THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
August 2004:
Week Two
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- August 8: Democratic senator Charles Schumer writes letters to White House security advisor Frances Townsend and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice asking for an explanation as to why the Bush administration leaked the name of a spy inside al-Qaeda on August 2. The spy, computer engineer Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, had been providing critical information to US allies about al-Qaeda. Schumer writes, "According to several media reports, British and Pakistani intelligence officials are furious that the Administration unmasked Mr. Khan and named other captured terrorist suspects. Yesterday's editions of the Daily News in New York reported Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat is dismayed that the trap they hoped would lead to the capture of other top al-Qaeda leaders, possibly even Osama bin Laden, was sprung too soon. 'The network is still not finished,' Hayyat said. The Daily News also quoted a British security source saying this development 'makes our job harder,' and Reuters quoted British Home Secretary David Blunkett saying that there is 'a difference between alerting the public to a specific threat and alarming people unnecessarily by passing on information indiscriminately.'" (Charles Schumer)
- August 8: Former top Australian intelligence official Andrew Wilkie, who resigned in protest when the Australian government joined the US in its invasion of Iraq, has written a book, Axis of Deceit, which documents how intelligence shared between Washington, London, and Canberra was massaged, augmented, and manufactured to create the impression that Iraq possessed WMDs. Wilkie was senior enough to have seen the raw intelligence, and knows what was and wasn't revealed in those reports. Wilkie resigned from Australian intelligence, ONA, in March 2003, and has spoken out repeatedly against the invasion and occupation ever since. "I first started to have some concerns about the Iraq war in late 2002, when I wrote the secret report for the Australian government on the possible humanitarian implications of a war," Wilkie says. "It was a very sobering exercise; it made me start to look at the evidence much more critically. And there were certain waypoints, such as Colin Powell's address to the Security Council on February 5, 2003. So much so that by about a fortnight before the war, I had reached the conclusion that a war was not going to be the most sensible or ethical way to resolve the Iraq issue. There are all sorts of things that public servants disagree with, but to my mind, I was looking at government misconduct on an extraordinary scale. So much so that I felt I couldn't support the government any longer and, also, that I had an obligation to speak out publicly. I never thought I could stop the war. In fact, I don't think anybody could stop the war by early 2003 -- not even George Bush; there was just so much momentum behind it. What I did hope to do was to energize the public discussion about it. I had a very privileged access to secret information, and was basically just backing up what many of the people on the outside were already thinking. I just felt I had an obligation to tell them what I knew and to basically stir up the debate." Wilkie says he has been brutally attacked by Howard administration officials since his resignation, including reports that he was never involved in the Iraq assessments and that he was mentally unstable.
- Wilkie says, "It was made very clear to the Australian government that there was a very broad range of drivers for this war –- of which WMD and terrorism were only two, and they were well down the list. What that means is every time John Howard stood up in front of the Australian people -- and every time Tony Blair stood up in front of the British people -- and waxed on about WMD and terrorism, they were doing that in the full knowledge that those weren't the main reasons for the war. In Australia, there were only two dimensions to the official case for war. One, that Iraq had failed to disarm its weapons of mass destruction, that it had a massive arsenal. And two, that it was collaborating actively with al-Qaeda, and that it was just a matter of time before those weapons were passed to terrorists. That was really the official case for war in Australia. Unlike in the US, I might add, where your government did talk about the value of regime change. In Australia, John Howard dismissed regime change. In response to a question by a journalist before the war, he said we wouldn't be able to justify a war on the basis of regime change. So all this talk now about the value of that change and the humanitarian benefits, it has nothing to do with the pre-war case presented in Australia." Personally, Wilkie says that, like Tony Blair, Howard is far more conservative than the rank-and-file members of his party, and like Blair, Howard has a closer relationship with Bush than does his government. Wilkie says that the post-war focus on intelligence failures in all three countries lets the governments off the hook: "In all three countries, the governments have very deliberately kept the focus on the intelligence agencies and steered the focus away from the bigger issue, which is the government's relationship with the agencies, and the government's misuse of intelligence material. And we're saying this in all three countries. ...I think the governments are being very mischievous in the way they're keeping the focus on the intelligence agencies. Which did fail, there was a limited intelligence failure. But that limited failure in no way excuses the governments for their decision to go to war." (Mother Jones)
- August 8: Republican senator Charles Grassley has blasted the Justice Deparment in a series of private letters over the DOJ's attempts to publicly smear and discredit prosecutors in a Detroit terrorist trial. Grassley has written attorney general John Ashcroft or his deputies at least three times to accuse department officials of taking "hostile actions" and "reprisals" against the trial prosecutors because of the prosecutors' cooperation with Congress. In one letter, Grassley demanded that Assistant US Attorney Richard Convertino and his colleagues in Detroit "be made whole and not suffer reprisals." Grassley asked Ashcroft to rectify the matter before it begins "exposing the department to public criticisms." Grassley also dismissed as "bureaucratic, legalistic spin" the department's explanations for why the prosecution team was subjected to internal investigation. "Federal law provides individuals who are congressional witnesses or assisting congressional investigations protection from retaliation," Grassley wrote. DOJ officials refuse to comment. Convertino, a 14-year career prosecutor, helped win the convictions of three men accused of operating a terror cell in Detroit last summer, but came under investigation when his bosses learned Grassley's committee had subpoenaed him to testify, says Bill Sullivan, Convertino's attorney. Sullivan says Convertino had been asked by Grassley's committee last fall to narrowly testify about terror financing schemes, and had no intention of discussing the friction with Washington or the missed evidence opportunities that arose during the trial. Convertino remains employed by Justice but has been detailed to Congress to assist Grassley. He recently sued Ashcroft, accusing Justice officials of interfering with the case and retaliating against him. "The complaints that Rick has must be appropriately answered so that no other prosecutors ever be faced with the obstacles that were imposed in the Detroit case," Sullivan says. (AP/Boston Globe)
- August 8: NAACP head Kwesi Mfume has asked Florida governor Jeb Bush to halt Florida's efforts to purge large numbers of African-American voters from the voting rolls. In a latter to Bush, Mfume writes that he wants Florida to "cease" all related activities around the purging of voters from the existing voting lists until "glaring inaccuracies" are corrected. Mfume is reacting to recent reports that of the 47,000 residents that the Florida Division of Elections recently declared ineligible to vote, 2,112 were eliminated due to past felony convictions. Mfume says that these ex-convicts should not have been purged since their right to vote was formally restored. "The NAACP continues to have strong reservations about the process that the state has come up with, and this is why we have refused to embrace it," he says, and adds that officials in Florida are not following the process negotiated by the nation's leading civil rights organization in a lawsuit over the 2000 election purge. "We are now seeing the nightmare of unjustified disenfranchisement unfolding before us, especially in Florida," he says, emphasizing that he wants the voting rights of the ex-convicts restored to enable them to vote in November's presidential election. "This is such an egregious violation of rights, the NAACP will consider any lawful means necessary to put a stop to it, including filing another lawsuit." (New American Media)
- August 8: New legislation proposed by Bush, ostensibly to improve Americans' mental health care and misleadingly entitled the "New Freedom Initiative," is outraging civil libertarians and mental health experts on all sides of the political divide. If implemented as written, every American, willingly or not, with or without a medical rationale, would be subjected to mental health screenings by the government. Bush recently received a report from his New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which was mandated to study the nation's mental health delivery service. Most of the staff are advisors to the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies. According to the commission's report, "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed," and recommends comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children because "each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders." So, the legislation would mandate mental health screenings for all school-age children, and school personnel such as teachers and counselors. The commission also recommends specific treatments -- usually big-ticket drugs promoted by the sponsoring drug companies -- for diagnosed disorders.
