'Untimely deaths' that benefited R. M. Scaife, the CIA, and the Bush Crime Family

In a twisted, right wing brain like that of Richard Mellon Scaife, murder may be justified by endless ideological rationalizations. Not only lives are lost but truth itself. It is a sick mentality that sacrifices the voice of reason for lies and bullshit. Short-term, short-sighted victories are pyrrhic and the very fabric of society is corrupted.

The whole fabric of society will go to wrack if we really lay hands of reform on our rotten institutions. From top to bottom the whole system is a fraud, all of us know it, laborers and capitalists alike, and all of us are consenting parties to it.

--Henry Adams

Surely someone has done a study that proves that the murder of liberals is suspiciously and statistically high in America and would be higher still if you include those who are 'suicided' under 'suspicious circumstances'. No theory --just cold hard statistics! Numbers don't lie but liars often take up a gun, a private airplane, or a lonely bathroom stall when they have no other argument to back them up.

That has been the case with the morally bankrupt and depraved American right wing for too long now. Even Rome fell --but America will have done in a few decades what took centuries for Rome. The bad news is --the process of America's fall was begun in the middle seventies. The time now is about one minute to midnite.

There have been many milestones along the US path to fascism and dictatorship. For excellent reasons, I have often singled out Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982 which I said re-started a pernicious trend: the rich getting obscenely rich and everyone else getting obscenely poor.

See: Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman.

We had not yet 'survived' the worst effects of that cut when Bush, the Lesser made of three short words --'tax', 'cut' and 'elite' --his entire economic philosophy and program. Gore Vidal, in his Decline and Fall of the American Empire, denounced the emergence of an American empire which began a long decline in the middle 80's when the US became a net debtor nation.

The late Steve Kangas, however, dates the onset of decline to the middle seventies. It was between 1975 and 1994, claimed Kangas, that income inequality grew most dramatically. WWII, coming as it did toward the end of the Great Depression, had ushered in what has been called the 'Great Compression', the most egalitarian period in American History.

Income inequality in postwar America can be divided into two distinct periods. Between 1947 and 1974, income inequality was reduced from .376 to .355 on the Gini scale (which goes from 0 to 1, with 1 being the most unequal). But between 1975 and 1994, income inequality dramatically grew, from .357 to .426, a level not seen since the Great Depression. Although the decades immediately following World War II were socially conservative, they were impeccably liberal from an economic standpoint. In the 1950s, the top individual tax rate was 91 percent. By the 60s, President Johnson would cut poverty nearly in half with his Great Society programs. And this was an era of unprecedented prosperity; white middle class families never had it so good, either before or since. Black families made enormous strides towards equality, with their poverty rate falling from 55 to 31 percent.

This liberal economic era came to an end in 1975, when a quiet revolution took over Washington DC The stage was set in 1974, when the House of Representatives decentralized its power, allowing 22 committees to delegate much of their authority to 172 subcommittees. This not only created a mass of competing special interests, but enabled corporations to lobby their particular subcommittees much more directly, secretly and effectively. But the real shift in power came with the 1975 SUN-PAC decision, which basically legalized corporate political action committees. In 1974, there were only 89 quasi-corporate PACs; a decade later, this had exploded to 1,682. By 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all contributions to political parties.

The rise of the corporate special interest system in 1975 resulted in a tremendous shift in power, away from workers and the poor, and towards corporations and the rich. Corporate lobbyists wasted no time scaling back the programs of the New Deal and the Great Society. Under Jimmy Carter's presidency alone, corporate lobbyists bribed Congress to do all of the following:

• Pass the first tax cut for the rich in 15 years: a reduction in the capital gains tax from 39 to 28 percent.
• Raise social security taxes, a heavily regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest.
• Impose a tax on unemployment benefits. (!)
• Reduce cash welfare benefits.
• Kill Ralph Nader's pet project: the creation of a Consumer Protection Agency.
• Deregulate airlines, trucking, railroads, oil, telecommunications and interest rates, and create the deregulation machinery that Reagan would later use.
• Increase defense spending.

And all this happened before Ronald Reagan!

Under the corporate special interest system, the top tax rates were reduced from 70 percent to as low as 28 percent, while regressive payroll, state and local taxes were raised on the poor. Executive pay exploded, while the average hourly wage fell from $8.55 to $7.40 in constant 82 dollars. The value of individual welfare benefits were cut over 40 percent. Poverty has actually risen, from 11 to 15 percent. And this is the first generation of middle class Americans who believe that they will not see their parents' standard of living -- while the richest 1 percent owns nearly 40 percent of America's wealth.

This, in a nutshell, is the core problem facing liberals. Those who wish to become activists need to direct their energies to dismantling the corporate special interest system and restoring greater equality of income. The gap between the rich and poor cannot be completely eliminated, nor should we want it to, but the gap should certainly be reduced from its current insane size, and policies should be enacted that allow rich and poor incomes to grow at the same pace, not apart.

