One More Reason Dems Must Win

Video:
Senate Environment Committee chair says global warming is media hysteria

Global
warming is a myth created by media hysteria, says Senator James Inhofe (R-OK).
Inhofe, who is Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,
went on Fox News to counter the "lies" told by most of the media.

Inhofe said that Fox News "is the exception" to the media, which is
spreading the myth of global warming.

A transcript follows the video.



WATCH VIDEO HERE

TRANSCRIPT

HOST: Our next guest says that the American people are not really getting the
truth about global warming due to the mainstream media's "environmental
bias." Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe joins us this morning. He's the
Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Thanks for being with
us, Senator.

MR. INHOFE: Well, nice being with you guys.

HOST: You recently did give a speech about this. Tell us where you stand. Do
you think that global warming exists?

MR. INHOFE: Yeah, well, first of all, the earth's temperature is warming
right now but, I believe, from natural causes. The hype in the media is just --
you guys [Fox News], you're just really the exception -- but the speech I made,
the eighth speech I made on this subject on the floor on Monday concentrated on
just the media and how they're distorting this thing. You have got to keep in
mind, you guys, how back in the turn of the century, starting about 1900, back
then they said, "well, we got a cooling period that's coming up, an ice
age. We're all going to die." Then they went into the 1930's and they said,
"it's global warming." Then they went into the 1950 and they said
it's... So, it's always been hysteria and now we look at it and see that the
preponderance of the scientific evidence, since 1999, has actually, has refuted
many of the things that they are saying right now in terms of human or [green
house] gasses causing global warming.

HOST: What was the situation that happened... or one of our rival networks,
CNN, made some comments and tried to rebut a few of the things that you said in
that speech. You feel that some of what was said was not accurate. Explain that.

MR. INHOFE: Oh, it wasn't accurate at all. They said, they were talking
about... they named a whole lot of different things. About 8 different
accusations or statements about me. They were all 8 in error. They said such
things as, that we had received money from the oil and gas industry. And they
completely forget about the fact that other members are taking it. The largest
contributor to these campaigns is really the far left environmentalist. It's all
a matter of record. Then they talk about hurricanes being related to... and the
polar bear population... we have all the documentation that this just isn't
true. In fact, let me just tell you some of these, it's very significant. There
are 60 scientists in Canada that had been recommending to Prime Minister Harper
that they get off of the Kyoto Protocol because of the economic destruction in
their country. They said that, "If we had known in the middle 90's about
what we know today about the science, we would never have gotten on to the Kyoto
Protocol."

HOST: And the thing that is difficult is that a lot of people signed on to it
but aren't following it either. So, there is a big debate about that. Let me ask
you this. Are we as a country, as a nation, doing better trying to see, you
know, what we do could adversely effect the planet or are we moving in the right
direction when it come to making sure that we aren't unnecessarily destroying
the planet.

MR. INHOFE: Yeah, well, we really are. This president, president Bush, has an
initiative that far exceeds what anyone else has done. It would be a mandated
70% reduction in socs(sic), noc(sic), mercury, things that are pollutants. Keep
in mind, and CO2 is not a pollutant. So, we are doing it. So, we are doing it.
It's a success story since the Clean Air Act of 1970. And in spite of the fact
that we have twice as many cars, twice as many in the population, our air is
much cleaner. It is a success story. And those who don't want it to be told are
the one who are saying, "Ah, we have global warming." This is
something that people, you know, politicians are afraid to talk about. Just
because of the huge amounts of money that the far-left environmentalists pour
into campaigns.

Thinking Points

"Thinking Points is a must-read for anyone who doesn't want
speaking out to become a dying art."

—Arianna Huffington

Thinking Points: Communicating our American Values and Vision is George
Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute's handbook for the grassroots progressive
community. You, the progressive community, have expressed a need for a short,
easy-to-read systematic account of the progressive vision, for the morals and
principles that apply across issue areas, and for all the essentials of
framing. That, along with extensive argument analysis and an important new
explanation of the so-called political center, is what we've written. We are
confident that this book will empower progressives to express themselves in an
authentic, values-driven fashion.



The book is now available to order online at Amazon,
and has a list price of $10.



The preface, introduction, chapter one, and chapter two are available to
download as PDF documents below. Additional chapters of the book will be
provided here in the coming weeks.

Thinking
Points Preface

Thinking
Points Introduction

Thinking
Points Chapter 1

Thinking
Points Chapter 2

Republicans Gaining Ground

THE LAY OF THE LAND IN 2006: Republicans Could Stay Dry on
Higher Ground

PLUS - The 2006 Midterm Map of America

Larry J. Sabato and David Wasserman U.Va. Center for Politics

The drumbeat has become the daily background noise in
most Beltway political circles, as pervasive as it is percussive. It
echoes on today, just as it has for well over a month: in just 40 days and 40
nights, Democrats will wake up to find that they have emerged from four years in
the wilderness, having gained the necessary seats in one or both chambers of
Congress to win a legislative check on President Bush and restore divided
control of government.

But not so fast! Yes, back at the beginning of
last month, the Crystal Ball observed surer signs of a Democratic
"micro-wave" gathering strength on its way to "macro-wave"
status. And don't get us wrong, the minority party remains poised to reap
sizeable gains in Senate seats, House seats, and governorships, especially in
places where the weakest Republican targets have seemed in danger of getting
swept out to sea for many months. But with six weeks left to go until the
midterm madness draws to a close, the Crystal Ball sees several indications that
the tide may be turning back in the GOP's favor--at least temporarily. Furthermore,
some states are starting to look a lot less susceptible to a pro-Democratic
tidal wave than others-—in other words, at least some Republican property lies
on higher, safer ground.

Since around the time of the fifth anniversary of the
September 11th terrorist attacks upon America, Republicans have clearly caught a
few breaks. First and foremost, the rebound in President Bush's approval
ratings over the last few weeks has struck us as both stable and perceptible, if
tiny, across the average of reputable national surveys. Whereas his job
performance approval mark lingered in the mid-to-high 30's all summer, we
suspect the figure is now hovering more closely around 40 percent--still dismal
within the historical context of presidents in their sixth year, but slightly
less calamitous than before. The slightly improved
ratings have given many Republicans new hopes that the campaigner-in-chief will
be able to reappear on the campaign trail to help soothe the sixth-year itch.

Such an up-tick, though small, reflects the
perpetuation of a trend we have now seen at work in each of the three most
recent federal election cycles: a modest-to-severe sharpening of national
focus onto terrorism and national security, clearly Bush and the GOP's most
dependable strong suit, during the second-to-last month of each campaign season.
Regardless of congressional Republicans' ability to pass the most sacred
provisions of their terror bill during the recent month-long session billed as
"Security September," the slogan more appropriately describes the
month's biennial election agenda-setting tendencies. To
many a Democrat's chagrin, "Security September" has fairly or unfairly
become a fixture of our early 21st Century politics.

