TODAY'S TOPICS: The Real Thompson, Libby Commute, A General, Fear as Control, Impeach Cheney, Live Earth, High Schoolers!

"You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore's movie…If popular, the movie will have a negative impact on our image in this community."

-- Barclay Fitzpatrick, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Capital BlueCross in secret memo about the threat the film Sicko poses to the insurance industry

Many of America's most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins....More than four years -- and at least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilian deaths -- later, the most reliable epidemiology available confirms that those claims were more than misleading. They were fundamentally out of touch with human reality.

-- Norm Solomon on the media as war salesman

AMERICAN IGNORANCE

(You got to give our stupid masses some credit for consistency I guess...)

Newsweek poll found that fully 40 percent of American adults continue to believe that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

END

THE FRED THOMPSON NIXON CONNECTION…("Mr. Outsider"...really???)

FROM Down With Tyranny:

On this slow news day– a somewhat mournful Independence Day two days after the mask of constitutional government slipped off Bush’s smug face to expose the brutal GOP fascist beast beneath, the Boston Globe unmasks the real Fred Thompson.

Thompson made his bones working as a lawyer for Tennessee Republican Howard Baker during the impeachment hearing for the only American president held in as much disdain as the currently unimpeached one. But, now it turns out that Thompson was a spy, or a secret mole, for the Nixon criminal clique in the White House.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong, who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

Thompson declared in a June 6 radio commentary that Libby's conviction was a "shocking injustice . . . created and enabled by federal officials." Bush on Monday commuted Libby's 30-month sentence, stopping short of a pardon. The intensity of Thompson's remarks about Libby is reminiscent of how he initially felt about Nixon. Few Republicans were stronger believers in Nixon during the early days of Watergate.

Underhanded deceptions? Two-timing? Serving more than one master? No wonder the current GOP views Thompson as some great Presidential hope.

END

THE LIBBY COMMUTATION: Crooks and Liars...

Watch the interview of Jonathan Turley on Olbermann where he outlines Libby’s defense team strategy of pressuring Cheney to help him out of multiple convictions. Not that Cheney didn’t plan to bail out his pal, but they made sure to turn the screws so to speak.

“If you ask any criminal defense attorney, they said we would make Dick Cheney the focus of the trial. He is perfect. He’s all over this case. It really was an investigation about what Dick Cheney ordered, what Dick Cheney said, what Dick Cheney did. It’s just that Dick Cheney wasn’t indicted. So no one was that surprised when the defense team made it clear they were going to call him to the trial and they were going to take the gloves off. And then suddenly, it changed and they said they were not going to call him.”

Watch this clip:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/05/turley-outlines-libbys-team-putting-the-squeeze-on-cheney/

More "Commute" Analysis by the best in the business:

Hovering above all this is one all-encompassing question: did George W. Bush commit a dead-bang impeachable offense by commuting Libby's sentence?

A wise man once said that the life of the law is procedure. There are processes to be undertaken, papers to be filed and forms to be obeyed. In this commutation, no procedures whatsoever appear to have been followed. The haste in which this action was undertaken smacks of fear, desperation, and of a cover-up in process.

Consider the factors.

Libby's legal defense from the first day of his trial was that he was a fall guy taking the rap for others. Fitzgerald pointedly stated that the details surrounding Libby's actions put a cloud of suspicion over Vice President Dick Cheney. Combine these two details and you wind up with Libby standing as a patsy taking the rap for Cheney.

Bush has the constitutional power to offer commutations, of course. But if this commutation was granted to Libby in order to derail a criminal investigation, if it was granted to cover up prior or ongoing criminal activities, that is itself a crime meriting the impeachment of George W. Bush. This, more than anything else, must be investigated.

-- Will Pitt on the Libby commutation

Libby had to have understood, without a word ever being passed, that leniency of some sort would be granted. His steadfast cover-up was encouraged by his intimate knowledge of the methods of Cheney and Bush. The fine he must pay - $250,000 - is meaningless because he will certainly not be paying it himself. His legal defense fund, supported by the friends of the president and vice-president, boasts a treasury of $5m. He has been well taken care of.

