PRIVACY? First your email now your US MAIL

WASHINGTON — President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.



By James Gordon Meek
New York Daily News


Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.

Olbermann: Special Comment on "Sacrifice"

Keith Olbermann stepped up and slapped Bush's plan to use the word "sacrifice" as an excuse to send more troops to Iraq. Bush needs a new ... all » catch phrase to try and deceive the nation with, but Republican talking points won't work on the people anymore. They are fed up with Bush and this war and sending more troops to die is not an answer. John McCain and Lieberman will now wear the McCain Doctrine around their necks—as Bill Kristol drools with glee as he'll finally get his wish. Olbermann: If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

Democratic congress is waffling on Iraq exit

Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division boarded a plane in North Carolina. About 3,300 are to be sent to Kuwait by the end of the week.




Awaiting Bush’s Iraq Plan, Democrats Weigh Replies

By JEFF ZELENY
Published: January 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — Some key Senate Democrats say they could consider supporting a short-term increase in American troop levels in Iraq, a stance that reflects division within the party and could provide an opening for President Bush as he prepares to announce his revised plan for Iraq as early as next week.


Several Democratic senators echoed Mr. Biden’s view, saying they believed that sending more troops would not resolve the predicament in Iraq.

Kudos to senator Biden and the several senators for standing firm, but where are the rest of the Democratic senators that were voted into office. And they were voted into office mainly on the Iraq War issue...HELLO!
Remember the one voice of the neocons that got us into this mess? Well, if you do, remember their fate because your terms in office will be short, and the outraged voices of the majority will cry out for accountability.

Check out the remarks of these weenies!

Mr. Levin said, he would not rule out supporting a plan to dispatch more troops if the proposal was tied to a broader strategy to begin reducing American involvement and sending troops home.


Mr. Reid has said that he will consider supporting a short-term increase in troops, but his spokesman, Jim Manley, declared, “If it’s not temporary in nature, it’s a nonstarter


Representative Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat who will be the House majority leader, stopped short of saying that Democrats would exercise the power of the purse and decrease financing for American troops. Yet he said the new Congress was “not going to sit silently by while policies are pursued with which we don’t agree.”


I am not in favor of that unless the president can convince me otherwise,” Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat who will serve on the Armed Services Committee, said of a possible troop increase.

It's time for "We The People" to get back into action
and time for the Democrats to get some traction

THE DARK SIDE

Amid revelations about faulty prewar intelligence and a scandal surrounding the indictment of the vice president's chief of staff and presidential adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, FRONTLINE goes behind the headlines to investigate the internal war that was waged between the intelligence community and Richard Bruce Cheney, the most powerful vice president in the nation's history.





When Cheney and Rumsfeld were on the staff of George H W Bush (pappa Bush) in 1987, Cheney was allready working on increasing presidential powers, and denying secret information to congress.


Richard Cheney:
November 18, 1987

Discussing the Iran-contra report and proposed reforms on The NewsHour

"I think you have to preserve the prerogative of the President in extraordinary circumstances not to notify the Congress at all [of covert actions]. Or that is to exercise discretion to wait for days or weeks, or even months. I think that's within his constitutional prerogative. I am reluctant to see us impose any additional restraints or restrictions upon the President's ability to operate in this area. ... I don't think that you can pass a law that will guarantee no future president will make mistakes, and I think we have to guard against passing laws now that will restrict some future president in a future crisis that we can only guess at at present."

PATHS TO POWER

Across seven administrations they have shared a belief in the importance of American military power. Today, they are President Bush's war cabinet. Here's an overview of their intertwined relationships over the decades, their conflicts, and the events that have shaped their view of America's role in the world. [This historical chart is drawn in large part from James Mann's book, Rise of the Vulcans (2004), a history of the lives, ideas and careers of Bush's war cabinet.]






PBS FRONTLINE~THE DARKSIDE

Dubya Writes Us A New Years Message

Presidential Message for New Year's Day, 2007

Over the past year, we have reached important goals and confronted new challenges. At the start of this New Year, we move forward with trust in the power of the American spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who created us to be free.

In 2006, the number of jobs steadily increased, wages grew, the unemployment rate dropped, and we achieved our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule. Thanks to the hard work and innovation of the American people, our economy has been growing faster than any other major developed nation. Significant tax relief has helped our citizens keep more of what they earn and fuel an economy that is vigorous and healthy.My Administration will continue to work to help create more jobs, reduce the deficit, and spread prosperity to all our citizens.

Last year, America continued its mission to fight and win the war on terror and promote liberty as an alternative to tyranny and despair. In the New Year, we will remain on the offensive against the enemies of freedom, advance the security of our country, and work toward a free and unified Iraq. Defeating terrorists and extremists is the challenge of our time, and we will answer history's call with confidence and fight for liberty without wavering.