- The commission cites the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes:" if symptoms A, B, and C are evident, use treatment X. In 1995, TMAP began as an alliance of individuals from the University of Texas, the pharmaceutical industry, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. This plan was promoted by the American Psychiatric Association even as it asked for increased funding to implement TMAP. But in January, an employee of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, Allen Jones, wrote a whistleblower report that revealed that behind the New Freedom Commission is the same "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that motivated TMAP, and that, like TMAP, the NFC recommends the use of new, expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants from specific drug companies. Jones writes that this alliance between the commission and the drug companies is "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab." Jones writes that many companies who helped launch TMAP are also major contributors to Bush's re-election funds. For example, Eli Lilly manufactures olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the New Freedom plan. Lilly has numerous ties to the Bush administration: Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush, was once a member of Lilly's board of directors. The current Bush recently appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, as a member of the Homeland Security Council. 82% of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000 went to Bush and the Republican Party. In June of 2003, liberal commentator Bill Moyers said, "[The Bush Administration] would privatize public services in order to enrich the corporate interests that fund campaigns and provide golden parachutes to pliable politicians. If unchecked, the result of these machinations will be the dismantling of every last brick of the social contract.... I think this is a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America." Skeptics believe that the New Freedom Initiative and the subsequent enforced privatization of mental health care is a major step in this direction. (Intervention Magazine)
- August 8: A move is underway in Washington to "out" closeted homosexuals, mostly conservative senators, representatives, and their staffers, who publicly support anti-gay legislation such as the ban on gay marriage. Michael Rogers, who is openly homosexual, says he does it to expose their hypocrisy and counter their attempts to restrict the civil rights of American gays and lesbians. "It's about exposing hypocrisy, about ending a conspiracy of deceit and silence," says Rogers. These people work for politicians who are working to discriminate against gays. Then they seek protection from the very people their bosses are trying to hurt. It's surreal." Rogers's first target was Jonathan Tolman, a senior aide for a senate committee chaired by Senator James Inhofea virulently conservative and anti-gay lawmaker. A couple of years earlier, Tolman had posed for a risque photo-spread in a Washington gay magazine; Rogers posted this information on his website. Rogers and others say that, although the recent bill to ban gay marriage failed in the Senate, the point was never to get the legislation passed, but to agitate and inflame conservative voters in the run-up to the November election, and in the process harass and intimidate gays. Missouri has recently passed legislation banning gay marriage in that state, and other states are poised to follow suit.
- Gay activist and libertarian blogger John Aravosis, of AmericaBlog, has reluctantly joined in the outing campaign. Aravosis says it is time to "stop being nice to the enemy within." Recently Aravosis published an ad in the gay weekly Washington Blade, which declared the new zero tolerance. The ad ran: "For years our silence has protected you. Today that protection ends." Between them, Aravosis and Rogers have outed about 20 staffers and politicians, most prominently US representative Mark Foley, a Republican, and Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski. Foley's office has since confirmed he is gay, but Mikulski has not commented on her sexual orientation. Both were targeted because they had not spoken out against the Federal Marriage Amendment. They both subsequently did. Other outed staffers include Jay Timmons, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC exists to ensure the election of Republican candidates to the Senate and, according to the Blade, "has declared its intention to seize upon the issue of same-sex marriage to motivate conservative voters to unseat congressional Democrats." Timmons has declined to comment publicly on his sexuality. "People are worried, not wanting to answer the phone," says Lynden Armstrong, the administrative director for Senator Pete Domenici, a Republican who opposes gay marriages. Armstrong also co-chairs the Gay, Lesbian and Allies Senate Staff caucus. "People are uncomfortable going to places such as the Duplex [a restaurant popular with gay staffers], thinking, what if one of these activists sees me?" Chris Barron, the political director of the conservative gay group Log Cabin Republicans, says: "The outing is outrageous. It's a partisan attack. It's hateful and unnecessary. Anyone I know who is straight can't believe gay people can do this to each other. This is just someone looking for their 15 minutes of fame." (Independent/CommonDreams)
- August 8: Veteran journalist and media observer Michael Tomasky asks why the mainstream media is giving so much favorable coverage to the proven slanders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who are busy savaging John Kerry's war record, rather than covering the fact that they are promulgating lies on behalf of the Bush campaign. "so far, the mainstream media in general -- and our leading editorial pages in particular -- are letting them get away with it," Tomasky writes. "And more importantly, they're letting the president and his campaign get away with pretending as if they're distancing themselves from this smear while in fact they are happily letting it go on."
- He continues, "It's the duty of editorial pages to at once participate in and referee the dogfight that is a presidential campaign. There are rules here, even in the realm of electoral politics; and one of them should be that a group of people can't knowingly inject outright lies into the dialogue. Whether Bush did enough to fight terror before September 11, or whether Kerry could deliver democracy to Iraq, are matters of interpretation. Kerry's record in Vietnam is a matter of fact. If people are lying about those facts, they need to be called on that and sent away. It is not a matter of these veterans, as the New York Sun wrote in a mendacious editorial last week, deserving 'the right we all have to speak.' They obviously have a right to speak. They don't have a right to lie (and they, not Kerry, have the burden of proving that what they say is true). Only the leading editorial pages have the power to enunciate this standard. And so far, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post has chosen to use that power. Only the Los Angeles Times has editorialized that Kerry's 'war record' is not 'fair game.' The country's two most important papers should follow suit. They should demand that Bush denounce the ad and declare that the standard has to be higher than this. They're not strangers to such practices; on February 5, the Washington Post's editorial page criticized Wesley Clark for not having criticized Michael Moore's use of the word 'deserter' to describe President Bush while Moore was speaking at a Clark event. ...The ads running in the three swing states will no doubt spread to more battleground states. A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth puts its pants on, as the old saying goes. It's time for our civic referees to suit up." (American Prospect)
Bush administration "outsourcing" illegal surveillance of US citizens
- August 9: The Bush administration has found a way to circumvent government restrictions on data collection and surveillance of American citizens -- let private corporations do it for them. Data aggregators -- companies that aggregate information from numerous private and public databases -- and private companies that collect information about their customers are increasingly giving or selling data to the government to augment its surveillance capabilities and help it track the activities of people. Because laws that restrict government data collection don't apply to private industry, the government is able to bypass restrictions on domestic surveillance. The ACLU, whose report reveals the administration's usage of corporations to do its surveillance, says the legal loopholes allowing private industry to do for government what the government can't do for itself need to be closed. "Americans would really be shocked to discover the extent of the practices that are now common in both industry and government," says the ACLU's Jay Stanley, author of the report. "Industry and government know that, so they have a strong incentive to not publicize a lot of what's going on." Examples include JetBlue Airways' secret provision of 5 million passenger itineraries to defense contractor Torch Concepts for a government project on passenger profiling, without the consent of the passengers. Torch augmented the data with passengers' Social Security numbers, income information and other personal data to test the feasibility of a screening system called CAPPS II. That project was slated to launch later this year until the government ostensibly scrapped it. Other airlines also contributed data to the project.
