"These People Frighten Me": The Candor of Mike Gravel

MARGARET KIMBERLY
Counterpunch
Thursday May 03, 2007

During the first Democratic presidential debate a little known candidate, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, ended up with one of the most memorable lines of the evening:

"And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me--they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices.

"I got to tell you, I'm president of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. To my mind, it's immoral, and it's been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy."

Of the eight candidates on that stage in South Carolina, only Gravel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich will say that there is no reason for the American people to incinerate the Iranian people with nuclear weapons.

When Senator Barack Obama repeated the lie that Iran is on the verge of attaining nuclear capability only Kucinich would call him out. He politely said that Obama's assertions were in dispute.

Obama: I think it would be a profound mistake for us to initiate a war with Iran.
But, have no doubt, Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major threat to us and to the region.

Kucinich: (OFF-MIKE)

Obama: I understand that, but they're in the process of developing it. And I don't think that's disputed by any expert. They are the largest state sponsor of terrorism...

Kucinich: It is disputed by...

Obama: ... Hezbollah and Hamas.

Kucinich: It is disputed.

Obama: And there is no contradiction, Dennis, between...

Kucinich: It is disputed.

Obama: Let me finish.

Kucinich would have been correct if he had called Obama a liar. Gravel is right, most of the Democrats are very frightening indeed.

BREAKING: 3 US Reps Support Cheney Impeachment

By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, Atlanta Progressive News (April 29, 2007)

(APN) ATLANTA – H Res 333, the bill introducing Articles of Impeachment against Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, now has two co-sponsors, for a total of 3 current total supporters, including sponsor US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

Bush's Illegal Use of Signing Statements is Impeachment Reason No. 1

by David Chard

In a Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the Boston Globe, Charlie Savage courageously published details of Bush's outrageous "signing statements" added to new legislation. As you can see from the examples quoted from Savage's story(Boston Globe, April 30, 2007) below, the intention of each statement is to allow an "executive loophole" whereby "the W" can essentially ignore the effect of the legislation. In other words, Bush has been assuming the powers of a dictator, ruling by decree, under our noses.

This is quoted directly from Savage's story:

"Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation of the Constitution. The federal government is instructed to follow the statements when it enforces the laws. Here are 10 examples and the dates Bush signed them:

March 9: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."

Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.

Bush's signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."

Dec. 17: The new national intelligence director shall recruit and train women and minorities to be spies, analysts, and translators in order to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.

Bush's signing statement: The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with a constitutional clause guaranteeing ''equal protection" for all. (In 2003, the Bush administration argued against race-conscious affirmative-action programs in a Supreme Court case. The court rejected Bush's view.)

Oct. 29: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.

Bush's signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration's lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

Aug. 5: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.

Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.

Bush's signing statement: The inspector general ''shall refrain" from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.

Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ''without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department."

Bush's signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ''the director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall [be] subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

IS THERE STILL ANY DOUBT IN YOUR MIND ABOUT THE NEED TO IMPEACH GEORGE W. BUSH?

Honeybee Die-Off Threatens U.S. Food Supply

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP
Updated:2007-05-03 01:40:18


BELTSVILLE, Md. (May 3) - Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program.

"This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said.

The Real Face of the European Union

The EU has been sold to Britain as our best hope for the future . . . But behind the scenes, has another, more unsettling agenda been ... all » unfolding? The European Economic Community (EEC) began for Britain as a free-trade agreement in 1972. Today's European Union is well on its way to becoming a federal superstate, complete with one currency, one legal system, one military, one police force and even its own national anthem. In this shocking new documentary featuring EU insiders and commentators, independent author Phillip Day covers the history and goals of the European Union, as well as the disturbing, irrevocable implications this new government has for every British citizen. Whether the viewer is for or against Britain's participation, this film asks the troubling questions the mainstream media has refused to confront.

Cover-Up Fears Grow With Delays For Diana Inquest

Padraic Flanagan
Daily Express
Monday, April 30, 2007

The fight for the truth about the death of Princess Diana was hit yesterday by fears of a new Establishment plot to delay the inquests.

A highly-placed insider warned that the hearings will not go ahead until next year, 11 years after the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed in a Paris car crash, causing Princes William and Harry further anguish.

