The Long Defeat

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25brooks.html

March 25, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Long Defeat
By DAVID BROOKS

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.

First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair without serious damage to his nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, just as he did before this whole affair blew up.

Second, Obama’s lawyers successfully prevented re-votes in Florida and Michigan. That means it would be virtually impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes.

Third, as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic has reported, most superdelegates have accepted Nancy Pelosi’s judgment that the winner of the elected delegates should get the nomination. Instead of lining up behind Clinton, they’re drifting away. Her lead among them has shrunk by about 60 in the past month, according to Avi Zenilman of Politico.com.

In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?

The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary.

McCainonomics

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/25/mccain-mortgage-crisis-victims-are-too-lazy-to-keep-their-homes/

McCain: Working Families to Blame for Mortgage Mess
Posted By Seth Michaels On March 25, 2008
[1]

Across the country, the collapse of the housing market has created a [2] crisis of foreclosures that is dragging down the economy. Finding a fair solution for this mess should be a top priority of the next president.

So presidential candidate Sen. [3] John McCain must have a plan to address the crisis, right? Not so. In fact, the Republican from Arizona blames the millions of America’s working families who have lost their homes. They, says McCain, caused the economic downturn.

Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million are doing what is necessary—working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets—to make their payments on time. That leaves us with a puzzling situation: How could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?

It’s just another example of how McCain—by his own admission—“never really understood” the economy. (McCain now denies he said that; who wouldn’t, running for president?) In the face of the nationwide crisis brought on by predatory lending, stagnant wages and vast wealth inequities, McCain says it’s the fault of home owners.

McCain compounded the outrage of his comments by making them before a California audience. California has been hit hard by the housing crisis. The state has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country, with more than 57,000 foreclosures in January—120 percent higher than in January 2007.

McCain, and the lobbyists who run his campaign, has raked in money from the banks and mortgage lenders whose irresponsibility helped create the crisis. So he can’t point the finger at them—he needs the campaign cash. Meanwhile, although he hasn’t shown up in the Senate too often to vote in recent months, in 2005 he [4] voted against a bill to discourage predatory lending.

(Check out [5] Think Progress on McCain’s record of denying assistance to home owners.)

Union members, who understand what McCain stands for, aren’t letting him get away with it. While McCain and his wealthy supporters held a $1,000-a-plate private fundraiser [6] yesterday in La Jolla, more than 50 union members from the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council gathered outside to educate people about McCain’s record. The California events follow similar actions in [7] Pennsylvania, [8] New Hampshire and [9] Missouri, all part of the AFL-CIO’s nationwide [10] McCain Revealed campaign to get the word out about McCain’s anti-worker record.

McCain’s failure to offer real solutions to the housing crisis is part of his anti-worker votes on [11] health care, [12] trade, [13] taxes and more.

As writer [14] Ed Kilgore notes, “McCainonomics” is equivalent to “You’re on your own.”

…the GOP candidate thinks those suffering from the housing crisis had it coming. Yeah, that’s right: after laying out McCain’s commitment to corporate tax cuts and a tax-credit based initiative to encourage individual health insurance, he goes on at some length excoriating those who would take action on the housing crisis, and setting forth strict conditions for participation in existing housing relief programs. Market forces will apparently take care of the problem one way or another.

It may take a while, but Americans troubled by the economy and the housing crisis will eventually get the message that John McCain’s idea of economic leadership is pretty much limited to high-end and corporate tax cuts, free trade agreements, an attack on appropriations earmarks, and whatever he means (beyond his support for Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme) by “entitlement reform.”

California’s union members will keep up the effort to confront McCain on economic issues. They rallied today outside a McCain event in Newport Beach and will gather tomorrow at McCain fundraisers in Los Angeles, Pebble Beach and San Francisco.
_____________________________________
Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) Political Contributions Committee, [15] www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm?source=mccainrevealed
[2] crisis of foreclosures: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/11/time-to-save-families-and-stop-foreclosures/
[3] John McCain: http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm
[4] voted against: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00022
[5] Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/03/25/mccain-housing-speech/
[6] yesterday: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/politics/15692894/detail.html
[7] Pennsylvania: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/17/pennsylvania-union-members-mccain-has-supported-every-bad-trade-deal/
[8] New Hampshire: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/12/mccain-o-nomics-warmed-over-bush/
[9] Missouri: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/11/mortgage-crisis-fuels-missouri-working-families-at-mccain-event/
[10] McCain Revealed: http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm
[11] health care: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/21/mccains-health-care-plan-higher-taxes-less-coverage/
[12] trade: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/17/pennsylvania-union-members-mccain-has-supported-every-bad-trade-deal/
[13] taxes: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/tax_agenda.html
[14] Ed Kilgore: http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2008/03/mccainomics_youre_on_your_own.php
[15] www.aflcio.org: http://www.aflcio.org/

McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout

Robalini's Note: Here is what is important to note in this article:

McCain's proposed total relief offer so far: $0
Obama's proposed relief offer: $10 billion
Hillary's proposed relief offer (described as"aggressive federal intervention"): $30 billion
Amount Fed has proposed to prop up banks (so far): $400 billion

(Presumably, the $400 billion is okay by McCain, as it would be used for "preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.”)

So the most "left-wing" proposal of the three remaining candidates for prez pays the bankers over the working and middle class 13 1/3 to one. And Obama has the spread 40 to one.

There's a term for this: class warfare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/politics/25cnd-mccain.html

March 25, 2008
McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout
By JOHN SULLIVAN

Drawing a sharp distinction with the Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, warned Tuesday against hasty government action to solve the mortgage crisis, saying “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

In an address focusing on domestic issues following his visit to the Middle East, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, did not propose any government bailout.

“Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy,” Mr. McCain said, speaking before a business group in Santa Ana, Calif.

His comments came a day after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called for aggressive federal intervention to help troubled homeowners, including directing $30 billion to states to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure. Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, has similarly called for active federal intervention, including a $10 billion relief package to prevent foreclosures.

As the mortgage crisis has rippled through the economy, it has thrust itself to the forefront of the presidential race. But Mr. McCain’s remarks on Tuesday represented a stark tonal shift from the increasing calls for helping homeowners, as he faulted not only borrowers who engaged in risky lending, but suggested that some homeowners engaged in dangerous financial practices.

“Some Americans bought homes they couldn’t afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates,” he said.

Mr. McCain argued that even during the ongoing crisis, the vast majority of mortgage holders continued to make their payments.

“Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million homeowners are doing what is necessary — working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets to make their payments on time,” he said. “That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?”

Mr. McCain split the blame between the rising housing bubble and the use of confusing and complex financial arrangements, which he said were badly understood even by financial managers. He said initial losses, coupled with the lack of transparency, has caused a “crisis of confidence in the markets.”

“Capital markets work best when there is both accountability and transparency,” he said. “In the case of our current crisis, both were lacking.”

Any government assistance must be accompanied by measures to ensure the problems are not repeated, Mr. McCain said. He said homeowners and lenders must be clear from the outset about the terms and obligations of any mortgage.

“We must have greater transparency in the lending process so that every borrower knows exactly what he is agreeing to and where every lender is required to meet the highest standards of ethical behavior,” he said.

Mr. McCain did not rule out a bailout, instead saying any such aid should be temporary and “no assistance should be given to speculators.”

“Any assistance for borrowers should be focused solely on homeowners, not people who bought houses for speculative purposes, to rent or as second homes,” he said.

Democrats criticized Mr. McCain’s approach, arguing that it would not do enough to address the financial problems facing Americans.

“Instead of offering a concrete plan to address the crisis at all levels, McCain promised to take the same hands off approach that President Bush used to lead us into this crisis,” Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman, said in a statement. In his speech, Mr. McCain did not provide specifics about any immediate plans to deal with the crisis, saying he was “prepared to examine new proposals and evaluate them based on these principals.”

He also called for a meeting of the nation’s top mortgage lenders, asking them to pledge support for customers and homeowners.

“Working together, they should pledge to provide maximum support and help to their cash-strapped but credit-worthy customers,” he said. “They should pledge to do everything possible to keep families in their homes and businesses growing.”

