William Donald Schaefer used to be a Democrat - at least until Bush's good friend Bob Ehrlich became governor of Maryland. Since then, Schaefer has stuck to Ehrlich's circle like glue, and become a militant rightwing Repug in his positions.. But now he has gone from Repug to Nazi: Schaefer said that AIDS victims are a danger to society, brought the disease on themselves, and that they are "bad people." He also said that a national list ought to made of AIDS patients - just as the Nazis made a list of its "undesirables." The pro-Schaefer Pentapost, you will note, leaves these comments out. However, the Post does admit that Bush pal Ehrlich refused to condemn Schaefer's rant (he hid behind "no comment."). Is senile Schaefer just repeating what he's been hearing from inside his new circle of political pals?

Even this Pentapost story is a coverup! The last paragraph states: "British officials said there had been regular communication with the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since AUGUST 26, when Chiron announced it would delay releasing supplies of the vaccine because about four million doses had been tainted." Yet now read this contradictory paragraph, which leads into the story: "British health officials said Friday their U.S. counterparts were informed in MID-SEPTEMBER that problems at a drug-manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom could disrupt influenza vaccine supplies to the United States." In short, the FDA knew since August that a vaccine shortage was likely - but the Blair government is trying to aid in the coverup by claiming the US didn't "officially" know until mid-September - as if waiting a month instead of two months makes it less outrageous.

This underlying truth in this Pentapost article, which is spun using the "sweetened lemon" approach, is that Bush is LYING TO AMERICA about Iraq and continuing to ignore intelligence reports. Yet what does the minimizing, almost empty headline say? "Growing Pessimism on Iraq." Which, of course, could mean anything. What the article says is: "While Bush, Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being 'publicly acknowledged.' " A Bushie media euphemism for LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. "People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials."

Karl Rove has apparently chosen PentaPost's Howie Kurtz to lead the White House attack on Kitty Kelley. He quotes Sharon Bush: "I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever saw him use cocaine at Camp David. When Kitty Kelley raised drug use at Camp David, I responded by saying something along the lines of 'Who would say such a thing?'"... Doubleday, Kelley's publisher, was quick to dispute her account. "Doubleday stands fully behind the accuracy of Ms. Kelley's reporting and believes that everything she attributes to Sharon Bush in her book is an accurate account of their discussions," said Suzanne Herz. "Ms. Kelley met with Sharon Bush over the course of a four-hour lunch on April 1, 2003." The next day, Herz said, Kelley had a 90-minute phone conversation with Bush in the presence of Peter Gethers, her Doubleday editor. Kelley "has notes to corroborate both these conversations." VERY interesting!

PentaPost opines, "When the prisoner abuse allegations first became public in May, many members of Congress, including several senior Republicans, vowed to pursue the evidence up the chain of command and not to allow low-ranking reservists to be prosecuted while more senior officials escaped sanction. Yet, as matters now stand, Mr. Rumsfeld, Gen. Sanchez and other senior officials are poised to execute just such an escape. When the scandal began, these leaders told Congress they were prepared to accept responsibility for the wrongdoing. As it turns out, they didn't mean that in any substantive respect. Their dodge shames not only them but the legal and legislative bodies charged with enforcing accountability."

Pentapost: "The NAACP and other civil rights leaders charged that recent events suggest the GOP is mounting a campaign to keep African Americans and other minority voters away from the polls this Nov. In a new report, the NAACP and People for the American Way cite incidents from FlA to Detroit. NAACP Chair Julian Bond said efforts at intimidation and suppression, once a tool of Democrats in the Jim Crow South, 'have increasingly become the province of the Republican Party' as it seeks to counter the overwhelming advantage Democrats enjoy among black voters...as many as 4-6 million voters were disenfranchised in 2000...In Florida, the Civil Rights Commission found that black voters were 10 times as likely as whites to have their ballots rejected, a trend also found in other parts of the country."

"I decided to do an archival search of articles in a single edition, Feb. 6, 2003, the day after the turning point of the prewar period: Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech and slide show at the United Nations, proving the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Analysts have since concluded that the vast majority of evidence that Powell put forward was faulty or just plain bogus, and most of his assertions have turned out wrong. Powell, himself, has almost (but not quite) apologized for it. Nevertheless, the overwhelmingly positive, even rapturous, reaction to his speech, from the media and political figures, set the U.S. even more firmly on the path to war. The Post's primary news stories on the Powell speech were painfully credulous, although a couple of articles inside the paper cast some doubt on certain aspects of his address. But the editorial commentary from the Post that single, crucial, day deserves a special place in that Journalism 101 textbook."

PentaPost reports, "In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to 'enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire' directed at 'ALL UNITS' of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat 'despite enemy bullets flying about him' ... Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was 'not under fire' when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water." That makes Thurlow a LIAR.

Matt Taibbi writes, "We knew what the Washington Post and all of these other papers still refuse to admit-this whole thing was never about WMD's. Even a five- year-old, much less the literate executive editor of the Washington Post, could have seen, from watching Bush and his cronies make his war case, that they were going in anyway. For God's sake, Bush was up there in the fall of 2002, warning us that unmanned Iraqi drones were going to spray poison gas on the continental United States. The whole thing-the 'threat' of Iraqi attack, the link to terrorism, the dire warnings about Saddam's intentions-it was all bullsh*t on its face, as stupid, irrelevant and transparent as a cheating husband's excuse. And I don't know a single educated person who didn't think so at the time. The story shouldn't have been, 'Are there WMDs?' The story should have been, 'Why are they pulling this stunt? And why now?' That was the real mystery. It still is."

Two years too late, the Pentagon Post's Howard Kurtz has written the paper's "self-criticism" of its outrageous Iraq War drumbeating. And the "self-criticism" is just as outrageous as the original coverage. In October 2002, veteran reporter Thomas Ricks wrote an article called "Doubts" citing senior officials who worried the "risks were being underestimated." His story was killed by national security editor Matthew Vita, because people working for Rumsfeld wouldn't go public. Of COURSE not - that's why that story needed to run! Liz Spayd, the assistant managing editor for national news, said "Do I feel we owe our readers an apology? I don't think so." Karen DeYoung, a former assistant managing editor, said: "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power" - a BIG LIE, because the PentaPost attacked Clinton relentlessly. We demand a FULL APOLOGY from the PentaPost!

PentaPost reports, "According to a copy of a signed statement Davis said he gave investigators May 27, he went in late October 2003 to Tier 1-A, the section of Abu Ghraib that housed prisoners of special interest to intelligence services, to speak with a member of his team. There, his statement says, 'I observed two service members. . . . I perceived both service members to be military intelligence (MI). I saw both MI soldiers handcuff two naked Iraqi detainees to the bars of cells on opposite sides. I then witnessed the same MI soldiers handcuff the detainees together, face to face. The MI soldier . . . approached me and asked me in a sarcastic tone of voice: 'Do you think we crossed the line?' or words to that effect. I responded: 'I am not sure, you are MI' or words to that effect... Davis said he reported the incident to his platoon leader and was told, 'They are MI and they are in charge, let them do their job,' or words to that effect."

Washington Post: "The Pentagon announced Wednesday night that it will quickly hold legal hearings for all 595 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison as it scrambles to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last week that the government was jailing terrorism suspects without due process." The hearings, entitled Combatant Status Review Tribunals in an effort to give them at least a varnish of legitimacy, "are designed to determine whether the detainees at Guantanamo Bay meet the definition of 'enemy combatants,' as Bush has claimed without proof for two years." No one, even the writers at the Pentapost are fooled by BushFeld's intentions. The new tribunals are designed to buttress the government's case - that it has been deliberative in its detention decisions and afforded due process - when it confronts defense attorneys in the upcoming federal court hearings. Of course we already know what the Bushfeld Kangaroo Court verdicts will be.

"Did senior officials 'permit' torture? A Pentagon-led task force concluded in March 2003, with the support of the Justice Department, that the president was authorized to order torture as part of his war-making powers and that those who followed his orders could be immunized from punishment. Dictators who wish to justify torture, and those who would mistreat Americans, have no need to read our editorials: They can download from the Internet the 50-page legal brief issued by Mr. Rumsfeld's chief counsel... What is needed is a full and independent investigation of the matter, including the decisions made by Mr. Rumsfeld and other senior officials, and a forthright and unambiguous commitment by Bush to strictly observe U.S. and international law in the future. That pledge should be accompanied by a return to the public disclosure of U.S. interrogation policies."