--Steve Kangas, Activism in Three Easy Steps

Thus, the right wing sought to shut up yet another dissenter and may have done it the old fashioned way, as it had done with John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and, most probably, Paul Wellstone and JFK Jr. The right wing has a stake in your not believing 'conspiracy theories' or in the truth. Killing folk is how the right wing 'wins' a 'debate'. Shutting your mouth is a permanent solution to dissent.

It was “Origins of the Overclass” in which Kangas mentioned Richard Mellon Scaife by name.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

--Kangas, Origins of the Overclass

That was in 1999.

Body no. 2: Steve Kangas, a prolific writer who got on the wrong side of George W Bush and his cronies, was found dead on 8 February 1999. He was discovered in a semi-conscious state by electrician, Don Adams. Adams reported blood on the floor around the spot and left to call for help.

When he returned they found Steve sitting on the toilet slumped over and covered in blood. His website, Liberalism Resurgent, ruffled many high-profile feathers, but it disturbed billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife most of all, even though he was only fleetingly mentioned on Kangas's website. Scaife, a publishing magnate and Bush crony who the most generous donor to conservative causes in American history, hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past.

The award-winning political website, with over 300 html pages, was a 'one-stop-shop' of liberal arguments and facts to be used in debates against popular neo-conservative myths. Scaife tried to discredit Kangas by viciously attacking him with a long-running smear campaign in his many newspapers. While Scaife was on the war path, Kangas was quietly working with a publisher to finish his book. Kangas' body was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices in Pittsburgh, the victim of an apparent suicide.

But the story is full of holes: Kangas was a prolific writer, yet he left no note. Why did he go on a long trip from Las Vegas to Pittsburgh with a fully-packed suitcase of clothes? He also bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was planning to kill himself? A gun-control campaigner, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? And why on earth did he go to Pittsburgh just outside of Scaife's doorway?

After his death, everything in his flat was trashed, but his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Although the most bizarre detail of his suicide is that he was shot twice in the head? The police never conducted an investigation beyond the autopsy and the very next morning, 18 hours after his death, they ruled it a suicide, without even carrying out toxicology tests. Equally odd, there are over 1,000 internet posts on this topic, dated from eleven days after his death, yet it was not reported in mainstream media until nearly a month later.

--The extraordinary frequency of untimely deaths that benefit the Bush family, Britt Collins

Kangas described specifically the cozy partnership between the CIA and the US media, pointing out that “Journalism is a perfect cover.”

“People talk freely to journalists”, Kangas wrote; "few think suspiciously of a journalist aggressively searching for information. Journalists also have power, influence and clout. Not surprisingly, the CIA began a mission in the late 1940s to recruit American journalists on a wide scale, a mission it dubbed Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The agency wanted these journalists not only to relay any sensitive information they discovered, but also to write anti-communist, pro-capitalist propaganda when needed.”

Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress."

--Gore Vidal

'Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, literally, pertaining to a free man. In politics, therefore, to be liberal means extending democracy to all citizens through change and reform, or, if need be, revolution. It was the latter course favored by both Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, and Che Guevara, in his Principles of Guerilla Warfare. As Gore Vidal points out, one understands why the word 'liberal' simply 'had to be erased from our political lexicon'.

The erasure of 'liberal' from 'politically correct' discourse in America has taken many forms, primarily, the seizure of the US media by irresponsible liars, like Rupert Murdoch, or mendacious money grubbers like Clear Channel. More ominously, dissenters are simply murdered, 'suicided', or disappeared. I am hard pressed to name a single 'right wing' activist to have ever 'disappeared' but the list of 'lefties, pinkoes, liberals, 'niggers', and 'tree huggers' to have died under 'mysterious circumstances' is legion. I am not inclined to believe an absurd and obvious cover story that Steve Kangas knocked out his own teeth before he shot himself in the head. Twice!

Radical right wing nut jobs who think it possible to shoot one's self in the head TWICE, should try it themselves!

When I first heard that Steve Kangas may have died in Pittsburgh, I searched for an obituary and could find none. I wanted to know about the circumstances. I knew Steve Kangas had written an investigative essay on Richard Mellon Scaife and wondered whether there might be a connection, though I really didn't expect to find one. Finally, someone with Lexus Nexus access verified that Steve Kangas had actually died, and sent me the short obituary from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette of Feb. 12:

"The body of a 37-year-old man found in a 39th floor bathroom of One Oxford Centre late Monday night has been identified as Steven Kangas of Las Vegas. He died of a gunshot wound to the head. The Allegheny County coroner's office ruled the death a suicide."