That Anti-American Reverend Wright

"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war.... And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place."

Okay, clearly here with this quote, Reverend Wright has established that he hates America and everything it stands for.

Umm... Except that wasn't said by Reverend Wright. That was Martin Luther King...

E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p04s01-woeu.html

from the March 27, 2008 edition
E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet
The European Union meets Friday to discuss ties to China after the unrest in Tibet.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

If the government of China hopes the world will go for its line on Tibet and the nefarious Dalai Lama and his purported "clique" – Europe isn't buying it.

The response to the Tibetan crisis in London, Paris, and Berlin, rather, is a call for "dialogue" between China and the exiled Tibetan leader, and"restraint" by Beijing.

A boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games is being discussed as a leverage point in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and France – to be determined by how China handles the frustrations of its Tibetan minority.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has "left open the option" of boycotting the ceremony, Germany has blocked talks with China on economic development, and Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that Tibet demonstrations will be authorized as the Olympic torch is carried through London on April 6.

Prince Charles, a friend of the Dalai Lama, had already decided in January not to attend the opening ceremony, he said, in a letter to a human rights group.

Europeans have long had a fascination with and sympathy for the Himalayan region and its Buddhist spiritual traditions – and the Dalai Lama is a frequent visitor to the Continent.

This Friday, Europe's foreign ministers meet in Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to adopt a common position on relations with Beijing and "the suffering of Tibet," as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner describes it.

The question in Slovenia is how to balance appreciation for the progress China has made with concern about the heavy handed tactics of an unelected government that has long eschewed any dialogue with those disagreeing with it. Most European states also have significant business interests in China.

While no European Union state is preparing to boycott the 2008 Games – "Let's not be more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama," who did not advocate boycott, says Mr. Kouchner – there is a general revulsion at the scenes out of Tibet, and at what is seen as an overheated Chinese propaganda effort to demonize the Dalai Lama and hold him responsible for violence.

In a clear rebuke to the Chinese position on Dalai Lama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to meet the spiritual leader in May, and the Dalai Lama was invited to speak at a conference in Nantes, France, during the games in August.

As the British Foreign Office issued a human rights report critical of China this week, Mr. Miliband said, "There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities."

On May 22, the Dalai Lama will give a speech at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On Wednesday Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières in Paris, the journalistic watchdog group, stated that Mr. Sarkozy should boycott the opening if China does not release 30 political prisoners who are on the lists of nearly every human rights group, and if foreign correspondents are continued to be banned from working in Tibet.

Mr. Menard's group raced to unfurl a Tibetan flag at the opening ceremony of the games in Athens this week while a Chinese official was speaking – an act widely criticized in the journalistic community, which has depended on RSF to report on press violations.

Prior to the China-Tibet dissatisfaction in Europe, many protest groups here demanded that China stop its support of the Sudanese government, widely regarded as a main culprit in the starvation and chaos in Darfur. The phrase "Genocide Olympics" has been used in Europe among human rights groups to describe the twinning of the Games with China's policy toward Sudan.

'G.I. Joe' Live Action Movie Details Revealed

http://omg.yahoo.com/g-i-joe-live-action-movie-details-revealed/news/7676

'G.I. Joe' Live Action Movie Details Revealed
March 24, 2008
celebs: Channing Tatum Dennis Quaid Sienna Miller
By Jesse Spero

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Hot on the heels of the success of "Transformers," Paramount is bringing yet another 1980's toy to the big screen, but instead of otherworldly shape-shifting robots, get ready for a real American hero!

"G.I Joe" is currently in production and set for a summer 2009 release, but fans are already getting a sneak peak at some of the action.

Paramount has released two photos of the fan-favorite character Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park, of Darth Maul "Star Wars" fame. Snake Eyes holds an impressive title according to "G.I. Joe" director Stephen Sommers.

"He's the world's greatest ninja, but he's also next-generation. He's not afraid to use a sword one second, and a split-second later he's pulling out his Glock," Sommers told USA Today. "His chief nemesis is arguably the world's other great ninja, Storm Shadow. The two grew up together, were blood brothers and now are mortal enemies."

Access Hollywood caught up with Channing Tatum while promoting the Iraq war drama "Stop-Loss." Channing, who plays G.I. Joe's leader, Duke, admitted he was apprehensive about stepping into another war film, but says "G.I. Joe" is not your typical combat filled movie.

"'G.I. Joe' is now a war film," Channing told Access. "I was afraid it was going to be a real war film, and actually it's nothing like that-- it's 'X-Men' with 'Mission Impossible.'"

As for "G.I. Joe" sticking with its comic book and cartoon roots, Channing couldn't agree more, saying, it's a comic book "to the tenth degree."

Channing's co-stars, Dennis Quaid and Sienna Miller, are also pumped to dive into this summer blockbuster.

"'G.I. Joe" goes back to when I was a kid, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to be a part of this," Dennis Quaid, who will play Commander Hawk, told Access. "It's a huge popcorn action movie, and a little bit of a cartoon in a sense. The way it's going to be done… it's going to be really exciting."

Access wasn't only talking to the good guys. Sienna Miller, who will portray the diabolical lady of Cobra, The Baroness, revealed the lengths she's going to in order to nail her iconic character.

"[The film] requires a lot of physical training," Sienna told Access. "I have a black wig, guns, and leather… it's all very fantastic!"

Sienna admitted to Access that getting the part of the Baroness down took hard work, even a little homework.

"I've got a rubber gun at home that looks so real. I'm learning how to spin it. I've had it in my car while driving, and I'm terrified I might be pulled over because it looks like a proper gun," Sienna added.

Rounding out the all-American heroes cast is Rachel Nichols from "Alias," playing Scarlett (cross-bow included), Marlon Wayans as paratrooper Ripcord, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje from "Lost," as Heavy Duty, and Said Taghmaoui of "Vantage Point" fame as Breaker.

On the Cobra side of the fight, Byung-Hun Lee will play Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes ninja nemesis, Arnold Vosloo from "The Mummy" will play the chameleon-like Zartan, Christopher Eccleston will play the evil chromed-domed Destro, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt from "Stop-Loss" has been cast as the leader of the evil Corba army, Cobra Commander.

The film is reportedly an origins story. It could explain why Destro has a chromed head and why Snake Eyes doesn't speak, among other outlandish details of "G.I. Joe" that the cartoon never explained.

"For people who know nothing about it, it'll make sense," Sommers told USA Today. "And to people who love this stuff, it'll show where they all came from."

As for the famous "G.I. Joe" catch phrase --"Now I know, and knowing is half the battle" - which was used in the PSA's that followed the 1980's cartoons, popping up in the 2009 film, a rep from Paramount told Access, "You'll have to wait and see!"

'South Park' site offers every episode

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117982893.html

Tue., Mar. 25, 2008
'South Park' site offers every episode
Parker, Stone give fans a free look
By SAM THIELMAN

After years of encouraging their fans to share "South Park," creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have set up a viable alternative to the mass YouTube-based distribution of popular clips from the hit show: They're just going to give the whole thing away on SouthParkStudios.com.

"We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time, so we gave ourselves a legal alternative," the duo quipped in a statement.

The site offers every "South Park" episode including the current one, which stays live for a week after its airdate and then goes dark for the rest of the month, at which point it is added to the site's back catalog.

The streaming episodes run without ad breaks, but a spokeswoman for Comedy Central said the full episodes would eventually include advertising. SouthParkStudios.com also hosts embeddable clips. Launch sponsors for the venture are Toyota and Virgin.

It's a good time for Parker and Stone to distance themselves from the YouTube community given Comedy Central parent Viacom's protracted lawsuit against the Web-based video distrib, which features clips from the show.

Comedy Central said the site has already generated more than 3 million page visitors and more than 1 million streams of full episodes since it debuted with no fanfare last week.

Links posted in this story: Comedy Central, Matt Stone, Trey Parker

D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/ap_on_re_us/db_cooper

D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
3-26-8

The FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found buried by children in southwest Washington to determine whether it might have been used by famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, the agency said Tuesday.

