Suze Orman To Bush: "You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family's Fortune"

Suze Orman To Bush: "You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family's Fortune"

In a long profile by WWD's Jacob Bernstein, Suze Orman sounds off on George Bush and blames the ex-president for the financial crisis (near the bottom of the first page):

Sitting in a green room after her TV interviews, she lambasts everyone from Alan Greenspan to Larry Summers to the former president of the United States, who holds an especially dark place in her heart. "Commander in Chief?" she says of George W. Bush, with a mix of disbelief and scorn. "You blew up every single financial vessel we had and if you think you aren't personally responsible, well, the blame starts at the top. There is no higher top than you, SIR! If I were you, I would feel so absolutely horrific that I would take every penny I had and distribute it to anybody and everybody to help them in whatever way I could. You owe the American people every penny of your fortune and your family's fortune."

Orman also calls being impersonated by SNL's Kristen Wiig the “greatest honor of my career" and that often during her show she is forced to stop and think, "Ugh. I’m playing Kristen Wiig."

Read the full profile here at WWD.com.

Watch Kristen Wiig impersonate Suze Orman below:

Republicans in full whine mode because Obama is going to work around their obstructionist tactics

Republicans in full whine mode because Obama is going to work around their obstructionist tactics
Joe Sudbay (DC) ·

The Republican whining about Obama and bipartisanship is getting tiresome. To work, bipartisanship has to be a two-way street. But, the Republicans have a roadblock on their side of the street -- and they bitch every time Obama tries to get around their obstructions:

Senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president's signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes, a move that many lawmakers say would fly in the face of President Obama's pledge to restore bipartisanship to Washington.

Republicans are howling about the proposal to expand health coverage and tax greenhouse gas emissions without their input, warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president.

"That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who briefly considered joining the Obama administration as commerce secretary. "You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River."

Obama went to the White House with a vow to change the way things are done. The Republicans are playing the same games. Obama vowed accomplishments for the American people. The Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing every thing they can to stop him. So, when Obama basically, says "Fine, I'll do it without you," the Republicans whine and run to the media. It's pathetic and it's gotten really old already.

NOTE FROM JOHN: "[W]arning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president." Right, those would be the relations where Obama bent over backwards, even offered the GOP 3 cabinet posts, and in return 3 of them - a whopping 3 - voted for the stimulus package. What "relations" are the Republicans talking about?


Rush Limbaugh, the leader of the GOP, has said repeatedly he wants Obama to fail. Most of the GOPers on the Hill are lemmings who follow (and fear) Rush. That's what Obama is up against. Republicans want to kill Obama's agenda. It's good that the White House has figured that out. Now, roll the Republicans. Team Obama should "Strong-arm it through." It's the only way to save the country from the economic disaster created by the Republicans.

China's last eunuch

China's last eunuch spills sex secrets

Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:01am EDT

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting's eyes in old age -- the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death.

China's last eunuch was tormented and impoverished in youth, punished in revolutionary China for his role as the "Emperor's slave" but finally feted and valued, largely for outlasting his peers to become a unique relic, a piece of "living history."

He had stories of the tortuous rituals of the Forbidden City, Emperor Pu Yi's last moments there and the troubled puppet court run by the Japanese during the 1930s. He escaped back to the heart of a civil war, became a Communist official and then a target of radical leftists before being finally left in peace.

This turbulent life has been recorded in the "The Last Eunuch of China" by amateur historian Jia Yinghua, who over years of friendship drew out of Sun the secrets that were too painful or intimate to spill to prying journalists or state archivists.

He died in 1996, in an old temple that had become his home, and his biography was finally published in English this year.

It unveils formerly taboo subjects like the sex life of eunuchs and the emperor they served, the agonizing castrations often done at home and also often lethal, and the incontinence and shame that came with the promise of great power.

"He was conflicted over whether to tell the secrets of the emperor," said Jia, adding that Sun preserved a loyalty to the old system because he had dedicated so much of his life to it.

"I was the only person he trusted. He did not even confide in his family, after they threw away his 'treasure,'" Jia added, using traditional eunuchs' slang for their preserved genitals.

They were discarded during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when having anything from the "old society" could put lives at risk.

"He only cried about two things; when telling me about the castration and about the loss of his 'treasure'," said Jia, who works as an energy bureaucrat, but devotes all his spare time to chronicling the dying days of Imperial China after a childhood enthralled by the eunuchs and princes who were his neighbors.

