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___.COMPOSITION______In This Issue_______________________________
The GOP is Gunning for Tom Daschle Because He Is Holding Back their Worst Attacks on
America
Gephardt Blasts Karl Rove for Politicizing the War Against Terrorism
Connecting The Oil-Drenched Dots: Rigging An Election To Secure The Pipe Dream Through
Central Asia
A Matter of Trust
Republicans Sure Are 'Flexible'!
Something's Rotten... and This Isn't Denmark
Bush Should Have Prefaced His Nukes Pledge with 'Read My Lips'
By a 52%-32% Margin, Americans Want to Cancel Bush's Tax Giveaway to the Rich
Enron is STILL Shredding! We Demand a Special Prosecutor!
Enron Got Its Money's Worth from Bu$h
Public Citizen Accuses Paul O'Neill of Protecting Offshore Tax Havens to Benefit Enron
SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt's 'Reform' Proposals are PITTiful
The Parallels between Enrongate and Watergate are Eerie, and Bush's Defense Collapsed
Instantly
Will Enron's Collapse Bring Down the US Economy? KMart Is the First Domino to Fall
Who Took the Deadly Anthrax Come from the Army Lab at Fort Detrick?
Neil Bush Blames Poverty for Islamist Terror
In the Islamic World, They're Singing 'Kumbaya'
Saudis May Soon Ask for Withdrawal of US Military
Was Twain a Mark-ist?
First Lady Laura Bush (R-Stepford) Offers Tips for Using your Worthless Enron Stock
Certificates (Humor)
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__The GOP is Gunning for Tom Daschle Because He Is Holding Back their Worst Attacks on
America
The LA Times reports, [Tom] "Daschle has emerged as the de facto leader of the
Democratic Party, catapulted into the political spotlight by circumstances that have
put him toe-to-toe with President Bush. His rise to prominence has been fueled by the
animosity of his adversaries. Republicans have mounted a full-dress campaign--scathing
political ads in South Dakota, television appearances by Daschle critics, a new Web
site created by conservative activists--to brand him an obstructionist. Their message:
Beneath his beguiling, soft-spoken veneer lurks a hardened partisan. This much is
certain--as Senate majority leader, Daschle has more power than any other Democrat to
counter Bush's domestic agenda. And to the delight of many Democrats and the
frustration of the GOP, he has used it. Daschle has almost single-handedly blocked or
slowed Bush's proposals on energy policy, tax cuts and other issues." You go, Tom!
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-000005472jan21.story
__Gephardt Blasts Karl Rove for Politicizing the War Against Terrorism
"In a fiery speech at the Democrats' winter meeting, Representative Richard A.
Gephardt, the House minority leader, recalled how the two parties stood 'shoulder to
shoulder' in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack. He denounced as 'a shameful
statement' Mr. Rove's advice to Republicans at their own winter session in Austin,
Tex., on Friday that on military and security issues they could 'go to the country'
because 'Americans trust the Republican Party to do a better job of keeping our
communities and families safe.' 'I hope the president will set the record straight,'
Mr. Gephardt said. 'We've got to stand together against terrorism. This is no partisan
issue.' With the hall cheering and applauding, he invoked the troops overseas and
said: 'These young people in Afghanistan are not fighting for the Democratic Party or
the Republican Party. They're fighting for the greatest country that has ever existed
on earth. That's the United States of America.'" You go, Gephardt!
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/politics/20DEMS.html
__Connecting The Oil-Drenched Dots: Rigging An Election To Secure The Pipe Dream
Through Central Asia
"Connecting the dots of the oil-drenched, Republican White House with its counterparts
in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as well as the various Republican
federal agency heads, leads us directly to the reasons that we Americans now shed our
blood in Afghanistan and cry our tears here at home. The picture is neither pretty nor
comforting. The stakes couldn't get higher. Even common robbers often ask us "You
money or your life?" But, noooooo, not these Rethuglicans. They want both. From the
would-be pipeline through Afghanistan to Enron's retirees and former employees,
exchanging our American blood and hard-earned money for Texas oil tycoons' profits
seems the price the Bush administration officials is willing to pay to secure their
pipe dream. After all, it costs them nothing." So writes Ana Maria Rosato.
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5605
__A Matter of Trust
In November, Ari Fleischer said, "You are saying, 'we don't trust you.'" "No, Ari, we
don't. None of you made it easy from the word "go." Air Force One was never trashed
nor was it ever a target but you said those things. Your boss said there were things
we were never going to know and you're all doing your best to distract people so you
don't get caught lying. The sordid pasts of so many in your little club make for
fertile ground for many of us to get caught up in conspiracy theories. Some aren't too
bad while some seem crazy. But you know what? The more time that goes by and the more
heated those press conferences become, the less crazy some people feel. As heartening
as that may be, it's really sad as well. So much for "honesty and integrity" but, as I
recall, most Americans didn't buy that lie either on Election Day 2000." So writes
David Jenkins.