I plugged in One Oxford Centre and Scaife -what popped up made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Scaife Foundations
One Oxford Centre
301 Grant Street, Suite 3900
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219-6401

Since then, the questions surrounding the death of Steve Kangas have snowballed. There were two parallel tracks being taken. One track was seeking more information about Steve's death and wanting a further investigation. The other track was bent on smearing Steve's reputation and turning him into everything from an embezzler to a neo nazi to a down and out womanizing drunk to an assassin out to murder Richard Mellon Scaife. For instance Tucker Carlson, in an article "Stalking Scaife" characterized Steve Kangas as, "Kangas, a 37-year-old Internet pornographer from Las Vegas" and Tony Snow, in an article "Steve Kangas Left-Wing Vince Foster" characterized Steve Kangas as, "Squeeky Frohme with intellectual pretensions."

For any who are unfamiliar with Steve Kangas and wish to make up their own mind, I suggest you visit his web page and read through his essays ("The Origins of the Overclass" is the essay that mentions Scaife).

[...]

He posted his last essay to his Web site on February 3, just five days before his untimely death. In my opinion, it is not the writings of a man in throes of alcoholism, though people like Richard Scaife have suggested as much and he may well view Steve's work as pornography. See:

[...]

There are more questions than answers. Richard Scaife hiring a detective to try and dig up dirt on Steve Kangas raises a red flag. He used the same detective, Rex Armistead, that was used to try and dig up dirt on President Clinton for the Arkansas Project. [See: A Break in the Case , Rex P. Armistead's "odoriferous background",Rex Armistead spied on CNN's correspondent John Camp, Assaulted suspect] The Pittsburgh police should have been so thorough. I doubt the police even questioned Richard Scaife, though one report did say they were thinking about it. The systematic attempted trashing of Steve Kangas' raises questions. Discrepancies between the coroner's report, in which Steve was injured when first found, and the police report, with no mention of injuries when he was first found raises questions. The quick cremation and the erasure of Steve Kangas' hard drive raises questions.

If magically I could have three questions about the circumstances around this case answered, I suppose they would be -- (1) Is the checking of the circuit breakers in One Oxford Centre rest rooms sop, and is there a log to prove this? (2) Was the gun that killed Steve empty when found? The news articles infer this, stating 47 rounds were found in his backpack and in one pocket. This is important because if Steve Kangas were in custody of Scaife security, they may have initially taken his gun away and emptied the clip. There may even be prints on the bullets or the clip, if the gun is still in evidence. (3) One intriguing puzzle piece that doesn't fit with the theory of suicide -- the bullet found around the time that Steve Kangas was found. There was a bullet hole found in the window of a street level clothing store. The slug was found inside the store. The bullet got there somehow. The location of One Oxford Centre doesn't appear to be a part of Pittsburgh where random bullet holes would be found. I suspect this may be the first time ever that a bullet hole was found in a window of one of the shops. Maybe some time after all the stores had closed, Steve Kangas had attempted to leave, was stopped by Scaife security, shots or a shot were fired, with Steve Kangas was forced to go back up to the 39th floor. If that bullet is connected, suicide becomes implausible.

I don't know what happened to Steve Kangas on the evening of February 8. I can write several scripts from the facts, as reported in the various newspaper articles. Many of the facts of the case seem suspicious and do not fit well with the theory of suicide. When I started digging on my own, that is what I expected to find. But from the burglar alarm system, to the $300 gun, to the intensive work he'd been doing on his political web site, that does not seem to be where Steve Kangas was at.

And then there is that bullet hole in the window of the Kountz and Rider clothing store.

For Steve's sake, this case deserves to be investigated further by someone with the means and abilities far greater than I. Hopefully someone, or some agency, will investigate the death of Steve Kangas in the manner it deserves.

Rest in peace, Steve Kangas.

--John Van Matre

--A letter from John Van Matre

Are we 'liberals' to cower in alley ways? Not a chance! We organize and inspire a revolution that will sweep away the inequities compounded since Ronald Reagan. We undo Bush's treasonous assault upon the Constitution. We prosecute and sentence those guilty of mass murder, war crimes and high treason!

We bravely shout: 'J'Accuse!' or, as is often said today, we speak truth to power!

We get in their faces!

We shall never shut up!

Piecemeal, 'they' can simply 'off' one of us here, another there. Anyone daring to connect a fall from a hospital window with a tragic plunge from an airplane is simply marginalized as a 'conspiracy theorist'. But what if millions rise up in defiance amid massive civil disobedience? What if when Bush whines class warfare, we answer in a chorus: 'well, DUH, you stupid fuck!!!'

And what if you track down these men and kill them? What if you murdered all of us? From every corner of Europe hundreds of men -- thousands -- would rise up to take our places. Even Nazis can't kill that fast....

