TODAY'S TOPICS: McCain's Shame, Chomsky, MLK Revised, Global Warming, Olbermann/Maher, New Poll (on Corp's), Ohio Revelations

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

McCain's Shame...by my man Will Pitt:

Arizona Sen. John McCain took a walk through a Baghdad market on April Fool's Day, and may well have burned his presidential campaign down to the ground in the process. That little stroll has visited upon his head a deluge of humiliation and shame vast and astonishing enough to beggar imagination, and that was before the bodies started hitting the ground.

Translated into mathematical terms, McCain's walk was Pythagorean in scope, squared hypocrisy added to squared idiocy equaling squared disgrace. In political terms, McCain's Baghdad walk was a full-blown, bull-moose, train-wreck disaster of truly galactic proportions: a veritable Hindenberg of campaign photo-op debacles. It was so mind-bendingly ugly and deranged and disgusting that the once-iconic "Dukakis in the Tank" blunder now seems quaint by comparison.

SNIP

…a report emerged two days later describing the abduction and slaughter of 21 Iraqis who worked in the marketplace McCain's mini-Normandy force had stormed the previous Sunday, an obvious act of retribution for his visit by a violent Baghdad militia. Already belied by the revealed firepower he brought along, McCain's "safe" walk in Iraq led directly to yet another horrific Baghdad bloodbath.

SNIP

John McCain has become just another GOP lickspittle who toes the bloody line and refuses to admit, despite all evidence, that his new best friends have failed us all. This is, simply put, a tragedy for him. It is our American tragedy, as well, because McCain became this sad fraud out of absolute necessity. One cannot hope to gain the GOP nomination for president without winning over that party's hard-right absolutist Evangelical Christian base, and the opinions almost universally espoused by that base are a lot of the reason this nation is in such dire straits. Our tragedy is found in their power over any national Republican candidate, and over the administration currently running the republic into the ground.

John McCain's reputation is destroyed. He has become one of T.S. Eliot's hollow men, bereft by his own actions of the formidable image that once defined him, and is now just another cheaply-bought candidate peddling himself for pennies on the dollar to the very wretches who once savaged his character and family. He is gone, just completely gone.

-- Will Pitt of Truthout

Onward Bush’s soldiers, torture as ye may, but do it in Guantanamo, and not in the USA. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the habeas corpus plea of a Canadian national, captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old, because the possible deprivation of his human rights was not conducted on “U.S. soil.” The court, with three judges dissenting, cited a law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress last year that the fate of Guantanamo prisoners will be determined by secret military tribunals outside the purview of U.S. courts.

The case was brought on behalf of Omar Khadr, one of roughly 380 Guantanamo prisoners and one of only 10 finally charged with a crime. He has been in custody five years. So much for the right to a speedy trial, not to mention a fair trial, which after years of systematic torture is dubious.

SNIP

Aside from the sadistic example being set by the United States for the world, the other cost is that torture does not produce credible intelligence results or legally recognized convictions of the guilty, even employing the sorry military tribunal standard accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The only prisoner convicted to date is the Australian “Taliban” David Hicks, who, after being attached to the most heinous of crimes by the United States, last week was given a mere nine-month sentence to be served in Australia. The plea bargain held one key element for the White House: that Hicks accept a media gag order and waive his rights to sue the United States over his treatment. The point, once again, is not to get at the truth about 9/11 but rather to make George Bush look vigilant, despite the facts, in fighting his phony war on terrorism.

-- Robert Scheer on our military-torture-industrial-complex

"I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. ... I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like...lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere."

-- Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), 4/3/07, on the Shorja market in Baghdad

VERSUS

"'There've been no shootings or car bombings' at that market since it opened a few years ago, said Robin Gibson, assistant metro editor of the Star Press in Muncie [Indiana]. ... 'Maybe some overeager dogs jumping at people.'"

-- Washington Post, 4/4/07

"This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

-- Vice President Cheney, 4/5/07

VERSUS

"Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides 'all confirmed' that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday."

-- Washington Post, 4/6/07

NEW POLL! Yes, Americans do "get it" about corporations

...more proof of everything I've been saying on this blog for so many years...the people are ready...we just need real, strong, populist leadership to get us there:

Economic conditions for workers are deteriorating so dramatically in the new American economy that an overwhelming majority, nearly 70 percent, now say that basic security - not opportunity - is their number one concern, according to a new survey released today. The finding is a stunning reflection of the anxiety, anger and demand for action rising in Working America in the global economy. Among the other key results of the poll of 800 non-supervisory workers:

Nearly 80 percent of workers, both college and non-college alike, no longer believe the next generation will be better off. Nearly half think their children will be worse

Nearly 80 percent of workers view multinational corporations as too powerful, and have driven down wages, eliminated health care and retirement security, and disregarded labor laws.

Nearly 70 percent of workers feel that government doesn't take action to rein in greedy and unethical behavior by corporations and CEOs.