Legal sources warned that last week’s decision by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to quit as coroner will almost certainly prevent the hearing taking place before a jury this year.

The delays and legal obstacles hampering the inquest process have prompted allegations of an Establishment cover-up. Those fears are echoed in recent polls, with the vast majority of the public believing the deaths were not the result of a simple accident.

Notes: I was no great fan of Princess Di when she was alive. But her death affected people in this nation like no other.

My reaction, when on waking up to hear the news that she had died was, as someone who lost his own mother in a car crash (I was 3 at the time and still remember it as I was in the car, or rather, found myself lying on the grass verge of the M1 next to my sister after it had happened in view of an upturned car), was, of course, to feel immensely sorry for her boys. I watched her funeral on TV and remember the moment when a TV camera caught a zoom-shot of the lonely funeral hearse with police outriders bringing her “home” to Althorp in Northamptonshire on the M1, the very road on which my mother died. I was overcome with this strange urge to drive to one of the bridges crossing the M1 to watch the hearse go by and to say goodbye. Why? I had never much cared for Diana when she was alive. I suppose it was the urge to say goodbye to the person I never had a chance to say goodbye to when I was a child.


During the funeral, thousands of people who had never known Diana grieved openly. Oliver James, a kind of celebrity psychologist, said that the extraordinary outpouring of grief was probably as a result of people’s private, personal tragedies. I think I know what he means. As I said, I didn’t have much time for Diana when she was alive, but grieved with the rest of my fellow countrymen on the day of her funeral. But I think there was a further reason for people’s sadness. Most fairy-tales end with the words, “And they lived happily ever after.” But this marriage, which had seemed to begin like a fairy tale, was to have no such ending.


When Al Fayed, owner of the world famous London store, Harrods, started mooting the idea that the accident in which his son, Dodi, was killed in the crash along with Diana and the driver, Henry Paul, was no “accident”, I dismissed it as a sad attempt by a father who’d lost his son to find someone to blame. Ten years later, as I’ve begun to look more deeply into events surrounding the “accident”, I’m not so sure.

Canadian Action Party Leader Calls 9/11 a "Trick on a Massive Scale"

Connie Fogal, the redoubtable leader of the Canadian Action Party, delivers a hard hitting and passionate warning to all who refuse to ... all » believe that our democracy is being usurped by an elite few and is being sold off, brick by brick, to the highest bidder. Our very own elected politicians are in collusion with powerful private corporate interests, working together behind closed doors to bring in the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’ by “stealth” – as one proponent of the agreement put it – without public knowledge or consultation. In this presentation, she argues that Canadian sovereignty is very much at stake and she urges us to become informed and to take action before we ignorantly surrender all of our freedoms and public services to foreign corporate rule.



© 2007 Lazarus Productions

Impeach the Beech

A Bush appointee goes after the White House

Prosecutor Scott J. Bloch, a committed conservative, is turning heads with his investigation of the administration's political operation, headed by Karl Rove.

By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2007

WASHINGTON — At first glance, Scott J. Bloch seems to fit the profile of the "loyal Bushie," the kind of person the White House salted through the Washington bureaucracy to make sure federal agencies heeded administration priorities.

But Bloch, 48, is a man who defies expectations.

The lifelong Republican runs an agency — the Office of Special Counsel — that is turning its investigative spotlight on the White House, in particular the political operation headed by Karl Rove.

His office is investigating whether Bush administration personnel violated civil statutes by inserting GOP electoral politics into Cabinet agency meetings, firing at least one U.S. attorney, and discussing some of the activities in private e-mails that are missing.

Ex-CIA analyst: Forged 'yellowcake' memo 'leads right back to' Cheney

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Published: Monday April 30, 2007

A former CIA analyst claims that falsified documents which were meant to show that Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime had been trying to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger can be traced back to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Appearing on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson Show, Ray McGovern who served in the CIA for twenty-seven years, said, "the [forged] memo leads right back to the doorstep of the Vice President of the United States."