The pardon is the one monarchical power that the framers of the constitution assigned the presidency. But they placed one restriction, that it could not be exercised for impeachment. In other words, the president could not use his power to pardon himself. Bush is entirely within his narrow right to use the pardon power in the Libby case. But it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law governing that power because it is a consummate gesture of self-exoneration, at least if the vice-president is an “entity within the executive branch”. Bush rewards Libby’s cover-up, thwarting the investigation into Cheney’s and perhaps his culpability. Bush’s commutation is the successful culmination of the obstruction of justice.

-- Sydney Blumenthal on the Libby commutation

MORE VIDEOS

Impeach Cheney video by the great Robert Greenwald...a must see!

http://impeachcheney.org/

You got to see two of those high school presidential scholar students that confronted bush with the letter opposing torture as an instrument of US foreign policy interviewed by Amy Goodman. Watch:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/55980/

Mike Papantonio talks about how the modern GOP lives in an alternative reality...or as I like to call it, "Bizarro World" (apparently this is the realm they live in 24/7 now). A place where men like "Scooter" Libby, who has participated in treason, or others like Libby, Abramoff, Delay, Rove, Liddy, are celebrated as folk heroes. Nice to see a radio host pick up on this:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/56004/

ARTICLE SECTION: Huffington and Gen. Odom

FEAR AS CONTROL

Arrianna Huffington writes an important piece on the continued, as now seen yet again with the Britain terror scare, use of fear to keep the masses under control, distracted, and confused.

A few clips:

The thinking of people like Lieberman and King (to say nothing of Bush and Cheney), when it comes to terrorism is as illogical as it is entrenched. It goes something like this: When someone attacks -- or tries to attack -- us or one of our allies because we are a free society, we should respond by making ourselves less free. That'll show the bastards!

SNIP

When it comes to the threat of terrorism, it seems that if the government isn't trying to scare us to death, the press is. The exploitation of fear continues to be our leaders' and our media's ace in the hole -- for votes, for ratings, for curtailing our freedoms.

http://alternet.org/columnists/story/55933/

A GENERAL COMES FORWARD

How good is this to see? A General who served under Reagan setting the record straight in regards to what in fact IS, and what in fact ISN'T, "supporting the troops". Let us all pray that every weak knee'd, sniffling and sulking, and jellie fish spined Democrat that still is afraid to cut off funding for the WAR (not the trooops) reads this. Here's how this basic logic goes, see if you can follow. It's NOT supporting the troops to keep sending them into the middle of a civil war in a desert on the other side of the world, where all sides view you as an invader, occupier, and murderer of their family and brethren. Still with me? Two, it IS supporting the troops to bring them home so they can live a full life, see their family and friend's again, and after some rest, continue to do the job they always wanted to do in the first place: actually protect America.

Somehow the clear as daylight, unequivocable, and absolutely undeniable logic of this basic premise is more than many Democrats can grasp. So, as more American's die for a lie, have their very minds and mental health shattered in a sea of death and fear, and the wealth of our nation squandered on a war everyone knows was for a variety of nefarious reasons never given, we still have Congress members believing they can't end this war because it will make THEM look unpatriotic. Thankfully, we now have a decorated GENERAL to make this case again...and help provide cover for those remaining Dems that still fear that they will be accused of not supporting the troops by bringing them home from an illegal war based on lies.

A few clips first:

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine “supporting the troops” as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for “not supporting the troops” where it really belongs - on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.

SNIP

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what “supporting the troops” really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion. The final step should be to put that president on notice that if he ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the “high crime” of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/06/2325/

THINK FAST

"Global warming is radically changing the face of Mount Everest, the sons of the men who first reached its summit 54 years ago said." The sons of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay say "their fathers would no longer recognise the world’s highest mountain," noting the base camp is now 132 feet lower than it was 53 years ago.

Triple-digit temperatures are expected to set records in parts of the West. Forecasters predicted a high of 107 in Boise, ID, and 125 in Baker, CA. Residents in some states were warned "that outdoor activities could be dangerous except during the cooler early morning hours."

Eighteen people died in Baghdad "after a car bomb blew up outside a photo shop here as members of a wedding party waited Thursday night for the newlyweds to get their pictures taken."

CHENEY SECTION: Global Warming...and Hookers?