END

Cheney finally gets a break, and is awarded a well earned "Worst Person in the World" by Olbermann:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/06/worlds-worst-dick-cheney-takes-home-the-gold/

Bill Maher interviewed by Keith Olbermann...does it get any better than these two?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=74cVVru4gII

Feingold talks about the need to FUND a safe WITHDRAWAL (not De-fund troops!!!) on Olbermann...this is the kind of logic and strength we need...its not that hard of an argument to make, its only our own cowardice that makes us fear being attacked for "abandoning the troops". :

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/04/countdown-senator-feingold-talks-sense-about-iraq/

Take Action in support of Feingold’s efforts:

Tell the Senate: End the Occupation; Support the Feingold-Reid Legislation

In response to President Bush's promise to veto supplemental appropriations for the ongoing occupation of Iraq, Senators Feingold and Reid have now drafted legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. Their bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate recently passed. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.

http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=22205

Bill Maher creates awesome "Bush Ad":

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4343

ARTICLE SECTION: CHOMSKY, SOLOMON, AND COHEN

No time for commentary on articles, but these two are MUST READS:

Two of my favorite writers in the world, and two men I have worked with personally, Norm Solomon and Jeff Cohen on the "historical revisionism" of MLK's legacy:

It's become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King's death, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader." The remarkable thing about these reviews of King's life is that several years - his last years - are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

SNIP

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" - including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow. Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

SNIP

In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would descend on Washington - engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be - until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an "insurrection."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/04/304/

Noam Chomsky on US propaganda on Iran, and our media's complicity in creating these false realities in the publics minds:

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule - notably absent - would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the "source of the problem." The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that signific'nt parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.

SNIP

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit "national security" exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through - as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those "mushroom clouds" over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler's defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam - fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.

SNIP

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.

The U.S. would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in-the-making. The U.S. would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040607C.shtml

Pro-War, Anti-Timetable IL-logic

"Just a logic question for the war supporters out there: wouldn't encouraging our enemy to 'wait it out' (suggesting the arguable theory that they will retreat until we leave and then return to attack the Iraqis) as Bush suggests give us the opportunity to train the Iraqis to defend themselves AND for the Iraqi government to establish themselves?"

END

E-VOTING REVELATIONS, HOLT BILL FAILINGS

From Brad:

Bob Bennett, Ohio GOP Head and Last Holdout on Cuyahoga County Election Board, Suspended by Brunner - New Charges Announced Against Chair of BoE Who Refused to Resign: He Allegedly Ordered $15k PR Contract Awarded to 'GOP Spokesperson'

Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner cleaned out the last dead-ender from the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Board of Elections today. That would be the chairperson of the BoE and the head of Ohio's Republican Party, Bob Bennett (see previous coverage here.)

Bennett was the last of the four directors of the Board of Elections (supposedly two Democrats and two Republicans) to leave the board of the state's most Democratic-leaning county. The other three resigned after requested by Brunner in the wake of the convictions of two Cuyahoga Elections Officials for rigging the 2004 Presidential Election recount, a raft of disastrously run elections and a new criminal investigation into malfeasance at the county election board. The new investigation includes the early printing of absentee ballot results and an unexplained network cable left attached to the central tabulator overnight.

According to a statement posted to the SoS website, Brunner notified Bennett today about his suspension in writing, and has also announced yet another new charge against him...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4363

Democrats and Their Public Advocacy Group Supporters Continue to Fiddle on Election Reform as Democracy Burns

Even While the Republican Governor of Florida (of all people and places) Restores Felon Voting Rights, Calls for a Ban on Touch-Screen DRE Voting and Otherwise Succeeds in Shaming the Democrats...Florida's new Republican Gov. Charlie Crist continues to get far in front of Congressional Democrats concerning issues of Election Reform. While Democrats in Congress, and their public-advocacy group supporters such as People for the American Way (PFAW), MoveOn, Common Cause and VoteTrustUSA, continue to dally around the edges of reform vis a vis Rep. Rush Holt's Election Reform bill (HR811) in the House and a forthcoming companion bill from Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, shamefully, it's the Republican Florida Governor --- of all people --- who is proving to be the true Progressive in the fight for real reform.

There's plenty of blame to go around, of course, to members of both major parties at both the state and federal level. As well, groups like MoveOn and VoteTrustUSA's uncritical support has helped to move things forward even as the current and pending federal bills seem to be on track to make things even worse, instead of better. But what we've come to learn about PFAW's advocacy in favor of disenfranchising, dangerous DRE touch-screen voting technology, has been both inexplicable and a surprise even to us...

FULL IMPORTANT REPORT/EDITORIAL:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4370

Roundup:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said this week of purged U.S. attorney Carol Lam, "She's a former law professor; no prosecutorial experience; and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton." In fact, Lam served as a prosecutor for 15 years, and according to Lam, was neither a law professor nor a Clinton campaign worker.

A new Amnesty International report states that conditions at Guantanamo Bay prison have worsened. "Most detainees have suffered harsh treatment throughout their detention," the report says, and a new facility opened in December "has created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation."

10,328: The number of housing complaints received in 2006 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Fair Housing Assistance Program agencies, "up 65% from the 6,270 complaints received in 1996." Last year's number was a record, "with disability and race as the leading reasons for filing a complaint."

Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's protege installed as U.S. attorney in Arkansas, "claims on his official Web site that he prosecuted 40 criminal cases while at Ft. Campbell, where he was stationed from September 2005 to May 2006. But Army authorities say Ft. Campbell’s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial."

“In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. The number of Iraqi policemen killed across Iraq nearly doubled from 171 in February to 331 in March, according to Interior Ministry statistics.”

