good citizen, no dummy he, concluded these were significant papers and should be turned over to the appropriate people. so that would be the pentagon or the white house?

oh, no. he turned them over to none other than that most left-leaning think tank, center for american progress, headed by none other than former clinton chief of staff john d. podesta.

crowds of iraqis demonstrate in fallujah after the bodies of several foreign contractors were burned beyond recognition. this, after their vehicles were attacked and burned in the town, which has been a stronghold of opposition to the u.s.-led military occupation. at least two burned corpses were later seen hanging from a nearby bridge…

further north, five american soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their armored personnel carrier. in washington, a white house spokesman called the attacks a horrible attempt to intimidate efforts to restore order to iraq, but vowed those attempts will not succeed.

the violence came just two days after a united nations official warned the ongoing violence risks jeopardizing iraqi elections which are supposed to take place by early next year.

furious iraqis hacked up the charred bodies of two people, believed to be foreign civilians, and hung the remains from a bridge after their car was ambushed wednesday, saying fallujah would be the "cemetery" of us-led occupation forces.

"down with the occupation, down with america," they shouted as they hurled rocks at the bodies, one of them headless, that dangled from the bridge over the euphrates river, an afp correspondent witnessed.

the bodies were then taken down and placed on the ground for people to kick them and slash with knives.

young men also strung a severed hand and a leg on an electricity pole on the main street of fallujah, west of baghdad, where the attack took place early wednesday.

four policemen in a car who were near the bridge at the time were seen leaving the scene without intervening.

in every reelection attempt by a president since the gallup organization inc. developed modern polling techniques, the incumbent's job approval rating — a crystallization of americans' attitudes about the country's direction — has been perhaps the single most important variable in the outcome.
since the mid-1950s, every incumbent with an approval rating comfortably above 50% in the election year has easily won a second term: dwight d. eisenhower in 1956, lyndon b. johnson in 1964, richard m. nixon in 1972, reagan in 1984 and clinton in 1996.

those races also showed remarkable stability, with the incumbent moving out to a lead early in gallup polls and generally maintaining it.

more volatility was evident in the reelection campaigns of gerald ford in 1976, carter in 1980 and george h.w. bush in 1992, all of whom lost. approval ratings for each fell below 50% in the months before the elections. and polling found voters ricocheting between their qualms about the challenger and dissatisfaction with the incumbent.

the decision was conditioned on the bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step does not set a precedent and that the commission does not request "additional public testimony from any white house official, including dr. rice,'' white house counsel alberto gonzales said in a letter to the panel.

never before in history has a president of the united states -- and i’m really referring to both president bushes -- has had such a close relationship with another foreign power.

never have they had personal and financial relationships and their public policies so deeply tied to another foreign power.
and the saudis, of course, are not a western democracy. it’s an islamic theocracy. and they’ve played a huge role in the development of terror.

so, i think there’s a piece of logic that has been missing from the american conversation about this…i think a strong case can be made that without the saudis, there is no 9/11.

it’s not just that 15 out of 19 hijackers were saudi. the infrastructure of al qaeda, it’s funding, was developed in many ways by saudis.

that raises the question of: if you’re in bed with the saudis, how can you fight a real war on terrorism?

the judge who issued a court order barring a county clerk from issuing same-sex marriage licenses withdrew from the case monday, possibly clearing the way for more permits to be granted.

judge kenneth brown offered no reason for recusing himself. on march 23, he'd issued a temporary restraining order against sandoval county clerk victoria dunlap.

a hearing on the restraining order had been set for friday -- the day the order expires. the hearing will now be postponed until a new judge is chosen.

dunlap said she'd resume issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples "if we're not barred by the court."

a unitarian universalist minister married two same-sex couples saturday in the state capital, adding to dozens of gay marriages performed in the state in recent weeks.

the rev. samuel trumbore described the weddings as civil ceremonies, a distinction a new york prosecutor considers illegal.

"today was an act of civil disobedience to try to advance their cause to recognize their marriages as legal," trumbore said.

hundreds rallied sunday outside the home of karl rove, president bush's chief political adviser, urging legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school to legalize their status and qualify for in-state college tuition.

protesters stood outside rove's washington house to show their support for the development, relief and education for alien minors act, or the dream act…

"if president bush wants our [re-election] vote, he has to give us the dream," said emira palacios, the group's co-chair.

and in america today, if your sensibilities are offended by something that has happened, you get an enormous amount of credibility and are taken very seriously.

my own view of this is, the president's there poking fun at himself over what goes down, i think, as one of his failures. and i thought it was a good-natured performance, and it made him look good only in the sense that it showed he could poke fun at himself. but he certainly doesn't disguise the record on weapons of mass destruction.

and you have to feel like saying to people, "just get over it."

"scooby-doo 2: monsters unleashed," fell $20 million short of the opening-weekend numbers put up by its 2002 predecessor, but still managed to squirrel away an estimated $30.7 million to debut at #1...the film had enough bite to shut out the latest tom hanks flick, "the ladykillers." the coen brothers' ("fargo") remake of a 1955 bank-heist comedy earned second place with $13 million...

mel gibson's "the passion of the christ" lost another 35 percent of its audience, but continued to put up strong numbers, slipping a notch to #3 on $12.5 million, bringing its to-date total above $315 million. the film will open in another 500 theaters this weekend in anticipation of the easter holiday.

the two left the movie theater debating whether god the father in the holy trinity was human or symbolic, and the argument heated up when they got home, melissa davidson said.

"it was the dumbest thing we've ever done," she said.

davidson, 34, and her husband, sean davidson, 33, were charged with simple battery on march 11 after the two called police on each other. they were released on $1,000 bail.

according to a police report, melissa davidson suffered injuries on her arm and face, while her husband had a scissors stab wound on his hand and his shirt was ripped off. he also allegedly punched a hole in a wall.

an administration aide admitted to growing white house frustration that staffers had been "caught napping," not only by mr. christ's unexpected return, which the aide likened to "a thief in the night," but especially by his strongly worded condemnation of bush's foreign policy. "after all," stated the staff member on condition of anonymity, "we've been working since day one to bring about armageddon specifically to hasten the lord's return. then he does this. i've got to question both his loyalty and his timing”…

national security advisor condoleeza rice stated on nbc's today show that the king of kings "never gave us a plan to follow , really. we would have welcomed his input, but he was apparently too busy converting water into wine."

rice's statements appeared to contradict those of deputy secretary of state richard armitage. appearing on cnn, armitage stated that "the redeemer had presented the administration with a lengthy plan, titled `revelations,' that "president bush has endeavored mightily to follow. the president has been diligent about this, despite the fact that yahweh doesn't exactly write the most clear or concise memo i've ever seen."

appearing on conservative radio host rush limbaugh's program, vice president dick cheney questioned the everlasting light's credibility in his scathing critique of the iraq war. "frankly, he was out of the loop. i mean, where's he been for the past 2,000 years?" cheney asked. "and now he suddenly makes himself manifest in an election year?"

but let's talk about the cole. the cole was attacked in october of 2000. president bush was running for office; he never mentioned it. vice president gore was running for office; he never mentioned it. the media hardly touched it. what were they focused on? they were focused on the election, and they were focused on the middle east peace process. i thought it was a mistake, and the very fact that i quote mike sheehan in the book as saying that i think is indicative of how he felt and how i felt. if i didn't think it was a mistake, that wouldn't be in the book.

the facts have come out, and the facts have come out before the 9-11 commission that the fbi and the cia refused to say who did it in october of 2000. and the president was, therefore, faced with the problem, "can i go ahead and bomb somebody in retaliation for the attack on the cole when my cia director and my fbi director won't say who did it?"

now, this is the same president who, when he bombed afghanistan, when he bombed al-qaeda camps, because george tenet and i and sandy berger recommended he do it in order to get bin laden and the leadership team, where we thought they were going to be meeting, the reaction he faced to that was the so-called wag the dog phenomenon. no one in the media, tim, no one in the media, no one in the congress said, "oh, that's a great thing that you're retaliating for the attack on the united states," they said, "this is all about monica lewinsky, and this is all about your political problems."

so now the same president who had that experience last time he fired cruise missiles at bin laden wants to fire cruise missiles at bin laden, but he's got a cia director and an fbi director who won't say, "bin laden did it, mr. president." i would still have done it; i recommended doing it. do i think it was mistake that we didn't do it? yes. but let's understand the context.

the video to "y'all want a single," which stern hails as "the most inspirational, the most spectacular understanding of what's going on in this country right now," was shot at an out-of-business los angeles record store. in it, korn, joined by fans, storms through the aisles smashing the display cases and cds with crowbars.

while the store is being destroyed, statements taking the music industry to task cross the screen, including: "one corporation owns the 5 major video channels in the u.s."; "90% of the bands signed to a major don't make a profit"; "two radio conglomerates control 42% of listeners"; "the music industry releases 100 songs per week."

it's useful, then, that the president and his staff are willing to serve the public interest by releasing journalists of their obligation to protect confidential white house sources. there's one more way for the administration to serve that interest. release robert novak and five other capital reporters of any obligation to withhold the names of the "two senior administration officials" who told them that valerie plame was a cia operative, in what appeared to be an attempt to punish plame's husband, retired ambassador joseph wilson iv, for debunking the president's nigerian yellow-cake claim.

but the state's senior senator [hutchinson] - herself once the target of an investigation by travis county attorney ronnie earle - has not joined her gop congressional colleagues in criticizing earle's current investigation.

earle is looking into whether corporate contributions made to the political action committee texans for a republican majority - formed in 2001 by u.s. house majority leader tom delay - went to gop state house candidates' campaigns. such a move would violate texas campaign finance laws…

in 1993, after hutchison won her senate seat in a special election, earle investigated allegations she misused state employees and equipment and destroyed state documents while serving as the texas treasurer.

hutchison was acquitted when earle abruptly dropped the case in 1994. earle said then that he gave up the case because the trial judge would not rule in advance whether prosecutors could use as evidence documents and other material obtained in a controversial raid on state treasury offices.

"what he did to me was unconscionable. i think the purpose was to get me out of the senate race so that they (democrats) could keep the seat," hutchison said.

when asked whether she thinks earle's current investigation is similarly politically motivated, hutchison stammered through a response. "this is just, i should not be in this story. this is not my story," hutchison said.

retracted white house statements do little to boost public trust. cbs news correspondent jim stewart reports, until today, the bush administration denied a meeting had taken place between the president and clarke, during which bush allegedly instructed clarke to investigate saddam hussein and iraq after sept. 11.

the white house today reversed that comment, and staff members now tell reporters, "we are not denying such a meeting took place. it probably did."

george medina, 43, of orange county, who lost a son in iraq, heard about bush's remarks when his outraged daughter, an army sergeant, called him yesterday. "she was very upset," medina said.

