Another not-so-surprising development:

The Sunday Times reports Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was caught on tape offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for “six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.”

Read the story here.

“Bush said that in response to North Korea, the U.S. would erase trade sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act and notify Congress that in 45 days it intends to take North Korea off the State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism.”
Source

So I have one burning question:

Why did the US put North Korea on the terrorism list in the first place? Because they sponsor terrorism or because they had an undocumented nuclear program? Does having nukes automatically qualify you for the list? Surely the problems with North Korea run deeper than this. Right? And, if having a nuke program translates into “sponsoring terrorism”, then I suspect all countries with a nuke program should be candidates for the list.

Oh, then there’s Iran…

Let me sum up how I feel about Bush’s question to a group of Israeli students: WTF?

This man is totally out of touch with reality. He has no idea what is going on. One Christian Arab asked the lame President (I mean lame duck President) this question as Bush tried to convince them that he doesn’t hate Muslims: “I think it comes out that you don’t like Muslims because in most of your speeches you tend to relate extremism to Muslims”

He responded,

“Actually, what I say is you’re not a religious person if you’re a murderer,” he replied. “But you’re right. I’ve got to do a better job of making it clear when I talk about Islam [that] I talk about a peaceful religion.”

Ok, fine. But then the conversation took a Bush twist. Dances. Unbelievable…

Where’s MM when you need him?

The new anti-Musharraf government is giving our fearless pupper leader hearburn. Not only will the opponents start the process of restoring judges that Musharraf dismissed last year, but they will likely begin the process of limiting the President’s overall power.

see:

“…Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, and Sharif signed an accord to govern together and reverse Musharraf’s highly contentious purge of the Supreme Court last year.”

and

“Amin Fahim, vice chairperson of the PPP, has said in a television interview that Article 58(2)(b), which empowers the president to dissolve the government and the parliament, has to be deleted from the Constitution to ensure supremacy of parliament.”

for more details.

Thoughts? I bet this is also giving our other fearless leader, Bush, heartburn as well.

The ‘I’ word
by Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese  |  Boston Globe | May 31, 2005

THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse.

Minutes from a summer 2002 meeting involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveal that the Bush administration was ”fixing” the intelligence to justify invading Iraq. US intelligence used to justify the war demonstrates repeatedly the truth of the meeting minutes — evidence was thin and needed fixing.

President Clinton was impeached for perjury about his sexual relationships. Comparing Clinton’s misbehavior to a destructive and costly war occupation launched in March 2003 under false pretenses in violation of domestic and international law certainly merits introduction of an impeachment resolution.

Eighty-nine members of Congress have asked the president whether intelligence was manipulated to lead the United States to war. The letter points to British meeting minutes that raise ”troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war.” Those minutes describe the case for war as ”thin” and Saddam as ”nonthreatening to his neighbors,” and ”Britain and America had to create conditions to justify a war.” Finally, military action was ‘’seen as inevitable . . . But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

Indeed, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor any imminent threat to the United States:

The International Atomic Energy Agency Iraq inspection team reported in 1998, ”there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-usable material.” A 2003 update by the IAEA reached the same conclusions.

The CIA told the White House in February 2001: ”We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has . . . reconstitute[d] its weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Colin Powell said in February 2001 that Saddam Hussein ”has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”

The CIA told the White House in two Fall 2002 memos not to make claims of Iraq uranium purchases. CIA Director George Tenet personally called top national security officials imploring them not to use that claim as proof of an Iraq nuclear threat.

Regarding unmanned bombers highlighted by Bush, the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center concluded they could not carry weapons spray devices. The Defense Intelligence Agency told the president in June 2002 that the unmanned aerial bombers were unproven. Further, there was no reliable information showing Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether it had established chemical agent production facilities.

When discussing WMD the CIA used words like ”might” and ”could.” The case was always circumstantial with equivocations, unlike the president and vice president, e.g., Cheney said on Aug. 26, 2002: ”Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”

The State Department in 2003 said: ”The activities we have detected do not . . . add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing . . . an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons.”

The National Intelligence Estimate issued in October 2002 said ”We have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory.”

The UN, IAEA, the State and Energy departments, the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center, US inspectors, and even the CIA concluded there was no basis for the Bush-Cheney public assertions. Yet, President Bush told the public in September 2002 that Iraq ”could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.” And, just before the invasion, President Bush said: ”Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

The president and vice president have artfully dodged the central question: ”Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al Qaeda, suppressing contrary intelligence, and deliberately exaggerating the danger a contained, weakened Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?”

If this is answered affirmatively Bush and Cheney have committed ”high crimes and misdemeanors.” It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step. Based on the mountains of fabrications, deceptions, and lies, it is time to debate the ”I” word.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate. Kevin Zeese is director of DemocracyRising.US.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editor … rd?mode=PF

Mary Carey to Dine with President Bush

http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary_Na … _ID=227238