skippy the bush kangaroo

what kind of absurd political twilight zone is it where george bush and dick cheney can make john kerry look like an unpatriotic chicken by focusing attention on his combat duty in vietnam?

what is the word that has more gall than gall? nerve? cheek, chutzpah conceit, arrogance, condescension? you name it -- the squadron of chickenhawks that steers both the campaign and government of president bush's have pots of it. where do these people come off impugning john kerry's vietnam era guts and patriotism? john mccain, colin powell, tom ridge or chuck hagel might have some moral standing, but not these chickenhawks.

this whole chickenhawk issue has become sort of politically incorrect, in a republican sort of way. it's considered a rude charge. i don't buy that…

the list of bush supporter's in government, in the campaign and in the ideas industry who also had no military service at all, not just no combat, is also relevant: karen hughes, karl rove, condoleezza rice, richard perle, douglas feith, lewis libby, william kristol, paul wolfowitz, and tom delay. oh yeah, and dick cheney.

allow me to add a stray point: these chickenhawks had a great influence in the decision to wage war on iraq. after the civil war, william tecumseh sherman noted, "it is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry for blood, more vengeance. more desolation."

the most forceful advocates for war in the administration had seen the least of it.

viewers in central ohio and across the state will get to see friday night's nightline program on onn…

the sinclair broadcast group, the owner of 8 abc affiliates nationwide, decided not run the program. that includes one station here in ohio…

friday, abc contacted the ohio news network and asked onn to air the program. onn decided to air the program and give viewers the choice.

viewers across ohio can watch nightline here on the ohio news network live friday night at 11:35 p.m. the show will last 40 minutes rather than the usual half hour.

no organization holds our media industry and the executives who use it to line their pockets in higher regard than sinclair broadcast group. while sinclair would support a mendacious effort to cover up the alarming number of americans who have died in iraq, mr. koppel is using simple, indisputable facts—names and photos of the dead, no less—to dramatize the war and give viewers a chance to judge its consequences. however, an informed citizenry is anathema to the corporate state, and we suspect that many of those currently working toward this goal have financial connections to al qaeda. dick cheney informs us that we are not alone in this viewpoint. as a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of nightline this friday on each of our abc affiliates.

sinclair owns 62 stations in 39 markets, including eight abc affiliates. if that sounds like a monopoly, it is, and we got it the old-fashioned way—we shilled for it. in 2004, we gave 98 percent of our political donations, or $65,434, to gop causes. we applaud the gop's support for deregulation, and we intend to return the favor by cheerleading for the war. unlike the bad news bears at abc, we think of ourselves as the good news network. in case you haven't heard, 98 percent of iraqis are thrilled by the u.s. occupation. we have hundreds of hours of footage of people who were paid to say so.

the congressional research service says the bush administration apparently violated federal law by ordering the chief medicare actuary to withhold information from congress indicating that the new medicare law could cost far more than white house officials had said.

in a report on monday, the research service said that congress's "right to receive truthful information from federal agencies to assist in its legislative functions is clear and unassailable." since 1912, it said, federal laws have protected the rights of federal employees to communicate with congress, and recent laws have "reaffirmed and strengthened" those protections.

the actuary, richard s. foster, has testified that he was ordered to withhold the cost estimates last year, when congress was considering legislation to add a drug benefit to medicare. the order, he said, came from thomas a. scully, who was then the administrator of medicare.

mr. foster said mr. scully threatened to discipline him for insubordination if he gave congress the data.

we acted. we acted and there are no longer mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms in iraq.

broadcasting official charged in sex stakeout
sinclair president, woman arrested in company car

published on: august 15, 1996
edition: final
section: news
page: 2b
byline: sun staffpeter hermann

372

the president of baltimore-based sinclair broadcast group inc., which owns the local fox television affiliate, was arrested tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned mercedes, city police said.

david deniston smith, 45, of the 800 block of hillstead drive in timonium, who also is sinclair's chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at read and st. paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, baltimore police said yesterday.

there is no valid reason for sinclair to shirk its responsibility in what i assume is a very misguided attempt to prevent your viewers from completely appreciating the extraordinary sacrifices made on their behalf by americans serving in iraq. war is an awful, but sometimes necessary business. your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war’s terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the united states armed forces. it is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. i hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves.

• ceo david smith: dsmith@sbgnet.com
  
• vp mark hyman: mhyman@sbgnet.com

i hope that viewers will remember that behind the numbers of casualties, that each of the men and women who have been killed was an individual, with a name, a face, a family, and a life. it is too easy to not go beyond the numbers. ted and i were embedded with the 3rd i.d. and we got to know many of the soldiers as individuals. it is too easy to see the helmet, the flak vest, and the uniform, and forget that these are all individuals?

there is no political statement intended. this broadcast is intended to honor those who have been killed, period. ted addressed the casket issue last friday on "nightline." i think that is a separate issue. at his recent press conference, president bush talked about how important it is to honor the sacrifice that these men and women have made. that's all we're trying to do.

despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the united states in iraq,'' the company said in a faxed statement. sinclair, which owns 62 u.s. television stations, said abc is disguising political statements as news content.

leonard richards, 52, was hit by a falling branch, as he checked for storm damage on his property last september.

lulu, who was reared by the richards family, made a huge commotion to alert others, in a scene similar to the 1960s australian children's series skippy.

"it's the first time a native animal has ever received the award," said rspca executive officer jenny hodges.

lulu is only the ninth animal to receive the rspca's award honouring animals that display exceptional courage in the face of danger.

"what she did was really exceptional," said jenny hodges.

the story is reminiscent of the long-running skippy series, about a kangaroo that rescues people in distress in the australian bush.

as a result, some analysts say u.s. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. this interest is a sign of how far web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.

still, a panel of folks who work in the u.s. intelligence field - some of them spies or former spies - discussed this month at a conference in washington the idea of tracking blogs.

about us: 'operation take one for the country' (abbreviated otoftc) is a movement of like-minded women (women predominantly as of right now) who have covertly organized into groups to frequent eating and drinking establishments near armed service bases where troops are preparing to ship out overseas, and take one for the country, so to speak. we are a virtual organization and have no official headquarters or charter. we believe us service men and women deserve our support and we are willing to make caring choices about making them happy.

"the men go off into harms way gratified, and because the organization is covert, they get the boost in ego thinking that they scored on their own attributes, they ship out relaxed and confident, with a distinct impression of a grateful nation behind them".

mcdonough is adamant about safety "the principle is simple, don't do anyone you don't want to do, be safe, be protected" and reiterates this when meeting with toftc groups.

apparently there is no lack of volunteers for toftc outings. mcdonough relates her findings, "there is some much societal pressure on getting a job, getting married, you know, getting ahead. i think there are a lot of gals out there that want to do something for the country, they may or may not support some aspects of foreign policy, but they want to feel like they contribute or make a difference. and this is a fun way to do it, . . . so to speak".

a great idea from shellie a., wife of lt. a of ft. rucker. she is calling on wives of servicemen to have 'felatio friday' at least once a month. awesome awesome idea.

but voters view each candidate more negatively than positively, and when asked whom they?d support if the november election were held today (though it is still six months in the future) they divide almost evenly: kerry 46 percent, bush 44 percent. should ralph nader join the race, it becomes bush 43 percent, kerry 41 percent, and nader 5 percent.

for the first time, fewer than half of americans -- 47 percent -- now say that taking military action in iraq was the right thing to do. when the war began last spring, two-thirds believed it was the right thing to do, and 58 pecent still thought so as recently as last month.

was u.s. action right thing, or should u.s. have stayed out?

right thing:

• now 47%
  
• last month 58%
  
• 3/2003 69%

stayed out:

• now 46%
  
• last month 37%
  
• 3/2003 25%

the situation has moved iraq near the top of the list of issues that voters want the candidates to discuss: 21 percent now say it is the issue they most want to hear about from kerry and bush, up from 11 percent last month, and just behind the economy and jobs at 25 percent.

the belief that pre-war iraq required quick military action has also reached its lowest levels in this poll. just 32 percent now say that iraq had posed a threat requiring immediate action -- down from 58 percent who said this in april 2003. today, though only 17 percent believe iraq was never any threat at all, this sentiment has risen in recent weeks and is up from 8 percent one year ago.

a question has been gnawing at frank mcneirney since he read that some roman catholic bishops want to deny communion to catholic politicians, such as the presumptive democratic presidential nominee john f. kerry, whose public positions are at odds with church doctrine.

"does this only apply to abortion?" asked mcneirney, 67, of bethesda, md. "what about the death penalty?"

after retiring as a trade magazine editor a dozen years ago, mcneirney founded a nonprofit organization, catholics against the death penalty, which has 1,200 members across the country. it's a mom-and-pop operation, run by mcneirney and his wife, ellen, out of their home. they are the first to acknowledge that it has nowhere near the political clout or public visibility of the nation's antiabortion groups.

but mcneirney is not alone in questioning whether the church's political vision has become myopic, focusing too narrowly on abortion.

some catholic publications, educators, and elected officials are also warning that church leaders may appear hypocritical or partisan if they condemn kerry because he favors abortion rights, but they say nothing about catholic governors who allow executions, catholic members of congress who support the iraq war, or catholic officials at all levels who ignore the church's teachings on social justice.

in a recent column, kerry – the great pretender, i explained why as a catholic, john f. kerry, should not receive holy communion if he was going to continue to espouse a pro-death penalty position in his run for the presidency. it seemed that kerry was attempting to appeal to catholics by claiming the he was a “believing and practicing catholic” – his words, not mine…

does john kerry think that we are so ignorant not to understand that the key component of belief is agreement with the central tenets of the faith? john, check it out – respect for the dignity of every human being made in the image and likeness of god is a central tenet of catholicism, not to mention christianity and judaism. it goes back to the ten commandments. you remember those, john. you know the one that states “thou shalt not kill.” what part of that do you not understand? confused? well, the church is there to help you understand. it means you do not kill innocent people. people include death row inmates. death row inmates include unborn death row inmates. after all, john you are not going to tell me that these unborn death row inmates are not human beings. you aren’t that ignorant to say they are not human beings…

the point is that the church is ultimately concerned about our souls, including john kerry’s soul, whether he cares to know or not. in fact, as a member of the mystical body of christ, it is also my duty to be concerned about john kerry’s soul. but as much as i would like him to renounce his support of death penalty, i am not blind. he has embraced the death penalty culture and all that it means. from his early days to the present, he and his fellow senator from massachusetts, edward kennedy, have been the epitome of all that is wrong in the expression of catholic virtue in public life. as bad as his pro-death penalty, pro-homosexual politics have been, it is the scandal of bad example that calls for condemnation. how many people have justified their sins because of john kerry and ted kennedy? how many people have turned their backs on the “least of their brothers and sisters” because john kerry, ted kennedy, tom daschele, chris dodd, and others all said no to life? how many death row inmates have died and women scarred because of their very public support for the killing of these death row inmates?