ETHICS -- WHITE HOUSE HIDES PRESIDENT'S EARMARKS FROM PUBLIC SCRUTINY: As the LA Times reports, the total amount of money appropriated by earmarks has tripled in the last decade and reached a record $71.77 billion in 2006. In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush called on Congress to end the practice of earmarking federal funds, saying he wished to "expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress." Yesterday, the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) updated its "online list of all the pet spending projects lawmakers tucked in the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year." The OMB's list, however, lacks any "earmarks the president and his administration requested" and, according to the OMB, "cannot accurately be used, to identify the individual sponsors of congressional earmarks," nor can it be used in all cases to identify the "ultimate beneficiary" of particular earmarks. As the Wall Street Journal has noted, "Presidents like pork, too," and Bush is no exception, using the federal budget process to "reward political supporters, campaign contributors and sometimes members of Congress" for votes on a presidential priority. Despite his recent focus on transparency, Bush has not once vetoed any of Congress's pork-laden spending bills. His earmarks often "appear only in closely held supplements separate from the public budget books." Additionally, "as head of the executive branch, the president often doesn't need earmarks: Once federal agencies get funding from Congress, his appointees are fairly free to steer sums to places, programs and vendors as the administration decides."

Study to affirm climate change warnings -- The message stays the same, but it gets clearer every year: As greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere rise, California likely will suffer more severe droughts, floods, forest fires and wildlife extinctions. The same is true for many other water-scarce areas of the world, according to a major international study set for release today in Brussels. Jim Downing and Matt Weiser in the Sacramento Bee -- 4/6/07

Bad news for Bill O'Reilly: "Immigration is helping to keep America's big cities vibrant and alive, buffering major metropolitan areas from a slow drain in population as longtime residents move out, new data released yesterday by the US Census Bureau shows."

Sens. Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, and Robert Casey called for an investigation into whether President Bush acted illegally in recess-appointing Swift Boat funder Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium. "We view the recess appointment of Mr. Fox as a clear abuse of the President's recess appointment power," they wrote in a letter to the Government Accountability Office.

Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the second of four 2007 reports on global warming's region-by-region environmental and human impact in this century. The final report --- whose wording was "diluted" in an effort to reach consensus -- will state that a rise in world temperature would have "damaging and costly effects, ranging from the likely extinction of perhaps a fourth of the world's species to eventual inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people."

Today's Topics: Maher, Supreme Court, Videos, Obama v. Edwards, Gonzales, FBI

No time today, here's all I have:

“How is cutting off war funding NOT supporting the troops?”

-- Doonesbury

"Using his harshest language to date, the president upbraided the Democrat-controlled Congress for leaving on 'spring break' without completing work on the bill."

-- Washington Times, 4/4/07

VERSUS

“We should mention President Bush is heading to his ranch in Crawford, Texas tomorrow to begin his own Easter weekend break.”

-- CNN, 4/3/07

GREAT NEWS!!!

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court yesterday issued a "stunning rebuke" to the Bush administration and "ruled that the federal government does indeed have authority to regulate greenhouse gases linked to global warming."

See the clip of the coverage…this is HUGE…and will open the door for the next President, hopefully John Edwards, or to a lesser extent, Barack Obama, to really start regulating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If this had lost, it really could have been the final nail in the coffin in regards to global warming policy…another example of why Bush CANNOT get one more Supreme Court appointment before his term ends. Just one more justice and he'd have a rubber stamp to do ANYTHING he wanted (as he’s got 4 servants already, i.e. Schalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts):

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/02/scotus-hands-bush-big-environmental-loss/

Bill Maher on the "America's Number 1" disease:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tcz_NHAFGS0

Olbmermann’s worst person in the world…Bill O’Reilly at his most evil and insane….Must see:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/02/the-eggman-billo-get-worlds-worst/

Rachel Maddow parses the support statements of Orrin Hatch (scumbag) of Alberto Gonzales (criminal and torturer):

http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/50093/

Medicare D bill exposed by 60 Minutes:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/02/under-the-influence-how-lobbyists-wrote-and-bought-the-rx-drug-bill/

An example of why I am supporting Edwards over Obama:

One of the things that appeals to many progressives about Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy is his background as a community organizer. It’s not just that he can claim familiarity with the problems of the community that he worked in - it’s that the experience of trying to organize people to confront such problems informs how you view the world. How then to explain Obama telling the AP that Democrats would have little choice but to “fund U.S. forces in Iraq” without withdrawal timelines if Bush, as he has threatened, vetoes the supplemental?

The question here is not just what one predicts will be the outcome of the confrontation between Congress and President Bush. Obama, as a member of the Senate and as a leading Democratic presidential candidate, is a key protagonist in the confrontation. What kind of organizer confides to the media that when push comes to shove, his side is going to back down?

Obama’s statement recalls labor leader Tony Mazzochi’s saying about political bargaining: “If we bargained wages the way we bargain politically, we’d all be making five cents an hour.” You don’t go into a showdown announcing that if the other side hangs tough, your side is going to fold, unless you want to guarantee that your side is going to lose. This would be like a labor leader announcing to the media that his members weren’t really prepared to go on strike if their contract demands weren’t met. That wouldn’t lead to a very good contract.