The Crystal Ball would also note that within the framework of the month's
predominant theme of national security, President Bush may have been shrewd to
intensify and increase his rhetorical linkage of the War on Terror to the fight
against Nazi Germany in World War II. The association is bound to strike a chord
with older Americans for whom a costly and prolonged military struggle with an
abhorrent enemy is a familiar and powerful memory. As the president's political
advisors are well aware, older voters turn out to vote at a much higher rate
than younger voters to begin with, but the resonance of such an appeal in 2006
is especially critical: voters over age 50 account for
an even larger percentage of the electorate in midterm years than they do in
presidential years.

So how important is a jump in Bush approval from mid-to-high thirties to high
thirties-to-low forties? The difference may seem miniscule, but it cannot be
overlooked. For one, it represents a stabilization and possible directional
change in his popularity. But 40 days out from Election Day, it seems that 40
percent approval may be the very watermark at which control of Congress is
determined in a "wave" election year. The
phenomenon can also be thought of as a tug of war in which 40 percent may be a
line of demarcation for control: even a tiny change in approval could be
enough to shift the votes necessary to move the determinative seats in our "Ferocious
Forty" toward one party or the other (Oh, and by the way, have we
mentioned the number 40 enough today?).

Another modest boost for Republican congressional prospects promises to be
the falling price of oil, the high price of which has contributed to voter
unease on a grand scale throughout the 2006 cycle. The
relatively precipitous decline coinciding with the conclusion of the summer
driving season has helped the GOP in two ways. First, it has helped to
calm many voters' nerves and has contributed to increased public confidence in
the general strength of the economy. Second, it has blunted the potential impact
and effectiveness of Democratic ads attacking incumbent Republican legislators
for "siding with big oil" and not doing enough to combat price
gouging. Make no mistake: the emergence of sub-$2.00-a-gallon gasoline comes as
a very welcome development for just about everyone except Democratic candidates
and campaign committees, who have "pumped" a fortune into independent
expenditure ads to seize on oil anxieties.

To be sure, the list of potential developments and
events that could restore momentum to the oncoming Democratic wave is
considerable: fallout from declassification of the National Intelligence
Estimate finding its way into effective Democratic attacks and more turns for
the worse in Iraq damaging the GOP are just two possibilities. But the list of
possible pro-Republican October surprises is equally long, if not longer: an
administration nudge to oil companies to drop prices fast (no wait, that's a
SEPTEMBER surprise!), a surprising announcement mid-October that a big chunk of
troops will be leaving by year's end because of "improving
conditions," whether true or not (and the troops can be left in after the
election), and an executive order implementing some of Bush's positions on
immigration (constitutional? The courts will decide AFTER the election) are some
of our favorite stabs in the dark.

The point is this: elections are a one-day clearance sale. You either sell on
that one day or you don't. Your opponent can be leading
364 days of the year, but as long as you are ahead on one day, November 7th, by
one vote, you win. That's why a grand SERIES of October surprises leading
up to Nov. 7th can work, because the White House can make things happen, or
APPEAR to make things happen, just when it matters most. Timing is everything,
and the White House political team has understood this well, managing the
political game clock to victory in two successive elections. It's
within the realm of possibilities that they could find a way to frustrate
Democrats grandly a third time.

Keeping these considerations in mind, the Crystal
Ball has not yet changed its outlook from last month to project larger
Democratic gains. Contrary to the prognostications of several other
observers, we continue to see Democrats on the cusp of regaining congressional
majorities at the UPPER end of their expected gains: if the election were held
today, the party currently out of power would likely net 12-15 seats in the
House (+15 needed for control) and 3-5 seats in the Senate (+6 needed for
control). At the gubernatorial level, Democrats remain favored pick up 4 to 6
additional states' top jobs, for a grand total of 26-28 governorships (and
unfortunately for the Democrats, it's the majority that doesn't matter!).

In predicting the outcome of the 2006 midterm
madness, it's critically important to point out that some states' Republicans
seem far more likely than others' to ride out a strong Democratic wave
unscathed. The uneven lay of the political land in this volatile year
means that while only a national "micro-wave" would be needed to wash
away Republican seats in some states, a "macro-wave" would be
necessary to engulf Republicans and sweep Democrats to gains in others. This
week and next, the Crystal Ball will offer this "topographical view"
of the 2006 elections, beginning this week with the states in which Republicans
are LEAST likely to suffer the consequences of a national, anti-Bush Democratic
surge:

Republican Highlands - The States LEAST Vulnerable to
a Democratic Wave

1. Michigan - The Great Lakes State may be
   facing greater economic woes than any other in the nation as the flagging
   auto industry continues to hemorrhage jobs, but who's to blame? President
   Bush, or the state's two Democratic senators and Democratic governor?
   Although the circumstances with regard to auto jobs are most likely out of
   every officeholder's control, many Michigan voters are receptive to a
   "throw the bums out" message, and taking their anger out on
   incumbents in 2006 means voting to send Democrats Gov. Jennifer Granholm and
   Sen. Debbie Stabenow packing. Of the two women, Granholm is in much greater
   political danger: she faces a strong challenge from very wealthy GOP
   businessman Dick DeVos while Stabenow faces a milder challenge from Oakland
   County sheriff Mike Bouchard. It's worth noting that there's virtually no
   chance for a Democratic pick-up of any sort in Michigan: none of the state's
   nine GOP House seats face serious threat of takeover.
   
2. Florida - The Sunshine State's swampy
   lowlands belie the state's relatively high political elevation for
   Republicans in 2006. The 2000 presidential tie here seemed to be somewhat of
   a Democratic pinnacle of achievement; it's been downhill ever since for the
   party. Sure, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson will be reelected in a walk this
   November over a candidate just about everyone gave up on months ago, but GOP
   Attorney General Charlie Crist appears well on his way to succeeding GOP
   Gov. Jeb Bush against a reasonably strong Democratic opponent, Tampa-area
   Rep. Jim Davis. Republican enthusiasm here seemed anything but depressed on
   primary day, when many more Republicans than Democrats showed up to vote.
   And our sense is that the state's top GOP House target, veteran Rep. Clay
   Shaw, is taking his tough reelection bid very seriously and holds an
   improbable if narrow lead in his Kerry-carried district heading into the
   final month of the campaign. One possible sudden-upset race to watch:
   Florida's 16th District, where allegations GOP Rep. Mark Foley sent
   inappropriately personal emails to a 16 year old congressional page are sure
   to raise more than a few very suspicious eyebrows.
   
3. California - It's astonishing: the Golden
   State accounts for just over 12 percent of the nation's population, but just
   about zero percent of the nation's competitive elections in 2006! Despite
   the state's strong liberal lean, moderate-to-liberal GOP Gov. Arnold
   Schwarzenegger appears to be cruising to reelection in a contest against his
   perfect foil: Democratic State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who is eagerly
   caricatured as a standard, organization politician and whose only reliable
   support has come from the relatively small but very loud unions many
   Californians have come to view dimly. And Democratic gains in House seats
   will be very difficult to come by, even though the state sends the second
   largest Republican delegation to Congress (Texas moved into the lead last
   year). Only the seats of northern California GOP Reps. John Doolittle and
   Richard Pombo appear on the horizon line of outside opportunities for
   Democratic pick-ups, and even so, their vulnerabilities have been largely
   self-inflicted.
   