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5603
__Republicans Sure Are 'Flexible'!
"Only folks with contortion abilities worthy of Harry Houdini (or a very unhealthy
interest in other peoples' sex lives) could spend six years and $65 million
investigating if and when Bill Clinton received consensual oral sex from a willing
adult, and then caution reporters against turning the Bush administration's ties to
Enron into a 'partisan witch hunt'... And only folks with the acrobatic dexterity of
the Flying Walendas could oppose President Clinton's retaliatory bombing of Al-Quaeda
camps after the attacks on two U.S. embassies, screaming Wag the Dog, and then blame
the attacks of September 11 on Clinton's weak stance against terrorists. I swear, it's
like one big game of Twister in Washington these days. It's a wonder they don't all
get ticketed for tying up traffic on Dupont Circle. Shoot, if those were Democrats,
we'd be in traffic court for years... Don't believe me? Two words: Gary Condit." So
writes Christian Livemore in the Online Journal.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/Livemore012102/livemore012102.html
__Something's Rotten... and This Isn't Denmark
"The elderly lady shared a secret about herself with her neighbor. Laughing about it,
she said she was a Republican, but had registered as a Democrat so she could vote in
all of the Democratic elections. The Winter Texan asked why in the world she would
register with the opposing party. With a smile, the old woman said she did it so that
she could vote for the "weakest Democratic candidate", to help the Republican odds in
the general elections. Is that dead fish or something else I smell?" So writes William
Bright.
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5600
__Bush Should Have Prefaced His Nukes Pledge with 'Read My Lips'
>From a Newsday editorial: "A cloud of bad faith hangs over the once- promising
>negotiations between Russia and the United States to make deep joint cuts in their
>nuclear arsenals. As talks got under way in Washington yesterday, the main obstacle
>surfaced immediately: Moscow's valid objections to U.S. plans to put nuclear warheads
>in storage instead of destroying them. That plan - spelled out in the Pentagon policy
>study, the Nuclear Posture Review - goes against the spirit of President George W.
>Bush's pledge to Russian President Vladimir Putin to make deep cuts in the U.S.
>strategic arsenal. It's disingenuous; Bush should disavow it immediately. If the plan
>goes through, the United States would destroy a small portion of the nuclear missiles
>slated for reduction, but "decommission" thousands more - remove their warheads and
>store them separately, which the Pentagon argues would enable prompt reassembly if a
>threat were to arise."
http://newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpnuk162553002jan16.story?coll=ny%2Deditorials%2Dheadlines
__By a 52%-32% Margin, Americans Want to Cancel Bush's Tax Giveaway to the Rich
"Canceling George W. Bush's prized tax cut is more popular than keeping it �
especially if doing so would help avoid a deficit, finds an ABCNEWS.com poll.
Fifty-two percent of adults say they'd support killing the tax cut 'if doing so helped
to avoid a deficit in the federal budget,' while 32 percent would want the tax cut to
go ahead � a 20-point margin in favor of canceling it... Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
last week urged dropping the tax cut for families with incomes of more than $130,000 a
year." Bu$h says he'll cancel the tax giveawy "over my dead body."
Politically-speaking, that may be the truth!
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/taxcut_poll_020122.html
__Enron is STILL Shredding! We Demand a Special Prosecutor!
According to the NY Times, "Enron employees were shredding documents at the company's
Houston offices as recently as last week, a former executive said [January 21]. Her
statement was the first indication that documents were destroyed at Enron amid
investigations of the company's collapse by Congress and the Justice Department and
followed reports of document shredding by accountants at Enron's auditor, Arthur
Andersen." Why hasn't the Justice Department sent US Marshals to Enron, Arthur
Andersen, Vinson & Elkins - and the WHITE HOUSE - to secure all Enron-related
documents? Is the Justice Department part of a massive coverup? We demand a Special
Prosecutor!