- Stanley says that many more projects like this are ongoing and have yet to be discovered. Many corporations share data with the federal government for many reasons: fear of being painted as unpatriotic, hopes for lucrative Homeland Security contracts, or fear of government retaliation. Private associations and universities have also provided the government with a wealth of data about its members and students without permission. Although the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping dossiers on Americans unless they are the specific target of an investigation, the government circumvents the legislation by piggybacking on private-sector data collection. Corporations are not subject to congressional oversight or Freedom of Information Act requests -- two methods for monitoring government activities and exposing abuses. And no laws prevent companies from voluntarily sharing most data with the government. "The government is increasingly ... turning to private companies, which are not subject to the law, and buying or compelling the transfer of private data that it could not collect itself," the report states.
- In recent years, a government proposal for a national ID card was shot down by civil liberties groups and Congress for being too intrusive and prone to abusem and Congress voted to cancel funding for John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness, a national database that would have tracked citizens' private transactions such as Web surfing, bank deposits and withdrawals, doctor visits, travel itineraries and visa and passport applications. But the government has merely collected much of the same data from private aggregators such as Acxiom, ChoicePoint, Abacus and LexisNexis. According to the ACLU, ChoicePoint's million-dollar contracts with the Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies let authorities tap into its billions of records to track the interests, lifestyles and activities of Americans. By using corporations, the report says, the government can set up a system of "distributed surveillance" to create a bigger picture than it could create with its own legally limited resources and at the same time "insulate surveillance and information-handling practices from privacy laws or public scrutiny." Every time people withdraw money from an ATM, buy books or CDs, fill prescriptions or rent cars, someone else, somewhere, is collecting information about them and their transactions, and now the government can often access that data. On its own, each bit of information says little about the person being tracked. But combined with health and insurance records, bank loans, divorce records, election contributions and political activities, corporations can create a detailed dossier.
- Stanley says most people are unaware how information about them is passed on to government agencies and processed. "People have a right to know just how information about them is being used and combined into a high-resolution picture of [their] life," he says. Although the Privacy Act attempted to put stops on government surveillance, Stanley says that its authors did not anticipate the explosion in private-sector data collection. "It didn't anticipate the growth of data aggregators and the tremendous amount of information that they're able to put together on virtually everyone or the fact that the government could become customers of these companies."
- The report also notes that the government shares its data with corporations, allowing for potential discrimination and retaliation against customers on the lists. Under Section 314 of the Patriot Act, the government can submit a suspect list to financial institutions to see whether the institution has conducted transactions with any individuals or organizations on the list. But once the government shares the list, nothing prevents the institution from discriminating against individuals or organizations on the list. After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI circulated a watch list to corporations that contained hundreds of names of people the FBI was interested in talking to, although the people were not under investigation or wanted by the FBI. Companies were more than happy to check the list against the names of their customers, and, if they desired, to retaliate against them, by firing them or denying them services. "It turns companies into sheriff's deputies, responsible not just for feeding information to the government, but for actually enforcing the government's wishes, for example by effectively blacklisting anyone who has been labeled as a suspect under the government's less-than-rigorous procedures for identifying risks," the report states. Stanley says companies are eager to get on board what he calls the Homeland Security gold rush to get government contracts, and that the public and Congress need to do something before policies and practices of private-sector surveillance solidify. "Government security agencies always have a hunger for more and more information," he says. "It's only natural. It makes it easier for law enforcement if they have access to as much info as they want. But it's crucial that policy makers and political leaders balance the needs of law enforcement and the value of privacy that Americans have always expected and enjoyed." (Wired News/CommonDreams)
- August 9: Bush tells an Annadale, Virginia audience, "Let me put it to you bluntly. In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life." He also tells the same audience why high taxes on rich people are pointless: "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." (AllHatNoCattle)
- August 9: The beleagured and controversial Caspian Sea oil pipeline, one of the underlying reasons behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was rescued from abandonment by British Petroleum by the personal intervention of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Bush administration officials, it is revealed today. The $4.5 billion pipeline, planned to run from Baku, Azerbaijian, through the embattled country of Georgia, to Ceyhan, Turkey, was halted in Georgia in July while the government there sought assurances on "security" concerns. Construction was only resumed in August after talks between Georgian leaders and high-ranking US officials, including the US Assistant Secretary of State, Elizabeth Jones, who visited Georgia unexpectedly late last month. The issue of the pipeline was a major topic in talks in Washington last week between Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Rumsfeld. Following his meeting with Rumsfeld, the Georgian president said BP had "taken the first steps to satisfy the demands of the Georgian side." BP and the US government have agreed to address Georgian security and environmental concerns. Some analysts believe that construction work on the "BTC" pipeline got caught up in Georgia's wider strategic aims. According to one regional political commentator, Mubariz Ahmadoglu, the director of the Centre for Political Technology and Innovations, Georgia's president was trying to use the threat to the BTC project to get the American government to intervene on Georgia's behalf over the break-away province of South Ossetia. Saakashvili wants the US to put pressure on Russia to stop interfering in South Ossetia, and another separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, which are ruled almost as if they were Russian territory. Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's "governments" have said they want to be annexed by Russia. Saakashvili discussed South Ossetia in his meeting with Rumsfeld; he also held talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell. (New Zealand Herald)
- August 9: Australian prime minister John Howard's alliance with the US over Iraq is repudiated by 43 of Australia's former military chiefs, department heads and senior diplomats. A visibly angry Howard retorts, "The argument that we took the country to war based on a lie is itself a misrepresentation and I continue to reject it." The statement that angers Howard comes from a "concerned group" of citizens demanding truth from the Howard administration, and who accuses Howard of deceiving the people over the war in Iraq. "It is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people," it says. "If we cannot trust the word of our government, Australia cannot expect it to be trusted by others. Without that trust, the democratic structure of our society will be undermined and with it our standing and influence in the world." The group includes several former Australian ambassadors to the UN, the US, France, and Iraq, a former representative to the UN Security Council, a number of retired generals, and former top officials of previous administrations. Opposition Leader Mark Latham says, "Truth in government is long overdue in this country. Mr Howard has an appalling record. He can barely lie straight in bed." Says one signee of the statement, "Many of these people are very conservative. It was not easy for them to sign. Others said they shared the sentiments but were not signers and some sympathizers have government consultancies or are looking for them." Former diplomat Ron Walker, who signed the statement, writes, "Most of us have no ties to either side in politics, just a strong commitment to Australia." (Sydney Morning Herald)
- August 9: Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor investigating the leak that outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, subpoenas Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. The same day, Judge Thomas Hogan unseals a ruling he had made three weeks before that finds Time reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for refusing to testify to Fitzgerald's grand jury. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- August 9: Veteran anti-abortion activist and failed talk show host Alan Keyes, a black Republican, files to challenge Democrat Barack Obama for one of Illinois's seats in the US Senate. Keyes has lived for years in Maryland, but has moved his residence to Chicago for the purpose of running. The seat is vacant due to the resignation of Republican Jack Ryan, who left office over a sex scandal. In 2000, Keyes blasted then-Senate candidate Hillary Clinton, who had lived in New York for less than a year before running for office; he said then he "certainly wouldn't imitate her" by running for office in a state where he did not live. But Keyes answered the call of the Republican National Committee, who desperately wanted a black Republican of national prominence to challenge Obama, and had already been turned down by several Illinois Republicans, including former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka. "I must leave the land of my forefathers in order to defend the land of my spirit, of my conscience and my heart -- and I believe that that land is Illinois," Keyes says. His choice to run has nothing to do with personal ambition, Keyes claims.