Under Bush, the quality of people in the most sensitive jobs - from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib to the halls of the White House is low and getting lower all the time. A shocking case in point: Air Force Sgt. Mar Palmosina. Palmosina was the chief investigator on behalf of the US government against Ahmad Al Halabi, a former interpreter at Gitmo who has been charged with espionage (he still asserts his innocence). Seems nobody bothered to investigate Palmosina. He has been charged with rape and sodomy involving children, one just 11 years old. Don't try to find this info in the AP version - the reference to children has been suppressed. The Pentapost hid the story in "News in Brief."

When it comes to understanding Americans, the only thing more clueless than the Bush administration is the corporate media. Check it out: (from the Pentapost): "The nation's economy is growing smartly, wages have begun to rise, and employers have added more than 1.4 million jobs to their payrolls in the past nine months. Yet voters continue to give Bush poor ratings on his handling of the economy It may sound baffling, but interviews with voters, pollsters and economists suggest Bush's stubborn difficulties on domestic policy boil down to an obvious problem abroad." Guess it must all be about Iraq, they muse. It couldn't POSSIBLY be that most of us have now caught on to the fact that the "good economic news" is all bogus - a "boom" of temporary, part time and service sector jobs, phony statistics, and smoke and mirrors.

PentaPost opines,"There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense Depts. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of 'national security.' For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments - from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan - that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Pinochet brings shame on American democracy - even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with Bush, to go on torturing and killing detainees." Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost furiously opines: "No one has been criminally charged in any of the cases, even though some date to December 2002. Investigations have been shoddy and secretive. And no senior officer or administration official has accepted responsibility or been held accountable for allowing unlawful killings to take place under his or her command... It is horrifying to contemplate that U.S. interrogators have tortured and killed foreign prisoners and that their superiors have ignored or covered up their crimes -- and yet that is where the available facts point. Pentagon officials say they will pursue investigations vigorously and that those guilty of crimes will be brought to justice... But the sorry record of the Bush administration -- and the resident's own refusal to speak the truth about it -- suggests that justice will require vigorous and sustained intervention by outside parties, beginning with Congress." Hey PentaPost - your beloved Congress is run by an EXTERMINATOR!

After promising to support education and homeland security as a major part of his 2004 campaign, it turns out that Bush was secretly planning to slash those programs' funding in 2006 if reelected. The Pentapost reports: "Administration officials had dismissed the significance of the proposed cuts when they surfaced in February as part of an internal White House budget office computer printout." Though officials said the cuts were based on a formula and did not accurately reflect administration policy, a May 19 White House budget memo obtained leaked to the Post said agencies should assume that the cuts indicated in the printout will apply in 2006. A White House spokesman immediately began frantically spinning, claiming the memo is a routine "process document" to help agency officials begin establishing budget procedures for 2006. In no way should it be interpreted as a final policy decision, or even a planning document, he said." Yeah right!

When even FOX and Pentapost (both released polls this week) can't shore Bush's ratings up, and can only tweak the results enough to push Bush up into a "dead heat" with Kerry, then you know it's lights out for the Bush campaign! Not only does the latest Pentapost poll show Bush with his lowest approval rating yet at 47% (which of course is probably inflated by 5-10 points), it shows the biggest loss taken by Bush in the past month has been a decline in approval among Republicans. This is very encouraging, because it shows that contrary to what the White House would have us all believe, not all Republicans are goosesteppers like Tom Delay, James Inhofe or Dennis Hastert... thank God!

New documents obtained by PentaPost "contain tantalizing hints about the role of military intelligence officers who operated in the shadows of Tier 1A at the prison. One military police officer said in a sworn statement that civilian and military intelligence officers frequently visited Tier 1A at night, spiriting detainees away for questioning out of sight of the MPs inside a 'wood hut' behind the prison building... Special visitors frequented the wing at night, Davis said. They included representatives from the military's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and other government agencies (OGA), a common expression for the CIA. 'On the night shift, FBI, OGA, CID, MI would be in and out of the wing interrogating prisoners, bringing them in, or taking them away to the wood hut behind the hard site or away period,' Davis said. 'Someone was always there from the other agencies or military personnel, it seemed.'"

"Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets. The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers... One day, [a] detainee said, American soldiers held him down and spread his legs... A soldier stepped on his head, he said, and someone broke a phosphoric light and spilled the chemicals on him. 'I was glowing and they were laughing,' he said. The detainee said the soldiers eventually brought him to a room and sodomized him with a nightstick. 'They were taking pictures of me during all these instances.'"

PentaPost reports, "Sgt. Samuel Provance said [military] intelligence interrogators told military police to strip down prisoners and embarrass them as a way to help 'break' them. The same interrogators and intelligence analysts would talk about the abuse with Provance and flippantly dismiss it because the Iraqis were considered 'the enemy'... [Provance said] the highest-ranking military intelligence officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from military intelligence's role... Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski claimed that military intelligence imposed its authority so fully that she eventually had limited access to the interrogation facilities. And an attorney for one of the soldiers [said] that the Army has rejected his request for an independent inquiry, which could block potentially crucial information about involvement of military intelligence, the CIA and the FBI from being revealed." Stop the coverup - Impeach Bush Now!

Here's another Iraq-Vietnam analogy - as the war goes south, hawks want "escalation." "It may be, as pessimists contend, that there is now no way to restore order to Iraq -- that chaos and civil war are inevitable. But we believe a solution may still lie in the aggressive embrace of all the strategies under discussion. Iraq needs more American troops, and more of its own security forces and any other foreign allied troops that can be collected, and it needs them soon, to make possible the staging of elections by early next year. Only dramatic steps by President Bush will make such reinforcements possible" - including " a permanent increase in the size of the U.S. Army." We say - Not a Penny More! Democrats.com/notapenny

Pentapost: "Iraqi political leaders expressed anger and despair over the inability of U.S. authorities to stem the relentless violence gripping Iraq as they paid tribute to the slain president of the country's Governing Council. Othman, who is generally pro-American, described the assassination as only the most extreme example of the lawlessness that has grown in the year since Saddam Hussein was driven from power. 'Never in Iraq has it been like this -- never, even under Saddam,' he said. 'People are killed, kidnapped and assaulted; children are taken away; women are raped. Nobody is afraid of any punishment.' The anger among Iraqis normally favorable toward the Americans' efforts in Iraq was expressed after a solemn memorial service for Salim, who was killed with six other Iraqis as they waited to enter the compound that houses the occupation headquarters."

Bush's "official position is that it is not violating the Convention Against Torture, which it acknowledges covers all detainees, including unlawful combatants. But the administration also interprets that convention as prohibiting any act that would be unlawful under the U.S. Constitution. We hope Mr. Bush does not really believe that submersion in water should be a permissible way to question American citizens arrested domestically -- yet that is the logic of his administration's position... No [intelligence] gains could possibly justify the abuses that have been exposed or the damage done when an American secretary of defense declares to the world that holding detainees hooded and contorted is in keeping with international law and American values. The only solution is for Mr. Bush to formally forswear the abusive practices his administration has adopted. If he will not, Congress must prohibit their use." Is the Pentagon Post rejoining humanity at last? Hallelujah!

PentaPost reports, "Three directives in particular have already begun to attract congressional scrutiny: The first is a classified report by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller on Sept. 9, 2003, demanding that the military police at Abu Ghraib be dedicated and trained to set 'the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees.' The report, which [Stephen] Cambone has testified was presented to his deputy William Boykin, contained five recommendations spelling out how this was to occur and reported it had already begun. The second is an Oct. 12 classified memo signed by Sanchez that demanded a 'harmonization' of military policing and intelligence work at Abu Ghraib... The third is a Nov. 19 memo from Sanchez's office that formally placed the two key Abu Ghraib cellblocks where the abuses occurred under the control of Pappas and his 205th Military Intelligence Brigade."

PentaPost opines, "The Bush administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone [who] assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that the administration's policy had always been to strictly observe the Geneva Conventions in Iraq... and that the abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were consequently the isolated acts of individuals. These assertions are contradicted by International Red Cross and Army investigators, by U.S. generals overseeing the prisoners, and by Mr. Cambone himself... If Bush and his senior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international law and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead, they hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal policies that lie at its core."