4. Georgia - Democrats just can't seem to
   catch a break in the Peach State, where Republicans have dominated major
   statewide elections since turning the tide at the turn of the century. It's
   possible that the nastiest Democratic gubernatorial primary of the year took
   place for no good reason, as the eventual winner, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor,
   finds himself facing a double-digit deficit against reasonably popular GOP
   Gov. Sonny Perdue, the surprise upset victor of the 2002 general election.
   Would Democratic Secretary of State Cathy Cox be doing any better? In our
   estimation, probably not: this has been Perdue's race to lose from the
   start. Notably, Georgia is the only state in which Republicans are
   exclusively on the OFFENSIVE in competitive House races. Both GOP ex-Reps.
   Mac Collins and Max Burns are receiving serious White House financial help
   in their bids to return to Congress after two-year hiatuses, although they
   remain slight underdogs against Democratic Reps. Jim Marshall and John
   Barrow in newly redrawn districts, respectively.
   
5. New Jersey - Of all years, could 2006 be
   the one Republicans finally break the statewide losing streak that has
   frustrated them here for nine years? Such a scenario in the solidly blue
   Garden State would prove the cruelest irony for national Democrats, who are
   suddenly very jittery about the prospects of their nominee, appointed Sen.
   Bob Menendez. Last week, a federal attorney launched an investigation into
   Hudson County rental properties owned by the new senator, and just this week
   Menendez was forced to sever his ties to a close campaign adviser,
   Democratic mega-lawyer Donald Scarinci, after tapes revealed Scarinci had
   improperly asked for a hiring favor on Menendez's behalf several years ago.
   GOP State Sen. Tom Kean, on the other hand, maintains all the advantages of
   running as the anti-Washington candidate in the race in addition to his
   politically advantageous last name. A Kean win would be a GOP pick-up and a
   crippling if not fatal blow to Democratic hopes of retaking the Senate.
   Down-ballot, Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender's challenge to GOP Rep.
   Mike Ferguson represents the party's best hope of adding to its 7-6 edge in
   the House delegation, but the race is not yet truly competitive. Don't
   expect a massive Democratic wave to be pounding the Jersey Shore on November
   7th!

Coming next week: (you guessed it!) Republican
Lowlands - The States MOST Vulnerable to a Democratic Wave

The 2006 Midterm Map of America

THIS JUST IN: There is no national election in November 2006, whatever you
might have heard to the contrary. No, there hasn't been an overnight
jazz-accompanied, Thai-style coup, and the DMV hasn't mysteriously lost
everyone's "motor voter" applications. Rather, 2006 is comprised of a
patchwork collection of party contests scattered across the country.

Just as in a presidential election, it's easy to think of a midterm election
as "national," since all 435 U.S. House seats are on the ballot, plus
36 governorships and 33 Senate seats. However, there is nothing aproaching a
presidential contest to tie every state's ballots together. Generally, midterms
feature multiple close races in about two-thirds of the states.

The problem is how to determine where those competitive races lie. Looking at
a physical map or a road map isn't going tell you where the hottest races are to
be found--for trees, rocks and acres aren't the currency of American politics.
In order to provide a clearer guide to the 2006 midterms, the Crystal Ball has
put together the 2006 Midterm Map of America. A
state is assigned 10 points for a very competitive Senate race; 10 points for a
large-state governorship contest of the same variety; 8 points for a very
competitive medium- or small-state governorship; 6 points for a second-tier
competitive race for the Senate anywhere or a governorship in a large state; 4
points for a second-tier governor's contest in a medium or small state; 2 points
for each competitive House seat; and zero points for uncompetitve contests.
Intangible factors were considered as well, and as a result a point was added or
subtracted here and there. Based on this scale, each state was resized to
reflect its actual significance in the 2006 elections.

As you can see smaller states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut
and Rhode Island are expanded quite a bit, while larger states like California,
Texas, Wyoming and the Dakotas are greatly contracted. With control of both
chambers of Congress not guaranteed for either party, any competitive race will
get significant attention. However, the 2006 Midterm Map can guide you to where
much of the action is.

For a larger, PDF version of the 2006 Midterm Map of America, click
here.

Senate, House and Governor Race Analysis Updates

The Crystal Ball has updated individual race analysis for the following
contests:

• Senate:
• Connecticut,
  Delaware,
  Hawaii,
  Maryland,
  Missouri,
  Montana,
  New
  York,
• Ohio,
  Pennsylvania,
  Washington,
  West Virginia
  
• House:
• AZ-05,
  CT-05,
  IN-02,
  IN-08,
  IN-09,
  KY-04,
  NE-01,
  NM-01,
  NY-26,
  OH-01,
  OH-06
  
• Governor:
• Alabama,
  California,
  Georgia,
  Maryland,
  Nebraska,
  Ohio,
  Pennsylvania,
  Texas

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

2001
memo to Rice contradicts statements about Clinton, Pakistan

Larry Womack

From RawStory

A memo received by
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after becoming National Security Advisor in 2001 directly contradicts statements she made to reporters yesterday, RAW STORY has learned.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice
told a reporter for the New York Post on Monday. "Big pieces were
missing," Rice added, "like an approach to Pakistan that might work,
because without Pakistan you weren't going to get Afghanistan."

Rice made the comments in response to claims made Sunday by former President
Bill Clinton, who argued that his administration had done more than the current
one to address the al Qaeda problem before the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. She stopped short of calling the former president a liar.

However, RAW STORY
has found that just five days after President George W. Bush was sworn into
office, a memo from counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke to Rice included
the 2000 document, "Strategy
for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and
Prospects." This document devotes over 2 of its 13 pages of material to
specifically addressing strategies for securing Pakistan's cooperation in
airstrikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan obstacle

The strategy document includes "three levers" that the United
States had started applying to Pakistan as far back as 1990. Sanctions,
political and economic methods of persuasion are all offered as having been
somewhat successful.

Other portions of the passages relating to Pakistan – marked as
"operational details" – have been redacted from the declassified
memo at the CIA's request.

The document also explores broader strategic approaches, such as a "need
to keep in mind that Pakistan has been most willing to cooperate with us on
terrorism when its role is invisible or at least plausibly deniable to the
powerful Islamist right wing."

But Clarke also made it clear that the Clinton Administration recognized the
problem that Pakistan posed in mounting a more sweeping campaign against bin
Laden: "Overt action against bin Laden, who is a hero especially in the
Pushtun-ethnic border areas near Afghanistan," Clarke speculated in late
2000, "would be so unpopular as to threaten Musharraf's government."
The plan notes that, after the attack on the USS Cole, Pakistan had forbidden
the United States from again violating its airspace to attack bin Laden in
Afghanistan.

The memo sent by Clarke to Rice, to which the Clinton-era document was
attached, also urges action on Pakistan relating to al Qaeda. "First [to be
addressed,]" wrote Clarke in a list of pending issues relating to al Qaeda,
is "what the administration says to the Taliban and Pakistan about ending
al Qida sanctuary in Afghanistan. We are separately proposing early, strong
messages on both."

A disputed history

The documents have been a source of controversy before. Rice contended in a
March 22, 2004 Washington Post piece that "no al Qaeda plan was turned over
to the new administration."