END

Attorney Purge = Stacking The DOJ To Suppress Voting Rights (From Crooks and Liars)

As Gonzalesgate continues, more and more people are starting to come forward. After spending more than 35 years fighting for voter's rights in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, Joseph D. Rich retired from the DOJ in 2005. Unhappy with what he saw during his time working under the Bush Administration and the recent attorney purge, Rich is now speaking out. In an Op-Ed in Thursday's L.A. Times, Rich tells of how the Bush Administration began pushing out career DOJ employees over the past six years and replacing them with political appointees who were instructed to toe the party line, not uphold the law. It's a stunning indictment of just how partisan conditions at the DOJ have become.
LA Times.com:

The scandal unfolding around the firing of eight U.S. attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest.

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws - particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies - from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants. Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities. (Read the rest of this story…)

END

Hackin' Harri Hursti a Hit in Riverside County, California

One-on-One Debriefing with the Finnish Computer Security Expert and Discuss American Elections, Rush Holt's Reform Bill, Debra Bowen, 'Black Hats' and Why Elections Matter
Big Turnout and Good Press Coverage Accompany his Riverside Visit, Even if Jeff '1000 to 1' Stone Was a No Show...

We sat down to interview Hursti for a documentary film for an hour or two on Friday night after his appearance that morning before the Riverside County, California, "Blue Ribbon" panel convened to investigate massive problems during the County's 2006 election, and continue chatting into the wee hours.

The headline from those discussions is probably that Hursti, now famous for his hack of a paper-based Diebold optical-scan voting system in Leon County, Florida, in late 2005 (as seen live in HBO's documentary Hacking Democracy), advocates digital optically-scanned paper ballots --- where the image of the scan can then be made available to all on the Internet --- as the most secure and most transparent method of voting for the type of elections we have in these United States.

That may come as a surprise to advocates of Rep. Rush Holt's Election Reform bill, who have been pointing to the "Hursti Hack" as a way to suggest that op-scan tabulation is "just as bad" as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting systems. Holt's bill (HR811) would allow for the continued use of DREs, despite the continuing warnings from computer scientists, disabilities and minority rights advocates, and the Election Integrity community that the devices should be banned. Hursti heartily disagrees with those Holt supporters and told us again that DREs are not safe for use in elections, with or without a so-called "voter verified paper audit trail."

More details on that in the full story linked below. Including: Hursti's thoughts on CA SoS Debra Bowen's proposed "red team" hack testing of all voting systems in the state, on American Elections in general, and a sampling of the rather impressive turnout -- by both press and public -- for Hursti's appearance in Riverside where Supervisor Jeff Stone had previously announced a "1000 to 1" wager for someone to come in and try to manipulate the county's Sequoia DRE touch-screen voting systems. Hursti was and is willing to take Stone up on that, but Stone himself, continues to back off and didn't even bother to show up last Friday for Hursti's presentation...

FULL EXCLUSIVE REPORT/INTERVIEW:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4347

Bush's Chief 2004 Election Strategist: 'Faith in Bush Misplaced, Kerry Was Right'

Matthew Dowd is First of Inner Circle to Speak Out Publicly Against Iraq War, Bush: 'Just Being Quiet is Not an Option'

CRAWFORD 2005 CAMP CASEY BRADCAST FLASHBACK: 'Sons and Daughters'

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush's 2004 Presidential Campaign, says he was wrong...now that his own son is shipping off to Iraq...

REPORT ON THE HOUSE OF CARDS:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4345

"They were just making fun of us and paid this visit just for their own interests," said Jaafar Moussa Thamir, a merchant in the Shorja market visited by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) congressional delegation. "Do they think that when they come and speak few Arabic words in a very bad manner it will make us love them?"

In the "latest evidence of stepped up sectarian and insurgent killings outside Baghdad," a "truck bomber carrying food supplies killed eight Iraqi schoolgirls and a baby in the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Monday as suspected Sunni militants executed 21 Shiite workers north of Baghdad."

The Justice Department has notified Italia Federici that she is a target of the ongoing Abramoff investigation. Federici is the former girlfriend of Stephen Griles, the most senior Bush official thus far convicted in the Abramoff probe. Federici offered Abramoff access to high-level Bush administration officials in return for money.

ECONOMY -- SUBPRIME LENDING MARKET HAS LED TO LOSS IN HOMEOWNERSHIP: Subprime loans, which are given out to "homeowners with less-than-sterling credit, are the fastest-growing segment of the mortgage market as lenders reach out to those unable to qualify for conventional mortgages." But as a new report by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) notes, "Over the past nine years, the subprime market has produced more than $2 trillion in home loans, but contrary to industry assertions, these loans have not resulted in a net gain in homeownership." Such loans made during 1998-2006 "have led or will lead to a net loss of homeownership for almost one million families." The report shows that since 1998, "only 9% of subprime loans have gone to first-time homebuyers and hence led to increased homeownership" while 15.6% of subprime loans "either have ended or will end in foreclosure and the loss of homeownership." Women and minorities are disproportionately affected by the predatory practices of subprime mortgage lending. Though African-American and Latino families are often held up as beneficiaries of subprime lending, the CRL report found that "both populations also experienced a net loss of homeownership due to these loans." Additionally, in a 2005 survey of 331 U.S. metropolitan areas, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) found that "women were more likely to get subprime, rather than prime, loans in every one." Subprime loans were more prevalent amongst African-Americans "in 98.5% of the metropolitan areas, while Hispanics were more apt to hold a subprime mortgage or refinance loan in nearly 89.1%." On average, the NCRC report found that both Latinos and African-Americans pay higher rates on subprime loans, with African-Americans "3.2 times more likely to receive a higher-rate loan than white borrowers."

