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___.COMPOSITION______In This Issue_______________________________
Anti-Bush Protests
Citing 'Failed Presidency,' George W. Bush Resigns (Satire)
Brock Reveals the 'Mighty Wurlitzer' of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
With Utmost Deference, Washington Post Hints at White House Scrubbing
Greg Palast Debunks Lies about Chavez and Venezuela
Otto Reich's Bloody Fingerprints Are All Over Venezuela's Coup
Three Days that Shook the Media - How the MEDIA Coup in Venezuela Failed
Pentagon and CIA Were Extensively Involved in Failed Venezuelan Coup
Venezuelan Coup Leaders Graduated from the US Army School of the Americas
Petition to the Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
Skeptical of the Official 9-11 Story? It's All in Your Head - or Your Computer
And About that Grassy Knoll...
Who Lost Bin Laden? Fingers Point at Gen. Tommy R. Franks
O'Neill Threatens Resignation if $6 Trillion Dollar Debt Limit Isn't Raised
Conyers Renews Demand for Enrongate Special Prosecutor
Did Enron Make the Market to Gouge California Electricity Consumers?
Bush Appoints Evil Coal Polluter to Protect Coal Miners
Shout it from the Mountaintops - While The Mountains Still Have Tops...
Fort Sumter II: US May Go to War with South Carolina over Plutonium
PHONY TO THE CORE: The 'Ole Family Ranch' in Crawford is a Set Completed the Same Day
the Election Was Stolen
__Anti-Bush Protests
On 4/19, protest Cheney in Allentown PA. On 4/20, participate in major demonstrations
against Bush's War in DC, SF and LA. On 4/22, protest Cheney in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. On
4/24, protest Bush in Sioux Falls, SD.
http://legitgov.org/action.html
__Citing 'Failed Presidency,' George W. Bush Resigns (Satire)
In a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Bush wrote, "In the wake of the failed
attempt to overthrow President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, I too have taken time to
reflect on my actions in office. In the course of my Presidential campaign, I made
many promises that I have failed to keep. These included preserving the Social
Security Trust Fund and giving seniors a prescription drug benefit. I also promised to
restore honor and integrity to the White House, by imposing the strictest ethical
standards on my appointees, including those from Enron. I promised the world a
'humble' foreign policy, and peace in the Middle East. By these standards, I believe I
have presided over a failed Presidency, and have therefore decided the only way I can
honor my promises to the American people is to resign."
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=6711
__Brock Reveals the 'Mighty Wurlitzer' of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
"With all that ideological money, institutional heft, coordination, and credentialing,
the right has perfected what the CIA used to call a 'mighty Wurlitzer' - a propaganda
machine that can hone a fact or a lie, broadcast it, and have it echoed and recycled
in Fox News commentary, in Washington Times news stories, in Wall Street Journal
editorials, by myriad right-wing pundits, by Heritage seminars and briefing papers,
and in congressional hearings and speeches. Privatization of Social Security, vouchers
for school, Vince Foster's supposed murder, Hillary's secret sex life, you name it -
the right's mighty Wurlitzer can ensure that a message is broadcast across the county,
echoed in national and local news, and reverberated in the speeches of respectable
academics as well as rabid politicians... There is nothing on the progressive side of
town remotely competitive with this. There is no progressive TV network and few
progressive pundits." So writes Bob Borosage in the American Prospect
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/8/borosage-r.html
__With Utmost Deference, Washington Post Hints at White House Scrubbing
At Democrats.com, we've been the ONLY people hollering about the Bush administration's
Orwellian practice of "scrubbing" official White House transcripts to fix Bush's
frighteningly incoherent remarks. Now the Washington Post's least favorite reporter,
Dana Milbank, has ever-so-gently reported on Karl Rove's standard operating procedure.
Recent scrubs include the removal of interruptions by hecklers when Bush spoke in
Knoxville, and adding a footnote when Bush proposed "making the death tax permanent."
Milbank also noted Bush's market-rattling remarks in Japan about "the devaluation
issue," and his claim the US and Japan had been allies "for a century and a half."