STERILITY AND POWER

Over years of painstaking research, he has gleaned arcane details about every aspect of palace life, along with secrets about the emperor's sexuality and cruelty that would look at home on the front page of tabloid newspapers.

For centuries in China, the only men from outside the imperial family who were allowed into the Forbidden City's private quarters were castrated ones. They effectively swapped their reproductive organs for a hope of exclusive access to the emperor that made some into rich and influential politicians.

Sun's impoverished family set him on this painful, risky path in hopes that he might one day be able to crush a bullying village landlord who stole their fields and burned their house.

His desperate father performed the castration on the bed of their mud-walled home, with no anesthetic and only oil-soaked paper as a bandage. A goose quill was inserted in Sun's urethra to prevent it getting blocked as the wound healed.

He was unconscious for three days and could barely move for two months. When he finally rose from his bed, history played the first of a series of cruel tricks on him -- he discovered the emperor he hoped to serve had abdicated several weeks earlier.

"He had a very tragic life. He had thought it was worthwhile for his father, but the sacrifice was in vain," Jia said, in a house stacked with old books, newspapers and photos.

"He was very smart and shrewd. If the empire had not fallen there is a high chance he would have become powerful," Jia added.

The young ex-emperor was eventually allowed to stay in the palace and Sun had risen to become an attendant to the empress when the imperial family were unceremoniously booted out of the Forbidden City, ending centuries of tradition and Sun's dreams.

"He was castrated, then the emperor abdicated. He made it into the Forbidden City then Pu Yi was evicted. He followed him north and then the puppet regime collapsed. He felt life had played a joke at his expense," Jia said.

Many eunuchs fled with palace treasures, but Sun took a crop of memories and a nose for political survival that turned out to be better tools for surviving years of civil war and ideological turbulence that followed.

"He never became rich, he never became powerful, but he became very rich in experience and secrets," Jia said.

(Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Tarrant)

'Truth Commission' critic accuses Leahy of 'whitewash'

'Truth Commission' critic accuses Leahy of 'whitewash'
Rachel Oswald

Passions surrounding various proposals that would investigate Bush administration wrongdoings are extremely high with interested parties not shying away from using harsh rhetoric towards fellow supporters of probes.

Speaking to Raw Story, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a human rights attorney, says he is opposing Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy’s proposed 'Truth Commission' because it doesn’t go far enough.

"We’re talking about a whitewash with Leahy. Are we some Latin American country where we don’t have a democracy robust enough to try people?," Ratner said. “[Leahy’s] essentially diffusing the issue so there’s not as much pressure on prosecution. It’s not really going to go far. [The commission is] going to divert us for a few years and we’re never going to see something come out of it.”

Ratner said he and the Center for Constitutional Rights want to see criminal prosecutions of officials at the highest level of the Bush administration, the so-called “principals” who were the architects of controversial polices and signed off on them.

“Cheney has openly said that he approved the water boarding memo and that he would do it again,” Ratner said, adding, “My view is you absolutely have to have prosecutions to have deterrents [for future executive power abuses].”

Speaking at last Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the matter, Leahy (D-VT) said, “If criminal conduct occurred, this senator wants to know about it. “I’m trying to get the ability to find out if criminal conduct occurred so it won’t happen again. If crimes occurred, I don’t think they should be swept under the rug.”

Leahy has said he would not rule out criminal prosecutions of high-level Bush appointees as have other senators supportive of his proposal, such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Ratner said he objects to comments made by Leahy critical of people who are “fixated on prosecution.”

“That’s me,” Ratner said, adding, “Those [comments] are all basically saying ‘we’re not prosecuting.’"

Ratner said he has been unexpectedly pleased with the public support for criminal prosecutions in the country.

More than 100 organizations large and small have signed on to calls throughout the years for a special prosecutor to look into Bush administration abuses while at least 18 groups have already affirmed their support of Leahy’s Truth Commission proposal.

Approximately 40 percent of those polled by Gallup at the end of January support criminal investigations while 25 percent to 30 percent support an investigation by an independent panel. 35 percent to 25 percent of those polled don’t want any investigation at all.

Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special

This is a recent clip from my interview with Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special TV.

Don Juarez on Manhattan Entertainment Spotlight Special
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Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next up for International Criminal Court

Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next up for International Criminal Court
Stephen C. Webster

An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, former US President George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list.