- Keyes is well-known for his bizarre pronouncements on the subject of abortion. He recently told a Provo, Utah audience that the 9/11 attacks were a message from God to oppose abortion: "I think that's a way of Providence telling us, 'I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?'" During a campaign appearance in Bedford, New Hampshire, in 2000, Keyes scared the children of a fifth-grade class by asking, "If I were to lose my mind right now and pick one of you up and dash your head against the floor and kill you, would that be right?" He then went on to tell the children that some courts and politicians think it's OK to murder 6-month-old children, which, of course, is a violation of state and federal murder statutes. Keyes is also known for enriching his personal fortunes as a byproduct of his failed Senate and presidential bids. In his 1992 Senate loss to Maryland's Barbara Mikulski, Keyes paid himself a salary of $100,000 from campaign funds, and for a long time refused to pay $45,000 in campaign debt. He still owes the federal government $525,000 from his 2000 presidential bid. And Keyes has found other ways to make his failed bids for office pay off. In 1988, his failed Senate bid garnered him the chairmanship of the organization Citizens Against Government Waste; in 1992, his failed Senate bid won him a radio talk show. In 1996, his failed presidential bid helped him double his speaking fees from $7500 to $15,000 per appearance. His failed 2000 presidential bid helped him land a short-lived MSNBC talk show. John Wilson writes, "For Keyes, losing elections has been a good career move in promoting himself."
- Keyes is also unafraid to "play the race card" when it suits him. In 1987, he quit his State Department job, accusing his boss, John Whitehead, of racism by looking past him and speaking instead to subordinates. In 1992, Keyes blamed his race for the denial of a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention; the accusation landed him two speaking slots at the convention, one in prime time. Because the Republican National Committee withheld financial support for his losing cause, Keyes accused them of racism and complained that in the GOP, "colorblind means that when a colored person walks in, you suddenly go blind." Running for president, Keyes accused the media of "a blackout to keep the black out." When the media attention to African-American Republican JC Watts was pointed out to him, Keyes responded, "The very question is a racist question!" Keyes told the media, "You do to me what you did to my ancestors! You ignore my successes, just as you ignored my ancestors' successes!" Keyes told USA Today in 2000 that his exclusion from media coverage was racially motivated: "And it's racially motivated not in the sense of just being against blacks but being against black conservatives, who would threaten the base of left-wing liberalism in America." When an interviewer praised his oratorical skills, Keyes called it racist because it denigrated his ideas. But apparently, in Keyes's view, racism only happens to him. He told CNN's Larry King in 2000 that if he were the victim of a "driving while black" police stop, he would fault the "black folks out there disproportionately committing certain kinds of crime." Keyes, of course, is diametrically opposed to affirmative action, though the Illinois Republican Party specifically chose him to challenge Obama because of his race.
- Keyes is equally extremist on most social issues, particularly gay marriage and the separation of church and state. Gay marriage, he warns, will cause "the destruction of civilizations," and he has equated the "homosexual agenda" as "totalitarianism." In fact, Keyes claims, "Hitler and his supporters were Satanists and homosexuals." To Keyes, "The notion that is involved in homosexuality, the unbridled sort of satisfaction of human passions," leads to totalitarianism, Nazism, and communism. Says Keyes, "since marriage is about procreation, and they can't procreate, it is a logical requirement that they can't get married. ...Homosexuals are not haunted by the prospect or possibility of procreation –- because they're simply not capable of it. I think this is pretty obvious, isn't it?" Keyes also worries about lesbian couples having children via artificial insemination, because, according to Keyes, the children of lesbians who don't know their fathers might meet and be unknowingly related: "That means that an incestuous situation could easily arise in our society; it's more than likely to arise -– not to mention every other kind of incestuous complication." At a May 14 rally in Boston against gay marriage, Keyes even declared that gay and lesbian couples don't have sex: "It's not entirely clear to me you can call them sexual, because in point of fact, sex is no part of what they do. Real sexuality is about the distinction between male and female, as expressed in the body and its differences." As for church and state, Keyes believes in a theocratic form of government. He has denouced the Constitutional separation of the two as a "silly argument" and "entirely a lie," even claiming that the Constitution grants states the right to establish churches or impose religious tests on political leaders. Keyes also advocates the idea of a governor or the president having the authority to disobey a court order he believes violates the Constitution. According to Keyes: "The right response of a chief executive in this state and in this nation, when faced with an order by a court that he conscientiously believes violates the Constitution he is sworn to respect, is to refuse their order!"
- Guns are another passion of Keyes's; he believes that high schools ought to teach gun usage, and once indirectly threatened the life of then-president Bill Clinton by saying, "the Second Amendment is really in the Constitution to give men like Bill Clinton something to think about when their ambition gets particularly overinflated."