According to McGovern, former CIA Director George Tenet told his "coterie of malleable managers" at the CIA to create a National Intelligence Estimate "to the terms of reference of Dick Cheney's speech of August 26, 2002, where Dick Cheney said for the first time Saddam Hussein could have a nuclear weapon in a year, he's got all kinds of chemical, he's got all kinds of biological weapons."

Blair's bloody legacy: Iraq

On the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's election as Prime Minister, an exclusive poll reveals 69 per cent of Britons believe that, when he leaves office, his enduring legacy will be the bloody conflict in Iraq

By Andrew Grice
The Independent
Published: 01 May 2007

Seven out of 10 people believe that Iraq will prove to be Tony Blair's most enduring legacy, according to an opinion poll for The Independent to mark the 10th anniversary today of the election victory that brought him to power.

As the Prime Minister prepares to announce his resignation next week, the survey by CommunicateResearch reveals that 69 per cent of the British public believe he will be remembered most for the Iraq war. Remarkably, his next highest "legacy rating" - just 9 per cent - is for his relationship with the American President, George Bush.

The Pivotal Ohio vote in 2004: Who did the counting?

by Josh Mitteldorf
OpEdNews
April 29, 2007 at 12:49:44

Ohio 2004 represented, in many ways, a worst case in scenarios ripe for election theft:

A highly partisan Secretary of State within the context of a generally corrupt State government.

A pivotal state that could swing the Electoral College in a hotly-contested Presidential election.

A state electorate that was ‘within striking distance’ for vote theft. Pre-election and election-day polls indicated a 4% margin in Kerry’s favor

The efforts by Secretary of State J Kenneth Blackwell to suppress registration and selectively disenfranchise Democrats have become well known. But exit polls indicate that on Election Night he still had a problem: Kerry’s actual margin may have been several hundred thousand votes.

Somehow, that gap was closed, and Bush came out on top in the official count. Until now, there were strong reasons to believe the vote count had been corrupted, but no direct evidence as to how a swing of this magnitude could have been engineered.

This week, in a series of articles by Bob Firakis, Steven Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, a fact has come to light that suggests the answer: On the night of 2-3 November, 2004, the computer designated to count Ohio votes was cut out of the loop. Its web address was diverted to a private company in Chattanooga, TN, named SMARTech.

It’s easy to ‘impersonate’ someone else’s website. This is a common ruse used in conjunction with emails that ‘phish’ for your financial information. But such scams can be detected by inspecting the address bar at the top of most browsers. For example, the screen may look just like Washington Mutual’s login for bank customers, but the address is not http://WaMu.com, but instead points to a site (in India!) labeled only as http://202.71.146.148/.s/.wamusk/index.php.

The web redirection on Election Night of 2004 went a step beyond this: Not only did the official website of the Ohio Department of State look just right, but it had the right address: http://election.sos.state.oh.us. Any citizen or press service looking for real time election results from the state of Ohio would have been directed here. In every sense, this SMARTech site became the official vote tabulation for the state of Ohio.

If the name SMARTech sounds vaguely familiar, it is because the same web server, run by the same company, was in the news last month. It is the site that handled the email accounts for White House aides who did not want their communications to be subject to Congressional scrutiny. When Congress set out to subpoena the emails of Karl Rove, they had disappeared, along with 6 million other email messages. The entire staff had been communicating secretly, illegally, subverting the system that had been set up by Congress in the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

SMARTech leases computer servers to the Republican National Committee, and the 12-digit ISP address to which the Ohio Department of State was diverted for the 2004 vote count falls between two ranges known to be leased to the RNC. This raises the suspicion that it was an RNC computer, impersonating the state of Ohio computer, that performed the official vote tabulation in 2004. This diversion is so unusual (and brazen!) a ruse, that it is inconceivable that it happened without Blackwell’s explicit consent.

The Ohio web site was showing Kerry ahead before midnight. Then the server went down for 90 minutes, and when it came back up, Bush had a commanding lead.

Perhaps there is a Congressional committee that be would be interested to go back and check their arithmetic. For many of the disputed counties, paper ballots have been preserved, and can be recounted. In addition, there are over 100,000 ballots that were never counted the first time, and remain uncounted to this day. (Blackwell sought to have these ballots destroyed at the earliest legal opportunity, but a successful lawsuit prompted a court to intervene.)