CHENEY'S MANIPULATION: On global warming, as on the war in Iraq, the Bush administration's policy outcomes have been "predetermined, in spite of the voluminous evidence that it would lead to catastrophe." New reports show that Vice President Cheney took "full advantage of the president's cluelessness" on climate change and dominated the policies. On Sept. 29, 2000, Bush pledged, "We will require all power plants to meet clean-air standards in order to reduce emissions of...carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time." In February and March 2001, then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman urged the White House to take steps to combat global warming, but she was overruled. Instead, Cheney armed the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) with industry heavyweights. Thereafter, "a CEQ memo concluded Bush's promise to regulate CO2 'did not fully reflect the president's position' and that 'it would be premature at this time to propose any specific policy or approach aimed at addressing global warming.'" The authors of the memo stated that "the current state of scientific knowledge about causes of and solutions to global warming is inconclusive." CEQ chief of staff Philip Cooney, who worked for the oil industry before joining the White House and then joined Exxon in 2005, repeatedly censored government reports to play down the links between global warming and human activities. In March, Cooney admitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, "My objective was to align these communications with the administration's stated policy" of climate skepticism. Evidence also shows that the Vice President's office was in regular contact with CEQ. Kevin O'Donovan, an aide in Cheney's office, wrote a memo to Cooney suggesting they try to "reinvigorate debate on the actual climate history of the past thousand years."

How unbelievable would it be that one of the most nefarious war criminals and sociopaths of the 21st Century could finally get busted for using call girls? Whatever it takes in my opinion...

Injunction lifted: DC Madam Can't Confirm Cheney On ListPhone Records To Be Shared With Media and Bloggers

Guest blogged by Joseph Cannon (Brad Blog):

"For months, the so-called "DC Madam" --- Deborah Jeane Palfrey --- has been forbidden by a court injunction from discussing or sharing the contents of the meticulous phone records she kept of her Washington D.C. client base.Before the injunction was handed down, ABC News' Brian Ross had received a partial list. Ross declared, in a broadcast report, that the phone records did not point to any "newsworthy" individuals beyond the three known names of Randall Tobias (former head of the Agency for International Development), Harlan Ullman (developer of the "shock and awe" military doctrine) and former presidential adviser Dick Morris.ABC dealt only with records going back five years, and did not have access to the earlier records.

Long-standing rumors --- as-yet unconfirmed --- have held that Vice President Dick Cheney used Palfrey's escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, in the 1990s, while he was still the CEO of Haliburton. Less than two hours ago, Judge Kessler released the injunction. Palfrey is now free to make those phone records available to any journalists or bloggers who ask for them. She has set out certain circumstances for their release; her primary hope is that those looking into the matter will do so thoroughly. Palfrey has expressed disappointment in ABC's treatment of this story.When contacted by BradBlog, Palfrey first expressed her thanks to Judge Kessler. "This decision could have gone either way," said Palfrey, "given our current political climate."In her decision, the Judge wrote:

The List in question is the Defendant's personal property and contains only a log of telephone numbers. It was neither seized by the Government when it searched the Defendant's residence in California, nor listed in the Indictment putting the Defendant on notice as to which items of her property were subject to forfeiture.The question everyone is asking is this: Can Ms. Palfrey confirm that Dick Cheney was a client?"

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4775

GOOD NEWS...

LIVE EARTH: The ten Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to 2 billion people in more than 100 countries. Even Antarctica will have a performance by the indie rock band Nunatak, which is "made up of five scientists aged 22 to 28 who are stationed on the generally unpopulated continent." Recognizing that large concerts often have damaging environmental footprints, the organizers of Live Earth are striving to make the events as ecofriendly as possible. Each artist has been given "a 'Green Handbook' of touring tips, such as where to get biodiesel for their trucks and how to offset carbon emissions." Electricity to power the concerts will come from renewable energy sources, and greenhouse gases from the "stars' jets or by the audience's travel will be offset by investments in renewable energy and by safeguarding forests. Concert props may live on long after stars such as Madonna, Shakira and Bon Jovi have left the stage -- old tires and oil drums used in the New York set will be re-used while some concert signs in Johannesburg will be used as roofing." The seven-point Live Earth Pledge asks individuals to demand that their countries "join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide." It also "asks people to cut their own pollution, to make their homes, business, schools and transport more energy efficient, and to plant new trees and preserve forests." "We have to get all nations involved, but in order to accomplish that we have to bring about a sea change in public opinion," said Gore. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) both signed the pledge in June.

