Dead Donkeys Don't Kick

Some Observations on the recent vote for war:

• The demos have signed on to Bush's war when 20% of the population supported it.


• Therefore, most congressmen and senators voted against their constituencies.


• Since even centrist media have finally reported that the Bushies excused their invasions in a cascade of lies, one must assume professional politicians have long recognized that. So few if any of these votes can be tied to conscience over Iraqis.


• The troops can be withdrawn at no cost to the troops with the money the government now has. Being in Baghdad is more dangerous than being in the US. So this bill kills troops; it does not protect them or support them. This is obvious enough that one must find it unlikely that anyone signed off on the war to support American troops.


• Politicians and there immediate families rarely get involved in war. (The current ex-Vietnam politicians were at draft age in a time when the lottery draft did not respect economic differences, not in the current, more typical poverty-draft.) So the votes did not come from direct personal concerns (indirect concerns, including payola, may be another matter).


• Republicans may have voted against their better judgment from party loyalties, but this would not apply to democrats.


• Anyone could have voted out of some obscure ideological ideas. But if so, the ideas seem more thoroughly obscure than usual. The war violates liberty, may result in disorder within the US as well as outside of it, and will be vastly unprofitable to much of the elite as well as most all American citizens. Moreover, politicians engage in adjusting ideals to practical circumstance professionally, on a daily basis. The substitution of childish lies (WMD after inspectors had verified their nonexistence, regime replacement after Hussein offered to step down, terrorism when bin Ladin represents religious and political factions opposed to Hussein) for even the most arcane of ideological argument suggests that ideological cannot be a primary reason.


• Bribery laws don't get enforced efficiently, but when they do, the results are costly for politicians, who could otherwise retire on comfortable albeit vastly reduced pensions.


• Politicians who have no campaign funds get removed from office regardless of how they vote. One could even argue that politicians should kowtow to lobbyists simply because any who don't will have to leave the beltway with dispatch

We might conclude that the intersection of two groups will be an approximate list of those who bought the war:

• Corporations who have given or will give funds to democrats who voted for war


• Corporations who have profited or stand to profit greatly from the war. This includes not only contractors, but companies that sell oil that does not come from Iraq.

How to become a dictator in a democracy

How to become a dictator in a democracy

Get ready for a "national emergency"

By Kurt Nimmo

It is hardly surprising not a single corporate newspaper reported the death of the Constitution. Go to Google News and type in National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive and hit enter. Google returns ten paltry results, not one from the New York Times, the Washington Post, or related corporate media source. Google Trends rates the story as mild, that is to say it warrants nary a blip on the news radar screen. Of course, another death blow to the Constitution, already long on life support, is hardly news. Few understand we now live in a dictatorship, or maybe it should be called a decidership.

The Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media. This is understandable considering the huge Ron Paul and immigration news but this story is equally as huge. In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a Catastrophic Emergency the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency, writes Lee Rogers for Global Research. The language written in the directive is disturbing because it doesn't say that the President will work with the other branches of government equally to ensure a constitutional government is protected. It says clearly that there will be a cooperative effort among the three branches that will be coordinated by the President. If the President is coordinating these efforts it effectively puts him in charge of every branch. The language in the directive is entirely Orwellian in nature making it seem that it is a cooperative effort between all three branches but than it says that the President is in charge of the cooperative effort.

In short, Bush may now declare himself absolute ruler at any moment and Congress can like it or lump it. Naturally, this act of betrayal is of so little importance and consequence, the corporate media believes you are better served knowing Justin Timberlake is in love.

This directive on its face is unconstitutional because each branch of government the executive, legislative and judicial are supposed to be equal in power, Lee continues. By putting the President in charge of coordinating such an effort to ensure constitutional government over all three branches is effectively making the President a dictator allowing him to tell all branches of government what to do.

So much for the first three articles of the Constitution, designed to make sure there remains a separation of power between branches of government. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition, declared James Madison in the Federalist Papers. Madison, in his original draft of the Bill of Rights, included a proposed amendment that would make the separation of powers explicit, but this proposal was rejected, primarily because his fellow members of Congress thought the separation of powers principle was obvious in the Constitution. There was no way for them to read the future, or predict the wholesale selling and buying of Congress, a judiciary stacked with reactionary troglodytes from the Federalist Society, and a largely brain dead public apparently more interested in Britney Spears lip-sync concerts than preserving the Constitution, let alone comprehending it.