The above story derives from two articles by Steven Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, which were published this week on the web site of the Columbus Free Press.

Larry Johnson "Slam-Dunks" George Tenet

The following was sent to George Tenet today in care of his publisher. The letter, written by a group of former intelligence officers, reflects disgust with George Tenet's effort to burnish his image with his new "tell" all book.

28 April 2007
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

We agree with you that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials took the United States to war for flimsy reasons. We agree that the war of choice in Iraq was ill-advised and wrong headed. But your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

You are not alone in failing to speak up and protest the twisting and shading of intelligence. Those who remained silent when they could have made a difference also share the blame for not protesting the abuse and misuse of intelligence that occurred under your watch. But ultimately you were in charge and you signed off on the CIA products and you briefed the President.

This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. You helped send very mixed signals to the American people and their legislators in the fall of 2002. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused. On October 1 you signed and gave to President Bush and senior policy makers a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—which dovetailed with unsupported threats presented by Vice President Dick Cheney in an alarmist speech on August 26, 2002.

You were well aware that the White House tried to present as fact intelligence you knew was unreliable. And yet you tried to have it both ways. On October 7, just hours before the president gave a major speech in Cincinnati, you were successful in preventing him from using the fable about Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa, although that same claim appeared in the NIE you signed only six days before.

Although CIA officers learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, you still went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to Al Qaeda.

You showed a lack of leadership and courage in January of 2003 as the Bush Administration pushed and cajoled analysts and managers to let them make the bogus claim that Iraq was on the verge of getting its hands on uranium. You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset—credibility."

You may now feel you were bullied and victimized but you were also one of the bullies. In the end you allowed suspect sources, like Curveball, to be used based on very limited reporting and evidence. Yet you were informed in no uncertain terms that Curveball was not reliable. You broke with CIA standard practice and insisted on voluminous evidence to refute this reporting rather than treat the information as suspect. You helped set the bar very low for reporting that supported favored White House positions, while raising the bar astronomically high when it came to raw intelligence that did not support the case for war being hawked by the president and vice president.

It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community--a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge. Curiously, you focus your anger on the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, but you decline to criticize the President.

Mr. Tenet, as head of the intelligence community, you failed to use your position of power and influence to protect the intelligence process and, more importantly, the country. What should you have done? What could you have done?

For starters, during the critical summer and fall of 2002, you could have gone to key Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and warned them of the pressure. But you remained silent. Your candor during your one-on-one with Sir Richard Dearlove, then-head of British Intelligence, of July 20, 2002" provides documentary evidence that you knew exactly what you were doing; namely, "fixing" the intelligence to the policy.

By your silence you helped build the case for war. You betrayed the CIA officers who collected the intelligence that made it clear that Saddam did not pose an imminent threat. You betrayed the analysts who tried to withstand the pressure applied by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

If you are committed to correcting the record about your past failings then you should start by returning the Medal of Freedom you willingly received from President Bush in December 2004. You claim it was given only because of the war on terror, but you were standing next to General Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer, who also contributed to the disaster in Iraq. President Bush said that you:

played pivotal roles in great events, and efforts have made our
country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.

The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

Sincerely yours,

Phil Giraldi

Ray McGovern

Larry Johnson

Jim Marcinkowski

Vince Cannistraro

David MacMichael

CIA boss warned Bush on UK intelligence

By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:15am BST 29/04/2007

America's former spy chief has revealed how he warned the White House that Britain had "exaggerated" reports that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium ore in Niger - claims that President George W Bush later made central to his case for war.

George Tenet, who quit as CIA director in 2004, details in a new book how White House hawks were determined to use British intelligence that the Iraqi regime had sought "yellowcake" for a suspected atomic bomb programme.

The President's reliance on the allegation, which he cited in his key State of the Union speech in January 2003, emerged last week as the focus of newly launched investigations by the Democrat-controlled Congress into the pre-war use of intelligence.

Mr Tenet's long-awaited book, the first tell-all account from the President's inner circle in the tumultuous years of the September 11 attacks and the Iraq invasion, is being read avidly by Democrats keen to pursue the Bush administration's handling of those events.