TODAY'S TOPICS: Olbermann Special Comment, Commute, Governor's Greenwashing, Morford, Zinn

OLBERMANN'S SPECIAL COMMENT on the Bush commute of convicted felon, traitor, and war criminal, Scooter Libby. Classic!

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/03/keith-olbermanns-special-comment-you-ceased-to-be-the-president-of-the-united-states/

Recent Quotes...

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history. We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

-- Howard Zinn, July 4th, 2007

There has been only one major terrorist attack in the United States since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and that one, on Sept. 11, is now almost six years in the past. So how have Americans been convinced that their duty and their destiny in the 21st century is to lead the world in a titanic, globe-spanning “long war” against terrorism?

Inexperience is one reason: American cities have never been bombed in war, so Americans have no standard of comparison that would shrink terrorism to its true importance in the scale of threats that face any modern society. But the other is relentless official propaganda: The Bush administration has built its whole brand around the “war on terror” since 2001, so the threat must continue to be seen as huge and universal.

As ridiculous as it sounds to outsiders, Americans are regularly told that their survival as a free society depends on beating the “terrorists.” They should treat those who say such things as fools or deliberate liars, but they don’t. So the manipulators of public opinion in the White House and the more compliant sectors of the U.S. media will give bigger play to the British bombings-that-weren’t than Britain’s own government and media have, and they will get away with it.

-- Gwynne Dyer, an independent journalist

Once again, Bush, being nudged by the neocons, has sent a clear message: telling the truth doesn't matter. Bush has refused to acknowledge that he, Cheney, and other administration officials -- to be polite about it -- stretched the truth about Iraq and the threat it posed before the war.

Today, he says that if you lie to protect the White House (especially the vice president), you can escape retribution. But if Bush, Cheney and the others could get away with big untruths about war, why shouldn't Libby get away with small lies about a cover-up? Fair's fair, right? The foundation of a democratic judicial system is that the sentence fits the crime. In this instance, the commutation fits the administration.

-- David Corn, The Nation, and co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

"this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country…It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals."

-- Patrick Fitzgerald

"But given the fact that the judge has set up a process for appeal and given the way that the President has handled this for the past year or so, he's not going to intervene."

-- White House spokesperson Dana Perino, 6/5/07

VERSUS

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

-- President Bush, 7/3/07

MORE ON THE COMMUTE

A DEEPLY UNPOPULAR DECISION: Bush's disregard for the rule of law is not popular. A SurveyUSA instant poll found just 21 percent of Americans agree with the decision to commute Libby's prison sentence. Sixty percent said Bush "should have left the judge's prison sentence in place," and only 17 percent wanted a full pardon.

The Washington Post reports House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is "expected to move swiftly to conduct hearings on the commutation, congressional sources said."

MORE VIDEOS:

Olbermann's Worst person in the world...

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/03/olbermanns-worst-person-in-the-world-special-comment-preview/

Joe Wilson speaks out on the Bush "commute" of traitor and felon, Scooter Libby:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/02/countdown-joe-wilson-and-patrick-fitzgerald-respond-to-the-scooter-libby-disgrace/

ARTICLE SECTION:

And for a break from the mundane, read the great Mark Morford's take on the Bush Crime Family commute of Libby, and enjoy.

A few clips first:

You have to laugh. You have to laugh because if you do not laugh you will likely be overcome with a mad desire to stab yourself in the eye with a sharp feral cat and/or shoot yourself in the toe with a high-powered staple gun, over and over again, all while tearing out pages of the United States Constitution and crumpling them into tiny little balls and hurling them into the smoldering firepit of who-the-hell-cares as you shiver in the corner and swig from a bottle of Knob Creek and wail at the moon. Or maybe that’s just me.

But really, you do have to laugh at the vicious antics this administration, and perhaps Dick Cheney in particular, that most nefarious molester of U.S. law and ignorer of all political integrity and deeply homophobic father of a creepily lesbian daughter and overall gruntingly guff sneerer at all moral principle, masterful mocker of everything you somehow still manage to think, even in your most despondent and ethically disillusioned state, that American politics is somehow supposed to be about.

