By Anne E. Kornblut
The New York Times

With the midterm elections coming into view, President Bush is launching an extended publicity tour to draw attention back to the threat of terrorism, quickly pivoting to more comfortable political territory for him after the focus in recent days on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Starting with an address to veterans on Thursday, Mr. Bush intends to outline what one adviser described as the “consequences of victory and defeat.” He will continue making speeches on the subject throughout the month, keying off the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

The White House has made national security, and the war in Iraq, the centerpieces of Mr. Bush’s strategy for helping Republicans try to retain control of Congress in this year’s election. Nonetheless, as he traveled to Arkansas and Tennessee today to raise money for Republican candidates, Mr. Bush insisted that his “series of speeches, they are not political speeches.” (more…)

The Associated Press
NY TIMES

United Nations – The U.N. humanitarian chief on Wednesday accused Israel of “shocking” and “completely immoral” behavior for dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a cease-fire in its war with Hezbollah was in sight.

Jan Egeland said Israel had either made a “terribly wrong decision” or had “started thinking afterwards.” The remarks were unusually harsh even for Egeland, who often ignores an unwritten rule that U.N. officials should not criticize member states too severely.

“What’s shocking and I would say, to me, completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution,” Jan Egeland said at a news conference. (more…)

By Daniel Dombey
The Financial Times

The European Union is ready to continue discussions with Iran over its nuclear programme even though a United Nations deadline for Tehran to restrict its nuclear activities expires on Thursday, diplomats have told the Financial Times.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear monitor, will confirm that Tehran has refused to comply with a UN Security Council resolution that requires Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can generate both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.

But the report is also likely to note that Tehran has not accelerated its nuclear programme, a fact that Russia and China, both of which are resisting plans to impose sanctions on Iran, are likely to emphasise. (more…)

side note: this is one of the best chronicles of the lead up to the war i’ve ever seen. Nice Work MotherJones. Check it out for yourself, Lie By Lie!

By Tim Dickinson and Jonathan Stein
http://www.motherjones.com

Conveniently timed terror alerts, foregone delusions, and bald-faced lies—a day-by-day account of how and why we went to war with Iraq.

VIEW THE TIMELINE HERE

side note: this is about the speech that Olbermann was talking about. Rummy is a quack, here are a few quotes he’s said over the years:
1. “We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead.”
2. “I believe what I said yesterday … I don’t know what I said, er, but I know what I think, and … well, I assume it’s what I said.”
3. “The message is that there are known knowns – there are things that we know that we know. There are known unknowns – that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know. And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE RUMMY QUOTES

The Associated Press
CBS NEWS

Defense Secretary likens Iraq war opponents to those who appeased Hitler.

Salt Lake City – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces “a new type of fascism” and likened critics of the Bush administration’s war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis in the 1930s.

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral or intellectual confusion” about what threatens the nation’s security. His remarks amounted to one of his most pointed defenses of President Bush’ war policies and was among his toughest attacks on Bush’s critics. (more…)

side note: this is why I watch Olbermann everynight…….

via crooksandliars.com

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

Olbermann delivered this commentary with fire and passion while highlighting how Rumsfeld’s comments echoes other times in our world’s history when anyone who questioned the administration was coined as a traitor, unpatriotic, communist or any other colorful term. Luckily we pulled out of those times and we will pull out of these times.

Remember – Rumsfeld did not just call the Democrats out yesterday, he called out a majority of this country. This wasn’t only a partisan attack, but more so an attack against the majority of Americans.

side note: maybe it’ll make everyone think twice when their doctor attempts to prescribe them some meds. Make sure you ask questions and before popping those pills just b/c your doctor said so, go online and read about the medicine. i’m not saying doctors shouldn’t be trusted, but the industry has been infiltrated by money-hungry drug reps who will do almost anything to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs…..

by Jake Whitney
The New Republic
Big (Brother) Pharma

For years Dr. Peter Klementowicz suspected that pharmaceutical sales representatives knew more about the prescriptions he was writing than they let on. Klementowicz, a cardiologist in Nashua, New Hampshire, would occasionally hear curious statements from drug reps, such as, “you’re one of my targets.” His suspicion peaked when a friend told him she overheard a group of reps at a local Panera Bread discussing ways to induce Klementowicz to prescribe their drugs. How did they know he wasn’t already prescribing their drugs? It wasn’t until last year, after Klementowicz’s wife stumbled upon a two-year-old newspaper article, that he learned what more and more doctors are also just discovering: Drug companies know almost everything about which physicians prescribe which drugs and how often. (more…)

side note: another dirty way for the tobacco companies to hold onto their customers….they are even the ones funding those truth commercials you see on tv….yep, the ones criticizing the tobacco industry. i guess it’s a little bit what just happened with Nestle. They recently purchased the Jenny Craig company………and yes, Nestle the candy, breakfast burrito, and all the other crappy, processed food that is helping Americans get fatter by the day…..they are now the cause, and the solution to the problem….