"this is disgraceful," medina continued. "he doesn't think of all the families that are suffering. it's unbelievable, how this guy tries to run the country."

his 22-year-old son, spec. irving medina, died nov. 14 in baghdad when an explosive device struck his convoy.

charles celestin, 28, of coral springs, fla., and irving medina's brother-in-law, blasted the commander-in-chief's remarks.
"to be poking fun; it's just a travesty to the soldiers who lost their lives. i think it's disrespectful," he said.

very funny, shows a good sense of humor - 17%

about as funny as a slain soldier - 83%

the refusal by president bush's top security aide to testify publicly before the commission investigating the sept. 11 attacks elicited rebukes by commission members as they held open hearings this week. thomas kean, the former new jersey governor bush named to be chairman of the commission, said: "i think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting [rice] testify in public."

at the same time, some of rice's rebuttals of clarke's broadside against bush, which she delivered in a flurry of media interviews and statements rather than in testimony, contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.

deputy secretary of state richard armitage contradicted rice's claim that the white house had a strategy before sept. 11 for military operations against al qaeda and the taliban. the cia contradicted rice's earlier assertion that bush had requested a cia briefing in the summer of 2001 because of elevated terrorist threats. and rice's assertion this week that bush had told her on sept. 16, 2001, that "iraq is to the side" appeared to be contradicted by an order signed by bush on sept. 17 directing the pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of iraq.

rice, in turn, has contradicted vice president dick cheney's assertion that clarke was "out of the loop" and his intimation that clarke had been demoted. rice has also given various conflicting accounts. she criticized clarke for being the architect of failed clinton administration policies, but also said she had retained clarke so the bush administration could continue to pursue clinton's terrorism policies.

the political stars of the u.s. democratic party were in washington thursday night to help senator john kerry raise $11 million for his presidential campaign…

meanwhile, president bush raised over $2 million thursday night in mr. kerry's hometown of boston. as he has done repeatedly in the campaign, mr. bush told republican party faithful that mr. kerry waffles on key issues.

the grand jury that began the investigation wrapped up thursday. the investigation could be on to a second grand jury, according to the travis county district attorney.

i like to think that this hypothetical leader would have found a way to rise above the fray and unite the country: he would have embraced the commission's work, forthrightly admitted his own mistakes, sent his national security adviser to testify publicly -- and insisted that the security of the united states was too important to be buried in election-year squabbles.

president bush and his white house handlers did pretty much the opposite. they fanned the flames of partisan debate; when asked awkward questions, they stonewalled; rather than testify before the cameras, national security adviser condoleezza rice spent part of her wednesday afternoon dishing dirt to reporters about a commission witness who had criticized the president.

hemmer: the white house says… the previous administration was obsessed with nothing…they allege, at the time, why wasn't anything done to take al qaeda out. this was august of 2000…

clarke: well, a great deal was done. the administration stopped the al qaeda attacks in the united states and around the world at the millennium period, they stopped al qaeda in bosnia, they stopped al qaeda from blowing up embassies around the world…there was a great deal the administration did, even though at the time, prior to 9/11, al qaeda had arguably not done a great deal to the united states.

if you look at the eight years of the clinton administration, al qaeda was responsible for the deaths of fewer than 50 americans over those eight years. contrast that with ronald reagan, where 300 americans were killed in lebanon and there was no retaliation. contrast that with the first bush administration where 260 americans were killed on pan-am 103 and there was no retaliation.

delay and an aide in a march 8 private meeting at the omni houston hotel talked to houston supporters about the possible need to pay for a legal defense in connection with the grand jury investigation, according to two people who attended the meeting…

delay talked about the grand jury investigation only after being asked about it by one of the 40 to 50 people in attendance, sources told the chronicle.

delay talked briefly about a legal defense and then had an unidentified aide discuss the possible need for raising money for a legal defense fund.

one of those interviewed quoted delay as saying, "i fully anticipate being indicted."

a 1993 republican rule would force house majority leader tom delay to temporarily vacate his leadership position if he were indicted in a texas criminal investigation of state election spending.

the house republican conference rule stipulates that members in leadership jobs, committee or subcommittee chairmanships and ranking committee members must step aside if they are indicted on a felony punishable by at least two years in prison.

the reason we all liked each other at these hearings was that we all have jobs down here. these hearings may be serious to the press and the people, but you can't make anybody lose a job. that is the most important thing in washington, d.c. nobody should lose a job.

"no plumber ever fought for a job as hard as donald rumsfeld does for his. look at his record. good lord, he goes way, way back to working for nixon and ford, and do you know how long ago that was? rumsfeld was with the first bush and now he is with this bush and if you have a third, he'll be there early.

the first possibility is that the bush white house is so freewheeling, inattentive and just plain unlucky that it keeps appointing senior counterterrorism aides who actually turn out to be both policy incompetents and closet democratic partisans. the second that these malefactors leave the white house, they show their true colors and start leveling all manner of baseless charges against the president.

the second possibility is that every counterterrorism expert the white house hires who isn't (a) a hidebound ideologue or (b) a dyed-in-the-wool bush loyalist eventually becomes so disgusted with the mix of incompetence and mendacity that is the white house's counterterrorism policy that he eventually quits and then immediately sets about trying to drive the president from office.

in short, bush is on the side of the states against "distant bureaucracies" when he is governor of texas and on the side of washington, d.c., when he is running the federal government. when there is a budget surplus, he is in favor of tax cuts to return the surplus to the taxpayers, and when there is a deficit, he is still in favor of tax cuts.

when he focuses on human embryos, he speaks of his obligation to foster and encourage respect for life, but when respect for human life gets in the way of his wish to strike back at those he considers enemies of the united states, he is willing to bring about the deaths of thousands of innocent human beings. these are not the actions of a person of principle.

the capitol hill newspaper [roll call] said a gop congressional rule stipulates that members who hold elected leadership posts must temporarily step down if they are indicted on a felony charge…

delay's problem stems from a state grand jury sitting in austin that is probing allegations that corporate money was used illegally in 2002 legislative races in texas.

specifically, the grand jury is investigating whether state law was violated when a republican national committee group gave $190,000 to seven candidates for the texas house in 2002.

the donations were made on the same day, two weeks after a political committee called texans for a republican majority sent $190,000 in corporate money to the rnc group.

under state law, the political committee, created by delay, could not legally give corporate donations to candidates.

corporate profits posted a second straight double-digit annual gain in 2003, the commerce department said on thursday, but a lackluster job market suggests companies remain hesitant to hire...

the commerce department said after-tax corporate profits rose 7.6 percent in the fourth quarter, a slowdown from the 10.1 percent gain in the third quarter. for all of 2003, the department said after-tax profits were up a hefty 19.2 percent. that was down, however, from 2002's 24.6 percent increase.

there was bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. “those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” he said.

joe wilson, valerie plame, max cleland, paul o’neill, general zinni, and dick clarke are all unpatriotic liars and weenies right? has to be true; otherwise, this administration is both incompetent and dishonest. and that’s not possible. i mean, on the one hand we have people who have given their entire careers to serving the american people and in many cases, paid dearly for it. on the other, we have a guy who didn’t bother to show up for his cushy national guard service during a war he supported, spent most of his first forty years drinking and carousing, and having been made wealthy by his father’s associates, fell into the job of president where he (undeniably) misled his country into a war based on falsified evidence. gee that’s a hard one. no wonder ron brownstein thinks the clarke testimony might be a turning point.

new jobless claims were little changed last week, the government said thursday, coming in near wall street forecasts and raising some hopes for a strong monthly jobs report next week.

the labor department said 339,000 people filed new claims for state unemployment benefits in the week ended march 20, compared with a revised 338,000 the prior week.

but both those figures came in lower than the readings from the past few weeks. the march 13th week's report was the lowest number of new claims since jan. 13, 2001, when the number of new claims was only 316,000.

state gop leaders imposed a republican-friendly redistricting plan on the texas house, delay's money machine helped pack the house with craddick loyalists, and in return [tom] craddick would give delay a new congressional map that would provide the bug man [delay used to be an exterminator] with more friends and fewer enemies in d.c.

the tomstown scandal refers to a series of grand jury investigations and lawsuits...spawned during the execution of the toms' strategy of conquest. the two main groups whose activities are under scrutiny are the texas association of business, a pro-gop group with connections to both toms, and the texans for a republican majority political action committee, created by delay to secure gop control of the texas legislature. both groups are accused of violating texas election law during the 2002 state elections – into which tab and trmpac poured around $4.5 million – and during craddick's subsequent campaign to become speaker of the house.

because the state capital lies within the jurisdiction of travis county, earle is far more powerful than the d.a.s in larger cities, such as houston, dallas and san antonio. his public integrity unit has a mandate and legislative funding to prosecute public officials who break the law. he's held office for 27 years, and is the only democrat with statewide prosecutorial authority. his ongoing investigation of two political action committees that spent a combined $3.4 million on 22 republican texas house races is now focused on a pac founded by delay and directed by a delay operative.

mr. clarke's conclusion was that after george bush became president, neither he nor the terrorism agenda got the same top-level attention. the bush administration officials who testified denied that vociferously. their arguments suffered from the absence of condoleezza rice, the person to whom mr. clarke reported. ms. rice has been doing the rounds of talk shows in an attempt to bolster her argument that the administration had found mr. clarke's plans wanting and immediately began a full-bore effort to come up with a new antiterrorism strategy. what the nation deserved to hear her address publicly before the commission is why that process took eight months. a new plan was not approved by the white house until the eve of the terror attack on sept. 11, 2001.

donald rumsfeld told the 9/11 panel that there had been no point retaliating for the cole bombing in october 2000, "four months after the fact," because that might have sent a signal of weakness.

so it was too late to whack osama four months later, but not too late to re-whack saddam 12 years later?

instead of refuting clarke's claims, the bush administration has launched a campaign of character assassination, hoping that the story will just go away.

we're committed to stopping that from happening by making sure that the american public hears clarke's extraordinary comments. if we can raise $300,000 in the next few days, we can run a hard-hitting ad nationally that highlights his message. you can see a rough story board of the ad and donate to get it on the air at:

jose geraldo soares, a 43-year-old presbyterian pastor, had reserved two movie theaters at a belo horizonte shopping mall on sunday afternoon to see the film with his family and the congregations of two local churches.

but halfway through the movie, soares' wife noticed that he was no longer awake. a doctor who was also watching the film tended to soares, but the priest was already dead.

"he was calmly watching the movie next to his wife," said amauri costa, a family friend who also attended soares' funeral on monday.

soares is at least the second person to die while watching "the passion," which opened in brazil on friday. peggy scott, 56, died of a heart attack on feb. 25 in wichita, kansas while watching film's climactic crucifixion scene.

a suspected guerrilla rocket struck a central baghdad hotel used by foreign contractors and journalists early on wednesday, but caused limited damage and no injuries.

"there's evidence of some sort of rocket hitting the hotel at about the sixth floor,'' said one guest at the ishtar sheraton hotel.

the powerful blast, about a third of the way up the hotel, shattered some windows and smashed concrete.