The ex-CIA chief, who has been invited to testify before Congress this week, is scathing about the roles of Vice-President Dick Cheney and the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice (now Secretary of State), before the invasion.

In another damning claim, he says he and a senior CIA colleague told Miss Rice in summer 2001 that a significant terrorist strike on the US was in the works, but that their warnings went unheeded until the September 11 attacks.

JUSTICE THROUGH MUSIC AND OP-CRITICAL RELEASE HAPPY SPRINGTIME, BUSH IS OVER

Thirty some years ago, John Lennon released Happy Xmas, War Is Over as a prelude to the end of the Vietnam War. Now JTM and Op-Critical have released a remake of the song with new lyrics, called Happy Springtime, Bush Is Over. In the original, the Harlem Children’s Choir sang the hook, and in our new version, the Harmonic Angels do a terrific job on the chorus and the hook. Here is the video of the band and the choir, complete with footage of Yoko Ono’s giant Imagine Peace billboard and her Peace Prayer Trees that she put in Washington in early April.



Enjoy, spread the message, spread the links and imagine peace.

anthony says: Awesome, simply awesome! John Lennon would have just loved this use of his single.



For some reason, the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC came to mind while posting this video. I don’t know why. Is it because cherry trees in blossom is such a powerful symbol of Spring? Is it because the United States was once at war with Japan and is now at peace? Is it because the trees were a gift of Japan to the United States? Is it because Yoko Ono is Japanese?

“Springtime for Hitler and Germany” is the title of a song in that somewhat inappropriate film, The Producers. Let us all hope that it is now springtime for lovers of peace, truth and justice everywhere.

Student protesters upset Attorney General's Harvard reunion

RAW STORY
Published: Saturday April 28, 2007

Student protesters wearing hoods and Guantanamo Bay garb found their way into the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' 25th Harvard Law School reunion Saturday.

A release sent by the group to RAW STORY claims Gonzales was "forced to leave through a back door."

Gonzales apparently arrived unnannounced. Students met him and his fellow classmates outside the law library where the class of 1982 had posed for a photo.

As the photographer said cheese, the group said students yelled that "torture," "resign" or "I don't recall" might be more appropriate.

The Justice Department could not immediately be reached for comment.

"When I heard he was on campus, I was stuffing envelopes with letters to Congress in an office two floors above," said Deborah Popowski, a second-year law student, according to the release. "I dropped everything. Gonzales needs to know that after approving poorly-reasoned memos that distort the rule of law and justify torture, he is simply not welcome here."

According the the group, Popowski slipped though the law library's front doors and approached Gonzales from behind as the Attorney General's security detail kept protesters at bay.

"On behalf of many other Harvard Law students," she said, "I'd like to tell you that we are ashamed to have you as an alumnus of this school. And we're glad you're here to be able to tell you that."

Gonzales allegedly thanked the student and offered to shake her hand, but was refused.

Following the photo, Gonzales was said to have entered the library, traveled to the reading room, then ducked out through a basement emergency exit and into a waiting SUV.

Protesters demand impeachment as President Bush speaks at Miami-Dade College

Larisa Alexandrovna
Raw Story
Published: Saturday April 28, 2007

Miami - Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Kendell Miami-Dade College campus where President George W. Bush spoke on Saturday afternoon. Roughly 200 protesters were clustered near temporary fences and an estimated 600 altogether spent the better part of the afternoon marching and holding signs alongside a main road near the college campus.



The protesters were commemorating "National Impeachment Day" with a peaceful march while Miami police looked on. The president was escorted in and out of the campus through an entrance on the far side of the campus, where he could not see the protests. Two pro-Bush supporters rode their bicycles in front of the protesters screaming "Commies," but by and large, the rally drew few administration supporters.

National Impeachment Day was organized by a large coalition of center and left of center groups, including A28, Democrats.com, and Progressive Democrats for America. The protesters, however, did not focus only on the topic of impeachment, but also on reasons for impeachment, carrying signs such as "Out of Iraq" and "No blood for oil."



Among the protesters were Miami-Dade students and some faculty. The protest in Miami was but one of many across the nation, with protesters gathering in nearly every state, as well as Puerto Rico.

