"They think that the best way to feed the birds is to give more oats to the horse."

- Joe Lieberman, on Republican fiscal policies

By: James O. Goldsborough  

Bin Laden doesn't win by destroying the World Trade Center. He wins by driving America into bunkered isolation. With a $400 billion defense budget, roughly equal to the rest of the world combined; and a militarized, court-martialed, missile-defended "Camp America" at home, we can try to go it alone. But will we be safer from terrorists or forever be their one and only target?

Bush gave Iran's fundamentalists - locked in a power struggle with moderates - a huge boost. Millions surged into Tehran's streets to denounce America. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, who had shaken Secretary of State Colin Powell's hand weeks before, accused Bush of "wanting to control the world".

As newspaper headlines filled with Bush warnings that plans were being drawn up to attack Iraq, the Europeans weighed in. For France, the axis of evil was "simplistic". For Britain, Bush's policy had become "unilateralist". Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, asked: "throwing Iran, Iraq and North Korea into one pot, where should that lead us?"

An unnamed senior Bush official (who sounded a lot like National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice) replied: "the Europeans with butterflies in their stomachs... can get with the plan or get off" - not the language you expect from a coalition leader.

By: Steven Mufson  

In a black-or-white world, a war on terrorism becomes a war of morality. The consequences of such a war - civilian casualties, pacts with repressive regimes such as the one in Uzbekistan, prisoners in a legal limbo - can be seen as necessary byproduct of this moral mission. And if that makes some of us uncomfortable, Bush would say that the greater goal is to drive the barbarians away from the gates of the civilized world, and the United States in particular.

In this context, a war on evil can become a war without end. In turning to the "axis of evil", Bush is targeting something broader than terrorism in the traditional sense. Of the three countries that Bush has included in his axis, two - Iraq and North Korea - have shown little involvement with terrorism in recent years. The definition of our foe has been broadened, so that evil can mean an irrational actor such as Osama bin Laden as well as North Korea's scary but arguably rational leader Kim Jong Il. Iran's modern, if somewhat democratic, society is lumped together with the North Korean hermit state.

By: P. Mitchell Prothero  

"Should I get about 30 Republicans and all of the House Democrats and vote to hold the President in contempt of Congress?" Burton (R-IN), asked during Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Bybee's testimony before the committee. "That's exactly what we're going to do if you don't give us those documents."

Burton's committee has requested documents on three separate investigations. One is a long-running investigation by Burton and the committee into the improper use of informants by the FBI over a 30-year period of organized crime investigations in New England.

"I've been to war..."

- pResident-in-Thief George Dubya Bush, lying thru his teeth again!

By: grl2watch  

In the capital of the mightiest nation which has ever existed, three people were found frozen. In spite of daily jet patrols, and a heightened level of civilian alertness, only unnatural stillness disrobed the dead of their anonymity. In these times, the Invisible Man is not a work of fiction.

The usual commentators were rounded up. City officials promised to increase efforts to identify the homeless. Activists complained that the city does not provide enough shelter space. The mayor proclaimed that an edict to force the impaired and intoxicated into shelters would be enforced. The police were instructed look out for the homeless, and to "get into their face in a nice kind of way".

Reporters hit the streets to find a newsworthy transient. One man said that the shelters were overcrowded. Another complained of bugs. Oddly, workers for an outreach group said that some men refused every type of help. They would not even accept food or blankets, and no type of persuasion would convince them otherwise.

Consider this - a man huddled in the cold, refusing all offers of help. Is this not self-sufficiency, honest pride, and love of freedom in its purest form?

By: Maureen Dowd  

Mr. Bush was recapping what happened on the night of Sept. 11, when Secret Service agents heard of a plane and hustled the President and First Lady out of their bedroom and downstairs to the bunker.

Guiding Laura, who was not wearing contacts, he said, he was "holding Barney, holding Laura, and Spot chasing behind - Kitty was left to defend herself".

Kitty was left to defend herself against terrorists. Nice. This from a man who told me that his favorite cultural experience had been Cats.

And, of course, there is that wacky story going around about how John Ashcroft wants calico cats shooed out of his sight because they're signs of the devil.

So you can imagine how alarmed the Attorney General must have been when he saw the copycat calico kitten on front pages on Friday. It must have evoked Stephen King's Pet Cemetery - a nightmarish vision of zombie calico clones creeping, limping and hissing down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Justice Department.