"we've had to withdraw it for legal reasons," says an editor at secker & warburg, a u.k. division of random house. "we expected we would be able to publish it with a degree of risk. but regrettably in the final analysis we decided we could not."

"essentially it's been quashed," says author craig unger. scribner published the book in the united states on march 16. (shortly before that, salon ran exclusive excerpts from the book.)

unger's literary agent elizabeth sheinkman stresses the decision had nothing to do with the book's quality and that secker & warburg editors "were very excited about" the manuscript. "but they were concerned that it could be very costly for them," she says. "in the process of having it legally vetted they were ultimately advised it would be dangerous to publish the book. or rather, the likelihood of random house being sued by the saudis was too likely for them to go forward."

it was quiet on the veldt, as condi and rummy looked to the east, over the mosques, the compounds, the spider-holes, over the grass that was cut all wrong.

"something wicked this way comes," said condi.

rummy nodded his head, his eyes closed.

"it's coming," she said.

again, the nod, imperceptable.

"soon."

"it's terror," said rummy. he opened his eyes, the dark pale eyes of a man who has seen too much, but knows there is more to see. "and it's coming."

they began to walk away, slowly at first, then picking up speed, walking, then stepping lightly, like a jog, but not a jog; then faster, faster till they were running, as if running could take them out of harms way, though they both knew better.

"someone had better tell the boss," condi remarked, as the horizon loomed before them, "that the martian chronicles is not a newspaper the rover spirit found."

pakistani officials hinted late last week that ayman al-zawahiri, 52, an egyptian doctor and islamic militant regarded as an architect of al-qaeda's sept. 11 attacks in the usa, was cornered in the mountainous south waziristan district. but asked sunday whether the government had evidence of zawahiri's presence in the semi-autonomous tribal belt, mehmood shah, the head of security in the combustible northwest frontier province, was unequivocal.

"no. we have no indication. our guess was based on the amount of resistance we faced and the number of foreign fighters," shah said during an interview in his office here. "later on, many people started guessing names, and that's how his name came up."

pakistan's ambassador to the united states, ashraf jehangir qazi, told cnn on sunday that the intensity of the fighting indicated a "high-value target." he added, "we've made it absolutely clear that we do not know the identity of the high-value target that might be there."

q: clarke now says that he has three eyewitnesses, and he repeated it again this morning, and he named them -- to the conversation.

mr. mcclellan: let's just step backwards -- regardless, regardless, put that aside. there's no record of the president being in the situation room on that day that it was alleged to have happened, on the day of september the 12th.

a few facts about clarke: he's a republican. he served 30 years in government; for 10 years, under three republican presidents and one democrat, he served in the white house as one of the nation's most senior national security advisers. clarke is not a dove. he believes in an assertive foreign policy and a vigorous projection of u.s. military power, which should make him a natural ally of…cheney…rumsfeld and…wolfowitz...finally, what clarke has to say about the current bush administration's obsession from the start with iraq is corroborated by former treasury secretary paul o'neill in his memoir, "the price of loyalty."

frankly," he said, "i find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. he ignored it. he ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. maybe. we'll never know."

clarke went on to say, "i think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

the president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'i want you to find whether iraq did this.' now he never said, 'make it up.' but the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that george bush wanted me to come back with a report that said iraq did this.

"i said, 'mr. president. we've done this before. we have been looking at this. we looked at it with an open mind. there's no connection.'

"he came back at me and said, "iraq! saddam! find out if there's a connection.' and in a very intimidating way. i mean that we should come back with that answer. we wrote a report."

clarke continued, "it was a serious look. we got together all the fbi experts, all the cia experts. we wrote the report. we sent the report out to cia and found fbi and said, 'will you sign this report?' they all cleared the report. and we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the national security advisor or deputy. it got bounced and sent back saying, 'wrong answer. ... do it again.'

wolfowitz fidgeted and scowled. … “well, i just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin laden.”

“we are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al qaeda, that happens to be led by bin laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the united states,” i answered. …

wolfowitz turned to me. “you give bin laden too much credit. he could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on new york, not without a state sponsor. just because fbi and cia have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don’t exist.”

i could hardly believe it, but wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited laurie mylroie theory that iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the world trade center, a theory that had been investigated for years and found to be totally untrue.

the $26 million "dawn of the dead" remake easily cruised to a #1 finish with an estimated $27.3 million take over the weekend, according to studio estimates. the surprisingly strong finish for the sarah polley/ ving rhames popcorn flick meant that gibson's run at #1 was stopped at three weeks. the controversial retelling of the final 12 hours in the life of christ lost 40 percent of its audience, but slipped only one spot on $19.2 million in estimated grosses, bringing its to-date domestic total to $295.3 million.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, starring jim carrey and kate winslet, was the weekend's surprise, opening in fifth, with around $8.6m. distributors focus had clearly not expected much and had not given the film an especially wide release. but it seems carrey can still pull them in - indeed, according to variety, showings sold out in many venues.

energy task force met at least ten times: in 2001, vice president cheney formally convened his energy task force "10 times between january 29, 2001, and may 16, 2001. all but two of the meetings were held in the vice president’s ceremonial office." his staff also met at least 6 times with enron energy executives. [source: gao report, 8/22/03; ap, 1/8/02]

versus

counterterrorism task force never met: “bush said [in may of 2001] that cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'i will periodically chair a meeting of the national security council to review these efforts.' neither cheney's review nor bush's took place.” - washington post, 1/20/02

5/10/01 – ashcroft new doj budget goals memo: official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Ashcroft dated 5/10/2001 (directly compares to the 4/6/2000 reno memo). out of 7 strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism, a serious departure from reno...

post 9/11 – budget document detailing omb rejection of fbi counter-terror request: internal document showing that fbi requested $1.499 billion for counterterrorism for the post-september 11 emergency supplemental but received just $530 million from the white house, despite serious counterterrorism needs.

a "bush-cheney '04" campaign jacket sold on the internet has stirred controversy because it was made in myanmar, whose imports have been banned by the united states.

although the company that shipped the fleece pullover, spalding group of louisville, kentucky, has said it did so in error, human rights groups blamed president bush's re-election campaign staff for not taking a more careful look at the origin of the products being sold in its name.

the bush administration has had sanctions in place since september against myanmar -- also known by its colonial name burma -- in an attempt to punish the government over human rights violations.

"burma is one of the most repressive, brutal dictatorships in the world," said charles kernagan, head of the national labor committee, a group that seeks to combat sweatshops internationally. "the bush-cheney campaign was putting money into the hands of dictators with that purchase."

richard a. clarke, the former white house counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the bush administration of failing to recognize the al-qaida threat before the sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating america into war with iraq with dangerous consequences.

he accuses bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

clarke, who is expected to testify tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book, against all enemies, going on sale monday, that bush and his cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the cold war issues that had faced his father's administration.

"it was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," clarke told cbs for an interview to air today on its 60 minutes program.

so, many people began to ask "who did it?", "not all of us are here, we lack 200" and "we want the truth before voting" already in the mammoth antiterrorist demonstrations on friday. the government stuck to the eta [basque separatist group] hypothesis trying to avoid this probable electoral damage. they must have thought that using their massive media control they could cover it up for four days, until election's aftermath. government-controlled public and private televisions, radios and newspapers broadcasted once and again "it was eta", but each minute less people was buying it. it has been said that workers of some of this media were near to revolt because of the pressures to avoid the islamic hypothesis (today, efe -spanish state press agency- workers' unions have asked for the immediate resignation of their boss because of this)…

and sunday came, and it was election's day. i didn't see fear. i saw mourning. a strange feeling, believe me. spaniards use to be very funny. people is continously laughing and making jokes about everything, specially the younger. watching all that people lining up to vote without a laugh nor a smile was impressive. and there was something more in truckloads of eyes. anger. deep anger. no incidents…

but let me tell you that i honestly think that we voted not guided by fear, but guided by anger. in the critical hours after the attack, aznar's government confronted and bipolarized the spanish people lying and manipulating even when the truth was alreday obvious for millions. this caused an automatic reaction in the low and middle classes thinking "they make wars against our opinion, then it's our blood who pays them, and furthermore they're lying us and insulting our deads and our intelligence". not a good cocktail for a government seeking re-election, i'm afraid.

[sheriff's spokeswoman eileen] hirst and police spokeswoman isabel crowell said they believe all 81 are from a group of about 100 that split off from the main march and rally around 3 p.m. they allegedly blocked market street and refused to disperse, resulting in what police described as some minor physical confrontations.

the day's events were otherwise peaceful, police said.

protesters gathered in dolores park this morning, making their way through the mission to market street, then headed to the civic center where speakers called for an end to the military occupation of iraq.

act now to stop war and racism (answer), which organized the protest, claimed that 50,000 people filled the streets of san francisco. police do not release their estimates of crowd totals, crowell said.

in all, the military had brought six counts against yee, but never brought espionage-related charges against him, reports reuters news agency…

guantanamo base commander major gen. geoffrey miller dropped all the charges against yee because of the difficulty of prosecuting him without giving defense lawyers additional classified information, u.s. southern command spokesman lieutenant colonel bill costello told afp.

the military had initially linked him to a possible espionage ring at the naval base in cuba. but the government failed to build a capital espionage case against him. prosecutors have not disclosed much about their case, reports the ap…

they collapsed. chaplain yee has won his case," yee's civilian lawyer, eugene fidell, told reuters. "this represents a long overdue vindication. in our view, he's entitled to an apology and we'll be looking forward to receiving one."

asked if yee would get an apology, [u.s. southern command spokesman lieutenant colonel bill] costello said, "i don't know."

fidell said that "we reject the notion that security concerns played any role in this decision," instead saying the government's case went "up in smoke”…

yee's lawyers had offered to have yee submit to 30 days of polygraph exams for questioning on spy-related issues, reports reuters.

anti-war protesters turned out nationwide saturday to mark the first anniversary of the u.s.-led war on iraq, with 30,000 marching through manhattan to call for the removal of american troops from the middle east country.

two anti-war protesters have evaded tight security to climb london's big ben clock tower at the houses of parliament, as 25,000 people marched through the city on the first anniversary of the iraq invasion.

the pair unfurled a banner which read "time for truth", before abseiling down from the clockface 328 feet (100 metres) above the capital six hours later. they were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage.

from sydney to tokyo, madrid, london, new york and san francisco, protesters condemned u.s. policy in iraq and said they did not believe iraqis are better off or the world safer because of the war.

journalists estimated that at least a million people streamed through rome, in probably the biggest single protest.

in new york, thousands joined a rally on madison avenue, which was to be followed by a march through midtown manhattan. thousands more demonstrated in london, seoul, tokyo and australia, and other protests were planned in europe and as many as 245 u.s. cities, according to united for peace and justice, a new-york based anti-war coalition.

the protesters want ``a new direction for america'' that starts ``with getting out of iraq, bringing in un peacekeepers and bringing our troops home,'' said u.s. representative dennis kucinich, an ohio democrat who addressed the new york rally. kucinich, 57, sought the democratic presidential nomination, which was clinched this week by senator john kerry, 60.