The former prosecutor's assessment was echoed in some respect by United Nations General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, who said America's military occupation of Iraq has caused over a million deaths and should be probed by the United Nations.

"David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects," reported the New Zealand Herald.

The indictment of Bashir was a landmark, said Crane, because it paved a route for the court at The Hague to pursue heads of states engaged in criminality.

"Crane also said that the [Bashir] indictment may even be extended to the former president George W. Bush, on the grounds that some officials in terms of his administration engaged in harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects which mostly amounted to torture," said Turkish Weekly.

"All pretended justifications notwithstanding, the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," Brockmann told the Human Rights Council. "The illegality of the use of force against Iraq cannot be doubted as it runs contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. It sets a number of precedents that we cannot allow to stand."

The Bush administration boycotted the Human Rights Council. The day Brockmann made his accusations happened to be the first in which the United States had observers at the council, on orders from President Obama.

According to Iranian news network PressTV, the Iranian government called the Bashir indictment "a blow to International justice" and an "insult directed at Muslims."

Iran's plainly stated sentiment toward the court's legitimacy is similar in spirit to that of the United States. Because the US Government has refused to recognize the court by becoming a signatory in its statute, "the only other way Bush could be investigated is if the [UN] Security Council were to order it, something unlikely to happen with Washington a veto-wielding permanent member," said the Herald.

Due to the International Criminal Court's lack of any real police force, it has traditionally relied upon signatory states for enforcement of its rulings. But when the leader of one such state is indicted, the court's authority and enforcement capability is called into question. Even the arrest of Bashir is a far cry, for now. And without a UN Security Council order, former US President Bush would not go on "trial" before the court any time soon.

However, on January 26, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak insisted that the pursuit of Bush and members of his administration for the torture of terror war prisoners is crucial if justice is to be served.

Nowak added that he believes enough evidence exists currently to proceed with the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense who was credited as being highly influential in the crafting and push for America's invasion of Iraq and the prior administration's abusive interrogation tactics.

The following video was published to YouTube on March 6 by the non-profit, Web-based news service LinkTV.




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Harpers editor: America had a dictator for eight yearsDavid Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

Harpers editor: America had a dictator for eight years David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster Published: Friday March 6, 2009

It was a casual refrain near the dawning of former President George W. Bush's political career on the national stage. Most took as a joke.

"If this was a dictatorship it'd be a heck of a lot easier," he so memorably said. "Just so long as I'm the dictator."

His presidency now a smoldering memory, Harper's contributing editor Scott Horton thinks that perhaps he wasn't kidding after all. In a March 3 column, Horton extrapolated on "George W. Bush's Disposable Constitution," expanding on his thoughts during a Thursday broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Since the Monday release of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.

"These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want."

Olbermann's Thursday guest was just as strident as Turley in his view of the prior administration.

"We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship," wrote Horton in his Harper's article.

"Bush did not order, at any point, the military seizure of part of Cleveland," said Olbermann. "He did not imprison [DailyKos.com founder] Markos Moulitsas. This was certainly not an active military dictatorship, or a dictatorship of any kind in anybody's tangible perception.

"So, what do you say to the idea that these [memos] were just outer parameters, in the event of true internal chaos?"

"These memoranda were crafted with specific programs and projects in mind," said Horton. "The question is, exactly what? ... There's a clear focus on the use of the commander in chief powers. On the use of the military domestically in the United States.

"John Yoo says the Fourth Amendment presents no impediment. The Fourth Amendment is of course a limitation of surveillance. It creates a requirement of warrants for listening in to people's telephone conversations, for instance.

"In this case, I think it's pretty clear that this was designed to authorize the military and military agencies to engage in a sweeping program of surveillance in the United States."

In his March 3 column, Horton remarked, "These memos suggest that John Yoo found a way to treat the Posse Comitatus Act as suspended."

Further on in his MSNBC interview, he elaborated: "The president, if he wants, can have you squirreled away in the brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and he can have you tortured there. You have no appeal from that in these OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions.

"Of course, that's not the law. It's a ridiculous portrayal of the law. But it's what the OLC told the president he could do."

The memos were repealed with a mere five days remaining in President Bush's term. An internal Justice Department investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility has some forecasting potentially "serious consequences" for the authors, including Yoo.

Effectively, said Horton, these controversial memos saw President Bush "freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights" during wartime "with respect to anything he chose to label as counter-terrorism operations inside the United States."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 5, 2009.