By: Kevin Raybould  

Despite the adulation of a subservient press desperate to have its choice in 2000 validated, George W. Bush is in every way conceivable exactly the wrong man to confront the challenges that face America in the 21^st century - and he is not afraid to prove it.

In short order, the Bush administration drew international concern for its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; abandoned fuel efficiency standards designed to lessen American dependence on oil (potentially removing one source of terrorist funding); fully committed the United States to propping up the government of Columbia militarily; drew international outrage with its designation of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil"; attempted to push through "fast track" trade authority under the guise of fighting terrorism; and proposed a budget that is clearly inadequate for the challenges that lie ahead.

At every turn, the Bush administration has chosen a direction that weakens the United States, weakens the cause of democracy around the world, and demonstrates that the Bush administration is incapable of shedding the straightjacket of its tired, old, and outdated world view.

The proposed 2002 budget provides a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. The military budget includes not one, not two, but three short range fighter jets, all designed to fulfill essentially the same mission. It also includes money for the development and purchase of the Carlisle Group's massive and essentially immobile artillery system.

By: Douglas Mattern  

This astronomical military spending must be seen in light of Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut over a 10-year period, with nearly nearly half of this money going to the richest 1% of Americans. So the question is where is the money to come from to pay for all the weapons? LA Times reporter Peter Gosselin gives us the answer: "President Bush relies on one source of new money more than any other to pay for his proposals: the trillions of dollars in Social Security funds being set aside for the start of the baby boom retirement."

The clear winner in this mad scheme is the military industry. As William D. Hartung of the World Policy Institute puts it, Bush's budget will "leave no defense contractor behind". The other winners are corporate America and the rich elite that is rapidly turning our democracy into a plutocracy.

The losers, of course, are working people and the environment...

"If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future."

- Carl Sagan

By: Bruce Langfeld  

Reagan garnered political power by waving the flag, and resurecting McCarthy-era fears of the Soviet's "evil empire" among the American people at every chance he got. Now this strategy is being echoed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as he warns the public of terrorist threats, "vastly more deadly" than the September 11 attacks, as well as by President Bush's new budget with its emphasis on homeland security and increased military spending.

The more likely reality is that the administration's warnings of new attacks are not based on intelligence that points to existing terrorist threats. They are, instead, a warning of attacks that are highly possible as the U.S. provokes politically unstable areas such as Iran and Iraq as it peruses its war on terrorism. In this way, Bush's foreign policy is more akin to Ariel Sharon's Palestinian strategy with the United States becoming increasingly dug-in behind its high-tech ramparts as it agitates already hostile foreign elements abroad. The result: a self-fulfilling prophesy of impending threats and the corresponding need for more military spending.

By: Nicholas D. Kristof  

The main public hospital here serves 300,000 people and has next to nothing. No running water. No medicines. No ambulance. No anesthetic.

"If a patient needs surgery, we write a prescription for anesthesia", explained Lino Ventulero, administrative officer of the hospital. "The patient goes out and fills it and comes back."

Or dies. But that's life at this forlorn hospital on Basilan, the impoverished island where American troops are to begin arriving next week. Washington is also giving the Philippines $100 million in military assistance, including 30,000 machine guns.

"Instead of bringing guns", said Bernardina Idris, the chief nurse, "why don't you help the hospital?"

Good question.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush were set to face a firing squad in a small Central American country.

Bill Clinton was the first one placed against the wall and just before the order to shoot him was given, he yelled out:

Earthquake!The firing squad fell into a panic and Bill jumped over the wall and escaped in the confusion.

Al Gore was the second one placed against the wall. The squad was reassembled and Al pondered what his old boss had done. Before the order to shoot was given, Al yelled out:

Tornado!Again the squad fell apart and Al slipped over the wall.

The last person, George W. Bush, was placed against the wall. He was thinking "I see the pattern here, just scream out a disaster and hop over the wall". As the firing squad was reassembled and the rifles raised in his direction he grinned and yelled:

Fire!

Judge Moving Ahead on Suit Challenging Election Procedures

By: Catherine Wilson  

A federal judge warned Friday (2/15/02), that he intends to stay on track for a trial in August on a voter lawsuit challenging the way Florida ran the flawed November 2000 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Alan Gold cited "the importance and immediacy of the claims" as he rejected attempts by two state agencies and a company that helped shrink voter lists to get out of the case.