tens of thousands marched through central london, some of them waving placards that called president bush the "world's no. 1 terrorist." anti-war demonstrators held a huge rally in rome, where organizers said up to 2 million people turned out and police estimated 250,000.

some 150,000 people demonstrated in barcelona, spain, city hall officials reported.

france, germany, greece, the netherlands and other european countries also saw protests, while earlier demonstrations took place in japan, australia and india. in the philippines, protesters clashed with riot police, although no injuries were reported.

anti-american feelings ran high in egypt, where demonstrators in cairo – vastly outnumbered by riot police – burned u.s. flags. hundreds of people gathered in other middle eastern capitals to denounce the war.

the disparity between rapid productivity growth in mechanized sectors and slow productivity growth in human-service jobs produces baumol's disease—named after the economist william j. baumol. according to baumol, in a technological economy falling prices for manufactured goods and automated services eventually increase the relative cost of labor-intensive services such as nursing and teaching. baumol has predicted that the share of gross domestic product spent on health care will rise from 11.6 percent in 1990 to 35 percent in 2040, while the share spent on education will rise from 6.7 percent to 29 percent.

the shifting of relative costs need not in itself be a problem. if americans in 2050 or 2100 pay far more (as a percentage of their spending) for health care and education than they did in 1900, they may still be better off—if they pay correspondingly less for other goods and services. the problem is that as the relative cost of services like education and health care rises, more and more americans will find themselves in service-sector jobs that, unlike the professions, have historically been low-wage.

technology is changing the job market by shoving people out of sectors that can be mechanized or automated—factory production, data processing, clerical work—and into sectors requiring a human touch, from nursing to law. as the twenty-first century began, most jobs created were in non-unionized service sectors where wages were low because of a glut of labor and where the prospects for long-term productivity gains were minimal…

some economists assert that increases in productivity will inevitably translate into higher wages throughout the economy. but this is a matter of faith, not fact. baumol's analysis tends to undermine such easy optimism. most productivity advances occur in mechanized and automated sectors, which employ a shrinking number of americans; so how will the growing number of americans in service jobs share the gains of high productivity growth?

in the absence of some system of private or public redistribution, then, there is no guarantee that rising national productivity will spontaneously and inevitably produce rising incomes and wealth for most americans, rather than just windfalls for the fortunate few.

neither the army nor a soldier who opted not to return to duty after a furlough know what to expect next. staff sgt. camilo mejia did not report back to c company, 1/124th infantry battalion last fall. after 31 days, his florida national guard unit reported him as a deserter.

mejia turned himself into authorities at hanscom air force base in concord, ma, on monday and his lawyer has filed a petition with fort stewart commanding general maj. gen. william webster for mejia to be granted conscientious objector status.

"i might be facing criminal charges," mejia admitted during a news conference wednesday at the ramada inn in hinesville, just before he reported to fort stewart. "i'm not really sure how they are going to handle it. i expect them to treat me with respect"...

"a decision has not been made," said maj. robert resnick, the chief of criminal law for fort stewart. "he will be treated just like any other noncommissioned officer on fort stewart. he is not currently charged with anything right now."

mejia accuses commanders of using gis as "bait" to lure out iraqi fighters so that u.s. soldiers could win combat decorations. he also says operations were conducted in ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. he has accused his battalion and company commanders of incompetence and has reiterated past guardsmen's complaints about being poorly equipped…

perhaps the turning point for mejia was the day in iraq he was ordered to shoot at iraqis protesting and hurling grenades toward his position from about 75 yards away - what he considered too far a distance to be a real threat. mejia and his men opened fire on one, and he fell, his blood pooling around him.

"it was the first time i had fired at a human being," mejia recalled. "i guess you could say it was my initiation at killing a human being. … one thing i ask myself a lot, 'did i hit him?'

join tens of thousands of others across the country and world and wear a brown armband or ribbon to symbolize all the bs coming out of the white house.

find myself apologizing to my foreign friends both in this country and abroad while trying vainly to explain the sheer idiocy and illogic of the current administration's policies.

so this april 1st, april fools day, join tens of thousands of others who are wearing brown armbands or ribbons to signify the bullshit flowing down from washington.

making the armbands is easy - just use tape and cut a brown paper bag, brown cloth, a brown sheet, ribbon, or anything else into strips 3 inches wide and 12-24 inches long. or get brown ribbon. if you make a band for yourself, then make lots of spares to pass on to friends and strangers.

governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. they provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. they provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government.

and, most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government. any sports fan can tell you that football, baseball, or hockey without rules and referees would be a mess. similarly, business without rules won't work...

if you want to play the game of business, we've said in the us since 1784 (when tench coxe got the first tariffs passed "to protect domestic industries") then you have to play in a way that both makes you money and serves the public interest.

which requires us to puncture the second balloon of popular belief. the "middle class" is not the natural result of freeing business to do whatever it wants, of "free and open markets," or of "free trade." the "middle class" is not a normal result of "free markets." those policies will produce a small but powerful wealthy class, a small "middle" mercantilist class, and a huge and terrified worker class which have traditionally been called "serfs."

the middle class is a new invention of liberal democracies, the direct result of governments defining the rules of the game of business. it is, quite simply, an artifact of government regulation of markets and tax laws.

when i stray into these sites [sullivan, reynolds, hanson] now, it's like entering the visitor's center of a historical landmark. the rhododentrons need dusting, and the tour guide isn't listening to himself, having done his spiel endless times before.

liberal blogs are now where the bonfires blaze.

a bulletproof landcruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in pakistan's south waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the us's quest to bring down the top of the al-qa'ida tree.

the car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained ayman al-zawahiri, right-hand man to osama bin laden.

after mounting speculation that us and pakistani forces ranged on either side of the afghanistan-pakistan border were about to pounce on al-qa'ida's key planner, a senior taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim washington least wanted to hear - that both zawahiri and bin laden were safe in afghanistan.

"he may have slipped the net," the official said.

two soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in fighting thursday in central afghanistan, the u.s. military said. at least five attackers were killed in the battle, officials said.

in a brief statement, u.s. central command said the american soldiers were accompanied by troops of the afghan national army when they were attacked by “anti-coalition militia” in a village near tarin kowt.

the americans were not identified by name or military unit.

kerry's remarks about foreign leaders drew a skeptical response sunday from powell, who told fox news that he had no idea what foreign leaders kerry was talking about.

"it's an easy charge, an easy assertion to make. but if he feels it is that important an assertion to make, he ought to list some names," powell said. ``if he can't list names, then perhaps he should find something else to talk about."

since the fcc crackdown on media "indecency" in the wake of janet jackson's nipplegate incident, stern has transformed his morning variety show into a rabidly anti-bush talk forum. every weekday, he has been devoting hours of his broadcast (locally on wbcn-fm, 104.1) to impassioned criticism of president bush and support of senator john kerry. railing tirelessly against the president, stern has been attacking bush's yoking together of church and state, the legitimacy of his national guard service, his use of sept. 11 imagery in his campaign ads, his stances regarding first amendment rights, his handling of iraq, and his stands on gay marriage and stem-cell research.

"join me and friends of this show who are outraged," stern said on the air last friday. "vote out every republican you can find." he has also been urging his listeners to send money to kerry's campaign, calling him "a good man" and praising his record in vietnam as well as his later criticism of the vietnam war.

some people will dismiss stern not because they don't believe he has a following, but because they believe his listeners don't vote," todd says. "i would argue that a swing voter is just that; they swing between not voting and voting, not between the two parties. so if he brings some nonvoters to the polls, then that's a big impact."

of most concern to the m.c.’s, though, is mounting distress over the influence of the neoconservatives in the white house, men such as cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, perle, and others. according to the christian science monitor, “neoconservatives believe that the united states should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. some even speak of the need to cultivate a us empire. neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the us can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action.” on a foreboding note, richard perle states, “the president of the united states, on issue after issue, has reflected the thinking of neoconservatives.” noting that rumsfeld micro-manages the pentagon, it seems apparent in recent testimony provided by george tenet, cia director, that rumsfeld and cheney maneuvered around the cia to provide a casus belli for iraq. turns out, that “casus” was a will-o’-the wisp. that’s scary for what it portends of the future.

anyway, what was so weird about it was how professional it seemed until i finally sat down with miller. it was set up long in advance by the book’s publicists. the car came on time. in my dressing room, which was pretty elaborate as such things go, i met with a series of staff members who informed me that dennis would be wanting to discuss topics such as george soros and the funding of 527s; whether bush was exploiting the 9/11 families, and i forget what else, just like a real talk show. then i go out there and what? i’m talking to a stoned teenager, who can’t be bothered to say more than, “whoh, man, you are so totally screwed up. like, you really believe that stuff, dude?” i paraphrase, but really, dennis did not say much more than that. everyone on staff was extremely apologetic afterward and the word “unprofessional” was used over and over.

i try to avoid most of these guys, though i’ve been on o’reilly, and scarborough and michael medved’s silly radio program a couple of times but never have i encountered a guy who could not be bothered to make his own case on his own show. really, what can cnbc be thinking with this guy? his ratings are not just in the toilet they have traveled all the way to the septic tank. and as we all know, they need to pay audience members to show up. it has got to cost more than the phil donahue show to produce, given the size of the audience and the set and that was yanked even though it was then the highest rated show on msnbc.

sen. john mccain, r-ariz., said thursday he did not believe democratic candidate john kerry, a friend and senate colleague, was weak on defense or would compromise national security if elected president.

"this kind of rhetoric, i think, is not helpful in educating and helping the american people make a choice," mccain said on "the early show" on cbs. "you know, it's the most bitter and partisan campaign that i've ever observed. i think it's because both parties are going to their bases rather than going to the middle. i regret it”…

asked on nbc's "today" if he thought kerry was weak on defense, mccain said: "no, i do not believe that he is, quote, weak on defense. he's responsible for his voting record, as we are all responsible for our records, and he'll have to explain it. but, no, i do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense. i don't agree with him on some issues, clearly. but i decry this negativism that's going on on both sides. the american people don't need it."

when asked on "the early show" if kerry's election would compromise national security, mccain responded: "i don't think that - i think that john kerry is a good and decent man. i think he has served his country."

a suicide bomber blew up a car thursday near a hotel in the southern city of basra as a british military patrol passed by, killing three bystanders, the latest in a series of attacks just before the anniversary of the start of the u.s.-led war.

nbc news’ baghdad bureau reported that several new explosions were heard thursday night near the so-called green zone, where the u.s.-led coalition headquarters is based…

in other strikes thursday, three iraqi journalists were gunned down northeast of baghdad, while eight marines were wounded in a mortar attack near fallujah. two iraqis were killed in the flashpoint city in a gunfight that followed the attack, according to eyewitnesses.

a u.s. marine was killed yesterday and three were wounded in a mortar attack in western iraq, a senior coalition military official said, according to agence france-presse. earlier the coalition announced that two u.s. soldiers were killed in attacks yesterday.

the attack on marines came near the iraqi-syrian border at qusayba, afp cited the official as saying. the marine was the first to die since 25,000 u.s. marines arrived in iraq earlier this year, relieving other forces returning to the u.s., afp reported.

a mortar attack on a coalition base near baghdad airport just outside the capital killed two u.s. soldiers and injured six others, afp said earlier, citing a statement from the u.s. military. one soldier, in the 13th corps support command, died immediately in the attack yesterday on logistics base seitz, afp said. three of the eight injured were evacuated to a hospital, where one died of his injuries, the news agency said.

the statement [from the group] said it supported president bush (news - web sites) in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in november rather than the democratic candidate john kerry (news - web sites), as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."

in comments addressed to bush, the group said:

"kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the arab and muslim nation as civilization."