these days, stern's broadcasts are divided between his usual schtick — interviews with strippers, off-color song parodies, jokes about celebrities — and rants against the president. stern will never be mistaken for a policy wonk, but tune in to his show and you'll hear him cogently attacking administration positions on an impressive range of issues: stem-cell research, abortion rights, gay marriage, media consolidation, the handling of iraq.

meanwhile, stern's revamped website looks more like mother jones magazine than maxim: it features articles about the administration's trade violations in myanmar and includes a link to the contributions page of the john kerry for president site. indeed, stern has become an ardent kerry advocate. "i call on all fans of the show to vote against bush," he said on a recent broadcast. "we're going to deliver the white house to john kerry."

some might dismiss this as bluster, but stern's words should send a shiver up karl rove's spine. stern has a record of successful election-year activism; political observers in new york and new jersey remember how his on-air endorsements delivered key votes to george pataki and christine todd whitman in past gubernatorial races.

what's more, although stern's approximately 8.5 million listeners are often dismissed as overgrown frat boys, they might more accurately be called swing voters. they are overwhelmingly white and male, many are well educated and well off, and they vote. and millions of them listen to stern's show in battleground states — pennsylvania, michigan, ohio, missouri, tennessee, florida — where the election will be decided.

by all indications, stern's message is getting through. since the fcc crackdown, his ratings have been going up. for example, arbitron says he's now no. 1 in los angeles in the 25-to-54 age group, a spot he last occupied in 1995. and among entertainer websites, his was rated second (behind oprah's) in mid-april.

to date 122 u.s. soldiers have died in april, out of a total 723 u.s. casualties since the war began in march 2003.

president bush has yet to attend the funerals or ceremonies for any of u.s. soldiers killed during his presidential term.

u.s. warplanes and artillery attacked sunni insurgents holed up in a slum in a thunderous show of force that rocked fallujah tuesday, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the night sky. the assault came after american troops killed 64 gunmen near the southern city of najaf.

an american soldier was killed tuesday in baghdad, raising the u.s. death toll for april to 115 the same number lost during the invasion of iraq that toppled saddam hussein last year. up to 1,200 iraqis also have been killed this month.

the second straight night of battles in fallujah came as the extension of a fragile cease-fire ended in the turbulent city west of baghdad. marines have been preparing to begin patrols in the city later this week.

tony blair today appeared to rule out the immediate deployment of more british troops in iraq, despite recent reports suggesting that as many as 2,000 extra soldiers could be sent to fill gaps left by the withdrawal of spanish forces.

"the advice that we have now is that we have sufficient troops to do the job," mr blair, speaking at a joint news conference with the italian prime minister, silvio berlusconi, said.

thirteen democrats wrote defense secretary donald h. rumsfeld this month to argue that providing security in a hostile area is a classic mission for the military.

''it would be a dangerous precedent if the united states allowed the presence of private armies operating outside the control of a governmental authority and beholden only to those that pay them,'' wrote the democrats, including senate minority leader tom daschle of south dakota.

in iraq, they said, the private armies need proper screening and supervision, or they could increase iraqi resentment.

many of the contracts were thrown together quickly as the u.s.-led coalition tried to establish its presence in iraq, leaving vague lines of authority, unclear responsibilities and muddled channels of communications with the u.s.-led coalition. as a result, experts say, rules governing the private personnel can vary depending on how their contracts are written.

it's unclear, for example, what would happen if a private contractor killed an iraqi child, said loren thompson, a defense analyst at the lexington institute in arlington, va.

according to a coalition provisional authority directive, non-iraqi private security contractors, working for the coalition or its partner countries, are not subject to iraqi law but that of their home states...

further complicating the situation, the coalition, contractors and iraqi leaders are still negotiating what authorities these armed civilians will operate under when the coalition turns over political control to the iraqis on june 30. a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the rules are expected to be worked out next month.

a study from duke university, published in the new england journal of medicine in february, 2001, confirms what many doctors have suspected, but have been reluctant to discuss with their patients: a substantial proportion of patients after coronary artery bypass surgery experience measurable impairment in their mental capabilities.

in the duke study, 261 patients having bypass surgery were tested for their cognitive capacity (i.e. mental ability) at four different times: before surgery, six weeks, six months, and five years after bypass surgery. patients were deemed to have significant impairment if they had a 20% decrease in test scores.
this study had three major findings

* cognitive impairment does indeed occur after bypass surgery. this study should move the existence of this phenomenon from the realm of locker room speculation to the realm of fact.

* the incidence of cognitive impairment was greater than most doctors would have predicted. in this study, 42% of patients had at least a 20% drop in test scores after surgery.

* the impairment was not temporary, as many doctors have claimed (or at least hoped).

the decrease in cognitive capacity persisted for 5 years.

no, what makes wal-mart pernicious is that, where henry ford saw that paying his workers well meant that they could afford to buy the cars he made (and as importantly, buy other goods that drove growth and higher wages at other companies), wal-mart pays wages that leaves their own workers so poor that many of them can't afford even wal-mart's low prices or enough to take care of their families, period.

an explosion leveled part of a building as u.s. troops searched it for suspected ''chemical munitions'' on monday, an american general said. two soldiers were killed and five wounded, and a cheering mob of iraqis looted their wrecked humvees, taking away weapons, a helmet and a bandolier...

in fallujah, u.s. troops and insurgents battled around a mosque in fighting that killed one marine and eight militants. the area shook with heavy explosions a day after u.s. officials announced a fragile cease-fire in the besieged city was being extended.

the deaths of the two soldiers in baghdad and the marine in fallujah brought to 114 the number of u.s. troops killed in combat this month. during the two-month invasion that toppled saddam hussein a year ago, 115 americans were killed.

a “dangerous situation'' is developing in the south-central iraqi city of najaf, where shiite muslim insurgents are allegedly stockpiling weapons in schools and mosques, u.s. spokesman dan senor said, citing a statement by l. paul bremer, top administrator in iraq.

the u.s.-led coalition “won't tolerate'' that action, senor, a spokesman for the u.s.-led coalition provisional authority in iraq, read from bremer's statement. bremer called the standoff in najaf, where anti-u.s. shiite cleric moqtada al- sadr is hiding in a mosque, “explosive.''

u.s. soldiers remain massed outside the city and say al-sadr must be held to account after an iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for him because of allegations he was involved in the murder of a rival cleric last april. “i will not speculate on next steps,'' said senor at a briefing in iraqi baghdad.

relatives of u.s. soldiers in iraq, families of people killed on sept. 11, middle east experts and u.s. senators are all saying that president bush's policies--and his credibility--are now in shambles.

the president's overall job approval rate has plummeted to 43 percent. and polls show that for the first time a majority in the u.s. disapprove of his policies in iraq.

the white house has been shaken first and foremost by an explosion of iraqi resistance. the new york times reports that washington is facing a massive insurgency that is "sweeping up thousands of people, shiite and sunni, in a loose coalition united by overwhelming anti-americanism."

among the 361 dover casket photos are a minority of images showing coffins of the columbia astronauts. [read more.] i didn't realize this at the time that i posted them, mainly because when the air force asked for clarification during the process, i specifically told them that i wasn't requesting photos of the columbia astronauts, only military personnel killed overseas.

(not that i have anything against astronauts. one of the tricks for writing successful freedom of information act requests is to make your request as narrow as possible. i was afraid that including the astronauts in the request would give the air force another excuse not to release the photos.

in what may have been one of the largest rallies in the history of the women's movement, hundreds of thousands of marchers streamed down washington's pennsylvania avenue sunday, chanting and waving signs supporting abortion rights.

there were no official estimates of the size of the crowd, but the rally was huge, with people filling the grassy lawn of the national mall from the washington monument to the capitol. organizers put attendance at one million people. washington and u.s. park police declined to estimate the size of the crowd.

tens of thousands of women gathered for an abortion-rights rally sunday as sen. hillary rodham clinton told several hundred of them the issue is about women gaining full equality.

at a pre-rally breakfast, clinton said the bush administration is "filled with people" who view the landmark 1973 roe v. wade abortion ruling by the supreme court "the worst abomination of constitutional law??

by midmorning, tens of thousands of marches had already come to the mall, many carrying brightly colored signs. "it's your choice, not theirs," said one placard.

a vast multitude of protesters marched here today in support of abortion rights and to highlight what organizers contend is the bush administration's erosion of reproductive liberties.

the march followed several legislative defeats for abortion rights advocates, who have been battling a congress and white house that are led by allies of the anti-abortion movement. organizers say that by filling the washington mall with a wide cross-section of demonstrators from across america and the world, they hope to send a powerful message to the administration and return the issue of abortion rights to the forefront of american politics as the presidential campaign heats up.

peaceful and festive, a crowd of about 1,000 marched past the offices of multinational corporations they hold responsible for exploiting the poor, chanting "shame, shame" along the way.

the demonstrations are a spring ritual tied to the meetings of the world bank and international monetary fund and, as always, the causes were varied. protesters came to shout against the u.s. occupation of iraq, sweatshop labor abroad, the policies of president bush and much else.

police arrested one protester for allegedly shooting tacks at an officer with a slingshot and another for scratching cars with a key.