The NAACP and four civil liberties groups are suing the state, several counties and the contractor over procedures for voter registration, voter lists, and balloting.

"Public media should not contain explicit or implied descriptions of sex acts. Our society should be purged of the perverts who provide the media with pornographic material while pretending it has some redeeming social value under the public's 'right to know'. Pornography is pornography, regardless of the source."

- Clinton 'cock hunter' Ken Starr, in an interview with ditzy Dianne Sawyer (1987)

"I can resist anything except temptation."

- Oscar Wilde

By: Jamie Herzlich And Christian Murray  

Former President Bill Clinton, suggesting that the Bush administration is pouring too much money into defense, told Long Island business leaders Friday (2/15/02), that more federal dollars should be spent on foreign aid.

In his remarks Friday afternoon before the annual meeting of the Long Island Association business group at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, Clinton mainly focused on the U.S.'s war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

By: John Stanton and Wayne Madsen  

Historians will record that between November 2000 and February 2002, democracy - as envisioned by the creators of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution - effectively came to an end. As democracy died, the Fascist American Theocratic State ("The State") was born. This new fascist era was designed and implemented primarily by Republican organizations and individuals who funded, supported and ultimately inserted George Bush II in office. Equally complicit in this atrocity was the Democratic Party, itself having become corrupt and beholden to its own interests. But the greatest tragedy in this horrific turn of events was that the public and media embraced fascism's coming. It should be noted that the Green Party's valiant efforts were too little, too late.

Washington Plans Unprecedented Camera Network

From:  

Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

The system would eventually include hundreds of cameras, linking existing devices in Metro mass transit stations, public schools and traffic intersections to new digital cameras mounted to watch over neighborhoods and shopping districts, the Journal said.

"He that cannot reason is a fool... He that will not is a bigot... He that dare not is a slave."

- Sir William Drummond

BuSHIT's answer to ALMOST everything...

By: Paul Krugman  

Alert shoppers know that an extra word in a product's description can make a big difference, and rarely for the better. Apologies to connoisseurs of Velveeta, but most of us don't regard "cheese food" as a good substitute for plain ordinary cheese.

To the unwary, yesterday's pledge by the Bush administration to reduce "greenhouse gas intensity" by 18% may have sounded like a pledge to reduce greenhouse gases, the emissions (mainly carbon dioxide, released by burning fossil fuels) that cause global warming. In fact, that's the way it was reported in some news articles. But the extra word makes all the difference. In fact, the administration proposed to achieve almost nothing; consistent with that goal, it also announced specific policies that are trivial in scope and will have virtually no effect.

What is this thing called greenhouse gas intensity? It is the volume of greenhouse gas emissions divided by gross domestic product. The administration says that it will reduce this ratio by 18% over the next decade. But since most forecasts call for G.D.P. to expand 30% or more over the same period, this is actually a proposal to allow a substantial increase in emissions.

"I gave women multiple orgasms so I can hear them scream MY name!!!"

- Gawd

By: Philip Shenon  

"Given the urgency of information indicating a possible attack within 24 hours, an alert was issued", John E. Collingwood, an assistant director of the bureau, said in a statement tonight. "Today, we have received information that at least six possible associates of al-Rabeei may be in custody in the Middle East or elsewhere. We are confirming these reports."

The six men were in custody before the bureau issued the alert on Monday, and officials said it was not immediately clear why bureau officials had not recognized the names from lists of imprisoned suspects that had been provided to the United States by the Yemen government.

By: Steve Barnes  

U.S. Marines will hunt mock combatants in a real city next week in a first-of-its-kind urban warfare exercise aimed at improving tactics in the U.S. war on terrorism and other dangerous overseas missions.

While there will be no shooting, about 300 Marines will practice reconnaissance and house and vehicle searches in downtown North Little Rock, nearby neighborhoods, on key bridges and at a nuclear power plant from Sunday through Thursday, officials said.

"Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you."

- religiously insane 'Crisco' John Ashcroft, quoted in an article by Cal Thomas

"If you are not already doing so, pray for this good man and for the President and the many others in government here in Washington who seek to follow the will of God... the real God, who has sent His Son to die for all."

- religious bigot and right-wingnut Cal Thomas

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