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John Dean: Bush almost became an 'unconstitutional dictator'

John Dean: Bush almost became an 'unconstitutional dictator' David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster Published: Tuesday March 3, 2009

It was during the Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln became known as a "constitutional dictator," said former Nixon White House counsel John Dean during a Monday broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Responding to the recent release of several legal justifications for President Bush's most criticized policies, Dean summarized, "Reading these memos, you've gotta almost conclude we had an unconstitutional dictator. It's pretty deadly and pretty serious, what's in these materials."

The memos, released by Obama's Justice Department on Monday, outline possible methods for the president to ignore treaties and International laws, kidnap and torture American citizens and overrule the First Amendment to the Constitution which ensures freedom of speech and of the press.

All of these things and more could be done exclusively by the president in the name of fighting terrorism.

"Who in this formula was supposed to decide that these were terrorists?" asked Olbermann.

"Well, according to these memos, that was rather limited to the President of the United States and there are no guidelines as to how he might describe who was or was not a terrorist," said Dean.

Dean also said that the repeal of several of these memos just days before the Bush administration left power, was "definitely a bit of C-Y-A," though he did not ascribe "evil intent" to anyone.

"What does this say about what we need to do now in terms of investigating this, John?" asked Olbermann. "Is this the scale-tipper for everybody?"

"It could be," said Dean, "because the public is going to be aware of a lot more than they were. There is an investigation that is ongoing that started late in the Bush administration by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

"I think that investigation, which we've heard very little about, is going to be very hard to suppress now. ... I think the Office of Professional Responsibility may make some very strong recommendations that could include prosecution."

Dean has previously warned of "serious consequences" around the world if the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are not willing to "point fingers" at Bush administration members who may be guilty of war crimes.

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Mar. 2, 2009.




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Married Same-Sex Couples Sue US For Federal Benefits

DENISE LAVOIE | March 3, 2009 12:08 AM EST |

BOSTON — Mary Ritchie, a Massachusetts State Police trooper, has been married for almost five years and has two children. But when she files her federal income tax return, she's not allowed to check the "married filing jointly" box.

That's because Ritchie and her spouse, Kathleen Bush, are a gay couple, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act makes them ineligible to file joint tax returns.

Now Ritchie, Bush and more than a dozen others are suing the federal government, claiming the act discriminates against gay couples and is unconstitutional because it denies them access to federal benefits that other married couples receive, such as pensions and health insurance. Plaintiffs also include Dean Hara, the widower of former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives.

In Ritchie's case, she and her spouse say they have paid nearly $15,000 more in taxes than they would have if they had been able to file joint returns.

"It saddens us because we love our country," Ritchie said. "We are taxpayers. We live just like anyone else in our community. We do everything just like every other family, like every other married couple, and we are treated like less than that."

The lawsuit was being filed Tuesday in federal court in Boston by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the anti-discrimination group that brought a successful legal challenge leading to Massachusetts becoming the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage in 2004.

Only Massachusetts and Connecticut allow gay marriage. Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire allow civil unions.

Californians voted in November to overturn a court ruling that allowed gay marriage, but the state still offers domestic partnerships that guarantee the same rights as marriage. Hawaii is considering a bill that will allow same-sex civil unions.

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was enacted by Congress in 1996 when it appeared Hawaii would soon legalize same-sex marriage and opponents worried that other states would be forced to recognize such marriages. The new lawsuit challenges only the portion of the law that prevents the federal government from affording Social Security and other benefits to same-sex couples.

President Barack Obama has pledged to work to repeal DOMA and reverse the Department of Defense policy that prevents openly gay people from serving in the military.

Mary Bonauto, GLAD's Civil Rights Project director, said the lawsuit is the first major challenge to the section of the law that denies same-sex couples access to more than 1,000 federal programs and legal protections in which marriage is a factor.

All the plaintiffs are from Massachusetts and have marriages that are recognized by the state. They include a U.S. Postal Service employee who wasn't allowed to add her spouse to her health insurance plan; a Social Security Administration retiree who was denied health insurance for his spouse; three widowers who were denied death benefits for funeral expenses; and a man who has been denied a passport bearing his married name.

"This law is an absolute intrusion into an area that states have governed for centuries _ marriage," Bonauto said.

In Hara's case, he was denied any portion of Studds' $114,000 pension after the Democratic congressman died in 2006. The two married in 2004 after being together for 14 years.