ENVIRONMENT -- BUSH GIVES NO INDICATION HE WILL COMPLY WITH SUPREME COURT RULING ON EPA: On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had violated the Clean Air Act by "improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming." The court battle resulted from a 1999 petition asking the EPA to set "standards for greenhouse gas emissions for new vehicles." The EPA demurred at the time, citing lack of legal authority and "numerous areas of scientific uncertainty" surrounding the causes and effects of global warming. Monday's decision, however, criticized the EPA's "laundry list" of reasons for failing to regulate emissions as "not based in the law" and added that Congress had indeed clearly granted the EPA authority regulate green house gas emissions. Despite such a clear rebuke, the Bush administration has given "no indication" that it would change its behavior by asking the EPA to "regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases." Yesterday, President Bush "made it clear...that he thought his proposal to increase automobile fuel efficiency was sufficient for the moment." He added, "Whatever we do must be in concert with what happens internationally." The states, however, "are not going to wait." Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association said, "It's incumbent on everyone to roll their sleeves up, if they haven't already, to deal seriously with this problem." He added, "If pain concentrates the mind, there will be more concentration on the issue now."

CIVIL LIBERTIES -- FBI 'POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE' GATHERING FOLLOWS DISTURBING PATTERN: Yesterday, the Washington Post reports, "FBI personnel used their intelligence-gathering powers in the District to collect purely political intelligence" on anti-war protesters in 2002. In this case, FBI officials and D.C. police detained and then interrogated the protesters "on videotape about their political and religious beliefs" because "they were wearing black -- a color choice the FBI and police associated with anarchists" while unloading food from their parked van. This report is only the latest example of the FBI under monitoring lawful political activities during Bush administration. Similar intelligence-gathering tactics were used in New York City before the 2004 Republican National Convention, where local police officers conducted "covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention." In 2002, local Colorado police recorded "the license plate numbers, and the names corresponding to them, of participants in a nonviolent protest outside of a convention of a lumber industry association" and then shared that information with the FBI. The American Civil Liberties Union has also accused law enforcements agencies in Colorado of "trading political intelligence information at bimonthly meetings" on groups such as the American Friends Service Committee and Amnesty International. FBI records released in 2005 indicate that since 9/11, the Bureau has ratcheted up surveillance of activist groups, ranging from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to the Catholic Workers, who have been flagged in FBI reports as having a "semi-communistic ideology." Such disregard for American civil liberties expressing political opinions is not isolated to law enforcement agencies. In 2005, a White House official "ordered three activists expelled from a 2005 Denver public forum with President Bush" because the activists had a "no more blood for oil" bumper sticker on their car.

TODAY'S TOPICS: Christo-Fascism, Feingold Bill, Tillman Revelations, Hypocrisy on Iran, Solomon on Iraq, Global Warming/Environment

BUSH IMPLICATED IN TILLMAN COVER UP (the Dems MUST do hearings on this matter!!)

From AP:

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Just seven days after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press….The memo reinforces suspicions that the Pentagon was more concerned with sparing officials from embarrassment than with leveling with Tillman's family.

The memo was provided to the AP by a government official who requested anonymity because the document was not released as part of the Pentagon's official report into the way the Army brass withheld the truth. McChrystal was the highest-ranking officer accused of wrongdoing in the report, issued earlier this week. In the memo, McChrystal expressed concern that Bush and acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee might give speeches in which they misstated the facts about Tillman's death….The latest document obtained by the AP suggests that officials at least as high as Abizaid knew the truth weeks before the family.

In a speech given two days after McChrystal's memo, Bush made no mention of how Tillman died. "The loss of Army Cpl. Pat Tillman last week in Afghanistan brought home the sorrow that comes with every loss, and reminds us of the character of the men and women who serve on our behalf," Bush said at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

END

Jim Hightower’s animated piece about one of the REAL reasons for invading Iraq…oil….and the deals being cut to privatize the fields as I write this. Funny video (and sad and criminal of course):

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/49949/

Olbermann debunks Bush’s rather amusing citation of Iraqi bloggers in defense of his escalation policy. The layers of irony in this are just too easy for Keith:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/49901/

...accompanying McCain were: "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead." And that's either a fishing vest or body armour he's wearing. Nonetheless, McCain told reporters: "that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed ‘walk freely' in some areas of Baghdad."

And of course, the right wing is now focused on attacking Michael Ware CNN’s great Iraq war correspondent, with false charges of "heckling". No surprise, as he, who, unlike the GOP pundits and pontificators, actually is IN IRAQ...and provides a constant Iraq fact check, and thus thorn in the side, of our current "occupiers". Watch him debunk more of McCain's drivel, and the claims against him:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/02/michael-ware-denies-heckling-mccain/

Colbert on McCain…whose Straight Talk Express once again has put a drunk crack head behind the wheel, hit a group of school children crossing the street, and then crashed into a ditch...inside were 20 Saudi Arabian terrorists on Spring Break (i.e. point being, in reality, McCain's bus has very little in common with “straight talk”…) :)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/30/colbert-channels-mccain-the-surge-is-working/

Jib jab releases a new cartoon video…this on the corporate media’s insatiable appetite for infotainment over hard news. Good stuff:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/49907/

THE RISE OF CHRSTO-FASCISM IN AMERICA

Chris Hedges on the opening of alternative history museums by creationists across the country:

“And yet, coming from the modern age, these Christo-fascists cannot discount science. They employ jargon, methods and data that appear to be science, to make an argument for creationism. They have created parallel research and scholarly institutions. They pump out articles in self-published journals to provide "evidence" that homosexuals can be cured, that global warming is a myth, that abortion can cause breast cancer, that something they call "post-abortion syndrome" leads to deep depression and suicide and that abstinence-only education is an effective form of birth control. This pseudo-science has seeped into the public debate. It is disseminated by nervous and timid media anxious to give both sides in every argument. Those who have contempt for facts and truth, for honest research and inquiry, are given the same platform by the press as those who deal in a world of reality, fact and rationality.