PentaPost reports, "A senior general at the Pentagon said he believes the US is already on the road to defeat. 'It is doubtful we can go on much longer like this,' he said. 'The American people may not stand for it -- and they should not'... One Pentagon consultant said that officials with whom he works on Iraq policy continue to put on a happy face publicly, but privately are grim about the situation in Baghdad. When it comes to discussions of the administration's Iraq policy, he said, 'It's 'Dead Man Walking.' '... 'The idea that Iraq can be miraculously and quickly turned into a shining example of democracy that will 'transform' the Middle East requires way too much fairy dust and cultural arrogance to believe,' said a senior military intelligence officer... The US is likely to be fighting in Iraq for at least another five years, said an Army officer who served there. 'We'll be taking casualties,' he warned, during that entire time."

PentaPost reports, "Especially among career Army officers, an extraordinary anger is building at Rumsfeld and his top advisers. 'Like a lot of senior Army guys, I'm quite angry' with Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush administration, the young general said. He listed two reasons. 'One is, I think they are going to break the Army.' But what really incites him, he said, is, 'I don't think they care.' Jeff Smith, a former general counsel of the CIA who has close ties to many senior officers, said, 'Some of my friends in the military are exceedingly angry.' In the Army, he said, 'It's pretty bitter.' Retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a frequent Pentagon consultant, said, 'The people in the military are mad as hell.' He said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, should be fired. A spokesman for Myers declined to comment. A Special Forces officer aimed higher, saying that 'Rumsfeld needs to go, as does Wolfowitz.'" Better watch your back, Rummy!

PentaPost reports, "The photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib -- images that reached Iraqi newspapers on Sunday, following a three-day holiday -- have reinforced the long-held view here that the U.S. occupation is intent on humiliating the Iraqi people. The system has been rife with complaints for months, but now the testimony of former Iraqi prisoners claiming abuse at the hands of U.S. jailers has gained new credibility while further damaging the reputation of the U.S. occupation authority. Interviews with former Iraqi prisoners and human-rights advocates present a picture of the U.S. prison system here as a vast wartime effort to extract information from the enemy rather than to punish criminals. Former prisoners say lengthy interrogation sessions, employing sleep depravation, severe isolation, fear, humiliation and physical duress, were regular features of their daily regimen and remain so for the estimated 2,500 to 7,000 people inside the jails."

Now here's one we doubt you'll find in the Pentapost or the New York "Government Times"! Seems that the Iraq interim government is taking its oil industry in its own direction: "Iraq will start oil exports through a new pipeline to Iran by the end of this year and does not expect to come back within the OPEC cartel's quota system any time soon, Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said. Feasibility studies have been completed for two short crude oil export pipelines to fellow OPEC member Iran with a capacity of 200,000 bpd each at a cost of just $30 million, the minister said. Iraq's oil exports have risen to 1.9 million bpd in recent weeks, close to pre-war capacity of 2.2 million bpd, as a pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields and the southern port of Khor al-Amaya were both reopened/" This March 27 figure was BEFORE the April attacks on pipelines - yet Wolfowitz continues to claim 2.5 million bpd!

PentaPost reports, "The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that Bush had decided to invade Iraq. At issue was a passage in Woodward's 'Plan of Attack,' an account published this week of Bush's decision making about the war, quoting Rumsfeld as telling Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, in January 2003 that he could 'take that to the bank' that the invasion would happen. The comment came in a key moment in the run-up to the war, when Rumsfeld and other officials were briefing Bandar on a military plan to attack and invade Iraq, and pointing to a top-secret map that showed how the war plan would unfold. The book reports that the meeting with Bandar was held on Jan. 11, 2003, in Vice President Cheney's West Wing office. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also attended."

The Pentagon Post has never apologized for enthusiastically cheerleading the invasion of Iraq on the basis of neocon lies. And now they are continuing their neocon crusade by attacking John Kerry for setting a more realistic goal of Iraqi "stability" rather than the neocon fantasy of "democracy." Yet even the PentaPost admits a US-imposed "democracy" may well be impossible: "At best democracy will take years to consolidate; at worst, it will prove unachievable during the U.S. mission." Instead of attacking Kerry for being realistic, PentaPost should attack those who recklessly and insanely invaded Iraq - at a cost of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars - despite repeated warnings of the "Pottery Barn" rule: you break it, you own it. And what about "democracy" in America? Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida, and is blocking paper trails so he can steal it again in 2004. Demand an apology from letters@washpost.com, ombudsman@washpost.com

PentaPost reports, "The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that Bush had decided to invade Iraq. At issue was a passage in Woodward's 'Plan of Attack,' an account published this week of Bush's decision making about the war, quoting Rumsfeld as telling Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, in January 2003 that he could 'take that to the bank' that the invasion would happen. The comment came in a key moment in the run-up to the war, when Rumsfeld and other officials were briefing Bandar on a military plan to attack and invade Iraq, and pointing to a top-secret map that showed how the war plan would unfold. The book reports that the meeting with Bandar was held on Jan. 11, 2003, in Vice President Cheney's West Wing office. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also attended."

Want evidence of collusion between the White House and the media? There have been 12 (count 'em!) presidential preference polls by major polling outfits released since April 1. All but four show Kerry with a substantial lead over Bush. Yet guess which two polls are being carried all over the corporate media, dominating news search engines, and otherwise being overpublicized? Yep, the pro-Bush fudged polls, including the two from the biggest White House colluders among the corporate media: AP (All Propaganda) and Pentapost (euphemistically known as the Washington Post). Here are all but two of the polls (LA Times and New York State Polls not listed here): read 'em and weep, Dubya!

Bush made a big show of going to Pennsylvania on Monday to "help" Arlen Specter in the GOP primary. To show you just how much "surging support" there is for Bush (if you believe phony Pentapost polls, that is), look at this report released on Tuesday: "A surge in support for conservative challenger Rep. Pat Toomey has narrowed Sen. Arlen Specter's lead to a scant 5 percentage points a week before Pennsylvania's Republican primary, according to a poll released Tuesday. Toomey, a three-term congressman from the Allentown area, was backed by 44 percent of likely Republican voters, compared with 49 percent for Specter in the survey by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute." An earlier poll had shown Specter with a 15 point lead!

What a hoot! When the nation's most accurate polling organization, Zogby, released the latest poll on Bush and Kerry showing Bush losing ground steadily, the corporate media suppressed it big time - progressive sites had to dig through google and ask.com to find it. And, ever so predictably, within 48 hours of three major sites posting these results, the Pentapost-ABC "Pollsters for Bush" released an overnight wonder showing a miraculous "reversal" of positions between Kerry and Bush. As Bush grows more desperate, expect an "overnight wonder" poll from now on every time Bush's numbers DROP.

"Blaming her for the 'wall' is absurd in any event. The memo by Ms. Gorelick that Mr. Ashcroft branded as the culprit is not even mentioned in the history of impaired information-sharing that Mr. Ashcroft's department gave to the special court that finally lifted the barriers after 911. That court described the wall's origin as 'sometime in the 1980s -- the exact moment is shrouded in historical mist.' A set of procedures promulgated in 1995 codified the policy of keeping intelligence and law enforcement separate and significantly fortified the wall. But as the Justice Department's brief itself acknowledged, prosecutors knew long before those procedures were announced that they were not to direct intelligence activities or to use intelligence surveillance to develop criminal cases. And the Bush administration explicitly maintained the 1995 procedures before 911... In fact, Ms. Gorelick was an advocate of increased collaboration between spies and cops, not greater separation. "

The Pentapost is once again proving its shameless collusion with the White House. Apparently indifferent to anything but pandering to Dubya's whims, the paper failed to report on Kerry's detailed plan for creating jobs (including a scheme for how he would pay for the plan). Instead, they ran a story accusing Kerry of not having a plan. So, if readers are dumb enough to use the Post as their only news source, how would they ever know otherwise? Read through this long-winded hot air blast and you will not find a single one of Kerry's plans included, only intentionally vague references to something about taxes (real reporting here - not!).

PentaPost reports: "There was good reason for the tension. If the critique presented by Clarke, who left the Bush White House after two years, is to be accepted, a key rationale for Bush's reelection has been lost. In Clarke's view, the Bush administration ignored his pleas to make terrorism a high priority before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reacted inadequately to the attacks and then strengthened terrorists by persistently pursuing war in Iraq. Bush aides are not about to let that version stand. Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002... During a second round of questioning, Thompson returned to the subject, questioning Clarke's 'standard of candor and morality.' 'I don't think it's a question of morality at all; I think it's a question of politics,' Clarke snapped."