SNIP

Lest we forget, Dubya’s latest abuse of law follows hot on the heels of Dick Cheney declaring himself a unique and unassailable branch of government, free to ignore the law and refuse to hand over detailed reports of how he’s handled classified information to the federal, Bush-approved oversight agency in charge of making sure people just like Dick don’t take too many liberties with power and ego and dictatorial megalomania. Whoops, too late.

Just another appalling notch in the belt for Dick, really. To be added to the collection, right alongside the bit where he endorses torture, or how he initiated the secret detention of foreigners in brutal Easter European prisons, or his love of military tribunals, or the hard-on he gets for detaining foreigners illegally, for years, at Guantanamo Bay, or the way he works to derail freedom of the press, or how he abuses environmental law and rearranges the federal budget as he sees fit all while sucking up Halliburton kickbacks, and…

SNIP

OK, check that. It’s not “The Sopranos” at all. It’s more like an particularly noxious episode of “Mama’s Family,” all Neanderthal redneck inbred imbeciles doing bad accents and idiotic pratfalls and slapping each other in the face to the tune of an insufferable, forced laugh track, all centered around a laughably dreadful character who blurts out sarcastic one-liners so stupid and inept they make your skin crawl. Except no one’s laughing. And tens of thousands of people are dying. And the country is rotting at its core. And the world, oh the world, the world knows this degrading, deeply humiliating show cannot be cancelled fast enough.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/04/2278/

THE GOV'S GREENWASHING

I have been saying for years now: all you need to do is dig a little deeper into the Governor's record, and the under the radar tactics he uses to water down proposals that he's usually forced into accepting, and you'll find just another snake oil salesman. See here:

State air board official resigns -- The second key person to leave the agency in a week says the governor's team 'has lost its way' on fighting pollution. In public hearings and private negotiations, administration transportation officials are working to slow a planned crackdown by regulators on aging diesel construction equipment — among the state's most noxious machinery and a major source of greenhouse gases.

Janet Wilson in the Los Angeles Times -- 7/3/07

Governor accused of playing politics on warming rules -- Democratic state lawmakers are questioning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to fight global warming after the governor's top deputies thwarted an attempt by the state's air quality regulators to enact their own measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Greg Lucas, Matthew Yi in the San Francisco Chronicle Steven Harmon in the San Jose Mercury Michael Gardner in the San Diego Union-Trib -- 7/3/07

Governor's pollution push questioned -- As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger travels the world exhorting countries to act quickly to reduce harmful gas emissions, his administration is helping California's construction industry stall tough new air quality rules at home. .. the administration was lobbying the Legislature against limiting construction equipment emissions. Caltrans Director Will Kempton cautioned lawmakers against requiring contractors to use cleaner equipment in projects funded with state bond money.

Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times -- 7/3/07

END

THINK FAST...

As I wrote a few weeks back: America is fomenting and helping orchestrate the "civil war" in Palestine...

Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in Jan. 2006, the Bush administration has pursued a strategy -- crafted by deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams -- that "helped to exacerbate dangerous political fissures in Palestinian politics [and has] delivered another setback to the president's vision of a stable, pro-Western Middle East."

"Seeking a legal path to shutting down the Guantanamo detention facility, senior advisers to President Bush are exploring whether the White House and Congress can agree to legislation that would permit the long-term detention of foreign terrorism suspects on American soil."

Uh oh...let the war drums start beating...again:

"The U.S. yesterday publicly accused Iran of intervening in the Iraq conflict, claiming that its Revolutionary Guard played a role in an attack that killed five Americans and was using Lebanese militants to train Iraqi insurgents."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) responded by beating the war drum. "The fact is that the Iranian government has by its actions declared war on us," he said. While stopping short of advocating an immediate military strike, he claimed that "our diplomatic efforts are only likely to succeed if backed by a credible threat of force."

President Bush equated the war in Iraq with the U.S. war for independence during a speech yesterday. "Like those revolutionaries who 'dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty,' Bush said, American soldiers were also fighting 'a new and unprecedented war' to protect U.S. freedom."

Contractors returning home from Iraq with the same combat-related mental health problems that afflict American military personnel, "are largely left on their own to find care, and their problems often go ignored or are inadequately treated." Many who file claims for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder are denied coverage.