Bush, of course, takes his marching orders from higher up on the food chain, more specifically the World Economic Forum, the club of billionaires and transnational corporations that meet annually in Davos, Switzerland, where they plot our future. In January, the Forum, with numerous links to business networks, policy-makers and government, NGOs and think-tanks, at the behest of Merrill Lynch, Swiss Re and the Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes, and Wharton School, produced Global Risks 2007, a report containing various dire global risk scenarios, including a full-blown [influenza] pandemic, with one million deaths worldwide. Other possible global risk scenarios include international terrorism and climate change.

But what does all of this have to do with Bush and the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive?

The Directive slipped out relatively unnoticed by the mainstream media, yet it has important and positive implications for the future resiliency of public sector operations in the United States, reports Continuity Central. The concepts of a National Continuity Coordinator and a centrally directed National Continuity Implementation Plan are to be welcomed in principle and are something which other countries should look seriously at emulating.

Earlier in the year the World Economic Forum called for such a position to be set up in every government in its 'Global Risks 2007' report. This championed the appointment of 'Country Risk Officers' who would provide a focal point in government for mitigating global risks across departments, learning from private-sector approaches and escaping a 'silo-based' approach. As for the position of National Continuity Coordinator, it went to Frances Fragos Townsend, chair of the Homeland Security Council, who reports to Bush, or rather the neocons and a scattering of neolibs who tell Dubya what to say and do every morning.

Townsend, as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, by virtue of the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive signed May 9, 2007, by President Bush, is also National Continuity Coordinator, notes SourceWatch. The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive states: The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination.

In essence, the globalist oligarchy, from on-high in Davos, through business networks, policy-makers NGOs and think-tanks, are driving policies designed to reduce the Constitution to an irrelevancy. Of course, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are but the last impediment to establishing a globalist soviet in the United States, soon to be merged into a North American Union, itself but a component of larger trading blocs carved out by the globalists.

Considering all of this, it makes perfect sense the corporate media ignored the rollout of the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, same as they ignore the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, even though the latter involves the direct participation of Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Naturally, any talk of conspiracy to sell out the nation and dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights relegates one to the tinfoil hat brigade, for if such things are not reported upon or discussed at Fox News, they naturally fall in the province of kooky conspiracy theories.

Happy reading ~ National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive

Cheney in Baghdad

Linguists tell us that the wonder of language involves its potential to accomplish infinite variation with finite means. But that has a frightening aspect when we see how many errors can be dropped into a single finite sentence.

To be fair, the core lie in the sentence belongs to Dick Cheney, not to John Burns, the author of the Times article. But Burns' drift down the river of Cheney's speech shows something about the object in what folks call objective journalism:

After a day of talks here with Iraq's fractious political leaders, Vice President Cheney said Wednesday that he detected a 'greater sense of urgency' among them in tackling a list of divisive issues that the Bush administration sees as the key to any sustained progress against the country's insurgent and militia groups."

(John Burns. 5/10/2007 A12 NY TIMES)

Where does one begin?

Iraq's fractious political leaders -- Being fractious, the leaders are resistant to authority. We mean that they're not being quick or efficient enough about obeying the Americans. So if George Bush is not an Iraqi leader, then the term must apply to the leaders of the resistance forces that fight the Americans. Yet the only Iraqi that Burns will mention as a leader is Al Maliki, whom Bush periodically threatens to fire.

On the other hand, fractious may call to mind fractions, fragments and factions: terms that one might take to refer to divisiveness. So maybe Mr. Burns waxes poetic. Perhaps he wishes to indicate that the Iraqi leaders don't agree with each other like leaders in, say, Washington.

greater sense of urgency -- Let's picture this. Five years into war, with over 600,000 Iraqis known dead and casualty rates still rising, utilities still out, water still fouled, rates of cancers and deformities rising with the background radiation from the depleted uranium arms, Cheney pops over for a little surprise visit to catch his Iraqi charges off-guard and see whether they're motivated to get down to work. Anyone else in a similar situation would be panicked or homicidal, but Cheney appears to consider his Iraqis a particularly unruffled bunch, more concerned about a vice-presidential frown than the grocery store exploding with half a city block of a Saturday.

It might be worth mentioning that while Burns mentions "divisive issues" many times throughout the article, there's no mention of what those issues might be. Did Cheney see fit to mention these, whereas Burns felt they didn't mention publication; or did Cheney not mention them at all, and Burns saw little reason to ask?