Two days later, Clarke insisted to the 9/11 Commission that the plan had in
fact been turned over. "There's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan
or a strategy or a series of options, but all of the things we recommended back
in January," he told the commission, "were done after September
11th."

The memo was declassified on April 7, 2004, one day before Rice herself
testified before the 9/11 Commission.

Excerpts from documents relating to the situation follow:

#

Pages 11-13 of the Clinton-era document sent to Rice from Clarke, detailing
Pakistan's role in the al Qaeda problem. The plan was referred to by Clarke, and
later by Rice in public statements:

#

Page 2 of memo from Clarke to Rice, urging "early, strong messages"
to Pakistan on the al Qaeda problem. The Clinton "plan" was attached
to this memo:

---

Anti-Christ is Gay

Values Voter Summit Features Attack on Faggots, Claim That Gay Rights Movement Inspired

From The Pit Of Hell Itself

This
weekend, some of the nation’s leading conservatives — from Tony Snow and
Attorney General Gonzales to Sen. George Allen (R-VA) and Gov. Mike Huckabee
(R-AK) to Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity — appeared at the Family Research
Council’s “Values
Voter Summit.”

An hour and a half after Snow’s speech, Bishop Wellington Boone, founder of
the Wellington Boone Ministries,
took the stage and announced, “I want the gays mad at me.” Boone said that
while “the gays” are “saying a few things” about him, “they’re not
coming at me strong.” In an effort to change that, Boone declared:

Back in the days when I was a kid, and we see guys that don’t
stand strong on principle, we call them “faggots.” … [People]
that don’t stand up for what’s right, we say, “You’re sissified
out!” “You’re a sissy!” That means you don’t stand up for
principles. [Click HERE
to listen to the audio.]

As Right Wing Watch notes, another speaker at the conference later claimed
“the gay rights movement was inspired
‘from the pit of hell itself,’ and has a ’satanic anointment.’ …
He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book
of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.”

Digg it!

Full transcript:

BOONE: This matter of gay — I want the gays mad at me. I’m not on
enough of their hit lists. [Applause] Bless God. I want to tell you something,
and I’m gonna get [inaudible] here, and I hope I don’t embarass anybody
about this here. But I want to say something to you, that I’m not afraid of
these people. And they do play dirty tricks, and they do try to, you know, you
know, do stuff with your mailing lists, and they’re really nasty about
trying to stop us from, you know, taking away their perversion.

But I want to tell you something is, they don’t know, we’re driven by
God to deal with this stuff, and I want to say to you that, in this regard,
I’m not playing with you. That when it comes to the matter of this gay
stuff, I know that a family is not a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
It’s a man and a woman. That’s the creative order, and I’m not backing
down. I’m standing flat-footed on that right there. [Applause]

Everywhere I get to speak, I am guarded by the grace of God, being strong
on it. Now they’re fussing on it, they’re saying a few things, but
they don’t have me, you know, in their, you know, on their web sites.
They’re not coming at me strong, and I would say this. Back in the days when
I was a kid, and we see guys that don’t stand strong on principle, we call
them “faggots.” A punk is — and our people, I’m from the ghetto, so
sometimes it does come out a little bit. I got another one I’m gonna say in
a minute — [laughter] — that don’t stand up for what’s right, we say,
“You’re sissified out!” “You’re a sissy!” That means you don’t
stand up for principles. And I just believe that God hasn’t called
us to be sissies on a principle level. We’re called to be, to stand up and
be men. I’m not talking about as in gender. I’m talking about man of God,
men in the marketplace, and when a U.S. senator or congressman says that he
wants me to vote for them, and he’s not biblically based — if he doesn’t
have God as his Lord, how can somebody that doesn’t feel the need for God
lead me?

NSA Bibliographies

Previously
unreleased bibliographies and indexes of National Security Agency publications

Cryptologic Quarterly Index NSA Technical Journal Cumulative Index Cryptologic Spectrum Index Cryptologic Almanac Index Center for Cryptologic History Publications

>>> This page contains indexes of four periodicals published by the National Security Agency, plus a listing of publications from the NSA's Center for Cryptologic History. These indexes haven't been publicly released until now, and many of the Cryptologic History publications weren't previously known to the public. Researcher Michael Ravnitzky has discovered a huge cache of information about the NSA, intelligence, and cryptography. Any of the articles or publications listed in the files below can be requested through a Freedom of Information Act request to the NSA. For a sample request letter, see the bottom of this page.

All files are searchable Acrobat/PDF
format

Right-click to save files to
your hard drive Mac users: Control-click to save

Cryptologic Quarterly Index (Spring 1982 - Winter 1996) Click here to download the document [171 pages 5.9 meg] Originally classified Top Secret Umbra Index contains three sections, listing articles by title, by author, and by keyword

Sample article titles: "The BS Attitudes: How Things Work in Bureaucracies" · "Computer Virus Infections: Is NSA Vulnerable?" · "The Cryptologic Origin of Braille" · "Design and Evaluation of INFOSEC Systems" · "Examples of Lattices in Computer Security Models" · "The Fall of the Shah: A Chaotic Approach" · "The First US Government Manual on Cryptography" · "Influence of U.S. Cryptologic Organizations on the Digital Computer Industry" · "INTERROGRAPH: An Information Tool for Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Centers" · "KAL 007 Shootdown: A View from [redacted]" · "Meteor Burst Communications: An Ignored Phenomenon?" · "NSA: How Much Do We Really Know about the Software Capability of Our Contractors?" · "NSA in the Cyberpunk Future" · "Obscenities in COMINT: A Need for Cognitive Knowledge" · "Predicting Terrorism: An Indications and Warning Model" · "SIGINT and the Holocaust" · "Telephone Codes and Safe Combinations: A Deadly Duo" · "Translating by the Seat of Your Pants" · "Video Teleconferencing: NSA Applications" · "What Every Cryptologist Should Know About Pearl Harbor"

NSA Technical Journal Cumulative Index (April 1956 - Fall 1980) Click here to download the document [202 pages 6.2 meg] Originally classified Top Secret Umbra Index contains three sections, listing articles by title, by author, and by keyword

Sample article titles: "The Arithmetic of a Generation Principle for an Electronic Key Generator" · "CATNIP: Computer Analysis - Target Networks Intercept Probability" · "Chatter Patterns: A Last Resort" · "COMINT Satellites - A Space Problem" · "Computers and Advanced Weapons Systems" · "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology" · "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs" · "A Cryptologic Fairy Tale" · "Don't Be Too Smart" · "Earliest Applications of the Computer at NSA" · "Emergency Destruction of Documents" · "Extraterrestrial Intelligence" · "The Fallacy of the One-Time-Pad Excuse" · "GEE WHIZZER" · "The Gweeks Had a Gwoup for It" · "How to Visualize a Matrix" · "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages" · "A Mechanical Treatment of Fibonacci Sequences" · "Q.E.D.- 2 Hours, 41 Minutes" · "SlGINT Implications of Military Oceanography" · "Some Problems and Techniques in Bookbreaking" · "Upgrading Selected US Codes and Ciphers with a Cover and Deception Capability" · "Weather: Its Role in Communications Intelligence" · "Worldwide Language Problems at NSA"