TODAY'S TOPICS: Gore, Sicko, Rich, Cheney, Immigration, Leahy, Arnold, Moyers, Big Oil

But there’s something even more precious to be gained if we do the right thing. The climate crisis offers us the chance to experience what few generations in history have had the privilege of experiencing: a generational mission; a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and to embrace a genuine moral and spiritual challenge.

-- Al Gore

The pundits are working overtime trying to defuse the message from "SiCKO," Michael Moore's new film. They are trying to convince the public that the United States could not possibly do what every other rich country (and even some not so rich countries) have managed to do: guarantee their people decent health care.

The centerpiece of the pundits' whine is that universal health care could not work here. They claim the systems which work in other countries require a larger roll for government in health care than Americans want. While this claim is contradicted by poll after poll on the topic, we don't have to argue with the pundits, rather pointless task in any case.

SNIP

But, we don't have to pontificate about American values and the role of government - leave the silly pseudo-philosophical debates out of it. This is a straight dollars-and-cents question that can be determined by the market. Give people a choice and let them decide whether they want to be insured through the government-run system or want to stick with private health care providers.

The pundits have managed to flip reality on its head. It is the health insurance industry and their partners-in-crime, the pharmaceutical industry, that are scared of the market and competition.

If we just allow a government-run plan to compete on a level playing field with private insurers, we can soon get a system of universal health care. The question for the insurance-industry-loving pundits is: "What's wrong with giving people a choice?"

-- Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

VIDEO SECTION:

Check out Mike papantonio, one of the attorney's working on the lawsuit against E-Voting machines with Robert Kennedy. Just wait, that case will be big! Here's Mike on what might be in cheney’s secret files?

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/55400/

Bill Moyers breaks down the danger of a monolithic right wing media empire...in particular Rupert Murdoch and his attempt to purchase Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?p=3093

Michael Moore visits Jay Leno:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/29/michael-moore-with-jay-leno-and-a-dash-of-the-washington-post/

IMMIGRATION TRUTHS

To set up this rather amazing video clip of a seminar teaching business leaders how to deny American workers jobs and hire "legal immigrants" instead, I want to make a point on a related immigration "solution" being trumpeted by many politicians (and all of big business): the "guest worker" program (was part of the immigration bill). This "slave labor" idea is sadly even being embraced by many Democrats as a "necessary" concession in order to cut a "deal" with the White House. And we all saw where this kind of deal making leads (see fate of immigration bill). Hint: piling on lots of shit to get a little good, is still shit. Try filling your bowl up with Ben & Jerry's, then put some dog shit on the top, and you'll get what I mean.

Watching this clip only makes it that much clearer why a guest worker program is the wet dream of the corporatist. I mean, what a deal: ship workers in that have no rights, treat them like shit (knowing they would never join a union or complain in fear of being shipped back), pay them almost nothing, then after 2 years (when an American worker would get a raise or maybe health care) just ship them back to Mexico and bring in a new Mexican! This is what Caesar Chavez fought against, and now the concept has come back into the mainstream again (called "Braceros" back then). Next up: rethinking women's suffrage!

It must be remembered:All this anti-immigration fervor by the GOP is simply another tool of distraction. This has been planned and rolled out by the right wing think tanks for a couple years now. But its largely artificial! Just another way of dividing people, playing on their deepest fears and darkest racial prejudices, all to keep the public from seeing the real threat, and what's really behind the economic insecurities more and more Americans are facing. It’s extraordinary how easily the American public is controlled and manipulated. Just drum up a new threat and you have people freaking out.

Unbelievably, in CA, "immigration" polled the highest in terms of what was an issue of high importance!! Just a few years ago, before the right wing barrage of anti-hispanic propaganda, those numbers were barely registering. Think about it, immigration, more important than global warming, the war in Iraq, poverty, health care, wealth disparity, and on and on?? That's insane. Don't believe the hype...

But, before I get to the video, here's a brief comment on the bigger picture as it relates to immigration by a friend of mine currently making a documentary film on this very topic:

"First, it is useless to talk about immigration without talking about the how the elites of every country are allied against the workers of each country. These elites are working in coordination to force the costs of labor down, whether it be the US, Mexico, China,etc. The goal is the cheapest possible labor cost and the maximizing of profit, as Michael Moore points out in Sicko.