Lazlo to Major Strasser, Casablanca

And not even the Bush crime family or the GOP can kill or 'suicide' that fast.

Selected Links from Kangas' Liberal Resurgent

• Timeline of CIA Atrocities
• The Origins of the Overclass
• Peter Montegue: Economic Inequality and Health
• Help Fight the Right
• The Reagan Years: A Statistical Overview
  

Other resources

• MIT Press The Quarterly Journal of Economics
• The extraordinary frequency of untimely deaths that benefit the Bush family
• New info unearthed about the strange death of Steve Kangas
• Suspicious 'Suicides'
• An Evil Synthesis
  
• Monopoly Media Manipulation
• When Fascism takes over U.S.: FEMA readies prison trains & concentration camps in martial law

---

---

Why Musharraf Lies About the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

If you want to find a culprit, look among those who lie about the crime. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf failed to provide security for Benazir Bhutto. Now --he's lying about Bhutto, his own role, and the so-called "lone lever" theory of her death.

Describing the ground ringed by numerous buildings as a "vulnerable place", Musharraf said: "This time she went of her volition, ignoring the threat." The President, who yesterday sought the help of Britain's Scotland Yard to probe Bhutto's death, ruled out the involvement of the country's military and intelligence agencies in the assassination.

"No intelligence agency of Pakistan is capable of motivating or indoctrinating a man to blow himself up," he said, adding one has to find out who gained the most from Bhutto's killing. "Would I and the government be the maximum gainer? Or is there someone else who could gain more?"

--Musharraf denies involvement of military, ISI in Bhutto murder

Clearly --Musharraf is trying to implicate the man who Musharraf said blew himself up. Clearly, the Pakistani Prime Minister has not read this blog, has not watched YouTube, nor any number of credible sources. Let's clear this up! Benazir Bhutto was not murdered by the man who blew himself up! She was not the victim of a "terrorist" attack! She was, rather, the victim of a professional hit. I saw at least one gunman on the video and saw at least two muzzle flashes. The explosion might as well have been on another planet but for the cover, the misdirection it might have provided the gunmen.

...the establishment media is already blaming Al-Qaeda for the assassination because ever since the attacks of 9/11 the media has blamed every government sponsored terrorist attack on this fictional organization. Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a front for government intelligence agencies that was originally formed in the 1970’s as a database of people who could be counted on to fight the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. There have already been news reports mentioning how the Pakistani ISI has associations with Islamic extremists and members of al-Qaeda.

Bhutto Killing Points To Pakistani ISI, Lee Rogers, Rogue Government

Musharraf's statement follows two previous and equally absurd cover stories: 1) that Bhutto was killed by the shrapnel from the blast; 2) that she died of wounds sustained when she banged her head on a lever, the "lone lever" theory! The "official theories" are inconsistent with one another and inconsistent with the video tapes of the event as it happened. Benazir Bhutto was shot to death. The primary suspects are those, like Musharraf, who are telling transparent lies designed to deflect suspicion and obstruct objective investigation. Having already failed to provide adequate security, Musharraf has done both.

Officialdom wasted no time in trying to pin the murder on al Qaeda. At this point, one must ask: which al Qaeda? Are we talking about the al Qaeda as envisioned by Colin Powell, George Bush, and Dick Cheney? That al Qaeda is a rag tag mob of Islamic extremists trained in the mountains by Osama bin Laden. But there is another, a real al Qaeda, a "base", specifically a CIA database.

The intelligence service of Pakistan, a crucial American ally in the war on terrorism, has had an indirect but longstanding relationship with Al Qaeda, turning a blind eye for years to the growing ties between Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to American officials.

The intelligence service even used Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to train covert operatives for use in a war of terror against India, the Americans say.

The intelligence service, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI , also maintained direct links to guerrillas fighting in the disputed territory of Kashmir on Pakistan's border with India, the officials said.Pakistani Intelligence Had Ties To al Qaeda, US Officials Say

James Risen and Judith Miller, New York Times, Published: October 29, 2001

Clearly, Bhutto posed a threat not only to Musharraf but to western imperial powers to whom he is dependent and indebted. The Bush administration!

Bhutto's edited remarks have caused a bit of a stir of late. In a BBC interview --edited by the BBC --Bhutto stated that Osama bin Laden was dead, a statement that strikes at the very heart of George W. Bush's "war on terrorism". Recently, however, some have said that it no longer matters whether bin Laden is alive or dead.

But --it does matter. Truth always matters especially when it strikes at the very heart of "officialdom" propped up by lies and propaganda. Osama was, after all, the Bush administration's poster boy for world wide terrorism.