- Most moderate, or even sensible, Republicans wince at Keyes's selection. Mike Lawrence, an aide to former Illinois governor Jim Edgar, a Republican moderate, calls Keyes's selection a "cynical ploy." Even the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine edited by Keyes' Harvard roommate William Kristol, calls the choice of Keyes a "fiasco" in an article by Republican consultant Mike Murphy. "I'm certain Ambassador Keyes is now busily printing up some 'Crazy Times Demand a Crazy Senator' yard signs," Murphy writes. Keyes has consistently attacked moderates in his party, especially those who are pro-choice. He's denounced what he calls the "schwarzenegger corruption of the Republican Party," referring to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a featured speaker at the RNC. "On all the matters that touch upon the critical moral issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the evil side," Keyes says. Greg Blankenship, a Republican who runs the "Obama Truth Squad" Web site, calls Keyes's candidacy "truly nuts" and "borderline delusional." Blankenship says, "I've dealt with Keyes personally.... His ego is too big for the Senate, Presidency, and probably God." (CNN, AlterNet)
- August 9: Terry Nichols, the right-wing militia member convicted of assisting Timothy McVeigh in a bomb attack on the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, is sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences. The jury refused to consider the death penalty for Nichols. In reaction, Nichols apologizes for his acts and speaks about his relationship with God. Nichols will serve out his sentence at a maximum security facility in Colorado. (AP/TalkLeft)
- August 9: The White House overrides the recommendation of both the US Forest Service and New Mexico state officials to back Houston's El Paso Corporation in the firm's plan to explore for natural gas in the middle of a state park. Since the federal government acquired the land in the Valle Vidal in 1982, Forest Service officials have fought against drilling and exploration in the region, citing the tremendous environmental damage that will ensue. But the White House has taken the first steps to let El Paso Corp. drill and clear-cut huge areas of the Carson National Forest; the firm plans as many as 500 gas wells in the region in the near future. The firm worked through Robert Middleton, the director of the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining, to gain the support of the Bush administration for their drilling project. The task force was established by executive order in 2001 to help boost oil and gas production on public lands; even though the Valle Vidal area of the Carson National Forest has not been legally opened for commercial use, the White House has overriden legal restrictions to let El Paso begin drilling. The task force has been agitating for the opening of the pristine alpine forest since 2003. "The change was based on 'Let's see what we can do for El Paso Energy,'" says Benjamin Romero, public affairs officer for Carson National Forest. Joanna Prokup, New Mexico's secretary of energy, minerals and natural resources, says the task force's message to the Forest Service left little room for interpretation. "El Paso called DC, DC called the Forest Service. They've put it on the fast track."
- Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, describes the Valle Vidal as a precious place that should be left as it is, a view shared by state game and fish officials, hunting and fishing groups, conservation organizations and local ranchers. An energy project can transform undeveloped countryside into an industrial moonscape of roads, power lines, pipelines, wells, generators, compressors, waste-water ponds, and blasted, uninhabitable lands. Even the Boy Scouts, who maintains a camp near the projected drilling site, has come out against the project. "There is a lot of outrage among the staff," says Boy Scout leader Justin Berger. If the project goes ahead, it would occur "precisely where we maintain our camps," he says. "I would fully expect that we would shut our camps down." El Paso Energy has deep and abiding ties with Republican politicians; over the last five years, the company has contributed $2.3 million to Republican candidates and political action committees. Joe Torres, president of the Valle Vidal Grazing Association, says, "We tell [campers], 'With a right comes a responsibility.' With the right to use the land comes a responsibility to protect it." (Los Angeles Times/CommonDreams)
- August 9: The American Bar Association rips the Bush administration over its illegal treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other "extralegal" facilities, criticizing what it calls "a widespread pattern of abusive detention methods." Those abuses, it says, "feed terrorism by painting the United States as an arrogant nation above the law." During the ABA's debate over whether or not to issue the resolution, which at times was quite contentious before being overwhelmingly accepted by the members, Washington attorney Mark Agrast said, "If we want the world to embrace American ideals, we first must live up to those ideals ourselves." Miami attorney Neal Sonnett, who helped draft the resolution, says, "I don't think it's the least bit political. We used strong language because it's deserved. We need to get the administration's attention and the public's attention." The ABA proposal recommends strengthening the federal anti-torture law, making it easier to prove criminal charges against soldiers and others who engage in torture, and expanding the law to apply to acts committed in the United States, not just those overseas. (AP/Truthout)
- August 9: John Kerry is an avowed liberal, but hardly the "most liberal member of the Senate," as repeatedly labeled by Republicans. The label comes from a flawed and superficial analysis by the relatively nonpartisan National Journal, which used a small sample of 62 votes, all on foreign policy and all from 2003, to rate Kerry as the most liberal senator. Because Kerry missed a large number of votes due to his campaigning for president, the sample was skewed and unrepresentative. A far more comprehensive analysis of Kerry's votes places him as #11 in the Senate, behind Mark Dayton, Paul Sarbanes, Jack Reed, Jon Corzine, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Dick Durbin, Frank Lautenberg, and Patrick Leahy, and followed by Carl Levin, Hillary Clinton, Patty Murray, and Debbie Stabenow. John Edwards, presented as the "fourth most liberal" senator, is actually quite middle-of-the road, voting liberally on some issues and conservatively on others. Gadflyer founder Paul Waldman provides a great deal of data to support his listing, and concludes, "The Bush campaign isn't hoping that voters will take a clear look at all Kerry has done in the past and is proposing now, and conclude that they disagree with him on fundamental questions of government; in fact, they know (as does the Kerry campaign), that all but a few will do nothing of the sort. No, the intention is that if they repeat the 'most liberal Senator' charge, lots of people will say to themselves, 'Gee, I don't know, that Kerry is so liberal.' Ask them just what that means and a scant few could tell you. But in the end, it's the impression, much more than the facts, that will make the difference." (Gadflyer)
- August 9: Using a variety of media sources, "Daily Kos" blogger Mike Pridmore demonstrates that the slanderous attacks made by right-wing attack groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are done, not just for partisan purposes, but for expected returns from the Bush administration, both financial and career-wise. Author John O'Neill, co-founder of the SBVT, was rewarded for his 1971 attacks on Kerry over his anti-war stance with a clerkship under Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a post the then-fledgling lawyer arguably did not qualify for. Friends and family of Merrie Spaeth, one of the principals of SBVT, have been big beneficiaries of what certainly appears to be quid pro quo. Theodore Olson, the godfather of Spaeth's daughter who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project, is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department. O'Neill was a law partner of Spaeth's husband at Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a small but influential Dallas firm with heavy Republican ties that specializes in oil and litigation focused on the defense of major energy and industrial firms: their corporate clients include Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Reliant Energy, Koch Industries and Eastman Kodak, all heavy Republican financial backers. Firm lawyer Margaret Wilson served as Bush's general counsel during his tenure as Texas governor; in 2001, Bush made Wilson deputy general counsel in the Department of Commerce. Wilson helped protect Bush from the "Funeralgate" scandal that racked his administration in Texas.
