Preparing the Battlefield
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh July 7, 2008
How Congress and the Media Duck Impeachment
By DAVE LINDORFF
On Monday last week, something important happened in Washington. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic representative from Cleveland, OH, who early in the primary season won some of the biggest applause lines in the Democratic presidential candidate debates, introduced 35 articles calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
You'd be excused if you didn't know this happened. There was almost no reporting on the event that day or the next, which took several hours to accomplish, along with several hours Tuesday for to be read into the Congressional Record. Kucinich's address to the House was broadcast live on C-Span. But it was not announced in advance or highlighted on the C-Span website, and there were not many news reports on the historically significant fact that articles of impeachment had been filed against the president during subsequent days.
A week later, it has still not been reported in the New York Times, the nation’s self-described “newspaper of record,” even though the Times had just days before Rep. Kucinich’s action, editorialized about the enormity of the president’s lies in tricking the country into invading Iraq—one of the crimes leading Rep. Kucinich’s long list.
A number of papers did editorialize against impeachment, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Florida Sun Sentinel—but it says something that these publications thought it more important to attack Rep. Kucinich’s action than to actually report on it as a news item.
Even the Washington Post’s news report was an example more of the sclerotic state of American journalism than of genuine reporting. It began:
“Having failed in efforts to impeach Vice President Cheney, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) escalated his battle against the administration this week by introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, using a parliamentary maneuver that will probably force a vote today.”
Any journalism student who wrote a lede like Post staff writer Ben Pershing’s in a classroom exercise would have gotten a “D” or an “F” for it. Talk about backing into a story! First of all, Kucinich hasn’t “failed” in his effort to impeach Cheney. Congress has failed to impeach our criminal vice president and regent. Technically, Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment bill is still lodged in the House Judiciary Committee, where it is now joined in political limbo by the Ohio congressman’s new Bush impeachment measure.
The unwillingness of the nation’s news media to seriously consider the need for Congress to respond to and challenge the president’s clear abuses of power—even as they themselves condemn of those abuses of power—is a blot on the journalistic profession perhaps worse, and of more lasting consequence, than their failure to act as watchdogs and critics during the run-up to the Iraq War, when they acted more as patriotic cheerleaders than as news organizations.
As impeachment advocates, including Rep. Kucinich, have pointed out, unless this president and vice president are impeached by the current Congress, any—and probably every—future president will feel empowered by unchallenged precedent to ignore laws passed by the Congress, to go to war without Congressional approval, to spy on Americans in violation of the law, to ignore court orders, to abrogate international treaties, and to lie to Congress and the American people. Unless Congress asserts its rights under Article I, it will no longer even be a co-equal branch of government, but instead will have been reduced to nothing more than a debating society.
Editorialists, while refusing to honestly report on this Constitutional crisis, have been parroting the claim of gutless and calculating Democratic Party leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in saying that with the nation at war and with a critical election approaching, there are “more pressing” matters to consider than impeachment, and that impeachment would be a “diversion.”
This is nonsense. As hundreds of American troops continue to die each quarter in a war that never should have happened, and that was launched five years ago and continued for half a decade thanks to administration lies and deception, there is nothing more important facing this nation than restoring Constitutional government and Constitutional checks and balances—something that can only be done through the Constitutional process of impeachment.
The American people instinctively know this. In polls, fully half or more of the public consistently continue to say, even at this late date, that they want the president impeached. Considering the media blackout on the issue, this is truly astonishing and even heartening. But it will take more than polls to get impeachment rolling. The public needs to start demanding that its representatives take action, on pain of being voted out of office.
I was at an anti-war forum in New Jersey last Friday evening sponsored by a group of peace activists calling themselves the Iraq Forum Organizing Team. When forum panelist Rep. Rob Andrews was asked by an audience member whether he favored impeachment and supported Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment, Andrews fudged. He claimed, ingenuously, that the articles had been sent to the House Judiciary Committee for hearings, and said that he personally thought that Bush had committed an impeachable “high crime” by outing the identity of a covert agent of the CIA, Valerie Plame, and added that if the Judiciary Committee “develops a bunch of evidence” to support that charge, he would vote to impeach.
As I pointed out to the congressman, he certainly knows that that is a cheap dodge. I said that he was well aware that the way legislation moves forward in Congress is that members like himself sign on as co-sponsors of legislation they favor, and that then, and only then, those measures get hearings. Without co-sponsors, bills go to committee to be killed by inaction, which is the intention of sending Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to the committee. I said if Rep. Andrews were honestly to believe that the president might have committed any high crimes, he should either file articles of impeachment himself, or co-sign the excellent set of articles already filed by Rep. Kucinich. Instead, Andrews, like the rest of the Democrats and Republicans in the House, with the notable exception of Rep. Wexler and California Reps. Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, have avoided Kucinich’s articles like the plague.