Viguerie urges Gonzales impeachment

Press TV
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:05:38

Conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie called vehemently on Capitol Hill to impeach Alberto Gonzales if he doesn't resign himself.

"If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continues to refuse to resign, it's time for Congress to impeach him -- and Republicans must take the lead," says conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie.

As the man who pioneered political direct mail, Viguerie has been called "the Funding Father" of the conservative movement.

He is the author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006).

"No other choice is available," says Viguerie. "Gonzales has refused to resign so far, despite demands from Republican Senators and Representatives that he do so."

"And President Bush has erected a wall around the White House, shutting out reality, giving his long-time political crony unconditional support. If his boss won't fire him, and Gonzales refuses to leave voluntarily, he must be made to leave involuntarily."

"President Bush is already a lame duck with the lowest public support since Richard Nixon, so in a sense he has nothing more to lose. What should scare Republicans, however, is that once again Bush seems willing to bring the entire Republican Party to destruction with him. The Republicans have already lost the House and the Senate. If they want to have any chance of retaining the White House or making gains in Congress in 2008, they must break decisively with this politically suicidal president," he added.

Impeachment of a Cabinet member is authorized by the Constitution. Charges of impeachment must be passed in the House, and then the official is tried by the Senate.

A president cannot grant a reprieve or pardon for impeachment. If impeached, the official is removed from office and is disqualified to hold and enjoy any other federal office.

Grounds for impeachment, under Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution, are "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." ("Misdemeanors" is a constitutional term that does not have the current meaning of an offense less serious than a felony, according to the American Bar Association.)

In a final note, Viguerie added:

"In his testimony before the Senate last week, he said he 'could not remember' deeds or actions more than 70 times, including many recent events. This strains everyone's credulity except the president's."

"If nothing else, he should be removed from office for Memory Deficit Disorder. You cannot run a Justice Department with well over 100,000 employees when your mind supposedly is that blank."

Wolfowitz panel finds Ethics Breach

Press TV
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:24:58

It has emerged that the World Bank Committee has nearly completed a report stating that Paul Wolfowitz breached its banking ethics.

Three senior bank officials said the committee are still debating on whether to explicitly recommend that Mr. Wolfowitz resign.

Wolfowitz is scheduled to appear before the committee with his attorney on Monday morning and mount his defense against demands that he should resign over engineering a pay rise for his girlfriend.

The bank's 24-member board of directors will convene that afternoon to discuss the report and sources suggest that they could announce their vote the same day, The Washington Post reported.

Wolfowitz's attorney said he has vowed to continue the fight to keep his job. "He will not resign under this cloud," he said.

The committee is composed of members of the bank's governing board. Bank officials say the timing of the report and its conclusions have come at a time when they can have maximum impact in what has become a full-blown campaign to get Wolfowitz to go.

The White House remains supportive of Wolfowitz, even though Bush's staff has staged an open revolt aimed at persuading him to leave. European officials have repeatedly lobbied for his resignation.

Already unpopular because of his direct role as architect of the Iraq war, his management style had antagonized bank staff and European financial contributors long before the ethics scandal.

A draft of the report reviewed by the committee late Friday declared Wolfowitz had violated World Bank regulations in three areas, breach of contract, breach of ethics rules and undermining the reputation of the bank.

While this report deals only with the way he handled Ms Riza's pay rise, the committee is prepared to investigate a range of other alleged breaches of ethics and internal governance rules.

A bank board is already investigating his hiring of former White House aides, also on generous pay deals, to work in his close circle of advisors after he took over the World Bank in June 2005.

Musharraf warns US on attacking Iran

Press TV
Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:18:54

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said a possible US attack on Iran would be a "terrible mistake" and incur dire consequences.

"It will be a terrible mistake if President George Bush orders an attack against Iran," Musharraf told Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz ahead of his visit to Bosnia.

"I'm concerned about the possibility that a US attack on Iran (would cause) turbulence in the region," he said, warning it would spark "radicalism."

The United States wants Iran to suspend a uranium enrichment program over fears the material could be used for nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists it is only interested in producing energy.

Washington also accuses Iran of aggravating violence in neighboring Iraq.