- The SBVT Web site is financed and maintained by William Franke, a St. Louis businessman with close ties to John Ashcroft and the Missouri Republican Party. The group's chief financial backers are Houston builder Bob Perry and the Crow family, both longtime donors and associates of the Bush family. Harlan Crow is a trustee of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation. Perry was a chief beneficiary of a controversial Texas law passed in 2003 that favored builders like Perry to the detriment of homeowners.
- Spaeth was involved in the Bush campaign's slanderous smear of primary opponent John McCain in February 2000. The smear campaign was orchestrated in part by a group called Republicans for Clean Air, which aired ads misrepresenting McCain's environmental record. Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly, a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas, and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. When the media revealed the lies behind the RCA ad, Spaeth handled the flack, and falsely assured reporters (and the McCain campaign) that Wyly had no connections to the Bush campaign. Pridmore concludes, "This isn't really about partisanship. It's about quid pro quo involving power and money. John McCain sees that it is dishonest and dishonorable but he doesn't see the motives and how the quid pro quo works. And that's what we really need to be talking about." (Daily Kos)
- August 10: The Bush administration is taking an increasingly hard line against Iran's nascent nuclear program, possibly ratcheting up tensions between the US and Iran as part of its campaign strategy for November. In September, the US plans to ask the International Atomic Energy Commission to find Iran in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a prelude to seeking punitive UN sanctions. John Bolton, the undersecretary of state known for his volatile temperment and neoconservative views, has publicly attacked Iran for lying about its nuclear ambitions, and has hinted of military intervention should Iran not cooperate with US strictures on its nuclear program. In July, Bolton accused Iran of colluding with North Korea to obtain nuclear weapons technology, but refused to offer proof. Israel has also been dropping hints that, if it considers Iran enough of a threat, it will unilaterally attack Iranian nuclear facilities. The US has been pushing other countries to impose de facto punishment on Iran. Japan has been asked to cancel its $2 billion investment in the Azadegan oilfield and Washington has urged Russia to halt the construction of a civilian reactor. "Iran will either be isolated or it will submit," says national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. Meanwhile, European Union officials are trying to work diplomatically with Iran to head off a possible conflict between Iran and the US. The US also charges that Iran is involved in inciting violence in Iraq, and criticizes Iran's failure to directly repudiate Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. Some Bush officials also say that Iran was involved in recent terror attacks such as the Madrid bombings and failed plots in Paris and London, though again, evidence of Iran's involvement in those operations is lacking. (Guardian/CommonDreams)
- August 10: Bush nominates congressman Porter Goss of Florida to replace George Tenet as the director of the CIA. Bush calls Goss "the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history." This is a stretch. Goss, as the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for the past 8 years, routinely blocked Congressional investigations of the intelligence failures in Iraq, and worked to stonewall the 9/11 commission at the behest of the White House. He also helped block Congressional investigations into the tortures at Abu Ghraib, helped the White House conceal information about the Valerie Plame Wilson outing, and has refused to discuss his September 11 morning meeting with Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad, who has been revealed to be one of the chief financiers of the 9/11 attackers. A Bush loyalist and close friend of Dick Cheney, Goss is expected to ensure "message discipline" in the CIA, at the cost of real intelligence gathering -- hundreds of veteran CIA agents and analysts are horrified at Goss's nomination, and have privately indicated that if Goss is confirmed, they will leave the agency. While Fox News, the conservative propaganda media outlet, says Goss has "the perfect resume" to lead the CIA, former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner says Goss will be the worst appointment to lead the CIA in history, and is obviously picked to help Bush win the battleground state of Florida in the upcoming election. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says, "I still believe that the selection of a politician -- any politician, from either party -- is a mistake."
- The progressive Webzine TomPaine is even more blunt: "The appointment of Porter Goss to head the CIA comes as no surprise, but if reform is on the agenda, Goss isn't the man. During his tenure as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Goss shredded any last iota of oversight by the committee, turning it into a cheerleader for the agency were Goss once worked. Goss virtually pulled HPSCI out of the oversight business, repeatedly saying that he sees the committee's role as a partner with the US intelligence community, not as its overseer and watchdog. (The contrast with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is especially stark.) In my opinion, Goss has the potential to be the worst, most adventurous CIA chief since Bill Casey."
- Interestingly, in an interview for Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, in a segment which did not make it to the final version but has now been released by Moore, Goss says he isn't qualified to run the CIA. Goss says, "It is true I was in CIA from approximately the late 50's to approximately the early 70's. And it's true I was a case officer, clandestine services office and yes, I do understand the core mission of the business. I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad, you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have."
- Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage runs into Goss shortly after the nomination. "What's a nice guy like you doing sitting in a place like this?" Armitage asks. Goss replies, "I thought you were going to take this job, and I could avoid it." Armitage says, "No way. I've been on the inside too long, Porter, you never take a job where you don't know who your boss is going to be." Armitage is referring to the newly proposed position of Director of National Intelligence, a position above the CIA director, as yet unfilled. (Guardian, Washington Dispatch. Buzzflash, TomPaine, Michael Moore/Truthout, Bob Woodward)
- August 10: The US refuses to allow al-Qaeda prisoners in its custody to testify in the retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq, convicted of conspiracy in the 9/11 bombings, in Hamburg, Germany. In a letter to the German Embassy in Washington, US officials said "interactive access" to such prisoners could hamper their interrogation and lead to critical secret information being divulged. It will provide unclassified summaries of statements made by the prisoners in question. Trial Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt calls the offer of summaries as "a bit of progress." In el Motassadeq's first trial, US authorities refused to allow even transcripts of two key suspects' interrogations to be admitted as evidence. In February 2003, el Motassadeq became the first person anywhere to be convicted in connection with the 2001 attacks. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail. But earlier this year, an appeals court ruled the verdict was unfair because the US-held witnesses did not testify, and it ordered a new trial. El Motassadeq, who denies the charges, was released from prison in April. In May, German authorities asked the United States to provide access to six key witnesses, including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni who is believed to have been the Hamburg al Qaeda cell's key contact with Osama bin Laden's organization. However, in its letter, the United States said that even information on whether a given individual was in custody was classified as secret. Other key witnesses sought by German authorities include suspected 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is thought to be the mastermind of the attacks.