"I am not being treated the same as any other surviving spouse of any other federal employee or public servant who has served this country for 27 years, when I have been legally married," Hara said.

Defendants in the lawsuit are the United States of America and several federal agencies, which are being represented by the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Obviously, we are going to take a look at it and make a determination as to how the government would ultimately respond after we review it," DOJ spokesman Charles Miller said.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, said the lawsuit is a "plausible challenge" to DOMA.

"It's a question of whether Congress oversteps its bounds and engages in irrational discrimination when it draws a line in terms of concrete benefits for individuals who are otherwise eligible simply because the marriages they have entered involve same-sex couples rather than opposite-sex couples," he said.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say those who challenge DOMA are trying to impose gay marriage on the rest of the country.

"Massachusetts has made benefits available on a state level, but Massachusetts can't force the federal government's hand or the other states to accept same-sex marriage," said Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit that says it's dedicated to advancing religious freedom and the traditional family.

ULC Minister -theartstemple

ULC Minister

http://www.theartstemple.com

Cheney: Bush's actions legal if not impeached

Cheney: Bush's actions legal if not impeached

Andrew McLemore Published: Sunday January 4, 2009 If you don't get punished, you didn't go anything wrong, right? That's the message Vice President Dick Cheney gave in an interview with CBS' Bob Schieffer on Sunday, suggesting that a president's actions are legal if those actions didn't result in his impeachment. Asked by Schieffer if he believed that anything the president does in time of war is legal, Cheney said there is "historic precedent of taking action that you wouldn't take in peacetime." Cheney referenced Abraham Lincoln as an example of another president who "suspended the writ of habeus corpus" during a war, prompting this exchange: ### SCHIEFFER: But nobody thinks that was legal. CHENEY: Well, no. It certainly was in the sense he wasn't impeached. And it was a wartime measure that he took that I think history says today, yeah, that was probably a good thing to do. ### The vice president spent much of the interview defending eight years of the Bush administration's policies, including its surveillance and interrogation programs. When Schieffer asked if the Bush administration had gone "too far" in its surveillance program, Cheney said no. "I don’t believe we violated anybody’s civil liberties," he said. Cheney also urged President-elect Barack Obama to continue the Bush administration’s interrogation policies. "I would hope [Obama] would avoid doing what others have done in the past, which is letting the campaign rhetoric guide his judgment in this absolutely crucial area," Cheney said. "We were very careful, we did everything by the book, and in fact we produced very significant results." This video is from CBS' Face the Nation, broadcast Jan. 4, 2008.

CBS newsman's $70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow

$70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow

As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, at least one unpleasant episode from his unpopular presidency is threatening to follow him into retirement.

A $70m lawsuit filed by Dan Rather, the veteran former newsreader for CBS Evening News, against his old network is reopening the debate over alleged favourable treatment that Bush received when he served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Bush had hoped that this controversy had been dealt with once and for all during the 2004 election.

Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.

He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true - "What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him," he says - but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired. He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush's second term.

Among those CBS considered for the panel to investigate Rather's report were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

"CBS broke with long-standing tradition at CBS News and elsewhere of standing up to political pressure," says Rather. "And, there's no joy in saying it, they caved ... in an effort to placate their regulators in Washington."

Rather's lawsuit makes other serious allegations about CBS succumbing to political pressure in an attempt to suppress important news stories. In particular, he says that his bosses at CBS tried to stop him reporting evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Rather's lawsuit, "for weeks they refused to grant permission to air the story" and "continued to raise the goalposts, insisting on additional substantiation". Rather also claims that General Richard Meyers, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military official in the US, called him at home and asked him not to broadcast the story, saying that it would "endanger national security".

Rather says that CBS only agreed to allow him to broadcast the story when it found out that Seymour Hersh would be writing about it in the New Yorker magazine. Even then, Rather claims, CBS tried to bury it. "CBS imposed the unusual restrictions that the story would be aired only once, that it would not be preceded by on-air promotion, and that it would not be referenced on the CBS Evening News," he says.

The charges outlined in Rather's lawsuit will cast a further shadow over the Bush legacy. He recently expressed regret for the "failed intelligence" which led to the invasion of Iraq and has received heavy criticism over the scale and depth of the economic downturn in the United States.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

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Bush's shoe attacker has broken arm, ribs: brother

Bush's shoe attacker has broken arm, ribs: brother

Published: Tuesday December 16, 2008

The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at US President George W. Bush has a broken arm and ribs after being struck by Iraqi security agents, his brother told AFP on Tuesday.