Finally, he cites Ari Fleischer's warning Americans "need to watch what they say." But
in the end, Milbank and the Post give Bush a big pass, especially since they were part
of the media conspiracy that sentenced Al Gore to the political death penalty for HIS
rare verbal errors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56556-2002Apr15.html
__Greg Palast Debunks Lies about Chavez and Venezuela
Investigative journalist Greg Palast interviewed Hugo Chavez a few weeks before the
failed coup. Here Palast reveals the real reasons for the failed US-supported Chavez
coup attempt. "What neither Bush nor the papers told you is that Chavez's real crime
was to pass two laws through Venezuela's national assembly. The first ordered big
plantation owners to turn over untilled land to the landless. The second nearly
doubled, from roughly 16% to 30%, royalties paid for extracting Venezuela's oil.
Venezuela was once the largest exporter of oil to the USA, bigger than Saudi Arabia.
This explains Chavez's unpopularity - at least within that key constituency, the
American petroleum industry."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=136&row=0
__Otto Reich's Bloody Fingerprints Are All Over Venezuela's Coup
The man in charge of Bush's Latin American policies - Assistant Secretary of State
Otto Reich - has bloodstained hands from his past support for terrorism (enter "otto
reich" in our search engine). So it comes as no surprise that Reich tried to mobilize
international support for the Venezuelan coup only hours after it happened, as
revealed by Joshua Micah Marshall in Salon. Reich lied to a roomful of Latin American
ambassadors by "handing out copies of a State Department press release that blamed
Chavez's overthrow on Chavez himself and denied that any coup had even occurred. Reich
then gave a tortured reading of the Venezuelan constitution in an attempt to
illustrate that Chavez's apparent military overthrow really wasn't unconstitutional at
all." Reich's nomination was so controversial that he was never confirmed by the
Senate - instead, Bush arrogantly appointed him while the Senate was in recess. We
demand Reich's immediate removal from office!
http://www.salon.com/politics/bushed/2002/04/17/venezuela/index.html
__Three Days that Shook the Media - How the MEDIA Coup in Venezuela Failed
"The failed coup d'etat against Venezuela marks a turning point not just for authentic
democracy in our América, but also for authentic journalism. The remote-control
attempt by Washington and commercial interests - including various media giants within
and outside of Venezuela - to topple the government of President Hugo Chávez by force
has only made him stronger...The Chávez government emerges as more popular than ever,
and Venezuelan democracy the strongest in América to withstand future authoritarian
ambushes like the failed plot of these three fateful days... AP, Reuters, the New York
Times, and CNN, the worst offenders in the English-language media among many others,
have had to radically adjust their coverage of the events in Venezuela precisely
because online journalists worked overtime in recent days to break the information
blockade and get the true facts to the international public." So writes Al Giordano in
Narco News.
http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html
__Pentagon and CIA Were Extensively Involved in Failed Venezuelan Coup
Wayne Madsen and Richard M. Bennett write, "The one important thing to be learnt from
the Venezuelan coup is that the United States has not changed its view that only
Governments acceptable to Washington can be allowed to survive in Latin America and
that like it or not, the United States will undermine and help overthrow even legally
elected administrations if it so chooses. This became obvious when Pentagon sources
gleefully revealed that the United States provided critical military and intelligence
support to the Venezuelan military coup against President Hugo Chavez on Friday 12th
April." US support included US Navy signal intelligence, the National Security Agency,
CIA and US contract military personnel in Colombia (DynCorp), the CIA's Special
Operations Group personnel. Nevertheless, Bush insists the US was not involved. We
demand an investigation of US support for the Venezuelan Coup!
http://www.intelbriefing.com/afi/afi020413a.htm
__Venezuelan Coup Leaders Graduated from the US Army School of the Americas
SOA Watch writes, "Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda,
two of the major military backers of a transitional government, received training at
the notorious US Army School of the Americas (SOA). Vasquez attended the school from
January 23rd to December 2nd, 1988, taking a course called 'Command and General Staff
Officer Training'. General Ramirez took a course called 'Auto Maintenance Officer
Training' from May 8th to August 11th, 1972... The SOA, renamed in 2001 the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), is a combat training school for
Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. SOA graduates are
consistently involved in human rights abuses and atrocities throughout Latin America."
