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Wednesday, March 9
Another War: Bush Plans June Attack on Iran
by
Linda Thieman
on Wed 09 Mar 2005 04:05 PM CST
 Another War: Bush Plans June Attack on Iran
Contributed by Caroline Vernon
Here
we go again people…. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to many of you
since the writing has been on the wall for some time now. We cannot let
this happen IN OUR NAME again! It’s time to take to the streets on
behalf of our children and each other.
Scott Ritter Says U.S. Plans June Attack On Iran; 'Cooked' Jan. 30 Iraqi Election Results
By Mark Jensen
United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
Scott
Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail [February 18] in
Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered
to a packed house in Olympia's Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned
UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on
plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the
results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq….
On Iran,
Ritter said that George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders
for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal
is the destruction of Iran's alleged program to develop nuclear
weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also
expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading
to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility
Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.
The
former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W.
Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in
the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that
U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce
the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from
56% to 48%.
Asked by
UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved
in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be
reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan
magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M.
Hersh.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Trustee... or Political Hack?
by
Chad Thompson
on Wed 09 Mar 2005 12:21 PM CST
 Trustee... or Political Hack?
I was in the middle of writing a post for today, but this little tidbit is so disgusting that I will repeat it verbatim from Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo.
What's wrong with this picture?
Social Security has seven 'Trustees'.
Five
of the Trustees serve ex-officio, i.e., they're automatically a Trustee
because of their office -- like the Treasury Secretary, Labor
Secretary, etc.
One of the two who were appointed directly is Thomas R. Saving. If you look here you'll see that he was a Trustee in 2004 and I've just confirmed with the SSA that he remains a Trustee for 2005.
Yet, according to this morning's
Houston Chronicle, he has just signed on to be an advisor and spokesman
for one of the lead pro-Social Security phase-out astroturf groups, Progress for America.
Are his duties as a Trustee compatible with going to work for Progress for America?
Keep on
the lookout - this guy will probably be on every call-in show and TV show
in America being touted as a "Social Security Trustee", while being on
the payroll of a political action group.
The Political Industrial Complex
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 09 Mar 2005 06:45 AM CST
 The Political Industrial Complex
The Prairie Progressive
by Jim Larew
The
simple lesson to be learned from the November 2004 election is this:
Progressive and liberal Iowa Democrats must push the Iowa Democratic
Party and elected Democratic office holders to provide a new emphasis
upon core values, as opposed to focusing on the next wave of purported
reforms of campaign machineries. In that election, Iowa Democrats
suffered their first loss of the Presidential race in years, a
disappointment suffered in the national spotlight created by our swing state status.
The
humiliation did not end there. In that same campaign, the Iowa
Democratic Party failed to offer an effective challenge to U.S. Senator
Charles Grassley, a one-time fiscally conservative Republican who has
now morphed, without any political repercussions, into a legislative
architect of the largest deficits and most wasteful Federal spending in
American history. Of the millions of dollars floating around the
Hawkeye State in the 2004 campaign cycle, barely a penny could be found
by Iowa Democratic Party leaders to support Grassley’s hapless, if
undaunted, challenger, Art Small, a longtime progressive political
officeholder.
Similarly,
the Iowa Democratic Party offered Iowa voters no effective alternative
to any incumbent GOP congressman when it denied each challenger access
to effective political or monetary support. In every case, Iowa’s
losing Democratic challengers were progressive and articulate, yet each
of their respective voices were silenced, not so much by the
opposition, but by the abject failure of the Iowa Democratic Party to
meaningfully support their candidacies.
~Jim Larew is the author of A Party Reborn: The Democratic Party of Iowa, 1950-1974
To read the entire article (Part I), see the
Spring 2005 issue of the Prairie Progressive, Iowa's oldest progressive
newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr. to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City
52244. Co-editors
of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.
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from RapidResponse - Iowa.
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