The movement desperately needs the imprint of science to legitimize itself. It achieves this imprint by discrediting real science and claiming creationist science as true science. All attempts to argue the creationists out of their mythical belief, to persuade them with logic, evidence, scientific inquiry and fact, will fail. They have created a "fundamentalist science." They know they cannot return to the pre-Darwinian innocence that let them believe the Bible alone was enough. They need, in the midst of their flight from reality, to reassure their followers that science, science not contaminated by secular humanists and nonbelievers, is on their side. In this they are a distinctly modern movement.

They seek the imprint of science and scholarship to legitimize myth. This is a characteristic they share with all modern totalitarian movements, which co-opt the disciplines of law, science, medicine and scholarship to give a modern veneer to their primitive and superstitious belief systems, systems that allow the rulers to dictate reality and truth. The "paraprofessional" organizations formed by the Christian right, organizations of teachers, journalists, doctors, lawyers and scientists, mimic the activities of real professional groups. They seek to challenge the legitimacy and the power of the traditional organizations. The duplication of the structures and methods employed by the non-totalitarian world, the use of pseudo-science to dress up fantasy, is slowly undermining our legitimate scientific and educational institutions. It is destroying the foundations of our open society. It is ushering us into a world where lies are true.

-- Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

More connecting of the dots:

Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations. The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda -- before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone's disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world--lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world."

-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"…sound familiar??? Just listen to Tom Delay, Dick Cheney, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, etc.

TIME MAGAZINE’S DEMONSTRATES OVERT CHRISTIAN BIAS (from Alternet):

Time's domestic US April 2, 2007 edition will feature a cover story entitled "Why We Should Teach The Bible In Public School". The story appears to say that Christian right beliefs are the only true expressions of Christianity, that liberal Christians are little more than atheists in disguise, and that all other religious beliefs on Earth are invalid and only Christians can achieve a fully meaningful life. Time's story has vanished 45 million moderate to liberal American Christians from the debate over the Bible in schools but Americans with non-Christian religious and philosophical beliefs, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and so on, fare even worse....

First, why didn't Time title its story "Why religion should be taught in schools" or "Why school kids should learn about religion”? Even if the title was chosen purely for its controversial, sensationalist, merit the choice seems to exclude non-Christians as undeserving of even a nod. But, human consequences spring from such Christianity-centric perspectives. In a recent unfortunate incident, a Delaware Jewish family protesting loud and intrusive Christian sectarian religious displays was hounded, amidst death threats, from town. Why shouldn't the Bible be taught in schools ?

In some areas of the United States, those who object to that question are now more likely to be viewed as unreasonable troublemakers than as Americans exercising their rights to be free from state sanctioned and imposed religious beliefs. Time Magazine's April 2, 2007 "Bible" issue should present a wake up call to Americans, who value church state separation in any form, on how far United States culture has drifted into a nascent Christian nationalism ; when a leading national weekly news magazine trumpets Christian nationalist themes, to little notice so far, and the same week a bloc of thirty-odd Congressional legislators mostly from the GOP announces, on the capital steps and apparently wearing the authority of their office and the federal sanction that presumes, that it is organizing "national prayer", again to little notice, well.....

http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/49980/

FEINGOLD OFFERS AN ANSWER TO MY “NOW WHAT?” QUESTION:

Today I'm proud to announce the next step toward ending the war in Iraq. Since Democrats took over control of the Congress in January, we've made significant progress toward ending our country's military involvement there. Just last month the House and Senate approved binding timetable legislation that would force the President to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq – as I first called for in summer of 2005. While it was long overdue, and not yet a full solution, it was a major step in the right direction.

Unfortunately the President shows no signs of changing direction or fixing his failed Iraq policy. He has threatened to veto the recently passed legislation that both fully funds and supports the troops and also puts forth benchmarks to redeploy our brave men and women in uniform out of Iraq. So, to that end, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and I are already working on the next step. Our new legislation, which will be officially introduced next Tuesday, April 10th, uses Congress's constitutional 'power of the purse' authority to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Become of Citizen Co-Sponsor of the Feingold-Reid Bill

Our bill requires the President to begin to safely redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment - as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate passed last week. Feingold-Reid ends funding for the war on March 31, 2008 and after that date, the President could only spend money in Iraq for three very limited functions. To be clear, our bill funds the troops, it just de-funds the war. With your help over the last few months, I've been pushing for Congress to use its 'power of the purse' authority to safely redeploy our troops out of Iraq. With Senator Reid's support of this bill, combined with his continued leadership on this issue, we're taking yet another important step toward ending one of the biggest mistakes in the history of our country.