Second, if you want to further deepen your understanding of how this works, just read the articles that Tom Abate has been writing for months in the Chronicle about HB-1 visas. While all the furor has been on undocumented workers, Bill gates, et al. have deftly been bringing in hundreds of thousands of "legal immigrants" since the early 90s to work in the technology industry at half the wages of American programmers. I have already interviewed 5 of these American programmers, and it is painful. Do you hear the Right screaming about this? NO you don't.

Third, Alan Blinder, Clinton's former economics guy and vice chief of the Fed now predicts that free trade and globalization are going to cost this country 35-40 million WHITE COLLAR JOBS OVER THE NEXT 10-15 YEARS.

Now to the video clip: "Would employers be rejecting 50 american resumes at a time if there were NO AMERICAN workers to do these jobs???" Another reason the Guest Worker component of the immigration bill recently defeated is a “deal killer” to true progressives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU&mode=related&search=

As I predicted if the Dems won Congress in November…watch for Pat Leahy…when it comes to issues related to privacy and civil liberties there are few better in the Senate (Feingold aside). And as the new chair of the judiciary committee its subpoena time. Check it out:…he will hold Cheney and co. in contempt of court if they don’t abide by his subpoenas:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/01/leahy-if-bush-and-cheney-dont-cooperate-with-subpoenas-he-will-push-to-find-them-in-contempt-of-congress/

Thank you Colbert!!! Aren’t you tired of GOP cowards and criminals being praised as “heroes” because they come out against illegal wars based on lies 4 years after they started!!!!? Wow, what integrity!!! That Lugar guy is a virtual profile in courage, no? What about everybody that was right from the beginning?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/02/the-colbert-report-does-sen-dick-lugar-profiles-in-timing/

But, as I predicted, the GOP’s immigration kick would backfire (in terms of elections). The interesting paradox here is yes, people are confused, and have been manipulated on this issue, yet they haven't fallen for the GOP's tactics and solutions. That's the good news, and so are these numbers:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/01/republican-immigration-policies-are-devastating-hispanic-membership-in-party/

Conspiracy theory rocks...I've posted this in the past, but its worth another for those that missed it. This SNL cartoon is dead on:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/55118/

ARTICLE SECTION: GORE AND RICH

Al Gore writes an op-ed in the New York Times on Kyoto, global warming, and the greatest challenge our species has ever faced. A few clips:

Just in the last few months, new studies have shown that the north polar ice cap — which helps the planet cool itself — is melting nearly three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models predicted. Unless we take action, summer ice could be completely gone in as little as 35 years. Similarly, at the other end of the planet, near the South Pole, scientists have found new evidence of snow melting in West Antarctica across an area as large as California. This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours.

SNIP

Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when their future — indeed, the future of all human civilization — is hanging in the balance. They deserve better than a government that censors the best scientific evidence and harasses honest scientists who try to warn us about looming catastrophe. They deserve better than politicians who sit on their hands and do nothing to confront the greatest challenge that humankind has ever faced — even as the danger bears down on us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/opinion/01gore.html

Frank Rich writes another connect the dots classic on the ongoing saga of the "walking constitutional crisis" that is Dick Cheney. As is easy to do, esp. with the legions of corporate "stenographers", also known as "journalists", one can miss the bigger picture often just below the surface of each Cheney crime. Read this, a few clips first:

One journalist who hasn't failed is Mark Silva of The Chicago Tribune. He first reported more than a year ago, in May 2006, the essentials of the "news" at the heart of the recent Cheney ruckus.

Mr. Silva found that the vice president was not filing required reports on his office's use of classified documents because he asserted that his role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, gave him an exemption. This scoop went unnoticed by nearly everybody. It would still be forgotten today had not Henry Waxman, the dogged House inquisitor, called out Mr. Cheney 10 days ago, detailing still more egregious examples of the vice president's flouting of the law, including his effort to shut down an oversight agency in charge of policing him. The congressman's brief set off the firestorm that launched a thousand late-night gags.

