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Today's Stories November 2, 2007 Dr. Mary Pipher Acting on Conscience: Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations   November 1, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Wages of Hegemony Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Dam in the World Dave Lindorff The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight Jonathan Feldman The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South Mike Ferner They Met the Resistance in Iraq William S. Lind A Question for Would-Be Presidents Diana Johnstone "Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business" Jacob Hornberger The War on Telephone Privacy A..K. Gupta The Apocalypse will be Televised Lyuba Zarsky / Kevin Gallagher The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley Felice Pace Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism? Website of the Day This One's for You, Ed Abbey   October 31, 2007 Bill Quigley New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System Rev. William E. Alberts A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News Ray McGovern Attacking Iran for Israel Eric Walberg Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War V. G. Smith The Second Death of Guy Môquet Luis J. Rodriguez "Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA Sheldon Richman Bush has Time to Run the World Walter Brasch A Real Halloween Scare Website of the Day Boogie Rocks! October 30, 2007 David Price Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual M. Shahid Alam The Pakistan Question Andy Worthington The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against Gitmo Patrick Cockburn The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba Anthony Papa The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws Floyd Rudmin What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means Sherwood Ross Giuliani and Torture Website of the Day The Worst Lobby? You Decide   October 29, 2007 Lisa Hajjar Inside Israel's Military Courts Joe DeRaymond The Politics of Lethal Injections Patrick Cockburn The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan Isabella Kenfield / Roger Burbach Corporate Murder in Brazil Fred Gardner The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner Farzana Versey Caricaturing Islam Stephen Fleischman The Greening of the Oligarchy Marcelle Cendrars The Congressional Rip Cord Eamonn McCann Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables Martha Rosenberg For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter! Website of the Day Campaign 2008   October 27 / 28, 2007 Alexander Cockburn So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Jeffrey St. Clair The Dam That Isn't There James Bovard Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture Ralph Nader Beyond the Rule of Law M. Reza Pirbhai The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming! Robert Sandels Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations Jacob G. Hornberger Ruling By Decree Missy Beattie The Arsonists in the West Wing John Ross U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca Robert Fantina Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader Ron Jacobs Labor at the Crossroads Ali Moayedian In Search of Logic About Iran David Michael Green What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism? Poets Basement Block, Davies and Ford Website of the Day Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video   October 26, 2007 Brian Cloughley Revenging Bloodshed Saul Landau Portrait of Rudy Ahmad Al-Akras Getting Justice in the HLF Case Franklin Lamb Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? Mike Whitney Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest Dave Lindorff Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians Alan Farago A Castro Behind Every Bush Yifat Susskind Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror Website of the Day Dead Life in a Political Prison October 25, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair / Joshua Frank Iraq's Environmental Crisis Manuel Garcia, Jr. Homes of the Crash Test Dummies Paul Craig Roberts The Fraudulent War on Terror Col. Dan Smith The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment Alan Farago The Way to Paradise? Chris Kutalik The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels Brian McKinlay John Howard and the Curse of Bush Cindy Sheehan Pete, Nancy, George and WW III Website of the Day Support the America's Program!   October 24, 2007 Natalie Washington-Weik White Fantasies About Race-Based Intelligence Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Suicides Michael Birmingham What Happened in Nahr Al Bared? Corporate Crime Reporter The Nuclear Democrats Tariq Ali Bush's Cuba Detour Farzana Versey Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf Dave Zirin White Noise James Murren What "Support Our Troops" Means Todd Chretien Looking Reality in the Face Martha Rosenberg What Came First, the Chicken or the Cage? Website of the Day Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power   October 23, 2007 Ralph Nader Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric Lawrence R. Velvel Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept. Vijay Prashad The Nuke Deal is Dead Bonnie Bricker / Adil E. Shamoo The True Cost of War for Oil Dave Lindorff Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment Mike Whitney The Big Squeeze Farzana Versey Race with the Devil Stanley Heller / Ben George Something New from the Antiwar Movement Marcelle Cendrars You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive Regan Boychuk Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response Website of the Day King Corn   October 22, 2007 Ishmael Reed Should Blacks Go Green? Marjorie Cohn Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie Rannie Amiri Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness? Diane Farsetta Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong Williams Todd Alan Price Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public Education Robert Jensen The Quagmire of Masculinity Stephen Lendman The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers Jemima Khan The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf Sunsara Taylor David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth Binoy Kampmark No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections Website of the Day Support the Center for International Policy     October 20 / 21, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld Tariq Ali A Massacre Foretold Jeffrey St. Clair Greetings from Echo Park Andy Worthington The Shame of Diego Garcia Mike Whitney Housing Flameout Daniel Wolff Play It As It Lays David Rosen Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual Revolution Saul Landau David and Goliath in Iraq Ron Jacobs COINTELPRO and the Panthers Robert Fantina The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones David Heleniak Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm Joe Allen Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS Prairie Miller Lions for Lambs Poets' Basement Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Crash!   October 19, 2007 John Ross Che's Mexican Legacy Sheldon Rampton Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda Rahul Mahajan A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha Devra Davis Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer Christopher Brauchli Blasphemous Science Wadner Pierre Haiti After the Deluge Bill Quigley Jailed for Justice Website of the Day Textbook Sticker Shock   October 18, 2007 Saree Makdisi Academic Freedom is at Risk Meg Dwyer What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead? Alevtina Rea Sketches of Russian Life Norman Solomon The United States of Violence Kristoffer Larsson Something is Rotten in Sweden Harvey Wasserman Nukes are Back and So are We Website of the Day Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"   October 17, 2007 Steve Niva Counter-Insurgency, American-Style Andy Worthington The Case of Mohamed Jawad Alan Farago The Credit Shock Russell Mokhiber The New Billionaire-Criminal Class Sharon Smith Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered Mike Whitney Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman Robert Fantina Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual Chris Irwin Where Have All the Rednecks Gone? Website of the Day Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University October 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Doris Lessing and the Dynamite Prize Paul Findley Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby Robert Bryce Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts Uri Avnery The Mother of All Pretexts Paul Craig Roberts The Iraqi Genocide Ray McGovern What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She Know It? Norman Solomon The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal Martha Rosenberg The Curse of Cymbalta William S. Lind Out of the Frying Pan Joel S. Hirschborn Time to Boycott Voting Website of the Day Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play         Subscribe Online

November 2, 2007 How Pete Stark Became a Pariah The Stark Truth By SAUL LANDAU When California Democrat Pete Stark loudly and boldly told the truth about President Bush and the Congressional Republicans, kids and Iraq, he became an instant pariah. Bush vetoed the children's health bill and the Republicans in the House sustained the President's decision. Enough, Stark said. In his 18th term representing San Francisco's East Bay, the long-time advocate for children's health unleashed his fury on the House floor on October 18. "You don't have money to fund the war or children," Stark accused Republicans. "But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement." Even the usually indifferent listeners on the gossip-filled floor paid attention. "They [the Republicans] sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where ya gonna get that money? You going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? Stark continued: "President Bush's statements about children's health shouldn't be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up. In Iraq, in the United States and in Congress." Speaker Nancy Pelosi predictably slapped Stark's wrist. "While members of Congress are passionate about their views, what Congressman Stark said during the debate was inappropriate," the Speaker admonished, " and distracted from the seriousness of the subject at hand - providing health care for America's children." Pelosi said Stark had handed Republicans a distraction mechanism from a winning stance on the popular children's health bill: irresponsible. All Democrats admit their 2006 victory in both Houses meant that the new Congress would end the war and save the shreds of the republican fabric. Bush has ravaged the Constitution by usurping power to torture ("enemy combatants", tap (phones of "terrorism suspects" and ignore (congressional laws). Congressional Democrats whine in response, but their inaction has implicitly legitimized his power grab. So, Stark's rage, like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, concealed deeper sins ­ and perils. Congress has explicitly and implicitly accepted Bush's war and his aggressive posturing. Each legislative session Members cede to him extra war budget funds ­ for Iraq and Afghanistan -- and ever increasing amounts for "defense" that doesn't defend. Watch out for the "block buster bomb" in the new budget that Pentagon hawks intend to use on Iran. The White House has already alerted Congress that it plans to ask for additional funds