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors.

The children had seen recent media coverage of the case — the FBI launched a publicity campaign last fall, hoping to generate tips to solve the 36-year-old mystery — and they urged their dad to call the agency.

"When we went to the public, the whole idea was that the public is going to bring the answers to us," Carr said. "This is exactly what we were hoping for."

A man identifying himself as Dan Cooper — later mistakenly but enduringly identified as D.B. Cooper — hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle in November 1971, claiming he had a bomb.

When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. He apparently parachuted from the plane's back stairs somewhere near the Oregon border.

Agents doubt he survived because conditions were poor and the terrain was rough, but few signs of his fate have been found.

Carr spoke with the children's father, whom he declined to identify, early this month and learned the chute was white, the same color as Cooper's.

And when Carr overlaid the family's address onto a map investigators made in the early days of the investigation, he learned another encouraging fact: They lived right in Cooper's most probable landing zone, between Green and Bald mountains.

Carr hopped in his car and drove down. He dug around the property for about 45 minutes, unsuccessfully looking for a harness or other remains from the parachute, but the children weren't home, and the father wasn't sure exactly where they found it.

There are no obvious markings on the parachute to indicate whether it's the type Cooper used, a Navy Backpack 6 with a 26-foot canopy, Carr said. He's hoping a member of the public who has expertise in the parachutes will come forward and confirm whether it's the right kind before the FBI bothers to excavate the property. Barring that, the agency could turn to scientific analysis of the fabric.

"We've got to be pretty darn sure we're not wasting time and money here," he said.

If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery — where he apparently landed — but it will raise another, Carr said.

In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver. Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.

"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."

WAR MADE EASY

WAR MADE EASY: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
Disinfo.com

In the critically-acclaimed and highly compelling film, WAR MADE EASY, a disturbing 50-year pattern of government deception is uncovered. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, and based on the book by nationally-renowned media columnist Norman Solomon, this documentary is a scathing indictment of five decades of U.S. media coverage of American-led military interventions, and the pro-war spoon-feeding by both journalists and politicans to the American public. Marking the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, this film hailed by critics — called “a superb form of visual investigation” by noted author Howard Zinn — is more timely than ever for its release on DVD from The Disinformation Company.

How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

Giving special attention to parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, WAR MADE EASY sets government spin and media collusion from the present, alongside virtually identical patterns from the past, guided by Solomon’s meticulous research and tough-minded analysis. Rare footage of political leaders and journalists from the past includes Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. According to Solomon, whose work has been praised by The Los Angeles Times as “brutally persuasive,” the positive attention the film has received may indicate a new willingness to counter years of pro-war media spin and government deception. “These deep patterns of ongoing ‘perception management’ must be demystified and decoded if we're going to move beyond the horrors of perpetual war,” he said. “The way War Made Easy is being embraced could be an important step in that direction.”

An Official Selection of 2007’s International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and the 2007 Montreal and Vancouver International Film Festivals, WAR MADE EASY, directed by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp, is an invaluable introduction to war propaganda and public relations that transcends partisan politics, and raises serious questions about the role of journalism and political communication in our society.

Available for interview: Norman Solomon

Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, as well as the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts. He has been writing the weekly “Media Beat” column since 1992. The book on which the film was based, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, was published in 2005 and The Los Angeles Times called it “a must-read for those who would like greater context with their bitter morning coffee, or to arm themselves for the debates about Iraq that are still to come.” His latest book is Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State (October 2007).

About The Disinformation Company

The Disinformation Company Ltd is active in documentary production, book publishing and home entertainment. It is most widely recognized for its publishing and distribution efforts on subjects not usually covered by the traditional media. Recent DVD exclusives from The Disinformation Company include the best-selling Robert Greenwald documentaries Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, and Unconstitutional: The War on our Civil Liberties, as well as Robert Baer’s The Cult of the Suicide Bomber, and Greg Palast’s Bush Family Fortunes.

Jack Kirby, Conspiracy Theorist

When Steamshovel Press editor Kenn Thomas speaks on “JFK to UFO” at RetroCon, his prefatory remarks will concern “Jack Kirby, Conspiracy Theorist”. Thomas looks at the famous comic book artist’s interest in parapolitics as well as the possibilities that Kirby had back channel sources within the world of covert intelligence. Richard Hoagland speculated that the secret space program gave Kirby information leading to the artist’s 1958 comic book story, “The Face On Mars”--an anomaly that did not become part of the conspiracy lexicon until the Viking probe’s Cydonia photographs of 1976. Thomas examines the history of this as well as Kirby’s prescient forecasts of American involvement in World War II and Vietnam; the use of conspiracy themes in his 1970s comics; and his documented involvement with a CIA rescue operation during the 1980 Iranian crisis. How does central intelligence shape our view of conspiracies in the popular culture? Find out at RetroCon, at the Integratron in Landers, CA, April 26 and 27.

“Not your typical UFO convention.”

Retroufo.com
Steamshovelpress.com






Ruby shoots Oswald; as envisioned by Jack Kirby; and as envisioned by Chauncey Holt, suspected mystery tramp at the grassy knoll.

GOD DAMN AMERICA

GOD DAMN AMERICA – ESPECIALLY PENNSYLVANIA
By Greg Palast
Sunday, March 23, 2008, Forest City, PA ]

The kids were snoozing so I drove along the back roads skirting the Lackawanna River on a dawn hunt for black coffee and a newspaper.

I think even Norman Rockwell would have found this place too sticky sweet, too postcard: the weathered barns, the fallow fields perfectly snow-frosted; red, white and blue flags already up on the clapboard farmhouses and the white-washed church in the valley already full for Easter prayers.

At a gas station, I scored the paper and coffee, spilled some on the front page – the closest thing I’ve got to a religious ritual – then parked in front of a row of insanely pretty salt-box houses shining like mad teeth on the river bank.

One was missing a pick-up in the driveway; its screen door was left half-open, and there was a letter taped to the window. The Sheriff’s Notice of eviction. Another foreclosure.

God damn America.

I know that’s what Obama’s spiritual guide would say.

But why? It seems likes He’s already done a pretty good job of damning these United States.

And He seems to have really taken it out on this corner of Pennsylvania.

The gargantuan Bethlehem steel works have dwindled to a few robot-operated mills controlled from Mumbai, India. The only remainders of nearby Carbondale’s mining industry are in display cases at the ageing Coal Inn. But you could still get out by selling your home to ski tourists from New York – until this year when mortgage markets turned cancerous.

That leaves Forest City’s one industry, lumbering – which we can kiss goodbye since a recent ruling by the NAFTA board which allows the import of cheap Canadian wood.

Some local kid has made the paper having been thrown, helmet first, into the volcano called Iraq. The Scranton Times-Tribune, two pages after the photo of a priest blessing a bowl of who knows what, noted that three soldiers killed in yesterday’s bombing are, “pushing the death toll in the five-year conflict to nearly 4,000” – which is true if you don’t count Iraqi dead. But Someone must be counting them. (From way up in heaven, I wonder if we look like a nation of Christians – or an empire of Romans.)

Phil Ochs, before he killed himself, wrote,

“This is a land full of power and glory,
Beauty that words cannot recall.
But her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom.
Her glory shall rest on us all.”

Whatever.

It’s a difficult place to be an atheist, in this America, surfeited as it is on every vista with signs of His overwhelming grace and His exasperated wrath. It’s as if the Lord Himself is just as confused and frustrated and disappointed as the rest of us by blessings so abused.

There’s one consolation. He has apparently granted Pennsylvanians the privilege, come April 22, of choosing which Democrat will lose in November.

Which may not mean much to Sandy Ryder on whom the spirit of Easter has landed like a ton of bricks. Sandy, says the flyer tacked up at the Bingham diner, was, “Recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.” She’s a “Single mother of two – Tony and Brandon – and Grandmother of one – Jason.”

And there they were in a photocopied portrait, the earnest elder son and little Jason to her right, the young slacker (Tony? Brandon?) slouched to her left. The town’s hawking a benefit for Sandy, $10 at the door, “including Food and Beverage” and a “Chinese auction.”