Our Nation depends on the fine men and women in uniform who serve our country with valor and distinction. America's troops and their families exemplify the great character of our country, and they have earned the respect and admiration of a grateful Nation.

As we celebrate the New Year, we look with hope to the year ahead and the opportunities it will bring. Laura and I send our best wishes for a happy New Year. May God bless you, may God bless our troops and their families, and may God bless America.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Bush Watch~2007~

~~~~~~ I'll Be Watching You ~~~~~~

Lil Abner's Schmoo & the FDA

Meat, milk from cloned animals OK'd

FDA study says it needs no labels


By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times - December 24, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- A long-awaited study by US scientists has concluded that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat and drink and should be allowed to enter the food supply without any special labeling.

"All of the studies indicate that the composition of meat and milk from clones is within the compositional ranges of meat and milk consumed in the US," the FDA scientists concluded in a report published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Theriogenology, which focuses on animal reproduction.

The study, however, prompted a sharp reaction from food safety advocates.

The FDA "has been trying to foist this bad science on us for several years," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety in Washington. "When there is so much concern among so many Americans, this is really a rush to judgment."

Many ranchers and dairy producers have already cloned animals for meat and milk production, but a voluntary moratorium initiated about five years ago by the FDA has largely kept them and their offspring out of grocery stores and restaurants.

However, ranchers say there is no doubt that some of the animals taken to slaughterhouses in the past couple of years have been fathered by clones.

"There's been lots and lots of them that went into the food chain," said Larry Coleman, who raises limousin cattle in Charlo, Mont., and has made five clones of his prize bull, named First Down. He estimated that at least 10 of their offspring have wound up on dinner tables.

Since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, agricultural scientists have imagined a time when they could dispense with the uncertainties of conventional breeding and make exact copies of their best animals. Cows were cloned in 1998 and pigs followed in 2000.

Consumers greeted the news with a combination of amazement and revulsion.

What Fools These Mortals Be

Do you remember this character? He was the avatar of Hearst Newspapers funny papers when there were such strips as "The Toonerville Trolley, Lil Abner, Jiggs and Maggie, etc. etc. Lil Abner, and later Pogo Possum along with others carried political views of the times, but nothing like found in Puck magazine, and the earlier works of Frederic Nast in the 1850's. These political cartoons are pretty witty and reflect the politics of those times, and some of them look like they would also reflect the current times...

Here are some of the cartoons from Puck Magazine

This character from Shakespeares "Midsummer nights Dream" was created by Bohemian sculptor Carl Buberl, who did the statues of Puck on the Puck Building. He was Bohemian by way of actually coming from Bohemia. Of the 2 statues, one appears to be looking at himself, and the other is aiming his mirror toward the sidewalk. The Puck Building was best known as the home of Puck magazine. Joseph Keppler, a star illustrator at Frank Leslie's Illustrated News, started the magazine in 1876. It was in German the first year. The following year the magazine went to both German and English editions. Color cartoons figured on the front page and the centerfold. Specializing in political and social cartoons, the weekly 10 cent,16 page paper was selling a constant 80,000 copies a week.

The weekly magazine was founded by Joseph Keppler, Sr. in St. Louis and began publishing English and German language editions in March, 1871. Five years later the German edition of Puck moved to New York City publishing the first magazine on September 27, 1876 followed by the English edition on March 14, 1877. The English magazine continued for over forty years under several owners and editors until it was bought by the William Randolph Hearst company in 1916. The publication continued for two more years, when the last edition was distributed 5 September 1918. Typical 32-page issues contained full a color political cartoon on the front cover and a color non-political cartoon or comic-strip on the back cover. There was always a double-page color centerfold, usually on a political topic. There were numerous black & white cartoons used to illustrate humorous anecdotes. A page of editorials commented on the issues of the day, and the last few pages were ads.

Ford's Comments on Iraq War Released

President Gerald R. Ford, center, with Chief of Staff Donald H. Rumsfeld, left, and Rumsfeld's assistant, Dick Cheney, on April 28, 1975. (By David Hume Kennerly -- Ford Library Via Associated Press)

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006;

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.





On July 28, 2004, former president Gerald R. Ford sat down for an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward. The interview was conducted at Ford's Beaver Creek, Colo., house; the former president agreed that his comments could be published any time after his death. Below are audio excerpts from the interview:

Ford says he does not believe the United States should intervene militarily overseas unless it is directly in America's national interests.

Ford says that, based on the facts as he understands them, he does not think that he would have ordered the Iraq war if he had been president.

Ford says he believes that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld erred in justifying the Iraq war as one aimed at eliminating Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Ford says that while he never publicly criticized the Bush administration's war in Iraq, he does think they made a mistake in how they justified the war.




