Saturday, August 18, 2007

My Fellow Texan

By Bill Moyers
August 18, 2007

Like the proverbial hedgehog, Karl Rove knew one big thing: how to win elections as if they were divine interventions.

You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the Good Lord was speaking in a Texas accent.

Read on.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Rumsfeld's Mysterious Resignation

By Robert Parry
August 17, 2007

The disclosure that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned on Nov. 6, 2006 – the day before the election, not the day after as previously thought – means that he was pushed out of his job the same day he suggested a de-escalation of the Iraq War.

When Rumsfeld’s resignation was announced on Nov. 8, with both his resignation letter and his de-escalation memo still secret, it was widely assumed in Washington political circles that President George W. Bush was reacting to the stinging Republican electoral defeat on Nov. 7 and was appointing Robert Gates as an olive branch to the Democrats.

Read on.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Saudi Arabia's Myth of Moderation

By Barbara Koeppel
August 17, 2007

Almost daily, the Bush administration ratchets up the war-like rhetoric about Iran’s alleged role in destabilizing Iraq. Eerily, like the pre-Iraq War drumbeat, the U.S. press repeats the accusations with little skepticism and Congress marches in lockstep, as a new Middle East villain is marked for punishment.

On Aug. 15, front-page stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other leading newspapers described how the Bush administration planned to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a “global terrorist” organization for supporting anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli forces in the Middle East.

Read on.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Democrats Need 'Conviction Politics'

By Brent Budowsky
August 15, 2007

The Bush-Rove vision is so daring it is breathtaking.

George Bush and Karl Rove seek one-party domination of American politics, with executive domination over the legislative and judicial branches of the American government.

Read on.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Congress's Orwellian Compromise

By Nat Parry
August 15, 2007

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article called “Washington’s Orwellian Consensus,” which faulted Congress for rubberstamping many of George Bush’s sweeping assertions of presidential power, particularly his claimed right to spy on some American citizens without warrants.

The article noted that “the near-term outlook appears to be for a consolidation of George W. Bush’s boundless vision of his own authority” – but added the caveat, “at least until the November elections.”

It now seems that the caveat was not necessary. The implication that a Democratic victory in the 2006 congressional elections might rein in the authoritarian inclinations of the Bush administration appears to have been unfounded.

Read on.

Monday, August 13, 2007

A Disneyland of Militant Ignorance

By Phil Rockstroh
August 14, 2007

Given the nation's tottering infrastructure, imperial overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful change?

At this twilight hour of the American republic, there must come a paradigm shift of seismic proportions or else the republic will perish. I'm less than optimistic.

Read on.

New Spying Law Broader Than Thought

By Robert Parry
August 13, 2007

Before the Democratic-controlled Congress caved in on George W. Bush’s warrantless-wiretapping powers, White House lawyers slipped in two provisions to give the President even more authority – and less accountability – than he claimed on his own. And the U.S. press corps largely missed that part of the story.

U.S. news reports mostly parroted the White House claim that the law “modernizes” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance of 1978 and “narrowly” targets overseas terror suspects who call or e-mail their contacts in the United States. But the “Protect America Act of 2007” actually casts the wiretapping net much wider.

Read on.