(I’ll bet Al Qaeda could pick up some recruits here – if Osama would offer health insurance.)

Whatever. This is, after all, Holy Week, which marks the anniversary of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the day the giant oil corporation soaked 1,200 miles of Alaska’s coast with crude sludge. March 24 marks 19 years since the grounding and 19 years since Exxon’s promise to compensate the ruined fishermen. You should watch the 19-year-old video-tape of Exxon’s man in Alaska. I especially like the part where he tells the fishermen, “You have had some good luck – and you don’t realize it."

I know some of the fishermen on the TV footage, like the Anderson family, Eyak Natives. I can tell you, the Eyak don’t feel so lucky, still waiting for the Supreme Court to act on Exxon’s latest stall on payment. They’ve seen plenty of Sheriff’s Notices these past 19 years.

So Happy Easter.

George Bush tells us he’s, “feeling just fine.” And we should be glad for him, I suppose.

Bush ends his most belligerent speeches by saying, “God bless America.”

So, why hasn’t He?

Maybe you can tell us, Mr. President: Why hasn’t He?
***************
Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times best-selling books Armed Madhouse and Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Read his reports at www.GregPalast.com

Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html

March 22, 2008
Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out
By IAN URBINA

PHILADELPHIA — It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.

Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.

But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.

Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online.

In Tempe, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity.

“All these cities had this hype hangover late last year when EarthLink announced its intentions to pull out,” said Craig Settles, an independent wireless consultant and author of “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless” (Hudson Publishing, 2006). “Now that they’re all sobered up, they’re trying to figure out if it’s still possible to capture the dream of providing affordable and high-speed access to all residents.”

EarthLink announced on Feb. 7 that “the operations of the municipal Wi-Fi assets were no longer consistent with the company’s strategic direction.” Philadelphia officials say they are not sure when or if the promised network will now be completed.

For Cesar DeLaRosa, 15, however, the concern is more specific. He said he was worried about his science project on global warming.

“If we don’t have Internet, that means I’ve got to take the bus to the public library after dark, and around here, that’s not always real safe,” Cesar said, seated in front of his family’s new computer in a gritty section of Hunting Park in North Philadelphia. His family is among the 1,000 or so low-income households that now have free or discounted Wi-Fi access through the city’s project, and many of them worry about losing access that they cannot otherwise afford.

Philadelphia officials say service will not be disconnected.

“We expect EarthLink to live up to its contract,” said Terry Phillis, the city’s chief information officer.

But when City Council leaders here held a hearing in December to question EarthLink about how it intended to keep service running and complete the planned network, the company failed to show up.

Officials in Chicago, Houston, Miami and San Francisco find themselves in a similar predicament with EarthLink and other service providers, and have all temporarily tabled their projects.

Part of the problem was in the business model established in Philadelphia and mimicked in so many other cities, Mr. Settles said.

In Philadelphia, the agreement was that the city would provide free access to city utility poles for the mounting of routers; in return the Internet service provider would agree to build the infrastructure for 23 free hotspots and to provide inexpensive citywide residential service, including 25,000 special accounts that were even cheaper for lower-income households.

But soon it became clear that dependable reception required more routers than initially predicted, which drastically raised the cost of building the networks. Marketing was also slow to begin, so paid subscribers did not sign up in the numbers that providers initially hoped, Mr. Phillis said.

Prices for Internet service on the broader market also began dropping to a level that, while above what many poor people could afford, was below what municipal Wi-Fi providers were offering, so the companies had to lower their rates even further, making investment in infrastructure even more risky, he said.

EarthLink, which has seen a recent decline in profits and subscribers, lost its chief executive, Garry Betty, to cancer in January 2007, and with him went one of the nation’s most vocal advocates of municipal Wi-Fi. Mr. Betty’s successor, Rolla P. Huff, announced plans to cut costs and move the company in a new direction by laying off about 900 workers, about half the company’s work force, and withdrawing from municipal wireless projects.

Chris Marshall, an EarthLink spokesman who declined to be interviewed, said in an e-mail statement, “We concluded that our Municipal Wi-Fi operation is not consistent with our strategic direction and we’ve committed to a plan to sell the Muni Wi-Fi assets.”

For San Francisco residents, EarthLink’s change of plans was an especially big letdown. Unlike most other cities where municipal wireless was going to be offered in free hotspots and at a reduced price for residential service, San Francisco planned to offer citywide wireless free in a three-way deal with EarthLink, which was to build the grid, and Google, which would have paid to advertise through the network.

“It was a huge disappointment for us,” Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco said about EarthLink’s shift in course, “and, with all due respect, it doesn’t seem like a smart way to run a business to work with a city for two years over a major plan and then suddenly one day to call and say you are pulling out.”

Mr. Newsom said that rather than select a single Internet provider to blanket the city, he might team up with multiple nonprofits and companies, and set up smaller free Wi-Fi areas, especially in poor neighborhoods.

Smaller cities, too, have run into problems with municipal wireless efforts.

Tempe, for instance, was one of the first midsize cities in the nation to go live in 2006 with its municipal wireless network, after erecting about 900 routers on utility poles and contracting with Gobility, a Texas-based provider, for residential service at about $20 per month. In December, the company suddenly pulled service after failing to get enough subscribers.

“The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects,” said Sascha Meinrath, technology analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free citywide Wi-Fi is already available.

He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access.

Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than 70 percent of the households in the city.

But projects covering larger cities have proved far more difficult to sustain financially, and much of the attention has turned now to Minneapolis, which is rolling out a network based on a new business model that many market analysts believe will avoid the financial risks that EarthLink encountered in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

In Minneapolis, the Internet service provider agreed to build the network as long as the city committed to becoming an “anchor tenant” by subscribing for a minimum number of city workers, like building inspectors, meter readers, police officers and firefighters.

This type of plan is more viable, according to market analysts and city officials, because the companies paying to mount the routers and run the service are guaranteed a base number of subscribers to cover the cost of their investment.

Some companies have also begun offering technological alternatives that may help expand wireless access.

Meraki, a wireless networking company based in Mountain View, Calif., has jumped into the void in San Francisco with a program it calls “Free the Net.” The company sells low-cost equipment that can be placed in a person’s home to broadcast a wireless signal. The company also sells inexpensive repeaters that can be placed on rooftops or outside walls to spread the original customer’s signal farther. The combination of the two types of equipment creates a mesh of free wireless in neighborhoods. The company says it has almost 70,000 users throughout San Francisco.

Back in Philadelphia, Cesar’s older sister, Tomasa DeLaRosa, said she had faith that city officials would find a way to finish the network and keep her Internet service going.

“Our whole house is totally different now,” said Ms. DeLaRosa, 19, who had never had Internet access at home until last December because she could not afford it.

After signing up for a job training program and completing its course work, Ms. DeLaRosa received a free laptop, training and a year’s worth of free wireless service from Esparanza, a community group.

Greg Goldman, chief executive of Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that was set up as part of the city’s deal with EarthLink, said that about $20 million had already been spent on the network, and only about $4 million more would be needed to cover the rest of the city.

Mr. Goldman’s organization is responsible for providing bundles that include a free laptop, Internet access, training and technical support to organizations like Esparanza so they can use them as incentives for their low-income clients like Ms. DeLaRosa to complete job training and other programs.

“For us and a lot of people in this neighborhood,” Ms. DeLaRosa said, “the Internet is like a path out of here.”

The National Enquirer story on Stone

Thanks to DemocraticUnderground.com for the following Image of The National Enquirer story on Roger Stone (with some tasty photos of his wife Nikki.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/images/homepage/stone_enquirer_inside.gif

Republican sex freak moralistic about Spitzer

http://blogs.citypages.com/gop/2008/03/orgiastic_repub.php

Orgiastic Republican sex freak waxes moralistic about Spitzer
Filed under: National Republicans

Eliot Spitzer used a prostitution ring to cheat on his wife. Bad, bad Spitzer! You, the prince of accountability! It's high time the party of morals rebuked you, using an unimpeachably objective media outlet!