Bhutto’s claim that Bin Laden is dead may very well be true. Several MSM outlets have reported precisely that, and, inexplicably they have been ignored. The best example is the FOX report of Dec 2001, for example. All but ignored until recently —-even by Fox. The New York Times reported in 2002 that Bin Laden was dead and has apparently re-discovered their story. As of yesterday, it had been republished on the NYT web site.

My own opinion is that Bin Laden had been long dead by the time a "tape" surfaced just prior to the 2004 elections. Many believe the tape was faked. Whoever faked that tape had a dog in the race --George W. Bush! Qui Bono? George W. Bush? Who had lied most loudly, most vehemently and most often about "terrorism". George W. Bush! Again --if you want to find a culprit, look first at those who lie about the crime. Who lies? Bush. Qui Bono? Bush. Who is compromised? Certainly, the release of what is most certainly a "fake Osama" benefited one who presumes to rule by decree. George W. Bush.

Conspiracy theories, moreover, are most vociferously denounced by conspirators. The only world wide conspiracy that we are supposed to believe in is the one that has been promoted most vociferously by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney et al. What is al Qaeda, if not a conspiracy?

In the meantime, check Findlaw or the Cornell Law School library. Search for SCOTUS or Federal Court decisions having to do with ’conspiracies’. That’s a helluva lot of ink, time, and labor about something that does not exist. What is al Qaeda if not a conspiracy? What is an Islamcist radicalism, if not a conspiracy? Certainly --the GOP does believe in conspiracy theories. They believe and have a religious-like faith in many worldwide conspiracies of anti-war hippies, secular humanists, pornographers, liberals, feminists, academics, environmentalists, baby killers, and --during the Nixon years --nattering nabobs of negativism. The GOP leadership is a conspiracy of liars, graft-takers, and co-conspirators in the Military/Industrial complex, itself a conspiracy best described by St. Thomas More:

So God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.

-Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

The conspiracy described by More is as accurate today as a description of the Military/Industrial complex and the web of robber barons that comprised the GOP base. Of course, the GOP has a stake in making sure you don't believe the truth about them. If they truth were know about their party, a Republican candidate might never, ever get elected.

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Bush Should Stand Trial for Capital Crimes, War Crimes

Bush boasts "we're kicking ass" in Iraq amid charges by Sydney Blumenthal that Bush knew Saddam had no WMD. In other words, Bush deliberately defrauded the troops, the nation, the Congress, the world.

Bush is now criminally culpable, subject to prosecution for every death on either side. Bush has committed capital crimes. Words do not describe the venal idiocy of this cretin so at ease with his disconnect with common sense and morality, so comfortable wallowing in the misery his lies have caused. Psychologists often use the term "lack of empathy" to describe this pathology. It is better known among the folk as "evil"!

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

As Salon was breaking that exclusive, we learned elsewhere how Bush was yucking it up with another right wing seed pod --Australis's PM, John Howard.

Today the US President will visit the National Maritime Museum to view the bell. It could be construed as an act of symmetry, given if Howard loses the election, this week would be the last time he and Bush see each other in their respective roles.

This was obviously apparent to Bush, who arrived in Australia in a chipper mood.

"We're kicking ass," he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President's stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney.

--By George: now it's all the way with Howard J

Olbermann: "Everything you (Bush) have said is a deception"

The evidence that George W. Bush is a bald-faced liar comes from two former senior CIA officers who, Salon says, confirm the earlier CBS's "60 Minutes" interview of Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe. In the interview it was revealed that the CIA has received confirmation from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD.

This is information that should have prevented Bush's order to attack and invade Iraq. The Salon story details how Tenet informed Bush. The information was not shared with Colin Powell who made an infamous presentation to the UN, a presentation consisting of plagiairzed student papers and old, out of date, black and white satellite photos. For some nefarious reason, the intelligence "...was also never shared with the senior military" command who planned planning the invasion.

Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war.

--Salon

Salon points out that none of the Senators who voted for the invasion had been informed of the report. Clearly --they were deliberately misled by a liar who has since claimed to be above the law. This, in itself, is impeachable, a criminal fraud, an unconstitutional assault upon the separation of powers. It also makes of the entire war against Iraq, a war crime punishable by death by this nation's own criminal codes.

§ 2441. War crimes

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall 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.

--See: US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441

Pulling a deliberate fraud upon the people and their elected representatives in both houses of Congress is most certainly "high treason".

Try Bush for war crimes, urges US combat veteran

Mark Dodd | September 05, 2007

GEORGE W. Bush should be tried as a war criminal for his role in launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Howard Government is culpable for supporting him, a US anti-war activist claims.

The US President and John Howard were committed to a failing war that was being waged for oil and economic motives, former US marine and two-time combat tour veteran Matt Howard said in Sydney yesterday.

The anti-war movement was growing in the US, and veterans had a responsibility to tell the truth about what was happening in Iraq, Mr Howard, 26, told a news conference at the Alternative APEC Centre in Sydney's Trades Hall.