SNIP

Even now, few have made the connection between this month's Cheney flap and the larger scandal. That larger scandal is to be found in what the vice president did legally under the executive order early on rather than in his more recent rejection of its oversight rules. Timing really is everything. By March 2003, this White House knew its hype of Saddam's nonexistent nuclear arsenal was in grave danger of being exposed. The order allowed Mr. Bush to keep his own fingerprints off the nitty-gritty of any jihad against whistle-blowers by giving Mr. Cheney the authority to pick his own shots and handle the specifics. The president could have plausible deniability and was free to deliver non-denial denials like "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." Mr. Cheney in turn could delegate the actual dirty work to Mr. Libby, who obstructed justice to help throw a smoke screen over the vice president's own role in the effort to destroy Mr. Wilson.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070107C.shtml

END

ISSUE SNAPSHOTS:

"This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming."105: Number of full-time positions President Bush has filled with recess appointments. In contrast, President Clinton had used his recess appointment powers to install just 42 people in full-time jobs at the same point in his presidency.HEALTH CARE -- UPON

HUGE OPENING WEEKEND, MICHAEL MOORE'S SiCKO PASSES FACT-CHECK TEST: On June 29, Michael Moore's latest film, SiCKO -- an exploration of the failings of the current American healthcare system -- opened in theaters nationwide. On the heels of strong reviews, the response to the film has been overwhelming, according to Moore, who sent a message to fans this weekend declaring that the film is "on track to have the second largest opening weekend for a documentary in the history of the movies." In his letter, Moore also noted that the industry polling for the film found that 93 percent of viewers would "strongly recommend 'SiCKO'" to their friends and family, which is more than double the industry average of 45 percent. Not everyone is reacting so positively to SiCKO, however, as the health care industry and its surrogates on the right are doing all that they can to pushback against the film. Before the premiere, think tanks funded by the healthcare and pharmaceutical lobby launched a smear campaign against Moore, using personal attacks against the director while propagating the message of those invested in maintaining the status quo. Moore's opponents have thus been forced to resort to personal attacks as SiCKO has stood up to scrutiny: on Saturday, a CNN fact-check found "surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film" while noting that "most pundits or health-care experts...spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film." Click here to find a showing near you.

"Air strikes by foreign forces in Afghanistan have recently killed more civilians than the Taliban and the U.S.-led operation should cut them back," said Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. "In the latest incident involving civilian fatalities, Afghan officials said on the weekend that 45 civilians were killed in an air strike in the south of the country."

"Four U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed in attacks in Baghdad and Iraq's western Anbar province, the military said Monday," bringing the total number of U.S. fatalities to 3,582.

Remember this when we lecture Iran and North Korea:

The Bush administration is "considering moving its program for a new-generation nuclear warhead into the development stage within a year, with an eye to putting the program on track before the end of its term in January 2009."

Green Giant Falls. Schwarzenegger Fires Global Warming Tough Guy

Arnold Schwarzenegger's time as the "green hero" on magazine covers is over. He's up to his knees in tar and sinking, after firing the independent thinker he appointed to implement California's ground-breaking global warming law. Chief watchdog Jamie Court follows up today on the humiliating dismissal of UC Berkeley prof Bob Sawyer, who Arnold appointed 18 months ago to great acclaim as chief of the California Air Resources Board. Sawyer's fatal error?

He pushed back when Schwarzenegger tried to limit and weaken his first attempts at enforcing AB32, the California global warming initiative that the governor has ridden hard to environmental sainthood. Laws are only as good as their implementation. Big Oil, the California Chamber of Commerce and their allies in the Legislature demand that industry pay no price for clean air or a healthy planet. The governor, with his go-slow directives and the outright firing of Sawyer, has sadly tucked himself back into the corporate pocket.

There's good news from New York, where a judge refused to indulge Chevron's attempts to get rid of an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador. As Jamie Court says, it's time for Chevron to own up to the widespread environmental damage done by its Texaco subsidiary in the Amazon. I see hints in the latest federal data that Big Oil is again shrinking the gasoline supply to drive prices back up. On the 'Big Oil U' front, opponents of bulldog Simpson are getting desperate with their name-calling. He answers with his usual cool logic.

Read on for more oily revelation, including some unkind words about 'T Rex' Tillerson of ExxonMobil...

-- Judy Dugan, OilWatchdog.org