The audience loudly applauded this condemnation of Rep. Andrews.
We are at a critical point on impeachment. The elected leadership is afraid to challenge even this unprecedentedly unpopular president, who continues to defy Senate and House subpoenas, continues to promote war and to violate laws and treaties, and who is now conspiring with his vice president to launch yet another, bigger, war against the nation of Iran.
At the end of the day, if we get to January 19 without any impeachment hearings, we may see Bush and Cheney depart Washington, we may even see a Democratic president and a Congress with a significant Democratic majority in both houses, but it will be a hollow victory.
The nation’s democracy will at that point have been left a smoking ruin.
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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KEVIN Rudd wants to spearhead the creation of an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union by 2020 and has appointed veteran diplomat Richard Woolcott - one of his mentors - as a special envoy to lobby regional leaders over the body.
The Prime Minister said last night that the union, adding India to the 21-member APEC grouping, would encompass a regional free-trade agreement and provide a crucial venue for co-operation on issues such as terrorism and long-term energy and resource security.
And he outlined his plans for his visits to Japan and Indonesia next week, saying he would explore greater defence co-operation between Australia, Japan and the US - an approach that had been championed by John Howard.
Speaking in Sydney last night to the Asia Society Australasia Centre, the Mandarin-speaking Mr Rudd said global power and influence was shifting towards the Asia-Pacific region and that Australia must drive the creation of a new global architecture for the Asia-Pacific century.
"We need to have a vision for an Asia-Pacific community, a vision that embraces a regional institution, which spans the entire Asia-Pacific region - including the United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the region," said the Prime Minister.
The body would be "able to engage in the full spectrum of dialogue, co-operation and action in economic and political matters and future challenges related to security".
"The purpose is to encourage the development of a genuine and comprehensive sense of community whose habitual operating principle is co-operation," Mr Rudd said.
"The danger of not acting is that we run the risk of succumbing to the perception that future conflict within our region may somehow be inevitable."
Government sources said last night that Mr Rudd was attempting to revive the reformist spirit of former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who successfully pressed for the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group 20 years ago.
Mr Woolcott, 80, was Mr Hawke's right-hand man in establishing APEC and was a frequent critic of the Howard government's foreign policy.
Mr Woolcott told The Australian last night that Mr Rudd had made it clear there was great scope to co-ordinate existing regional organisations.
"This fits neatly into the concept of greater middle-power diplomacy," Mr Woolcott said.
"If the US or China or Japan or some other big power were to suggest it, other nations might be apprehensive and back away. It's better for a middle power like Australia to take the initiative.
"I've always thought that this was the part of the world where Australia lives, and if an Asia-Pacific community does develop, it's essential that Australia be part of it."
The proposed new pan-Asian body would come in addition to a range of existing forums through the region, including ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian Summit.
But Mr Rudd said now was the appropriate time to re-examine the regional diplomatic and economic architecture because foreign policy based only on bilateral agreements had "a brittleness".
"To remove some of that brittleness, we need strong and effective regional structures," Mr Rudd said.
"Strong institutions will underpin an open, peaceful, stable, prosperous and sustainable region."
Mr Rudd said the existing forums were not configured to promote co-operation across the entire region.
And he said his proposal was consistent with US President George W.Bush's call for the development of an Asia-Pacific free trade area.
While the EU should not provide "an identikit model", the Asia-Pacific region could learn much from the union, which in the 1950s had been seen by sceptics as unrealistic.
"Our special challenge is that we face a region with greater diversity in political systems and economic structures, levels of development, religious beliefs, languages and cultures, than did our counterparts in Europe," Mr Rudd said. "But that should not stop us from thinking big."
Mr Rudd said he would send Mr Woolcott to complete the "unfinished business" he had begun with Mr Hawke. "Subject to that further dialogue, we would envisage the possibility of a further high-level conference of government and non-government representatives to advance this proposal," he said.
"I fully recognise this will not be an easy process ... but the speed and the scope of changes in our region means we need to act now. Ours must be an open region - we need to link into the world, not shut ourselves off from it.
"And Australia has to be at the forefront of the challenge, helping to provide the ideas and drive to build new regional architecture."
Mr Rudd said his Government's foreign policy was based on three pillars: its relationship with the US; its links with the UN; and "comprehensive engagement with Asia".
Discussing his visits to Japan and Indonesia next week, Mr Rudd said he would continue talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda toward the creation of a free-trade agreement as well as advancing talks on security co-operation between Australia, Japan and the US. In Indonesia, he would pursue talks about a free-trade agreement and anti-terrorism co-operation with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as well as seeking a template for greater co-operation on dealing with natural disasters.