The Prime Minister's support for the war provided "political cover" to Mr Bush's "dangerous political agenda", said Matt Howard.

His message on behalf of the Iraq Veterans Against the War was timed to coincide with the arrival in Sydney of Mr Bush for the APEC summit.

Tactically, Australia's 900-strong military contribution in Iraq was so small it made no difference compared with the 160,000 US troops there, but politically it was indispensable for the Bush White House, Matt Howard said.

"We've destroyed Iraq and it's been done in our name, and the Australian Government is involved," he said.

"In 2003, I illegally invaded Iraq. We left a swath of destruction all the way from Basra to Baghdad."

Mr Bush should be tried for crimes against humanity over the killing of the tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children who were victims of the war, Mr Howard said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Government was "entirely comfortable" with Britain's decision to withdraw its troops from their base in the southern city of Basra and redeploy them in the nearby airport.

Additional resources

• Will Durst: Republicans Gone Wild
• Intelligence database worrying some
• Second British general bashes US strategy in Iraq
• Yet Another Way to Compare Bush to Hilter
• The Politicization of the Department of Justice

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American Fascists: How Prescott Bush, Charles Lindburgh and Henry Ford Sought a Fascist Dictatorship in America

The American right wing is defined by the lies it tells about American History, the American left, and, most importantly, is own troubling past. Recently, the right wing has tried to blame "leftists" for America's late entry into World War II. It was, in fact, American fascists who opposed a US role in World War II because most of them were either doing business with Hitler or because they desired to create a fascist state in America.

There was a fundamental difference between the Anti-war movement in the United States prior to our entry into WWII and the opposition to our entry into WWI, for example. Demographically and ideologically, the opposition to US entry into WWI was more akin to US opposition to Viet Nam. Both were movements based upon ideals of universal social justice, the rule of law, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, and common humanity. The fascist, right wing opposition to US involvement in WWII shared none of those ideals. Those opposing the US entry into WWII were typified by Charles Lindbergh, an avowed Fascist, most certainly, a Nazi sympathizer.

From the end of the Civil War until World War I, America had been largely pacifist in nature. The Civil War had been a horrible memory that militated against armed conflict in general. To be precise, Americans rallied in response to Hearst's anti-Spanish propaganda in the run up to the Spanish-American War. Nevertheless, Woodrow Wilson won the White House based largely on his promises of peace' he was re-elected in 1916 with a popular slogan: "He kept us out of war."

While Americans in general opposed involvement in foreign wars, American industrialists were not inclined to turn down a quick buck.

On December 20, 1922 the New York Times reported4 that automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was financing Adolph Hitler's nationalist and anti-Semitic movements in Munich. Simultaneously, the Berlin newspaper Berliner Tageblatt appealed to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and halt Henry Ford's intervention into German domestic affairs. It was reported that Hitler's foreign backers had furnished a "spacious headquarters" with a "host of highly paid lieutenants and officials." Henry Ford's portrait was prominently displayed on the walls of Hitler's personal office:

--Henry Ford and the Nazis

Opposition to US involvement in World War II is most often linked to Charles Lindbergh.

However, most AFC supporters were neither liberal, nor Socialist. Many simply wanted to stay out of the war. Since many also came from the Midwest, an area never as sensitive to European problems as the east coast, isolationist arguments was soon buttressed by more traditional prejudices against eastern industrial and banking interests. (Almost two-thirds of the Committee’s 850,000 registered supporters would eventually come from the Midwest, mostly from a radius of three hundred miles around Chicago.)[13] Many AFC supporters were certain industry and the banks wanted war for their own profit.[14] Many other supporters were Republicans who flocked to the AFC for partisan political reasons. Still others were covertly pro-German. Some were German-Americans whose sentimental attachments had not been diminished by the crimes of the Nazi regime. Others, whether of German origin or not, were attracted to Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism.

--David Gordon, America First:the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941, History Department, Bronx Community College / CUNY Graduate Center

Ideologically, Bush and Lindbergh have much in common. It is no stretch to imagine this faction welcoming a Hitler victory in Europe, perhaps plotting a Nazi coup d'etat in the US had that happened.

Lindbergh wanted Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union, and was willing to accept Nazi domination of Europe as the price.[118] His protests to the contrary are not convincing.[119] Long before most Committee members, he had come to believe the existence of the Soviet Union had made Hitler’s dictatorship necessary. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 made the need to keep America out of the war greater than ever. As a result, the efforts of America Firsters to keep America neutral became more frenetic as German successes in Russia mounted, and Roosevelt’s efforts to enter the war increased.

--David Gordon, America First:the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941, History Department, Bronx Community College / CUNY Graduate Center

Lindbergh opposed US entry into WWII for the same reasons the Bush family continued to do business with Hitler and the Nazis' after war had begun. The Bush family were Hitler's trading partners.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behavior has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

...