But because that party and that media outlet don't exist, we'll have to settle for Republican group sex aficionado Roger Stone and Fox News.

We've written about the GOP operative Roger Stone before, and how the charmingly amoral hedonist rolls from S&M sex party to swinger gathering in between calling Hillary Clinton vulgar names. To his credit (?), Stone doesn't seem to actually believe any of his own horseshit, but does parlay it into presumably well-paying media gigs like this one on Fox:

Yes, that's the resigned-in-disgrace Dole aide whose forays into leather sex parties forced his ouster talking about how a self-righteous Spitzer got what he deserved. I know you'll be just as shocked as I am to learn that a Google News search for Stone's name plus the name of "family values" Republican David Vitter (who also was nailed in a prostitution scandal) turns up exactly zero hits.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Self-righteous politicians are loathsome, hypocritical self-righteous politicians are vile, and Spitzer should be ashamed of himself. But if you're expecting Republican operatives like Stone to condemn Vitter, or Larry Craig, or whoever the perv du jour is, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

The point is this: an attack news outlet finding someone with a swift, polished tongue to do what he does best with it. Or possibly second-best, depending upon who you ask.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at March 10, 2008

Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades

http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/465701.html

Fri, Mar. 21, 2008
Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades
BY AMY DRISCOLL

Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: the man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks ``during the sex act.''

Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.

''Mr. Stone respectfully declines to meet with you at this time,'' the letter states, before going on to offer ''certain information'' about Spitzer.

''The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer,'' the letter said.

''It is also my client's understanding from the same source that Governor Spitzer did not remove his mid-calf length black socks during the sex act. Perhaps you can use this detail to corroborate Mr. Stone's information,'' the letter said, signed by attorney Paul Rolf Jensen of Costa Mesa, Calif.

The letter also notes that while Stone believes the information is true, he ''cannot swear to its accuracy'' because it is second-hand.

James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI's New York office, would not say whether the bureau had received the letter. A spokeswoman for Spitzer also had no comment.

The letter was written several months after allegations were leveled at Stone that he had left a threatening phone message at the office of Bernard Spitzer, the ex-governor's father, regarding ''phony'' campaign loans involving his son's unsuccessful 1994 bid for attorney general. Stone denied making the call but resigned as a consultant for state Senate Republicans in Albany.

Spitzer, the crusading attorney general who became governor, resigned March 12 amid allegations he was a client of a high-paid prostitution ring, the Emperors' Club. Four people have been charged with operating the ring. Spitzer has not been charged. A federal affidavit described a rendezvous between Spitzer and a prostitute known as Kristen, since identified as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13.

One of Stone's lawyers, Fort Lauderdale attorney Robert Buschel, said the letter's release is an attempt to set the record straight about Stone's possible part in the Spitzer drama. Stone confirmed the letter and referred The Miami Herald to his lawyer for comments.

''The conspiracy enthusiasts on the Internet are going wild over Roger Stone's role in the fall of Eliot Spitzer. We felt it was important to lay out for the public exactly what Mr. Stone did tell the government,'' said Buschel, a partner in Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler of Fort Lauderdale.

Stone works as a partner in a separate public affairs and consulting company with the same name -- Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler -- in the same office as the law firm.

''We trust this information was helpful to federal authorities in making their case against Mr. Spitzer,'' Buschel said.

U.S. Defends Tough Tactics on Spitzer

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21justice.html

March 21, 2008
U.S. Defends Tough Tactics on Spitzer
By DAVID JOHNSTON and PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department used some of its most intrusive tactics against Eliot Spitzer, examining his financial records, eavesdropping on his phone calls and tailing him during its criminal investigation of the Emperor’s Club prostitution ring.

The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex.

A review of recent federal cases shows that federal prosecutors go sparingly after owners and operators of prostitution enterprises, and usually only when millions of dollars are involved or there are aggravating circumstances, like human trafficking or child exploitation.

Government lawyers and investigators defend the expenditure of resources on Mr. Spitzer in the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. case as justifiable and necessary since it involved the possibility of criminal wrongdoing by New York’s highest elected official, who had been the state’s top prosecutor.

Bradley D. Simon, a veteran Justice Department trial lawyer who was federal prosecutor in Brooklyn throughout the 1990s, said that although it was rare for the department to use so many resources on the workings of a prostitution ring, the involvement of such a high-level politician must change the equation.

“If they’ve got some evidence of a high-ranking public official involved in violations of federal criminal code, it may not be unreasonable for them to pursue it,” he said. Still, he said, “I don’t think prostitution has been a high priority at the Justice Department.”

The focus on Mr. Spitzer was so intense that the F.B.I. used surveillance teams to follow both him and the prostitute in Washington in February. The surveillance teams had followed him at least once before — when he visited the city in January but did not engage a prostitute, officials said, confirming a report in The Washington Post. Stakeouts and surveillance are labor-intensive and often involve teams of a dozen or more agents and non-agent specialists.

An affidavit filed in the prostitution case did not identify Mr. Spitzer by name, only as Client 9, but it provided far more detail, some of it unusually explicit, about Client 9’s encounter with the prostitute than about any of the nine other clients identified by number in the document.

Government officials, including several who have been briefed on details of the case but declined to speak on the record because they were not authorized to discuss a continuing inquiry, said there was no alternative but to look into Mr. Spitzer’s activities once investigators began examining reports of suspicious transactions that banks filed with the Treasury Department. Those reports suggested to investigators that Mr. Spitzer might have been trying to keep anyone from noticing transfers of his own funds. That is the kind of activity that can bring an investigation of the possibility of corruption.

The reports led prosecutors and investigators to what some describe as a kind of crossroads. While they do not routinely investigate allegations concerning public officials who pay for sex, the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation regard public corruption as a high priority and routinely investigate allegations of even low-level wrongdoing.

“If the government gets a Suspicious Activity Report about a high-ranking public official, they would be negligent not to pursue it, if only to determine whether there was bribery or extortion involved,” said Robert D. Luskin, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. Mr. Luskin said that as the case proceeds, the more difficult questions could well involve how the information about Mr. Spitzer became public and whether the government “will prosecute Spitzer if it doesn’t prosecute others in the same situation.”

The Treasury reports led federal investigators to the Emperor’s Club and Mr. Spitzer’s involvement with prostitutes, and later to the 47-page affidavit filed with the complaint that referred to him as Client 9.

The officials said that once they learned that such a prominent figure was involved in soliciting prostitutes, and had seemed to be arranging sex in violation of the statute that prohibits travel across state lines to engage in sex, they wanted to follow the evidence.

Moreover, several asserted that had they dropped the matter or given Mr. Spitzer’s conduct only cursory examination, they almost certainly would have been accused of a cover-up for failing to aggressively investigate possible misconduct by a public official.

In defending their handling of the case, officials said that in the end, investigators chose to monitor his conduct but made no effort to set up a sting, or an arranged situation in which Mr. Spitzer might implicate himself. They did not surreptitiously record his activities inside the hotel or seek to obtain DNA evidence. It was not necessary, as Mr. Spitzer proved to be easy prey, according to the affidavit, which was signed by an F.B.I. agent.

It indicated that on Feb. 13 federal agents staked out his hotel in Washington, and it contained recorded conversations that amply demonstrated that he willingly had a sexual encounter with a prostitute. Afterward she was recorded on a wiretap telling an Emperor’s Club employee: “I don’t think he’s difficult. I mean it’s kind of like, whatever.”

On March 10, when Mr. Spitzer was first identified by name by The New York Times on its Web site, the affidavit was widely used by news organizations to describe graphic details about his conduct.

Several current and former federal prosecutors and prominent defense lawyers who reviewed the document said the inclusion of such salacious details about Mr. Spitzer’s encounter with the prostitute went far beyond what was necessary to provide probable cause for the arrests and for searches, the purpose of the affidavit.

The government has not accused Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, of any wrongdoing, although last week the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Michael J. Garcia, issued a statement saying there had been no deal with Mr. Spitzer’s lawyers, suggesting that a prosecution of some kind might still be a possibility. Some officials have cautioned against drawing conclusions about the case, since it is still under way while investigators try to determine whether Mr. Spitzer misused public or campaign funds.