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Some Brands More Than 30% Stronger

The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10 percent from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content, according to a new study.

Nicotine is highly addictive, and while no one has studied the effect of the increases on smokers, the higher levels theoretically could make new smokers more easily addicted and make it harder for established smokers to quit. (more…)

side note: this shouldn’t surprise anyone. bushie ok’d an attempt to overthrow Chavez back in 2002. It lasted for about 48 hours and then Chavez regained power.

By Duncan Campbell
The Guardian UK

Millions of dollars given to opposition, claim critics. Venezuelan groups’ details hidden from list.

The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chavez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency.

Millions of dollars have been provided in a “pro-democracy programme” that Chavez supporters claim is a covert attempt to bankroll an opposition to defeat the government.

The money is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Office of Transition Initiatives. The row follows the recent announcement that the US had made $80m (£42m) available for groups seeking to bring about change in Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is a close ally of Mr Chavez.

Information about the grants has been obtained following a Freedom of Information request by the Associated Press. USAID released copies of 132 contracts but obscured the names and other identifying details of nearly half the organisations.

The Office of Transition Initiatives, which also works in such “priority countries” as Iraq, Afghanistan, Bolivia and Haiti, has overseen more than $26m in grants to groups in Venezuela since 2002.

Among the grants detailed in the information are: one for $47,459 for a “democratic leadership campaign”; $37,614 for citizen meetings to discuss a “shared vision” for society; and one of $56,124 to analyse Venezuela’s new constitution. (more…)

side note: it’s sad to think this is our president…..

via crooksandliars.com

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

For someone who does not like how the public perceives him, Bush does not help his case any in this interview. Take this little exchange:

WILLIAMS: When you take a tour of the world, a lot of Americans e-mail me with their fears that, some days they just wake up and it just feels like the end of the world is near. And you go from North Korea to Iran, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, and you look at how things have changed, how Americans are viewed overseas, if that is important to you. Do you have any moments of doubt that we fought a wrong war? Or that there’s something wrong with the perception of America overseas?

BUSH: Well those are two different questions, did we fight the wrong war, and absolutely — I have no doubt — the war came to our shores, remember that. We had a foreign policy that basically said, let’s hope calm works. And we were attacked.

Last week Bush said that he never implied any connection between Iraq and 9/11, yet both Iraq and the War on Terror have again been lumped together and Bush says that the war “came to our shores”. Sure the war with terrorism did, but the war with Iraq did not come to our shores. Is it any wonder why people say the White House has tried to link Saddam and 9/11?

Throughout the interview, Bush tries to keep up his “good ole’ boy” appearance, which comes off more as the incompetence appearance. The best part comes at the end:

WILLIAMS: How have you been read wrong?

BUSH: I don’t know. I frankly don’t pay that much attention. I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but…

WILLIAMS: Still not watching television, huh?

BUSH: I watched a good baseball game.

If Bush would have decided to watch television last August and turn it to any of the news channels out there (including FOX), then perhaps aide would have gotten to the Gulf Coast quicker. Remember the report that White House aides had to make a DVD of the coverage and were arguing over who had to give it to Bush and ultimately break the news to him that America had just lost an entire city? I would still love to see that DVD and how hacked the coverage of Katrina actually was.

side note: THIS IS A NT MUST READ!!!

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is less than two weeks away, but the avalanche has already begun. Oliver Stone’s film “World Trade Center” has been advertised in all corners and is being screened across the nation. CNN has announced that it intends, on the 11th, to rebroadcast all of the coverage of the attacks from 8:30 a.m. until midnight. If you don’t have cable, they say, you can watch it for free on the CNN web site.

ABC intends to mark the occasion in far more grand a fashion. Starting September 10th and ending September 11th, the network will show a miniseries titled “The Path to 9/11.” According to reports from early screenings, the writer/producer of the miniseries, Cyrus Nowrasteh, has crafted a television polemic intended to blame the entire event on President Clinton.

Nowrasteh, an outspoken conservative of Persian descent whose family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah, spoke last year at the Liberty Film Festival, described by its founders as Hollywood’s first conservative film festival. Govindini Murty, actress, writer, and co-director of the Liberty Film Festival, wrote a review of “The Path to 9/11″ for the right-wing online news page FrontPageMag.com. (more…)

side note: we posted this story yesterday. And guess who’s the secret Senator, that’s right Sen. Ted Stevens (some of our readers will remember Stevens from the “bridge to no-where”legislation).