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized. --

British Guardian: How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

By now it is common knowledge, verified in the public record, that in October of 1942, Prescott Bush was accused of "Running Nazi front groups in the United States". He was charged under the Trading With the Enemy Act as the US government shut down the operations at New York's Union Banking Corporation.

Bush's actions might have been considered high treason. They are interesting by virtue of the myriad connections about what is commonly referred to as the "Bush Crime FAmily" --Avril Harriman, the Rockefellers, Allen Dulles, James Baker III, Gulf Oil, Pennzoil, and ominously, Osama bin Laden. The connections are labyrinthine, involving a host of corporate connections, high ranking Nazis, the CIA and Allen Dulles.

More recently, we have learned of yet more Bush family treasons. It has been learned that Prescott Bush, the "President's" grandfather, was involved in a fascist coup attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

--William Bowles, The Bush Family Saga

Certainly, opposition to the US entry into World War II was not essentially "leftist". It was, rather, the right wing that overtly supported Hitler's adventures in Europe. Their opposition was, in fact, an ideological opposition to the US opposition to Hitler. There is a stunning picture of American Nazis giving the Nazi salute as they filed past the coffins of German Nazis killed in the crash of the airship Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Some recent history may be in order. Before their resurgence amid delicious vindication, the Dixie Chicks were vilified by the same crowd that attacked dissenters for daring to compare Bush with Hitler. In Europe, by contrast, the similarities were clear and irrefutable, quite beyond the power of Fox to spin or lie about.

one woman who is a translator and teacher of German-language literature – a woman who lived in Germany for ten years and has immersed herself in the German culture for twenty years said that among the people in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and among Holocaust survivors in the United States, she hears the parallels between Bush and Hitler and the similarities between the United States now and Germany in the 1930’s all the time. ”She writes:”

“It's almost like this knowledge is a given--a basic assumption shared by everyone I know who is intimately familiar with the Nazi era (that is, 90% of my professional colleagues, clients, collaborators, etc.). It is like the unspoken known. Unspoken, and unspeakable"

--Lonna Gooden VanHorn, America's Hitler: Part V

The most recent right wing variation about WWII peaceniks had its origins in Bush's run up to war against Iraq. It goes like this: the allies had already done all the hard work because US "Peaceniks" did not want to go to war. Opposition to US entry into WWII did not resemble Viet Nam era war opposition much of which opposed war on principle. US Nuremberg Prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson conceded that Europe had borne the brunt of war but it was not "leftist peaceniks" who wanted to keep the US out of the war.

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"There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?"

Either this government --that of Bush and his co-conspirators --is legitimate or it is not! If it is not, then, by definition and law, nothing following from it is lawful. Unlawful regimes may get away with issuing decrees but without "legitimacy", decrees are unlawful. Dictatorships, therefore, find it necessary to enforce decrees with tanks and arms.

Bush's every signing statement is in itself unlawful and doubly so if his regime is illegitimate. I submit, moreover, that because Bush's regime is illegitimate i.e, unlawful, no law passed by this Congress is validated by Bush's signature, required by law to become law! That, of course, likewise includes his every signing statement, his every decree, his every order to the men and women who comprise the armed forces of this once great land. All are unlawful.

Hit Tip: Blue Ibis

The US Constitution established the sovereignty of the people of the US. That means the government works for you --not the other way 'round. The Bush government, however, would not have it that way. It is typical of dictatorships, totalitarian regimes and monarchies that "people" serve the government.

If the Bush regime is not legitimate, then Bush is not really "President" nor can the legislature represent you Constitutionally in the absence of a legitimate executive. Bush, meanwhile, has worked assiduously to marginalize the legislative branch and rob them of Constitutionally mandated oversight authority. All are characteristics of Bush's illegitimacy, his lawlessness, his contempt for the rule of law.

Bush is nothing more than an enforcement puppet of the Military/Industrial complex, itself complicit in the Iraq war --a criminal fraud perpetrated upon the people of the US, the people of Iraq, US allies, and the peoples of the world. The defense department budget is a deliberate fraud --thinly disguised bribes to defense contractors and Bush's corporate sponsors.

I proposed almost a year ago that the people of the US convene a new national convention. The people have that right. I also wonder what might happen if a guy like George Soros and other folk provided the underwriting it would take to set up an alternative direct election of the President and the members of Congress authorized by the new national convention. This mechanism must ensure a paper trail confirming EVERY vote. Thus the very crookedness of the GOP might bring down the crooked establishment it created. There is no way to argue with a valid, verifiable beyond any reasonable doubt vote! It could be done!