At the Justice Department in Washington, senior political appointees have said they had little involvement in the case, saying that it was supervised by Mr. Garcia and directly managed by Boyd M. Johnson III, head of the public corruption unit in the Manhattan United States attorney’s office.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, was not told about the case until shortly before March 5, when the complaint was filed against four of the prostitution ring’s employees.

Mr. Simon said it was unusual for the department to bring criminal charges in a prostitution case in which there was no allegation of the exploitation of children, human trafficking or some far more serious crime.

He said that in his eight years in the Brooklyn office in the 1990s, he could not recall a single major criminal case that centered on prostitution charges. “There were a lot of serious crimes — organized crime, narcotics cases, major financial crime investigations,” he said in an interview. “Prostitution was not a high priority.”

Law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. has about 450 active prostitution cases under investigation, almost all involving enterprises and some using techniques like wiretapping. In addition, since 2005, the F.B.I. has led an initiative known as Innocence Lost, which investigates prostitution involving underage women.

Justice Department officials insist that it has a strong record of breaking up large prostitution rings around the country, but many of the cases they cite involve case brought several years ago, especially before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks; after that, the department vowed to focus its attention on national security threats.

And for years, they acknowledge, the department has rarely, if ever, prosecuted or even identified the clients of a prostitution ring.

The Fab Four wives' club

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music-gigs/features/article3541328.ece

Hard day's wife: The Fab Four wives' club
Saturday 22, March 2008

It's not just Heather Mills who has had a rocky relationship with the British public. We've struggled to accept most of the Beatles' other halves

Cynthia

The Beatles' management must have known from the start that the Fab Four's fans would not take kindly to seeing their idols domesticated. Why else would Brian Epstein have tried to keep John Lennon's first marriage – and the existence of his son, Julian – a secret as Beatlemania erupted in 1963?

Lennon met Cynthia Powell at Liverpool College of Art, where they were both students in the late 1950s. Their relationship began before The Quarrymen had even changed their name to The Beatles, but by the time Cynthia fell pregnant in 1962, the band were on the cusp of releasing their first album, Please Please Me.

The couple married, against the wishes of Lennon's aunt and guardian, Mimi; Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, was best man.

John finally allowed Cynthia to be photographed with him on the band's first US tour in 1964, but he later left his young family at home for long periods while the Beatles were touring. Cynthia and Julian are now seen as victims of Lennon's callous disregard, subject to the volatile Beatle's verbal (and occasionally physical) abuse, his many infidelities and the ill-effects of his drug use. The marriage finally ended when Cynthia arrived home after a holiday to find Yoko Ono installed in their home. In the popular narrative that paints Ono as a scarlet woman, Cynthia fulfils the thankless role of wronged wife.

In 2005, Cynthia published a memoir, John, about the couple's difficult marriage. Julian, now himself a musician, was famously the subject of "Hey Jude", which started life as "Hey Jules". The song was written by Paul McCartney as he travelled to visit Cynthia and her son after her separation from John in 1968.

Yoko

Yoko Ono used to be as much of a public hate figure as Heather Mills is today. Mills was just a toddler 1970, and hence too young to be blamed for breaking up the Beatles. Ono had no such luck.

The Japanese avant-garde artist met Lennon when he attended the opening of a London exhibition of her work in 1966. Lennon described his initial attraction to Ono as based on the positivity of her work.

The couple were married in 1969, and Ono's encroaching influence on Lennon's work (in Beatles songs, and in the more experimental fare that the pair concocted together) bothered his fellow Beatles and his adoring fans. McCartney's relationship with Ono has always been famously fraught. Cynthia Lennon, meanwhile, accused Yoko of trying to keep John and his first son Julian apart. This portrait of a self-centred andunfeeling man-eater has endured in the public imagination, despite Ono and McCartney's recent cautious reconciliation.

Between the Beatles' split and Lennon's death in 1980, Lennon and Ono lived together for all but 18 months between 1973 and 1975, when Lennon had a relationship with personal assistant May Pang. John and Yoko's son, Sean, who also became a musician, was born in 1975. Ono was at Lennon's side when he was shot dead outside their home in 1980.

Linda

Despite a long, high-profile relationship with Jane Asher, McCartney was the last Beatle to tie the knot. When he married Linda Eastman in 1969, the hearts of hopeful groupies the world over were finally broken.

For many years after the Beatles split, Linda generated public ire to rival that directed at Yoko Ono. As a member of Wings, McCartney's post-Beatles outfit, she was accused of contributing weak keyboard-playing and weak vocals. At one Wings gig, Paul apologised that his microphone wasn't working properly. "Give it to your old lady!" pleaded a punter. Her co-writing credits were considered laughable even when the pair received an Oscar nomination for their James Bond theme, "Live and Let Die". Her other talents – she was a professional photographer – were ignored, while her animal rights activism provoked as much snickering as Yoko's peacenik posturing.

In later years, public affection for Linda grew, and she was remembered fondly after her death from breast cancer in 1998. When the public was introduced to McCartney's second wife, Linda achieved popular sainthood by comparison.

Heather

Heather Mills, whatever her faults, has suffered more direct and personal attacks than any unfortunate Beatle wife before her, save perhaps Yoko. Her turbulent relationship with the tabloid press began in 1993, when the News of the World reported the life-changing accident that saw the former model's left leg amputated below the knee.

She became a reasonably popular daytime television guest – until she met McCartney in 1999. The couple married three years later, to cries of "gold digger!" from every quarter. Her relationship with Paul and Linda's four grown-up children was said to be difficult, and soon unsavoury questions about her past began to surface. In 2006, the couple announced their separation, and the voices raised against Mills only became more shrill. Last year, the News of the World unearthed explicit photographs of Mills from her former life as a glamour model, even alleging that she had once worked as a high-class prostitute.

An agitated Mills fought back with a series of public tirades against her treatment by the media. The most recent of these was on the steps of the High Court on Monday, soon after she had tipped a jug of water over her husband's divorce lawyer – after being awarded a £24.3m settlement. Predictably, the media's Heather-baiting has redoubled. Even the judge has joined the haters, calling Mills inconsistent, inaccurate and underhand.

Olivia

Olivia Arias married Harrison in 1978 in a modest ceremony attended only by her parents. The couple met when she worked as a secretary at A&M Records. As a relatively late and unassuming addition to the Beatles' Wives Club, Arias, a Mexican, escaped the public derision directed at some of her fellow members. Along with Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney and Barbara Bach, she became a spokesperson for a children's charity, the Romanian Angel Appeal, in the 1990s, after Harrison's supergroup The Traveling Wilburys released an album in support of the charity.

Dhani Harrison, the couple's 29-year-old son, is also a professional musician. He contributed to the Concert for George at the Royal Albert Hall, which was organised by Arias following her husband's death in 2001, to raise money for George's charity, the Material World Charitable Foundation. Harrison's widow even won a Grammy for the concert video.

Pattie

Unlike other Beatle wives, Pattie Boyd earned public disapproval not by marrying a Beatle, but by divorcing him: in 1974, she controversially left Harrison for his friend Eric Clapton.

By this period, however, wife-swapping had become a popular pastime among many of the rock elite, including the Harrisons. While Boyd had been carrying on with future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood (then guitarist for The Faces), Harrison was on holiday with Wood's wife Krissie. Boyd could count John Lennon and Mick Jagger among her thwarted admirers. When Clapton was first rebuffed by Harrison's wife, he entered a relationship with her younger sister, Paula. Boyd was finally persuaded to leave Harrison after he (George) had another affair, this time with Ringo's wife, Maureen.

Boyd and Harrison met in 1964 on the set of A Hard Day's Night, when Boyd was playing the role of a starstruck schoolgirl.

They were married in 1966. Boyd is credited with introducing The Beatles to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, thus inspiring Harrison and his bandmates' interest in Indian mysticism. She also deserves the thanks of music fans everywhere for inspiring such classic love songs as "Something" (written by Harrison), "Wonderful Tonight" and "Layla" (both written by Clapton).