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has led the fight to close the SOA. Is it any wonder Karl
Rove is trying to smear her as "nutty"?
http://www.soaw.org/Articles/current%2520info/new/venezuela.htm
__Petition to the Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
"We, the undersigned, do hereby petition the Senate of the United States of America to
thoroughly investigate the events surrounding the acts of terrorism that transpired in
the United States on September 11, 2001. Such an investigation would include research
into the following peculiarities relating to the terrorist attacks on the United
States on 9/11: 1) Thousands of put stock options that were purchased on United and
American airlines immediately prior to 9/11/01... 5) Interviews of any air-traffic
controllers on duty on 9/11 7) Aircraft debris strewn approximately seven miles from
the crash site of Flight 93... 8) Unocal's role in its quest to build an oil pipeline
across Afghanistan ... 12) Role of the Northern Alliance in explosive growth of opium
production in Afghanistan after U.S. military intervention..." Sign the petition!
http://www.petitiononline.com/11601TFS/petition.html
__Skeptical of the Official 9-11 Story? It's All in Your Head - or Your Computer
Beware! ABC News' Dean Schabner reports (horrors!) "There are voices popping up on
Internet Web sites, in chatrooms and making the rounds in e-mail chains - even some
conspiracy theorists who are packing hundreds of people into lecture halls - saying
that evidence points to some direct level of involvement in the attacks by the U.S.
government... These days, conspiracy mongers have new and potent allies in the
Internet and e-mail, which allow them to grab hold of and instantly spread any new
nuggets that fits their construction... Working on the Internet feeds the
conspiracist's way of thinking. 'The architecture and the structure of it, with the
ability to hyperlink and cut and paste kind of mirrors conspiracy thinking,' he said.
'The medium mirrors the mindset. Everything is interconnected.'" Hey Dean - how about
reporting some facts, instead of smearing us all as nuts? E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/conspiracy020417.html
__And About that Grassy Knoll...
In his coordinated smear campaign against Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Karl Rove
slipped the same phrase into the comments of his White House spokesman (Ari Fleischer)
and his Carlyle Group spokesman (Chris Ullman). Ari said McKinney "must be running for
the Hall of Fame of the Grassy Knoll Society." Chris said, "Did she say these things
while standing on a grassy knoll in Roswell, New Mexico?" But one year ago, the
Washington Post itself reported, "The House Assassinations Committee may have been
right after all: There was a shot from the grassy knoll." This was based on a
peer-reviewed article in Science and Justice by "D.B. Thomas, a government scientist
and JFK assassination researcher, said it was more than 96 percent certain that there
was a shot from the grassy knoll to the right of the president's limousine, in
addition to the three shots from a book depository window above and behind the
president's limousine." The media never followed up on that important story. Why not???
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56560-2001Mar25.html
__Who Lost Bin Laden? Fingers Point at Gen. Tommy R. Franks
"The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the
battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to
hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and
military officials with first-hand knowledge... Though there remains a remote chance
that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped
away in the first 10 days of December. After-action reviews, conducted privately
inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a
significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed
outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's
operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass
the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader... Franks continues to dissent
from that analysis." So reports the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62618-2002Apr16.html
__O'Neill Threatens Resignation if $6 Trillion Dollar Debt Limit Isn't Raised
"You're going to have to raise the debt ceiling or you're going to have to find a new
Treasury secretary, because I'm not going to go to jail because you failed to act and
I have to take some extraordinary action that is unconstitutional. I'm not going to do
that," O'Neill told Congress. The Bu$h administration wants to increase it by $750
Billion. To stay below the debt ceiling, O'Neill had shifted federal retirement funds
into non-interest bearing accounts. Had he not done so, the government would have been
technically in default, negatively affecting US securities and forcing higher interest
payments in the future on the nation's national debt. This is what happens when
Republicans run the country and create massive debts.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/04/17/debt.limit.ap/index.html
__Conyers Renews Demand for Enrongate Special Prosecutor
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has
once again written to Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson demanding a Special
Prosecutor for Enrongate. Conyers cited conflicts he raised previously, including
Bush's receipt of $2 million from Enron, plus another $145,650 from Arthur Andersen.