http://nytimes.com/2002/01/22/business/22ENRO.html
__Enron Got Its Money's Worth from Bu$h
"One of the major falsehoods being bandied about by apologists for the Bush
administration is that while Enron may have bankrolled much of the president's
political career it got nothing for those bucks once George W. occupied the White
House. That is nonsense. The administration's energy program, developed by Vice
President Dick Cheney in secret meetings--six of them with Enron officials--could have
been written by lobbyists for the now failed company. At the behest of Rep. Henry
Waxman (D-Los Angeles), the minority staff of the House Committee on Government Reform
has prepared a devastating analysis of 17 major concessions made to Enron that gave
Kenneth L. Lay, Bush's intimate friend and Enron chief executive, just about
everything he wanted. The report concluded that 'it is unlikely that any other
corporation in America stood to gain as much from the White House plan as Enron.'" So
writes LA Times columnist Robert Scheer.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-000005500jan22.column
__Public Citizen Accuses Paul O'Neill of Protecting Offshore Tax Havens to Benefit
Enron
"In 1998, the Clinton administration began making moves to crack down on countries
whose lax banking regulations permit U.S. companies to hide money in offshore tax
havens... But on Feb. 17, 2001, O'Neill announced that the Bush administration was
going to review the matter, effectively delaying it. As a result, Enron and other
companies could continue to hide money in the Cayman Islands and other offshore
accounts. Enron has 874 subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands and other
nations with weak bank disclosure laws... O'Neill's efforts must be viewed in the
context of the more than $1.1 million Enron contributed to Bush's presidential
campaign and inauguration, [Public Citizen's Joan] Claybrook wrote. She noted that
O'Neill's responsibility is to collect owed taxes - not to facilitate tax avoidance -
and that if Enron and other companies are hiding money in the Cayman Islands, he has
an obligation to end that abuse." We demand a Special Prosecutor!
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1000
__SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt's 'Reform' Proposals are PITTiful
"Whatever the value of Pitt's proposals, the striking thing is what he doesn't
propose... 'We have had far too many financial and accounting failures,' he said
darkly. But asked later whether the SEC needed more staff to go after auditing fraud,
Pitt suggested it might be a mistake to throw money at the problem... Pitt also said
nothing about the rules that make audit failure so endemic. Enron's accounts were
meaningless because managers hid risks in separate shell companies, a practice that is
illegal in Britain and should be prevented here. Other recent audit scandals have come
about because companies booked earnings that they hadn't received yet; again, the
auditing guidelines do not require the profession to target this deception. To fix
this kind of idiocy, the rule-writing bodies need to be made independent from the
industry. Not a peep from Pitt on this matter." So writes Sebastian Mallaby in the
Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12298-2002Jan20
__The Parallels between Enrongate and Watergate are Eerie, and Bush's Defense
Collapsed Instantly
"Twenty eight years later the ghosts of Watergate have returned to the Oval Office
with a vengeance. Now, as then, it will all come down to two small but very
terrifying questions: What Did He Know and When Did He Know It? In the beginning, as
the first reports of a break-in at the Watergate complex surfaced, the White House
took a firm stand: no one connected to the Administration would have been involved.
But, day by day, first with one revelation, then another, Nixon's inner circle began
to crumble, and the core of the White House defence strategy emerged. It was based on
one premise that had to be defended at all costs: "the President had no prior
knowledge of any crime." Clearly, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and Ari Fleischer will
employ the same strategy... In the end Nixon was never directly implicated -- the tide
just rose around him. Now twenty eight years later as Mr. Bush stands on the beach,
he too must ponder a tide that is rolling in." So writes Marc Ash in Truthout.
http://www.truthout.com/01.21A.Parallel.htm
__Will Enron's Collapse Bring Down the US Economy? KMart Is the First Domino to Fall
"The spectacular failure of the Enron Corporation, already the largest corporate
bankruptcy ever, may have had as much to do with Kmart's failure as skittish suppliers
and hard-nosed bankers. Kmart relies on surety bonds, essentially agreements by
insurance companies to continue financing in case of a default, to back its workers'
compensation program and to cover liabilities arising from its sales of guns and
liquor, advisers and executives close to the company said. Enron depended on such
bonds, too, and after it went bankrupt, leaving insurance companies to cover its
liabilities, insurers drastically raised prices for surety bonds. In Kmart's case,
insurers were requiring cash collateral for the securities. That placed a large,
unanticipated drain on Kmart's cash flow that, coupled with supplier demands for
payment on delivery and the company's weak performance during the crucial holiday
period, drove it to seek court protection." So reports the NY Times.
http://nytimes.com/2002/01/22/business/22CND-SHOP.html
__Who Took the Deadly Anthrax Come from the Army Lab at Fort Detrick?
Slowly but surely, the source of the deadly Anthrax is being traced to the US Army's
biowarfare research facility at Fort Detrick, MD. Since the first Anthrax attack,
Americans were told that the US biowarfare program was cancelled by Richard Nixon. But
that has been exposed as just one more government lie. Towards the end of the Bush I
administration, Anthrax specimens mysteriously began to disappear from Fort Detrick.