PentaPost reports, "In his experience, Clarke writes, Bush's description by critics as 'a dumb, lazy rich kid' is 'somewhat off the mark.' Bush has 'a results-oriented mind, but he looked for the simple solution, the bumper sticker description of the problem.' 'Any leader whom one can imagine as president on September 11 would have declared a 'war on terrorism' and would have ended the Afghan sanctuary [for al Qaeda] by invading,' Clarke writes. 'What was unique about George Bush's reaction' was the additional choice to invade 'not a country that had been engaging in anti-U.S. terrorism but one that had not been, Iraq.' In so doing, he estranged allies, enraged potential friends in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and produced 'more terrorists than we jail or shoot.' 'It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq,' ' Clarke writes."

Here's the poll figures released by the Washington Post/ABC poll: Kerry 48%, Bush 44% and Ralph "My Ego Means More to me than My Principles" Nader 3%. Of course the actual, untweaked poll figures probably run something like Kerry 55%, Bush 35% and Nader .5 %. When even the poll fudgers can't fudge Bush into an edge, you KNOW he's in trouble. Worse for him, "The only policy area in which more than 6 out of 10 respondents supported Mr Bush was on the 'war on terror', while the two candidates were virtually tied on Iraq, gay marriage and civil liberties." As to the "war on terror" numbers - Bush support there is plummeting almost daily as people awaken to the reality of how much less safe Bush policies have rendered the world.

As all veteran newsfolk know, the average reader reads only the headlines and the first 2 or 3 paragraphs of any news article. The corporate media are taking advantage of this to try to prop Bush up over the AWOL case. If you read just the headlines & first few paragraphs, you might imagine Bush has been vindicated. But read on! In the Pentapost spin job, you find the REAL story at paragraphs 8 & 9: "According to the documents, Bush was performing service or unit drills in early 1973, at a time when his commanding officers wrote that they could not evaluate him because 'he has not been observed' at Ellington Air Force base in Houston. No one who served in Bush's Alabama unit at that time has come forward, despite years of publicity on the subject, to confirm the president's assertions about his service. The brigadier general Bush was to report to in Alabama has said he has no recollection of Bush's doing so."

The Pentapost reports: "Insurgents in Iraq sought the help of senior leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network for a plan to spark a 'civil war'... citing a document seized from an al Qaeda courier." How convenient! Almost as convenient as the rescue team "stumbling" on Jessica Lynch! "Their [Al Qaeda's] strategy is to provoke sectarian warfare in an effort to tear this country apart," asserts Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq. Senor is a former lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill and former press secretary of Sen. Spencer Abraham, who is now Bush's Energy Secretary (as in oil and gas!). The real reason for looming civil war is Bush, who has made and broken promises to both the Kurds and Shiites, and, say some, seeks to foment continued violence to keep his "war time president" image alive.

PentaPost's Mike Allen writes, "The White House, the Republican Party and the Bush-Cheney campaign mounted a choreographed defense yesterday of President Bush's attendance record in the National Guard and denounced Democrats for raising questions about his service. The messages marked the first time that all the parts of Bush's 2004 political machine have collaborated on a simultaneous line of attack, and reflected his advisers' mounting concern about an issue that they hoped had been put to rest after his [s]election in 2000. " So what did they say? "Bush's aides did not release new information to clear up questions about a one-year gap in the public record of Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Bush and his aides have said he reported to an Alabama unit during the period, from May 1972 to May 1973. No paper record has surfaced that documents Bush's attendance." The truth will out!

The PentaPost splashed the alleged "bioterror attack" on Sen Maj. Leader Bill Frist's office across page one, squeezing out the Dem primaries and news that Bush has dived again in polls. Yet the Post fails to mention that some of the preliminary tests of the mystery powder were negative for ricin. The "confirmation" of ricin comes only from a Ft. Detrick (as in Pentagon-controlled) lab. The Post also fails to mention that Frist's usual office is NOT in the Dirksen building - and that he & staff were only there temporarily (how did the "terrorist" know this?) Last, the Post doesn't mention that members of the Frist staff - the staff who "discovered" the "ricin" - are currently under investigation for Watergate-style computer espionage targeting Dems. Earlier in his political consulting career, Karl Rove bugged his OWN office to start an FBI investigation of the opposing candidate. Is this ricin "attack" yet another Karl Rove dirty trick?

Soon, the truth about Bush's AWOL will come out - despite repeated stabbings from the NY Pravda (a.k.a. Times). PentaPost's Lois Romano got Bushmouth Terry Holt to flatly declare: "The president was never AWOL." LoL! How should we parse this Bushspeak? "The president." Of course, we all know he's just the Resident. "Was never AWOL." Bush was AWOL both as Resident (on 9/11, when he sat in a classroom for 20-30 minutes after the 2nd plane hit the WTC) and as a 1st Lt. in the Texas Air National Guard, when he "cleared this base" on May 15 1972 and did not report for duty for at least 6 months - as even Bush admits - and more likely for the rest of his tour. Romano also quotes Scrubber-in-Chief Dan Bartlett saying Bush "specifically remembers" performing some of his duties in Alabama. But on Monday, Gen. William Turnipseed "stood by his contention that Bush never reported to him." Nixon famous last words were "I am not a crook." Bush's will be "I was never AWOL."

On June 5, 2003, PentaPost reporters Walter Pincus and Dana Priest wrote: "Cheney and his most senior aide [Scooter Libby] made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials... They felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet, to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq was urgent." Did Cheney "berate" the analysts, threaten their careers, or merely glare at them? Either way, Cheney intimidated the analysts into telling LIES.

Bush is trying to talk the UN into coming back into Iraq - but only as a superficial PR strategy (75% of Americans still believe the UN should be part of the peace process). "U.S. officials concede that they have no intention of assigning the UN sufficient independence in Iraq to negotiate new terms for the political transition," reports the Pentapost. Instead, "they want the organization to participate in drafting an interim constitution and help organize regional caucuses." Bush also wants the UN to urge groups outside the political process to support the U.S. plan - the same groups, like the Shiites, Bush policy has severely alienated. In short, Bush simply wants to use the UN to make him look better and clean up some of his mess and run interference with other nations - yet not grant any real power. Such a deal!

PentaPost reports, "To the Pentagon, stop-loss orders are a finger in the dike -- a tool to halt the hemorrhage of personnel, and maximize cohesion and experience, for units in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year... Some [soldiers] are resigned to fulfilling what they consider their patriotic duty. Others are livid, insisting they have fallen victim to a policy that amounts to an unannounced, unheralded draft. 'I'm furious. I'm aggravated. I feel violated. I feel used,' said Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle, 42... Other soldiers retained by the Army under stop-loss are more resigned than irate, but no less demoralized by what some have come to regard as their involuntary servitude." Bush treats soldiers as slaves - Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost reports: "The Justice Dept. has added a fourth prosecutor to the team investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, while the FBI has said a grand jury may be called to take testimony from administration officials, sources said. Administration and CIA officials said they have seen signs in the past few weeks that the investigation continues intensively behind closed doors, even though little about the investigation has been publicly said or seen for months... The agents appear to have a great deal of information and have constructed detailed chronologies of various officials' possible tie to the leak... Agents investigating the matter have been increasingly apparent at CIA headquarters in Langley over the past three weeks, officials said. 'They are still active,' a senior official said. But sources said the CIA believes that people in the administration continue to release classified information to damage the figures at the center of the controversy."

In 2002, the Pentagon Post pounded the Iraq War Drums as hard as FOX. Yet even though no WMD's have been found, PentaPost still has the nerve to declare, "The argument that this tyrant was not a danger to the United States is not just unfounded but ludicrous." What made Saddam a danger to the US? He "stockpiled and used weapons of mass destruction." Yes, he did - in the 1980's, with the active support of the Reagan-Bush administrations. But after Gulf War I, Saddam destroyed all of his WMD's, under pressure from US overflights and UN inspectors. Will the PentaPost EVER admit the truth about Iraq's WMD's? Ask Michael Getler ombudsman@washpost.com 202-334-7582.