Durgham Zaidi was unable to say whether his brother Muntazer had sustained the injuries while being overpowered during Sunday's protest against Bush's visit to Baghdad or while in custody later.

He said he had been told that his brother was being held by Iraqi forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in central Baghdad where the US embassy and most government offices are housed.

"He has got a broken arm and ribs, and cuts to his eye and arm," said Durgham.

"He is being held by forces under the command of Muwaffaq al-Rubaie," Iraq's national security adviser, he added.

Zaidi, 29, a journalist for private Iraqi television channel Al-Baghdadia, was swiftly overpowered by Iraqi security forces after he threw the shoes at Bush in a gesture seen as the supreme mark of disrespect in the Muslim world.

An AFP journalist said that blood was visible on the ground as he was led away into custody although it was unclear if it was his.

Bush, who was on a swansong visit to the battleground that came to dominate his eight-year presidency, ducked when the shoes were thrown and later made light of the incident.

But Zaidi's action won him widespread plaudits in the Arab world where Bush's policies have drawn broad hostility.

The Lebanese television channel NTV, known for its opposition to Washington, went as far as offering a job to the journalist.

In its evening news bulletin on Monday, it said that if he takes the job, he will be paid "from the moment the first shoe was thrown".

A manager at the channel told AFP that it had made its offer known to Zaidi and was ready to post bail on his behalf.

An Iraqi lawyer said Zaidi risks a minimum of two years in prison if he is successfully prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state.

In Gaza, around 20 Palestinian gunmen from the Popular Resistance Committees, a hardline militant group that has been behind a spate of rocket attacks on Israel in recent weeks, staged a demonstration in support of Zaidi.

Wearing fatigues and brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, they stamped on photographs of the US president and held banners in support of the journalist.

Egyptian independent daily Al-Badeel carried a frontpage caricature of the US flag with the sole of a shoe replacing the stars in the top corner.

Even government-owned newspapers in Cairo praised Zaidi's actions. "Pelting the American president with shoes was the best way for expressing what Iraqis and Arabs feel toward Bush," wrote Al-Gomhuria editor Mohammad Ali Ibrahim.

In Iraq, press comment was divided.

The pro-government Al-Sabah newspaper expressed concern about the potential impact on press freedom of what it called Zaidi's "abnormal individual behaviour."

But the independent Al-Dustur newspaper hailed the journalist as the "only Iraqi whose patriotic feelings made him express his opinion in this way."

"It is not a declaration by the Iraqi media only, but for all Iraqis who have suffered over the years and we demand that he not be handed over to US forces," the paper said.

Cheney admits authorizing detainee's torture

Cheney admits authorizing detainee's torture

Outgoing VP says Guantanamo prison should stay open until end of terror war, but has no idea when that might be.

Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast.

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

"I supported it," he said regarding the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in policy.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said. "And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

He added: "It's been a remarkably successful effort, and I think the results speak for themselves."

ABC asked him if in hindsight he thought the tactics went too far. "I don't," he said.

The prisoner in question, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the Bush administration alleges to have planned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is one of Guantanamo's "high value targets" thus far charged with war crimes.

Former military interrogator Travis Hall disagrees.

"Proponents of Guantanamo underestimate what a powerful a propaganda tool Guantanamo has become for terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, despite several Department of Defense studies documenting the propaganda value of detention centers," he said in a column for Opposing Views.

"For example, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has monitored numerous Al Qaeda references to Guantanamo in its recruitment propaganda materials," continued Hall. "Improvements to Guantanamo’s administration of judicial mechanisms will not make its way into Al Qaeda propaganda. Nothing short of closing Guantanamo will remove this arrow from its quiver."

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to close the prison and pull US forces out of Iraq. Cheney, however, has a different timeline for when Guantanamo Bay prison may be "responsibly" retired.

"Well, I think that that would come with the end of the war on terror," he told ABC.

Problematic to his assertion: Mr. Bush's "war on terror" is undefinable and unending by it's very nature, and Cheney seems to recognize this as fact.

Asked when his administration's terror war will end, he jostled, "Well, nobody knows. Nobody can specify that."

This video is from ABC's World News, broadcast Dec. 15, 2008.