By Paul Kiel
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com

A spokesman for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) just confirmed his boss was the man behind the secret hold on the Coburn/Obama spending database bill, which has captivated a segment of the political blogging community in recent days.

“Sen. Stevens does have a hold on the bill,” said the spokesman, who would only speak on the condition he not be named. He added that Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) office was notified of the hold after it was placed. So Coburn’s comments two weeks ago may have been duly informed.

So why does Stevens say he placed the hold? Why did it take this long for him to say so? And will he lift it?

We’ll have more soon…
see original

side note: Thanks CS for sending my way. Always count on you brother. This is just sad, and proof that Bush and Repubs in general don’t care helping those who need it. This country has gotten to where it is because of our commitment to the middle class and helping others up to the middle class. The repubs and Bush are in favor of destroying it!

http://www.nytimes.com

If you’re still harboring the notion that the economy is “good,” prepare to be disabused.

Even the best number from yesterday’s Census Bureau report for 2005 is bad news for most Americans. It shows that median income rose 1.1 percent last year, to $46,326, the first increase since it peaked in 1999. But the entire increase is attributable to the 23 million households headed by someone over age 65. So the gain is likely from investment income and Social Security, not wages and salaries.

For the other 91 million households, the median dropped, by half a percent, or $275. Incomes for the under-65 crowd were hurt by a decline in wages and salaries among full-time working men for the second year in a row, and among full-time working women for the third straight year. In all, median income for the under-65 group was $2,000 lower in 2005 than in 2001, when the last recession bottomed out.

Despite the Bush-era expansion, the number of Americans living in poverty in 2005 — 37 million — was the same as in 2004. This is the first time the number has not risen since 2000. But the share of the population now in poverty — 12.6 percent — is still higher than at the trough of the last recession, when it was 11.7 percent. And among the poor, 43 percent were living below half the poverty line in 2005 — $7,800 for a family of three. That’s the highest percentage of people in “deep poverty” since the government started keeping track of those numbers in 1975. (more…)

side note: a picture speaks a thousand words.

by MAX BLUMENTHAL
http://www.thenation.com

Barnstorming around Virginia in the re-election campaign that Republican Senator George Allen hopes will provide the impetus for his 2008 run for the presidency, he has suddenly been forced on the defensive. Time and again, he has felt compelled to explain that his mocking of S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American staff member for his Democratic opponent, as “macaca,” or monkey, was an unintentional gaffe. “It was a mistake. I made a mistake,” he told a reporter from a local NBC affiliate at a campaign stop on Thursday. Hours later, he told the ABC affiliate, “It was a mistake, I was wrong.” On Fox News’s Sean Hannity show, he echoed, “It was a mistake.”

But was it an isolated “mistake”?

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups. (more…)

side note: I’ve met a lot of people in my life….from the best to the worst. But one of the greatest people I’ve ever met sent me this article. She grew up in the midwest and went to college in New Orleans. She moved back to the midwest after college. When Katrina hit the gulf region, she told me that she had to move back “home” to help out her fellow neighbors/friends/americans/humans to assist in putting their lives back together. She’s a great person…she has a huge heart, and is one of the kindest people around. In this messed up world we live in, it’s nice to know that there are people like her and she gives me hope that things will turn out alright. She sent me this article and it’s well worth the long read……

By Bruce Nolan
The Times-Picayune
Landfall Buras. 6:10 a.m. Monday, August 29, 2005

Two hours before dawn, at the threshold of the darkest week in the history of New Orleans, a hand shook Cyril Crutchfield awake in lower Plaquemines Parish, 45 miles southeast of the city.

“Wake up. Wake up! Water’s comin’ in.”

Crutchfield sat up on the hard table that had been his makeshift bed in the darkened cafeteria of Port Sulphur High School. He could hear Hurricane Katrina in the night, its wind keening and moaning with unnerving power, much stronger than when he had fallen asleep two hours earlier.

It sounded like a beast. A living thing.

The floor of the high school’s sturdy cafeteria stood 3 feet above ground. But water was seeping under the door.

A flashlight beam cut the darkness.

“We got to move, man.”

Katrina was still 1 ½ hours from landfall over Buras, 15 miles south. It had weakened hours earlier, yet remained a Category 3 monster with peak winds of 127 mph across a 70-mile front.

Worse, Katrina was packing a 27-foot storm surge, far higher than the surge before Camille, the vicious but more compact 1969 hurricane that stood unchallenged in living memory as the gold standard of lethal storms. (more…)