Cryptologic Spectrum Index (1969-1981) Click here to download the document [35 pages 1 meg] Originally classified Confidential Index contains three sections, listing articles by author, by issue, and by title

Sample article titles: "Automatic Translation of Morse Code" · "Boners Wanted" · "Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence" · "Fabrication of Traffic--It Can and Did Happen" · "Historical Impact of Revealing the ULTRA Secret" · "History of Applesauce" · "Is Yugoslav President Tito Really a Yugoslav?" · "Look at the Pacific Experimental Facility" · "Photon 901" · "Soviet Defector at NSA" · "TEMPEST: A Signal Problem" · "Why Some Projects Fail"

Cryptologic Almanac Index (Jan/Feb 2002 - Apr/Jun 2003) Click here to download the document [4 pages 180K] unclassified

Sample article titles: "The Effort to Create a Smoke-Free NSA" · "Madame X: Agnes Meyer Driscoll" · "Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center" · "The Yom Kippur War of 1973" · "Dining at NSA" · "No Such Agency" · "SIGINT Support to the White House"

Center for Cryptologic History Publications Click here to download the document [15 pages 575K] unclassified

Sample publication titles: "American Cryptology: Two Centuries of Tradition" · "Listening to the Rumrunners" · "Shield and Storm: The Cryptologic Community in the Desert Operations" · "Attack on a SlGlNT Collector the USS Liberty" · "The Invisible Cryptologists: African-Americans WWII to 1956" · "PURPLE DRAGON: The Origin and Development of the United States OPSEC Program" · "Space Surveillance SlGlNT Program"

Technical Note: These documents were released in paper format by the NSA on 17 August 2006 in response to FOIA request 42848, filed 23 May 2003.

Sample Request Letter [DATE] [YOUR CONTACT INFO] Pamela N. Phillips NSA FOIA Office/DC34 9800 Savage Road, Suite 6248 Ft. George G. Meade, MD 20755-6248 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST Dear Ms. Phillips: Pursuant to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following NSA document(s): ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ These documents are cited in [CHECK ONE OR MORE]: __ Cryptologic Quarterly Index __ NSA Technical Journal Cumulative Index __ Cryptologic Spectrum Index __ Cryptologic Almanac Index __ Center for Cryptologic History Publications These indexes are located at www.thememoryhole.org/nsa/bibs.htm If the requested document(s) is/are marked classified, please review for declassification. This is an individual request for noncommercial purposes and my request thereby falls into the "all other requests" fee category. [OR INSTEAD INDICATE IF YOUR REQUEST IS FROM A NEWS ORGANIZATION OR UNIVERSITY OR OTHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION] Although I understand that I am entitled to the first 100 pages and first two hours of search time at no charge, I also agree that I am willing to pay up to $25 [OR GREATER OR LESSER AMOUNT] if it becomes necessary. Sincerely,

posted at the memoryhole.org

The Clinton Fox News Interview

clintonvwallacept-1
Video sent by DEMORON

Please watch video

Axis of 'sketchy' allies

Maureen Dowd: Axis of 'sketchy' allies

From RawStory.com

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has slammed the Bush Administration for cozying up to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, "a dictator who appears to be harboring terrorists, including the one we want most."

"The Pakistan president is a smooth operator, a military dictator
cruising around the capital with his elegant wife and enormous security contingent, talking about how much he likes democracy, which he won't yet allow," writes Dowd.

"He may have more respect for checks and balances than Dick Cheney, but
that's not saying much," adds Dowd.

"General General, as W. called him in that famous campaign pop quiz,
tried to persuade Bush that the shabby truce he recently made with tribal
leaders, agreeing that the Pakistani army would stay out of the wild border area
next to Afghanistan -- where Osama and other al-Qaida and Taliban members are
believed to be hiding -- was really "against" the militants,"
writes Dowd.

Excerpts from Dowd's column:

#

After Pervez Musharraf coyly sidestepped a question at a news conference with
President Bush about his claim on "60 Minutes" that Richard Armitage
threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate in
routing the Taliban in Afghanistan, noting that he had to save such juicy
tidbits for his book's publication next week, he shot up over 1,000 spots on
Amazon.com.

....

The Paks, as W. and Vice like to call them, are at the heart of the Faustian
deal the Bush administration has made. The justification for invading Iraq was
that they couldn't allow a dictator who might be harboring terrorists to stay in
power. But their great ally in the war on terror is Musharraf, a dictator who
appears to be harboring terrorists, including the one we want most.

....

We may not have Osama, but at least W. helped General General with his Amazon
ranking. "Buy the book," the president recommended as the two allies
wrapped up.

#

TIMES SELECT SUBSCRIBERS CAN READ FULL DOWD COLUMN AT THIS LINK

Bush Critics Need Not Apply

Bush Critics Need Not Apply
A new inspector general's report, portions of which were obtained by the Progress Report, document how the top U.S. housing official, Alphonso Jackson, "urged staff members to favor friends of President Bush when awarding Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contracts." Jackson is a "longtime Bush friend" and former neighbor in Dallas, Texas, who "has led the $32 billion agency since March 2004." Three top HUD officials testified that Jackson told them that "it was important to consider presidential supporters when candidates for HUD discretionary contracts were being considered,” the report states. Jackson's chief of staff told investigators that Jackson "personally intervened with contractors whom he did not like ... these contractors had Democratic political affiliations." Awarding contracts on the basis of party affiliation "violates federal law." Yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), ranking member on the Government Reform Committee, called for Jackson to resign immediately. The White House gave him "a tepid vote of confidence." JACKSON TOLD SENIOR STAFF TO REWARD BUSH SUPPORTERS WITH CONTRACTS: Jackson admitted to investigators "that he did have a bias, in that he wasn't likely to assist someone who would 'castigate' him or the president, although he would not interfere with a contract on that basis." But HUD officials say "he told a senior staff meeting...that they should look at contractors' political leanings. He urged them to give contracts to supporters of President Bush, and voiced concerns about other contracts going to active Democratic donors, the aides said." "I have never touched a contract,” Jackson said Wednesday in his first interview about the incident. “I just ad-libbed a little more than I should have, and I regret that.” But the report also states that Jackson "would meet with individuals who were either contractors or who wanted to obtain contracts at HUD," despite testimony from a former HUD lawyer saying "we warned him against it." Investigators "so far have found no direct proof that Jackson's staff obeyed." HUD is refusing to release the full, 340-page report on Jackson’s conduct to the media, but the Dallas Business Journal has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain it.JACKSON ADMITS LYING ABOUT RETRIBUTION FOR BUSH CRITIC: The HUD investigation was triggered after the Dallas Business Journal reported last April that Jackson had closed a speech "with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor." The contractor had "made a heck of a proposal...so we selected him," Jackson told a group of real estate officials. "He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'" Jackson continued, "He didn't get the contract. Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe." When the story first broke, a HUD press secretary said that Jackson's story was actually "hypothetical," pure fiction, since Jackson is "not part of the contracting process." But Jackson's chief of staff said he had "personally intervened with contractors whom he did not like," and the inspector general confirmed with HUD officials that the conversation did take place, although the contractor in question never had his contract canceled. Jackson admitted to investigators that he had "lied, and I regret having done that."JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG: The U.S. federal government spends roughly $315 billion annually on contracted goods and services, making it "the largest consumer of goods and services in the world." Shielded from accountability by a secretive executive branch and a drought of oversight by congressional conservatives, the cash-flush federal contracting process has become a prime source of government corruption. Most notably in Iraq and in the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast, the last several years have seen an explosion in contract fraud, waste, abuse, and cronyism. Rep. Waxman has compiled a database -- Dollars, Not Sense -- to track the extent of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal contracts. "Currently, there are 124 contracts in the database, and the total value of the costs incurred or projected to be incurred under the contracts is $752 billion." Calls by progressives to establish a Truman Commission to investigate waste and fraud in Iraq contracts, and by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others to establish a federal Anti-Fraud Commission for Katrina spending, have been repeatedly rejected by conservatives