In 1992, "an odometer-like device that records the use of a high-powered microscope
had apparently been tampered with in a way that had concealed its use during evenings
or weekends, according to court papers." In other words, the Anthrax thefts were an
inside job. So who did it? If this was reported in 1992, why haven't they been caught?
Who is covering this up? The Anthrax terror goes to the very heart of our super-secret
intelligence agencies - and has Bush fingerprints all over it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12095-2002Jan20.html
__Neil Bush Blames Poverty for Islamist Terror
Neil Bush, brother of US President George Bush, told a Saudi Arabian audience that the
distorted image of the Arab world could be removed through the sustained lobbying of
US politicians. "The US media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims and
the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be influenced
through a sustained lobbying and PR effort," Bush, chairman and chief executive
officer of Ignite! Inc., said in his keynote address on the concluding day of the
three-day Jeddah Economic Forum. In the speech, he called for the root causes of
terror to be explored. "There could be economic disparities, social unrest or
unemployment causing growing dissatisfaction in the region. But I have been told that
the bigger issue is the resolving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Bush said. Red
Alert! Call Lynne Cheney! Call Andrew Sullivan! Call David Horowitz! We have a
"traitor" inside the First Family! Heads must roll!
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=12207
__In the Islamic World, They're Singing 'Kumbaya'
Everything changed on September 11 - including the geopolitics of the entire Islamic
world. Suddenly Iran and Pakistan are exchanging hugs. Bitter enemies like Iran and
Iraq are returning prisoners from their 1980's war. Iraq and Kuwait are burying the
hatchet. Saudi Arabia wants US troops out - giving Osama Bin Laden his biggest
possible victory. Why is peace breaking out? Because of US control of Afghanistan,
plus US support for the region's non-Islamic powers, Israel and India. It looks like
Bush has fulfilled his campaign promise to be a "uniter, not a divider." But is this
good for the US? "If conciliatory efforts between Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia
succeed, it would be a major blow for US interests in the region... The test now will
be how fast Arab and Muslim nations move to form a common stance, and how quickly the
US takes measures to counter them." Quick, George, start a war - or you will be named
"Man of the Year" by Al-Jazeera!
http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/DA22Ag01.html
__Saudis May Soon Ask for Withdrawal of US Military
"Senior Saudi rulers believe the United States has 'overstayed its welcome' and that
other forms of less conspicuous military cooperation should be devised once the United
States has completed its war in Afghanistan, according to a senior Saudi official. The
United States has been using a state-of-the-art facility on the Prince Sultan base
that was opened last summer as a key command-and-control center during the Afghan
conflict. Saudis give several reasons for deciding that the Americans should leave,
beginning with their desire to appear self-reliant and not dependent on U.S. military
support...The U.S. military presence at Prince Sultan Air Base, [US analysts and
Pentagon officials] say, is crucial to Washington's entire security system for
defending America's oil-wealthy Arab allies against Iran and Iraq." To make the US the
protector of OPEC is why Bush Sr. armed Saddam Hussein right up to the Kuwaiti
invasion, followed by our ambassador April Glaspie giving Hussein the greenlight to
invade.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64536-2002Jan17.html
__Was Twain a Mark-ist?
Through the pen of Norman Solomon, Mark Twain reviewed Ken Burns' documentary. "I was
not as whitewashed as Aunt Polly's fence. The movie included this statement that I
made: 'I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on
any other land.' However, the audience of 21st century modernists would not have been
unduly injured to hear words from my pen like these: 'Who are the oppressors? The few:
the king, the capitalist and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are
the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the
workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.'"
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/MediaBeat012102/mediabeat012102.html
__First Lady Laura Bush (R-Stepford) Offers Tips for Using your Worthless Enron Stock
Certificates (Humor)
Here is Laura Bush's latest column from the satirical site Whitehouse.org. "There are
two tips that I have come up with to help people put their Enron stock to good use.
Now, if you didn't get a call from me back in August (after I'd spent 30 minutes
wide-eyed talking over cosmos with Kenneth Lay) telling you: "Sell those suckers!"
then you missed out on my first tip. So, here I am with my second tip: Decoupage!
There are many dear, sweet people out there who aren't part of Bushies' Pioneers and,
therefore, not on Bushie's or my calling list. It just breaks my heart that they are
holding trunk-fulls of now worthless Enron stock. If only you had used some of that
stock when it was actually worth something to contribute to my husband, you would have
been one of the people we let know to get rid of the rest of it before the bottom fell
out!" Learn how to turn your Enron certificates into attractive lampshades and
coasters!
http://www.whitehouse.org/firstlady/enron-crafts.asp
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