"there are always a few people in the crowd who cause a problem or two, but the majority of people who come to protest are not about that sort of thing," said police chief charles ramsey. "they just want to have their voices heard."

scores of police behind 5-foot-high steel barricades kept the crowd well away from the world bank and imf, where finance ministers were meeting, when the parade reached that area.

greg pason of rochelle park, n.j., brought his 10-year-old son trevor to show him a good time and because he couldn't get a baby sitter. "we want to oppose the world bank and their loaning policies, speak up for immigrants' rights and indigenous peoples' rights -- all the things that are avoided in the international trade agreements," he said.

bechtel group inc., the world's largest construction and engineering company, was among the targets of thousands of protesters demonstrating during world bank and international monetary fund meetings in washington.

organisers estimated between 3000 and 3500 people marched, and the event was more peaceful than past anti-globalisation protests in washington.

suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil facilities in the persian gulf on saturday, killing two u.s. navy sailors in a new tactic against iraq's vital oil industry. elsewhere, violence across iraq killed at least 33 iraqis and four american soldiers. it was the first such maritime attack against oil facilities since u.s. troops invaded iraqi more than a year ago.

volleys of rockets struck the capital's crowded shiite muslim neighborhood of sadr city on saturday, hitting a busy market, smashing into a home and killing at least seven iraqis. outside baghdad, insurgents rocketed a u.s. military base, killing five soldiers.

besides the deaths in the sadr city rocket strikes, at least 13 iraqis were reported killed in a bombing at tikrit, clashes between polish troops and shiite militiamen in karbala and u.s. raids overnight in sadr city.

a roadside bomb killed 14 iraqis traveling by bus to baghdad on saturday and 12 others were wounded, a doctor at a nearby hospital said.

witnesses said the bus was driving just ahead of a convoy of six u.s. military vehicles when the roadside bomb, a favorite guerrilla weapon against the occupying forces, exploded.

witnesses said at least two projectiles hit the chicken market in the ourfalli neighbourhood of sadr city. abdul-jabbar al-zubeidi, director of a nearby hospital, said several of the wounded were in critical condition. it was not immediately clear who had fired the weapons

since 1991, the defense department has prohibited taking photographs of the coffins of members of the armed services while they are being transported back to the united states. the reverent portrait ms. silicio produced demonstrates how irrational that policy is. the theory seems to be that the pictures are intrusive, or possibly hurtful, to bereaved families. but it seems far more likely that the pentagon is concerned about the impact that photos of large numbers of flag-draped coffins may have on the american public's attitude toward the war.

there certainly was nothing disrespectful about the photograph, and i can't for the life of me see how it might have breached any security concerns. dead is dead. these soldiers were going home, and silicio, who told a friend in seattle about the photos, said she wanted parents to know that "their children weren't being thrown around like a piece of cargo”…

as a result of silicio's photo getting published, and as a result of other similar photographs released under the freedom of information act, the bigwigs in the defense department went ballistic. they have now ordered that no more photographs like those be released. the bush administration insists that a ban on such photos reflects the wishes of families. sometimes the bush administration makes it difficult to remember the just cause here. that just cause takes lives. i'm not buying the idea that we are protecting the wishes of families.

the seattle times decided to run the photo, not silicio. she just took a picture that she thought would show relatives of soldiers killed that their loved ones are being returned with “care and devotion,” according to cnn.com. firing her was not the solution...

whether to run the coffin photo — or any photo — is the decision of the newspaper’s editors. the pentagon should not be involved. it is an ethical decision, not a government one…

if anything, this photo is more of a tribute to the soldiers and their families, not an insensitive action.

insensitive would describe the fallujah photos that displayed iraqis cheering as two burned and mutilated american bodies hung from a bridge. some may say that running these photos in a newspaper was not only insensitive but inhumane. silicio’s photo is neither of these.

silicio’s photos and those from dover showed extraordinarily reverent scenes of the tender care given to america’s war dead. they illustrate the respect with which contractors, comrades and dover personnel treat our fallen soldiers.

by banning photos of flag-draped coffins and only allowing press coverage of individual graveside services, the bush administration seems to be stage-managing the consequences of its war of choice. but in a conflict that has called for almost no sacrifice from average citizens, the american people need to see that the war in iraq has human, as well as monetary, costs.

in 1999, army gen. hugh h. shelton, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said in a speech that the united states should not commit troops to a foreign conflict if the war flunked "the dover test." "we have to ask the question, 'is the american public prepared for the sight of our most precious resources coming home in flag-draped caskets, into dover air force base?'"

rather than risk subjecting the war to the dover test, president george w. bush has enforced an out-of-sight, out-of-mind standard. in doing so, the administration manipulates americans' perceptions of the war, diminishes the gravity of the sacrifices of the dead and their families and denies our young men and women a last reverential salute from the country for which they died.

the pentagon is upset because photos appeared of workers respectfully treating flag-draped coffins on their way from iraq and afghanistan back to their families in the united states ["photos of soldiers' coffins revive controversy," news story, april 23].

deputy undersecretary of defense john molino has said that such photos focus attention in ways that are "unwarranted and undignified." as a result of the pentagon outcry, tami silicio, the civilian contractor who took the photos, has lost her job, as has her husband, david landry.

i hope that mr. molino's job and others at the pentagon are not in jeopardy for their publicly opposing the president's policy on the use of photos of flag-draped coffins. president bush recently and proudly ran a television commercial for his reelection campaign using images of firefighters respectfully removing a flag-draped coffin from the wreckage of the world trade center, despite the outcry from some new york firefighters.

mr. bush reasoned that the sept. 11 attacks were part of our history and belong to the american people.
on the other hand, if some pentagon folks lose their jobs, perhaps ms. silicio and mr. landry will get theirs back.

peter w. rehwaldt
alameda, calif.

sierra club leaders beat back an effort by anti-immigration forces to gain control of the nation's largest and most influential environmental group.

in elections for the sierra club's 15-member board of directors, candidates picked by the leadership won all five open seats in a landslide, according to vote tallies released wednesday…

an increasingly vocal faction of the san francisco-based sierra club that advocates a tougher stance on immigration ran its own slate of candidates, calling u.s. population growth the greatest danger to the environment.

howard stern triumphs in new york city: back to #1 after indecency fight: arbitron ratings released this hour show badboy howard stern rocketing back to the top in new york city with a 7.2 share in 12+ listeners and a stunning 10.0 share in ages 25-54 [up from a 5.9 12+ in the fall]... stern, once again at the center of an indecency fight with the feds, takes nyc morning drive for the first three months of the year, over all-news wins [6.4 share], wabc's curtis & kuby [3.4 share] and wfan's don imus [2.6]...

here's what bush/cheney '04 campaign director ken mehlman had to say about us on tuesday: "moveon.org is a huge threat and has hurt the president."

just a few years ago, no one would have believed that millions of real americans, working together, could have such an effect on the political landscape. but events like our bake sales last saturday have proved them wrong. in one sunny spring afternoon, over 1,000 bake sales from seattle to syracuse pulled in $750,000 -- mostly in $2 or $3 cookie-sized chunks. [ed. note: full report here.] moveon members are re-writing the political rule book, and, together, we're evening the playing field against the wealthiest presidential campaign in our country's history.

if you want to know why the legislative process in washington is practically paralyzed, just look at what rep. pat toomey is trying to do in pennsylvania. the three-term republican lawmaker is challenging sen. arlen specter in a primary next week on grounds that the incumbent lacks pure conservative credentials.

"i represent the republican wing of the republican party," says toomey, stealing a line from howard dean, who boasted that he represented the "democratic wing" of his party. specter, adds the challenger, represents the "ted kennedy wing" of the gop.

we've known arlen specter since he came to the senate 24 years ago. he can be irascible, but he also represents a rare and valuable breed in washington. he believes that people in the opposing party sometimes have worthwhile things to say.

too often in today's washington, compromise is equated with betrayal. when political rivalry turns into a jihad, the system breaks down…

tom delay of texas, the majority leader and a devout jihadist, now runs the house of representatives. as a result, the mood on capitol hill is more hostile than we've seen during 40 years of covering politics.

the club for growth, a well-financed and rigidly conservative group, has spent about $1 million backing toomey, and its president, stephen moore, says other moderates should learn a lesson from specter's "near death" experience: if you're not pure, we'll come after you, too.

this is dangerous business. congress is coming to resemble a european parliament, with liberal and conservative parties divided along ideological lines and separated by a gulf of bad blood.

this is dangerous business. congress is coming to resemble a european parliament, with liberal and conservative parties divided along ideological lines and separated by a gulf of bad blood.

photographs of flag-draped cases bearing american casualties from iraq should not have been made public under a pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains, officials said.

"quite frankly, we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified," said john molino, a deputy undersecretary of defense….

brig. gen. mark kimmitt in baghdad told abc's "good morning america" that u.s. military policy clearly states that the first persons who should be entitled to see their deceased loved ones should be family.

"i certainly know for myself that i would not want one of my loved ones to be a public spectacle before i'd had that first opportunity to grieve in person," he said.

initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to 353,000 in the week ended april 17, down from a revised 362,000 the previous week, the u.s. labor department reported. economists expected 340,000 people to file for unemployment insurance, according to briefing.com.

the four-week average of initial claims, which irons out weekly fluctuations, rose to 347,000 last week from a revised 344,750 the prior week.

the labor department said the overall number of people on the benefit rolls who had already received an initial week of aid climbed to 3,019,000 from a revised 2,967,000 the previous week.

zippy skippy is judicious -- and delicious -- with words. many posts are short, consisting of quotes from various news stories. but when skippy jumps in with a comment every word counts -- and there's often a big idea expressed quickly. skippy is fun: at a quick glance you can read through some key story highlights, and also get a between-the-eyes liberal perspective on the news. it all may be in lower case but it's a big success. and for that we are proud to name skippy the bush kangaroo as our blog of the day......

the patriotic crap aside, if these men?s primary motives for being in iraq were flag and country, they?d still be in the armed services. at a pay grade of $350,000 a year, we know why they were there.

does that justify killing them? no, nothing can justify taking human life?but if you take one-third of a million dollars a year to walk around in somebody else?s country with a machine gun, and you get wasted by the locals, i don?t think you deserve a very big or elaborate funeral. they were there for the money, and these men?elite ex-soldiers that they were?knew the risks, and they took them. so be it...

what will be the reaction of the middle-aged reservists and national guard people serving for a few hundred dollars a month, at the risk of job and mortgage, when they find out about the thousands of mercenaries being paid a king?s ransom to do for money what they do for country? if there is a morale problem now, as these stories about suicides among our service people suggest, what, pray tell, will be the state of morale then?

what will be the morale of the members of congress who worry about where the money is coming from when it gets through to them that the united states is fighting this war with $1,000-a-day soldiers? ?

not only does privatization not save money waging war, it creates problem after problem, only some of which are visible at this juncture. if captured, are these mercenaries prisoners of war and subject to the geneva convention, or can they licitly be shot as spies and saboteurs? ?

apparently, there are a number of companies who hire these people, so the question arises about how much control the american authorities have over the irregulars running about the country. dyncorp mercenaries in the former yugoslavia were accused of rape and robbery. the point is that they are not subject to military discipline...

i think another reason for kerry's soft appeal is that he is so much like bush. why bother stopping and getting out of your lincoln navigator and making the effort to get into your cadillac escalade, when either will get you to your destination? …

the more kerry tries to appeal to bush's base, the more he appears like bush. this risky strategy is probably going to backfire big time for kerry. it's already alienated true democratic progressives like me.

the reuters correspondent said he had counted 40 bodies at one basra hospital. among the dead were many children who had been going to kindergarten in a minibus that was caught in one blast. many other civilians and police were killed or wounded.