for its "global war on terror." Few Members dare question such preposterous requests. Al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq, claims Bush, and according to his logic that means we need more money to keep them on the run? In late October, Bush asked Congress for $196.4 billion for the 2007-8 counter-terrorism budget, $25 billion more than last year. The Pentagon wants an additional $481 billion. Congress will probably accede to this failed President's request despite his low approval ratings, and they will continue to grant him ­ given his incompetence and downright moronic rule -- unrivaled executive powers. Forty six years ago, President Eisenhower warned about what has become the unspoken but well-known context of both Bush's ever extending power grab and perhaps Stark's outburst: each of the 435 congressional districts has ties to the military, through bases or production of some part of the "defense" budget. The American elite ignored the strength of the military-industrial-scientific-construction-engineering complex. It has become the sine qua non of the national economy. Without such a framework could Republicans have dared demand Stark apologize? Indeed, Stark initially said Republicans should apologize for failing to provide the votes to override Bush's veto. Critics from both Parties chided Stark for accusing Bush of lying and killing our noble troops for his own amusement. Bush is a serious man. Only three days before he ordered the US military to invade Iraq he assured the world: "The intelligence leaves no doubt. Iraq continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons of mass destruction ever devised." With serious talk like that Bush has sent 4,000 plus Americans ­ soldiers and mercenaries -- to their death; almost 30,000 wounded. But in July 2005, Bush ­ the real Bush?-- got laughs as he pretended to search for the missing WMD behind furniture and under the sofa ­ "not here" followed by laughs, or behind the desk in the Oval Office. "Nope, not here either." The media dinner attendees roared at the President's humor. No one laughed at Pete Stark's rant. Ironically, public sentiment stood behind his anger. There's nothing funny about Bush's capricious sacrifices of lives, money and US reputation in Iraq. Bush has made Iraq and the world more dangerous. More than two million Iraqi refugees have fled to other countries; another two million are internally displaced. The Iraqi unemployment rate has fluctuated around 70%. The number of Iraqi dead and wounded now defy figure ­ they run between 600,000 and 1 million Bush claims the war has cost only 30,000 Iraqi lives. But Iraq Body Count, which scrupulously monitors the public sources, puts the casualty rate at around 80,000. A July 2006 study from Johns Hopkins used extensive household surveys to measure mortality, estimated somewhere in the 600,000 range. The Just Foreign Policy team updated the number to over one million casualties. Final calculation could reach over $2.6 trillion according to the National Priorities Project's calculations of estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. In light of such numbers, why such wussy responses from Speaker Pelosi to Stark's saying what she probably thinks? Only Barbara Lee (Oakland) provided a careful defense. "The Republicans are desperate to change the subject from the real issue at hand, which is an occupation that has cost us almost a half a trillion dollars, and there's no end in sight," she said. "That's the real issue here, and the Republicans, and the president, are desperate to avoid it." Don't Democrats recall what Republican draft dodgers did in 2004? They labeled Senator Max Cleland, a paraplegic who lost his limbs in Vietnam combat, a coward and questioned his patriotism. And they "swiftboated" John Kerry as well. Different rules? When Democrats speak truth to an Administration that history will record as having given greed and corruption bad reputations, their own leaders reprimand them and call them ill-tempered. Speaker Pelosi does not say what she and fellow liberal Democrats probably thinks: "No one should treat George Bush with respect. He has not earned it by his lies and deceptions on the most serious issues, by his irresponsible dispatch of troops and his destruction of Iraq, by his placement of incompetent cronies at the helm of various administrative branches." On October 23, Pete Stark apologized to his "colleagues, many of whom I have offended, to the president, to his family, to the troops." His apology, he said, will hopefully make him "as insignificant as I should be and that we can return to the issues that we can resolve." Like not ending the war or slashing the military budget or curbing Bush's abuse of the Constitution? In fairness, Congress rarely acts with courage unless millions of people take to the streets ­ and stay there; not in front of their computer screens and TVs. Saul Landau writes a regular column for CounterPunch and progresoweekly.com. His new Counterpunch Press book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD. His new film, WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE (on globalization in Mexico) won the VIDEOFEST 2007 Award for best activist video. The event was held in October at the Roxie Theater. The film is available through roundworldproductions@gmail.com   The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Israel's Very Dangerous Gamble STEPHEN GREEN reports on the real motivations behind Israel's MISSILE STRIKE on SYRIA. PETER MONTAGUE on the NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE or How the Nuke Industry is using Gore's Prize and Global Warming to Plot Its Big Comeback. WILLIAM BLUM on the DEVALUING of "ANTI-SEMITE" or How to Make a Term Meaningless. 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Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"