Bill Clinton On The Daily Show

Video:
Former President Bill Clinton on The Daily Show

President Bill Clinton explained the mission of his Global Initiative in an
interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Clinton's Global Initiative
focuses on 4 subjects: Global warming, poverty, global health and religious and
racial reconciliation.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

http:/www.youtube.com/v/6RqMcOeUhzI

Violent Crime Up Under Bush Administration

FBI:
Violent crime rises for first time since 2001

posted at rawstory.com

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) reveal that
the volume of violent crime in the United States rose by 2.3 percent in 2005,
the first such increase since 2001.

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty held a press conference on Monday to
discuss that and other statistics reported in the UCR package.

"Today's numbers with the UCR data overall is good news," McNulty
stated. "The overall rate of crime is at its lowest ... in the UCR study,
in more than 30 years. That's the overall crime rate."

McNulty differentiated between two "pieces" of the overall crime
rate, those being property crime and violent crime. While property crime dropped
2.4 percent in 2005, the rate of violent crime increased 1.3 percent.

"UCR numbers are generally talked about in FBI's materials in relation
to volume of crime," McNulty further explained, "and there, the
volume of ... violent crime [is up] by 2.3 percent."

The Deputy Attorney General also noted "a significant rise in gun crime
within that overall statistical equality with the previous year."

When asked what other factors may have caused the increase, McNulty replied,
"I think gangs and the increase in gangs and the increase in the membership
of gangs would have to be cited as one thing that could be causing an increase
in violent crime right now.

"Methamphetamine is another thing that seems to be spreading
geographically in areas where it wasn't present five to ten years ago, or even
more recently." McNulty also cited population increase as another likely
factor.

The Deputy Attorney General was also asked if he was concerned that the
global effort against terrorism was overwhelming the connectivity between the
federal government and local law enforcement. "I believe, in talking to
chiefs and ... district attorneys," McNulty replied, "that the
relationship between federal law enforcement and local law enforcement is much
stronger today than what it was before.

"I think that the terrorism mission has not cost us anything when it
comes to our relationships but has given us an opportunity to be more closely
connected."

---

Federal Communications Commission Buring Reports

Here we go again.

Another Federal Communications Commission study on the negative impacts of
media consolidation came to light Monday after being buried at the agency for at
least two years -- the second suppressed FCC ownership study to surface in as
many weeks.

It's clear that FCC's top brass are willing to deep-six any research that
contradicts the media industry's pro-consolidation claims.

In fine bureaucratic fashion,
neither former Chairman Michael Powell nor current Chairman Kevin Martin has
accepted responsibility for the alleged cover-up. In the minds of both of them,
it's better we all forget about it so the FCC can return to its work of handing
out billions of dollars in monopoly privileges to massive media firms.

The recently spiked study, a "Review of the Radio Industry"
conducted by the FCC Media Bureau, found that the Telecommunications Act of 1996
had led to a drastic decline in the number of radio station owners -- even as
the actual number of commercial stations in the United States had increased.

A copy of the study is available at http://www.stopbigmedia.com/files/radio_ownership.pdf

Although the study would have been the fifth of its kind since the 1996 Act --
which lifted national radio ownership caps -- it was never released, and no
subsequent studies on the topic have been conducted. It only became public after
a copy was leaked to the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Last week, Jonathan Rintels reported
that Boxer also uncovered a buried federal study that showed media
consolidation is harmful to local news reporting. The 2004 report found that
locally owned stations produced - on average -- five minutes more local news
coverage in a half-hour newscast than their consolidated competitors.

Upon seeing the results, senior managers at the FCC ordered that "every
last piece" of that study be destroyed, according to the Associated
Press.

The unraveling controversy has been met with the standard denials from both
FCC chairmen. Powell told
NPR on Friday that he "never saw" the study. "Any suggestion
that senior levels of the commission spiked that report, at least from my
vantage point, didn't happen." In a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer of
California, Martin
repeated that he knew nothing of the study: "I was not Chairman at the
time that this report was drafted. I had not seen -- nor was I aware of -- this
draft report ... No one on my staff had seen this report nor were they aware of
it. I am not aware of any other commissioners, past or present, who knew of the
report."

Members of the StopBigMedia.com
Coalition have sent
a letter to Chairman Kevin Martin to "immediately seek an independent
investigation, through the Office of the Inspector General, to determine the
circumstances under which the public was denied access to this important,
taxpayer-funded research, the parties involved and the processes that may have
allowed any record of its existence to be destroyed."

Under Martin, the FCC is again considering handing control of more local news
outlets to massive media conglomerates by eliminating local ownership caps and
the longstanding prohibition on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership.

Ninety-seven percent of the public feedback received by the FCC in 2003
opposed further media consolidation, and more than 100,000 people have already
filed comments this time around. Yet Chairman Martin continues to push for rules
that will let a small handful of companies swallow up more of our local media.

Maybe Kevin Martin should start reading his own research.

He and the agency's GOP majority are continuing Powell's plan to gut the last
remaining limits to local media conglomerates, but before he can proceed,
Chairman Martin has promised to hold at least six public hearings, to make a
show of his planned rule changes with average citizens. So far he has scheduled
only one - in Los Angeles on Oct. 3.

There needs to be an independent investigation and a full review of all
research conducted under the leadership of both Powell and Martin.

Video demonstrates e-vote hacks

Video:
CNN demonstrates e-vote hacks to tilt midterms

CNN explores the possibility of midterm e-vote hacks in the following video
clips. In one clip, investigators demonstrate that a single hacker could use a
virus to infect large numbers of electronic voting machines.

The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University has
studied the security of one popular electronic voting machine produced by
Diebold. The study, titled "Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS
Voting Machine", located serious security flaws "that undermine the
accuracy and credibility of the vote counts".

The Center for Information Technology Policy's website contains the full report, as well as a comprehensive video demonstration a Diebold Accuvote-TS
voting machine hack.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Same-sex marriage not that big an issue for many Americans

Same-sex marriage not that big an issue for many Americans

Associated Press

A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about President Bush, the nation’s
direction, and the upcoming election included a question about the issue of
same-sex marriage. The poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, was based on
telephone interviews with 1,501 adults, including 1,215 registered voters and
661 likely voters, from all states except Alaska and Hawaii.