Where does it say in the Constitution that only the existing parities may finance and hold an election? Where does it say that a new Constitutional convention cannot authorize such an election? In fact, thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence gives the people that right.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Likewise, the preamble to our existing Constitution gives us precisely that right by declaring that the people of the United States are sovereign, that "government" rules ONLY by their consent. That is undeniably true whether the fascist cabal in Washington likes it or not! It is time THEY be overthrown and replaced with a legitimate government of the people!

From the comments to my last article:

I think the point that reverberates the most is this, "It will take a revolution to change things." Just as Keith Olbermann expressed in his lament about the Military Commissions Act, and the suspension of habeas corpus. "Depriving us of trial by jury was actually considered sufficient cause to start a war of independence." Such an undertaking was perhaps easier in 1776 than today - the oppressor is no longer across the Atlantic - but no less necessary.

--Sadbuttre

How will the revolution be fought? My friend, who uses the cyberspace moniker "Fuzzflash" pointed the way.

But none of these people had access to cyberspace, like we do. Tommy Paine would have ovulated on the spot, or at any rate have gotten inordinately excited if similar pamphleteering potential were available to he and his dissident peers.

In a way, the smoke signals of cyberspace are all we've got left.

He continues with a reminder that American suburbs are short on public or town squares, plazas, in fact, any place where revolution might be fomented. It's almost as if it were by design. Certainly, the small towns prior to having been Walmartirized, were big on meeting places, most commonly a town square just across the street from the courthouse.

...“carnival, in Rabelais work and age, is associated with the collectivity; for those attending a carnival do not merely constitute a crowd; rather the people are seen as a whole, organized in a way that defies socioeconomic and political organization (Clark and Holquist 302). According to Bakhtin, “[A]ll were considered equal during carnival. Here, in the town square, a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age” (Bakhtin 10). At carnival time, the unique sense of time and space causes the individual to feel he is a part of the collectivity, at which point he ceases to be himself. It is at this point that, through costume and mask, an individual exchanges bodies and is renewed. At the same time there arises a heightened awareness of one’s sensual, material, bodily unity and community (Clark and Holquist 302).” From wiki

Will Youtube take the place of courthouse squares?

Imagine what would happen if millions of Americans took to the streets wearing masks of Bush and Reagan and Nixon et al. demanding that BushCo bow to our constitution. Flash mob assembles, demonstrates peacefully and loudly. Clips go straight to You Tube.

Perhaps the combined and allied corporofascists have outsmarted themselves. Tiananmen Square played into the hands of the totalitarians for whom it was an easy target, a killing field.

In the weeks ahead, I hope to take a look at successful revolutions --Ghandi's India, Walesa's Poland, the Velvet Revolution et al. The future of the US is on the line. If the people will not stand up for Democracy, Bush and his moneyed ilk will only get worse and more outrageous. Will Americans allow this man of no talent and no humanity to get away with robbing the nation of what had already been gained at great cost? Will Americans be pacified with a timid, compromise Democratic party?

It is time to recreate a Democracy. It is time to hold alternative elections. It is time to drive the crooks from Washington.

Bertrand Russell, in one of his "unpopular" essays, outlined three possible futures for mankind. Our complete obliteration by nuclear war was one of them.

An update:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 — When state Democratic leaders from around the country meet this weekend in Vermont, the California chairman, Art Torres, expects to be peppered with the sort of questions that have been clogging his in-box for weeks.

What is this about Republicans trying to change the way Electoral College votes are allocated in California? Is there a countereffort by Democrats in the works? What does it mean for presidential candidates?

Frustrated by a system that has marginalized many states in the presidential election process, or seeking partisan advantage, state lawmakers, political party leaders and voting rights advocates across the country are stepping up efforts to change the rules of the game, even as the presidential campaign advances.

In California, this has led to a nascent Republican bid to apportion the state’s electoral votes by Congressional district, not by statewide vote, in a move that most everyone agrees would benefit Republican candidates. Democrats in North Carolina are mulling a similar move, because it would help Democrats there.

In more than a dozen states, the efforts have also led to a game of leapfrog in the scheduling of presidential primary and caucus dates. Most recently, on Thursday, Republicans in South Carolina moved their primary to January from February to get ahead of Florida’s. ...

--States Try to Alter How Presidents Are Elected

This is how the GOP has managed to rise to power! They CHEAT! It all began in Texas with one Tom DeLay.

Additional resources

• Dick Cheney Lied About His Whereabouts on 911
• The Threat of U.S. Fascism: An Historical Precedent
• In '94, Cheney Warned of US Quagmire in Iraq
• War in Iraq, Revolution in America
• DynCorp Sex Abuse Scandal
• Halliburton Profits

The Existentialist Cowboy

Conservative Lies
Indict Bush
Why Conservatives Hate America
GOP Crime Syndicate
Iraq

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