-Caveat Lector- Two pull-quotes:
__White House Scrubs Ari Fleischer's Remarks If you listen to the recording of Ari Fleischer's press briefing on 9/26, you can clearly hear Fleischer answer the question about Bill Maher's remarks by saying: "they need to WATCH WHAT THEY SAY, watch what they do." (Click "Listen to the Briefing" and advance to 31 minutes 21 seconds.) But if you read the official transcript (click below), "watch what you say" has been removed. Once again, the White House is scrubbing official records to hide embarrassing behavior. We demand an investigation! http://www..whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010926-5.html#BillMaher-Com ments and __Tom Ridge's Record on Civil Liberties is Appalling "Want a foretaste of the kind of actions [former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom] Ridge is likely to feel will enhance homeland security? Last July Philadelphia saw coordinated law enforcement involving FBI, local and state police, with covert surveillance, infiltration and disruption of legitimate groups, snooping on email, phonetaps. Protest leaders were arrested early on, under absurd pretexts and in the case of John Sellers (Ruckus Society) and Kate Sorensen (Act Up) held on million-dollar bail. Jailed protesters were brutally handled, denied access to medical care and attorneys. When all was over, the courts threw out 95 per cent of the charges brought against protesters by the Philadelphia police. Ridge presided over an utterly disgraceful and violent denial of freedoms of assembly, free speech and due process." So writes CounterPunch.com. http://www.counterpunch.org/bushwars.html ------------ Subj: Democrats.com Daily News for October 1, 2001 Date: 10/1/01 6:16:42 AM Central Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___DEMOCRATS.COM____The Aggressive Progressives__________________ Democrats.com is the largest independent community of Democrats. We publish the only Democratic daily news service - and it's free! Our members make it possible through generous contributions. Please help by clicking below! http://democrats.com/donate ___.COMPOSITION______In This Issue_______________________________ A Time of Gifts Peace Rallies Draw Thousands in DC, SF, and LA FBI's Hijack Suspects Hijackers Manual Offers Window into Terrorists' Minds Bush Offers $30 Million for Bin Laden US Special Forces Hunt Bin Laden Inside Afghanistan CIA Has Tried to Kill Bin Laden Since 1998, with Disastrous Results Ayman al-Zawahiri is Public Enemy #2 Bin Laden's Saudi Family Will Benefit from US Military Spending George H.W. Bush Must Resign from Carlyle Group American Feminists Warned About the Taliban's Extremism Indonesian Protesters Attack US Embassy White House Scrubs Ari Fleischer's Remarks Tom Ridge's Record on Civil Liberties is Appalling O'Connor Will Limit Our Freedom Experts Say Bush's Airliner Shoot-Down Order is 'Impractical' Toto Award: NY Post's 'Page Six' Exposes Cheney's Role on September 11 Rudy, No 2002 Surplus Vanishes An Opiate for the Mass Media __A Time of Gifts "The patterns of human history mix decency and depravity in equal measure. We often assume, therefore, that such a fine balance of results must emerge from societies made of decent and depraved people in equal numbers. But we need to expose and celebrate the fallacy of this conclusion so that, in this moment of crisis, we may reaffirm an essential truth too easily forgotten, and regain some crucial comfort too readily forgone. Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one." So writes Harvard zoology professor Stephen Jay Gould. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/opinion/26GOUL.html __Peace Rallies Draw Thousands in DC, SF, and LA On Sept. 29, thousands of activists marched for peace in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In DC, "The protests were mainly peaceful, but police in riot gear used pepper spray on demonstrators at least once during a morning march led by an anarchist group." They also locked protesters up in a pen for an hour. At an event in New York City, President Clinton defended the protesters. "This is America," Clinton said. "They are welcome to say whatever they want to say. ... If the future of the world in the Middle East is what Mr. bin Laden wants it to be, they would not be able to speak their mind." http://msnbc.com/news/635678.asp __FBI's Hijack Suspects Here are photos of the men suspected of hijacking the four airliners on September 11. The FBI is interested in any information on these individuals - call toll-free 1-866-483-5137. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/penttbom/penttbomb.htm __Hijackers Manual Offers Window into Terrorists' Minds The hijackers left behind a 5-page document, which "is a cross between a chilling spiritual exhortation aimed at the hijackers and an operational mission checklist. With the hijackers all dead, the pages may turn out to provide the most vivid and penetrating glimpse into their mental states and final hours before they embarked on the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history. The haunting writings urge the hijackers to crave death and 'be optimistic.' At the same time, the document starkly addresses fear on the eve of their suicide mission. 'Everybody hates death, fears death,' according to a translation of highlights of the document obtained by The Washington Post. 'But only those, the believers who know the life after death and the reward after death, would be the ones who will be seeking death.'" So reports Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37629-2001Sep27.html __Bush Offers $30 Million for Bin Laden "British mercenaries have been trying to trace Osama bin Laden so they can claim the multimillion-dollar bounty put on his head by the United States. A former SAS soldier said last week that he knew of four attempts by former British servicemen to try to pinpoint bin Laden in his Afghanistan base. A second special forces veteran confirmed private operations have been mounted by British and U.S. bounty hunters. There is plenty of incentive. The reward 'for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction' of the terrorist mastermind has been increased to $30 million US. U.S. President George W. Bush has made it clear he wants bin Laden 'dead or alive.'" So reports the Calgary Herald. http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/story.asp?id={ED5D4A88-43D7-4CF3-B 272-0B5B8D765567} __US Special Forces Hunt Bin Laden Inside Afghanistan "Elite troops from U.S. special operations forces have been inside Afghanistan the past 2 weeks looking for Osama bin Laden, but they're having difficulty locating him and are asking other nations for additional intelligence help, senior U.S. and Pakistani officials have confirmed privately. The presence of three-to-five member teams of U.S. commandos inside Afghanistan has not been officially acknowledged by either Pakistan or the United States. But their arrival here 2 weeks ago and subsequent movement into Afghanistan have been reported by English- and Urdu-language newspapers here, and would not come as a surprise to bin Laden or Afghanistan's ruling Taliban." Somehow, American taxpayers are always the last to know. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/28/lede.htm __CIA Has Tried to Kill Bin Laden Since 1998, with Disastrous Results The CIA "secretly began to send teams of American officers to northern Afghanistan about three years ago in an attempt to persuade the leader of the anti-Taliban Afghan opposition to capture and perhaps kill Osama bin Laden, according to American intelligence officials. The covert effort, which has not been previously disclosed, was based on an attempt to work with Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was then the military leader of the largest anti-Taliban group in the northern mountains of Afghanistan, and to have his forces go after Mr. bin Laden. Mr. Massoud was himself fatally wounded only two days before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and the C.I.A. believes that he was assassinated by members of Mr. bin Laden's organization." So reports the NY Times. http://nytimes.com/2001/09/30/international/30INTE.html __Ayman al-Zawahiri is Public Enemy #2 "If Osama bin Laden is now America's Public Enemy No. 1, then Ayman al-Zawahiri may now be Public Enemy No. 2. This week, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for al-Zawahiri, the man who has bin Laden's ear. He is already wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. 'Ayman al-Zawahiri is effectively Osama bin Laden's number two,' CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen said. 'He is his closest advisor. They have known each other since 1987.'" http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/28/inv.second.command/index.html __Bin Laden's Saudi Family Will Benefit from US Military Spending "If the U.S. boosts defense spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Mr. bin Laden's family. Among its far-flung business interests, the well-heeled Saudi Arabian clan -- which says it is estranged from Osama -- is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies. Through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party. In recent years, former President Bush, ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci have made the pilgrimage to the bin Laden family's headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia." So reports the Wall Street Journal. http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4669 __George H.W. Bush Must Resign from Carlyle Group "Judicial Watch earlier this year had strongly criticized President Bush's father's association with the Carlyle Group, pointing out in a March 5 statement that it was a 'conflict of interest (which) could cause problems for America's foreign policy in Middle East and Asia.' Judicial Watch called for the senior Bush to resign from the firm then. This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the President's father, an ex-president himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible. President Bush should not ask, but demand, that his father pull out of the Carlyle Group,' stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman. 'This has the potential of making 'Billygate' (Jimmy Carter's brother's dealings with Libya) look like small potatoes,' added Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton." http://www.judicialwatch.org/press_release.asp?pr_id=1624 __American Feminists Warned About the Taliban's Extremism In Salon, Janelle Brown writes, "Feminists and human rights activists have been concerned about the Taliban's oppression of women for years... Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, warned three years ago of the potential danger to the rest of the world of Taliban fanaticism, demanding, in a petition organized with a coalition of feminists, that the U.S. government not recognize the Taliban government because of its treatment of women... 'We argued that the Talibanization of society would not stop in Afghanistan. We could see it moving into Pakistan, into Algiers and all through the Middle East to Turkey,' explains Smeal. 'We argued that it would lead to regional instability, and that this had much larger world ramifications than just what is happening to women there.'" http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/24/taliban_women __Indonesian Protesters Attack US Embassy "With hundreds of protesters burning American flags outside its gates and with fringe groups threatening to kill Americans, the United States Embassy told most of its staff today that they could leave the country if they chose. Despite the government's stated support for the United States, militant Islamic groups have been staging demonstrations in several cities and vowing to take revenge if the United States attacks any Muslim nation. These groups represent a small minority in this mostly Muslim country of 210 million, where the practice of Islam is largely tolerant and moderate. But they have made their presence felt in recent years with bombings, vandalism and threats." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/international/asia/28INDO.html __White House Scrubs Ari Fleischer's Remarks If you listen to the recording of Ari Fleischer's press briefing on 9/26, you can clearly hear Fleischer answer the question about Bill Maher's remarks by saying: "they need to WATCH WHAT THEY SAY, watch what they do." (Click "Listen to the Briefing" and advance to 31 minutes 21 seconds.) But if you read the official transcript (click below), "watch what you say" has been removed. Once again, the White House is scrubbing official records to hide embarrassing behavior. We demand an investigation! http://www..whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010926-5.html#BillMaher-Com ments __Tom Ridge's Record on Civil Liberties is Appalling "Want a foretaste of the kind of actions [former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom] Ridge is likely to feel will enhance homeland security? Last July Philadelphia saw coordinated law enforcement involving FBI, local and state police, with covert surveillance, infiltration and disruption of legitimate groups, snooping on email, phonetaps. Protest leaders were arrested early on, under absurd pretexts and in the case of John Sellers (Ruckus Society) and Kate Sorensen (Act Up) held on million-dollar bail. Jailed protesters were brutally handled, denied access to medical care and attorneys. When all was over, the courts threw out 95 per cent of the charges brought against protesters by the Philadelphia police. Ridge presided over an utterly disgraceful and violent denial of freedoms of assembly, free speech and due process." So writes CounterPunch.com. http://www.counterpunch.org/bushwars.html __O'Connor Will Limit Our Freedom Supreme Injustice Sandra Day O'Connor is the swing vote on most crucial cases, including Bush v. Gore. So when she publicly announces her willingness to accept "more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country," that should send a shiver up America's collective spine. After all, O'Connor was willing to nullify 51 million votes - and the rule of law as applied to elections since 1789 - simply for the sake of "finality." What will she tolerate for the sake of "security"? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29SCOT.html __Experts Say Bush's Airliner Shoot-Down Order is 'Impractical' "President Bush's new policy of shooting down commercial jets that threaten U.S. cities is unlikely to console anxious passengers, and was ridiculed by experts who doubted it would deter hijackers. 'This is born of desperation and I do think it is wildly impractical,' said analyst Nick Cook, the day after two U.S. air force generals were authorized to down planes to prevent a repetition of this month's attacks on New York and Washington." "It would not make anyone travel with any greater confidence," said Dan Solon of Avmark International. Cook added that he didn't see the plan as a deterrent, but "by shooting down airliners, we would be doing [the terrorists'] dirty work for them." http://news.findlaw.com/politics/s/20010928/attackplanespolicydc.html __Toto Award: NY Post's 'Page Six' Exposes Cheney's Role on September 11 While Bush was reading to students in Florida when terrorists attacked on on Sept. 11, VP Dick Cheney was running the US government. "I was in a position to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports, and then make decisions in terms of acting with it," Cheney told [Tim] Russert. "The president made [the rogue airliner] decision, on my recommendation." But Cheney's honesty on Sept. 16 created a firestorm. "Rove and Hughes, according to [Page 6's] spies, were 'furious' with Cheney for 'taking credit for all the major decisions made by Bush [on Sept. 11] and sidelining the President.' 'Everything [Cheney] said reinforced all the negative opinions about Bush [during the show]. He basically made the President look like his puppet.'" This explains why Cheney has not been seen since he appeared on Russert's show. But it begs the essential question: who's in charge of the White House - Bush, Cheney, or Rove & Hughes? http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4656 __Rudy, No "Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wants to extend his current term of office into 2002, postponing the inauguration of a new mayor for several months. This is a terrible idea. Neither New York City nor the nation has ever postponed the transfer of power because the public was convinced it could not get along without the current incumbent. The very concept goes against the most basic of American convictions, that we live in a nation governed by rule of law. To suggest that the city would be incapable of getting along without Mr. Giuliani after the end of the year undermines New York's sense of self-sufficiency and normality, which the mayor himself has worked so hard to restore. While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable. George Washington understood that when he rejected repeated attempts to keep him in office indefinitely." So writes the NY Times. http://nytimes.com/2001/09/28/opinion/28FRI1.html __2002 Surplus Vanishes When Republicans pushed through their $1.35 trillion tax giveaway to the rich in the Spring, the Congressional Budget Office predicted a surplus of $304 billion for fiscal year 2002, which begins on October 1. As recently as August, they predicted a surplus of $176 billion. Now their projected surplus is down to $36-$56 billion, which includes the Social Security surplus. But Rep. John Spratt, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, issued a report Wednesday that stated next year's DEFICIT could be as large as $75 billion. It's time for Congress to reconsider the tax giveaway. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010927/pl/declining_surplus_1.html __An Opiate for the Mass Media There is a tremendous need for such a political drug - to dull the aching throb of national duplicity. On one hand airlines want a bailout, on the other hand they engage in massive layoffs, as a way out of the expensive contracts that last year's season of strikes wrought. On one hand we are preparing massive tax breaks for the wealthy, while on the other hand the unemployment insurance system is vulnerable to a wave of layoffs. On one hand Bush calls for national unity, on the other he had his proxies in Congress attempt to funnel money approved for rebuilding New York over to the airlines. But this mass media morphine of crisis is an addiction that rules by fear. It does not take very long for addiction to opiates to pass, withdrawal is horribly painful, but it ends, and ends abruptly, unlike addictions to alcohol and nicotine. The best solution is to stop the political culture of duplicity, which is corroding the underlying national will. http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4624 Copyright (c) 2001 Democrats.com and/or its suppliers. All rights reserved. Democrats.com is a member-supported online community. If you appreciate the news, commentary, activist alerts, cartoons, discussions and other features we offer, please show your support by making contribution at http://democrats.com/donate. Help keep our community growing, expanding and fighting back at every opportunity! 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