"because of this we desire you (bush) to be elected."

“this remains a time of testing in iraq,'' white house spokesman scott mcclellan said in washington. ``the stakes are high. the terrorists know the stakes are high. but they will not prevail. we will meet this test with strength and with resolve.''

u.s. 1st armored division forces had just begun operation iron promise to root out resistance fighters in baghdad. the offensive targets extremists who have attacked mosques and clerics, and set bombs that have killed iraqi civilians and american soldiers, army brigadier general mark kimmitt said today.

“they wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons," [hans blix] said. "like the former days of the witch hunt, they are convinced that they exist, and if you see a black cat, well, that's evidence of the witch."

in a talk to a crowd of 1,200 people on monday night at new york university, mr. blix said he did not share the bush administrations' view that the war had made the world a safer place.

"sorry to say it doesn't look that way," he said. "if the aim was to send a signal to terrorists that we are determined to take you on, that has not succeeded. in iraq, it has bred a lot of terrorism and a lot of hatred to the western world."

speaking more assertively on "today" about the iraq war than he does in "disarming iraq," his new book, mr. blix charged the bush administration with invading iraq as retaliation for the terrorism strikes on the united states, even though there was no evidence linking saddam hussein to the attackers.

"so in a way, you could say that iraq was perhaps as much punitive as it was pre-emptive," he said. "it was a reaction to 9/11 that we have to strike some theoretical, hypothetical links between saddam hussein and the terrorists. that was wrong. there wasn't anything."

mr. blix said the americans and british depended too much on defectors and exercised too little critical judgment in assessing their information. "the c.i.a. certainly is very used to debriefing defectors, so they must have had a critical mind," he said, "but they also knew what they wanted to hear at the top."

richard foster, one of the government's foremost medicare experts, says he was ordered not to provide requested information to congress last fall when doubts were being raised about the drug benefit's cost. the administration denies this, but a ranking former official has confirmed mr. foster's story. as the bill was being considered, mr. foster privately cautioned that its cost could amount to as much as $600 billion, while the white house publicly stuck to the congressional budget office figure of $400 billion over 10 years. the administration eventually conceded a cost of $534 billion, but only after the bill was safely signed into law.

"i mistranscribed a key word," explains patrick healy, a political reporter for the boston globe who covered the event in a pool capacity.

"listening to the audio recorder now, in the quiet of my house, i hear 'more leaders' and i am certain that 'more leaders' is what senator kerry said"...

healy claims in an e-mail correction: "transcribing on the bus in florida, and again on the plane ride to tampa, i heard 'foreign leaders' rather than 'more leaders'. i am very sorry for this screw-up, and please feel free to hold me accountable to your editors and higher-ups."

it was healy's pool reporting of kerry's "i've met foreign leaders" quote that ignited the original firestorm, and resulted in a dare from secretary of state colin powell to name names!

cedric brown, owner of a local sign company, defied an angry crowd and demanded that kerry reveal the names of the leaders. brown questioned whether kerry had met with any foreign officials recently.

kerry refused to answer brown's questions, but insisted he has spoken with "several" leaders "at different levels." he admitted that none of these conversations took place in person.

kerry has not traveled outside the united states since late 2002.

"no leader would obviously share a conversation if i started listing them," kerry said when informed of powell's comments.

the president's mother, in particular, is worried that she has seen this movie before. says the official: "she does not want to see her family go through a '92 thing again."

we, on the other hand, absolutely want the bush family to live through another 1992.

so here's the deal. i'm doing a one-week blogathon to raise money for the general campaign…

my hope is to raise $25,000 total for the effort. the kerry campaign and the dnc are the only two organizations that can spend their money in coordination. so let's give them the resources necessary to give the bushes their own private groundhog day.

voters, many wearing the black ribbon symbols of national grief since thursday's attack, turned out in numbers well above the last election in 2000 amid an angry debate over who was behind the bombings -- al qaeda or basque separatists.

analysts had warned the [current administration's popular party] could be hit if voters believed a purported al qaeda video's claims that the group had mounted its first attack in europe and in reprisal for spain's support for the u.s.-led war in iraq that most spaniards opposed.

"clearly the attacks have taken their toll. it's a raw nerve for the electorate and that nerve has been touched," said henrik lumholdt, economist and head of strategy at inversis.

in his first remarks to reporters since his party's defeat of the center-right popular party candidate on sunday, prime minister-elect josé luis rodríguez zapatero had only scathing criticism for the american-led war against iraq, which his party, like 90 percent of the spanish people, opposed.

"the war has been a disaster, the occupation continues to be a great disaster," mr. zapatero said on the spanish radio station cadena ser. "it hasn't generated anything but more violence and hate. what simply cannot be is that — after it became so clear how badly it was handled — there be no consequences. mr. bush and mr. blair will have to reflect and engage in some self-criticism, so things like that don't happen again."

alluding to the assertions by prime minister josé maría aznar, prime minister tony blair of britain and president bush that the conflict had been justified by the conviction — still unproven — that iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat, he added: "you can't organize a war on the basis of lies. you can't bomb a people just in case."

but as klein argues, a "sovereign" iraqi government could proceed legally with privatizing the country. so having passed privatization and rightwing laws to encourage the financial stripping of the country before turning over the country, article 26 requires the new "sovereign" iraqi government to implement those laws, thereby giving them retroactive legal sanction.

don't believe the hype-- with article 26, the occupation continues after june. a government that cannot change us-imposed laws is nothing more than a remote controlled puppet regime.

as the one-year anniversary of operation iraqi freedom approaches, anti-war activists plan to commemorate the event sunday with a funeral procession beginning in camden and ending in the nation's capital.

"this is absolutely a show of support for the troops," said event organizer gordon clark of washington, d.c.

"supporting the troops does not mean to put them into harm's way on a pretense."

dubbed the dover to dc memorial procession, members of about 17 anti-war organizations will gather in camden at noon.

after a prayer service, the procession will move to its official starting point at the main gate of dover air force base. at 2:30 p.m. it will begin a two-day journey to washington.

tomorrow, many others will gather here in front of the walter reed army hospital, where the war's most seriously wounded recuperate, then will march to the white house. they are coming from california, new jersey, alabama, illinois, ohio, arkansas and places in between, all paying their own way because they feel they must raise their voices to save others the anguish they feel.

the base is the site of the nation's biggest military mortuary -- where bodies of u.s. soldiers are brought from iraq. military veterans and families of soldiers killed in iraq are among the demonstrators…

demonstrators criticized the military policy of banning news coverage of the return of flag-draped coffins carrying u.s. soldiers.

bomb attacks in baghdad killed four u.s. soldiers, the army said on sunday, bringing to nine the number of troops killed in iraq in the last four days by explosives planted by guerrillas to target american patrols.

a military spokesman said a roadside bomb blast in southern baghdad around 10:45 p.m. (1945 gmt) on saturday killed three u.s. soldiers and wounded one.

another bomb attack at 6:30 a.m. on sunday wounded an american soldier who later died in hospital, the spokesman said.

on saturday, a bomb was detonated as a u.s. patrol passed in saddam hussein's hometown of tikrit. guerrillas then opened fire. two soldiers were killed and several wounded.

two bomb attacks on wednesday and thursday in the restive "sunni triangle" around baghdad killed three soldiers.

i said practically these exact words to some folks in dc yesterday, then went back to my hotel and watched carlos watson say them to wolf blitzer:

watson: democrats have a new secret weapon.

for a long time, you have heard democrats complain that republicans have conservative talk radio, that rush limbaugh, sean hannity and bill o'reilly and others have shaped the agenda and gotten people aroused and excited at the base. and finally, in 2004, democrats have an answer. the answer is what? it's the blogs, the so-called web logs, where people go online and write information, write commentary, post news stories.

very interesting study out of george washington says about 15 to 20 million people are now actively using the internet and these web logs in particular, sites like daily kos and talking points memo. and what's significant here is that democrats are using this to shape the agenda, because, remember, lots of washington reporters read these. they're using these to excite their own base, just like conservative talk show radio does.

a roadside bomb in saddam hussein's hometown killed two american soldiers and wounded four saturday, a day after the military said two other soldiers died in a similar explosion elsewhere in iraq's so-called sunni triangle.

the soldiers killed saturday were patrolling in downtown tikrit, north of baghdad, around 5 a.m. in an armored humvee when a roadside bomb exploded, said capt. tim crowe of the u.s. army.

a bomb exploded at a shop in a busy commercial district of central baghdad on saturday, killing the store owner and wounding several others, police and witnesses said.

the clothing and accessories store was completely destroyed, it's windows blown out and the ceiling fallen in. the windows of nearby shops were also shattered and pools of blood were visible on the pavement alongside torn and bloodied clothing.

"the shop-owner was killed and three people were injured," police officer abbas abid said at the scene.

q. what is the purpose of this bill?

a. the purpose of the cra is to restrict the appellate jurisdiction of the united states supreme court and all lower federal courts to that jurisdiction permitted them by the constitution of the united states. the acknowledgment of god as the sovereign source of law, liberty, and government is contained within the declaration of independence which is cited as the “organic law” of our country by united states code annotated. the constitution of every state of the union acknowledges god and his sovereignty, as do three branches of the federal government. the acknowledgment of god is not a legitimate subject of review by federal courts. the cra also protects and preserves the constitution of the united states by restricting federal courts from recognizing the laws of foreign jurisdictions and international law as the supreme law of our land.

q. does this bill reverse supreme court precedent?

a. to the extent that any decision of the united states supreme court or that of any federal district court made prior to or after the effective date of the act prohibits the acknowledgment of god as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government, such precedent would not be binding on state courts.

"former alabama chief justice roy moore's disregard for the first amendment rears its ugly head once again," according to americans for religious liberty (arl) president edd doerr…

"not only is this initiative an affront to jefferson's wall of church-state separation, it clearly violates the constitutional separation of powers," continues doerr. "blanket removal of the necessary restrictions that prevent state sponsored favoritism toward particular religious traditions and slight others is undeniably unconstitutional…

"with this proposed legislation and others such as the ten commandments defense act (hr-2045) and the religious liberties restoration act (s-1558), danger to church-state separation and religious liberty is at a high point. a recent plaintiff in the philadelphia ten commandments case, arl will seek other opportunities to bring the right case all the way to the supreme court. additionally, arl will work with coalition partners to defeat every piece of legislation that endangers religious freedom." doerr concluded.

the university of michigan's preliminary index of consumer sentiment declined to 94.1 from 94.4 in february, when confidence fell by the most since the terrorist attacks in september 2001. the survey's gauge of optimism over the next five months dropped for a second month, and an index of current conditions rose.