Either way, in this article, the speed at which the issues might be addressed was important; the issues themselves were not. This seems particularly interesting in that the article indicates throughout that the issues have not been addressed either quickly or slowly.

sustained progress against . . . insurgent and militia groups -- Which militias, which insurgents? Progress, and particularly sustained progress suggests forward movement, undebatable improvement. But what direction can be considered improvement here? Cheney says "against insurgent and militia groups," but since Iraqis want the Americans to leave, surely they must prefer the insurgents and the militias or someone of that nature, even if it's only a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils, like voting democrat in an American election. Leaving aside the claims for "democracy in Iraq" as rhetorical flourish, progress against "insurgents" can hardly mean anything other than progress against the Iraqis. Of course, given the nature of conflicts in general and the history of this conflict in particular, it's hard to see how even this can constitute something "sustained" or "progressive."

Have I erred in trying to read this as an objective statement? After all, if no one expects me to believe a statement, is it really a lie? But the article is not on an editorial page, not marked out visually in any way to distinguish it from other news articles that purport to be objective.

Reading speculatively, between the lines, I suspect that Burns wishes to give the impression that Mr. Cheney is off in Iraq watching after my money, that those Iraqis are mischievous lesser partners who much be watched after, who fritter away the company money getting shot and squabbling while hardworking Blackwater people caretake them with slowly diminishing patience.

"Ah, this is a fine mess you've gotten me into."

I suspect further that Cheney and perhaps Burns and the Times have an idea that Americans may be losing patience with them, that this latest love-letter must mean that it's all those Iraqis' fault, but that Cheney's working on it and that they're promising to come around. Of course, the Times has the right to promote any idea or fantasy they wish, should this be their intent. But it seems a pity to promote it with all signals of being a news article, especially when falsehoods emerge from the wording itself in ways that one suspects must have been obvious to the professional editors who reviewed it.

snoitisnartT: FALLOUTs!

YOU MEET THE STRANGEST PEOPLE

DUST ANGELS: FALLOUTs!

DEAR ANGEL OF DUST…?

The President's brother Neil is making hay from school reform

Across the country, some teachers complain that President George W. Bush's makeover of public education promotes "teaching to the test." The President's younger brother Neil takes a different tack: He's selling to the test. The No Child Left Behind Act compels schools to prove students' mastery of certain facts by means of standardized exams. Pressure to perform has energized the $1.9 billion-a-year instructional software industry.

Now, after five years of development and backing by investors like Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and onetime junk-bond king Michael R. Milken, Neil Bush aims to roll his high-tech teacher's helpers into classrooms nationwide. He calls them "curriculum on wheels," or COWs. The $3,800 purple plug-and-play computer/projectors display lively videos and cartoons: the XYZ Affair of the late 1790s as operetta, the 1828 Tariff of Abominations as horror flick. The device plays songs that are supposed to aid the memorization of the 22 rivers of Texas or other facts that might crop up in state tests of "essential knowledge."

Bush's Ignite! Inc. has sold 1,700 COWs since 2005, mainly in Texas, where Bush lives and his brother was once governor. In August, Houston's school board authorized expenditures of up to $200,000 for COWs. The company expects 2006 revenue of $5 million. Says Bush about the impact of his name: "I'm not saying it hasn't opened any doors. It may have helped with some sales."

(In September, the U.S. Education Dept.'s inspector general accused the agency of improperly favoring at least five publishers, including The McGraw-Hill Companies, which owns BusinessWeek. A company spokesman says: "Our reading programs have been successful in advancing student achievement for decades; that's why educators hold them in such high regard.")

The stars haven't always aligned for Bush, but at times financial support has. A foundation linked to the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon has donated $1 million for a COWs research project in Washington (D.C.)-area schools. In 2004 a Shanghai chip company agreed to give Bush stock then valued at $2 million for showing up at board meetings. (Bush says he received one-fifth of the shares.) In 1988 a Colorado savings and loan failed while he served on its board, making him a prominent symbol of the S&L scandal. Neil calls himself "the most politically damaged of the [Bush] brothers."

While hardly the first brother to embarrass a President — remember Billy Carter's Billy Beer or Roger Clinton's cocaine? — Neil could be the first to seek profit from a hallmark Presidential crusade. And also that of a governor: Jeb makes school standards a centerpiece in Florida, too.