"there were three separate explosions at police stations at about 7.15 a.m. (11:15 p.m. edt tuesday)," said a british military spokesman, squadron leader john arnold. "they were vehicle-based improvised explosive devices."

he said heavy casualties were feared, but he had no exact figures, partly because emergency vehicles and british troops who control basra could not reach two of the police stations.

"they are being stoned," arnold said, adding that no casualties among british forces had been reported.

suicide bombers killed 68 people, some of them children, in strikes on iraqi police stations in british-patrolled basra wednesday, shattering months of relative calm in the mainly shi'ite city.

basra mayor wael abdul-hafeez accused osama bin laden's al qaeda network of being behind the morning rush-hour blasts.

near-simultaneous vehicle explosions hit three police stations in basra and a police academy in zubair, a mainly sunni town 16 miles to the south.

"all four attacks seem to have been carried out by suicide bombers," said a british defense ministry spokeswoman in basra.

the mayor told a news conference 68 people, not counting the bombers, were killed and 99 wounded. among the dead were school children incinerated in a minibus caught by one blast.

the us economy is cruising into spring with so much momentum that economists believe this is likely to be the best economic performance during the tenure of either president bush. in fact, the economy is now so strong that unless it weakens significantly later this year, it could turn out to be as good as the clinton boom years.

abc news and money magazine said their weekly consumer comfort index fell to -17 in the week ended april 18 from a reading of -14 the previous week. the index stands eight points below its 18-year average.

positive readings on the index's buying climate gauge, which measures how conducive the economy is to making purchases, fell hardest, to 36 percent from 39 percent.

but this good news has an unusual twist: corporate america has been the greatest beneficiary so far, and the titans of industry are being very tight with their money. so job growth is expected to remain modest.

this presents the federal reserve with a dilemma: should it keep interest rates low until there are unequivocal signs that the job market is blooming, or should it start raising rates to fight off early signs of inflation? "this will be the next big test for the economy - how it adjusts to higher interest rates," says economist mark zandi of economy.com.

attorneys for diebold election systems inc. warned in late november that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in alameda county violated california election law and broke its $12.7 million contract with alameda county.

soon after, a review of internal legal memos obtained by the oakland tribune shows diebold's attorneys at the los angeles office of jones day realized the mckinney, texas-based firm also faced a threat of criminal charges and exile from california elections.

yet despite warnings from the state's chief elections officer, diebold continued fielding poorly tested, faulty software and hardware in at least two of california's largest urban counties during the super tuesday primary, when e-voting temporarily broke down and voters were turned away at the polls.

when the king of jordan postponed this week's meeting with president bush, the snub revealed only a fraction of the humiliation felt by washington's arab friends.

constrained by protocol and unwilling to burn bridges with the most powerful country in the world, arab leaders like king abdullah can only hint at the dismay they felt when bush changed u.s. policy last week, diplomats and analysts say.

the blow was particularly hard for egyptian president hosni mubarak, who met bush on april 12 and was still in the united states two days later when bush gave two key and sensitive concessions to visiting israeli prime minister ariel sharon...

bush, apparently to help sharon win domestic support for his gaza withdrawal plan, said that israel could keep some west bank land and that palestinian refugees should not expect to reclaim their homes in what is now israel.

coupled with the u.s. occupation of iraq, which arabs increasingly associate with israel's occupation of palestinian territories, the concessions were political dynamite…

mubarak told the houston chronicle last week he was shocked by bush's promises to sharon. he told the french newspaper le monde this week the americans had never before been so detested in the arab world.

the white house confirms a passage in the book about a meeting in november 2001 between president bush and defense secretary donald rumsfeld that put the planning in motion, but says that did not mean mr. bush was set on a course of attacking iraq at that point...

woodward's account indicates some members of the administration, particularly vice president cheney, were focused on saddam hussein from the outset of mr. bush's presidency and even after the terrorist attacks made the destruction of al qaeda the top priority…

the book says mr. bush quietly ordered creation of a war plan against iraq in the meeting with rumsfeld while overseeing a divided national security team, including a vice president determined to link saddam to al qaeda.

“and there's this low boil on iraq until the day before thanksgiving, nov. 21, 2001. this is 72 days after 9/11. this is part of this secret history. president bush, after a national security council meeting, takes don rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, ‘what have you got in terms of plans for iraq? what is the status of the war plan? i want you to get on it. i want you to keep it secret"…

“gets to a point where in july, the end of july 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. and the president approves it. but congress doesn't know and it is done. they get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the afghan war, which congress has approved. …some people are gonna look at a document called the constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by congress. congress was totally in the dark on this."

multicultural's claims were suspicious from the start. the owner, arthur liu, was quoted as saying that air america bounced some checks, but according to air america, everything was paid on time.

multicultural not only pulled air america off the radio -- they changed the locks on the station office.
it turns out there's more to multicultural than meets the eye. the ceo arthur liu, a republican supporter, retained the firm of gibson, dunn & crutcher -- a firm that lists ken starr and ted olsen as its alumni.

this is a right-wing blackout, and we can't let it happen. ken starr tried to overturn the results of one presidential election with whitewater; ted olsen successfully overturned another when he represented bush and cheney in bush v. gore in 2000. their cronies are trying to silence our voices.

the revelation came this morning, when cia director george tenet was on the stand. timothy roemer, a former democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the fbi's minnesota field office that zacarias moussaoui, an islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on aug. 23 or 24, 2001.

roemer then asked tenet if he mentioned moussaoui to president bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. tenet replied, "i was not in briefings at this time." bush, he noted, "was on vacation." he added that he didn't see the president at all in august 2001. during the entire month, bush was at his ranch in texas. "you never talked with him?" roemer asked. "no," tenet replied. by the way, for much of august, tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave."

and there you have it. national security adviser condoleezza rice has made a big point of the fact that tenet briefed the president nearly every day. yet at the peak moment of threat, the two didn't talk at all. at a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed.

jose luis rodriguez zapatero, whose socialist party scored a surprising win in the march 14 elections, announced the pullout order in a televised speech hours after his new government was sworn in.

the new prime minister said he had directed his defense minister, jose bono, "to do what is necessary for the spanish troops in iraq to come home in the shortest time and in the greatest safety possible”…

"with the information we have, and which we have gathered over the past few weeks, it is not likely that the united nations will adopt a resolution that will meet the conditions we have set for our presence in iraq," zapatero said, referring to spanish requirements for political and military change in iraq that would allow the spanish troops to remain.

but zapatero said his government would support u.n. or european union efforts to help iraq prepare for elections and the assumption of sovereignty. he is sending his foreign minister, miguel angel moratinos, to washington for meetings wednesday with secretary of state colin l. powell and national security adviser condoleezza rice to offer nonmilitary cooperation in iraq, such as training iraqi police.

the first part of april has been the bloodiest period so far for u.s. troops in iraq. there were 87 deaths by hostile fire in the first 15 days of the month, more than in the opening two weeks of the invasion, when 82 americans were killed in action.

"this has been some pretty intense fighting,'' said david segal, director of the university of maryland's center for research on military organization. "we're looking at what happened during the major battles of vietnam.''

the last time u.s. troops experienced a comparable two-week loss in combat was october 1971, two years before u.s. ground involvement ended in vietnam.

house majority leader tom delay urged the chairman of the sept. 11 commission yesterday to tone down "partisan mudslinging" by the panel's members, saying it could undermine the credibility of their final report.

in a letter to thomas kean, delay said he was troubled by what he believed was "gotcha-style questioning" during the panel's recent hearings featuring testimony by national security adviser condoleezza rice and top officials from the fbi and cia.

"the camera-driven tone of the hearings undermines the commission's credibility, distracts the american people from the gravity of the war on terror, and could send dangerous messages to unfriendly eyes and ears around the world," delay wrote.

"sometimes the public exchanges are pointed, but no more so than in the congress itself," kean responded in a letter to delay. "our answer to our critics can only be the quality of our report."

kean said he did not think gorelick should resign because she had recused herself from parts of the probe covering her time in office.

gorelick told cnn this week: "all of the commission members have some government experience. everyone is subject to the same recusal policies. you could have had a commission with nobody who knew anything about government. and i don't think it would have been a very helpful commission."

jamie gorelick, a member of the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, said saturday that she received death threats this week after a number of conservatives alleged that her former work in the justice department may have contributed to failures leading to the attacks…

"i can confirm that i've received threats at my office and my home," she told cnn on saturday. "i did get a bomb threat to my home."

she added, "i have gotten a lot of very vile e-mails. the bomb threat was by phone”…

the threats were "scary," she said, but added that she was "not intimidated enough to resign from the commission."

a law enforcement source told cnn that the fbi is investigating the threats.

bloggers didn't invent the word snarky, but they've had a lot to do with turning it into the metrosexual equivalent of bitchy. on the web, blogs account for more than three times as large a share of the total occurrences of snarky as of the occurrences of irony.

but in some ways they're also more exclusionary...the high, formal style of the newspaper op-ed page may be nobody's native language, but at least it's a neutral voice that doesn't privilege the speech of any particular group or class. whereas blogspeak is basically an adaptation of the table talk of the urban middle class -- it isn't a language that everybody in the cafeteria is equally adept at speaking. not that there's anything wrong with chewing over the events of the day with the other folks at the lunch table, but you hope that everybody in the room is at least reading the same newspapers at breakfast.

Labels: freeway blogger, protest

the iowa state daily; the daily iowan, the student newspaper at the university of iowa; and the dmacc chronicle, the student newspaper of the ankeny campus of des moines area community college, were all left off the approved list to cover the presidential visit…

"we took all the right steps to get in, and we got screwed in the end," said scott mussell, photographer for the dmacc chronicle.

mike allsup, reporter for the chronicle, said the paper had faxed press credential information to the white house press office at 11 a.m. tuesday, a full day before the due date.