It's not about them...it's about us: Why we must prosecute Bush and his administration for war crimes

It's not about them...it's about us: Why we must prosecute Bush and his administration for war crimes

During the rush to get the Nuremberg Tribunals underway, the Soviet delegation wanted the tribunal’s historic decisions to have legitimacy only for the Nazis. U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, serving as the chief prosecutor for the Allies, strong-armed the Soviets until the very beginning of the tribunal before changing their mind.

In his opening statement Jackson very purposely stipulated, "…Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment."

Can there be a better reason for prosecuting George Bush and his administration for war crimes than those words from the chief prosecutor of the Nazis, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, with the full support of the U.S. government? Robert Jackson’s words and the values this nation claims to stand for provide sufficient moral basis for putting Bush and Cheney, their underlings who implemented their policies and the perverted legal minds who justified them all in the dock. If those are not sufficient reasons, there is a long list of binding law and treaties – written in black and white in surprisingly plain English.

Bush imagined, and his attorneys advised, that he could simply wave aside these laws with "they don’t apply." Imagine how a judge would treat even a simple traffic court defendant who brazenly stated the law was only a quaint notion, just "words on paper?"

Masses of people and an embarrassingly small number of their elected representatives in this country read the law for themselves and demanded otherwise, only to be silenced by the Guardians of Reality in the corporate news media.

But it’s all there, where it has been for 220 years, the Constitution’s "supremacy clause," Article II, section 4, and in the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18USC §2441). They provide the authority to make additional treaties legally binding – no matter how much former White House lawyers David Addington and John Yoo may object.

Those additional treaties include among others, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg rulings, the Laws and Customs of War on Land and UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. To give just a snapshot of how serious these laws are, consider this portion of 18 USC 2441 which defines a war crime as "…a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party…" The guilty can be "...fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death."

Here, Justice Jackson answers another question about war crimes – who bears the greater responsibility: those who committed barbaric acts in the field or those who created the conditions for barbarism?

The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and authority back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war.

And yet it is not just because Bush violated the Constitution and federal law that he and his lieutenants must be prosecuted.

At Nuremberg, the foremost crime identified was starting a "war of aggression," later codified by U.N. Resolution 3314, Art. 5, as "a crime against international peace." Launching a war of aggression, as Hitler did against Poland, is considered so monstrous that the nation responsible can then be charged with "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity," spelled out in detail in the Geneva Conventions. As Tom Paine said long before the U.N. formalized the definition of aggression, "He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of Hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."

A small sampling of the contagion of Hell let loose by Bush includes illegally invading a sovereign state, using banned weapons such as white phosphorous and napalm, bombing hospitals and civilian infrastructure, withholding aid and medical supplies, terrorizing and knowingly killing civilians, torturing prisoners, killing a million people and displacing four million more in Iraq alone.

Following World War II, humanity resolved that wars do more than spark a series of loathsome, individual crimes. Leaders responsible for a war actually commit crimes against the entirety of humanity. They inflict harm on every human being, something that must be put right before humanity can be restored.

There is a final reason why we must prosecute Bush and Co. It is not what some argue, although they point to a serious danger: that Bush trashed the law and usurped powers, encouraging future presidents to expand where he left off. Such reasons are about George Bush and those who hold the office after him, but in the final analysis this is about us.

We are complicit in the horrors of this administration. We can claim neither ignorance nor innocence. We are complicit by the very fact that we are citizens of the United States, more so because we paid for the war, and even more so for this reason. Listen to a village sheik I met in Iraq describe it better than I ever could.

I met this man in a small farming village one afternoon in early 2004. He described how he and a dozen others were swept up in a raid by the U.S. Army and detained on a bare patch of ground surrounded by concertina wire. They had no shelter and but six blankets. They dug a hole with their hands for a toilet. They had to beg for water until one time it rained for three days straight and they remained on that open ground. He somehow found the graciousness to say he understood there was a difference between the American people and our government. Then through his tears he added, "But you say you live in a democracy. How can this be happening to us?"

Do we? Whether or not we bring our own government officials to justice for their crimes will determine the answer.

www.mikeferner.org

Mike Ferner is a freelance writer and former Toledo city councilman. His book, "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq" is just out from Praeger Publishers.

Day to `call in gay' finds few willing to strike

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 11, 12:03 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO – A daylong work stoppage during which employees were encouraged to "call in gay" to express support for same-sex marriage drew spotty participation nationwide Wednesday, with some gay rights activists praising the concept but questioning its effect.