When asked how important the issue of same-sex marriage is to them, 22% of
respondents said it was "extremely important," 15% said it was
"very important," 15% said it was "moderately important,"
11% said it was only "slightly important," and 36% said it wasn’t
important "at all." Only 1% of respondents were "not sure."



The poll also asked if, generally speaking, the respondents would say things in
this country are heading in the right direction or are they off on the wrong
track. Thirty-three percent said they thought the country was heading in the
"right direction," 63% said it was on the "wrong track," and
only 4% were "not sure."



When asked if the they approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is
handling his job as president, 39% said they "approve," 60% said they
"disapprove," and 1% said they have "mixed feelings."

Dems Snub Cher

From Monsters and Critics.com

US News
Correction: Dems
reject Cher impersonator
By UPI
Sep 13, 2006, 19:00 GMT

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ, United States (UPI) -- A New Jersey gay rights group
thought a Cher impersonator, who happened to be a man, would liven up a
Democratic Party meeting but met resistance instead.

The state Democrats gathered in Atlantic City, which Steve Goldstein, founder
of Garden State Equality, a gay-rights organization, booked 'Cher' to appear in
full Cher regalia and lip-synch a few of the singer`s greatest hits.

But before the impersonator could hit the stage, a state party official
approached Goldstein and -- as witnesses told the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger --
said, 'We can`t have THAT walking in the hallway. What if the press sees that?
What if they report on that in tomorrow`s papers?'

'Cher' did get in a couple of numbers, however, and among those dancing was
state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, a 71-year-old grandmother.

'Cher wasn`t great,' Weinberg told the Star-Ledger. 'But I survived it. And I
didn`t catch anything. I`m still wearing women`s clothes.'

© Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com.
This notice
cannot be removed without permission.

Former Sen. Danforth Blasts GOP over Gays and Schiavo

Bush's
second choice for Vice President to assail GOP over Schiavo, gay rights

John Byrne

Posted at Rawstory.com

Exclusive:
Republican shortlisted to be Bush's Vice President to lay out most explicit case
for gay rights; Blasts Frist, GOP handling of Schiavo case

The former Missouri senator shortlisted to be then-Governor Bush's running
mate in the 2000 presidential election -- said to have been second choice only
to Vice President Cheney -- will come out vehemently against administration and
Congressional Republican policy in a book to be published next week., according
to an advance copy .

John Danforth, who retired in 1995 after four terms in the Senate, briefly
served as Bush's ambassador to the United Nations but resigned after Condoleezza
Rice was tapped to be Secretary of State. According to CNN, he was second on the
list of Bush's potential vice presidential choices in 2000.

In Faith and Politics, to be released Tuesday, Danforth blasts the
alignment of the Republican Party with the Christian right, lays out his most
aggressive pro-gay stance to date and attacks the handling of the Terri Schiavo
case.

Some people have asked me whether America is a Christian country. The answer
must be no, for to call this a Christian country is to say that non-Christians
are of some lesser order, not full fledged citizens of one nation."
Danforth is himself an ordained Episcopal minister.

Danforth calls the Terri Schiavo case -- where Congress intervened to attempt
to keep a severely brain-damaged woman from being taken off life support --
"Big Brotherism."

"That the federal government could intervene in the Schiavo case was a
threat to all the families that had seen their loved ones suffer through
terminal illness," he writes.

It was a threat to people who were terrified that their own lives might
someday be artificially extended in nightmarish circumstances. It was a threat
to some of our most heartfelt values. It was Big Brotherism in the extreme, an
exercise of the raw and awesome power of the federal government.

"They intervened not in the name of principle, but at the expense of
principle," Danforth avers. "They abandoned principle by deciding a
medical question without any firsthand knowledge of what they were doing."

Congressional Republicans face specific criticism. An attack on Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) derides the Republican Senate leader for
attempting to diagnose Schiavo without seeing the patient.

One views with a degree of pathos the role of William Frist, MD, graduate of
Harvard Medical School and potential presidential candidate, who diagnosed a
medical condition without examining the patient.

The former Missouri senator also comes out swinging for gay rights -- a cause
he has championed since his retirement from the Senate. But in Faith and
Politics, he lays out his most ardent support to date. Despite having a gay
daughter, Vice President Cheney has remained relatively mum on the issue --
except to say that he disagrees with Bush over a constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriage. Danforth goes further.

"I believe that homosexuality is a matter of sexual orientation rather
than preference," he writes. "Discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation is, in my view, comparable to discrimination on other civil rights
grounds. It is wrong, and it should be prohibited by law."

"I think that the only purpose served by the campaign for the amendment
is the humiliation of gay Americans, advocated by the Christian right and
eagerly supported by its suitors in the Republican Party," he adds.
"In reality, it is gay bashing."

Danforth then goes even further, saying supporters' assertions that the
amendment would protect marriage is ludicrous.

"America's divorce rate is now over 50 percent, and marriage is under
attack from a number of quarters: finances, promiscuity, alcohol and drugs, the
pressures of work, cultural acceptance of divorce, et cetera," he pens.
"But it is incomprehensible that one of these threats is when someone else,
whom we have never seen, in a place where we may have never been, has done
something we don't like."

---

Bloggers At The Gate

Bloggers At The Gate

From AmericaBlog.org

We just finished a two hour blogger lunch with President Clinton at his NY
office in Harlem. He had reached out to a group of us a few weeks ago, before
the Disney/ABC blow up, simply because he wanted to meet some bloggers. Much of
the lunch was off the record, but some was on. And while the policy discussion
was fascinating, for me these kind of get togethers are far more interesting on
a personal than substantive level. Meaning, it's fascinating to see someone like
Clinton in person. How his brain works, what he's like personally, and just as
importantly, to meet and get to know his staff so we can all help each other in
the future (we are, after all, Democratic bloggers).







My impressions? He looks a little older than I expected, though befitting
someone who was president for eight years (and he was first elected 14 years
ago). He's got beautiful blue eyes (this isn't something I normally notice, but
in his case I did, and he does, and I suspect he uses it to good effect). The
man is smart as hell. He knows a lot about everything, and he gets it, he gets
politics, he gets people, he understands what's going on and knows how to get
things done. His political advice is no-nonsense and straight forward - he'd
rather take an issue on than run from it (oh for the days of that in a
Democratic politician).







Among those attending, that I can recall, were Atrios, Joe in DC and me, Chris
Bowers and Matt Stoller from MyDD, McJoan from DailyKos, John Amato from Crooks
& Liars (by phone from CA), Jane and Christy from FDL, Liberal Oasis, Steve
from CarpetBagger, Jeraly and son from TalkLeft, Dave Johnson from Seeing the
Forest, and I'm sure a few others I'm forgetting.







The lunch was only scheduled to go for an hour and he stayed with us for two. I
think that means he enjoyed himself, which is good. It's of course fascinating
to be in the presence of someone like Clinton. You feel for a moment a part of
history, a witness to history. And you get a small glimpse at greatness. For a
politico, this kind of lunch is a life's dream. But on a more practical side, as
I said at the beginning, these kind of meet-and-greets are what make politics
work when it works - the importance of the personal cannot be overstated. We get
more done working together than working separately, and that's one of the main
messages we delivered.







