By Dave Lindorff

I was injured thanks to the government’s ridiculous airport
security program last week on a US Air flight from Chicago to
Philadelphia. I also saw how pointless the whole thing is, if the
supposed goal is really to prevent airline hijackings.

First, my injury. Because of a silly fear that I might blow up a
plane with explosives tucked into my running shoes, I, along with
everyone else in the security checkpoint line at O’Hare, including
two-month-old babies wearing little booties, had to doff my footwear.
Clad in just socks, I tried to maneuver my way around a metal counter
that held those plastic trays carrying my laptop, my shoes, my belt and
change and keys, and my carry-on bag, and in the process my unprotected
big toe hit a sharp piece of metal protruding from the table.

By Dave Lindorff

The last couple of weeks have brought confirmation—as if it were needed—even in the corporate media, that President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the gang of thugs and sycophants around them in the White House, engaged in a massive conspiracy to lie the country into a war in Iraq.

Protect your right to Biological privacy! Oppose DNA Database Act!

By Dave Lindorff

With a viral campaign underway via email, right-wing radio, and on the street suggesting that Barack Obama is a black “Manchurian Candidate,” secretly trained as a Muslim fanatic who will insinuate himself into the White House, thence to undermine all that we hold dear, perhaps it is time to look at the Manchurian Candidate we already have in the White House, who, together with his handler over in Blair House, has pretty much done all the damage already.

George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and “compassionate conservatism,” an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government.

What did we actually get?

By Dave Lindorff

Who’s minding the store in Washington?

While President George W. Bush was standing before the members of Congress on January 28 laying out his plans, such as they are, for the final year of his second term in the White House, he was also seriously and perhaps fatally undermining the authority of Congress with a new signing statement, attached to the latest National Defense Authorization Act, in which he declared that he would simply violate or fail to comply with four provisions.

Let me say that again. The president states in writing that he is not going to obey and will not be bound by four parts of a law duly passed by the Congress.

Just so you know that we’re not talking about the naming of a bridge or a new ship, the four provisions of the act which the president is going to ignore are:

Hear Dave Lindorff make the case for impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and talks about the steps that are being taken to lay the groundwork for the imposition of martial law, in a talk given Oct. 21 in West Hartford, CT.

This program was organized by Connecticut activists Marge and David Schneider. The recording was produced by Dori Smith of WHUS Radio in Mansfield, CT.

__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His most recent book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

The recent tasering of a student after he questioned John Kerry during a university appearance was a painful example of misjudgment by police officers. In "ganging" up on him both physically and psychologically, they instigated his shock, disorientation, then panic. Yet he was never a threat; nor was he vicious. He was not an "enemy combatant." His questioning was passionate but salient, his only "crime" being wordiness.

Such passion is not unheard of at these events. An aide will usually move in to focus the person's attention on time and decorum. Occasionally it will accelerate to a warning about calling security. No such preliminaries occurred here. The overkill in numbers and brutish behavior created a crisis of fear and an unjustified, wrongful tasering. There was NO justification for introducing this weapon.

INCREMENTAL IMPERIALISM: HOW TO DUPE THE DEMOCRACY

Many good people were late in recognizing the neocon agenda for what it is. The following is from an interview of Joseph Wilson that appeared in the documentary Uncovered: The whole truth about the Iraq war.

WILSON: "(In)the first Gulf War, when I came out of Baghdad in 1991, I met with the president of the United States, I met with the senior leadership of both parties, and the one thing that sticks with me to this day is the extent to which each of them had to plumb their consciences to come to a decision on how to vote on the use of force authorization. It had been a moral decision on their part. It had been one that had kept them up at night as they thought their way through this. We owe our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen and our marines nothing less before we send them to battle."

The following outlines the claim to a more realistic interpretation:

US / Iranian rhetoric is at fever pitch. Both sides are claiming to have “evidence” of military foul play. Both sides are holding military exercises in each others faces and the Gulf is so full of warships it must be highly dangerous to navigate. Both sides are threatening a massive military response to any use of force. Both presidents have backed themselves into political corners and neither shows the slightest sign of backing down.

A second US carrier strike group has just arrived in the Gulf bringing the total number of US (and allied) warships there to about 50 and a third group, headed by USS Reagan has just been ordered to rendezvous in the Western Pacific with destroyers from Pearl Harbour before sailing to the Gulf.

AP's Robert Burns reports after talking to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Sevices Committee, Carl Levin, and comes to a slightly different conclusion than his report last evening...

Report Says Pentagon Manipulated Intel
WASHINGTON (AP) - A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."... (more)