In San Francisco's gay Castro district, residents and merchants said they endorsed the message behind "Day Without a Gay" but didn't think a work stoppage was practical given the poor economy and the strike's organization.

"If we are going to make a huge impact and not be laughed at, then we have to take the time and make the time to communicate with all the parties. We could have shut down a lot of the hotels," said David Lang, a gymnastics coach. "In theory it's a great idea, but it's being done wrong and now that it's been done wrong, I don't think it will be done again."

The protest, which a gay couple from West Hollywood organized through the Internet, was designed to demonstrate the economic clout of same-sex marriage supporters following the passage of voter-approved gay marriage bans in California, Arizona and Florida last month.

Participants were asked to refrain from spending money or at least to patronize gay-friendly businesses for the day.

Paul Ellis, 51, a manager at Cliff's Variety hardware store, said he didn't want his employer to bear the burden of his support.

"My employers have always been there in every possible way," he said. "I didn't feel comfortable discomfiting them when they have gone out of their way to be there for me."

Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group that promotes equality for gay and lesbian employees, suggested that same-sex marriage supporters could send an effective message beyond Wednesday by openly discussing the issue at their workplaces.

"When people go into the voting booth and vote against (gay) rights, they often have no idea they are voting against the person sitting next to them in the next cubicle or office," said Selisse Berry, Out and Equal's executive director.

Berry noted that only 20 states have laws to protect workers from being fired for being homosexual, making lesbians and gays reluctant to reveal themselves to co-workers in most jurisdictions.

"Constantly lying about our weekends at the water cooler or changing pronouns, that takes up so much energy that we could be putting into our jobs," she said.

Participants who opted to take the day off from their jobs were encouraged to perform community service, and charitable organizations across the country said volunteers showed up.

"Visibility is really important for the gay community, so after a lot of thought I decided I would come out and be visible with my colleagues at work and use the time working for the community," said Carrie Lewis, 36, a University of California health researcher who spent the day working at the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center.

Backers of "Day Without a Gay" organized evening rallies in San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Logan, Utah; and other cities so supporters could gather to discuss the next steps. Rallies also were held earlier Wednesday in Chicago and on several college campuses in California.

"The movement that fought for equality and succeeded in electing Obama president is really looking to make progressive gains now," said Mark Airgood, who used a personal day to take off from his job as a middle school teacher in Berkeley. "I think we really can, and I think this is an important day for that."

Jon Stewart 'slays the homophobic Huckabee'

Blogger: Jon Stewart 'slays the homophobic Huckabee'

When former Arkansas governor and conservative Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appeared on The Daily Show on Tuesday, Jon Stewart pressed him hard on the issue of gay marriage, knocking down one false argument after another.

As blogger Pam Spaulding at Pam's House Blend commented appreciatively, "Jon Stewart asked serious questions any hard-hitting progressive journalist or political commentator with a talk show is perfectly capable of asking. He made Huckabee explain his positions on LGBT rights and connects it to the messages in his new book about the merits of social conservatism that he's hawking."

"Please watch the whole interview," Spaulding adds. "It literally made me weep because Stewart gets it. This is a human rights issue."

Stewart began the interview by suggesting to Huckabee that there's "one thing I guess I don't understand about social conservatives. ... You write that marriage is the bedrock of our society. Why would you not want couples to buy into the stability of marriage?"

"Marriage still means one man, one woman, life relationship," Huckabee replied. "The only way we can create the next generation is through a male-female relationship. In 5000 years of recorded human history, that's what marriage has meant."

However, Stewart wouldn't let Huckabee get away with that assertion. He pointed out that Huckabee was taking things "back to the Old Testament -- where polygamy was the norm. ... Marriage has evolved greatly over those 5000 years from a property arrangement, polygamy. We've redefined it constantly."

"It seems like a fundamental human right," Stewart said of marriage. "You write in your book that all people are created equal, and yet for gay people you believe that it is corrosive to society to allow them to have the privileges that all humans enjoy."

Stewart then increasingly backed Huckabee into a corner, where in his attempts to avoid admitting that marriage is a fundamental right, Huckabee was left arguing that it is merely a legal arrangement that the government can define as it sees fit. He concluded weakly that "those who support the idea of same-sex marriage have a lot of work to do to convince the rest of us."

"It's a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to have to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights," was Stewart's response.


This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast Dec. 9, 2008.