Neil says he never talks shop with his brothers. He attributes his interest in education to his struggles with dyslexia. His son, Pierce, also had difficulties in school, he says. "Not one of our investors has ever asked for any kind of special access — a visa, a trip to the Lincoln Bedroom, an autographed picture, or anything."

By STAFF, Business Week

More Moon Money Flows to Bush Family

We are honored to welcome Larry Zilliox as a guest front pager. He is the president of Investigative Research Specialists, a private investigation company based in Bristow, Virginia. He has done extensive research on the Moon empire, following the money trail through public records and other sources. – FC

[image,right: George Bush Senior speaking at a 1996 Moon sponsored event]

As followers of Rev. Sun Myung Moon pray for a presidential pardon for their aging Messiah's felony tax-fraud conviction in the 1980s, the latest tax filing of the Washington Times Foundation has become available. The return covers the months from April 2005 through March 2006 and shows a $100,000 contribution from the foundation to the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.

The Washington Times was founded by Moon and has been subsidized by Moon-controlled interests.

The only larger donation made by the foundation in that year was to another entity closely associated with Moon, the American Family Coalition, Inc. which received $219,000.

[image,right: still from video clip of George and Barbara Bush greeting Sun Myung Moon and his wife at a Moon event, backstage at the Tokyo Dome, 1995]

Funding for the Washington Times Foundation comes primarily from the mysterious International Peace Foundation (IPF). The source of the funds IPF donated to the Washington Times Foundation are not known and most likely are untraceable because IPF does not appear to be a legally incorporated entity. The IPF address listed in the Washington Times Foundation tax return is the Unification Movement-owned building at 7777 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church Virginia. A check of the Internal Revenue Service online directory of organizations recognized as exempt failed to find a listing for IPF. A check of GuideStar database of non-profit organizations also found no listing.

IPF was originally incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1988. A check of the District of Columbia online corporate registrations web page shows the status of IPF as "Revoked." District of Columbia corporate records identify Moon's long time right-hand man Bo Hi Pak as an original officer of the organization. Pak has a history of leading many Moon connected businesses and non-profit organizations in the Washington, DC area. One of the oldest organizations with which Pak is associated is the Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation. Pak, serving as Chairman, mismanaged the organization so badly it fell victim to one of the largest Nigerian Fraud Scams in US history. In 2001 and 2002 the Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation reported in it's IRS Form 990 tax return that it had lost nearly $3,000,000 to scammers.

In Virginia, where the Washington Times Foundation tax form lists IPF's current address, the Virginia State Corporation Commission records show the status for IPF as revoked in 2004. The Commission's online database of corporate registrations indicates the online record details for the entity have been purged from their system as of 12/31/2004.

This revelation of money donated to a charity associated with the Bush family is just the latest in a string of donations and payments dating back more than ten years. George H. W. Bush has had a long association with Moon going back to just after he left office. In September 1995 Bush and his wife gave a number of speeches in Asia for the Women's Federation for World Peace an organization headed by Moon's wife Hak Ja Han Moon. In November 1996 Bush spoke in Buenos Aires at a banquet honoring the opening of Moon's South American newspaper Tiempos del Mundo Bush refused to disclose how much he was paid for his Moon-sponsored speaking tour.

In 2003 the Washington Times Foundation funneled a $1,000,000 donation to the Bush Presidential Library through the Greater Houston Community Foundation. In 2005 the Moon sponsored Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace made a donation of $1,000,000, it's largest donation of the year, to the senior Bush's Points of Light Foundation for Hurricane Katrina relief.

The Bush 2005 Inaugural Committee received the maximum $250,000 donation from Moon's Washington Television Center the entity that owns the large office building at 650 Massachusetts Avenue in the District of Columbia. In December 2005 the President's younger brother, Neil, was spotted touring Taiwan and the Philippines with Moon. Less than a year later Business Week published an article titled "No Bush Left Behind" profiling Neil Bush's company Ignite!, Inc. The company sells a high tech teaching aid called "Curriculum on Wheels" or COWs. The article states "A foundation linked to the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon has donated $1 million for a COWs research project in Washington (D.C.)-area schools."

From non-profit tax returns and media reports we see that at least $3,335,000 has flowed from the Unification Movement to Bush family members or charities since George W. Bush has taken office.

