Greeley Tribune of Colorado reports that a Christian group volunteer assaulted veterans marching for John Kerry in Monday's Harvest Festival parade. The Bush-brand "Christian" left his own group and began to harass the veterans, shouting insults. The vets ignored him until he stepped in from of the group to try to block them. When Vet Doug Fedel accidentally bumped the man's shoulder, the "Christian" turned violent. "He was looking for a confrontation," Fedel said. "He went ballistic." The man grabbed Fedel by his T-shirt and started throwing punches, he said. Another Kerry marcher, Chris Humphries clung to her sign and her flag, she said, as other members of Veterans for Kerry and parade spectators rushed to break up the fight.

Here is a sampling of the utterly sick hate speech about Bill Clinton by FreeRepublic.com members. "I can not pray for Bill Clinton's recovery, just as I would not pray for Hitler's recovery...
Who wants Hitlery to be able to campaign in '08 as a widow?...
Dear Bill; Get well. Hope you live long enough to stand trial someday...
He probably has more sympathy from us here on FR than from Hillary.
I wouldn't pray for Ted Kennedy or George Soros or Al Franken or Michael Moore and I wouldn't pray for Clinton...I could care less...
Klintoon is a thing of the past, and important only in his sick/pathological dweeb mind. I will never pray for that POS..."

Where is the media outrage?

Does this seem "coincidental" to you? First a group in LA files a major lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, alleging racial discrimination and trying to make the case a national indictment of the group, which has THOUSANDS of offices (ie, even if the allegations are true, it's being grossly over-generalized). Next (within days) a rightwing anti-abortion front group called STOPP announces they are helping a former Texas PP worker file ANOTHER discrimination lawsuit against a TX PP office. (http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?ReleaseID=34974) Within the same 24-hour period, a Lufkin Texas PP clinic is fired on by an unknown gunman. Now, to tie it all together, here's a quote from STOPP's website (mission statement): "The purpose of STOPP is really quite simple. We intend to cause such discontent with Planned Parenthood programs that it will have no choice but to close its doors and get out of town!" http://www.all.org/stopp/mission.htm

A large majority of the American people opposed the impeachment of President Clinton. Many, however, have never learned the full enormity of the events that culminated in the impeachment trial. Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry's documentary, based on the New York Times best seller by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, should convince them that Senator Clinton was speaking the plain truth when she said there was a "vast rightwing conspiracy" against Bill Clinton's presidency. Even those who know the full details can gain insight from seeing the people who were caught up in The Hunt and hearing their story in their own words. It is especially inspiring to see and hear Susan McDougal's heroism as she describes how Ken Starr punished her for refusing to give false incriminating testimony; and to see that the film makers recognize the impeachment as only one battle in the war for our democracy. Check the film's web site for the screening schedule: http://www.thehuntingofthepresident.com/.

Roland X writes, "Tens of millions of Americans will vote for George W. Bush no matter what. If a nuclear attack occurs on our soil and executive negligence can be conclusively proven, they'll vote for him. If he personally executes Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office, they'll vote for him (and think she deserved it). If he piles the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and Jefferson's personal letters on the White House lawn and uses them to light a barbecue on national television, they'll vote for him. Why? Because John Kerry is a Democrat (and a real one, at that). That means he's pro-choice, pro-environment, believes in freedom of religion, supports GLBT rights, and wants to keep the government involved in health care and social programs. His Purple Hearts, record as a prosecutor, and relentless defense of first responders are irrelevant. He's a liberal -- and they all know what that means."

Tom Barry writes: "Over the past three decades, the strategists and ideologues of the right wing have designed a new architecture of power. This architecture currently frames most of the country's policy debate and has attracted the allegiance of most sectors of Corporate America. At the same time, it has mobilized a reactionary populist movement to support its anti-popular economic and undemocratic agenda. Following Bush's 2000 election, this architecture of power also incorporated into its structure the Republican Party and the executive branch of our federal government... The most potent force in this architecture of power is the package of cultural, economic, political, and military ideologies propagated by the right's think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Hudson Institute, and Hoover Institution..., the Jamestown Foundation, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Manhattan Institute."

Jerry Landay writes, "NCRP finds that between 1999 and 2001 alone, $253 million flowed to the Apparat's 350 organizations from 79 private grant-making organizations. The Heritage Foundation, the senior cadre of the Apparat, was lead recipient, at $25,500,000. Heritage drew up the main agenda of the Bush Administration and serves as its employment and personnel vetting arm... Two think tanks - the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century - housed leading planners of the Iraq War prior to Bush's inauguration. They include Lewis I. 'Scooter' Libby, now Vice-President Cheney's chief of staff, Richard N. Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary of defense... Rob Stein, a Washington researcher who lectures on the activities of the far right, estimates that since 1972, a total of $2.5 billion to $3 billion has flowed to its leading 43 affiliates. "

Burt Hall writes: "In the 90's, attempts by the far right to subvert two administrations betrayed the American public, weakened our presidency and diverted the nation from confronting several terrorist attacks and preparing for new ones. The public and the media did not seriously challenge the far-right extremists at the time. As a result, we have to contend with them now in the Bush Administration. The far right has hijacked the Republican Party and poses the greatest danger to our nation in decades. Desperate to further their own agenda, the far right abuses power and does not play by the rules or follow the U.S. Constitution... The far-right's quest to gain power actually began in the early 90's with relentless efforts to undermine the Clinton Administrations. They abused congressional power, engineered a series of fruitless investigations (wasting over $100 million), misused our judicial system and violated both federal law and the U.S. Constitution."

From the National Jewish Democratic Council: "As WashPost Columnist Richard Cohen first noted in his January 6 column, 'extremely influential GOP activist and White House insider Grover Norquist... compared the estate tax to the Holocaust' during an October interview on National Public Radio. Norquist's comments received little attention at the time, and were not widely condemned by Jewish community leadership or by Republican politicians... A 1/23 article in the Forward gave Norquist a chance to retract his statements. Instead, he asserted that his original statements were 'entirely reasonable,' and he added a new wrinkle -- a comparison of Democrats to Nazis. The Forward article quotes Norquist as saying, 'The Nazis were for gun control, the Nazis were for high marginal tax rates.... Do you want to talk about who's closer politically to national socialism, the Right or the Left?' Moreover, Norquist 'would not hesitate to use Holocaust comparisons in the future.'"

"The most powerful and venerable environmental organisation in the United States is facing what is being described as its greatest crisis in its 112-year history. There are claims that anti-immigration groups are planning to take over the Sierra Club, in a battle that has reopened the debate on the priorities for environmentalists worldwide... Some members claim that far-right groups are now urging people to join to take control of the club. The civil rights group the Southern Poverty Law Centre has joined the battle and is running a candidate of its own to highlight the issue. 'Without a doubt, the Sierra Club is the subject of a hostile takeover attempt by forces allied with a variety of rightwing extremists,' said the centre in a letter to club members. 'By taking advantage of the welcoming grassroots democratic structure of the Sierra Club, they hope to use the credibility of the club as a cover to advance their own extremist views. We think members should be alert to this.'"

The best-selling book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons is now a film documentary. "An alarming treatise on the political power of the media and personal interests, The Hunting of the President offers us a gallery of defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics, and die-hard segregationists, all chiming in discord from the tops of their soapboxes." The film, like the book, lays bare not only the Richard Mellon Scaife-funded political vendetta, but also the complicity of the so-called liberal media in creating and spreading the false accusations that created the pretext for impeaching President Clinton. It will be premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Moveon.org has 1.7 million members. Conservatives claim they are the majority - so why is there no conservative equivalent? Take a look at this pathetic site and you'll find out. All they do is whine, whine, whine. Memo to RightMarch - your guys control the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Why don't you have a POSITIVE agenda to offer America?

"Right Web explores the many ties that link the right-wing movement's main players, organizations, corporate supporters, educational institutions, and government representatives to each other in a new architecture of power. By establishing Right Web, the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC), which for 25 years has worked 'to make the U.S. a more responsible global leader and global partner,' hopes to add to the growing national movement of concerned citizens who are working to check the rightward drift of the country." This is a great resource for understanding the infrastructure of the Right Wing. Check it out!

In the introduction to a lengthy expose', David Horowitz writes, "On the basis of the evidence assembled here, it seems beyond dispute that Grover Norquist has formed alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities. Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover's part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends" - specifically Abdurahman Alamoudi, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah; Alamoudi's deputy, Khaled Saffuri; and Sami al-Arian.

In TN, "One Ku Klux Klansman accidentally shot another participant at the initiation of a new member - then ran from the incident. Chief Deputy Patrick Littleton says about ten people were at the K-K-K initiation - two of them children. They had the initiate blindfolded and standing on tiptoes with his neck in a noose as they shot paintballs at him. This, in a woods near Limestone. Littleton says 45-year-old Gregory Allen Freeman started firing his nine millimeter pistol into the air to add realism to the event and one of the slugs hit Jeffrey Murr as it came down again. The bullet struck the top of Murr's head and came out near the base of his skull... Freeman is free on bond, charged with aggravated assault and felony reckless endangerment." What a PERFECT metaphor for Bush! Driven by right-wing ideology, he fires bullets randomly into Iraq, which land randomly on the heads of American bystanders, leaving America critically wounded. Impeach Bush Now!

Tom Teepen writes, "My, but aren't the bully boys of the right feeling their oats these days? Their latest victim: CBS, which has caved in to pressure from Republican Party officials and conservative activist groups... The right complained that some parts of the miniseries depict the Reagans unflatteringly. There is a lively pop culture trade in trashing the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson, but the Reagans apparently are sacrosanct. Is there just the slightest hint of jackboot-on-pavement here? If not, the rising political thuggery at least betrays bullying swagger in high places. Not only is a TV network strong-armed into downplaying a program it had been ballyhooing only days earlier, but also medical and scientific researchers are being intimidated to lay off some subjects, ideologically disfavored organizations are being harassed and colleges are being hauled before Congress and investigated for the crime of liberalism." Watch Nancy Skinner debate this with Bill O'Reilly on Mon 11/10!

From TVNewsLies.org: "Listen to the argument from the right. Listen closely. Listen carefully. Do you hear anything? Probably not. There are sounds, there are words, and there are even complete sentences. But there is also something similar about all their proclamations: There is no logic. There is no substance. There is no reasoning. There is never a coherent defense of the madness that is this administration. To paraphrase the bard, the debating angles of the radical right are, 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' In an attempt to bring contrasting viewpoints to TVNL Radio Live, I ventured into the nether world of conservative and right wing political Internet forums. As a relative newcomer to the battleground between the left and the right, I tried to have an open mind and vowed to listen to what Bush supporters had to say. I really tried. I really, really did. Simple as that."

FreeRepublic.com is the leading Web site for Busheviks, and is best known for its brownshirt attacks on free speech at liberal Web sites ("freeps"). The depth of hatred at FreeRepublic is perfectly summarized in this tirade by founder Jim Robinson. "Bill and Hillary Clinton were the worst presidents in our nation's history. Corruption, government abuse, treason and daily scandal were the norm under their rule. Bill is a useful idiot who can't keep his mouth shut or his zipper up and Hillary is an America hating godless communist power monger... Bill and Hillary Clinton and their minions still wield a tremendous amount of power and influence over the Democrat Party, the socialist movement and the national press. Their goals are to completely eliminate our rights to free speech, free religion, freedom to keep and bear arms, etc... The overall goal of their movement is to completely do away with the U.S. Constitution and in its place, install socialist/totalitarian rule over America."

Michelangelo Signorile writes: "She called back at 6:30 to inform me that I was 'off the hook' for the show: Conservative pundit [Jonah Goldberg, son of Lucianne] wouldn't appear with me. The producer noted that she doesn't usually let a guest 'dictate' who the other guests are, but it was late and thus hard to find another conservative... that sounded pretty bogus. Finding a conservative pundit to do a radio program is about as difficult as finding a drag queen at gay pride... It is the NPR station that is most egregious here, for letting him dictate the show. The next time, I imagine, Goldberg will make sure his demand isn't let out of the bag, and I'd bet that the NPR producer is in a bit of trouble today. But, at the very least, it's a satisfying consolation that, every once in while, you can shine a bright light on the doings of these people and watch them scamper like a horde of roaches."

Rightwing Christian fundies are becoming contortionists in their efforts to try to justify their hypocritical and vicious outrages. Although he was caught red-handed with no option but to come clean, Limbaugh's supporters call him "brave" for "coming forward" - despite years of his own hypocritical rants against drug use. Now rightwing smirking "journalist" Joel Mowbray spins Pat Robertson's terrorist threat to nuke the State Department: "Taken out of context-or simply read in transcript form-the comment could be seen as ill-advised or even worse. In fairness to the diplomatic corps, any bombing metaphor, such as Robertson's, is probably not in the best taste..." Not in the best taste? If Robertson were a liberal and/or Muslim, he would have instantly become one of John Ashcroft's "disappeared." But because he's a rightwingnut, his fullblown terrorist threat becomes merely a matter of "bad taste."

Ann Coulter's latest screed, "Treason," is a paean to her hero, the late Senator Joe McCarthy. Now neo-McCarthyism is spreading like SARS among right-wingers. Here's Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily: "The United States is a 'dumb puppy that has big teeth,' according to American actor Johnny Depp. I say we should make certain this scumbucket never works in America again. That's right. I mean it's time to bring back the Hollywood blacklist. In fact, I'd very much like to start compiling the blacklist right now - and I welcome your suggestions for additions. I'm sure I'm missing some real anti-American zealots." Farah names Michael Moore, Harrison Ford, Martin Sheen, Mike Farrell, Sheryl Crow, Janeane Garofalo and the Dixie Chicks. There's Richard Gere and Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover. George Clooney, Jane Fonda, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner, Alec Baldwin, and Barbra Streisand. Had enough yet? Defeat ALL Republicans!

The Fresno Bee reports: "Fresno residents and community leaders, outraged by an e-mail message in which City Council Member Jerry Duncan wished he had a 'dirty bomb' to kill every liberal in Fresno, called Thursday for his resignation, recall or reprimand. A crowd that gathered in City Hall also chastised City Council Member Brian Calhoun and his chief assistant, Ann Kloose, who wrote in an e-mail that police should 'Cap' members of the Human Relations Commission. The commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to ask City Council President Tom Boyajian to reprimand Duncan. They also want Duncan to formally apologize to the commission and the community at the council's Tuesday meeting." Given the recent study by Berkeley researchers outlining the conservative personality type -- and with Ann Coulter as a textbook case of its most extreme form -- we think the DSM should add a new mental illness definition: Coulter Conservative Sociopathic Disorder (CCSD). Duncan is a prime example!

"Televangelist Pat Robertson has asked his audience to pray to God for three justices to leave the US Supreme Court. He would like to see them replaced with more conservative justices. On the Web site of his Christian Broadcasting Network, he said, 'One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?' His appeal followed a Supreme Court ruling that decriminalized sodomy. On his Web site, he said this ruling opened the door to....homosexual marriages and bigamy." Interviewed by CNN, Robertson confirmed that he was talking about Justices John Paul Stephens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor. He said, "I think our people are just so tired of this particular accord....it's gotten out of control and we didn't know who else to appeal to, so we're appealing to the judge of all the Earth to see if there might not be some correction."

David Broder writes: "Without intending to, Grover G. Norquist has done the Democrats a huge favor. The president of Americans for Tax Reform and influential presiding officer at a famous weekly strategy session of conservative organizations honored The Post last week with an op-ed article modestly headlined 'Step-by-Step Tax Reform'... The consequence of this -- not spelled out in his essay but clearly in his mind -- is a massive rollback in federal revenue and what he regards as a desirable shrinkage of federal services and benefits. In short, the goal is a system of government wiped clean, on both the revenue and spending side, of almost a century's accumulation of social programs designed to provide a safety net beneath the private economy. When I asked Norquist what had prompted this exercise in candor, he said that... he saw it as an opportunity to show his fellow conservatives that 'we don't have to try to operate under the radar screen. We can be very open about our agenda.'"

Jill Zuckman writes: "Those who believe in a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' might trace its path to a generic conference room of a nondescript office building here, where fresh bagels and cream cheese await more than 100 conservative activists every Wednesday morning... Overseeing all the activity is Grover Norquist... 'To the extent that there is a conservative network, Grover is at the switchboard,' said John Pitney, an expert on the Republican Party... The activities of Norquist and his Wednesday meeting, as it's informally called, illustrate the direct, perhaps unprecedented pipeline conservatives have into the White House. Senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, who is in regular contact with Norquist, always sends an emissary and sometimes personally attends the weekly meetings... Norquist is highly specific about his ultimate objective. 'The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government in half over the next 25 years,' he said in an interview."

Cheryl Seal Reports: "Yet another corporate front group has come to the forefront: the American Enterprise Institute. Their 'experts' are now being spread as thick as flies on a cowpat across the media landscape. ....AEI uses a Trojan Horse technique, disguising itself as unbiased or moderately conservative, as a way to pawn their speakers, literature, and 'expertise' off on the unsuspecting (or clueless) media, schools, and legislators. But the 'objective expert' routine is merely slick packaging. Beneath the packaging, here is the AEI message, as revealed through recurring themes and messages: minimum wage and any other regulations protecting workers are BAD, global warming is phony and the Kyoto protocol is BAD, rich people should get big tax breaks, anti-trust laws are BAD, affirmative action is BAD -very BAD, etc, ad nauseum. Yet AEI reps are now to be found as 'experts' on every network and in every newspaper!"

Jim Lobe writes, "What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family - an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends... Let's start with one of the founding fathers of the extended neocon clan: Irving Kristol [and his wife] Gertrude Himmelfarb, a neoconservative powerhouse on her own... The son of this proud couple is none other that William Kristol, the crown prince of the neoconservative clique and editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a front group which cemented the powerful alliance between right-wing Republicans like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, Christian and Catholic Right leaders like Gary Bauer and William Bennett, and the neocons behind a platform of global U.S. military dominance."

Bob Novak writes that " On the day after Bush delivered his ultimatum... the country's foremost conservative publication listed [Pat] Buchanan among 'leading figures in the anti-war movement [who] call themselves 'conservatives'' but hate their country and want it to lose the war. To my astonishment, I was among them. David Frum, a [former Bush] speechwriter, put Buchanan and me on the top of the dishonor roll in 'Unpatriotic Conservatives: A War Against America,' in the current edition of National Review. We are accused of advocating 'a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies.' Concluding, he writes of us: '[T]hey are thinking about defeat, and wishing for it, and they will take pleasure if it should happen. They began by hating the neo-conservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country.' That demonstrably is not true of Pat Buchanan, and it is certainly not true of me." Hey Bob - come join the Democrats!

A BuzzFlash reader invites activists to join "a 'Support Our Troops' rally with a 'Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home' banner. Notice how quickly you are shunned, booed, or otherwise ostracized from the group. You will see that your support isn't welcome. The 'Support Our Troops' crowd isn't gathering to support our troops; rather to support Bush and his radical, extremist agenda. Worse yet, the 'Support Our Troops' crowd is almost pathologically bent on silencing dissent. They will actually tell you, with a straight face, that the peace activists are anti-American traitors... You will never see a pro-war demonstrator supporting the anti-war protesters' right to free speech and assembly. You'll never hear one of them say 'I don't agree with the peace marchers, but I support their right to march.' On the contrary, every pro-war person, when given the opportunity, has criticized and ridiculed those voicing dissent - and that is the most dangerous form of anti-Americanism."

Mark Zepezauer, author of "The CIA's Greatest Hits" writes: "when rightwingers can't come up with a better argument than 'you hate America,' they might actually be projecting... The right can't stand American culture... The right hates our heroes, too. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into making a holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King. [John Ashcroft expresses] nostalgia for the Confederacy's fight to maintain slavery as a noble cause. Come to think of it, the right hates our constitution, too, except for the Second Amendment, and maybe the Eleventh, now that the Rehnquist Court has rewritten it to mean 'Congress shall pass no law that we don't like.' [The right wing really, really hates democracy. The rightwingers] on the Supreme Court have made it clear that we have no actual right to vote, let alone have the votes counted if it's inconvenient for their candidate."

FreeRepublic.com's pro-Bush, pro-war, "Patriots Rally" in the nation's capitol was a bomb! Attendance to the rally was dismal in spite of the fact that Sean Hannity (along with other notable right winged nuts) had promoted the March 1 soiree for several weeks. Turnout for the demonstration included a mere handful of people. The event, which was aired on C-Span Sunday, consisted of the usual blather from the Robert Dornan types in support of Bush's totalitarian pre-emptive strike regime. Check out these pictures and see for yourself just how much support the resident really has for his war against Iraq!

Molly Ivins writes: "Environmentalists apparently stir strange passions on the right. 'For CPACers, standing up to environmentalists is not merely a matter of opposing regulations seen as onerous. Rather, they've framed it as a creationism-style holy war. Speakers at CPAC were livid even at business that adopted green models out of self-interest. Nick Nichols, CEO of a crisis management group, railed against British Petroleum's attempts to cast itself as environmentally friendly, calling it 'a new and improved Neville Chamberlain.' David Riggs, who runs the anti-environmentalist Green Watch project at the Capitol Resource Center, took to the stage to the sound of jungle roars and declared that 'environmentalism has nothing to do with bunnies and bambis. It's about destroying free enterprise and private property.' Floyd Brown of the Young America's Foundation announced, 'A lot of people who used to claim their color was red now claim their color is green.''"

Dave Johnson writes, "In a recent article on HNN Professors Eric Foner and Glenda Gilmore worry that academic freedom is being eroded. While they address the McCarthyite tactics of the right, I think there may also be another interesting story here... It turns out that every single right-wing source mentioned in their article owes some portion (if not all) of their livelihood to a very small core group of funders. In my experience, this is not atypical among conservative opinion-makers. It appears that the majority of the conservative experts and scholars writing newspaper op-ed pieces, books and magazine articles, and even the organizations that generate the 'talking points' and position papers used by TV pundits and radio talk show hosts, are directly funded by, or work for organizations supported by this core group of funders."

Grover Norquist hosts a weekly meeting of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and is one of the most powerful rightwingers in Washington. But he recently attacked another rightwinger, Frank Gaffney, who challenged the influence of some Islamist groups at the recent CPAC conference. Now Gaffney is returning the fire, complaining that Bush is being advised by groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executive director Nihad Awad has declared in the past "I am in support of the Hamas movement." Grover also cited the American Muslim Council, who "declined repeatedly to denounce either Hamas, Hezbollah or even al Qaeda, finally describing the last as a 'resistance movement.'" Once again, the media has refused to investigate Bush's ties to Saudi funders of Osama bin Laden and other terrorist groups.

Michelle Goldberg writes, "It was another year at CPAC, ground zero of the vast right-wing conspiracy, the place where in 1994 Paula Jones was first introduced to the world... The White House honored the event by sending both Cheney and Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to speak. RNC chairman Marc Racicot, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, Senate Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and a bevy of other Republican congressmen were also there... It was like a right-wing version of a Workers World rally, with one crucial difference. Workers World is a fringe group with no political power. CPAC is explicitly endorsed by people running the country. Its attendees are Bush's shock troops, the ones who staged the white-collar riot during the Florida vote count and harassed Al Gore in the vice presidential mansion. Bush may not want to embrace them in public, but they are crucial to his political success and he has let them know, in hundreds of ways, that their mission is his." Be afraid.

Students have held teach-ins in the public schools in Madison, Wisconsin for more than three decades. But the day before an anti-war teach-in (for which attendance was voluntary), a Young Republican student and a local rightwing radio host orchestrated a campaign to condemn the teach-in as "subversive and anti-American." The campaign succeeded in compelling the school superintendent to postpone the teach-in. When liberals disagree with a rightwing position, they're accused of censorship. But rightwingers commit real censorship, using intimidation to suppress any information that contradicts their political positions.

"There are a lot of folks who live these days to be 100, and practically every one of them has done something in life for the betterment of humankind. Wish I could say the same for Thurmond. Thurmond has represented everything wrong about America during his way-too-long tenure in Congress. Yet this racist has been returned to Washington election after election, and now, because he's set a record as the oldest living U.S. senator, people are fawning over him as though he were some American hero. As the NAACP's Julian Bond said: 'The 'great things' from the 'heart of gold' don't include any landmark legislation. Instead, Thurmond's sole legacy is durability and opposition to civil rights.' This was the guy who walked out of the 1948 Democratic convention because the Dems had the audacity to demand equal rights for black people..then ran for president, pledging 'no Ne-gir-ahs' would ever swim in the same pools as whites, or drink from the same fountains or eat in the same restaurants."

One of our regular contributors, Mike Hersh, received this note from a proud Republican, Bill Paisley, who wrote post-election: "Republican Senate: More than enough. Democrats: Not nearly enough (with no Jumping Jeffords in the wings). Life is sweet. Get over it!" To which Mike replied: "Thanks for helping me get fired up to remove the stain called the criminal Bush Occupation from the great United States, so we can recover morally and economically from right wing fascism. :-) The money, (voting) machines, and media are against us. Our side has to redouble efforts to achieve victory. And we will. BTW Who are you? You count well, but you don't have any idea what will happen to America with the already corrupt right wingers wielding absolute power -- which corrupts absolutely." Bill wrote back...apparently, for the last time, after Mike's scintillating reply.

The Bush administration greased its way into power by lying to the American people, claiming Bush was a moderate "uniter" who would operate in a bipartisan way. But here is the ugly truth, in stark detail - the most comprehensive breakdown of the reality of the Bush administration and its various agencies we have seen. Instead of being moderate, it is infested by ultrarightwing representatives from corporate funded foundations, organizations and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society. Examine this roster and you will see a clear pattern and agenda - and what a bald-faced lie was Bush's claim of being "moderate."

Bryan Zepp Jamieson writes: "The far right wealthy elite are having a lot of fun standing with one foot poised an a vanquished foe they've labeled 'liberalism and socialism' and beating their chests. They base this upon the fact that they picked up three seats in the Senate and failed to lose the numerical advantage among the states governorships, attracting 19% of the popular vote as they did so. That they call such a performance a victory shows that they've pretty much lost contact with reality. That they believe it gives them a mandate to overthrow the constitution is flat-out hallucinatory..."

Iran-Contra luminary Michael Ledeen nicely summed up the hawks' worldview. "No (war) stages," he said. "This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. And all this talk about, well, first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq, then we will take a look around and see how things stand, that is entirely the wrong way to go about it. Because these guys are all talking to each other and are all working with one another....If we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

The Jenny Jones circus-lynch mob atmosphere that has taken over rightwing talk shows, now that their ideology has been challenged more in recent years, is having dangerous side effects. Hateful people have always been able to whip up a mob to act first and ask questions later. And now, via radio and TV, that's just what Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, et al are doing. Tom Daschle observes "'The threats to those of us in public life go up dramatically, on our families and on us, in a way that's very disconcerting." Daschle, whose office was a target in last year's anthrax mail attacks, declined to go into detail about the nature of the threats....'If entertainment becomes so much a part of politics and if that entertainment drives an emotional movement in this country among some people who don't know the difference between entertainment and politics, and who are then so energized to go out and hurt somebody, that troubles me.'"

Complaints have been mounting steadily about Bush-appointee Janet Rehnquist, who now acts as the Inspector General of the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Since slithering into her Daddy-got-me-a-job post, she has forced out more than one long-term, experienced upper level employee per month (total count so far - 19), including a half-dozen deputies. Rehnquist is not only despotic and unethical, turning the supposedly non-partisan department into a rightwings-only club, she pantomines target practice with a real gun in her office, aimed at a picture of a human face. And this is the SAME department Bush wants to grant sweeping smallpox emergency powers to???

There's a wise old saying: "Know your enemy." Put another way, forewarned is forearmed. Here is a clearly defined chart that shows the disturbing little world of the rightwinger - the world of the people who now control the U.S. and threaten the globe with their fears and prejudices. Also, see: http://www.publiceye.org/top_dem.html
Clip this and pass it on to fellow progressives!

Atlanta Journal writes, "Perdue said during the campaign that he supports a referendum on the flag and he put out fliers and other advertising asking voters to 'remember who changed your flag.' On Wednesday, he blamed the news media for raising the flag change as an issue in the campaign, but said, 'We will convene in Jan and address the issue then.' Supporters of the old state flag railed at Barnes for reducing the size of the Confederate battle emblem...The thought of another flag debate worries GA business leaders, many of whom contributed generously to Barnes' campaign. 'The last thing we need to do is to spend the next four years going backward on any issues that divide us,' Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons and chairman-elect of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday. 'From our viewpoint, we had that issue resolved and behind us.'"

Joe Citizen writes, "The conservative right has been diligent in promoting its vision and it has succeeded in building an empire. So far their crowning achievement has been in the installation of Bush Jr.; an occurrence that could not have happened without them...Although perhaps less than 10% of the population are members of the far right, their combined effort through the influence of right wing foundations, think tanks and media was directly responsible for handing Bush the prize. The Bush tax cut, the breakdown of environmental sanity, the simple minded foreign policy of military dominance, the doctrine of unilateralism, the attempt at faith based initiatives and the attempt to pack the courts with conservatives have all been preliminary efforts by Bush to reward his sponsors for a job well done. If roughly 60% of the population is 'liberal' on the issues, then the 10% which thrust Bush into power has succeeded at exerting a tremendous amount of power over the majority."

Mike Hersh documents the turning tides from reactionary Republicanism to the inclusive and growing affirmation of democratic priniciples and practices in our republic. Mike writes: "Dennis Prager scolded Democrats in the pages of the Wall St. Journal writing: 'You finally made a big mistake. You probably never thought you would live to see Middle America and mainstream Republicans galvanized to resist your ongoing takeover of America. But like other power-hungry groups in history, you didn't know when to hold back. Your party and its standard bearer, Al Gore, have attempted to thwart an election not in the quiet of the night (as in 1960) but in daylight, before the cameras of the world. And finally we have begun to resist.'...Fed up with reactionary Republicans waging war against the Constitution and progress for decades, liberal and moderate Democrats, independents, 3rd party people and even Republicans of good conscience have finally begun to resist."

Associated Press writer Ramola Talwar reports: "Five people were killed Friday in Hindu-Muslim rioting and police gunfire after riots broke out during a general strike to protest the Rev. Jerry Falwell calling the founder of Islam a terrorist. Forty-seven others were injured. The rioters attacked each other with knives and stones during the strike called to protest what Falwell said on CBS television early this month. Muslim organizations said Falwell's remarks were derogatory and blasphemous. The conservative Baptist minister told the television network Islam's prophet 'was a -- a violent man, a man of war. Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses,' Falwell said. 'I think Muhammad set an opposite example.'" Seems like Jesus also said that there are many rooms in His Father's house, eh, Jerry?

"Yes, that's right. You heard me. We are allies. I am one of liberalism's secret new allies. There are many of us; millions of us in fact. We are denizens of the Right...the true Right - the Third Party Right. The Pat Buchanan Right..the Libertarian Right..of half a dozen other small parties. We're not the right-wing of the neoconservative, snotty, elitist, oil-sucking Republican Party. We're the real conservatives... and we have more in common with you now than we ever will with the loathsome imperialist jackboots who are squatting in our White House. Most of us were Republicans once. We laughed at Clinton, a lot. We helped demonize him in the Press. I have a confession to make: Even though I never liked Clinton and I don't like him now, I wish he was still in office. I miss him. No, I am not being sarcastic. Bill Clinton was not a warmonger..he was not a second coming of Napoleon Bonaparte, minus 80 IQ points. We now have a silly, illiterate clown who rose to power..."

"Does it seem that the corporate news media is filled with traitorous peaceniks who are coddling Saddam, bashing Bush, and opposing a first-strike attack on Iraq? No? Well, maybe you just aren't paying attention like Brent Bozell III and his Media Research Center. The Center sends e-mail alerts throughout the day to its list of over 11,000 followers who can then rain complaints onto ABC, NBC, CBS and other media that aren't toeing the correct line on Iraq and other issues. MRC Chairman Brent Bozell III draws a salary of over a quarter of a million dollars a year, and the MRC budget totaled more than $15 million a year in 2000 with grants over the years from the usual ideological sources including the Scaife, Bradley and Olin foundations." Are there as many aggressive progressives willing to report and critique conservative media bias?

Nature Magazine reports: "A nation's suicide rate increases under right-wing governments according two studies that have looked at Australia and Britain over the past century. Alienation and isolation may run higher in societies driven by competitive market forces, suggest the teams behind the findings. Left-wing rule, focusing more on equality, might put people under less pressure. Says social scientist Mary Shaw of the University of Bristol, UK. "We need to look not just at the immediate biomedical factors affecting health, but also how we organize society," she says. The results are unsurprising, says Cary Cooper, a psychologist at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK: Poorer social support and higher job insecurity may drive more to suicide under conservative regimes." And these governments were not half as repressive and uncaring as the Bush regime!

This handy, informative little guide by Cheryl Seal made a big splash when first posted last winter. Now, as the election looms and resistance to Bush grows, the rightwing's propaganda campaign is intensifying and its methods diversifying. The Bush machine has realized that the public is getting savvier and more skeptical of their heavy-handed techniques, so they have introduced more sophisticated provocateurs into their "stable" of lie-pushers. Here is an updated guide to rightwing propaganda strategies that every progressive should read and pass on as a public service!

W. David Jenkins III writes, "There's been a lot of talk during this past year over the fact that those dastardly terrorists hate us because of our freedoms. They are 'jealous' we've been told. They hate us because of who we are. They hate us for the way we live, the way we think, the way we love and for the way we wish to raise our children. The people who hate us don't like our tolerant ways. The fact that we wish to accept all religions, lifestyles and political differences drives those who hate us up the wall. We've seen these people on TV. We watch them on an almost daily basis plot against us -- and all that America stands for -- and we feel our anger build. And as we watch and listen to these hateful people, the nagging question keeps rearing its ugly head: What makes the Right Wing hate us so much?"

"Conservatives, when they talk about rights, mean their rights to keep their unjust privileges. When they talk about justice, they mean the justice that forgives them and punishes everyone else. It is the duty of real liberals, as the heirs to the Enlightenment ideal of rational government based on justice and human rights, to stand up and fight the self-serving efforts of conservatives to perpetuate irrational government based on power and tradition. It is the duty of real liberals to help the average man and woman shatter the thick wall of hypocrisy and shameless sophistry that conservatives prop up to conceal their self-interested and power-hungry motives." So writes Willian Pastille.

"As the religious right gains ground in the US, accompanied by politicians evoking the god-fearing values of good and evil, a culture honoring diversity is replaced by calls for apocalyptic war. As always, the schoolyard has become a major political battleground. Hysteria over removing 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance aside, the latest educational minefield lies in the origins of life: namely a return to the 1925 Scopes Trial debate of evolution vs. creationism. For example, to promote Christianity, Cobb County, Georgia is putting disclaimers on its science textbooks, saying that evolution is 'a theory, not a fact,' and school districts from Kansas to Ohio are enmeshed in battles royale over an issue that should be settled in a country separating church and state. Not that bible-banging US attorney general John Ashcroft is troubled by the far right's assault on the First Amendment". So writes Heather Wokusch.

Jerry Landay writes, "Beginning in the early 1970s, a new conservative establishment... shifted the nation rightward; tilted the distribution of the nation's assets away from the middle class and the poor, the elderly... They marketed class values while accusing their opponents of 'class warfare.' They loosened or repealed the rights and protections of organized labor and the poor, voters, and minorities. They slashed the taxes of corporations and the rich... They came to dominate or heavily influence centers of scholarship, law, and politics, education, and governance - or put new ones in their place. Their litigation teams nearly overthrew an elected President. And, to maintain power, proclaimed Constitutionalists on the right, to this day, wage a concerted counter- revolution against such Constitutional guarantees as free speech and separation of church and state." And it all began with a 1971 memo by Lewis Powell, shortly before his nomination to the Supreme Court.

The AP reports, "Actor Charlton Heston revealed Friday that doctors have told him he has symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease. 'I'm neither giving up nor giving in,' the 78-year-old Heston said in a taped statement played at a news conference at the Beverly Hills Hotel."

"As I awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, I found I had been transformed in my bed into something reptilian. I had fangs that were filled with venomous poison. My tongue was forked. My mouth foamed, spewing forth bile. My blood ran cold. My instincts were now predatory. I intuitively realized that anyone who disagreed with me was dangerous and must be destroyed. When I tried to comprehend what had happened, the enormity of the situation suddenly overwhelmed me. 'Oh, my God!' I screamed in horror. 'I have become a conservative!' My first impulse was to blame Bill Clinton - not just for this, but for all things. And if not him, I thought, then the wrongs of the world must certainly be the fault of teenage, crack addicted black welfare mothers who yearn to recruit public school students to alternative lifestyles that involve farm animals." So writes satirist David Podvin.

When David Brock took Scaife money to trash Anita Hill in print, Jane Mayer wrote a book defending her. So Mayer has a pretty good perspective on Brock, and has written a lengthy review of "Blinded by the Right" for the NY Review of Books. Mayer concludes: a) what a bunch of liars the Right people are, with chapter and verse, b) that on the other hand she finds what she knows about at first hand in Brock's account is true, c) that the rest of the material generally rings true, and d) that there has been a resounding silence from Brock's former friends and associates that he wrote about, further indicating that he really nailed them, or d) that these scoundrels are too busy with their jobs high up in the Bush Administration to react. Where is the outrage?

Writes Kent Southard: "Right at the top of my short list of significant achievements in American pop culture, along with Calvin and Hobbes, The Rockford Files, Joni Mitchell and The Doors, is that charming and gently eccentric comedy WKRP in Cincinnati. Perhaps the most unforgettable character was WKRP's newsman, Les Nessman, who never missed an opportunity to turn his hog reports into a editorial on the creeping communist conspiracy. Inexplicably, twenty years on, the hard-right fringe has somehow come to be running the country; and accordingly, everywhere you look in the media is some permutation of Les Nessman -- some more souped up than others, but all just as wide-eyed when it comes to his or her paranoia. Once George W. Bush stole the presidency, it's as if the whole country followed him down the rabbit hole and now up is down, good is evil, and our most emblematic nature found its clearest expression in a twenty year old sitcom character."

The mystery of the conservative homosexual gives an interesting insight into the nature of modern conservatism. This kind of "conservatism" is less individualistic than old Republicans like me grew up with. It is more the exclusive advocate of established power and privilege now. Perhaps the keystone in that alignment is the whining in the book "Bias," by Bernard Goldberg, a former CBS News hand is now making big bucks and a bigger splash by selling "proof" of liberal bias in the media. But what would really rock the world of the average "ditto head" of Rush Limbaugh, would be if they were open minded enough to read another book on the bestseller's lists, David Brock's "Blinded by the Right." In it, one learns one of the biggest secrets the conservative movement keeps from its "dittohead" legions which is that many of th opinions they hold so fiercely were often orginally crafted by men they would normally do physical violence to.

Bernard Weiner writes: "The point I'm making here is that, right or wrong in methodology, the Bush Administration has been highly manipulative in using the 9/11 tragedy to its ideological advantage and to the advantage of its corporate sector, especially in the energy/oil arena. Those who disagree are treated as unpatriotic... Europe, the United Nations, global treaties -- nothing and nobody was permitted to stop the U.S. unilaterist approach to foreign relations. What the U.S. elephant wanted, the U.S. elephant moved to take or control, always for the benefit of its corporate-class sponsors…So you, and your other European friends, ask why America is behaving the way it is. Bush&Co are doing so because they can get away with it. They cleverly have folded their permanent 'war on terrorism' into the HardRight agenda, and not enough citizens have noticed or cared. A better day will come…we will move back to a saner, more centrist balance. Keep the faith, and keep on keepin' on."

David Brock's 'Blinded by the Right' and John Dean's 'Blind Ambition' are book-ends of the Right Wing Conspiracy. "Dean's marks the early days of Nixon's... dirty tricks to neutralize political enemies -- and Brock's chronicles its maturity [the attacks on Bill Clinton and the installation of] Bush in the White House. This continuum of Republican attack politics from Watergate to W. is the [story of] how the conservative attack machine worked in the 1990s and who had become its key players.The book's value in dissecting the dirty tricks -- along with detailing the raging hypocrisies of many right-wing operatives... In both cases, the conservative attacks on these 'traitors' had a 'pay no heed to that man behind the curtain' quality... the grotesque portrait of the Republican attack machine [has] been known for years, reported in books, such as 'The Hunting of the President' by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, and at a few Web sites, such as Consortiumnews.com."

"The subhead of Horowitz's [Salon] article stated that [David] Brock 'lied about me' and any fair reading of the article would conclude that Brock had fabricated the anecdote [in 'Blinded by the Right'], that Horowitz had never said anything that might be regarded as an anti-gay slur to [Chad] Conway.. In the following days, however, Conway, the book editor, sent out e-mails challenging Horowitz's version of events and corroborating Brock's anecdote. One of the e-mails went to Salon and was published on April 30. Conway said that after Brock's book was published Horowitz called to complain... Beyond confirming Brock's anecdote, Conway makes clear that he informed Horowitz about its truthfulness before Horowitz's April 17 article, which alleged that the anecdote was false. Conway also notes that Horowitz remembered the anecdote 'in a vague form.' So, if Conway is to be believed, Horowitz knowingly published a dishonest article." Tell Salon's David Talbot (415 645-9200) to can Horowitz!

"We control everything in the world," says the CNP's Executive Director. The Council for National Policy (CNP) meets this weekend, with featured headliners Clarence Thomas, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. ABC News reports: "The concoction of federalism, economic growth, social traditionalism, religious activism and anti-secularism goes down well among members because it is spiced with disdain for a common enemy: the creeping influence of political and philosophical liberalism...at thrice-yearly conventions, the CNP has functioned as a sausage factory for conservative ideas of a particular goût: strong affirmations of military power, Christian heritage, traditional values, and leave-us-alone-get-off-our-backs legislation... There's no denying their influence: Money is transferred from benefactor to worthy cause. Aspirants meet benefactors." (More info at www.geocities.com/alanjpakula/triple2.html#Council).

Writes B. Jamieson: "Paranoid billionaire crackpot Richard Scaife, and crazed America-hating religious megalomaniac Sun Myung Moon own or finance a majority of the right-wing publishing empire. Moon owns Insight and the Washington Times, and Scaife bankrolled American Spectator, for whom Brock worked. Regnery Press [is] a clearinghouse for right wing propaganda. Henry Regnery was a raving crackpot who sold the company to Eagle Publishing in 1993, and has since put out huge volumes of what amount to hit pieces..Regnery Press and the Moon and Scaife publishing empires are all just organs for a crackpot political cult that wears sociological and religious trappings for convenience. Their readers want propaganda. When Brock failed to provide them with propaganda, they were outraged. And therein lies the difference between a philosophy and a cult. Whatever else you might think about Brock's description of the right, he makes it clear that it is a cult, financed by nut-balls for nut-balls."

"If you want to get a real flavor for what was a very prominent strain of American thinking of the time, you should read the startling words of Henry Ford, a truly hateful man. Or you might sample the wisdom of Charles Lindbergh on Nazis. Speaking of Nazis, there was a Bund movement in America. This organization was popular in the 1930s. At a 1939 rally in New York, the Bund drew 20,000 people. These dashing fellows held special summer camps and marched around in dark uniforms and jackboots just like Ernest Roehm's gang of thugs, the SA, had in the years leading up to Hitler's taking power. The Pledge of Allegiance was given throughout the 1930s with a salute exactly like that of the Nazis with the right arm extended out and slightly upward. Only in 1942, when the pledge first gained some official status in being incorporated by Congress into the flag code and the nation was at war with Hitler, was this practice stopped." So writes John Chuckman for the Yellow Times.

Paul Krugman writes "What the French election revealed is that in France, as in the US, there are a lot of angry people. They aren't a majority... But they are highly motivated, and can exert influence out of proportion to their numbers if moderates take a tolerant society for granted... In both cases this angry minority has had far more influence than its numbers would suggest, largely because of the fecklessness of the left and the apathy of moderates. Al Gore had Ralph Nader; Mr. Jospin had a potpourri of silly leftists... both men were mocked and neglected by complacent moderates. In the US... the hard right has essentially been co-opted by the Republican Party - or maybe it's the other way around. In this country people with views that are, in their way, as extreme as Mr. Le Pen's are in a position to put those views into practice" - most notably Tom DeLay and John Ashcroft, but let's not forget Otto Reich, Elliot Abrams, Ted Olson, and the rest. Frightening - and true!

According to Paul Bedard of US News and World Report, "The GOP whisper campaign to boycott CNN's political show Crossfire has become official policy. Top leaders have told members not to go on the show because they feel cohosts and Democratic activists James Carville and Paul Begala are unfair to them and their views." Are they KIDDING??? After umpteen years of John McLaughlin, Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, George Will, Pat Buchanan - and Bob Novak - some kickass Democrats have FINALLY been given a chance to fight on a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, and all the Republicans can do is RUN AWAY AS FAST AS THEY CAN??? This proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Republicans are intellectually, morally, and politically bankrupt. No wonder they had to STEAL the Presidency - they could never win it with their ideas!!!

How do voters respond when the leading candidates offer virtually identical platforms? They seek out alternatives. In the U.S. the Republicans learned that they are much better off when they campaign as Democrats. And in France the Parti Socialiste more or less gave up trying to draw sharp distinctions between its view of the world and that of the incumbent French President Jacques Chirac. Now they paid the ultimate price -- they handed the extreme right its most important political victory in Europe since Hitler came to power. Far right fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen will be in the second round of the French presidential election, so French voters have a choice to make between the right and the far right. So wave goodbye to the French Parti Socialiste as they head off to wander in the desert once again. What an embarrassment to a great nation when its leading political party commits suicide.

"Well, well, well. I guess it's official now. After years of right wing pundits and other forms of silliness making fun of Hillary's claim of a 'right wing conspiracy' we all finally find out what most of us already knew. Hillary and the rest of us were right. Oh, I know that the conservatives are practically wetting themselves over Bernard Goldberg's book (which shall remain nameless here). They're also wetting themselves over David Brock's book, 'Blinded By the Right' as well. And they're tripping over themselves between the two books. Once again, their hypocrisy is getting in the way. See, in order for them to hail one book, they also have to hail the other. And that is causing them quite a bit of anguish. And their squirming dilemma is delicious!"

"The big lie is coming unraveled. You can tell by how increasingly heavy-handed the Bush spin campaign is becoming. But because rightwing and creative are mutually exclusive qualities, when cornered, these sleazemeisters do not become diabolically clever (thank God for the rest of us!) - they simply escalate their bullshit. Same bullshit, just louder and more of it. Like condemning all 'enemies' as unAmerican or wacko... like the knee-jerk parroting of stupid buzzphrases ('grassy knoll society,' anyone?). You can also tell Bush is in deep doodoo by the dwindling number of approval polls being released, and by the memos being circulated through the GOP, warning the faithful to brace themselves for Bush's coming slide in the polls (translated: he's tanked and the fact can no longer be hidden). As the guy with the sandwich board sign says: 'THE END IS NEAR!'" So writes Cheryl Seal.

"If there is anything that modern conservatives hate more than fair taxation, it's a fair fight. The moment they encounter an equally aggressive opponent on a level field, the instinct of these bullying boys and girls is to run and hide and whine. That's why the Republican leadership, confronted by Paul Begala and James Carville on CNN's revamped 'Crossfire', are now loudly whispering about a boycott of the show. Those quiet directives emanating from the offices of the Republican National Committee, the Senate Minority Leader's office and other outposts of the right-wing establishment in Washington—leaked in order to intimidate the liberal Crossfire hosts and their network bosses—are a disgrace to the American ideal of free debate. So cowardly are these conservatives that they won't even voice their complaints on the record." So writes Joe Conason.

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman says the important message of Brock's "Blinded by the Right" is "the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' is not an overheated metaphor but a straightforward reality... The scandal machine that employed Mr. Brock was, in effect, a special-interest group financed by a handful of wealthy fanatics - men like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose cultlike Unification Church owns The Washington Times, and Richard Mellon Scaife, who bankrolled the scandal-mongering American Spectator and many other right-wing enterprises. It was effective because the typical news consumer didn't realize what was going on... There is a level of anger and hatred on the right that has at best a faint echo in the anti-globalization left, and none at all in mainstream liberalism.... An appallingly well-financed hard right is still in the business of smearing anyone who disagrees with its agenda, and too many journalists still allow themselves to be used." So expose those journalists, Paul!

"Here is Newt Gingrich, vowing 'to say the word 'Monica' in every speech' even while 'conducting his own illicit affair...' We hear Jack Romanos, the head of Simon & Schuster, telling Brock, as he signed the million-dollar Hillary book deal... that the only thing he wanted to know before OK'ing the money was whether Hillary was a lesbian... We read of George Conway, one of the lawyers who played a crucial role in pushing Paula Jones's story, admitting that privately he didn't believe Jones's allegation at all but that her case must be pressed nonetheless because the point was to force a situation in which Clinton would have to lie under oath about extramarital sex. We witness Ted Olson, [now] Solicitor General, telling Brock that while he believed Vince Foster had committed suicide, the Spectator should still run a trashy, unsourced piece about Foster's 'murder' to keep the pressure on the Administration until the Spectator could shake loose another 'scandal.'" So writes Mike Tomasky.

"It never ceases to amaze me that our most rabid 'patriots' know absolutely nothing about the history of the country they are so fiercely defending (or that they so fiercely want others to defend at risk of someone else's life). The truth is, when it comes to death through war and terrorism, as devastatingly painful as the 9/11 attacks were, America, as a nation, has been damn lucky. In fact, in the larger scheme of things, we should be feeling deeply grateful for that blessing right now instead of whining like the world's most maligned victim..." So writes Cheryl Seal.

"Republican candidates clustered on the far right in Texas were handed a stinging defeat in last Tuesday's primary, while more moderate Republicans and gay-endorsed Democratic contestants either won their bid or face a run-off, the Texas Triangle reports. Candidates endorsed by the reactionary and anti-gay conservative action group Free Enterprise PAC (FreePAC), which was responsible for a raft of anti-gay campaign literature in the primary's closing days, lost every one of their races. 'FreePAC lost every race,' said Steve Labinski who heads a local chapter of a gay Republican group. 'The religious right ran candidates against those who voted for the hate crimes bill and all of those candidates went down in flames.'" So reports The Data Lounge.

DCDave of Atlanta's "Great Speckled Bird," one of the nation's oldest continuous underground liberal newspapers, has identified several of the key techniques being used by the rightwing propagandists and their pals in the corporate media routinely to drive a lethal wedge between the public and the truth. Strategies include underreporting real news, debunking truth through phony, demeaning labeling (calling those who ask too many questions "conspiracy theorists" or "hysterical," for example) or dismissing true charges as "rumors" and those who try to call the public's attention to valid charges "rumor mongers." We recommend that you save this handy "guide" and pass it on as a public service!

Mark Shields writes that Ralph Reed, "formerly the top gun at the Christian Coalition...entered politics to improve the moral life of the nation. He was an important campaign adviser to George W. Bush's presidential campaign... Two weeks before the 2000 presidential election, in a $380,000 business pitch to help Enron deregulate the electricity industry, Reed wrote, 'In public policy, it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard -- and by whom.' Sen. John McCain does not contradict what Reed wrote to Enron. 'How do you get heard in Washington, D.C.?' he asks. 'The way you get heard is through the use of money. Money buys access... McCain chuckles at the giant sucking sound in Reed's appeal to Enron ('We are a loyal member of your team and are prepared to do whatever fits your strategic plan.') But what Reed was selling hardest was his clout with the 'faith community' and 'religious leaders,' whom he could transform into champions of 'market-oriented solutions'."

"As the driving force behind several tax-cutting initiatives, Tim Eyman has sometimes been called 'unelected governor' of Washington State. But in a confession that stunned his supporters and opponents alike, Mr. Eyman, a 36-year-old businessman, said today that he had lied when he told reporters in recent days that he had never profited personally from the fund-raising drives he conducted for his initiatives. At a news conference this morning, Mr. Eyman fought back tears as he announced that he had diverted at least $45,000 he had raised for his tax revolt…Mr. Eyman's confession came after he faced persistent questioning from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer about his diversion of $165,000 in campaign donations to a private account over which he had sole control…he could be in legal trouble if he lied about it on disclosure forms, said Doug Ellis, a spokesman for the state Public Disclosure Commission." Eyman's weepy, self-flagellating confession brings to mind Jimmy Swaggart.

" Bush's PR campaign to keep the public on his side in the antiterror war has won an ally…William Bennett [is] creating the Committee on Terrorism in American Culture, which aims to buck up American youth, especially college students whose patriotism is being met with snickers and sneers on some campuses. 'The older kids,' says Bennett, 'are for this, and they need some encouragement.' His idea: Use TV and radio ads, special conferences, and a patriot SWAT team to shush anti-patriots. While he sets up the committee–look for former CIA Director James Woolsey to co-chair–Bennett has already gone on the attack, questioning why Harvard University, for example, bans ROTC but has offered bin Laden-family-funded scholarships. It doesn't end there: Starting December 5, his education business, K12, begins providing free patriotism lessons via the Internet for grades K-2." Hey Bennett, what about bin Laden family investments in Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group?

The ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal's token liberal, Al Hunt, just doesn't get it. He's still unaware that Al Gore DID win the majority of "actual" - i.e. legal - votes cast in Florida. Worse, he thinks "we're probably better off, in the short term, with George W. Bush." Why? Because "the political right wouldn't have given him the leeway and support that President Bush has received." Say WHAT? We agree that the Republican Party treats Democratic leaders with utter hatred, and is willing to break the law and shred the Constitution in order to defeat or destroy them. But should we Democrats ACCEPT the Republican politics of mass destruction - or do everything in our power to defeat it - by sweeping all Republicans out of office? Write Hunt at al.hunt@wsj.com

Writes Eric Alterman: "Mrs. Cheney, listed as chair emeritus on the organization's masthead, has made a career of just this kind of thing. Before her husband became vice president, she earned her stripes as a loyal ideological soldier in the army of patriotic correctness by policing the academy for any sign of disloyalty among faculty, and then taking to the airwaves, the op-ed pages, and eventually, bookstores to decry the threat facing America and its youth...Cheney and ACTA, however are hardly alone in their crusade to enforce a conservative line in the academy...Accuracy in Academia is doing its own police work...The ideological warrior David Horowitz is also devoting his Web site to the political cleansing of our university system of views with which he and his funders do not agree." Inverting reality, ACTA and Horowitz portray themselves as supporters of pro-war sentiment in the midst of a pervasive anti-war academic atmosphere. Shades of the "liberal media" tactic.

The LA Times reports, "A wanted militia figure who vowed that he would never be taken alive was killed by a law enforcement officer after he shot a sheriff's deputy trying to arrest him, authorities said Tuesday. William Milton Cooper, 58, whose anti-government radio program included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh as a fan, was fatally shot at his Eager, Ariz., home after confronting deputies late Monday and shooting one of them in the head, officials said. Deputy Robert Martinez, 40, was hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening wounds." Why isn't this front page news? Because Cooper is a right-winger. If he was a tree hugger, feminist, or black radical, this would be the top story on FOX for a year!

There is an eerie parallel between the methods used by so-called Islamic fundamentalists to justify their holy war against non-Muslims and the tactics used by our own domestic right wing extremists to try to make their agenda seem patriotic. Fundamentalists from both camps have to ignore the overwhelming evidence that if God or the founding fathers of the American republic were here today, neither would be likely to be on the side of the zealots out championing their cause. Both the Islamic fundamentalists and the conservative reactionaries in the U.S. are trying to associate their rather twisted interpretation of scriptures to suit their purposes.

"The great mass of Americans have not yet given up on the idea of 'We, the People.' And they have refused to accept the notion, promoted so diligently by our friends at the Heritage Foundation [Ed Feulner, Richard Scaife, the Coors, Amway] and by Grover Norquist and his right-wing ilk, that government, the public service, should be shrunk to a size where they can drown it in the bathtub (that's what Norquist said is their goal). These right-wingers at Heritage and elsewhere...earlier this year teamed up with the deep-pocket bankers who finance them, to stop the United States from cracking down on terrorist money havens...groups like Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization. Not all off-shore money is linked to crime or terrorism; much of it comes from wealthy people who are hiding money to avoid taxation...How about that for patriotism? Better terrorists get their dirty money than tax cheaters be prevented from hiding their money."

Joe Conason has it right again: America's greatest threat is not some crazed foreign nutcase living in a cave. By far the biggest obstacle to our victory over terror is posed by the powerful right-wing politicians in our own U.S. Congress, who remain enthralled by a defunct ideology that they love more than they love America.

"In the House of Representatives, ideology is back in the saddle, bipartisanship is a charade and the corporate lobbyists are chuckling all the way to the bank... the House Republican leadership's brazen tax-cut plan disguised as an economic stimulus package went beyond what even many Republicans could stomach. The bill, bloated with giveaways to the truly needy -- you know, Ford, IBM, General Motors, General Electric, Chevron -- passed by only two votes on Wednesday because seven Republicans felt they had to vote 'no'...The president alternates between praising the House confection and sending his aides out to negotiate a new bill with the Senate. 'He's wearing rubber gloves,' said Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat...The opposition to federalizing airport security is another triumph for ideology...In the case of airport security, we confront what can only be called a failed privatization scheme." So writes E.J. Dionne.

"Earlier this month, …Ann Coulter laughed off her dismissal as a contributing editor of National Review magazine by telling the Washington Post: 'I'm getting a lot of great publicity.' But now Coulter is facing less welcome publicity - the suggestion that she is not the sole author of the 1998 bestseller 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' that brought her to national prominence as a telegenic Clinton-basher…The charges were first leveled in a memo by Michael Chapman, formerly a colleague of Coulter's at the conservative weekly Human Events. In December 1998, shortly after Coulter's book came out, Chapman complained to his bosses that a lot of his original research and reporting - carried out for a special 1997 Human Events supplement called 'A Case for Impeachment' - ended up in Coulter's book. In several instances, he wrote, his work was reproduced verbatim, paraphrased, or slightly rewritten, but never acknowledged."

"An Oklahoma U.S. representative -- who supports the aviation security bill scheduled for a vote this week -- violated security measures outside Will Rogers World Airport on Sept. 28, aides confirmed. U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, R- Norman, was so angry about receiving a parking ticket outside the airport that he shoved the ticket under an Oklahoma City police officer's badge, two of his aides told The Oklahoman. Watts received the ticket for leaving his car unattended in a loading zone about 10 a.m. One of the new security measures implemented by the Federal Aviation Administration following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks bans unattended vehicles in loading areas. During the conflict, Watts used the word 'bomb' in protesting the ticket, said Pam Pryor, Watts' chief of staff."

"What's curious is that Coulter's comments [right after the Sept. 11 attack] aren't all that different, in tone and style, from hundreds of others she's made over the years. But in the past, her ire was directed at her domestic political enemies---for which she drew fulsome praise from conservatives... Coulter is spinning her downfall as a new kind of terrorist-war McCarthyism. 'People are hysterical about speech right now,' she told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. 'Everyone's comments are being taken out of context and wildly misinterpreted.' At the risk of further de-contextualization, here are some of Coulter's past comments." Read the Washington Monthly's list of Coulter ravings through the years. One glaring omission -- Coulter's giggling remarks on Rivera Live (8/18/99) that she lied to the FBI in denying her friends' prior drug use -- to help them pass their background checks.

Miami Cuban supporters of Elian Gonzalez - who are some of the loudest voices telling Democrats to "get over" the Stolen Election - refuse to "get over" Elian's return to his father. A group of 52 protesters and bystanders who were present during the Justice Department's April 22, 2000 raid have sued Janet Reno for at least $100 million. Judge K. Michael Moore has defied all precedent and allowed the lawsuit against Reno to proceed. Perhaps Judicial Watch will take the case of the victims of Philadelphia's MOVE bombing, or the victims of the National Guard at Kent State and Jackson State, or even the Black Panthers.

During our national crisis, many of America's right-wingers - like the Freepers and Ann Coulter - are revealing their true extremist colors. PoliticalUSA.com is another site that divides Americans into "patriots" who goosestep behind Republican leaders and "traitors" (like Democrats.com) who dare to think for themselves. If you think "traitor" is a word that should not be used loosely, share your thoughts with editors Brent Barksdale and Joe Giardiello (brent@politicalusa.com,joe@politicalusa.com).

Our distinguished friends, the "freepers" at freerepublic.com, just think the WORLD of Katherine Harris. (And why shouldn't they? She single-handedly stole the election for their boy George.) So they defended her integrity on our petition calling for her indictment (http://www.petitiononline.com/ddc21/petition.html), with comments like this: "I'd love to come to Florida and kick you're socialists c*nts out your nose." If you're interested in how these patriotic Americans think, spend a few minutes in their company. And if you want to help us continue to build a progressive Democratic alternative to this and other hate-filled sites, take a moment to visit http://democrats.com/donate

Aryan Nation leader Richard Butler, now 83, has named Ray Redfeairn the new successor to his ugly reign over the white supremacist organization. Redfeairn, whose best qualification for the job appears to be a conviction for attempting to murder a Dayton, Ohio police officer in 1986, will take over the group after Butler's death. Although the Aryan Nation has fallen on hard times since losing a wrongful death suit a couple of years ago, the group continues spouting its poison. On September 11, it applauded the attacks on New York and Washington on its website with the message: "May the war be started! Death to His enemies. May the World Trade Center burn to the ground!"

National Alliance deputy Billy Roper wrote: "The enemy of our enemy is, for now at least, our friends. We may not want them marrying our daughter, just as they would not want us marrying theirs. We may not want them in our societies, just as they would not want us in theirs. But anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill jews is alright by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude." Hate-filled posts like these are spreading throughout the right-wing Internet. Bush must use his "bully pulpit" to condemn right wing hate groups in the US that are trying to exploit our national horror to spread more hatred.

In the race to see who can pull the national consciousness furthest to the extreme right, columnist Ann Coulter has stepped up to claim the award. We shouldn't worry about finding out the "exact individuals" who perpetrated this grotesque act of terror, we should simply "invade their countres, kill their leaders and convert them all to Christianity." Go to war against several dozen Muslim countries and kill or enslave a quarter of the world's population, including almost 8 million Americans? Coulter and the other right wing crazies are more dangerous to this country than they are to any of our enemies. To honor Coulter for taking her rhetoric over the edge we have awarded her the domain name rightwingcrazies.com. However, if that does not yet point to her column for you, try going directly to her screed at http://www.uclick.com/client/cap/ac/

The victims of bloody Tuesday's horror have not all been accounted for, nor their families notified, but the right wing has already set up its soapboxes on the rubble. Every imaginable type of venom is now spewing from their hysterical lips, from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blaming the disaster on gays, feminists and the ACLU to the anti-Arab hatespeak of at least a dozen talk radio hosts (why not - Bush has not denounced such attacks). Now here's the jingoistic Patrick Henry Center's Gary Aldrich: "The 'girly-men' liberals and their strident molls' are to blame for displaying too much tolerance for other's religious beliefs. Hillary Clinton is an Arab-lover because she embraced Arafat's wife as a greeting once, Clinton and Janet Reno and all their friends are to blame because they dared to demonize gun-rights nuts. " (Iran-Contra traitor Oliver North is a key ally of the Patrick Henry Center). Bush must denounce this hatespeak by Aldrich.

The rightwingers are, vulture-like, trying to squeeze every drop of benefit they can from the tragedy. Kissinger, ever closer to indictment for war crimes, is scrabbling to appear statesmenlike in the wake of the disaster..He had the gall to offer advice in the Washington Post, which had the gall to print it. Bush's cabinet is trying to deflect scrutiny from his donations to the Taliban and his sagging popularity by drumming up a war and pinning the blame on everyone's favorite enemy, Iraq (when in political doubt, bomb Iraq!). Every hawk with any connection to any GOP administration in five decades is shaking off the mothballs and scrambling for a microphone. Every corporate front group is dusting off their self-published paranoid diatribes (the American Enterrpise Institute, for example was pushing a conspiracy theory book on the Diane Reihm show that urges the annhiliation of Iraq). Putin meanwhile is calling for a blanket condemnation of anyone who could even vaguely be viewed as a terrorist, thus getting himself off the hook for Chechnya. Meanwhile, the mainstream news is jumping on the chance for one last Clinton bash (whatever that has to do with ANYTHING in this crisis!).

Judy Martz is everything a corporate baron could want in a state's highest official. Martz, one of Bush's most fervent admirers, will sell out every natural resource, every private citizen, every endangered species, and every ethical principle she can lay her hands on if it will make some corporate exec somewhere within check-writing range even just a wee bit happier. Here is her official website. As Byron once said, "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep."

The KKK rally in St. Paul is part of a 12-city tour to recruit a new generation of racists. But writer Lydia Howell (2nd essay) sees little difference between the KKK's agenda and that of Bush: "To further roll back civil rights era gains and to re-create the political, economic and social arrangements of the 1950s; To foster scapegoating of immigrants, affirmative action and women in the job force as the reason for continued U.S. job loss, as a distraction from the real culprits—increasingly powerful transnational corporations which hijack democracy; To divide and conquer through white supremacy so working people don’t connect their common class interests; To impose a fundamentalist Christian theology with both state and social power, to further divide and, in Orwellian fashion, to exercise control over people." It's important to fight the Klan, but it's equally important to fight Bush.

"'You kill all the niggers, and you gas all the Jews, Kill a gypsy and a Commie, too., You just killed a kike, don't it feel right? Goodness gracious, Third Reich.' The hatemongers have gone global, aided by the Internet and the unmistakable drawing power of white power music. The music is mostly an amateurish mix of punk and heavy metal, with "vocalists" screaming and screeching lyrics like those above (from a song called "Third Reich," recorded by the Canadian band Rahowa, which is short for Racial Holy War). White power music is a growing phenomenon. Hammerfest 2000 didn't get a lot of news coverage, but it was the most successful white power concert in the U.S. last year. It was held in October and drew racist skinheads galore to the town of Bremen, Ga., which has a population of 4,500 and is about 50 miles west of Atlanta." So writes NY Times columnist Bob Herbert.

The Ku Klux Klan has set its sights on Minnesota. On August 25, the Mercer, Wisconsin chapter will be holding a rally on the steps of the capitol building in St. Paul. They will be joined by the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group, and the Aryan Nation. They have targeted Minnesota as one of the five "whitest states" and want to start recruiting here. All of you who can, please come to the Capitol building in St. Paul at noon on August 25 and help show the Klan that hate and violence are not welcome in Minnesota. For more information call 651-649-4579 or visit http://www.cantheklan.org.

The folks who scream at us to "get over" the stolen election just can't seem to get over the Clintons, can they? Reed Irvine's right-wing Accuracy in Media is bringing the Vince Foster case before a federal judge in order to prove Foster was murdered, not a suicide victim. Here's the neat twist - they're suing their own hero, Ken Starr!

Overdevelopment of Long Island's coastal area threatens sensitive wildlife. Now residents of West Hampton Dunes are leading a crusade against government efforts to protect nesting piping plovers, an endangered species that needs undisturbed portions of beach for a few weeks to survive. "These birds have rights, but human beings have rights too," says Mayor Gary Vegliante, without adding that all the birds want to do is survive, while the human "right" we're talking about is sunbathing or swimming. Here's the inside word: Hyped-up confrontations between environmental regulators and the "public," including the Klamath Lake battle, are being engineered and whipped up as an opening for the rightwing property rights folks, who want to do away with the few protections endangered species have left. Do any of you in Long Island who know the real scoop? We'd love to hear from you at bustingout2001@hotmail.com.

Listed at Anti-Liberal.com are the names of people, organizations, and news services that tout themselves as "nonpartisan" or "unbiased." Yet here they are exposed for what they truly are: deceitful right-wing fronts. Among these "nonpartisan" phonies: Fox News, Townhall.com, World Net Daily, the Cato Institute, Citizens against Government Waste, Washington Times, J.C. Watts, Heritage Foundation, et al. We were surprised not to find Judicial Watch, which is just as phony in its nonpartisan claims. We don't have such a problem with out-of-the-closet rightwingers like Limbaugh - he's a straightforward jerk. But these closet lurkers like CAGW give us a pain. We think it's interesting that while Democrats.com peddles scholarly works like Bugliosi's and Dershowitz's books, the best Anti-liberal.com can offer is Charlton Heston's rant and a whole book on Kennedy scandals. High-minded stuff, eh? But none of these outfits are really about ideology - they are all about corporate bucks.

While conservatives and liberals spew venom back and forth, the most poisonous beast of all - the corporate power machine - is getting away with murder. It's time we try to close ranks against this common enemy before it divides and conquers, taking the planet down with it. By keeping America polarized, Bush and the corporations he represents are gaining ground through the spread of misinformation and fear. How one writer made a small start toward finding common ground...

One of the current PR strategies for the rightwingers is invoking the "greatest generation." Politicians have used this line to suck up generous donations from a group that is also one the greatest-bankrolled generations yet. But now they are using the ploy to commandeer the D.C. mall - the public's sacred ground of dissent. In its place will be a bunker-like memorial despised by a large segment of the public following a design reminiscent of the Third Reich. Moreover, it will be constructed in part by a contractor with ties to a German company that used slave labor during the war. Worse yet, Congress fixed it so NO ONE can complain about it, although Americans, not them, own this land. We think this Third Reich inspired monument is just a scary symbol of things to come under the present regime, fronted by the grandson of Prescott Bush, traitor and Nazi financier (enter 'nazi' in our Compass search engine – to learn about the long history of Bush-Nazi alliances).

Two Utah towns fearing United Nations takeover of their land yesterday imposed laws banning support of the United Nations, the display of UN logos, and requiring homeowners that support the UN to put signs in their yard indicating that they are under the control of the UN! Gee, it must be all them Black Heeleechoppers piloted by Bill Clinton, and flying saucers piloted by Elvis supporting the New World Order and giving them those anal-probes, huh?

With Dan 'Melonhead' Burton conspicuously absent, Chris Shays [R-CT] was stuck having to chair a ridiculous hearing, based on a typically hokey Burton report. The report smeared law enforcement officials in an attempt to paint over the moral torpitude of Joseph Gersten, a former Miami-Dade County politician. "When other elements were thrown in, it became clear that Gersten's claim of car theft was an attempt to hide from his fiance and others the truth: that he had been in a distinctly different part of town and had been fleeced at a crack house while with at least one prostitute...Henry Waxman, a Los Angeles Democrat…wondered why Congress' time was being spent on this matter and scoffed at the GOP, in a turnaround from a few years ago now defending a public official for lying to cover up sex...By day's end, Shays, a far more sensible fellow than Burton, was saying that, yes, perhaps such a report would not have been issued if he had been the real chairman."

Bush's lack of good press for his disastrous environmental policies is obviously starting to alarm his handlers. Today, "Citizens for a Sound Economy" released a plug for their corporate icon entitled: "President Bush: Standing Firm to Protect People and the Planet." It would be side-splittingly funny if the ploy weren't so annoyingly transparent. CSE has on its roster the same tired names that appear on the rosters of several other rightwing front groups such as Americans for Tax Reform (whose main plank is "give it all back to the rich!") and the Cato Institute. Cato trashes global warming mitigation efforts when not plugging the tobacco and chemical industries. Heading CSE is C. Boyden Gray – Bush Sr. 's consigliere and a Federalist Society guru. So, the latest "Tinkerbelle" fantasy they would have us believe is that Bush's complete indifference to the global environment is really an act of heroism. Can't wait to see what the next desperate "press release" has to say.

"You can learn a lot on the Internet. Just yesterday, for example, I learned that Gore voters associate with criminals, that Gore himself is gay, and that if Bush becomes president then a group of liberal financiers is planning to crash the stock market. There it was, in one place: The Conservatives' Greatest Hits. And those were the polite ones. We have a serious problem in this country, regardless of who becomes president -- a cult that conducts its political life in an aggressive and antirational jargon." So writes Phil Agre, editor of the peerless Red Rock Eater Digest.

It's a jungle out there - an information jungle with predatory hucksters hiding behind every tree, or - in the case of bogus environmental scientists - disguised as trees! How do you separate well-supported fact from manipulated fiction? Or, more to the point, how do you separate sound science from "sounds like science?" In fact, it ain't all that hard - it's just a matter of logic, alert observation, and common sense (the real enchilada - not the Bush version).

Here is an initial list of "good guys and bad guys" in the world of environmental information and action. It is just a starting list - we will add to it over time and/or add notes as necessary. We also encourage our readers to do their own research and report new names or notes as they manifest themselves.

"The group hounded House Speaker Dennis Hastert for his involvement in the nrcc fund-raising event ... so ferociously that he ended up skipping it altogether. Judicial Watch has threatened to sue the National Republican Senatorial Committee for setting up similar meetings between donors and Bush administration officials. It recently initiated litigation over the Bush administration's awarding of diplomatic posts to campaign contributors. It's investigating the possibility that Trent Lott is using the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at the University of Mississippi as a conduit for political contributions. It's looking into a New York Times report that Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson met with political donors in his government office. Judicial Watch is even dredging up a decade-old charge that Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, held fund-raisers at the Pentagon." Go Larry Go!

The Freepers will do anything to accomplish their goals - including identity theft. To pressure Jeffords to stay in the Republican Party, they are pretending to be Vermont voters named "Miller." Scroll down to post #5. [note - this post was scrubbed following our expose!]

Not long ago, I experienced a major shock when I did a web search to see what the National Science Foundation had to offer students and educators on the topic of global warming... There, in a "science site" for educators and students, was a collection of the most blatant corporate propaganda I have ever seen.

According to Salon.com, Reed E. Slatkin, "a co-founder of the giant Internet service provider EarthLink could face claims of up to $600 million for alleged fraud that duped Internet moguls, socialites, venture capitalists and Hollywood producers. Ninety investors met on Thursday with attorneys for Reed E. Slatkin, who resigned from the company's board last month and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week." According to the Industry Standard (http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,436,00.html), Slatkin is a Scientologist, as is co-founder Sky Dayton. Scientologists have been touting their pull within the Bush administration. Bush Sr. and Barbara have even posed with prominent Scientologists, including John Travolta, and Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group invested in a Scientology firm. (Enter "scientolog" in our "Compass" search engine).

On a recent "700 Club" segment, so-called 'good Christian' (yeah, right!) Pat Robertson boasted that he and his buddies now have Washington in the bag, and have succeeded in making their "reform" agenda - once considered radical - the norm. Robertson is apparently a regular at the Big House now: "When I walk through...I recognize as many people as when I walk through the Heritage Foundation" (yet another ultra-right-wing progaganda group disquised as a "think tank"). In the same show, the president of Americans for Tax Reform (should read " Americans for Giving Everyone Else's Money to the Rich and Self-Righteous") Grover Norquist said that people opposed to the new agenda aren't just stupid - "They're evil." But go right ahead, "moderates" - work with these people! And while you're at it, get to a Codependents Anonymous meeting ASAP - you need help!

In the most recent in a series of exchanges about Paul Weyrich's anti-Semitic remarks, Joe Conason calls David Horowitz on his lies. A propagandist for the Right, Horowitz makes it his stock in trade to practice inverted scapegoating. For example, Horowitz calls "intolerant" those who point out the racism or anti-Semitism of his right-wing allies, as he does in his apologia for Weyrich. Horowitz often equates those critical of the Right with Joe McCarthy. He labels liberals as "Marxists." And of course, he pushes the Big Lie that the media is "liberal." Horowitz says that one "slip of the tongue" by Weyrich should be forgiven compared to Weyrich's 40 years of "service" - in which Weyrich has long allied himself with anti-Semites, Nazi collaborators and racialists (See Russ Bellant's "The Coors Connection"). Per Conason, the Right has not been as critical of Weyrich as first reported. (Enter "Horowitz" in our "Compass" search engine to read about his anti-reparations ad campaign).

See that dark figure skulking in the shadows behind Bush? That's Grover Norquist, the key broker in the Bush's backroom deals with his corporate paymasters. Bush and company pretend that their quest to turn the U.S. into a giant shopping mall where corporate law rules supreme is not spurred by greed and lack of conscience. No - they call it "the conservative movement." Norquist sees the government as an annoying roadblock that must be dismantled. "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," Norquist says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Be careful, Bush, you may find you are the last piece standing in the way. Heil Norquist!

Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation, is being blasted by not only the left, but also the right for anti-Semitic remarks contained in his Easter commentary. Weyrich wrote, "Christ was crucified by the Jews." Even before this recent outrage, New Right soldiers have been distancing themselves from Weyrich, including Weyrich's old friend and fellow New Right mastermind Edwin Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation. It seems that Weyrich's mental stability is in question. "Evan Gahr, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a writer for a number of conservative publications, countered yesterday with an outraged commentary of his own on the American Spectator Web site." Gahr called Weyrich a "demented anti-Semite." Weyrich has a long history of alliances with Nazi collaborators and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (See Russ Bellant's "The Coors Connection" and "Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republicans Party"). Recently, Weyrich's ALEC partnered with Scientologists.

"State Sen. David Jaye [R-MI]…appeared before a Florida judge Friday on charges of assaulting his fiancee." As a result, Jaye's committee assignments have been suspended"…last June…he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drunken driving charge, his second in eight years. He was sentenced to 45 days…but was released after 35…for good behavior. Six months later, Jaye was pulled over after a motorist reported that he hit a woman at a Bay County gas station." Affirmative Action activists have dubbed him David "George Wallace" Jaye, since he has campaigned hard to ban affirmative action from Michigan, especially in the state's colleges. Jaye has forged alliances with the Michigan Militia, the National Rifle Association, and the Macomb County Taxpayers Association, an extreme right-wing group. To win elections, Jaye has distributed scurrilous pamphlets to inflame the local racists. Once during a legislative session, a pistol fell out of Jaye's pocket.

"The group, Judicial Watch, announced a three-fold legal action against [House Majority Whip] Tom DeLay and the NRCC Tuesday for allegedly 'selling meetings with Bush officials' to top Republican donors. The group filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission, the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee...However, the NRCC contends that [Judicial Watch] owes them a mailing list of 45,000 names that conservative activists say is worth up to $20,000...business documents …show the company brokered the transactions between the NRCC and Judicial Watch since the fall of 1999. DeLay is a de facto member of the NRCC." Larry Klayman is the head of Judicial Watch, which has acted on Richard Mellon Scaife's behalf as what he calls "almost a shadow Justice Dept" -- -- especially in filing dozens of lawsuits against the Clintons. This internecine battle between New Right soldiers Klayman and DeLay is certainly an interesting turn of events.

"Conservative groups and lawmakers are raising concerns with the Bush White House that some Clinton administration appointees who are still in office may be engaged in efforts 'that undermine' President Bush's agenda." Sounds like more right-wing paranoia, like the bogus vandalism stories (created by the Karl Rove propaganda outfit) about departing Clinton officials. Right wingers have been especially demonizing Clinton holdover Ian Bowles as doing the evil work of trying to reduce emissions in the pro-pollution Bush White House. Check out this incredible bit of Orwellian doublespeak by Myron Ebell: "This was very worrying. We thought the election was a break in policies . . . [Bowles] is a zealot who believes that global warming is a problem and that Kyoto is the answer." Yes Myron, the stolen election was a break in policies -- of democracy. Meanwhile, (non-"zealot"?) Dick Cheney thinks that nuclear power plants are preferable to signing the Kyoto protocol. By the way, we remember the ultimate troublemaker left behind from the previous Bush administration -- Linda Tripp.

On Wednesday at noon in DC, the Federalist Society will discuss the Presidential pardon power at the National Press Club, no doubt to attack Bill Clinton and "Keep Hate Alive." Perhaps some activists will show up to remind attendees about the Republican pardons of Richard Nixon, Caspar Weinberger, Armand Hammer, Orlando Bosch, Aslan Adam, and Jimmy Hoffa.

On "Politically Incorrect," Ann Coulter declared that women "have to give up their vote... The problem with women voting - and your Communists will back me up on this - is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it." This almost tops Ann giggling on "Rivera Live" that it was a big joke that she lied to the FBI about her friends not taking drugs - in order to get them Justice Department clearances.

As part of its continuing effort to recapture the English language from the right wing fringe, Democrats.com is pleased to announce that Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com will now be known as RightwingFruitcakes.com. "The response to our relabelling of FreeRepublic.com as RightwingNuts.com was so overwhelming we knew we were on to something," said Democrats.com co-founder David Lytel. The Viguerie site is notable for its merciless pounding of Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy and other public figures who Viguerie's research shows incite right wingers to part with their money even though they know that he will be keeping most of it. We can only hope that as many Rightwing Fruitcakes as possible pour as much of their money as possible down the Viguerie sink hole.

The Republican conservatism of cowboy Ronald Reagan, pork-rind-eating Bush the Smarter, mean-mouthed Rush Limbaugh, and Worshington-bashing Newt Gingrich rose to power by converting the conservatism of the "Eastern Elite Establishment" into the populism of the south and the west. But of course this was always just a charade. Now that Republicans control all 3 branches of government, their top priority is a tax cut for the wealthiest 1%. Now they can't come right out and ADMIT that they've been making fools of the wage-earning voters who they tricked into electing them. But they might as well - because praising the European aristocracy (and the Buddha!) just ain't gonna cut it with the members of the NRA.

AOL, Oracle, and Sun added Ken Starr to their high-priced legal team fighting Microsoft's monopoly. With pro-monopolist Bush in charge, many observers believe the federal appeals court will toss out the lawsuit against Microsoft. Ken Starr isn't being hired for his legal knowledge (the case was already won in trial), but for his ties to the poisonous Federalist Society conspiracy.

One of the legs on the three-pronged Right Wing stool of attacking the Democrats is their infrastructure of "think tanks." These incubators for right wing pundits issue countless reports that insinuate themselves into the press and influence public opinion. The Democrats don't have any comparable apparatus and are suffering for it. (By the way, the other two legs of the stool are right wing legal foundations and congressional investigations. The media, itself, is a second stool altogether.)

Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch spent the Clinton years filing lawsuit after lawsuit at the slightest hint of scandal. Its mission is "to expose corruption at all levels of government and to bring the perpetrators to justice." Now that Clinton is gone, Klayman is crushed that Shrub wants to "move on" rather than pursue Clinton to the grave - and beyond. But what will Klayman do to expose corruption - and bring to justice - the CURRENT occupants of the White House? Klayman isn't blind to past influence peddling by George, Jeb, and Neil - but when will he file his first lawsuit against Shrub? Inquiring minds want to know...

Isn't amazing how much the right wing whines that they are victims? With all their brazen hypocrisy, you think that at least they wouldn't play THAT card. But here's Dick Armey shrieking that he's the victim of reverse racism. All we can say is they're nuts! There is no other way to explain their behavior. They are lunatics, pure and simple.

Former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara have been paid up to $10 Million by Reverend Moon, in part for speaking at Moonie stadium events. Given Moon's insane designs on infiltrating and taking over governments, this is not a subject that the major media should be ignoring. On January 19, John Ashcroft spoke at an awards ceremony for Reverend Moon. Contact the media and demand that they investigate the Moon-Bush alliance.

The fundamental conflict in this country is over which competing set of values will prevail in defining and setting the public agenda. Without a 21st Century Democratic Party as their champion, the values that make this the greatest democracy on earth will be severely handicapped.

That big inclusive Republican tent is actually being held up by a very disciplined cell of right wing counter-revolutionaries, dedicated to overturning some of democracy's greatest achievements in civil rights, equality and other areas. Where is the light we need to shine on them?

Dick Cheney spoke before the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), promising Star Wars, tax cuts for the rich - and Reaganesque red ink. This CPAC soiree was almost as hilarious as Paula Jones' debut at the 1994 CPAC. In a rare moment of candor, Ann Coulter rejoiced that Bush proves "how easy it is to hornswoggle liberals. All you have to do is go around calling yourself 'nice'. He just treats liberals like small children having nightmares. Darn if it didn't work." That's right - the Bushes make a policy of telling us how "kinder, gentler" they are - while their operatives pull every dirty trick in the book. Tom DeLay hilariously declared that conservatives "have never tolerated hypocrisy and deception." Let's see, Tom - lying under oath about your business affairs, the Triad campaign finance scam, your Nixon-like "townhouse operation" and now your daughter's major conflict of interest. And remember on Geraldo when Coulter said that it was a big joke that she lied to the FBI about her friends' drug use to get them into the DOJ?

Thank you, those who said there was no difference between the Dems and Republicans. Now consider Neal Horsley, who is on a search-and-destroy mission. He's hunting for the names, addresses and phone numbers of anyone having anything to do with the manufacture or distribution of RU-486, the so-called "abortion pill." The information he receives is then uploaded to his Web site (www.ru486registry.com), becoming instantly available to any kook, nutcase or anti-abortion terrorist with access to the Internet. The appointment of former Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft as Attorney General has delighted anti-abortion activists like Horsley.

Have you ever wondered what a freeper actually looks like? Wonder no more! They look just about the way you'd expect - like Rush Limbaugh, only meaner. These photos were taken at the freeper's "Million Shot March." Here they are, the whole million of them! Maybe they just meant they would take a million shots. Or maybe they just meant they would DRINK a million shots! Since only 6 showed up, that's about 166,666 shots each. Bottoms up!

Richard Mellon Scaife is the billionaire publisher best known for bankrolling several "Get Clinton" campaigns, including the American Spectator's "Arkanas Project". As dictator of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he kept the Pittsburgh Pirates – and Al Gore - off the front page. Yet Brill's Content portrays Scaife as a "libertarian" with his statement that "I think government should leave us alone." Once again a right-winger says one thing and does the other. During the Republican Convention, the Scaife-funded Maldon Institute deceptively misinformed the Philadelphia police that the protestors were communists, which led to a police raid of the protestors' warehouse. Scaife only wants the government to leave billionaires and giant corporations alone. Scaife's sanity has long been in question, especially due to his Vince Foster obsessions. But nothing can top his sending a reporter to the Allegheny National Forest in search of Russian troops!

The next issue of Brill's Content will feature an investigation into Richard Mellon Scaife's iron-fisted control of his Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper. Scaife is the billionaire publisher best known for bankrolling several "Get Clinton" campaigns, including the American Spectator's "Arkansas Project" (see item about Ted Olson below). The Brill's article explores Scaife's dictatorship of the Tribune Review, such as his demand that the Pittsburgh Pirates be kept off the front page. Scaife has also ordered biased coverage against certain politicians, including Sen. Arlen Specter and Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy. Mr. Scaife's sanity has long been in question, especially due to his Vince Foster obsessions. But nothing can top his sending a reporter to the Allegheny National Forest in search of Russian troops!

Well, just when you thought it might be safe to go swimming again, there are the right wing sharks circling around you. Remember, we don't just have the Bush administation to deal with. We have to fight back against a deeply entrenched right wing infrastructure. One of their most effective tools is the use of "legal foundations" to attack Democrats, Progressives and Independents. Right now, they are trying to get the I.R.S. to challenge the tax status of non-profit groups that opposed Ashcroft.