- El Motassadeq's lawyer, Josef Graessle-Muenscher, says he would maintain his client's innocence, then ask the court to drop the proceedings because past experience showed el Motassadeq would not get a fair trial. He will argue that torture "underlies the interrogation system of the United States," making any evidence from Bin al-Shibh or Mohammed inadmissible even if it is provided. He cites reports from prisoners released from US military detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the policy of holding Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects without giving them the usual rights of prisoners of war set out in the Geneva Conventions. El Motassadeq is accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for members of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell, which included suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, to allow them to live as students as they plotted the attacks. He admitted training in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, and witnesses at his trial testified that he was as radical as the rest of the group, often talking of jihad and his hatred of Israel and the United States. He signed Atta's will and had power of attorney over al-Shehhi's bank account. El Motassadeq has said he was nothing more than close friends with the others and did only things that a good Muslim would do for any "brother." (CNN/Truthout)
- August 10: The US media continues to refuse to report on the incarceration, abuse, torture, and rape of children being held in US and British custody. The Pentagon says around 60 teens, "primarily aged 16 and 17," are still being detained, though unnamed sources at the Pentagon and US Central Command say some prisoners are as young as 14 years old. The British Ministry of Defense also admitted that it had interned minors, and that one was still in custody. The International Committee of the Red Cross has documented the imprisonment of up to 107 children as of this May and revealed mistreatment of some young prisoners. UNICEF, the UN's fund for children, issued a confidential report in June on the matter, acknowledging that it held "several meetings" with the Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraq's Ministry of Justice last summer "to address issues related to juvenile justice and the situation of children detained by the coalition forces." Eminent investigative reporter Seymour Hersh stated on July 7 that he has seen film of children being raped and sodomized at Abu Ghraib, though the Pentagon denies the allegations. While stories confirming Hersh's statements are slowly leaking into the European press, the US media continues to ignore the stories, with a few exceptions.
- In a May 21 piece on the previously unreported witness statements from Abu Ghraib prisoners, the Washington Post reported the account of detainee Kasim Mehaddi Hilas. Hilas, whom American personnel had been beaten, stripped, photographed and threatened with sexual assault, also witnessed a teenaged boy being raped in October 2003 at Abu Ghraib by someone the Post identified as "an Army translator." Though the Post says that Hilas cannot identify the rapist, his actual statement identifies the soldier, but the soldier's name has been censored from the report. The Sunday Herald recently reported, "I saw [deleted] who was wearing the military uniform," adding that a female soldier was taking pictures. This deletion is significant because both his statement and the Post story do name some US personnel involved with abusing adult prisoners. Rolling Stone has reported that the translator is an Iraqi named Abu Hamid. Other reports, such as the statement of detainee Thaar Salmad Dawod, have been published by Rolling Stone and other outlets. (The Rolling Stone article is excerpted above.)
- Hersh said in his speech last month that the US government is terrified that the photographs and video evidence proving the abuse and rape of children will come out. "I can tell you some of the personal stories of some of the people who were in these units who witnessed this," Hersh said. "I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers. And so we're dealing with an enormous, massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher." Though the February 2004 Taguba Report finds the witnesses's statements "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses," as yet no action has been taken against Hamid or guards apparently implicated in the Army's own reports. (New Standard)
- August 10: Pakistani government officials are outraged over a bogus FBI "sting" used to arrest two leaders of an Albany, New York mosque on terrorism-related charges. The operation centered around a purported plot to assassinate Pakistan's ambassador to the UN that was fabricated by FBI agents in order to help snare Mohammed Hossain, the founder of the small, shop-front mosque, and its prayer leader, Yassin Aref. Prosecutors say that they were lured by an FBI informant into agreeing to launder money after being told it would later be used to buy a shoulder-launched missile to kill the UN envoy. The plot against the ambassador, Muneer Akram, never existed and was purely a concoction of the FBI to trick the suspects; Pakistani officials say the notion of setting up their diplomat in New York as the purported target of the plot was "mind-boggling." Masood Khan, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, says his government has made a formal complaint to Washington. "We have made a démarche to the US embassy here. We hope that the US will realize its mistake and give instructions for rectifying this faulty methodology." The men have been charged with money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to conceal material support for terrorism. Both could face up to 70 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. (Independent/CommonDreams)
- August 10: Las Vegas authorities chose not to accept FBI warnings about the same concerns over possible terrorist attacks that prompted recent, bogus terror alerts issued for New York, Newark, and Washington. The reason: worries about the impact those warnings might have on casino traffic and revenues. One of the tapes, found in Spain in 2002, shows al-Qaeda's European operatives casing Las Vegas casinos in 1997, engaging in casual conversation that included an apparent reference to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The other tape found in a Detroit terror cell's apartment had similar footage of the MGM Grand, Excalibur and New York, New York casinos three hotels within a short distance of each other on the Las Vegas strip with a combined total of 11,000 rooms. Though the FBI offered, most local law enforcement and casino security officers declined an invitation to view the footage after it was obtained in 2002, according to the memos and one of the prosecutors in the Detroit case. One document quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the city's mayor was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry" if the evidence became public. The mayor says he was never told of the footage. Another memo states the casinos didn't want to see the footage for fear it would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an attack occurred. "The information, unfortunately, was not taken as seriously as we believed it to have been," says Assistant US Attorney Richard Convertino, recalling how only two local police officers accepted the FBI agent's offer to see the tape. "The reason that he [the FBI agent] was given for the low turnout was because of liability, that if they heard this information they would have to act on it," says Convertino. "It was extraordinarily unacceptable and absolutely outrageous."
- The prosecutor said he later asked a Las Vegas police officer who had seen the tape and flown to Detroit to help why more wasn't done. "This officer told me that the amount of money that travels through Las Vegas on a daily, weekly and monthly basis if something doesn't go boom, nothing is going to be done," he says. Clark County Under-sheriff Doug Gillespie said he first learned about the Detroit footage during the Detroit trial in spring 2003 and found out about the Spanish tape afterward, but he confirmed two of his detectives had met with the FBI. "They're saying we didn't do our job, and it is to the contrary. They had the information. They chose not to give it to us," Gillespie says of federal authorities. Homeland Security Department officials said Monday there is no imminent threat known to Las Vegas, although it remains a suspected target. Las Vegas has been considered a terror target since shortly after the 9/11 attacks when it was determined that Mohammed Atta and his hijackers made trips there before their suicide attacks on New York City and Washington. (AP/Truthout)
- August 10: Time reporter Matthew Cooper is held in contempt by a federal judge over his refusal to testify about his possible role in the outing of former CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see the August 9 item above). Judge Thomas Hogan rules that Cooper does not enjoy First Amendment immunity from testifying to a grand jury investigating the Plame affair. Time says it will immediately appeal, but as Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press says, "I think Matt Cooper is going to jail." NBC's Tim Russert avoided a similar contempt charge by agreeing to testify to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, as did Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler. Reporters Walter Pincus of the Washington Post has been subpoenaed as well. Interestingly, conservative columnist Robert Novak, who published Plame's name at the apparent behest of White House officials, is not on the list of subpoenaed reporters; many speculate, correctly, that Novak, who publicly thumps his chest about his refusal to cooperate with Fitzgerald, has already cooperated with the investigation. Fitzgerald's interest apparently centers on Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, though both Kessler and Russert say that Libby did not disclose Plame's name to them. Pincus has written that an as-yet-unnamed administration official disclosed Plame's name to several journalists before Novak wrote his column. That official is widely believed to have been either Libby or Karl Rove.
- Cooper finds himself in a bind. Phone records indicate that Libby is probably the White House source that told Cooper about Plame, but Cooper's conversation with Libby did not focus on Plame. On July 12, 2003, Cooper had asked Libby about Plame's CIA career, and Libby had replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too." (Cooper initially learned of Plame's covert identity from Karl Rove.) Cooper isn't sure he wants to go to jail over such an innocuous conversation. The night before he is to report to jail, Cooper calls Libby to tell him that he has been subpoenaed, and that he will be asked about their conversation from over a year ago. He asks Libby for permission to discuss the conversation. Libby had already granted waivers to NBC's Tim Russert and the Post's Glenn Kessler. Instead, Libby tells Cooper to check with his lawyers; if they approve, Libby won't stand in the way. With this conversation, Cooper and Time are moving towards making an accomodation with Fitzgerald, just as NBC and the Post have already done. The deal is struck. Cooper will testify on August 23. (Washington Post, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- August 10: Bush floats the idea of eliminating entirely the US income tax and replacing it with a "National Sales Tax." "It's an interesting idea," he says. "You know, I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously." After a barrage of derision from economists and political opponents, three days later, Bush reverses course (or, in his campaign's terminology, flip-flops), when the AP reports, "President Bush is distancing himself from suggestions that he wants to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax.... The administration quickly denied the president was seriously considering such a tax." (AP/Democratic Underground)
- August 10: Three campaign watchdog groups file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) that asks the commission to stop the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth from airing a savage anti-Kerry ad attacking the candidate's Vietnam service record. The group has bought $500,000 worth of airtime to run the ad in Wisconsin, Ohio and West Virginia. Democracy 21, the Center for Responsive Politics and the Campaign Legal Center argue that the ad violates a federal ban on the use of unlimited donations, often referred to as "soft money," to influence federal elections. "We think this is open and shut, that the only purpose of this group is to influence the presidential election," says Fred Wertheimer, head of Democracy 21. SBVT spokesman Mike Russell says the ad is legal because it does not tell viewers which candidate they should vote for in the presidential race. "The ads are not meant to influence the presidential election. The ads are meant to tell the truth about John Kerry's service record so people can make their own decisions," Russell says. The ad has been thoroughly discredited and characterized by Republican senator John McCain as "dishonest and dishonorable." SBVT has raised over $230,000 since the ad began airing. The organization has so far refused to release its financial records to the FEC. (USA Today)
- August 10: Jim Rassman, a former crew member of John Kerry's swift boat patrol in Vietnam, blasts the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for lying about Kerry's war record. Rassman was saved from near-certain death by a wounded Kerry during a fierce river firefight between Kerry's, and other, swift boats, and Viet Cong gunners firing from shore. "I worked with him on many operations and saw firsthand his leadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire," writes Rassman; "On March 13, 1969, John Kerry's courage and leadership saved my life." Rassman's story of the river battle, which saw Kerry and other American sailors and soldiers win numerous medals, is detailed in other items on this site (including this particular page), but his story is eloquently told.
- Rassman then turns his attention to the reason he writes this editorial: "It has been many years since I served in Vietnam. I returned home, got married, and spent many years as a deputy sheriff for Los Angeles County. I retired in 1989 as a lieutenant. It has been a long time since I left Vietnam, but I think often of the men who did not come home with us. I am neither a politician nor an organizer. I am a retired police officer with a passion for orchids. Until January of this year, the only public presentations I made were about my orchid hobby. But in this presidential election, I had to speak out; I had to tell the American people about John Kerry, about his wisdom and courage, about his vision and leadership. I would trust John Kerry with my life, and I would entrust John Kerry with the well-being of our country. Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions. I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great commander in chief.
- "Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat. ...Ultimately, the American people will judge these Swift Boat Veterans for Bush and their accusations. Americans are tired of smear campaigns against those who volunteered to wear the uniform. Swift Boat Veterans for Bush should hang their heads in shame." (Wall Street Journal/Truthout)
- August 10: The FEC dismisses a Republican-based complaint that television ads for Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, should be banned. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group headed by Floyd Brown and David Bossie, had argued that the commercials constituted "electioneering communication" that would violate the new federal campaign finance laws if allowed to continue. The complaint is dismissed by a 6-0 vote. FEC Chairman Bradley Smith and Commissioner Michael Toner say that the commission "cannot entertain complaints based upon mere speculation that someone might violate the law," and stress the agency's responsibility to "preserve the integrity of the enforcement process and focus its limited resources on actual violations of law." (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)
- August 10: Republican supporters for Bush are openly financing and backing third-party candidate Ralph Nader in hopes that Nader will peel away key support for John Kerry in battleground states. Democratic party organizations are battling back by contesting Nader's candidacy in many of these states. In Pennsylvania lawsuits, Democrats have accused the Nader campaign of falsifying thousands of names on petitions endorsing his candidacy in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. His campaign was also accused of failing to pay the contractors who organized the petition and who allegedly paid homeless people a dollar for each signature. The Democrats took Pennsylvania by a relatively slim margin during the last election and party activists defended the law suits against Nader yesterday. "The bottom line for us is that we are partisan Democrats, and we are very much interested in getting John Kerry elected," says Michael Manzo, aide to a Democratic state legislator. "We view Mr. Nader's candidacy as a threat. Will it be a large threat? We hope not, but we are not willing to take any chances." Democrats managed to keep Nader off the ballot in Arizona, and are mounting challenges in Florida, Michigan, West Virginia, and Nevada. Nader failed to get on the ballot in California when his supporters failed to gather anywhere near the 153,000 petitioners needed to be listed. Democrats are challenging Nader, not because they oppose third-party candidacies, but because they feel that Nader is little more than a Republican stalking horse. They point to new Nader financial supporter Richard Egan, a Republican billionaire who became ambassador to Ireland after raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush; other big-money Republicans are funding Nader as well. And in Oregon, two conservative, pro-Bush groups have admitted to telephoning voters in order to help put Nader on the ballot there. Pollster John Zogby says Nader continues to pose a threat to Kerry: "He is the ghost of the left, he is the one who rallies the anti-war sentiment and Democratic populism, and so his presence in the race is casting a shadow on Kerry. It's not going to be enough for [Kerry] just not to be George Bush." (Guardian)
- August 10: MSNBC's Scarborough Country host and former Republican House member Joe Scarborough appears on stage behind Bush at a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, and applauds Bush's remarks. While Scarborough has previously declared his support for Bush on his program, he has also cast himself as "a very moderate guy;" he has repeatedly claimed to be independent of party politics and has no political agenda. It is a violation of journalistic ethics for a political reporter or commentator to publicly support a candidate. (Media Matters)