END

Great analysis by Joshua Holland of Alternet on the fight among factions of the left regarding the recent war appropriations bill passed by the Dems…it sums up my position extremely well: there can be honest disagreement on the usefulness of it, but the last thing we should waste our precious time and energy on is through fighting and attacking one another. The focus should now be on “What’s Next?”. Here’s Joshua:

On its face, of course it's ludicrous to give Bush hundreds of billions more for Iraq and call it a bill to end the war. And, yes, Congress does have the power of the purse and, yes, it is perfectly within its rights to use that power. As I've written before, it's also true that the situation on the ground in Iraq is such that any measure that doesn't force the issue is inherently immoral. So Code Pink and AfterDowningStreet and Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey and everyone else who opposed the supplemental were (are) right.

But that doesn't make MoveOn and Nancy Pelosi and David Sirota and much of the "netroots" and everyone who worked hard to pass that supplemental wrong. The reality is that they had a chance to get Congress to pass a bill that was a first step towards ending the war and they had no chance whatsoever of getting them to cut off funds or to set a final, short timetable for withdrawal. They simply didn't have the votes -- that's the reality. It's pointless to push legislation -- even good legislation -- if you know going in that it's cooked (actually, there is a point in some circumstances, but that's a topic for another time).

The troubling thing about how the debate played out was that opponents of the war -- both sides fir that description -- seem to have a difficult time disagreeing with one another respectfully. Opponents of the supplemental were branded as wild-eyed lefties who were too stupid to grasp the nuance of what was going on; supporters were supposedly sell-outs, shills for the military-industrial complex. The reality is that we need both wild-eyed activists in the streets and people working the halls of Congress. That's exactly what an inside-outside strategy is supposed to look like. Consider the fair trade movement: we've effectively stopped the WTO expansion process in its tracks and we did it by rioting outside, and sending progressive trade lawyers, legislative staffers and analysts in suits and ties inside to work the delegates -- to work the system. Neither side would be as effective were it not for the existence of the other.

Any really large political undertaking is well-served in bringing pressure from different directions and with different styles. That's a lesson the anti-war movement would do well to learn.

-- Joshua Holland

ARTICLE SECTION: SOLOMON ON IRAQ, PARRY ON IRAN

Norm Solomon on the McCain trip to Iraq, the media's Ameri-centric delusions, and his advice to the anti-war movement. Such as, framing the war as just not "winnable" isn't enough and misses the point, because it was, and is, illegal, immoral, and unjustified. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's are paying the ultimate price, with millions more forced from their homes...a true humanitarian disaster, based on lies, and caused by us. Leaving isn't just about what's best for us, its the only moral and justified option available. A few clips first:

But shifts in the U.S. military role on the ground in Iraq, coupled with the Pentagon’s air war escalating largely out of media sight, could enable the war’s promoters to claim a notable reduction of “violence.” And the American death toll could fall due to reconfiguration or reduction of U.S. troop levels inside Iraq. Such a combination of developments would appeal to the fervent nationalism of U.S. news media. But the antiwar movement shouldn’t pander to jingo-narcissism. If we argue that the war is bad mainly because of what it is doing to Americans, then what happens when the Pentagon finds ways to cut American losses — while continuing to inflict massive destruction on Iraqi people?

SNIP

American news outlets will be inclined to depict the Iraq war as winding down when fewer Americans are dying in it. That happened during the last several years of the Vietnam War, while massive U.S. bombing — and Vietnamese deaths — continued unabated. The vast bulk of the U.S. media is in the habit of defining events around the world largely in terms of what’s good for the U.S. government — through the eyes of top officials in Washington. Routinely, the real lives of people are noted only as shorthand for American agendas. The political spin of the moment keeps obscuring the human moment.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/02/264/

Robert Parry on the mind bending, Matrix reality modification that transports us into a Bizarro Universe special that only could be served up to a population as mindless as ours. This of course is that Iran is the big criminal here, and their actions are "inexcusable" violations of international law, and that somehow, in some Star Trek like alternative universe, wear Spock has a gotee, that America and Britain are now defenders and advocates for and of justice, humane treatment of prisoners, the Geneva Conventions (???@@@!!), and fairness. To listen to the greatest war criminal of the 21st Century, George W., who brought us such gems as Abu Graihb, the invasion of Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, lecture Iranians about prisoner treatment and international law actually made me lose balance and go into a fit of full body convulsions for nearly 15 minutes on my living room floor!

My mind kept racing, like a computer caught in a logic trap set by Captain Kirk: "But, if we are torturing Iranians we captured in Iraq how can we say they have no right to capture British sailors...how can we be torturing people from around the globe in secret prisons but claim they are abusing British soldiers by having them decry their government''s policies on video...but how can we cite international laws being broken when we illegally invaded their neighbor and have simultanouesly threatened to invade them...and on and on???

So let's take our red pills, and pull ourselves back into the real world, and not get all hysterical about another nations (though I think its wrong and a mistake) actions that don't come close to the crimes we are committing worldwide every single HOUR! Don't you think this may have something to do with the fact that we (and implicitly the UK) are holding Iranian prisoners right now? Or that we have said, publicly, that we advocate killing Iranians found in Iraq or even around the border? Or what about the fact that we could be torturing them as I write this? Has there ever been a better time to point out why torture as official public policy puts our OWN TROOPS IN DANGER? It sure makes it difficult for us to argue that Iran better take good care of British troops when everyone in the world knows we are torturing Arabs on a daily basis. It also sure makes it more likely that if those were Americans captured, that Iran could sure make an argument why its okay to torture our soldiers too.