"It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history. White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend. Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished... Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, administration Web sites have been scrubbed for anything vaguely sensitive, and passwords are now required to access even much unclassified information. Though it is not clear whether the White House is directing the changes, several agencies have been following a similar pattern."

PentaPost 3-22-1992:"Almost every Monday for the past couple of months, Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.), the feisty chairman of the House Banking Committee, has been setting the Bush administration's teeth on edge with fiery exposes about its courtship of Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. So far, hardly anyone has been listening. Gonzalez's 'special orders' - as such uninterrupted speeches are called - are delivered to a virtually empty House floor. But they are full of excruciating detail - much of it classified 'secret' and 'confidential' - that could haunt the White House before this election year is over. Gonzalez's charges are simple and direct: Senior Bush administration officials went to great lengths to continue supporting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his unreliable regime long after it was prudent to do so." Read the details of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) scandal - and remember no one in the Bush I regime was prosecuted over Iraqgate.

PentaPost opines on Vieth v. Jubelirer: "Sophisticated computer technology now makes it possible to draw lines with unprecedented precision. As a result, elections for the House of Representatives have become something of a farce; results of almost all of them can be predicted the day the districts get drawn. Voting is little more than a formality. As more and more representatives answer only to their base, partisanship in Washington grows and compromise is frowned upon... The court's understandable inclination to stay out of partisan disputes has become untenable in cases like this, because the redistricting system cannot be fixed by traditional political means... Voters cannot register an objection - cannot meaningfully support reform - if the elections they vote in are all but predetermined. The court should draw its own line at the Pennsylvania gerrymandering; otherwise there will be no constraints, and the political system will continue sliding toward ossified polarization."

PentaPost writes, "Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values 'is getting more and more mysterious: Early last week, its president was Timothy Raftis, a former aide to Sen. Tom Harkin; now, a new president has suddenly appeared on the group's Web site: former Rep. Edward Feighan (D-Ohio). The group's treasurer is fundraiser David Jones, who has worked for one of Mr. Dean's chief rivals, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri -- but suddenly, it has a new spokesman, John Kerry's former press secretary, Robert Gibbs, which might suggest, to the conspiracy-minded, an effort to deflect attention from a possible Gephardt connection... From those who pose as champions of 'progressive values,' it's despicable. 'I believe strongly in the view of Thomas Jefferson that an informed electorate helps insure the strength of democracy,' Mr. Raftis said on the group's Web site. Informed, that is, of what he chooses to tell them. What hypocrisy." Sign our pledge: http://democrats.com/unity

Remember how Bush denounced "nation-building" during his losing campaign against Al Gore? Well, get over it. PentaPost reports, "The Pentagon has begun to look seriously at creating military forces that would be dedicated to peacekeeping and reconstruction after future conflicts... The move marks a reversal for the Bush administration, which came into office strongly resistant to peacekeeping missions and intent on trying to get Europeans and other allies to shoulder more of that burden. "

CNN reports, "A poll released Saturday finds that more registered voters want to see Bush voted out than kept in office in the next election, but his job approval rating has remained constant. In the Newsweek poll, 50% of registered voters who were queried said they do not want to see Bush re-elected, while 44% said they do." That means he's losing by 6% before the race even begins, which is exactly the same deficit that Zogby reported this week (38%-44%). Funny, but Newsweek (owned by PentaPost) SCRUBBED this shockingly bad (for Bush) number from its own story! Karl Rove didn't "vet" Newsweek's story, did he? Nah, 'course not.

PentaPost report, "Angry about a leaked Democratic memo, the Republican leadership of the Senate yesterday took the unusual step of canceling all business of the committee investigating prewar intelligence on Iraq.Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called on the author of the memo - which laid out a possible Democratic strategy to extend the investigation to include the White House and executive branch - to 'identify himself or herself ... disavow this partisan attack in its entirety' and deliver 'a personal apology' to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence." The Dems have NOTHING to apologize for - the memo was completely straightforward in laying out Democratic options to get to the truth while the Republicans are trying to WHITEWASH the Bush's administrations treasonous manipulation of Iraq intelligence. The RepubliNazi stormtroopers are now on the march - will the media stop them?

Corporate 'science' at work! This survey was posted in a slick, animated color ad in the PentaPost. Like all corporate propaganda, this pro-industry study is being pushed like crazy by the mainstream media. Meanwhile, the extensive REAL (noncorporate) studies that have come out on the lethal epidemic of teen drinking have been just as heavily suppressed by the media. But it's just the sort of concern for "public health" and America's youth the nation is getting from the Bush Regime. Compare the Columbia study with the "Bud" version (http://www.openminds.com/IndustryResources/casa.htm) Also see: "The Economic Value of Excessive Underage and Adult Drinking to the Alcohol Industry." (http://www.casacolumbia.org/publications1456/publications_show.htm?doc_id=151714)

PentaPost reports, "Two years after a surge of national unity in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the US is once again a 50-50 nation, shaped by partisan divisions as deep as ever... Three years after one of the closest and most bitterly contested elections in U.S. history, the nation is again polarized over the performance of the resident. Bush's Republican supporters see him as strong and decisive, a man of good character and moral convictions. His Democratic detractors believe that, at home and abroad, he is leading the country in the wrong direction... Voter interviews suggest that Bush has made few converts among those who voted against him in 2000, while some of those who backed him say they may not do so again unless there is clear improvement in the jobs situation and stabilization of the violence in Iraq." Bush's "strongly approve" rating is down to 30%, his lowest since 9-11; his "strongly disapprove" rating is up to 29%, his highest ever.

Poor Maureen Dowd. She wants to call Bush a LIAR in the worst way, but the Bush embeds at the NY Times forbid it. Instead, MoDo is forced to perform literary contortions to obliquely make her point. "An information scam is good enough for George Bush's franchise... Bush is still manipulating reality... Those who go for the big con, who audaciously paint false pictures, think everyone else is stupid. They want to promote themselves based on the gullibility of others. For [PentaPost fabulist Janet] Cooke, [TNR fabulist] Glass and [NYT fabulist Jayson] Blair, their editors were the marks. But at least that unholy trio only soiled newsprint. For the Bush crowd, the American people were the marks." C'mon MoDo, show some guts and tell the truth - Bush Lies... every single day... about everything. Email dowd@nytimes.com

PentaPost reports, "Congressional Republicans have launched a renewed investigation of alleged wrongdoing by a Democratic-appointed federal judge in a landmark affirmative action case - sparking countercharges that the GOP is using political pressure tactics against the judiciary. Judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, based in Cincinnati, said staff members from the House Judiciary Committee have visited judges and court officials in recent days - in two cases appearing unannounced at judges' chambers. The staff members demanded documents and asked to question two Democratic-appointed judges, but the judges refused. The investigators said they were looking into charges - first aired last year by a Republican-appointed judge on the 6th Circuit - that the circuit's Democratic-appointed chief judge, Boyce F. Martin Jr., had rigged the lineup of judges who ruled on the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action policy so the school would win."

David Corn writes, "Can Cheney (and Bush) dodge responsibility for making exaggerated statements, if not outright lies? Cheney's office refused to respond to queries from Gellman. And the Post piece did not trigger any fuss. The news that Monica Lewinsky's semen-stained blue dress actually did exist had more pick-up than Gellman's scoop. While that one State of the Union sentence regarding Iraq's purported uranium shopping in Africa stirred a full-scale controversy in June and July, this more damning disclosure has yet yielded no repercussions. Cheney and Bush have not had to answer for their hyperbolic and designed-to-frighten prewar claims about Iraq's (practically non-existent) nuclear weapons program." Outrage must begin somewhere - when will the editorial pages of the NY Times, PentaPost, and LA Times start forcefully denouncing Bush's Lies?

John Sugg writes that Prescott Bush's Nazi business-based "financial empire is what enabled the C-student, affirmative-action-for-the-privileged Yale grad to launch the career that led to his 2000 electoral putsch. Moreover, the patterns established by the previous generations have disturbing echoes today in the Bush family's intricate connections to Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family. 'That's the relevance,' Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago investment banker who is starting a liberal talk show network, told me. 'Trading with the enemy is trading with the enemy. It doesn't matter what enemy it is at the time.' It's an astounding story - one you won't read in the same media that daily stuffed our heads with rumor, innuendo, suspicion and a few facts about Bill Clinton's sexual foibles. As Drobny puts it, the mounting significance of the Bush-Nazi evidence is that it unmasks Big Media's 'sins of suppressing the news.'" And the suppression continues at NY Times, PentaPost, LA Times, etc...

PentaPost opines, "The Senate last week approved a prohibition on the procedure known to its opponents as partial-birth abortion, sending the measure to resident Bush for his signature. That same day, the Florida legislature authorized the resident's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, to order a feeding tube reinserted for Terri Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years. The measures are linked not only by the fact that each touches on the deeply felt religious, moral and political issues that arise at the beginning and the end of life. Perhaps precisely because the issues involved are so emotional, both laws exemplify legislators' overstepping their bounds, betraying a fundamental lack of respect for the proper role of doctors and courts." Of course, the Pentagon Post does NOT point out that Congress and the Florida legislature are run by REPUBLICANS who rant against "Big Government." How much BIGGER can government get? E-mail letters@washpost.com

PentaPost writes, "Deterioration of the formal systems and accepted civilities of Congress helps no one. Neither the energy bill nor the Medicare bill, which is also under negotiation, has been improved by a secretive, lengthy process. Both will be laden with perks and pork, both will fall short of achieving necessary changes, and both may even deepen the problems they were meant to solve. When Democratic staff members are forced to ask lobbyists what's in a bill, because Republicans won't tell them, the atmosphere in Congress isn't improved either. This nation is too closely divided for House Republicans to call Democrats 'irrelevant,' as one did in a Post article last week. At the moment, the breakdown in civility is hurting the Democrats most. If the tables turn, as someday they might, the Republicans will be injured. In either case, the country loses."

PentaPost: "Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use. Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be 'innocuous'... That finding is pivotal, because the Bush administration built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead... Cheney, in a televised interview last month, referred to a National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which said among other things that there was 'compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort.' Cheney said investigators 'will find in fact that they are valid.' His office did not respond to questions Friday."

PentaPost is so terrified of Howard Dean that they have erected a scarecrow called "McGovernMondaleDukakis" to keep Democrats away. According to Tom Edsall, "Dean's nomination could lead to a repetition of the crushing general election defeats the Democratic Party suffered under George McGovern, Walter F. Mondale and Michael S. Dukakis." What evidence is there for a "crushing" Dean defeat? Get this - an unnamed REPUBLICAN consultant says "with Dean, all you know is that he is anti-war and anti-Bush, it's hard to tell what he stands for." This REPUBLICAN says when Reagan ran successfully in 1979-80, his supporters would "have tears in their eyes about how Reagan would transform America." Yeah, we STILL have tears in our eyes about how Reagan transformed America - creating a $3 TRILLION debt, poisoning the planet building tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists in Central America, sending Rumsfeld to help Saddam buy WMD's, and selling arms to Iran to murder Iraqis.

PentaPost (buried on page A18): "This city of 10 million, known for its endless traffic jams and teeming street life, has been spruced up and locked down in preparation for the 21 leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that starts Monday. The cleanup has included barring thousands of street vendors from the central city, shipping 10,000 homeless people to army camps and banning more than 500 human rights activists from entering the country. About 600 Cambodian beggars, mostly women and children, were rounded up and airlifted back home on C-130 Hercules military aircraft. About 3,000 stray dogs were caught and shipped to the countryside. And a banner four stories high and a quarter-mile long, displaying an image of the Grand Palace royal compound, was erected to conceal a slum community that leaders might have otherwise glimpsed."

Writes the Pentapost: "[The Bush campaign's] record receipts -- more than triple the top Democrat's fundraising FOR THE QUARTER -- were driven in large part by just 285 men and women, who collected $38.5 million or more, which was at least 45% of Bush's total." What blatant spindoctoring: $38.5 - donated just this quarter by the 285 piggies - is roughly 77% of $49.5, which of course is a WHOLE LOT MORE than "at least 45%". Note how the article fails to mention how much of Bush's grand total of $83.9 million the piggies kicked in. Top Pigs: the rightwing Christian Coalition, the oil, electrical, and nuke power industries, the Wholesalers lobby, developers, and assorted Washington lobbyists. The most Bush piggies came from FL (what a surprise), followed by TX and CA (where the same piggies recently bought an entire recall election). Dems should be PROUD they raised less $ because most of it came from everyday Americans, not pigs with their snouts buried deep in the trough.

PentaPost reports, "Bush's chief spokesman said yesterday that the allegation that administration officials leaked the name of a CIA operative is 'a very serious matter' and vowed that Bush would fire anybody responsible for such actions." ROTFL! Everyone in the White House - from Bush on UP to Rove and Cheney - is "responsible" for the "outing" of Valerie Plame. Character assassination - if not outright murder - is Standard Operating Procedure for the Busheviks. Remember John McCain, who was accused of having a black child - and - going crazy while POW - during the GOP primaries in 2000? Remember Al Gore, who was accused of lies he never told? Remember J.H. Hatfield, who was driven to suicide by Karl Rove's character attacks? Remember Max Cleland, who was accused of being unpatriotic during the 2002 campaign?

Hammered by the worst flooding in Maryland and D.C. in a century, people are still waiting to see National Guardsmen. But in three days of constant news coverage, one writer reports that the only guardsmen she has seen were the ones flying Gov. Bob Ehrlich over the state for a survey of the damage -- and the two on the main page of the Washington Post online. But even when you click on this photo, the corresponding article makes nary a mention of the guard. So where are they? In Iraq, on standby for Iraq, or already stretched too thin from other disasters like the West Coast fires. Worse, thousands of guardsmen from all over the US were on standby for Iraq, in motel rooms around Ft. Bragg at the time of the disaster, right in the hurricane's path.

PentaPost's Richard Cohen writes, "Bush's foreign policy is a shambles - a war against the wrong enemy (Iraq and not worldwide terrorism), for the wrong reasons (where are those weapons of mass destruction?), a debacle in postwar Iraq (who are those terrorists?), a Middle Eastern road map to nowhere (wasn't Iraq going to make it all so easy?) and a string of statements about nearly everything (the cost of rebuilding Iraq, for instance) that have proved either untrue or just plain dumb. To make matters worse, truth-tellers have been punished while liars and fog merchants have remained in office... For Bush, the danger is that this sorry record will revive the cartoon persona of a dummy - not the steady custodian of our national security, as he seemed in the aftermath of Sept. 11, but a man without judgment, a naif who was manipulated by a cadre of hawks. For the rest of us, the danger is that the caricature was spot on, so obvious it was disregarded."

Moonie site WorldTribune.com reports, "U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located. Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the US and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq. Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents, Geostrategy-Direct.com will report Wednesday. U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon in January 2003. The significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time. U.S. intelligence sources believe the area contains extended-range Scud-based missiles and parts for chemical and biological warheads." Karl Rove is hard at work, leaking bogus "intelligence" that will percolate up to right-wing talk shows and then to the PentaPost and NY Times. No more lies - impeach Bush now!

PentaPost reports, "Asked about U.S. force presence in Afghanistan, Bush said the U.S. presence is being 'gradually replaced' by other troops. 'We've got about 10,000 troops there, which is down from, obviously, major combat operations,' he said... In fact, the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan represent the highest number of U.S. soldiers in the country since the war there began. By the time the Taliban government had been vanquished in December 2001, U.S. troops numbered fewer than 3,000 in Afghanistan. And three months later, in March 2002, when the last major battle against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda took place in eastern Afghanistan, about 5,000 U.S. troops were in the country." US troop levels aren't down, they have increased 100%. Howard Dean was lambasted by the media for miscounting US forces in Iraq by 8%. Where is the outrage?

The Pentagon Post is now officially schizophrenic. On the VERY SAME DAY it published a NEWS story proving the Busheviks deliberately manufactured lies about Iraq's nuclear program to bamboozle America into war, it ran an EDITORIAL denouncing the view that "we were all somehow bamboozled into war." Why is the editorial department attacking the news department? Because the news department's report supports the argument of Al Gore, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats. This outrageous screed shows Editorial page Editor Fred Hiatt HATES Al Gore and HATES Democrats - and he will attack anyone - including his own News department - who presents facts supporting Democrats. Write Hiatt at hiattf@washpost.com, Ombudsman Michael Getler at ombudsman@washpost.com, and media analyst Howie Kurtz KurtzH@washpost.com and demand an END to attacks on Al Gore and the Democrats for telling the truth - and a START to simple declarations that BUSH LIED and SOLDIERS DIE.

PentaPost reports, "Citing a milestone generally associated with a new presidency, the White House issued a 24-page report called 'Results in Iraq: 100 Days Toward Security and Freedom,' which claims to catalogue 'highlights of the successes' in Iraq... The report cites 90 ways the administration believes Iraq is better since the demise of Saddam Hussein's government. 'Only in isolated areas are there still attacks,' the report says. The document adds that 'health care, previously available only for Baathist [political party] elite, is now available to all Iraqis.' ... The report does not mention the almost daily attacks on U.S. forces, or the kidnappings and carjackings that terrify many Baghdad residents. It does not mention Iraq's high unemployment or widespread lack of electricity. No documentation for the claims is included. Officials said the unsigned report was prepared by the White House Office of Global Communications and the staff of L. Paul Bremer."

PentaPost reports, "The United Nations' chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, made a last-ditch effort today to hang on to her job as head of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda... Del Ponte's advisers said privately that Rwanda and its two closest allies in the council, the United States and Britain, orchestrated the move to replace her to prevent her from prosecuting senior members of the Rwandan military. 'Undue pressures took place to push me to abandon certain investigations,' Del Ponte told the council. 'Although I always considered my task as a prosecutor to be outside the scope of politics, I was unfortunately exposed more than I would have liked to politics.'... More than 500,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 by Hutu extremists from the former government."

Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan, provided $15,000 in 1998 to 911-connected Osama Bassnan and followed up with $2,000 monthly stipend checks to Bassnan's wife, Majida Ibrahim Ahmad - officially for her medical bills. The checks came from the Princess' account at Riggs Bank, where Bush's uncle Jonathan Bush is a top executive. According to PentaPost, "The Saudi Embassy called the president of Riggs [the night of 11-22-02] after learning of the FBI investigation from media inquiries prompted by a report posted on Newsweek magazine's Web site. Bank officials opened the bank so that embassy employees could spend the night going through the checks that had been issued from the princess's account." Did Riggs Bank help Saudi officials SCRUB the checks to eliminate any incriminating information? We demand an investigation!

PentaPost reports Condi Rice has "become enmeshed in the controversy over the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to war. She has been made to appear out of the loop by colleagues' claims that she did not read or recall vital pieces of intelligence. And she has made statements about U.S. intelligence on Iraq that have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. The remarks by Rice and her associates raise two uncomfortable possibilities for the national security adviser. Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false."

PentaPost reports, "Among the only clues cited in the report about Bush's knowledge of al Qaeda's intentions against the United States is an Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing (PDB) - described in the report only as a 'closely-held intelligence report' - that included information 'acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of [Osama] Bin Laden supporters was planning attacks IN THE UNITED STATES with explosives.'... In a May 16, 2002, briefing for reporters, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the PDB was a historical look at bin Laden's methods dating to 1997. She characterized the briefing as an 'analytic report' that summed up bin Laden's methods of operation. 'It was not a warning,' she said. 'There was no specific time or place mentioned.'... Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) said he doubted Bush was complacent about warnings he received. 'The intelligence community was providing him information. He wasn't AWOL.'" Bush WAS AWOL - just like 1972-73! Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost reports the new Pentagon plan for Iraq "assumes that 156,000 U.S. forces battling a stubborn Baathist insurgency will have to remain in Iraq well into next year, showing that defense officials have now abandoned an earlier belief that they could begin to withdraw some U.S. forces this fall. But the plan is built upon the arrival of a third multinational division in February or March to replace the 101st Airborne Division [which is highly unlikely]. With more than 60% of the Army's active-duty combat force deployed in Iraq, Army planners were forced to abandon six-month tours for most overseas deployments in favor of year-long assignments to sustain a force of that size. The last time the Army used year-long deployments was Vietnam... 'Is the force stressed? Yes, the force is stressing hard to meet its challenges,' Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal." America is WEAKER thanks to Bush!

PentaPost reports, "The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about [the Niger Uranium Hoax, saying it] relied on weak evidence, was not particularly significant and assumed Iraq was pursuing an acquisition that was arguably not possible and of questionable value because Iraq had its own supplies... The disclosures punctured claims made by Rice and others in the past two weeks. Rice and other officials had asserted that nobody in the White House knew of CIA objections, and that the CIA supported the Africa accusation generally, making only technical objections about location and quantity. On Friday, a White House official [Karl Rove?] mischaracterized the CIA's objections, saying repeatedly that Tenet opposed the inclusion in Bush's Oct. 7 speech 'because it was single source, not because it was flawed." Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) called for further investigation.

PentaPost reports, "The letters are pouring in like a water main break -- fast and, yes, furious. From Alabama: 'We want to know the truth!' From Arizona: 'If there's nothing to hide, what's the harm in a bipartisan inquiry?' ... About 400,000 people from every state have contacted members of Congress in the past three weeks as part of a MoveOn.org petition that asks Congress to investigate the controversial claims that led to the war on Iraq, with more than 50,000 people signing on to the liberal activist Web site in the past five days alone. 'It seems more and more people who supported the war are signing on,' said Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org's campaigns director. 'They're angry. People who in the past couple of weeks before the war decided to support it are swinging back.' ... Not since hundreds of thousands of people across the country marched in antiwar rallies in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion has the rationale for the preemptive war come under such fire."

David Kelly's suicide resulted from a BBC story by Andrew Gilligan that claimed Bush's flak Alastair Campbell "sexed up" intelligence reports by claiming Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes. According to PentaPost, "The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a 'Global Message' issued Sept. 26 and still on the White House Web site, the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq 'could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given.'" Bush didn't even ask the CIA about this bogus "fact" - he just lied to the American people. Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost reports that on 7-16-03, "Senate Republicans held the line against Democratic efforts to challenge Bush over Iraq, rejecting initiatives to internationalize postwar operations and to create a commission to probe how intelligence was used -- or misused -- to justify going to war. The GOP-controlled Senate also defeated two Democratic proposals to force the administration to spell out the anticipated costs of continuing military operations in Iraq... The move to involve the United Nations and NATO in efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq was defeated, 52 to 43, after a heated debate during which Republicans accused the Democrats of trying to dictate to Bush how to carry out his role as commander in chief... The proposal for an independent, bipartisan commission to look into Iraq-related intelligence was offered by Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) and was rejected, 51 to 45."

PentaPost reports, "The House of Representatives erupted into open warfare today when Democrats stormed out of a Ways and Means Committee session and the panel's chairman called in the Capitol Police. The day began with a fairly ordinary procedural fight over [a] pension bill. Committee Democrats complained that the Republican majority had not given them enough time to review a substitute bill that they had received shortly before midnight Thursday. Most of the Democrats then moved to a nearby library to plot strategy after they demanded that Republicans read the legislation line by line. Infuriated, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) instructed the Capitol Police to remove the Democrats from the ornate library... After the one remaining Ways and Means Democrat got in a spat with a GOP committee member, Thomas dispensed with the reading of the bill altogether and pushed through the legislation, without a single Democratic vote." Finally - Dems fighting back!

PentaPost reports, "Gen. Abizaid also addressed the growing morale problems in the 3rd Infantry Division. He said that soldiers quoted yesterday on ABC News' 'Good Morning America' questioning their mission in Iraq and calling for Rumsfeld's resignation were wrong and could be disciplined. 'None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense or the president of the United States. We're not free to do that. It's our professional code,' he said." Gee, didn't they tell us our troops were fighting for "Democracy"? Nah, we must've been dreaming again.

PentaPost reports, "The U.S. military's new commander in Iraq acknowledged for the first time yesterday that American troops are engaged in a 'classical guerrilla-type' war against remnants of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and said Baathist attacks are growing in organization and sophistication. The statements by Army Gen. John Abizaid, in his first Pentagon briefing since taking charge of the U.S. Central Command last week, were in sharp contrast with earlier statements by Rumsfeld [and Bush, who declared 'Mission Accomplished' on 5-1-03]... The Baathist attacks, most troubling to U.S. forces, he said, are being staged by former mid-level Iraqi intelligence officials and Special Republican Guard personnel, who have organized cells at the regional level and ... 'are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It's low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it's war however you describe it.'" Bring our troops home!