Joe in DC is really lucky his best friend is a good photographer.

The Bogeyman Industry

Butler Shaffer

Lew Rockwell

"For as children tremble and fear everything in the
blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no
more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold
in terror and imagine will come true." ~ Lucretius

When I was a small child, I delighted in scaring my two
younger sisters with specters dreamed up by me with the help
of radio broadcasts. My mind was a bottomless well of
monsters, hobgoblins, and - scariest of all - those amorphous
demons whose lack of clarity in shape made them all the more
terrifying. I was a Ziegfeld of theatrical production, with
sound effects produced by my ghostly vocalizing, the pounding
on walls, or the scratching of my fingernails on a door; while
my special effects took the form of crawling beneath their
beds at night and kicking the bedsprings. The script was
nothing special, it being sufficient that the acting would
generate the desired screams.

I have been out of the fear-mongering business for many
decades now, the field having been taken over by well-financed
professionals with whom I am unable and unwilling to compete.
The stage props and special effects have become so massive and
expensive as to leave little room for a small-time operator to
succeed with nothing more than voice-over screeches. For the
enterprise to be worthwhile today, economies-of-scale demand
that the intended audience be expanded beyond one's immediate
family. The bogeyman has become a multinational operation,
leaving a budding young entrepreneur to content himself with
annoying the neighbors with a garage band.

Fear-peddling is very much in danger
of becoming monopolized by the state, which long ago realized
that keeping people perennially frightened was the most
effective method of maintaining them in a huddled and obedient
mass. From the primitive tribal chief who was able to
convince his neighbors of the threats posed by the "Nine
Bows" across the river, to today's political shakedown
artists with their terrorist phantoms, fear
has been the essential organizing principle of politics.

As my sisters and I learned at an
early age, fear objects are most terrifying when their
identities are vague and formless. Lions and tigers and
bears are dangerous, but never as frightening as shadowy
creatures who haunt darkened streets or hallways. I recall the
stark terror I experienced in listening to Lionel Barrymore's
radio presentation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol,"
and imagining the ghost of Jacob Marley clanking his way up a
lonely staircase. I also recall the disappointment I felt in
seeing my first movie version of the story: I had, after all,
dreamed up a far scarier specter than Hollywood was able to
accomplish with special effects photography.

Like small children, we are now living in a society that
the institutional order - particularly the state - tries
vainly to hold together through fear. While
pointing to "others" as threats to our well-being -
one of the clearest symptoms of psychological projection - the
state unwittingly acknowledges its terrorist foundations.
We must be kept in constant terror of
faceless and formless men - or women - who might attack us in
some unexpected manner; we must learn to fear
unattended packages, or breast-feeding mothers on airliners,
or dark-skinned people who speak in languages we do not
understand. We have even been warned to feel unsafe at petting
zoos and roller-skating rinks, as government officials warn us
to be constantly alert to dangers from "suspicious"
others.

Lest we not accord world events
their "proper" potential for threats to our lives,
we have been provided with one of the most idiotic of
political gimmicks: a color-coded chart identifying the level
of fear we should feel. Like Pavlovian dogs, our operant
conditioning is apparently deigned to elicit from each of us
an expected rush of adrenalin as the colors move upwards from
yellow to orange to red.

It is rational for men and women to have an awareness of
potential dangers in their environments, and to make an
appropriate response when needed. Some
very dangerous and ill-motivated people did murder nearly
three thousand people on 9/11. It
is important that the identities and purposes of those
involved be revealed, even if doing so requires us to look in
directions we are uncomfortable considering. On
the other hand, it is quite irrational - to the point of being
pathological - to embrace the doctrine of a malevolent
universe; to live in constant fear of everything and everybody
at all times. I was in college, in the early 1950s,
when the shadowy hobgoblin of the "communist
infiltrator" became a useful tool to mobilize fear on
behalf of expanded governmental power. I recall one study in
which people were asked whether they suspected any of their
neighbors of being communists. Many
did, offering such "evidence" as a man having
National Geographic maps pinned to his walls, or a couple who
were accustomed to entertaining people at their home late at
night. I also recall a legislator in our state who was
convinced of the presence of a communist
"conspiracy" within the faculty of the state
university. When informed that there
was no evidence to support such a charge, the solon responded
that the lack of evidence only confirmed the effectiveness of
the conspiracy! Again, fear-objects are rendered more
terrifying when we imagine them operating in shadows, where
our imaginations must be employed to fill in the details.

Today's "terrorist" or "jihadist" would
doubtless be defined in the same murky fashion. Of course,
"jihad" is a word very few people understand, it
only being sufficient that everyone fear it. Our fears of such
persons are hastened because we do not understand the causal
explanations for their actions. Nor are most of us desirous of
learning such causes because, to do so, would give rise to an
even greater fear: that of discovering
the nature of the political games being played at our expense.
It is far better that we simply accept
the bogeyman du jour as our fear object, and recite all the
appropriate mantras on behalf of our attachment to patriotic
causes that only lead to our destruction.

We are told, on a daily basis, that our lives are under
constant threat of attack from terrorists. But if this is so,
where are these supposed terrorists? President Bush and his
defenders have been bleating that their expanded police and
surveillance powers are keeping terrorists out of the country,
a proposition that is rendered laughable by the daily influx
of immigrants from Central America! If it has been so easy for
millions of people to enter this country in spite of
determined government efforts to prevent it, what efficacious
mechanisms has the Bush administration put in place to keep
out terrorists? Nor does the government's performance in New
Orleans suggest to any thoughtful person that it is capable of
making an effective response to any alleged danger.

The so-called "war on
terror" is just another of the many state-run rackets
designed to benefit governmental, media, and various business
interests, all of whom profit from state-induced fears of
others. Greater power and more tax dollars flow to
political systems; the media enjoys an increase in viewers and
readers; while untold numbers of government contractors, along
with suppliers of goods and services for a market of
frightened people, profit from this protection racket. In
threatening to expand the war to other countries, the state
increases hostilities from its targeted enemies, thus
engendering more fears from Americans who demand
"protection."

If physicians could figure out ways
to inject people with deadly viruses that they could then
treat with expensive tests, drugs, and medical advice, their
profession would precisely correlate with the methods of the
state!

President Bush and other politicians - along with the
agents of disinformation in the media - spent many hours
exploiting the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush
went to the World Trade Center site ostensibly to honor the
victims of that atrocity, but in fact his purpose was to take
advantage of that event in order to reinforce the mindset of
fear upon which the state depends for the continuing expansion
of its power over our lives. Fear is a
condition the state cannot allow to enervate; it must be
constantly revitalized. Like a morsel of food to Pavlov's
dogs, Mr. Bush's memorial wreath served - like Memorial Day
ceremonies - to reinforce the conditioning that is the state's
power source.

On the same day that Mr. Bush gave his performance in New
York City, Faux News had a feature asking: "Is Iraq war a
'sideshow' in the war on terror?" Intelligent minds would
do better to ask: is the war on terror a
sideshow in the war on the American people?

Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School
of Law. He is the author of Calculated
Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival