The Rag Blog

My colleague Mitch Wagner and some other journalists have picked up on a report by an organization called Grass Roots Freedom that a Senate bill designed to bring transparency to the lobbying process could result in the jailing of political bloggers. Did you know that the bill does not even mention the words “blog” or “blogger”? There’s also a couple of things you should know about “Grass Roots Freedom.”

As Mitch reports on his own blog entry, Grass Roots Freedom says Senate bill S. 1 “would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists” or face time in the slammer.

As Bill O’Reilly might say: Folks, that’s just spin. First off, as I mentioned, the bill itself contains no reference to blogs or bloggers. What it does cover are paid lobbying activities, which include “paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grass roots lobbying,” according the text of the bill itself. It also indicates that the lobbyist must be receiving at least $25,000 per quarter from a client to fall under the “paid” definition.

So, sure. If a blogger is receiving what amounts to a six-figure annual salary from a client, say, Acme River Pollutants, Inc., to write blogs urging people to form a campaign to stop, say, a clean water act, then that blogger would have to register as a lobbyist or face the penalties set out in the bill.

(Note that if the blogger was simply opposing the act he or she would not fall under the bill’s definition of a lobbyist. He or she would have to be urging other people to organize and oppose.)

So the notion that this would apply to individual bloggers who use the Web to disseminate their opinions or report news is pure nonsense. But don’t take my word for it, read the bill yourself, it’s The Legislative Accountability and Transparency Act of 2007.

Oh, and about Grass Roots Freedom? If you think it’s an organization with a long tradition of promoting civil disobedience or something like that, you’d be wrong. According to Internet records, GrassRootsFreedom.com did not exist until December 11, 2006.

And its chairman, Richard Viguerie? He’s also chairman of something called American Target Advertising, to which the site GrassRootsFreedom.com is registered. And he also hosts a conservative Web forum called ConservativeHQ.com.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon set rules Thursday for detainee trials that could allow terror suspects to be convicted and perhaps executed using hearsay testimony and coerced statements, setting up a new clash between President Bush and Congress.

The rules are fair, said the Pentagon, which released them in a manual for the expected trials. Democrats controlling Congress said they would hold hearings and revive legislation on the plan, and human rights organizations complained that the regulations would allow evidence that would not be tolerated in civilian or military courtrooms.

According to the 238-page manual, a detainee’s lawyer could not reveal classified evidence in the person’s defense until the government had a chance to review it. Suspects would be allowed to view summaries of classified evidence, not the material itself.

The new regulations lack some protections used in civilian and military courtrooms, such as against coerced or hearsay evidence. They are intended to track a law passed last fall by Congress restoring Bush’s plans to have special military commissions try terror-war prisoners. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.

Presidential inaugurations in Venezuela and Ecuador over the past week were marked by calls for “socialism” and “revolution.”

During a January 10 swearing-in ceremony in Caracas, Venezuela’s re-elected president, Hugo Chavez, announced plans to nationalize CANTV, the country’s national telephone company, which was privatized in 1991, together with the power industry. He also announced plans to increase state control over the country’s oil fields.

“All of that which was privatized, let it be nationalized,” declared Chavez. “We’re heading toward socialism, and nothing and no one can prevent it,” he added, declaring at one point, “I’m very much for [Leon] Trotsky’s line — the permanent revolution.”

In Ecuador, Rafael Correa assumed power on January 15 in a ceremony in which he announced plans to initiate a “radical revolution” and declared his adherence to the “new socialism” which he said was spreading throughout the region. He has threatened to limit payments on Ecuador’s crushing foreign debt and renegotiate foreign oil contracts. He has also threatened to close down the US military air base at Manta.

Speaking to an audience that included 17 heads of state, including Chavez, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega (the Sandinista leader was himself inaugurated just days earlier), Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Correa declared, “The citizens’ revolution has just begun, and nothing and nobody can stop it.”

The back-to-back inaugurations accompanied by radical and even “socialist” rhetoric condemning Washington, combined with the Iranian president’s tour of the region in search of allies, sparked a new wave of sensationalist media coverage in the US about Latin America’s “turn to the left.”

It is worth noting that one of Correa’s predecessors, the former Ecuadorian army colonel Lucio Gutierrez, was counted as part of that turn when he won the presidency in 2002 on a platform quite similar to Correa’s. After little more than two years in office, he was driven from the presidential palace by mass protests sparked by his adoption of right-wing economic policies, his embrace of Washington, and the rampant corruption of his regime.

Chavez’s announcement of “new nationalizations” triggered a record fall on the Caracas stock exchange, where CANTV is the largest publicly traded company, as well as a run on Venezuelan-connected stocks sold on Wall Street.

Without a doubt, the events of the past week further substantiate the political shift underway in Latin America, triggered in part by the economic and social devastation wrought by the so-called “Washington Consensus” model of wholesale privatizations and free market policies. It has been further fueled by the relative economic decline of US capitalism in relation to its rivals in Europe and Asia and Washington’s overwhelming preoccupation with its military adventures in the Middle East.

The result has been a defeat for the traditional right-wing parties and the victory of candidates who either describe themselves as or were historically identified with the “left,” not only in Venezuela and Ecuador, but also in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Nicaragua.

While these governments have different political origins and disagree widely on policy, they all engage in one form or another of populist rhetoric denouncing “neo-liberalism” and criticizing US policy. They have appealed to popular anger over the staggering social inequality that pervades the continent and, in most cases, have initiated limited social assistance program to secure the support of the most impoverished layers of society.

At the same time, declarations like those of Chavez and Correa about ushering in a “21st century socialism” notwithstanding, these governments have universally defended capitalist private property, abided by the general prescriptions of the international financial institutions, and maintained intact the traditional military and repressive forces of the states they lead.

01/17/07 “Information Clearing House” — — Initially, the Bush Regime denied that Bush’s surge speech on January 10 signaled that the Regime intends to attack Iran. Now a number of Regime officials have made it clear that Iran, not Iraq, is the focus of the Regime’s war planning. Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary and member of the Iraq Study Group, was supposedly brought into the Pentagon to de-escalate the war. Gates now says that Iran is the target of US military moves in the Persian Gulf

Suddenly the media is full of Bush Regime propagandistic assertions designed to make the American public believe that Iran is the enemy that is fighting against our troops in Iraq. To facilitate this deception, the Bush Regime staged a propaganda event by invading an Iranian government liaison office in Northern Iraq, kidnapping the Iranian officials and declaring them to be involved in plans to kill US troops.

The Bush Regime’s latest big lie is that the US is not winning in Iraq because of Iran. “The Iranians are acting in a very negative way,” alleges the “moderate” Gates. Iraq, the target for the surge in US troop levels, has dimmed in importance. In the few days since Bush’s “surge” speech, Bush, Cheney, Gates, Rice, and national security advisor Hadley have said far more about Iran than about Iraq. In 2003, the same technique was used by the Bush Regime to shift the public’s attention from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. The technique succeeded to the extent that even today a significant percentage of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Clearly, the Bush Regime expects that it can again deceive the American public. There is no doubt that Iran will be attacked. The Israeli government and the neoconservatives have been demanding it.

The question is: why is Bush, who is confronted with failure in Iraq, willing to compound his problems by attacking a more powerful Muslim state that the US has no prospect of being able to occupy?

A former member of the National Security Council gave me a possible answer. Bush can bury his defeat in Iraq with a “victory” in Iran.

Here is the victory scenario: Bush and Cheney will claim that their air attack on Iran succeeded in destroying Iran’s (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. The victory claimed by the Bush Regime and the propagandistic US media will “make America safe from nuclear attack.” This will restore Bush’s popularity and move the US back to a 50-50 political split in time for Karl Rove to steal the 2008 election with the fraudulent electronic voting machines built and programmed by Republican operatives.

The former national security official believes that Bush will be able to claim victory over Iran, because Iran will avoid responding militarily. Iran will not use its Russian missiles to sink our aircraft carriers, to shut down oil facilities throughout the Middle East, or to destroy US headquarters in the “green zone” in Baghdad. Instead, Iran will adopt the posture of another Muslim victim of US/ Israeli aggression and let the anger seep throughout the Muslim world until no pro-US government is safe in the Middle East.

Bush needs a short-run victory, and Iran will let him have it in order to gain the long-run victory.

Where is that fascist french bitch brigitte bardot ? I need her in Baghdad now!
Someone find her for me. Otherwise contact the animals lovers in england or america. Call the society for the protection of animals, greenpeace, the ecological movement, or any “liberal” “progressive” whose heart melts at the sight of endangered species.
Since they are not moved by the death or the maiming of humans maybe this will move them.

I would not bet on it though. It’s an Iraqi dog. Another Arab dog. A limping, injured, dog being “taunted” by american tiny pricks called soldiers. Threatening to kill the poor thing for “fun”.

01/16/07 “Black Commentator” — — Forget about all that stuff about Ethiopia having a ‘tacit’ o.k. from Washington to invade Somalia. The decision was made at the White House and the attack had military support from the Pentagon. The governments are too much in sync and the Ethiopians too dependent on the U.S. to think otherwise.

And, it didn’t just suddenly happen. Ethiopian troops, trained and equipped by the U.S. began infiltrating into Somali territory last summer as part of a plan that began to evolve the previous June when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of the government. In November, the head of the U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid (until last week he ran the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq) was in Addis Ababa. After that, Ghanaian journalist Cameron Duodu has written, Ethiopia ‘moved from proving the Somali government with ‘military advice’ to open armed intervention.’

And not without help. U.S Supplied satellite surveillance data aided in the bombardment of the Somali capital, Mogadishu and pinpointing the location of UIC forces resulting, in the words of New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, in ‘a string of back-to- back military loses in which more than 1,000 fighters, mostly teenage boys, were quickly mowed down by the better-trained and equipped Ethiopian-backed forces.’

As with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the immediate question is why was this proxy attack undertaken, in clear violation of international law and the UN Charter? And again, there is the official line, the excuse and the underlying impetus. The official line from Addis Ababa is that it was a defensive act in the face of a threat of attack from Somalia. There’s nothing to support the claim and a lot of evidence to the contrary. As far as the Bush Administration is concerned, it was a chance to strike back at ‘Islamists’ as part of the on-going ‘war on terror.’ For progressive observers in the region and much of the media outside the U.S., the conflict smells of petroleum.

‘As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there.,’ wrote Salim Lone, spokesperson for the United Nation mission in Iraq in 2003, and now a columnist for The Daily Nation in Kenya. ‘The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea.’

In a television interview broadcast on the day of the full-fledged Ethiopian assault, Marine General James Jones (who ironically, like Abizaid, recently lost his position), then-Nato’s military commander and head of the US military’s European army, expressed his concern that the size of the U.S. army in Europe had ‘perhaps gone too low.’ Jones went on to tell the CSpan interviewer the US needed troops in Europe partly so that they could be quickly deployed in trouble-spots in Africa and elsewhere.

‘I think the emergence of Africa as a strategic reality is inevitable and we’re going to need forward-based troops, special operations, marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors to be in the right proportion,’ said Jones.

‘Pentagon to train sharper eye on Africa,’ read the headline over a January 5 report by Richard Whittle in the Christian Science Monitor. ‘Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda are leading the US to create a new Africa Command.’

‘Africa, long beset by war, famine, disease, and ethnic tensions, has generally taken a backseat in Pentagon planning – but US officials say that is about to change,’ wrote Whittle, who went on to report that one of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s last acts before being dismissed from that position was to convince President Bush to create a new Africa military Africa command, something the White House is expected to announce later this year. The creation of the new body, he quoted one expert as saying, reflects the Administration concern about ‘Al Qaeda’s known presence in Africa,’ China’s developing relations with the continent with regards to oil supplies and the fact that ‘Islamists took over Somalia last June and ruled until this week, when Ethiopian troops drove them out of power.’

(01-17) 21:25 PST WASHINGTON (AP) —

The Bush administration changed course and agreed Wednesday to let a secret but independent panel of federal judges oversee the government’s controversial domestic spying program. Officials say the secret court has already approved at least one request for monitoring.

The shift will likely end a court fight over whether the warrantless surveillance program was legal.

The program, which was secretly authorized by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, was disclosed a little over a year ago, resulting in widespread criticism from lawmakers and civil libertarians who questioned its legality.

The program allowed the National Security Agency — without approval from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court _to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.

In a letter to senators Wednesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Board Statement – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

01/17/07 “BAS” — — We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.

As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.

This deteriorating state of global affairs leads the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists–in consultation with a Board of Sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates–to move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five minutes to midnight.

Nuclear weapons present the most grave challenge to humanity, enabling genocide with the press of a button. In 1945, scientists warned the world about the nearly unimaginable destructive power of the atomic bombs they had created. As Eugene Rabinowitch, one of the cofounders of the Bulletin, wrote, “The Bulletin’s Clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age, and will continue living, until society adjusts its basic attitudes and institutions.” As inheritors and trustees of the Clock, we seek to warn the world that this level of danger has escalated precipitously.

The second nuclear era, unlike the dawn of the first nuclear age in 1945, is characterized by a world of porous national borders, rapid communications that facilitate the spread of technical knowledge, and expanded commerce in potentially dangerous dual-use technologies and materials. The Pakistan-based network that provided nuclear technologies to Libya, North Korea, and Iran is an example of the new challenges confronting the international community.

“Despite the overwhelming demands of the majority of Americans and Iraqis to end the war and occupation of Iraq, and despite the Baker-Hamilton report’s recommendations for de-escalation, President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki are designing a new “surge” targeting the Iraqi capital.

Many Iraqis welcomed the first few steps President Bush took following the release of the Baker-Hamilton report recommendations, like pressuring Mr.
Al-Maliki to include more Sunnis in the government, reconsidering the de-Baathification process, and re-evaluating the laws for distributing oil revenue. But the current Bush-Maliki plan for attacking Baghdad shows that the Baker-Hamilton report was not taken seriously enough. In fact, the new Bush-Maliki strategy is the polar opposite of that report’s major recommendations.

The new Bush-Maliki plan includes sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, mostly to Baghdad, and sending more Iraqi troops, mostly from the Kurdish militia “Peshmerga,” to Baghdad.

Increasing the U.S. troops will show Iraqis that the U.S. administration is against setting a timetable for withdrawing all the occupation forces. This will both increase and legitimize the Iraqi armed resistance to the occupation even more, and it will destroy all the other non-violent options. In addition, this will put an end to the participation of many Iraqi groups in the ongoing political process, because people like us will lose faith in achieving our goals and getting our country back through diplomacy.

Sending the Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdish militia, to fight Iraqi Arabs will activate other militias and justify forming even more militias in the middle and south of Iraq. This could lead to increasing the civil violence, and might even spark an Arab-Kurd civil war that will be added to the current civil conflict that was fueled by the destruction of the Shia Shrines in Samarra in February of last year.

The current political plan of President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki in establishing a US-backed coalition that includes the few Shia and Sunni parties that are justifying the occupation and working to divide Iraqi into three separate regions will do nothing other than increase the violence and confirm sectarian divisions.