Maureen

Maureen Cox certainly had her fill of Beatles. Before she met her future husband Ringo, she was Paul's girlfriend. And the popular consensus holds that her affair with George spelt the end of both their marriages.

A regular at the Cavern Club, Maureen was one of the band's original groupies, but when her involvement with Ringo became common knowledge, she faced violent recriminations from other obsessive fans – one left deep scratches on her face after a gig on Valentine's Day 1963. Her relationship with Beatlemaniacs improved after she was seconded to the Beatles fan club, where she would reply personally to the letters sent by the band's countless admirers.

Maureen married Ringo after turning 18 in 1965 and their son, Zak (who now plays drums for The Who and Oasis), was born the same year. In 1968, Starr had Frank Sinatra record a special version of "The Lady is a Tramp" for Maureen, a big Sinatra fan. But when the Beatles split, the Starkey marriage also faltered, and Ringo supposedly demanded a divorce when Pattie Harrison informed him of Maureen's affair with George.

After the couple finally split in 1975, Maureen was devastated and, according to Cynthia Lennon's memoir, rode a motorbike into a brick wall, almost killing herself. When she died of leukemia in 1994, Ringo was at her bedside.

Barbara

Barbara Bach has the double distinction of being both a Beatle Wife and a Bond Girl. Moreover, she is the sole remaining Beatle wife, all the others having been widowed or divorced. In 1977 Bach starred in The Spy Who Loved Me as Anya Amasova, the sultry Russian spy who falls under the spell of Roger Moore's hypnotic eyebrows. In 1981 she met Ringo on the set of Caveman, a best-forgotten slapstick comedy starring Bach, Ringo and Dennis Quaid (and financed by George Harrison). The film's prehistoric plot required Starr to tackle drugs, dinosaurs and the abominable snowman in his pursuit of Bach's hand.

Briefly an international sex symbol, Bach retired from acting in the 1980s and studied to be a psychologist. She set up Sharp – the Self Help Addiction Recovery Programme – with Harrison, Eric Clapton and fellow Beatle wife Pattie Boyd in London in 1992. Among the charity's current patrons is another celebrated divorcee, the Duchess of York.

Obama Has Financial Edge For Primary Endgame

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120612639749954097-AGkUP2FET7GMSvWMQNALp4C9eLA_20080420.html

Obama Has Financial Edge For Primary Endgame
Illinois Senator Reports $32 Million in Cash And Minimal Debts
By MARY JACOBY, T.W. FARNAM and AMY CHOZICK
March 22, 2008; Page A4

Barack Obama had three times as much money in the bank at the end of February as Hillary Clinton, putting the Illinois senator on a stronger financial footing heading into the last round of primaries and caucuses for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sen. Obama reported having $32 million on hand at the end of February that could be spent on the nominating contest, with minimal debt, according to his latest monthly financial report, filed with the Federal Election Commission.

New York Sen. Clinton reported having $11 million on hand at the end of February. Her debts to outside vendors were $3.7 million.

The figures are the most recent data publicly available, and the reports don't show whether the financial picture has changed in the past three weeks. The Clinton campaign seems to have improved its financial management over the last month, by improving fund-raising and, apparently, curbing some of the free-spending habits that angered backers earlier this year. Sen. Clinton's campaign was nearly broke at the end of January, forcing her to take out a $5 million personal loan and leading to replace her campaign manager.

It isn't clear, however, whether Sen. McCain can legally continue to spend money during the primary season. He is tangled in a dispute with the FEC about whether he can withdraw from an earlier pledge to follow spending limits.

Sen. Clinton's supporters say their cash gap with Sen. Obama isn't a big disadvantage for the next contest, April 22 in Pennsylvania, and the nine that follow through early June, because extensive news coverage diminishes Sen. Obama's edge in paid TV ads. "The free media coverage when you're down to two candidates in a limited number of states is intense," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic consultant in Washington who supports Sen. Clinton but isn't working for her campaign. "I don't think the cash-on-hand differential matters all that much."

Still, Sen. Clinton's financial position differs markedly from the image she tried to convey through 2007 as an inevitable front-runner and formidable juggernaut. These days, she casts herself as a scrappy underdog battling the well-oiled Obama money machine.

"They're going to try to outspend us three-to-one on the air," former President Bill Clinton said in a March 18 email to supporters asking for contributions of $5 or more to pay for TV advertising. "We are facing a serious financial disadvantage against the Obama campaign," Sen. Clinton said in an email appeal of her own on Friday.

The money gap stems from Sen. Obama's unprecedented fund-raising strength. His success in tapping individuals through the Internet -- he has gathered more than one million donors -- has forced Sen. Clinton to work harder at cultivating individual small donors of her own. The February reports show she succeeded, drawing 200,000 new donors and nearly doubling her take from the previous month to $34 million. But Sen. Obama boosted his total to $55 million -- a one-month fund-raising record for a presidential primary campaign. In January, Sen. Clinton raised $14 million, and Sen. Obama $36 million.

While raising less, Sen. Clinton has been spending at a faster clip: She burned through 92% of her campaign receipts in February, while Sen. Obama spent only 77 % of his contributions.

Even so, the Clinton campaign did cut back on expenses after big donors complained it was spending too much on hotels and catering. Sen. Clinton has begun holding more intimate campaign gatherings at supporters' houses and fewer lavish big events. Staff and reporters flying on her chartered campaign plane are getting cheaper boxed lunches instead of higher-end catered meals.

Staffers are staying at less-expensive hotels, too. In January, the campaign spent $38,000 at relatively plush Radisson Hotels, but only $11,000 at them in February. Spending at Holiday Inns rose to $61,000 in February from $21,000 in January.

Top staffers are also being paid less. Communications director Howard Wolfson's consulting firm was paid $267,000 in January, after picking up $421,000 in 2007. In February, Mr. Wolfson got $33,000.

Top advisor Mark Penn's firm made $3.8 million in January and $3.1 million in February. Media advisor Mandy Grunwald's firm was paid $761,000 in January and $608,000 in February.

Sen. Clinton's previous campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, was paid far more than her counterparts on the Obama and McCain campaigns, earning about $12,000 a month before she resigned from that position in February amid a campaign shake-up. Sen. Clinton's new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, is working without pay.

Clinton campaign payroll expenses dropped 24% from January to February, while Obama's campaign payroll remained constant. In absolute numbers, Sen. Clinton spent $2.4 million on payroll in February while Sen. Obama spent $2.6 million.

Such moves are important because "the Clinton campaign is trying to make the case to uncommitted superdelegates that she's got better prospects in the general," said Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. That case is harder to make, he said, if her campaign appears poorly managed in the primary.

Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com

Hagee Says McCain Sought His Endorsement

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003728364

Hagee, in 'NYT' This Sunday, Says McCain Sought His Endorsement
By Greg Mitchell
Published: March 20, 2008

NEW YORK In an interview that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, "It's true that [John] McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."

McCain has attempted to distance himself from some of Hagee's views, much as Barack Obama is doing in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But unlike McCain, Obama has not stood on stage with Wright and accepted his accolades this year.

Interviewed by Deborah Solomon, Hagee refused to discuss his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for a gay rights parade in New Orleans, calling it "so far off-base." He claims, "Our church is not hard against the gay people. Our church teaches what the bible teaches, that it is not a righteous lifestyle. But of course we must love even sinners."

He also said that charges that he had bashed the Catholic Church ("false cult system," etc.) have been "grossly mischaracterized....I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels."

Asked what he thinks of Obama, he answers, "He is going to be difficult to beat, because the man is a master of communication. If he were in the ministry, he would make it in the major leagues overnight."

He also denies that he is a strong supporter of Israel because of any coming "Rapture" in the holy land.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell is editor. His new book is "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failld on Iraq."

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/black_guy_asks_nation_for_change

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change
March 19, 2008 Issue 44•12

CHICAGO — According to witnesses, a loud black man approached a crowd of some 4,000 strangers in downtown Chicago Tuesday and made repeated demands for change.