By Larry Zilliox

MAYDAY: FALLOUTs!

MAYDAY - MAYDAY - MAYDAY

Venezuela siezes big oil companies

PUERTO PIRITU, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela stripped the world's biggest oil companies of operational control over massive Orinoco Belt crude projects on Tuesday, a vital move in President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive.

The May Day takeover came exactly a year after Bolivian President Evo Morales, a leftist ally of Chavez, startled investors by ordering troops to seize his country's gas fields, accelerating Latin America's struggle to reclaim resources.

"The importance of this is that we are taking back control of the Orinoco Belt which the president rightly calls the world's biggest crude reserve," said Marco Ojeda, an oil union leader before a planned rally to mark the transfer.

The four projects are valued at more than $30 billion and can convert about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of heavy, tarry crude into valuable synthetic oil.

U.S. companies ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total agreed to obey a decree to transfer operational control on Tuesday, although the OPEC nation complained ConocoPhillips was somewhat resistant.

In Puerto Piritu, near the facilities that refine Orinoco crude, workers prepared early on Tuesday to celebrate the takeovers, displaying Venezuelan red, blue and yellow flags and daubing a wall with Chavez's slogan: "Homeland, Socialism or Death."

The anti-American leader was also in a festive mood before a rally marking what he called the end of an era of U.S.-prescribed policies that opened up the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere to foreign investment.

"Open investment will never return," he said on Monday to thousands of cheering workers dressed in the signature red of his self-styled leftist revolution at a rally for workers rights.

"We are sealing up that open investment era and burying it deep down in the Orinoco oil reserve," he added.

Buoyed by an oil price bonanza in the No. 5 crude exporter to the United States, Chavez is popular among the majority poor for spending freely on schools, clinics and food handouts.

The man who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor has vowed to take at least 60 percent of the projects, radicalizing his policies as he rules by decree and politicizes the army, state oil company and judiciary.

TOUGH TALKS

In the oil projects, the companies have agreed to hand over operations but are still discussing continued shareholding and compensation in sometimes contentious negotiations before a deadline next month.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has said there may not be compensation in some cases and that Venezuela will only consider agreements on the booked value of the projects rather than their much larger current net worth.

Although Venezuela claims output of more than 3 million bpd, analysts reckon it strains to pump 2.6 million bpd. U.S. data peg it as the world's No. 8 exporter.

Industry analysts fear Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA could ultimately run into production and safety problems when it loses the management and technology of the experienced majors.

As he shrinks the private companies' role, Chavez has formed joint ventures with allies such as China, Belarus and Iran involving many state entities that are unfamiliar with developing such crude.

Still, Chavez hailed Tuesday's takeovers as the South American nation reclaiming its sovereignty."The wheel has turned full circle," he said. "Long live PDVSA, long live the workers of PDVSA."

By Brian Ellsworth

***** This headline doesn't fit its piece.

Had Chavez seized the oil companies, as Castro did with major corporations in Cuba following their disagreement over government controls, executives would have little to do discussing compensation and benefits. The news here is not only that Chavez has indeed seized a controlling interest in the companies, but that this was done with substantial compromise.

Also, the figures on Venezuela's output and current sales do not properly convey its importance as an oil vendor. Many estimates place its reserves as the greatest in the world. Moreover, should the US decide to maintain reasonably good relations, Venezuelan reserves may be more reliable than Middle Eastern oil, being located far closer to the US and in a region that we have currently destabilized to a lesser degree.

The author doesn't state which experts worry how Venezuela will get the crude out of the ground, but one imagines they can pay for the service should they need to -- that is, unless the price of crude takes a very deep plunge.

And if it comes to further negotiations during Chavez' tenure, the oil companies might not get the sweetheart deal they've had in the past.

Venezuela Pulling Out of IMF, World Bank

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would formally pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Chavez said he wanted to formalize Venezuela's exit from the two bodies "tonight and ask them to return what they owe us."

Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

Chavez made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America overall would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

The leftist president also has repeatedly criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing structural adjustment agreements with the IMF that were blamed for contributing to racing inflation.

Under former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez in 1989, violent protests broke out in Caracas in response to IMF austerity measures that brought a hike in subsidized gasoline prices and public transport fares.

Enraged people took over the streets in violence that killed at least 300 people—and possibly many more. The riots came to be known as the "Caracazo," and Chavez often refers to it as a rebellion against the status quo.