"i think they missed out on a huge opportunity for getting the president's message out to students," he said.

allsup said he was later contacted by the white house press office and told the president didn't want students covering the event in des moines.

"the fact they called me and told me that really pissed me off," he said.

a u.s. businessman was abducted from his hotel in the southern city of basra by kidnappers disguised as policemen, basra police chief said friday.

col. khalaf al-maleki said the abduction of the american, who was of jordanian origin, took place thursday night. he had no further details.

also friday, denmark's foreign ministry said a danish businessman was believed kidnapped, while a sunni leader said a chinese citizen was released.

the number of americans filing for unemployment insurance jumped by 30,000 last week to the highest level since february, the government reported thursday, with the figure well above economists' expectations.

initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 360,000 in the week ended april 10 from a revised 330,000 the previous week, the . labor department reported. the figure was above economists' estimates of 335,000 first-time claims, according to brieifing.com.

the increase in initial claims was the largest weekly rise since december 2002.

fans of the fox television show "american idol" tuned in last night and voted immediately and resoundingly to bounce the president from the show…

simon cowell was particularly harsh. "i don't know why you think you have a chance in this business," he told bush, and called it "perhaps the worst performance of elton john i have ever witnessed."

the six chartered flights that rushed scores of saudi citizens out of the united states after the attacks of sept. 11, 2001, were handled properly by the bush administration, the independent commission investigating the attacks said in a statement on tuesday.

a flight on sept. 20, 2001, carried 26 passengers, most of them relatives of osama bin laden, according to the statement. but all 142 passengers on the flights, mostly saudi citizens, were screened by law enforcement officials, the statement said, to ensure that they were not security threats and not wanted for questioning. the flights were "dealt with in a professional manner" by the government, the commission said.

by the time a cia briefer gave president bush the aug. 6, 2001, president's daily brief headlined "bin ladin determined to strike in us," the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al qaeda's intentions. so had vice president cheney and bush's top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

in april and may 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports "bin laden planning multiple operations," "bin laden network's plans advancing" and "bin laden threats are real”…

"reports similar to these were made available to president bush in the morning meetings with [director of central intelligence george j.] tenet," the commission staff said.

the information offers the most detailed account to date of the warnings the intelligence community gave top bush administration officials, and it provides the context in which a cia briefer put together a memo on osama bin laden's activities in the aug. 6 brief for bush.

but brad carson, unlike sumer's tent-folding to the rightwinger attack (whom kerry's blog followed in pattern), responded with the right attitude. mock and condecension. stephanie herseth's play-nice response on the "secret website" claim was an effective reframing of the issue as well, but the hard hit-back is going to be more effective in stopping this nonsense. if the republicans are going to try to use a fundamental part of the internet for their partisan gain -- linkage -- then democratic candidates should just ignore the partisan snipping, or publically mock their ignorance in return.

arthur liu, owner of multicultural radio broadcasting, which owns air america affiliates wntd-950 am in chicago and kbla-1580 am in los angeles, said air america bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million.

air america and multicultural had entered into a time brokerage agreement in which the network was essentially renting multicultural's airtime, liu said.

"they bounced a check today," liu said. "it's a default. they have paid only a very small portion of what they owe us." liu declined to say how much multicultural is owed, but did say he is holding $1 million in checks that air america has asked the company not to cash…

"that is an outright lie," said evan cohen, air america's chairman, in a statement. "multicultural radio broadcasting's conduct in this matter has been disgraceful.... [i]t is a clear violation of their contractual obligations."

air america filed a complaint today in new york state supreme court charging multicultural with breaching their contract and seeking an injunction to force multicultural to restore the air america broadcast on both stations…

a chicago source familiar with the situation said a multicultural representative showed up at wntd's offices this morning, kicked out air america's lone staffer overseeing the network's feed to the station from new york, switched over to a spanish-language feed, and changed the locks on the doors.

liu said the same thing happened at kbla in los angeles.

air america radio is temporarily unable to be heard on wntd in chicago and kbla in los angeles, but chicago and los angeles listeners can still hear our broadcast on the web at airamericaradio.com and on xm satellite radio (channel 167).

multicultural radio broadcasting's conduct in this matter has been disgraceful. to shut off a broadcast that listeners rely on without warning and in the middle of discussions is the height of irresponsibility and a slap in the face of the media industry. in addition, it is a clear violation of their contractual obligations, and we are seeking legal remedies against them in court.

"when i say something, i mean it," george w. bush said decisively near the end of last night's prime-time presidential news conference. nobody called out, "when will you say something?" -- the white house press corps is too mannerly for that -- but some reporters, and some viewers, must have been thinking it.

ashcroft said secret orders that president bill clinton gave the cia had to be rewritten because they did not permit the agency to kill the al qaeda leader, but only to capture him.

"it was so complex and convoluted that it would be paralytic," he said of clinton's directive.

pickard said ashcroft told him to stop talking about the al qaeda threats.

"he did not want to hear about this anymore," pickard said. "that is correct."

ashcroft flatly denied this happened.

"i did never say to him that i did not want to hear about terrorism," ashcroft said. ashcroft said that even before the 9/11 attacks he approved a large funding increase for counter-terrorism in the justice department and had pressed pickard on what the terrorists were up to.

"my no. 1 priority was terrorism," he said.

a pair of reports released by the commission this morning says ashcroft didn't make counterterrorism a priority before sept. 11.

ashcroft's justice department issued a list of budget priorities in may 2001, citing gun violence and illegal drugs while making no mention of counterterrorism, one of the reports said. the report said that dale watson, head of the fbi's counterterrorism division, ``told us that he almost fell out of his chair'' when he saw that list.

on sept. 10, 2001, ashcroft rejected an appeal by the acting fbi director, thomas pickard, for additional counterterrorism funds, the report says. the fbi is an arm of the justice department.

a second staff report included another anecdote that portrayed ashcroft as putting a low priority on counterterrorism. it said pickard met weekly with ashcroft in late june and july of 2001 as the government was inundated with reports of possible terror threats.

pickard told the commission that ``after two such briefings the attorney general told him he did not want to hear this information anymore,'' the report said. ashcroft, his former deputy and his chief of staff all dispute pickard's account, the report added.

this does not mean that no one supports president bush (and i can easily miss a favorable e-mail since there are so many e-mails plus spam.) it does mean that i had a difficult time finding e-mails from those who supports the president and who e-mailed me in the last 36 or so hours. the number supporting him and writing me in the last 36 hours is very few -- i could not find one…

dear ms. van sustern,

we agree with the majority of your emails in reference to bush and the pdb and the iraqi war. with the release of the declassified pdb, and the information coming out of the 911 commission hearings, two things have become obvious:

george w. bush is far over his head in his abilities to handle the job he currently has. he is a short-sighted manager, surrounding himself with syncophants, and he is truly unable to listen to, let alone consider, viewpoints opposing his own.

secondly, we as a nation were lied to, not only about the reasons for the war, but about the very nature of the administration's approach to terrorism and 9/11 and osama bin laden.

even irrespective of the terrible deficits his administration has saddled this country with, his mismanagement in world affairs have wounded this country's ability to lead, if not survive. he has made the united states into a devil and an enemy in most of the world's eyes. we as a naiton will be hard pressed to scrape out of the current mess within a decade's time.

he lies to our troops overseas, dying for an unnecessary war, he lies to the people here at home, losing jobs and rights. if he were in any other position in the world he would have been fired long ago.

how we wish donald trump were in charge of bush's future!

yours,
etc.

president bush will hold his first formal press conference of the year on tuesday to discuss the situation in iraq, where u.s. forces are battling both sunni and shi'ite muslim insurgents, the white house said.

the east room of the white house is usually reserved for formal events. only two of bush's 11 press conferences have been held there -- one on oct. 11, 2001, in the wake of the sept. 11 attacks, and another on march 6, 2003, on the eve of the iraq invasion, the white house said.

if you knew that president franklin d. roosevelt had received a memo a month before pearl harbor entitled, "japanese determined to attack the united states in the pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of fdr as a wise war leader?

but [ben-veniste] wasn't prohibited from asking rice the title of the pdb. and she obliged: "i believe the title was, 'bin laden determined to attack inside the united states.'" ouch. just moments after she had said intelligence was "not specific" about the place of attack, here's a presidential-level document warning, specifically, that al-qaida's target wasn't overseas somewhere, but rather the united states itself…

rice's semi-admission - she was under oath, but that doesn't guarantee that every witness will tell whole truth - stirred up bob kerrey, another commissioner...

"in the spirit of further declassification," he announced, "this is what the august 6th memo said to the president: that the fbi indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the united states consistent with preparations for hijacking. that's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of august."

ouch again. "hijacking" is pretty darn specific - which seems to contradict rice's assertion that the intelligence was "frustratingly vague" as to the "manner of attack."

plenty of people in washington had their "hair on fire" about the terror threat in the summer of 2001. but not bush, apparently. on aug. 4, he went off on a working vacation to his ranch in texas.

according to white house speechwriter turned memoirist david frum, that summer bush "did something i had never seen him do: he brooded." yet the issue wasn't terror; it seems it was stem cell research. on aug. 9, bush gave his first primetime policy speech to the nation - on the topic of embryos. after that, according to frum, bush launched a "mini-political campaign" that took him out on the stump.

and we all know what happened the following month.

what we don't know is the precise sequence of events that led to the government's pearl harbor-like cluelessness on 9/11. but there's at least a chance now, as documents are revealed and as officials testify under oath, that we'll find out. in the meantime, here's a prediction, based on what we know already: bush won't dare show more 9/11 images in his campaign ads.

under assault by insurgents and unable to rely on u.s. and coalition troops for intelligence or help under duress, private security firms in iraq have begun to band together in the past 48 hours, organizing what may effectively be the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and pooled, sensitive intelligence...

"each private firm amounts to an individual battalion," said one u.s. government official familiar with the developments. "now they are all coming together to build the largest security organization in the world."

some defense department officials are concerned that private commandos are not subject to adequate oversight. there is no government vetting of contract workers who carry weapons. "the cpa [coalition provisional authority] has let all kinds of contracts to all kinds of people," said one senior defense department official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. "it's blindsided us”…

in all three instances, u.s. and coalition military forces were called for help but did not respond in a timely manner, according to u.s. government and industry accounts. the private commandos fought for hours and eventually were able to "self-evacuate," said one u.s. official, who asked not to be named.

asked last night to explain why u.s. and coalition forces had not responded to requests for help, a pentagon spokesman referred the question to commanders in iraq, who could not be reached for comment because of the time difference.

"the truth is we got led into this ambush," toohey, vice president for government relations at blackwater, said in an interview, offering the company's first detailed account of the attack. "we were set up”…

toohey said his company's investigation of the incident, which included interviews with convoy drivers who survived the ambush, had not yet determined whether the blackwater employees were led into fallujah by active members of the iraqi civil defense corps or whether they were led into the city by impostors wearing defense corps uniforms.

but the convoy, on a mission to pick up kitchen equipment, had little cause for suspicion: the iraqi escort was prearranged and met with the convoy as planned at an intersection just east of fallujah. "they said, 'we'll escort you, show you a short way through fallujah,' " toohey said…

"the icdc blocked the road and the ambush happened," he said, referring to the iraqi civil defense corps, a force trained by the united states to guard roads and utilities and combat insurgents. the assailants first "opened up at point blank range" on the rear car, he said, and then took aim at the lead vehicle.

"this ambush didn't even take 60 seconds," toohey said.

2) why wasn't counterterrorism one of the seven strategic goals ashcroft outlined in a may 2001 memo to his division heads?

4) after 9/11, why did ashcroft slash almost $1 billion from an emergency fbi request to bolster counterterrorism efforts?

8) why, in the days after 9/11, did ashcroft, along with white house and state department officials, allow two dozen members of the bin laden and saudi royal families to circumvent faa restrictions forbidding flights and leave the country without full fbi questioning?

• japanese prime minister junichiro koizumi has vowed to keep his nearly 550 noncombat troops in iraq, but the taking of three hostages last week - still being held at this writing - has shaken public support for the deployment, the first of its kind in postwar japan.

• opposition members in ukraine have called for the withdrawal of troops after fierce fighting last week killed one soldier and forced a withdrawal from the southern city of kut. us forces regained control of kut over the weekend.

• thailand, with 443 troops in karbala, said it would remain, but reserved the right to reconsider.

• the newly elected socialist government in spain has vowed to withdraw that country's 1,300 troops from iraq unless the united nations takes control of security and reconstruction.

at least one hostage was released on sunday and more were expected to be freed. britain's foreign office said gary teeley, a british man who had reportedly been kidnapped in the southern city of nasiriyah, was safe and in the hands of coalition forces.

al-jazeera reported sunday that kidnappers said they would release eight other foreign hostages -- two turks, three pakistanis, a nepalese, a filipino and an indian. their captors claimed the men were truck drivers for the u.s.-led coalition.

in a video of the eight hostages, a spokesman for the kidnappers said they were being released. but it was unclear if the men were actually freed.

japanese officials in jordan said they were talking with unidentified people in iraq to gain the japanese hostages' release. a negotiator told the japanese government the three civilians were unharmed, held near fallouja, kyodo news reported, citing unidentified government sources.

president bush says he received no information prior to september 11, 2001, indicating a terrorist attack on america was imminent…

"there was not a time and place of an attack," he said. "it said osama bin-laden had designs on america. well, i knew that."

when the bush administration exploited the nation's anxiety over 9/11 to justify invading iraq, [professor] gilbert said, "it was the worst foreign policy decision made in living memory. "

portions of the intelligence report dealing with osama bin laden's al qaeda network and dated august 6, 2001, have been redacted for national security reasons, the white house said…

the memo includes intelligence on al qaeda threats as recent as three months before the attacks…

highlights of the report include:

• an intelligence report received in may 2001 indicating that al qaeda was trying to send operatives to the united states through canada to carry out an attack using explosives. that information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

• an allegation that al qaeda had been considering ways to hijack american planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999.

• an allegation that bin laden was set on striking the united states as early as 1997 and through early 2001.

• intelligence suggesting that suspected al qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the united states, were u.s. citizens, and may have had a support network in the country.

• a report that at least 70 fbi investigations were under way in 2001 regarding possible al qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the united states.

the u.s. occupation is "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them to make big bucks," said daniel biran, a former israeli special forces soldier who is associate managing director for security practice at boston's citigate global intelligence.

the pay for private workers in dangerous places like iraq is generous. experienced people can make $1,000 a day, according to singer. the first $120,000 earned by americans working in iraq is tax-free, murray said.

and if things get too hairy, private workers - unlike soldiers - can quit.

in comparison, a green beret master sergeant with 20 years of service and getting various allowances may earn $67,000 annually, said ken mcgraw, a spokesman for the u.s. special operations command in tampa, fla.

"we are calling for the withdrawal of american and coalition forces. we have japanese, bulgarian, israeli, american, spanish and korean hostages. their numbers are 30," a masked man holding a kalashnikov rifle said in the broadcast on saturday.

"if america doesn't lift its blockade of falluja their heads will be cut off," he said. the footage did not show any of the alleged hostages.

the so-called presidential daily briefing, or pdb, delivered to bush on august 6, 2001 -- a month before the september 11 attacks -- said there were various reports that osama bin laden had wanted to strike inside the united states as early as 1997 and continuing into the spring of 2001, the sources told the associated press.

the same month as that briefing of bush, u.s. intelligence officials received two uncorroborated reports suggesting terrorists might use airplanes, including one that suggested al-qaeda operatives were considering flying a plane into a u.s. embassy, current and former government officials said.

newspaper articles in may 2002 noted the briefing document's alarming title and reported that the pdb mentioned al qaeda members living in the united states and others traveling in and out of the country. a july 2003 report from a house-senate inquiry into intelligence failures said the pdb found that al qaeda "apparently maintained a support structure" inside the united states.

the same report also said the pdb mentioned "fbi judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attack," and included intelligence acquired in may 2001 that "indicated a group of bin laden supporters was planning attacks in the united states with explosives."

president bush was told more than a month before the attacks of sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of osama bin laden planned an attack within the united states with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said friday.

the warning came in a secret briefing that mr. bush received at his ranch in crawford, tex., on aug. 6, 2001. a report by a joint congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by al qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by the associated press on friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in crawford.

the disclosure appears to contradict the white house's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the white house had little reason to suspect a qaeda attack within american borders.

first-time claims for state unemployment insurance fell an unexpectedly steep 14,000 in the week ended april 3 to 328,000 -- the lowest level since just before president bush took office -- from 342,000 the prior week, the labor department said.

the unexpectedly large fall surprised analysts and led many to predict that a trend toward more hiring was in place, especially after last month's pickup in job creation.

the ap-ipsos consumer confidence index dropped to 84.8 this week, from a reading of 97.7 in early march, when americans' feelings about the economy had shown an improvement from the previous month…

the april consumer confidence reading was taken after the government released a report last friday showing the nation's payrolls in march posted their biggest gains in four years. yet some economists believe that the preceding months of fairly lackluster job growth and a political and media spotlight on the issue of u.s. jobs migrating overseas may have heightened consumers' anxiety about their own job security.

"we've been saturated with the evils of offshoring jobs and that does start to color our perceptions," said carl tannenbaum, chief economist at lasalle bank. "i would have expected the level of comfort about jobs, though, would have been enhanced by the march employment report. but one month doesn't make a trend and there may still be lingering anxiety."

former enron chief executive jeff skilling reportedly was hospitalized early friday after police responded to calls saying he was harassing bar patrons on manhattan's upper east side.

a police source said callers accused skilling of pulling on their clothes and accusing them of being "fbi agents following me," according to the associated press.

police found skilling at 4 a.m. edt at the corner of park avenue and east 73rd street and determined he might be an "emotionally disturbed person," the source told the ap. he wasn't charged and has since left new york presbyterian hospital.

skilling was at two bars in manhattan -- american trash and the voodoo lounge -- where he allegedly pulled open patrons' clothes, the source told the ap. the bizarre behavior continued in the street, the story said.

did you write the patriot act,
and do you have faith in un’s pact?
if dick cheney tells you “no.”
do you believe in awol bush,
and should we save some arab tush,
and can you teach me how to snub nato?

well i know destruction could be mass
unless we kick iraqi ass,
we bombed them in basra.
i dig that shock and awe!
we left poor mosul in a pinch,
but israel thinks we’re a mensch,
while we were saving private lynch
the day the statue died.

i started singing
bye bye you iraqi bad guy
drove my hummer through the summer
but the bummer won’t die
and rummy’s boys drinkin’ whiskey and rye
sayin’ this’ll be the day saddam dies
this’ll be the day saddam dies.

kristen breitweiser: i would have hoped that the commissioners would have asked more pointed questions, more questions about the substance of the threats that we were facing, more about the intelligence community, what they knew where, where the breakdown of the intel information occurred, why the national security advisor did not know that planes could be used as missiles. that’s her job…

lorie van auken: we also know that people stopped flying domestically. ashcroft stopped flying. pentagon officials stop flying the day before september 11. they were warned not fly on september 11. we think san francisco mayor willie brown was told not to fly. that’s all domestic. you know, everybody keeps telling us how they were focused outward...

mindy kleinberg: you know, what’s unbelievable about that is that nobody followed that up. i mean they say that they told the faa and they told the fbi, but nobody at the faa did anything.

nobody stepped up the protocols and procedures during that threat period. nobody at the fbi knew that this threat was there.
and i would have liked them to continue to ask her, because apparently, she didn’t feel that was her responsibility...

breitweiser:…if the public was better informed in the summer of 2001, lives would have been saved. maybe the attacks wouldn’t have been prevented; but lives would have been saved.

my husband was in tower ii. if he knew that it was a terrorist attack, he wouldn’t have stayed in the building.

we spoke to a pilot’s wife, and we asked her, what do you think happened? and she said "i wish he knew that these guys knew how to fly the plane." she told us that they [pilots] were trained that they were indispensable so they wouldn’t fight a hijacking...

patty casazza: and it’s also disingenuous for the national security advisor to say she couldn’t have imagined planes being used as weapons.

in july, the president, condoleezza rice, ari fleischer, karen hughes, and karl rove attended the general summit in italy. the national security advisor of that nation was aware of an assassination attempt to be committed upon our president and the leaders attending that g8 summit in july.

how do you forget, two months later, the threat of your life, the president’s life, and not think that that threat could actually follow you home to the united states?

i'd like to see videotaping required for all police interviews, and in return i'd suggest that the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination be discarded. if police interviews are all recorded and trials are all held in public, it's not at all clear to me what value the 5th amendment right to silence has anymore.

sure, it'll never happen. but with star chambers a thing of the past and videotaping preventing coerced confessions, i really do wonder if the self-incrimination clause of the 5th amendment has enough value left to make it worth the problems it causes. i suspect it doesn't.

what was supposed to be an easter celebration for children reportedly turned into a demonstration of how jesus christ was crucified...

"it was absolutely horrendous," melissa salzmann said. "we left after about 45 minutes, it was so bad."

residents quote performers as saying, "there is no easter bunny" and breaking eggs meant for an easter egg hunt.

a portrayal of the easter bunny being whipped and tortured as the 12 stations of the cross reportedly was part of the show.

thousands of sunni and shiite muslims forced their way through us military checkpoints thursday to ferry food and medical supplies to the besieged sunni bastion of fallujah where us marines are trying to crush insurgents.

troops in armoured vehicles tried to stop the convoy of cars and pedestrians from reaching the town located 50 kilometers west of baghdad.

but us forces were overwhelmed as residents of villages west of the capital came to the convoy's assistance, hurling insults and stones at the beleaguered troops.

some 20 kilometers west of baghdad, a us patrol was attacked just moments before the iraqi marchers arrived. armed insurgents could be seen dancing around two blazing military vehicles.

two us humvees tried to stop the marchers but were forced to drive off as residents joined the marchers, shouting "allahu akbar" (god is greater).

us troops again blocked the highway further west, but were forced to let the iraqis past as they came under a hail of stones…

the cross-community demonstration of support for fallujah had been organized by baghdad clerics both sunni and shiite amid reports that the death toll in the town had reached 105 since late tuesday.

the rare display of unity came after shiite radicals launched an uprising in cities across central and southern iraq, shattering a year of relative tolerance of the us-led occupation from the country's majority community.

ben-veniste: did you tell the president, at any time prior to august 6th, of the existence of al-qaida cells in the united states?

rice: first, let me just make certain ...

ben-veniste: if you could just answer that question, because i only have a very limited ...

rice: i understand, commissioner, but it's important ...

ben-veniste: did you tell the president ...

rice: ... that i also address ...

(applause)

it's also important that, commissioner, that i address the other issues that you have raised. so i will do it quickly, but if you'll just give me a moment.

ben-veniste: well, my only question to you is whether you ...

rice: i understand, commissioner, but i will ...

ben-veniste: ... told the president.

rice: if you'll just give me a moment, i will address fully the questions that you've asked...

[ed. note: here she dances around the point better than twyla tharpe danced around barnard.]

...i really don't remember, commissioner, whether i discussed this with the president.

ben-veniste: thank you.

rice: i remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the united states. he talked to people about this. but i don't remember the al-qaida cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.

ben-veniste: isn't it a fact, dr. rice, that the august 6th pdb warned against possible attacks in this country? and i ask you whether you recall the title of that pdb?

rice: i believe the title was, bin laden determined to attack inside the united states.

now, the ...

ben-veniste: thank you.

if the bodies of the security guards killed in fallujah had not been mutilated, how many american voters would have noticed? one recent poll shows that near-plurality of americans now favors our leaving iraq. but precisely because this was not a war we had to fight, just up and leaving would be politically and morally duplicitous. we wrested control of iraq when we did not have to, and leaving it to its own devices as sectarian violence grows worse would be a dismal end. the only unequivocally good policy option before the american people is to dump the president who got us into this mess, who had no trouble sending our young people to iraq but who cannot steel himself to face the sept. 11 commission alone.

u.s.-led forces are battling sunni muslim guerrillas and a spreading shi'ite uprising, with iraqi anger inflamed by a u.s. bombing of a mosque compound that witnesses say killed 25 people.

washington said on wednesday it may delay the scheduled return home of some u.s. troops in order to buttress force levels after 35 u.s. and allied soldiers were killed in the last three days in the heaviest fighting since saddam hussein's fall nearly a year ago.

"because we're in the midst of a major troops rotation, we have a planned increase in the number of u.s. troops," u.s. defence secretary donald rumsfeld told reporters at the pentagon. some 135,000 u.s. troops are now in iraq.

in fallujah, u.s. bombs struck near a mosque. u.s. officials said one person was killed, but a bbc report placed the death toll at 40.

the death toll for coalition forces in the last two days of fighting stood at 34, including 12 marines who died tuesday in ramadi. ten of those marines were from a single company.

the iraqi death toll was much higher, perhaps more than 500. marine engineers patrolling near ramadi on wednesday reported coming across a mass grave containing up to 350 bodies of iraqis who appeared to have been killed in the fighting. it wasn't clear whether the bodies belonged to combatants, civilians or both.

back at busch: somewhat hostile crowd complained mightily about the problems the presidential motorcade caused with regular fans trying to get into the park. a cards employee tipped moi that the team was so concerned about bush being booed that they piped in fake applause when he strode out to the mound. lamping flatly denied it. ...

earlier in the day, bush was greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos at busch stadium, where he threw an inside strike to st. louis catcher mike matheny before the cardinals opened against the milwaukee brewers

twelve us soldiers have been killed in a battle west of baghdad as fighting with supporters of a firebrand iraqi cleric continues to spread through the area.

several iraqi civilians were also killed as gunfights erupted around the iraqi capital, bringing the death toll in the last three days of fighting to about 130 in the worst fighting since the war that toppled saddam hussein

sunni and shi'ite residents of two baghdad suburbs, once fierce enemies, said overnight they had put their differences aside to unite in their fight to oust the us occupying force from iraq.

"all of iraq is behind moqtada al-sadr, we are but one body, one people," declared sheikh raed al-kazami, in charge of the radical shi'ite cleric's offices at a mosque in the shi'ite neighbourhood of kazimiya, west of the iraqi capital...

al-kazami said residents of the sunni neighbourhood of adhamiya, a stone's throw from kazimiya, had offered their support, as had residents from ramadi and fallujah, west of baghdad, as well as residents of the northern city of mosul.

the muslim cleric, surrounded by armed bodyguards, said some sunnis had even offered to join sadr's militia.

to prove his point he displayed about 100 men in the gardens of the mosque who were armed with kalashnikov rifles and who stood ready to join the battle.

more than 100 iraqis have been killed and hundreds wounded in the past two days as coalition troops crack down on shi'ite rebels of firebrand cleric moqtada al-sadr, hospital and military sources said today.

another 20 coalition troops have been killed in the same fighting and in actions against sunni insurgents west of the capital, military sources said.

against heavy resistance overnight, us tanks and armoured vehicles started rolling into fallujah, west of baghdad, as operation vigilant resolve sought to track down insurgents behind the brutal murder of four americans last week.

three soldiers were killed in separate fighting around baghdad and four u.s. marines died "as a result of enemy action" in western anbar province, the military said in two statements tuesday.

the four members of the 1st marine expeditionary force were killed monday while "conducting security and stabilization operations," it said. it gave no other details.

with the u.s. casualty toll ticking ever upward, and its troops stretched thin on the ground, the bush administration is looking to mercenaries to help control iraq. these soldiers-for-hire are veterans of some of the most repressive military forces in the world, including that of the former chilean dictator augusto pinochet and south africa's apartheid regime.

in february, blackwater usa, a north carolina-based pentagon contractor, began recruiting "former commandos, other soldiers and seamen" from chile, offering them up to $4,000 a month "to guard oil wells against attack by insurgents," the guardian reported. the company "flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of augusto pinochet, from santiago to a... [large] training camp in north carolina," wrote jonathan franklin, reporting from santiago, chile.

these recruits will eventually wind up in iraq, where they will spend six months to a year: "we scour the ends of the earth to find professionals -- the chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the blackwater system," gary jackson, the president of blackwater usa, told the guardian.

but the hate spewing from the warhawk right reminds me why a bunch of decent progressive folks end up lining up with the answer types-- the lgf types embody the stereotype of hateful americans that lead to hate of the us around the world. lgf folks are the real source of terrorism, the reason americans aren't safe around the world. the terrorists individually are evil bastards, but the only reason they have so many people willing to hide them and protect them is because of the arrogance and hate spewed by the rightwing fringe of america.

more americans now disapprove of the way he is doing his job than approve, though by only a slight margin (47% disapprove vs. 43% approve). just four-in-ten approve of the way bush is handling the situation in iraq, his lowest rating ever and down from 59% in january. bush's evaluations on other issues – the economy, energy and even terrorism – have fallen as well. and by a wide margin (57% to 32%) the public does not think he has a clear plan for bringing the situation in iraq to a successful conclusion.

just 50% of americans favor keeping troops in iraq until a stable government is established there, while 44% support bringing the troops home as soon as possible. in january, the public by nearly two-to-one favored maintaining u.s. troops in iraq until a stable government is formed (63%-32%).

the latest pew research center national survey of 790 adults, conducted april 1-4, finds just 39% approve of bush's handling of the economy, in spite of a government report released april 2 showing a sharp increase in job growth.

saying that truth has become the biggest casualty of the bush administration, kennedy said bush misled the public about the war, the economy, health care and education, eroding the nation’s reputation at home and abroad.

“as a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since richard nixon,” kennedy said in a speech at the brookings institution, a think tank. “he has broken the basic bond of trust with the american people.”

the senator said the government has cut unemployment benefits, failed to pay for education overhaul and is spending $134 billion more than expected on a medicare plan.

with u.s. troops still having to battle insurgents and defend themselves, the job of protecting everyone else in iraq—from journalists to government contractors to the u.s. administrator in iraq, l. paul bremer—is largely being done by private security companies stocked with former soldiers looking for good money and the taste of danger. pentagon officials count roughly 20 private companies around the world that contract for security work, mainly in combat areas. they are finding plenty of it in iraq. scott custer, a co-director of custer battles, based in fairfax, va., says as many as 30,000 iraqis and "several thousand expats" are working for private outfits in iraq. security contractors make a lot more than the average soldier, but last week's events suggest that they may also be turning into more attractive targets for insurgents. "if they can chase us out," says custer co-director mike battles, "then in a void, they become more powerful."

"those blackwater guys," says an intelligence officer in iraq, "they drive around wearing oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. they have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. imagine what a guy in fallujah thinks." adds an army officer who just returned from baghdad, "they are a subculture."

indeed, the relationship between the private soldiers and the real ones isn't always collaborative. "we've responded to the military at least half a dozen times, but not once have they responded to our emergencies," says custer. "we have our own quick-reaction force now." but the private firms are usually cut off from the u.s. military's intelligence network and from information that could minimize risk to their employees. noel koch, who oversaw terrorism policy for the pentagon in the 1980s and now runs transecur, a global information-security firm, says private companies "aren't required to have an intelligence collection or analytical capability in house. it's always assumed that the government is going to provide intelligence about threats." that, says koch, means "they are flying blind, often guessing about places that they shouldn't go."

it's still unclear whether the four blackwater employees found themselves in fallujah inadvertently or were on a mission gone awry. even by pentagon standards, military officials were fuzzy about the exact nature of the blackwater mission; several officers privately disputed the idea that the team was escorting a food convoy.

mark kleiman, a well-respected blogger on the left, compared markos to ann coulter. seen in light of the history of zuniga's service to his country and long honest track record versus coulter's dishonest opportunism and consistent appeals to violence towards the left, this comparison is absurd.

the rock's walking tall was a solid second with $15.3 million, followed by scooby-doo 2: monsters unleashed with $15.1 million. disney's home on the range took in $14 million, while the prince & me captured $10 million.

we were saddened to hear that three advertisers pulled their ads on the site because of the remarks posted on the blog. the comments may be controversial, but they are just as relevant. the ability to allow comments like those read on daily kos is a testament to the virtues this country was founded on, especially the right to free speech.

our campaign has decided that because of the recent events we will step in and advertise on www.dailykos.com. we have made this decision for two reasons:

1) we firmly believe in the first amendment and everyone's right to say whatever he or she chooses on their own website.

2) we refuse to allow our campaign to be bullied by the right wing like they bullied kos' previous advertisers.

we entered this campaign for congress based on courage and the desire to stand up to the republicans who are destroying our country with huge deficits, unjustified wars, and a blatant disregard for americans and the challenges they face in their daily lives.

seven u.s. soldiers were killed and more than 24 wounded in clashes in sadr city, a mostly shiite neighborhood in the northeastern part of the iraqi capital, an army spokesman said early monday morning.

the deadly clash came hours after supporters of moqtada sadr, a fiery, young anti-american cleric, fought sunday with a spanish-led force at a military base in the southern iraqi town of kufa and as a week of protests and violence escalated across the country.

master sgt. david a. melancon of the 1st armored division said in a statement monday that the fighting in the capital began when "the militia of moqtada sadr's army -- jaysh mahdi or mahdi army -- attempted to interfere with security in baghdad, intimidate iraqi citizens and place them in danger. specifically, the militia attempted to occupy and gain control of police stations and government buildings??

in kufa, at least 14 protesters and two soldiers, including one american, were killed and more than 100 were injured in fighting here that witnesses said involved gunfire, mortars and an ah-64 apache attack helicopter

elsewhere in iraq, news services reported that two u.s. marines from the 1st marine division were killed in anbar province, an area that extends west from the capital to the jordanian border and includes the restive city of fallujah, but few details were released. one marine was killed saturday, the other died sunday, the associated press reported.

ap also reported that a bomb exploded sunday near an iraqi police checkpoint in samarra, about 60 miles north of baghdad, killing three and wounding one.

but our leader directs more sermonizing at what he takes to be "the left," which he says is infested with rot. how about the rot infesting instapundit's blogroll? flaming racist loons, like "little green footballs" or "gut rumbles." those who wax hysterical and instigate violence against other bloggers.

along with blackwater usa, the elite north carolina company that employed the victims of the fallujah violence, more than 35 other security companies from around the globe employ an estimated 15,000 private security workers in iraq. dozens more companies are competing for lucrative contracts available here.

the security firms operate in a world where the military, the intelligence community and private companies merge. many of the employees once served in elite units such as the navy seals or army green berets.

their clients, activities and even the names of security firm employees are largely kept from public view. security experts estimate that dozens of the heavily armed security workers have been killed since entering iraq after the ousting of president saddam hussein nearly a year ago.

the vast majority of their work in iraq is government-funded, either through direct contracts with government agencies or indirectly as security for firms that have contracts to help rebuild iraq.

blackwater's most high-profile client also is arguably the biggest target for insurgents: l. paul bremer iii, the u.s. civilian administrator for iraq. despite and in large part because of the continuing violence in iraq, the private security industry is lucrative here. "this place is the biggest job expo going in the security world. if you can't make it here, you can't make it," said a seasoned security expert in iraq who is working with a firm under government contract.

the four blackwater usa mercenaries - or, rather, security contractors - who were ambushed, burned, dismembered and dangled over the euphrates river in fallujah, iraq, this week were supposed to be operating under the public radar. that's how it works in this burgeoning $100 billion industry in which governments hire private commandos to do the work once delegated to gi's. our government even hired blackwater bodyguards to protect its top official in iraq, paul bremer...

one perk for governments hiring private commandos, experts say, has been that they operate off the books, so to speak. if one or two or 20 happen to die in the course of an operation, the understanding is the public will find it more palatable than if they were bright-eyed towheads in army uniforms hailing from hometown, usa.

"it's a way to dodge political costs," peter singer, author of a book called "corporate warriors," said friday in the christian science monitor. plus, he said, "it's a way to avoid the public costs when things go wrong."

more than 20 of these private contractors, for instance, have been killed in colombia since 1998. and the new york times reports that three american civilians working for a northrop grumman subsidiary assigned to root out cocaine labs have been held hostage by marxist rebels for more than a year.

who knew? or, more to the point, who cared?

we didn't start the fracas
other blogs been churning
over bodies burning

show: the big story with john gibson (17:21)

march 31, 2004 wednesday

...gibson: ok, let me ask you about these contractors. who is driving around in unprotected suv's in fallujah?

peters: i have to give you a painful answer on this. either the most foolish contractors in the history of mankind or frankly it may have been intelligence people doing intelligence work. i don't know. i was talking to a colonel friend of mine who is over in the gulf right now, today, about this. and he said, if they're contractors this is darwinian selection at work.

gibson: yes, but it's just kind of astonishing because saddam hussein got along apparently for months driving around in an old beat up taxi. nothing could be more obvious than an american or european suv driving around the middle of fallujah. and you have to ask, what where these people thinking?

six in ten americans are following the hearings closely; 56 percent say the administration is cooperating with the panel. but what the administration is saying does not receives high marks: 59 percent say it is hiding something it knew before sept. 11, and 11 percent even say it is lying. only one in four think the administration is telling the entire truth.

prosecutors investigating whether someone in the bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a c.i.a. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether white house officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say…

the broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the bush white house feared when attorney general john ashcroft removed himself from the case last december and turned it over to patrick j. fitzgerald, the united states attorney in chicago.

u.s. payrolls grew at the fastest pace in nearly four years in march, the government said friday, in a report that soared past wall street forecasts and could play a pivotal role in fed policy and the presidential election.

though economists cautioned that one month does not a trend make, it was possibly the best economic news since the onset of the last recession in 2001, and a sign of spring for the nation's labor market, which has been mired in its longest slump since 1939.

at the same time, the civilian unemployment rate bumped up to 5.7 percent, the labor department reported friday..

for the first time in 44 months, the nation's factories did not shed jobs. but they weren't hiring either. march's figures show zero gains and losses for
manufacturers hammered by the economic downturn that began three years ago. the only sector losing jobs last month was information services, where companies cut about 1,000 jobs…

the jobless rate, compiled in a separate survey of households, inched up by 0.1 percentage point from 5.6 percent in february. that's because more job seekers renewed their searches last month, but were unsuccessful.

the health of the nation's economy, especially the job climate, is a major issue in this year's presidential race. the economy has lost almost 2 million jobs since bush took office in january 2001.

music lovers north of the border can swap songs online without fear of breaking the law, thanks to a canadian court decision this week.

a federal court judge ruled wednesday that downloading songs for personal use or having files available on a computer connected to the internet doesn't violate copyright laws…

but americans and europeans beware: this strictly canadian decision doesn't bring any more clarity to the murky issue of file-sharing in their parts of the world.

"canadian and american laws are very different," knopf says. "this won't have any direct effect on the united states, but it'll certainly cause a lot of concern down there."

"an out-and-out, 100% absolute lie. the kid absolutely was there and he absolutely was doing everything we pictured via the videotape...

"so when you cast your vote in november," he urged, "just remember that the white house was trying to make me look like a dope."

[on thursday's show] letterman tells his audience, "i'm pretty sure the white house contacted cnn." he goes on to offer his own "conspiracy theory" as to why, he alleges, the white house intervened.

campaign desk sought an explanation from cnn in response to letterman's continued assertion that the white house had in fact called the network, but cnn did not return phone calls requesting comment.

while the white house did return our calls, it could not provide comment at this late hour.

on tuesday, i mentioned remarks by cnn's wolf blitzer..."what administration officials have been saying since the weekend, basically, that richard clarke from their vantage point was a disgruntled former government official...and that his own personal life, they're also suggesting there are some weird aspects in his life."

stung by my column, mr. blitzer sought to justify his words, saying that his statement was actually a question, and also saying that "i was not referring to anything charged by so-called unnamed white house officials as alleged today." silly me: i "alleged" that mr. blitzer said something because he actually said it, and described "so-called unnamed" officials as unnamed because he didn't name them.

"we do know that we have a fairly progressive audience," said christy jones, wchl general manager. "certainly not everyone, but of all places in this area, chapel hill would be the place where that programming would meet a receptive audience."

but air america works on an affiliate model, in which it looks for low-rated stations to take a full menu of programming, instead of syndicating individual shows to fill certain blocks of the schedule.

wchl wanted to broadcast only "the o'franken factor," with al franken, and "the majority report," featuring comedian janeane garofalo.

"we obviously can't just disregard all of our local programming," jones said.

until friday, wchl thought it could come to an arrangement with air america, but the deal fell through.

nearly three-fifths of those surveyed echoed the contention by clarke that bush placed a higher priority on invading iraq than combating terrorism. and a smaller majority agreed with the charge by the onetime white house counterterrorism chief that bush did not focus enough on the terrorist threat before the sept. 11 attacks.

yet nearly three-fifths agreed that clarke's new book on the subject was "politically motivated" and intended to influence the presidential election. and despite the attention clarke's charges have received, almost three-fifths of americans said bush's anti-terrorism and defense policies had made the nation more secure.