"The time for change is now," said the black guy, yelling at everyone within earshot for 20 straight minutes, practically begging America for change. "The need for change is stronger and more urgent than ever before. And only you—the people standing here today, and indeed all the people of this great nation—only you can deliver this change."

The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he's never even met.
It is estimated that, to date, the black man has asked every single person in the United States for change.

"I've already seen this guy four times today," Chicago-area ad salesman Blake Gordon said. "Every time, it's the same exact spiel. 'I need change.' 'I want change.' Why's he so eager for all this change? What's he going to do with it, anyway?"

After his initial requests for change, the black man rambled nonstop on a variety of unrelated topics, calling for affordable health care, demanding that the government immediately begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, and proposing a $75 billion economic stimulus plan to create new jobs.

"What a wacko," Schaumburg, IL resident Patrick Morledge said. "And, of course, after telling us all about how he had the ability to magically fix everything, he went right back to asking for change. Typical."

"If he's really looking for change, he's got the wrong guy," Morledge added.

Reports indicate that the black man has been riding from city to city across the country, asking for change wherever he goes. Citizens in Austin, TX said they spotted the same guy standing on the street Friday, shouting far-fetched ideas about global warming. Cleveland residents also reported seeing him in a local park, wildly gesticulating and quoting from the Bible. And last week, patrons at the Starlight Diner in Cheyenne, WY claimed that the black man accosted them while they were eating, repeatedly requesting change.

"I saw him walk in and I knew he was headed straight for our table," said mother of three Gladys Davies. "He just stood there smiling at us for a while, and asked how our food tasted. Then he went and did the same thing at the next table over. The nerve of some people."

Those who encountered the black man Tuesday said he engaged in erratic behavior, including pointing at random people in the crowd and desperately saying he needs their help, going up to complete strangers and hugging them, and angrily claiming that he is not looking for just a little bit of change, but rather a great deal of change, and that he wants it "right now."

"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone."

Though many were taken aback by the black man's brazen demands, some, such as Jackson, MS's Holly Moser, sympathized with him. She gave the black man credit for boldly standing up and asking every last person around him for change.

"I told him I'd give him some if I saw him later, even though I probably won't," Moser said. "Very nice man, though."

Most, however, ignored his requests.

"I'm a hardworking American who pays his taxes, and the last thing I need is some guy on the street demanding change from me," said William Overkamp, a Springfield, IL gun-shop owner.

He added, "What he really needs is a job."

Confirmed - Obama Is Zbigniew Brzezinski Puppet

http://www.rense.com/general81/abig.htm

Confirmed - Obama Is Zbigniew Brzezinski Puppet
Commentary By Webster Tarpley
3-21-8

Any lingering doubts about Obama's status as an abject puppet of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission ended this morning when the withered mummy of imperialism himself appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe* to campaign for Obama, urged on by his own moronic daughter, Mika Brzezinski, an Obama groupie and sycophant.

Zbigniew, a low-level Polish aristocrat whose life has been devoted to hatred for Russia, lauded Obama for his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq war, saying that he himself was the source of Obama's arguments back then - thus confirming Obama's long-term status as his puppet, which probably began in 1981-1983, when Obama was a student at Columbia University, and Zbig was directing the anti-Russian institute.

The aging revanchist showed all the misogynism of his szachta origins with a scurrilous attack on Sen. Clinton as a mere housewife, a Mamie Eisenhower running against charismatic a JFK played by Zbig's own Manchurian candidate, and as a woman whose foreign policy experience was worth as much as that of Zbig's own travel agent.

Zbig, who was kept in the closet for many months during the Carter administration because of his hideous Dr. Strangelove persona, portrayed Obama as a peace candidate who wanted to end the Iraq war and usher in peace in the Middle East. Zbig is an infamous Cold War hawk who has managed to re-invent himself in the eyes of some dupes by opposing the Iraq adventure, mainly because it is bad for imperialism.

Zbig did not mention that the reason he wants to downplay certain aspects of US aggression in the Middle East is to free up resources for use in the much bigger and more dangerous adventures which the Trilateral Commission is now directing.

Zbig is the mastermind of the Kosovo secession under KLA terrorist auspices, a gambit against Serbia and Russia to prepare a coming Operation Barbarossa II against Moscow. With the help of his son Mark Brzezinski, another top foreign policy controller of Obama, Zbig is also behind the new Euromissiles crisis involving US ABM installations in Poland. Zbig is the enforcer for the new CIA policy of killing Pakistanis (as "terrorists") without consulting the government of that country, a nuclear power twice as big as Iran.

Most dangerous of all, Zbig is the obvious mastermind of the massive destabilization of China now ongoing, starting with the CIA/MI-6 Tibet insurrection, which has placed the US on a collision course with China, a superpower with 1.4 billion people and thermonuclear weapons which can strike US cities, a far cry from the helpless and defenseless targets preferred by the neocons. It is an open secret that Zbig intends to attempt a color revolution or CIA people power coup in China under the cover of the Beijing Olympics later this year. He may also make the Taiwan crisis explode. The dangers of these lunatic policies are infinitely worse than anything that could ever come out of the Middle East.

Senator Jay Rockefeller and Trilateral/BIlderberger boss Joseph Nye are also actively campaigning for Obama. Nye is the theoretician of "soft power," a new form of imperialist aggression based on economic warfare, subversion, deception, and people power coups. They want Obama to mobilize soft power to give a face lift to US imnperialism.

Brzezinski's goal is confrontation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main world center for resistance to US-UK global domination.

Anti-war activists are still fixated on Iran, but Brzezinski is not - his target is China, TWENTY times bigger than Iran, with ICBMs ready to launch, followed by Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power. Such confused activists need to focus on stopping the next war - the final global showdown with Pakistan, China, and Russia. That means rejecting Brzezinski's puppet candidate Obama.

An Election Without Meaning

By Peter Phillips

Will November 2008 bring a meaningful change to America? Will getting rid of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney without impeachment or indictment really make a difference? Will a 600 billion dollar war/defense budget be cut in half and used for desperately needed domestic spending? Will the ninety-three billion dollars profits in the private health insurance companies­­—those parasitic intermediates between you and your doctor—be used instead for full health care coverage for all? Will Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus be restored to the people? Will torture stop and the US withdraw from Iraq immediately? Will all students in public universities be able to enroll for free? Will the US national security agencies stop mass spying on our personal communications? Will the neo-conservative agenda of total military domination of the world be reversed?

The answer to these questions in the context of the current billion dollar presidential campaign is an absolute no. Instead we have a campaign of personalities and platitudes. There is a race candidate, a gender candidate and a tortured veteran candidate, each talking about change in America, national security, freedom, and the American way. The candidates are running with support of political parties so deeply embedded with the military industrial complex, the health insurance companies, Wall Street, and corporate media that it is undeterminable where the board rooms separate from the state rooms.

The 2008 presidential race is a media entertainment spectacle with props, gossip, accusations, and public relations. It is impression management from a candidates’ perspective. How can we fool the most people into believing that we stand for something? It is billions of dollars of gravy for the media folks and continued profit maximunization for the war machine, Wall Street, and insurance companies no matter who is determined the winner in November.

We must face the fact that the US government’s primary mission is to protect the wealthy and insure capital expansion worldwide. The US military—spending more than the rest of the militaries of the world combined—is the muscle behind this protect-capital-at-all-costs agenda, and will be used against the American people if deemed necessary to support the mission.

Homeland Security, the North American Command, mass arrest practices with the FALCON raids, new detentions centers, and broadened “terrorism” laws to included interference with business profits are all now in place to insure domestic tranquility through extra judicial means if needed.

The two party corporate political system is having a HOMELAND presidential campaign—Hillary, Obama, McCain, Election, Lacking, Actual, National, Debate. It is time for real change, but it will only come with a social movement of reform in the tradition of the progressive, labor, civil rights, anti-war movements of the last century. We need to use all of our activist, legal, and political resources to reverse these threats to freedom. Naomi Wolf says it is not too late to prevent totalitarianism, but we have to act fast.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored. Access to verifying facts and analysis for the issues mentioned above is available at www.projectcensored.org. Reprints and postings allowed with credit to original author.