10
May
WATCH: MEET (AND HELP) MEDIACHANNEL.ORG
Before I begin today, I want you meet some of my colleagues, the team that produces Mediachannel. Its largely composed of volunteers from all over the world who believe that the American media must open up to other perspectives to make the kinds of changes we want in the world. We would welcome your financial support (Related) to keep us going and your participation if the spirit so moves.
THE CONSTITUTION IS JUST A PIECE OF PAPER
GEORGE TENET COPS A PLEA AND CASHES IN
HOUSE SEEKING TO CLEAN UP STUDENT LOAN MESS
I always check the headlines before I start to write because I like to try to be topical and timely and on or ahead of the news..My Yahoo page lists the top stories which often sound like the same top stories I saw yesterday :
•Bush would veto Democrats’ new Iraq bill
•3 Iraqi journalists killed in shooting
•Anti-Sarkozy protests in Paris, students strike
•Russians mark victory over Nazi Germany
But none of the new news as scary as some old news I came across from the Capital Hill In it, from December of 2005, Doug Thompson quotes Bush on the Constitution: as saying “Just a goddamned piece of paper”
Let us remember.
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve heard from two White House sources who claim they heard from others present in the meeting that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
Now that’s ‘tude, and arrogance and contempt. I am writing on the anniversary of Abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry to free the slaves. That’s some history that’s been buried as has many of the crimes of our Constitution-flouting Chief Exec who vows to prolong the war until a victory everyone knows is impossible is achieved. Reminds me of Captain Queeg
TENET CASHES IN–AND NOT JUST WITH A BOOK
Meanwhile, we learn that all of those stories we saw about the laments of the “slam dunk” spook George Tenet, ex CIA chief who recently bared his soul in print. Here’s what most our media LEFT OUT:
Tim Shorrock writes in Salon about how former Tenet began cashing in after being forced out of his job:
When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in his book. But according to public records, Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation. Meanwhile, one of the CIA’s largest contractors gave Tenet access to a highly secured room where he could work on classified material for his book.
Tenet sits on the board of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a major supplier of biometric identification software used by the U.S. to monitor terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company recently acquired two of the CIA’s hottest contractors for its growing intelligence outsourcing business. At the Analysis Corp. (TAC), a government contractor run by one of Tenet’s closest former advisors at the CIA, Tenet is a member of an advisory board that is helping TAC expand its thriving business designing the problematic terrorist watch lists used by the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department.
Tenet is also a director of Guidance Software, which makes forensic software used by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence to search computer hard drives and laptops for evidence used in the prosecution and tracking of suspected terrorists. And Tenet is the only American director on the board of QinetiQ, the British defense research firm that was privatized in 2003 and was, until recently, controlled by the Carlyle Group, the powerful Washington-based private equity fund. Fueled with Carlyle money, QinetiQ acquired four U.S. companies in recent years, including an intelligence contractor, Analex Inc.
By joining these companies, Tenet is following in the footsteps of thousands of other former intelligence officers who have left the CIA and other agencies and returned as contractors, often making two or three times what they made in their former jobs. Based on reporting I’ve done for an upcoming book, contractors are responsible for at least half of the estimated $48 billion a year the government now spends on intelligence. But exactly how much money will remain unknown: Four days before Tenet’s book was published, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence decided not to release the results of a yearlong study of intelligence contracting, because disclosure of the figure, a DNI official told the New York Times, could damage national security.
ARMS RACE—NOT JUST IRAN
NEW DELHI, India, May 9–India test-fired a medium-range nuclear-capable missile Wednesday with a range of 150 kilometers (95 miles), a defense ministry official said.
The surface-to-surface “Prithvi“ (Earth) missile was fired from the test range in Chandipur in the eastern state of Orissa as a trial by the army, the official said on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to reveal his identity under ministry rules, AP reported.
The area is 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa state.
India and longtime rival Pakistan routinely test-fire missiles, but usually notify each other ahead of the launches in keeping with an agreement between the two nations.
The Indian army already has inducted the “Prithvi“ missile, which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, the official said.
Last month, India successfully test fired “Agni III,“ a new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East.
OIL WORKERS TO STRIKE IN IRAQ
Iraqi Oil Workers to Strike Over Privatization Law
Iraq’s largest oil workers’ trade union will strike this Thursday, in protest at the controversial oil law currently being considered by the Iraqi parliament. The
move threatens to stop all exports from the oil-rich country.
The oil law proposes giving multinational companies the primary role in developing Iraq’s huge untapped oilfields, under contracts lasting up to 30 years. Oil production in Iraq, like in most of the Middle East, has been in the public sector since the 1970s.
What rule did an AP reporter break today while interviewing Cheney in Iraq? (Related)
THE BIG MYSTERY: WHY AREN’T DEMOCRATS FIGHTING FOR FAIR ELECTIONS?
The Democratic Underground reports:
First of all, the House Administration Committee has unanimously voted to dismiss the challenge by Clint Curtis in FL 24–as well as the related challenges of Frank Gonzales (ostensibly defeated by incumbent Lincoln Diaz-Balart) and John Russell (ostensibly defeated by incumbent Ginny Brown-Waite) in FL 21 and FL5, respectively.
(The House approved only the challenge by Christine Jennings in FL 13.) They dismissed the evidence without even scrutinizing it, claiming that it wasn’t strong enough. An odd judgment, as that evidence comprised sworn affidavits collected door-to-door, in precinct after precinct, from citizens who’d actually cast votes in the election. Curtis found a 12 to 24 point divergence between histally of such affidavits and the official numbers–which had been “counted” by paperless Diebold machines, and which differed dramatically from what the pre-election polls had said about the race (a dead heat, and then Curtis “lost” by some 16 points to Repub incumbent Tom Feeney).
Second, HR 811 has now passed out of that committee and is headed to the floor for consideration by the House. Although some changes have been scribbled into it, the bill still permits the use of DRE machines. So HR 811 is, at best, as good as useless.
ECONOMY WATCH
HOUSE VOTES TO CLEAN UP STUDENT LENDING (Related)
WASHINGTON - With the student loan industry coming under harsh criticism, the House on Wednesday easily approved a bill aimed at curbing conflicts of interest and corrupt practices in college lending.
WORLD BANK AFTER WOLFOWITZ (Related)
ECONOMIC COSTS OF IRAQ WAR (Related)
CHINA RISING Booming China market hits high
Riding high on record-breaking share prices, China’s Shanghai Composite Index today soared beyond the 4,000-point mark for the first time, according to published reports.
“Are We Headed For Another Great Depression?”. (Related)
Mike Whitney talks with Elaine Meinel Supkis
Our empire won’t retreat from its distant borders but these same borders are bankrupting us for we never recovered from the Vietnam War, we literally papered over the mess which remained and continues to poison our nation. The military/industrial complex is not making us rich, it is making us poorer. And the paper being laid over all this is the same paper the Germans used in 1924 to paper over their own bankruptcy: printed money.
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