“although jobs gains continue, they are rather modest and that's what is affecting people's overall sentiment,'' said kevin logan, a senior market economist at dresdner kleinwort wasserstein in new york, and the top forecaster of consumer spending in a bloomberg markets magazine survey last year.

economists had forecast a slight improvement to 95.0, after a dramatic decline in the index in february.

"these confidence surveys are reflecting what people are reading -- that the economy is not creating jobs," said avery shenfeld, senior economist at cibc world markets.

the pioneering shock jock, "the man who launched the raunch," as the los angeles times once put it, has emerged almost overnight as the most influential bush critic in all of american broadcasting, as he rails against the president hour after hour, day after day to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. never before has a republican president come under such withering attack from a radio talk-show host with the influence and national reach stern has…

stern had strongly backed bush's war on iraq, but in the past two weeks, he has derided the president as a "jesus freak," a "maniac" and "an arrogant bastard," while ranting against "the christian right minority that has taken over the white house." specifically, stern has assailed bush's use of 9/11 images in his campaign ads, questioned his national guard service, condemned his decision to curb stem cell research and labeled him an enemy of civil liberties, abortion rights and gay rights.

in other words, it's the kind of free campaign rhetoric the democratic national committee couldn't have imagined just one month ago.

"that's the demographic howard stern targets specifically," says [phoenix talk show host charles] goyette. "if bush's grip on men continues to soften, he could be in big trouble."

anecdotally, those daily phone calls from listeners -- mostly men -- who tell stern they usually don't vote, but this year they're definitely going to vote against bush (and it's usually against, bush not for sen. john kerry) cannot be comforting to the bush/cheney '04 strategists.

but stern quickly complained on-air that the real reason clear channel yanked his show was that just days earlier he'd begun questioning the president and praising comedian/commentator al franken's anti-bush book "lies, and the lying liars who tell them." stern insisted it was political speech, not indecency, that got him in trouble with the san antonio broadcasting giant, whose ceo, lowry mays, is close to the president and the bush family. the jock still condemns clear channel and its republican connections, but most of stern's firepower today is directed squarely at bush and his close association with the religious right, which stern says is the driving force behind the fcc crackdown on indecency.

“air america radio will be available immediately in top markets across the country, and our distribution channels will continue to expand in the coming months via affiliation agreements with partner stations across the land,” said air america radio president jon sinton. air america radio will debut its programming on radio stations wlib (am 1190am) in new york, wntd (am 950) in chicago and kbla (am 1580) in los angeles and a station in san francisco to be named before launch. randi can be heard on 1290 wjno in west palm beach.

as the bush-cheney campaign prepares to launch its first negative television ads tonight, house republicans are abusing taxpayer resources to join in on the sleazy attack effort. the gop-controlled house resources committee has posted what appears to be a pure campaign attack on sen. john kerry on its website.

the committee's news release attacks sen. kerry for his opposition to the republicans' special interest energy policies. it's supposedly an official press release, but it resembles a bush-cheney campaign document in every way but the government letterhead. the release even features an un-attributed quote from a bush-cheney campaign spokesman.

"taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing the bush-cheney campaign's negative attacks against sen. kerry," said dccc chairman robert t. matsui (ca). "this is a clear abuse of official resources, and yet another example of the outrageous arrogance of republicans controlling our government."

contact: kori bernards/greg speed, (202) 485-3440

for days now, the job at eisenhower park in nassau county has been to follow the order from the white house through the secret service and down to the park workers:

"the president's feet are not to touch the dirt."

so all yesterday, large crews drawn from all county parks worked to ensure that, as always in his life, george bush's feet do not touch the ground when he appears in the big park today.

bush arrives for a fund-raiser at a restaurant in the park. that is indoors and he doesn't have to worry about his feet there. but he has to go over ground to an administration building where he is to meet with families of 9/11 victims. after that, he has to go over more ground to get to the site of a memorial to the victims.

he doesn't want his feet on the ground and he will be at a groundbreaking ceremony.

the poem entitled dubya's poetic injustice states that during george w. bush's election 2000 campaign, bush promised to be a "compassionate conservative" and to have a "humble foreign policy." after this poem was published, we learned that bush was "crossing his fingers" whenever he made those promises, so "they didn't really count." we regret this error.

in dubya's don't blame me song the lyricist itemizes several things as not being george w. bush's fault, including the jobless rate, 9/11, the mission accomplished banner, and the lack of wmd's. we have since learned that many more things weren't the president's fault and we regret our lack of comprehensiveness.

a song entitled oh, what a mis'rable failure repeatedly refers to president george w. bush as a "mis'rable failure." as it turns out, george w. bush is a fabulous success. we apologize for this error and have terminated the songwriter.
a jan 31, 2004 interview with vice president cheney quotes cheney as claiming (1) to have created more jobs than any prior administration and (2) to have never heard of justice antonin scalia. the vice president asserts that he was "just kidding around with the interviewer" when he made both statements and that "the interview never took place." after a lengthy interrogation, our interviewer finally admitted that the interview "was only a dream." we would make her apologize, but she's currently in therapy.

the spinning song asserts that the bush administration uses spinmeisters. however, bush spinmeisters advise us that the bush administration never uses spinmeisters. we are really, really, really, really sorry.

democratic presidential candidate sen. john kerry said on thursday that he was not referring to all republicans as "crooked" in an off-the-cuff comment captured on camera -- just his political opponents' "attack dogs."

after a union rally in chicago, illinois, on wednesday kerry told a worker that "these guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group of people i've ever seen." his microphone was still on when he made the comments.

kerry, who was on capitol hill thursday to meet with congressional democrats, he told cnn, "i didn't say it about the republicans, i said it about the attack dogs."

on wednesday, a campaign aide had said that kerry wasn't talking about president bush.

bush campaign chairman marc racicot said kerry's comments were "unbecoming of a candidate for the presidency.''

"on the day that senator kerry emerged as his party's presumptive nominee, the president called to congratulate him. that goodwill gesture has been met by attacks and false statements,'' racicot said.

"tonight we call on senator kerry to apologize to the american people for this negative attack,'' he added.

"if you ask me, he's getting off on the wrong foot in this campaign by name-calling," house speaker dennis hastert, r-ill., told reporters as

he and other gop leaders met in his office thursday. "we're not lying when we start saying that senator kerry is the old-time democrat of tax and spend."

rep. jack kingston, r-ga., said, "we see john kerry as ted kennedy on a south beach diet."

rep. tom delay, r-texas, said kerry's remark about "crooked ... lying" republicans gave americans "a little glimpse of the real john kerry, and he's not even tired yet." sen. rick santorum, r-pa., said kerry should apologize for a comment "outside the bounds of where people who want to hold the highest office in this country should be making."

when the bush campaign asked james mckinnon to co-chair its veterans steering committee in new hampshire - a job he held in 2000 - the 56-year-old vietnam veteran respectfully, but firmly, said no.

"i basically told them i was disappointed in his support of veterans," said mckinnon, who served two tours in vietnam with the coast guard. "he's killing the active-duty military. ... look at the reserves call-ups for iraq, the hardships. the national guard - the state militia - is being used improperly. i took the president at his word on iraq, and now you can't find a single report to back up or substantiate weapons of mass destruction."

by the time army 2nd lt. seth dvorin was sent to iraq last september, however, his father was having doubts. and now that seth had been killed, at 24, by an "improvised explosive device" south of baghdad, doubt had turned to anger.

"where are all the weapons of mass destruction?" richard dvorin demanded in his letter. "where are the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons?" his son's life, he wrote, "has been snuffed out in a meaningless war."

his is not the only military family to think so. in suburban cleveland a few days later, the rev. tandy sloan tuned in to the "meet the press" interview with president bush and felt "disgust." his 19-year-old son, army pvt. brandon sloan, was killed when his convoy was ambushed last march. "a human being can make mistakes," the rev. sloan says of the president. "but if you intentionally mislead people, that's another thing."

in fullerton, calif., paralegal student kimberly huff, whose army reservist husband recently returned from iraq, makes a similar point with a wardrobe of homemade protest t-shirts that say things like "support our troops, impeach bush."

a group called military families speak out -- which will figure prominently in marches and vigils at dover air force base, walter reed army medical center and the white house next week -- says more than 1,000 families have signed up online and notes that new members join daily. other outspoken family members -- dvorin, for example -- have never heard of the group but, for a variety of reasons, share its founders' conviction that the war is a "reckless military misadventure."

my beloved son brian died for your red herring in the sand. he was an honorable, restrained, talented, caring man, and the world would be better off with him alive and well. he resigned his commission in the illinois national guard when assigned to duty in iraq as a matter of conscience. he served nonetheless, and he bled for 1/2 hour in the desert sand before any help arrived, though the helicopter he was flying was only 5 minutes off the ground when it crashed, according to witnesses.

after his death, i received two letters from him telling me he hoped to be home in april, 2004. on christmas day i visited his grave. he did not give his life. it was cruelly taken from him by your rush to war -- against the united nations, old allies like france and germany, western religions' "just war doctrine," the entire arab world, and most civilized nations.

you inherited peace and prosperity and created murder, mayhem, and massive debt. according to the ongoing investigation of the helicopter crash that took brian's and 15 other american lives, the illinois national guard aircraft were sent into the field without basic survivability equipment, to accommodate your "shoot and bomb first, think and investigate later" brand of foreign policy. we don't need a trigger happy president.

when the british rock band pink floyd poetically stated in the song titled ?time? in 1973 that ?no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun?? they could not have imagined that those words would hold true for an incumbent american president?s campaign 31 years later. but there is no clearer statement that can be applied to president george w. bush?s political team. the starting gun has fired, john kerry is out of the blocks and the bush campaign seems to have missed the starting gun.

at best, they are stumbling out of the blocks.

it?s early march and the november presidential election is nearly eight months away, but the time is now for the bush campaign to begin an assertive assault on the record of john kerry. but that has yet to be the case. standing flat-footed, and seemingly lacking a clear plan of action the bush campaign is in danger of being stuck on the defensive by hesitating. even at this early date.

members of the sheet metal workers union are wearing yellow t-shirts and standing in front of a 15-foot inflated rat with a sign that says "jobs, not bush."

about 300 protesters are lined up across the street, many chanting "no more bush." a dozen of the president's supporters are trying to shout them down.

matt oakes, 35, of akron, is a recruiter for the metal workers' union. he says 30 percent of his local's 5,000 members in ohio and west virginia have lost their jobs since bush took office.

investment banker joseph blogg, 25, says he took an early lunch to hold a sign supporting the president.

in a dramatic break with president bush, a prominent group of gay republicans that supported him four years ago is launching a $1 million advertising campaign today attacking the administration for trying to ban same-sex marriage.

the ad, by the log cabin republicans, uses grainy footage of vice president cheney saying during the 2000 campaign that the matter should be left to the states…

the ad shows cheney in the 2000 vice presidential debate saying of gay marriage: "people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. . . . that matter is regulated by the states. i think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. i don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

the on-screen tag line says: "we agree. don't amend the constitution”…

the 30-second spot likens the gay marriage effort to the civil rights movement, showing a protest scene from the 1960s and a sign that says "colored waiting room."

a spokeswoman for the media fund, sarah leonard, called the charge that the ads are illegally funded "ridiculous" and said it was an effort "to silence the voices of progressives in the grass roots across the country."

"the bush campaign is simply trying to scare our donors," she said, noting that the president's campaign is not complaining about similar ads being run by conservative groups attacking kerry. "this is just politics, not surprising in an election year, and should not be taken any more seriously than that."

have i made all kinds of money? this is where i laughed the hardest. i've made about $10 profit total.

but under sharp questioning by sen. edward kennedy, a massachusetts democrat, tenet reversed himself, saying there had been instances when he had warned administration officials that they were misstating the threat posed by iraq.

“i'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was … and what i did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when i believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, i said something about it,” tenet said. “i don't stand up publicly and do it.”

tenet acknowledged to sen. carl levin of michigan, the committee's senior democrat, that he had told cheney that the vice president was wrong in saying that two truck trailers recovered in iraq were “conclusive evidence” that hussein had a biological weapons program.

cheney made the assertion in a jan. 22 interview with national public radio.

bruce abell, ashcroft's surgeon at george washington university hospital, said the attorney general tolerated the laparoscopic procedure "very well," and was in "guarded" condition, which he said was expected. abell said ashcroft would remain hospitalized another four to five days.

"long term, he should have a complete recovery," abell said. "he is going to have to limit his fatty food intake."

ashcroft's condition — known as gallstone pancreatitis — occurs when gallstones block an opening leading to the small intestine, causing the pancreas to inflame. abell said doctors found other stones in ashcroft's gallbladder, trigging what he described as the "preventive" procedure.

a majority of americans -- 57 percent -- say they want their next president to steer the country away from the course set by bush, according to the survey. bush's standing hit new lows in crucial areas such as the economy (39 percent support him), iraq (46 percent) and the budget deficit (30 percent).

bush's overall support, 50 percent, was unchanged from february and equal to the lowest of his presidency; only the war on terrorism continues to garner him the support of more than six in 10 americans.

as a result of these doubts, bush narrowly trails likely democratic presidential nominee john f. kerry by 4 percentage points, 48 to 44 percent, among registered voters in a hypothetical presidential matchup. consumer advocate ralph nader, an independent, claims 3 percent. of a dozen policy areas, kerry leads bush in eight, including the economy, education and health care, while bush leads only in the war on terrorism. the two candidates are virtually tied in the other three: iraq, same-sex marriage and civil liberties.

…the president has been a bit scarce with the time he will accord the commission looking into how the terrorist attacks happened in the first place. we all know by now that various elements of what is laughingly known as the intelligence community knew something ominous was up -- who were those guys at flight schools all over the country? -- and that at least one of the terrorists was being sought (by the germans, among others) and that sandy berger, the national security adviser under bill clinton, had told condi rice, the national security adviser under george w. bush, that terrorism would be her no. 1 concern -- and yet almost 3,000 lives were lost and a gash punched into the pentagon and a hole left in the bottom of manhattan island. for this, somehow, no one is at fault.

the commission -- it is formally known as the national commission on terrorist attacks upon the united states -- may well find otherwise. it's clear that there was a massive intelligence failure and maybe a massive leadership failure as well. after all, by sept. 11, the bush administration had been in office almost nine months, which is time enough to make a baby if not a terrorism policy. so it would be good if the president gave an accounting of what he was doing and thinking during that time.

the measure, introduced by sen. christopher dodd, d-conn., as an amendment to a corporate tax bill, also would prohibit agencies from procuring goods or services from companies that send work abroad, with some exceptions. senators endorsed the bipartisan amendment by a vote of 70 to 26…

dodd's measure is more expansive, and, consequently, more worrisome to industry groups. first, the provision is not tied to 2004 spending, and it would apply indefinitely. and it applies not only to work awarded through job competitions, but also to procurements.

in a last-minute deal, the senators made exceptions for the defense and homeland security departments, as well as intelligence agencies and security programs at the energy department. the amendment also allows agency heads to make exceptions for some security-related purchases and for items or services only produced or available outside of the country.

1. as commander-in-chief on the morning of 9/11, why didn’t you return immediately to washington, d.c. or the national military command center once you became aware that america was under attack? at specifically what time did you become aware that america was under attack? who informed you of this fact?

2. on the morning of 9/11, who was in charge of our country while you were away from the national military command center? were you informed or consulted about all decisions made in your absence?

3. what defensive action did you personally order to protect our nation during the crisis on september 11th? what time were these orders given, and to whom? what orders were carried out? what was the result of such orders? were any such orders not carried out?


5. u.s. navy captain deborah loewer, the director of the white house situation room, informed you of the first airliner hitting tower one of the world trade center before you entered the emma e. booker elementary school in sarasota, florida. please explain the reason why you decided to continue with the scheduled classroom visit, fifteen minutes after learning the first hijacked airliner had hit the world trade center.

6. is it normal procedure for the director of the white house situation room to travel with you? if so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. if not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the director of the white house situation room being asked to accompany you to florida during the week of september 11th.

7. what plan of action caused you to remain seated after andrew card informed you that a second airliner had hit the second tower of the world trade center and america was clearly under attack? approximately how long did you remain in the classroom after card’s message?

14. your schedule for september 11, 2001 was in the public domain since september 7, 2001. the emma e. booker school is only five miles from the bradenton airport, so you, and therefore the children in the classroom, might have been a target for the terrorists on 9/11. what was the intention of the secret service in allowing you to remain in the emma e. booker elementary school, even though they were aware america was under attack?

15. please explain why you remained at the sarasota, florida, elementary school for a press conference after you had finished listening to the children read, when as a terrorist target, your presence potentially jeopardized the lives of the children?

16. what was the purpose of the several stops of air force one on september 11th? was air force one at any time during the day of september 11th a target of the terrorists? was air force one’s code ever breached on september 11th?

only one day before the interim constitution is supposed to be signed in baghdad, several explosions occurred at the us headquarters in the so-called "green zone." sbs news tells us

the headquarters of the united states-led administration in baghdad has been fired on by insurgents.

it is thought 10 rockets were fired on the building from a makeshift launching pad set up on an off-road vehicle – it came on the eve of the planned signing of an interim constitution for iraq...

a us army spokesman said some of the rockets had hit the rashid hotel inside the "green zone", a heavily fortified area on the west bank of the tigris river that used to be one of saddam hussein's palace complexes and is now the main base of occupying forces in iraq.

to the editor:

re "bush ad campaign ready to kick off an expensive effort" (front page, march 4):

it continues to baffle me that the republican party insists on reminding the american people over and over again that george w. bush's administration is responsible for the greatest security failure in the history of the united states.

seth appel
new york, march 4, 2004

the report also showed job creation in november and december was less than previously thought, adding to the weak tone of the report. the department revised lower jobs gains in december to 97,000 from 112,000 and for november to 8,000 from 16,000.

attorney general john ashcroft spent friday in the intensive care unit of a washington hospital with a severe case of pancreatitis, a painful condition expected to sideline him for at least a week

on rare occasions the illness can be fatal, according to medical experts. doctors expect to know more about ashcroft's condition in the coming days.

believing he had a stomach flu, ashcroft canceled an appearance in alexandria, va., on thursday where he was scheduled to discuss guilty verdicts handed down in a terrorism case. instead, he went home and his condition worsened. white house physician dr. daniel parks visited ashcroft and instructed him to go to the emergency room.

the condition can become dangerous when other organs, such as the kidneys or stomach, become infected or the production of insulin by the pancreas is blocked, said dr. anthony kalloo, a specialist in pancreatic disease at john hopkins university hospital in baltimore.

symptoms include sudden and intense abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and fever.

"it is very painful," kalloo said. " i feel sorry for him."

not a fan of bigotry, the good lord has seen it fit to strike down attorney general john ashcroft for his attempts to prevent us cities from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples…

ashcroft's ambulance was also delayed on its way to the hospital by a plague of locusts. while being being wheeled into the er, ashcroft was pelted with frogs and fish that seemed to come from the sky.

his condition apparently worsened after receiving a phone call from a concerned president bush, who told ashcroft a gay midget joke to cheer him up.

"how does a gay midget announce to the world that he's gay?" said bush…"he comes out of the cupboard!"…

a representative from the uncle tom's log cabin club, a group comprised of gay republicans, released a statement this morning in support of ashcroft in the face of pressure from the religious left.

"as gay republicans, we hold fast to our belief that conservative economic and social policy is the right policy for this country. we are gay and rich as hell, so as long as we keep getting tax breaks, the breeders can keep their marriage licenses”…

in an exclusive interview with the wired press, god remarked, "gibson is next."

the political manipulation of 9/11 hit a new crescendo yesterday, as the first three commercials from the bush-cheney campaign hit the tv airwaves. two of those ads employ highly emotional images of the sept. 11 terror attacks, doing precisely what the president promised not to — twisting the attacks and the war on terror for selfish political gain…

talk about heavy-handed yanks at the heartstrings!

these have all the subtlety of a haliburton sweetheart deal.

in january of last year, as he was asking congress for the largest increase in military spending in 20 years, bush made an explicit vow about the war on terror:

"i have no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue”…

by may, the white house had signed off on a grotesque gop fund-raising plan that rewarded $150 donors with a special terror-attack gift premium — a color photo of president bush on sept. 11.

bernie kerik said he wasn't offended. "it's about the president's history, it's about his leadership ability," said the former new york city police commissioner, who's living these days off a $140,000-a-year defense department contract to keep iraq safe and secure. (and how's that going, bernie?)

why else did the republicans pick new york for their 2004 nominating convention?

and why did they decide to open the festivities on aug. 30 with the bush acceptance speech set for sept. 2? that's later in the year than any other republican convention since the party was founded in 1856…

if you think those commercials are a heavy-handed blend of patriotism, terror deaths and politics, you ain't seen nothing yet.

come late summer, the coverage of the republican convention will flow seamlessly into commemorations of the third anniversary of the world trade center attack.

and you can tell it to the 9/11 families: there won't be any shortage of flags.

here is the gist. the white house got some guy named albert lloyd to look at some bush related documents. lloyd wrote a memo saying that, based on those documents, bush had fulfilled his duty because he had gotten 50 "points."

but as the article shows, the 50 point standard was applicable only to airmen with 20 years of service. us statutory and regulatory law, as well as air force regulations, mandated a different standard for those who had not fulfilled their six year contractural obligation

"it makes me sick," said colleen kelly, who lost her brother bill kelly jr. in the attacks and leads a victims families group called peaceful tomorrows. "would you ever go to someone's grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? that truly is what ground zero represents to me."

in bal harbour, fla., the international association of fire fighters union approved a resolution asking the bush campaign to pull the ads, spokesman jeff zack said. the resolution also urges bush to "apologize to the families of firefighters killed on 9/11 for demeaning the memory of their loved ones in an attempt to curry support for his re-election." the union gave kerry an early endorsement in the presidential race.

"it's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," monica gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin towers, told the new york daily news for its thursday editions. "it is unconscionable”…

"it's as sick as people who stole things out of the place," said firefighter tommy fee of queens rescue squad 270. "the image of firefighters at ground zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics”…

"i would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the statue of liberty," said tom roger, whose daughter perished on american airlines flight 11.

"but to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab people by the throat."

has anyone, including republicans, really stopped to think about how our social, political and scientific advances of the past few centuries are on the verge of permanent evanescence due to the incessant, amoral actions of a virtual handful of old, white, frail frat boys?

in the rapidly expanding national dialogue over gay marriage, the spotlight turned to new paltz last week when west married 25 gay couples during a spirited ceremony in front of village hall. spitzer said since the weddings were performed without a marriage license, west broke the law.

"i personally would like to see the law changed, but must respect the law as it now stands," spitzer said…

west was charged with 19 misdemeanor counts and could face jail time.

in new paltz town court wednesday night, west pleaded not guilty to the charges.

outside was a reprise of the hoopla that surrounded last week's wedding marathon in the small college village 75 miles north of manhattan. west was given a hero's welcome, walking into court as 200 supporters chanted, cheered and sang along to a jazz trio playing "the battle hymn of the republic." the crowd held signs like, "prosecution is persecution - go west."

state university at new paltz student mike katz held a sign likening west to nelson mandela and martin luther king.

"i think that he is a patriot and i think he's a civil rights leader," katz said. "...we're making history here."

"i personally would like to see the law changed, but must respect the law as it now stands," spitzer said.

almost 300 same-sex couples exchanged marriage vows in oregon on wednesday hours after commissioners in multnomah county, which includes portland, the state's largest city, said the practice was legal.

gay couples, many clutching flowers and minding children, waited in pelting rain to apply for marriage licenses after county officials, citing an ambiguously worded state law, matched recent rulings in several u.s. cities and towns.

"we asked our (county) attorney if our current practice was still legal. based on her opinion, we would be violating the oregon constitution if we were to continue to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses," county commissioner serena cruz told a news conference.

as of late afternoon, multnomah county had issued 290 licenses to same-sex partners, according to basic rights oregon, a group that supports gay marriage.

founder of the family research institute and isis, the institute for the scientific investigation of sexuality. cameron, 59, a former psychologist based in colorado springs, issues a stream of data often used by anti-gay activists: that gays are far more likely than straights to molest children, that gays are more likely to commit crimes as mundane as tax evasion or shoplifting, and so on. “we’re kind of the wellspring of most of the statistics about the gay lifestyle.” cameron says.

“untrammeled homosexuality can take over and destroy a social system,” says cameron. “if you isolate sexuality as something solely for one’s own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get- and that is what homosexuality seems to be-then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. the evidence is that men do a better job on men and women on women, if all you are looking for is orgasm.” so powerful is the allure of gays, cameron believes, that if society approves that gay people, more and more heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn into homosexuality. “i’m convinced that lesbians are particularly good seducers,” says cameron. “people in homosexuality are incredibly evangelical,” he adds, sounding evangelical himself. “it’s pure sexuality. it’s almost like pure heroin. it’s such a rush. they are committed in almost a religious way. and they’ll take enormous risks, do anything.” he says that for married men and women, gay sex would be irresistible. “martial sex tends toward the boring end,” he points out. “generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does” so, cameron believes, within a few generations homosexuality would be come the dominant form of sexual behavior.

an associated press exit poll showed six of 10 voters were angry with the bush administration and an additional third was dissatisfied with the republican president.

…in explaining the president's position, white house spokesman scott mcclellan insisted that while bush backed the [anti-gay marriage] amendment, he would also support the rights of states to provide various partnership benefits, including civil unions. though the news emphasis has been on the former, the practical consequences of the latter are huge.

until recently, that position -- that states should allow partnership benefits such as insurance and health care -- was considered extreme. it wasn't too long ago that howard dean was thought unelectable because he signed vermont's civil union law, which in effect provided a full slate of partnership benefits.

amazingly, bush has now said he can live with that, which means his position is not all that different from that of john kerry or john edwards. all three say states should be allowed to have civil unions. all three say they oppose gay marriage. the main difference is that the democrats want to ban gay marriage by statute and bush wants to ban it by constitutional amendment.

the democratic race ended with a phone call, as all political races must. sen. john edwards called to congratulate sen. john kerry, conceding the nomination and effectively beginning the general election of 2004.

shortly after, edwards was on a plane for raleigh, n.c., where on wednesday he will officially resign his candidacy. kerry, hoarse but invigorated, was as effusive as the reticent senator ever is, as he thanked edwards for being in the race, calling him "a compelling voice to our party" and emphasizing edwards' "eloquence in the cause of working men and women."

the former vermont governor won his home state primary even though he suspended his democratic presidential campaign last month. but supporters hoped to give dean a handful of delegates to show support for his message of reform…

exit polls indicated dean won vermont by a wide margin. edwards was not on the ballot.

with robert e. lee, his writing partner of more than 50 years, mr. lawrence wrote 39 plays, including "auntie mame," "the night thoreau spent in jail" and "first monday in october." twelve of their collaborations reached broadway.

"inherit the wind," a fictionalized telling of the "monkey trial" of john t. scopes, the tennessee schoolteacher who was arrested for teaching darwin, ran for three years on broadway and has been translated into more than 30 languages. the play opened in 1955, 30 years after the trial took place, but its theme of defending independent thought in an oppressive environment struck a chord.

shiite muslims were attacked by bombers in iraq and pakistan on a holy day, killing at least 184 people and wounding about 590. u.s. authorities in iraq said a man they have described as an al-qaeda associate, abu musab al- zarqawi, may be behind the iraqi attacks.

iraqis marking the observance of ashura were targeted in almost simultaneous attacks in the iraqi capital baghdad and the venerated shiite city of karbala about 60 miles south. at least 58 people were killed and 200 wounded in baghdad and 85 people killed and 230 wounded in karbala, u.s. army brigadier general mark kimmitt said in baghdad…

at least 41 shiites were killed and more than 160 wounded in a bomb blast and gun assault near the city of quetta, pakistan, according to tallies from two hospitals. city officials imposed a curfew as the assailants were sought.

only in december 2000 and december 2002 were the number of large layoffs higher. a total of 239,454 workers lost their jobs in the january layoffs, the bureau of labor statistics reported yesterday, based on unemployment insurance claims filed with state employment agencies. among them were 17,544 temporary workers.

the total jobs lost in january was the most since november 2002, when 240,171 workers were let go in groups of 50 or more. manufacturing workers, particularly in transportation, food processing and retail jobs, were hardest hit. the large layoffs also included 10,876 government workers, most at the state and local levels.

outlays on total construction dropped 0.3%, estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $931.2 billion, the commerce department said monday. the decline was the first since last may.

the decrease followed an upwardly revised 0.6% advance in december. spending for that month was originally estimated as growing 0.4%.
wall street expected an increase in december outlays. economists predicted construction spending would increase 0.4% for the month.

the report showed residential construction was flat at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $507.1 billion. spending in december rose 0.9%.
outlays fell for office construction, health care, and educational facilities.

the machine that prints tickets assigned the number 666 as a prefix on all the tickets for the film, said gary smith, owner of the movies at berry square in northwest georgia. the 666 begins a series of numbers that are listed below the name of the movie, the date, time and price.

"it's from our computer and it's absolutely a coincidence," smith said. "it has nothing to do with the film company or any vendor. it's completely in our computer."

in the bible, the book of revelation says 666 is the "number of the beast," usually interpreted as satan or the antichrist.

forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in vietnam and millions died. i fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again.

if there's one thing that actors know, other than there weren't any wmds, it's that there is no such thing as best in acting," he said, referring to weapons of mass destruction. "and that's proven by these great actors that i was nominated with.

"i'd like to encourage all the power that's in this room to try to bring back some of those productions into the united states of america," robbins said.

an african-american activist says former haitian president jean-bertrand aristide telephoned him monday to say that he was kidnapped at gunpoint by american soldiers and ousted by in u.s. coup d'etat.

aristide said he was being held prisoner at the renaissance palace in bangui, central african republic, said randall robinson.

the united states has said that it facilitated aristide's departure at his request. white house spokesman scott mcclellan called the claim "complete nonsense."

"it was mr. aristide's decision to resign," he said.

robinson spawned the series of denials be saying aristide was a coup victim.

"he asked that i tell the word that it is a coup. that he was abducted by american soldiers and put aboard a plane," said robinson, the founder and former president of the transafrica lobbying forum in washington d.c. robinson currently lives on the caribbean island of st. kitts.

robinson said aristide claimed he was being held prisoner in the central african republic at a building surrounded by soldiers.

abandoned by the united states and other foreign governments, under pressure from relentlessly advancing insurgents, aristide reportedly signed a letter of resignation before dawn sunday. accompanied by his wife, mildred, and a black-uniformed security detail, he flew into exile at 6:15 a.m. aboard an unmarked white airplane.

state department spokesman richard boucher said the u.s. ``facilitated'' aristide's departure. other administration officials said u.s. ambassador james foley offered aristide a secure airplane and found a country that would accept him.

aristide's destination was to be in the central african republic, according to a senior official of the state department, possibly after a stop in panama.

after a year in flight school, bush spent five months learning how to fly an f-102 fighter-interceptor and then 22 months as a part-time pilot. he stopped flying in april 1972 -- 30 months before his formal commitment would normally have ended.

nonetheless, the biography of bush on the us state department's website credits him with almost six years in the f-102's cockpit -- two years on active duty flying the plane and nearly four more years of part-time service as an f-102 pilot. the websites of at least five american embassies -- those in germany, italy, pakistan, vietnam, and south korea -- use the identical language, even though bush spent barely two years flying the airplane.

after the 2000 election, when evidence of bush's abbreviated flying career and his propensity to miss required drills became public, the presidential biography written for the white house website made no mention of the period of bush's service, only that he served as an f-102 pilot.

but the state department biography of bush, which has been on its website since 2001, makes the president out to be more of a frequent flyer than the embellished account in bush's 1999 autobiography, "a charge to keep." in that book, bush said he flew with his unit for "the next several years" after his five months of training on the f-102 concluded in june 1970.