Additional reporting: Greg Sheridan
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
June 3, 2008
As the above page from Milk Matters coloring book demonstrates, the point is not so much promotion of toothpaste but rather deadly fluoride (note the title on the tube). |
Brainwashing kids and parents alike is apparently the mission of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. In order to indoctrinate the little ones and make sure they get their dose of fluoride, these bureaucracies have published a coloring book, available here in PDF format. As the page capture at right demonstrates, the point is not so much promotion of toothpaste but rather deadly fluoride (note the title on the tube).
It’s all part of the global elite’s eugenics and dumbing-down program.
There is plenty of research, studiously ignored by the corporate media, that indicates fluoride not only dumb-downs children and adults alike, but is a killer. In 1995, neurotoxicologist and former Director of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, Dr. Phyllis Mullenix published research showing that fluoride permanent effects the brain. “The toxic effects of fluoride on the central nervous system was subsequently confirmed by previously-classified government research. Two new epidemiological studies which tend to confirm fluoride’s neurotoxic effects on the brain have shown that children exposed to higher levels of fluoride had lower IQs,” writes the Holistic Healing web page. In addition, small levels of fluoride created “histologic lesions in their brain similar to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.” Moreover, according to a study conducted by Varner et al., exposure to fluoride caused “damage to the blood brain barrier.”
The Department of Health in New Jersey found that bone cancer in male children was between two and seven times greater in areas where water was fluoridated. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) researchers confirmed the bone cancer-causing effects of fluoride at low levels. In fact, fluoride build up in the bones and causes adverse changes to bone structure.
Fluoride is a perfect weapon for the eugenicists, as a toxicologist in the United Kingdom recently found that perinatal deaths in a fluoridated area was 15% higher than in neighboring non-fluoridated areas. The fluoridated area had a higher socio-economic status and would have been expected to have less perinatal deaths. The fluoridated area also had a 30% higher rate of Down’s Syndrome. Chile banned fluoridation because of research by the world-renowned researcher, Dr Albert Schatz, which showed a link to infant deaths due to fluoridation.Research also discovered that fluoride “impairs the functioning of the immune system. In the United States, where toxic fluoride compounds are regularly added to water and given to children since the 1960s and 1970s, we are beginning to see an overwhelming number of people of that generation who are developing chronic immune system disorders,” the above cited web site notes.
Double-blind studies revealed additional adverse affects, including: gastrointestinal symptoms, stomatitis, joint pains, polydipsia, headaches, visual disturbances, muscular weakness, and extreme tiredness. For more information on these double-blind studies, check out the review of Fluoride: The Freedom Fight, by Dr. Hans Moolenburgh of the Netherlands. Other studies indicate exposure to fluoride increases the risk to contamination from lead, arsenic and radio nuclides since fluoride compounds are toxic waste byproducts which largely come from pollution generated by scrubbers of fertilizer plants (see this study’s abstract).
Add to the list exacerbation of Repetitive Stress Injury, osteoarthritis, suppression of the and thyroid function, and more.
Finally, contrary to the assertion of the coloring book, fluoride causes dental fluorosis in children, that is to say it causes permanent adverse structural change to the teeth.
You’d think the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research would be aware of the above research. No doubt they probably are, while many others working and volunteering for these “institutes” are unaware of the research and believe they are promoting dental health. In fact, what they are promoting is the eugenics agenda to dumb-down and kill off large numbers of people, including no shortage of children.
David Edwards and Mike Sheehan
Raw Story
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
'O'Reilly Factor' host Bill O'Reilly became visibly upset as he questioned Scott McClellan about Iraq war propaganda and the CIA leak case.
McClellan, the former Bush White House press secretary whose recently released book has caused a sensation with its scathing critiques of the administration he once worked for, appeared on the show to promote his memoirs.
O'Reilly was particularly incensed with McClellan's critique of President Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, overtly to find weapons of mass destruction.
"If the director of the CIA believes it, British intelligence believes it, John Kerry believes it, Hillary Clinton believes it, and President Clinton believes it..." said O'Reilly, "If they all believe Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, sir: don't you have a nerve accusing me of not being vigilant enough?"
O'Reilly later thundered, "If two presidents of the United States (sitting), the former CIA guy who works for both presidents, Tony Blair, and The New York Times all tell me and you [Saddam has] got [WMDs], we can't say 'no, he doesn't!'
McClellan attempted to explain himself continuously through the interview, but O'Reilly could not be satisfied. "The central theme of your book is wrong," accused O'Reilly.
This video is from Fox's O'Reilly Factor, broadcast June 2, 2008
Professor Blair Gadsby delivers a message to Senator McCain's office on his 5th day of the hunger strike for 9-11 truth. Get daily updates at hungry4truth.com
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