He cited White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez's former partnership in Vinson & Elkins,
Karl Rove's criminal consulting arrangement with Ralph Reed, and Thompson's own ties
to Enron through his partnership in King & Spaulding. Finally, Conyers added new
revelations that "Secretary of the Army Thomas White, a former high ranking Enron
executive, was under federal investigation for insider trading involving the sale of
more than $12 million in Enron stock." All of this adds up to a MASSIVE conflict of
interest, and we join Rep. Conyers in once again DEMANDING A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.17A.Conyers.Demands.htm
__Did Enron Make the Market to Gouge California Electricity Consumers?
Do you believe in the tooth fairy? You might as well! Enron maintains there is no
evidence "to show the company manipulated prices" of California energy, despite
charging prices that ranged from 63%-185% higher than competitors. Enron also
maintains it "was not a significant player in CA," while controlling about 30% of the
electricity traded at 4 Western electricity clearinghouses with contracted megawatt
amounts more than 10 times larger than their competitors; that amounted to roughly 80%
of Enron's overall power sales during that time! By trading contracts with its
competitors and itself, investigators believe Enron was able to drive prices up, and
each trade gave them a cut; large amounts traded = large cuts. How large? Sales prices
per megawatt hour rocketed from $37.93 in the first quarter to $264.59 in the fourth
quarter! THAT sure beats a buck under the pillow!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B0A4AF0DB%2DFEAE%2D40BD%2D9CFE%2DD8794D21ADC1%7D&siteid=yhoo
__Bush Appoints Evil Coal Polluter to Protect Coal Miners
The Louisville Courier-Journal penned a stinging anti-Bush editorial under the
headline, "The Bush Plutocracy." "Remember the name Suboleski. It tells you a lot
about what we got when the U.S. Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the key to the
White House... Mr. Suboleski is a top executive of Massey Energy, whose environmental
record ranks it near the combines of the great 19th Century robber barons. He has been
named to the panel that is supposed to settle disputes between mine operators and
government officials. It's as if Rockefeller, Carnegie and Jay Gould had been named to
re-write federal anti-trust law. Massey... was responsible for a sludge pond breakout
that dumped 300 million gallons of black goo into tributaries of the Big Sandy River
in Eastern Kentucky, ruining homesteads, polluting water supplies and imposing a
hugely expensive, years-long cleanup. And the company's first reaction was to claim
that God was responsible." Send compliments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/020416-1.html
__Shout it from the Mountaintops - While The Mountains Still Have Tops...
David Case writes in TomPaine, "There's an easy way to stop bank robbers from breaking
the law: make bank robbery legal. That's exactly how the Bush administration is
proposing to treat polluters under a vital section of the Clean Water Act,
environmentalists say. It's part of the administration's ongoing effort to fulfill the
extractive industries' wildest fantasies. In this latest rollback of environmental
safeguards, the administration is pandering to corporations that practice
mountaintop-removal coal-mining in Appalachia. Incidentally, coal mining companies and
their allies at electric utilities donated $530,560 to President Bush during the 2000
campaign and coal interests gave nearly $3 million in soft money to the Republican
party, according to Earthjustice, which tallied the numbers from the Web site
OpenSecrets.org."
http://tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5460
__Fort Sumter II: US May Go to War with South Carolina over Plutonium
141 years ago, the Civil War began with a battle at Fort Sumter, SC. Now a new battle
is brewing between the Federal government and South Carolina over the transport of
plutonium, the deadliest man-made product of the nuclear age. Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham notified Gov. Jim Hodges (D) that the Feds will begin shipping 34 metric tons
of plutonium into SC in May, over the firm objections of the state. Hodges says he'll
have state troopers stop the shipments at the border. The central issue is Abraham's
promise to process the plutonium into reactor fuel. Hodges wants more than promises,
saying "The federal government is asking us to take them at their word. Given their
track record, that's just not good enough." You said it, Jim - just ask Nevada Gov.
Kenny Guinn (R) about Yucca Mountain! When it comes to Nukes, Oil - and stealing
elections - Bush's Federalist Society administration sees no limits to Federal power.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/3073501.htm
__PHONY TO THE CORE: The 'Ole Family Ranch' in Crawford is a Set Completed the Same
Day the Election Was Stolen
Have you seen all those article and pictures of Bush "at home on the ranch" in
Crawford - the ones that imply that he is "just an ole ranch hand" more comfortable on
the family homestead than in the "Big City," be it Austin or D.C."? Well, if you
bought this image, you've been royally snuckered. The Bush family homestead in
Crawford is nothing more than an elaborate set. The house, built in 2000, was designed
to be ready for Bush to step into - like a set awaiting an actor - during the 2000
presidential election. Not only was the "ranch" created in 2000 - so, essentially, was
the "town" of Crawford! The original completion date of the house was November 7 -
election day 2000. In other words, the curtain went up on the set on schedule for
"show time." The very timing of this event indicates that Bush was absolutely
confident that the election would be successfully engineered in his favor.
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=6687
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