Gerald Ford at the National Press Club

Posted Thursday, July 24, 2003.

President Ford Salutes the Vital Role of a Free Press

The nation�s free press contributes greatly to invigorate the tenacity of democracy in America, former President Gerald Ford declared in honoring three journalists who were awarded top prizes from the Gerald R. Ford Foundation at the July 17 NPC Luncheon. This year�s winners of the $5,000 awards are Bob Woodward and Dan Balz of The Washington Post for distinguished reporting on the presidency, and The Wall Street Journal�s Pentagon correspondent Greg Jaffe, reporting on national defense. �Journalists provide the people of our great nation the information, vision and strength that has resulted in the un-precedented advancement and freedom of all our lives,� Ford said. He noted that even though there are difficulties and confrontations for the president to deal with the press, the country is better off because of their work. In closing the luncheon, all attendees joined in singing �Happy Birthday� to the 38th U.S. President.
—JOHN ORAVEC

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NPC Forum Considers Reporting Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Bush administration used the threat of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction as a key justification for invading Iraq. Critics are charging that intelligence about those weapons was manipulated and exaggerated to justify the war. How accurately and fairly have the media reported on this controversy and the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein?

On Mon., Aug. 4, 6:30 p.m., the NPC Forums Committee in cooperation with the Newseum will present a panel discussion to consider these questions. Panelists will include:

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Africa by the CIA and concluded there was no Iraq-Niger uranium deal;
Margaret Carlson, Time Magazine;
Gordon Corera of the BBC, and
Jon Wolfsthal of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Dubya forced to recognise Global Warming

The Times December 28, 2006

Plight of the polar bear forces Bush to recognise climate threat

Tim Reid in Washington

In a stark warning this year, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said that the total Arctic ice cover had melted back to the lowest level in modern records, and that if melting rates continued apace the summertime Arctic could be ice-free within 80 years.

Last year three environmental groups sued the US Government to force it to review the status of the polar bear. Andrew Wetzler, a lawyer for one of them, the Natural Resources Defence Council, said: “It’s such a loud recognition that global warming is real. It is rapidly threatening the polar bear and, in fact, an entire ecosystem with utter destruction.”

America has come under increasing pressure to take action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But Mr Bush, who refuses to recognise the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, has balked at setting any mandatory environmental limits on US industries.

After proposing the polar bear for threatened status, the US Interior Department will allow 90 days of public comment on the proposal. If the animal is then added to the endangered species list, all US government agencies will be obliged by law to consider if their actions are adding to global warming.

“This is a victory for the polar bear, and all wildlife threatened by global warming,” Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Centre for Biological Diversity, said. “There is still time to save polar bears, but we must reduce greenhouse gas pollution immediately.”




Govt. Sees Polar Bears As 'Threatened'

By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 27, 2006; 9:25 PM

WASHINGTON -- Polar bears are in jeopardy and need stronger government protection because of melting Arctic sea ice related to global warming, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

The Interior Department cites thinning sea ice as the big problem; outside the government, other scientists studying the issue say pollution, overhunting, development and even tourism also may be factors. Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday proposed listing polar bears as a "threatened" species on the government list of imperiled species. The "endangered" category is reserved for species more likely to become extinct.

"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments," Kempthorne said. "But we are concerned the polar bear's habitat may literally be melting."

A final decision on whether to add the polar bears to the list is a year away, after the government finishes more studies.

Such a decision would require all federal agencies to ensure that anything they authorize that might affect polar bears will not jeopardize their survival or the sea ice where they live. That could include oil and gas exploration, commercial shipping or even releases of toxic contaminants or climate-affecting pollution.

Kempthorne, however, said his department's studies indicate that coastal and offshore oil and gas exploration _ heavily promoted by the Bush administration, particularly in Alaska _ shouldn't be curtailed.

"It's very clear that the oil and gas activity in that area does not pose a threat to the polar bears," he said.



On March 16, 2006, Kempthorne was nominated by President George W. Bush to replace Gale Norton as the 49th Secretary of the Interior. On May 10, 2006, Kempthorne's nomination was approved by voice vote by the United States Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Kempthorne should be replaced by a Democrat who cares about the environment and will speak the truth. He was installed by Dubya, and has followed in the footsteps of Gail Norton, who was also nominated by Dubya. Norton is an ideological extremist who worked for two decades to dismantle the very laws the Interior Department is sworn to uphold. Before becoming Interior Secretary, she espoused the "right to pollute" and other extreme positions, including support of laws allowing polluters to police themselves. As Colorado attorney general, she was hostile to environmental protection

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