So take a step back, read this column by the great Robert Parry, and reflect on how we, and the British, must look right now to the rest of the world, and why our media is totally incapable of drawing these same conclusions and providing this absolutely, and desperately needed context to this burgeoning crisis. A little diplomacy could end this in a heartbeat...but we have so destroyed every ounce of our credibility and moral standing, things have been made exponentially more difficult.

Here's Parry:

Legal experts noted that "unlawful combatant" was not even a category recognized by international law. The Geneva Conventions also required that detainees whose status was in any doubt must be accorded all enumerated rights until a "competent tribunal" was established to determine each individual prisoner's legal status.

Instead, Bush insisted that he had the sole right to declare which prisoners were POWs (with protections under the Geneva Conventions) and which ones were to be considered "unlawful combatants" (with no protections under the Geneva Conventions). Even Bush-designated POWs only received the Geneva rights that Bush saw fit to grant. Human rights groups charged, too, that the U.S. treatment of some prisoners crossed the line into torture, which also is forbidden by international law. According to a variety of public accounts, prisoners have been subjected to water-boarding, a practice that simulates drowning, and to painful stress positions for long periods of time.

SNIP

Though these controversies about Bush's disdain for international law are well known to the U.S. news media, the context disappeared again when press interest turned to the captured British sailors in late March 2007. Suddenly, it was a new day with Bush and Blair fully committed to international law. Even a relatively minor Geneva transgression, such as filming captives eating, became a justification for unrestrained outrage.

Without any acknowledgement about their own abrogation of international law, the British and U.S. governments lifted these principles from the gutter, dusted them off and put them on a pedestal. The grand human rights defender, George W. Bush, lectured other countries about "inexcusable behavior" - and no prominent Western journalist called him to account for his contradictions.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040207M.shtml

ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL WARMING Section

Australia faces extreme weather rise, says leaked UN report

Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods and storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef will be devastated by 2030, according to leaked extracts Friday of a UN report. The draft UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warns that temperatures in Australia would rise by 6.7 degrees Celsius before the end of the century, the ABC and Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The report, due to be released on April 6, said rising temperatures would cause more intense bushfires and lead to deaths from heatwaves. It also predicted rising sea levels would push the coast back 110 metres (yards) in some Sydney beachside suburbs, swamping some of the city's most exclusive real estate. It said tropical cyclones would become more common on Australia's east coast, where most of the population lives, while 80 percent of the Great Barrier Reef would be bleached by 2030.

END

ENVIRONMENT -- SENIOR BUSH APPOINTEE FAULTED WITH WEIGHING INDUSTRY INTERESTS OVER WILDLIFE PRESERVATION: The inspector general of the Department of the Interior found this week that Julie MacDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks and a senior Bush political appointee, "has repeatedly altered scientific field reports to minimize protections for imperiled species and disclosed confidential information to private groups seeking to affect policy decisions." According to the report, MacDonald has "repeatedly instructed Fish and Wildlife scientists to change their recommendations on identifying 'critical habitats,' despite her lack of expertise," as her degree is in civil engineering. Other complaints regarding MacDonald include yelling at subordinates, redacting statements from scientists, and "disclosing confidential documents to 'private sector sources' such as the Pacific Legal Foundation and the California Farm Bureau Federation, both of which have challenged endangered-species listings." In 2006, MacDonald consistently "rejected staff scientists' recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under" the Endangered Species Act. She had also pressed staff biologists to more seriously weigh industry positions, arguing that they were "equivalent to scientific studies." The complaints against MacDonald reflect a larger trend of disregard for wildlife and natural habitats from the Bush administration. Just this week, a "secretive plan" was uncovered from the FWS that would "gut" the Endangered Species Act in order to "limit the number of species that can be protected,” curtail preserved acres of wildlife habitat, and “dilute legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining." Learn more about the Bush administration's record on wildlife preservation here.

SCIENCE -- REPORT HIGHLIGHTS BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO BLOCK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: The House Science and Technology Committee will hold a hearing this week on the Bush administration's alleged efforts to stifle scientific research "that casts the White House or its policies in a bad light." "Guiding the discussion will be a new report from the Government Accountability Project that details incidents of scientific suppression across several federal agencies. The document, to be released at the hearing Thursday, is a follow-up to a report GAP released last month...that examined reported Bush administration interference in climate science and included a survey of government climatologists." Earlier hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee featured scientists who charged that the government officials, many of whom had no scientific background, rewrote and redacted statements in official documents that referred to global warming. GAP reports that the alleged interference further extends to "'delaying, monitoring, screening, and denying interviews' between government scientists and media outlets, as well as delaying, denying or 'inappropriate[ly] editing' press releases conveying scientific findings to the public." The Bush administration's attempts to stifle research it disagrees with poses a potential legal battle. "In some cases, the policies and practices the group says were enacted to squelch damaging scientific information 'constitute constitutional and statutory infringements of the federal climate science employees' free speech and whistle-blower rights,'" the report states.

Snow pack in Sierra is way low -- State officials took the penultimate Sierra snow survey of the season Wednesday, and the findings were grim: The snowpack is far below normal, ranging from 55 percent of average in the north to 40 percent in the south.

-- San Francisco Chronicle -- 3/29/07