PentaPost reports, "CIA Director George J. Tenet told the Senate intelligence committee yesterday that his staff did not bring to his attention a questionable statement about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa before Bush delivered his State of the Union address. But Tenet told the senators during a nearly five-hour session behind closed doors that he takes responsibility for the now-famous 16-word sentence in the speech because an agency official had approved it after negotiations with the White House, according to congressional and administration sources who attended the session. 'Members were stunned,' one Democratic senator in the meeting said, 'because he said he basically wasn't aware of the sentence until recently.'" Tenet is a red herring here - who in the WHITE HOUSE wrote the 16 words? Follow the keyboard!

Sit down for this one, folks. On 7-14-03, Bush answered PentaPost reporter Dana Milbank's question about the Niger Uranium Hoax as follows: "The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..." First, if Saddam "absolutely" had a WMD program in 2002 - as opposed to 1991 - then why has the US military been unable to find a SHRED of evidence after combing Iraq and interrogating its officials? But more importantly, how can Bush say Saddam "wouldn't let [UN inspectors] in" when EVERYONE in the world knows this is not true? This is no longer a question of spinning or lying - Bush has crossed the line into INSANITY. As "West Wing" fans know, the 25th Amendment allows a President to temporarily resign for medical or psychological reasons. Bush is INSANE - invoke the 25th!

PentaPost reports, "In a nationally televised address last October in which he sought to rally congressional support for a resolution authorizing war against Iraq, Resident Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States by outlining what he said was evidence pointing to its ongoing ties with al Qaeda... Bush, in his speech in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, made his case that Iraq had ties with al Qaeda, by mentioning several items such as high-level contacts that 'go back a decade.' He said 'we've learned' that Iraq trained al Qaeda members 'in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.' Although the resident offered essentially circumstantial evidence, his remarks contained none of the caveats about the reliability of this information as contained in the" National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the "consensus of the intelligence community," which considered Bush's allegations about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties to be utter Bushit. Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost reports, "The left-leaning advocacy group Moveon.org will hold its first online presidential primary later this month, a contest that could have a significant impact if any of the nine Democratic presidential candidates is able to seize the group's endorsement. The group will endorse, direct volunteers and raise money -- including holding an 'urgent' fundraiser in time for the Federal Election Commission's June 30 deadline -- for whomever is able to win at least 50 percent of its members' votes. If none of the candidates reaches that threshold -- and it may be difficult, given the size of the field -- the group will put off announcing its endorsement until this summer... 'Ordinary people, at the grass roots, often stand back until a lot of this is decided -- and it doesn't make a lot of sense,' said Wes Boyd, the group's president, explaining its decision. 'Why not play as much as the folks who attend the rubber chicken dinners play?' "

PentaPost reports, "William H. Pryor Jr., the attorney general of Alabama, was nominated for a lifetime seat on the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Senate aides from both parties said he has perhaps the most controversial views of any nominee who has come up for confirmation during Bush's presidency. Unlike many nominees, Pryor did not try to obscure his views on abortion at his Judiciary Committee hearing. He was asked several times about his past assertions that Roe v. Wade 'is an abominable decision' and 'the worst abomination of the history of constitutional law.' Pryor, who noted his Catholic faith, said he still believes that. 'I believe that not only is the case unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has led to a morally wrong result,' he said. 'It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children. That's my personal belief.'" Reject William Pryor!

PentaPost opines, "As Post writer Thomas B. Edsall reported last week, the Westar executives believed, as is evident from documents disclosed in a federal investigation of the company, that their donations to political groups linked with the four key Republicans would cause Congress to exempt their firm from a federal regulation they regarded as troublesome. Whether the campaign contributions were a quid pro quo for legislative action on a measure sought by Westar should not simply be a subject of debate between press secretaries and the media. Given the political game plan described by Westar executives and the subsequent legislative action that was taken, the matter warrants prompt investigation by the Department of Justice." Are we dreaming? Is the Pentagon Post REALLY demanding an investigation of Republicans???

PentaPost reports: "Having removed the government of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, the U.S. military will end operations in Saudi Arabia later this year, freeing the kingdom of a major political problem caused by the visible presence of U.S. forces in the land of Islam's two holiest shrines, defense officials announced today. Shutting down U.S. flights from Prince Sultan air base and moving the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center from here to nearby Qatar mark the beginning of what Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has described as a major realignment of U.S. military forces, not only in the Persian Gulf, but also in Europe and the Far East. Meeting this morning with service members here inside a giant aircraft hangar, Rumsfeld said he is attempting 'to refashion and rebalance those arrangements so that we're organized for the future.'"

At a time of rising rents, PentaPost reports that Bush seeks to end Section 8, the nation's major housing assistance program for the working poor, disabled and elderly, replacing it with "a new system of block grants that would be run by the states. Under the plan, introduced today in Congress, states would get a lump payment for housing vouchers [and] could change eligibility rules, combine housing and welfare policies, or provide shorter subsidies administered by religious and other nonprofit groups... Section 8 has been a staple of federal housing policy for nearly three decades. A renter who qualifies obtains a voucher and takes it to any private landlord willing to accept it." Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee, said, "I'm not prepared to make the leap of faith that states will handle this as fairly as HUD."

The entire "North Korean Nuke Crisis" is based entirely on an unsubstantiatable statement heard by James A. Kelly in a hallway whilst "officials" were "milling about." The Pentapost states "US officials are still puzzling over the statement...." As well they might, especially given Kelly's total lack of credibility and proven track record for not only trying to foment trouble, but willingness to commit serious crimes and buy influence. There is quite a lot of evidence that the only reason Kelly has a position in the Bush administration in the first place is that he purchased it in the form of generous donations to the Bush campaign fund using stolen money obtained in the course of what is now called "Taiwangate." And, just last October, Kelly was making the same sort of inflammatory and unsubstantiatable comments re: No Korea, no doubt to get the ball rolling for the next "invasion of the Evildoers."

"The role of propaganda and propagandists figured prominently at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, convened to render judgment on the Nazi leaders following World War II. The tribunal was an institution organized by the victorious Allied governments, serving in the final analysis the ruling classes of those countries. Nonetheless, in their arguments US prosecutors set forth a democratic legal principle derived from the international experience of a half-century of carnage: that planning and launching an aggressive war constituted a criminal act and that those who helped prepare such a war through their propaganda efforts were as culpable as those who drew up the battle plans or manufactured the munitions." We demand the indictment of the chiefs of mainstream American media as war criminals, along with their White House partners, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Vicki Clarke and Ari Flesicher!

"Arcata was one of the first cities to pass resolutions against global warming and a unilateral war in Iraq. Last month, it joined the rising chorus of municipalities to pass a resolution urging local law enforcement officials and others contacted by federal officials to refuse requests under the Patriot Act that they believe violate an individual's civil rights under the Constitution. Then, the city went a step further. This little city (pop.: 16,000) has become the first in the nation to pass an ordinance that outlaws voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act... The Arcata ordinance may be the first, but it may not be the last. Across the country, citizens have been forming Bill of Rights defense committees to fight what they consider the most egregious curbs on liberties contained in the Patriot Act." Hawaii Democratic State Rep. Roy Takumi said, "If a number of states begin to pass similar resolutions, then it raises the bar for Congress, making them realize our concerns."

PentaPost reports, "Mosques have filled up with confiscated loot, popular committees are being organised by clergy to restore civil services and order, and some prayer leaders have taken to patrolling their neighbourhoods, forcing bakeries to feed people... But the rise of the clerics hints at the formidable challenges that might face any new government in Baghdad: Sunni-Shiite disputes, the spectre of warlords seizing and administering territory, and the dangerous jockeying for position with United States forces. The clerics are among the first to articulate their postwar intentions: a government shaped if not controlled by religious leaders who enjoy respect and authority among Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. 'The clergy are taking over,' Maher Abdel-Hassan, a 42-year-old prayer leader in the neighbourhood, said with a mix of hope and satisfaction. 'There's no other authority. The people will only obey the orders of the religious men.'"

PentaPost reports that Congress has ordered Bush "to 'seek to identify families of non-combatant Iraqis who were killed or injured or whose homes were damaged during recent military operations, and to provide appropriate assistance.' The provision was inserted in the $78.5 billion emergency spending bill by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)... 'Innocent civilians have suffered grievous losses,' Leahy said. 'As we help rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, we should do what we can to assist the innocent, to show that we were not at war against them and that the US does not walk away. It is the right thing to do, and it is in our own national interest'... [The Pentagon said it] 'has no plans' to determine the total civilian casualty toll. Before its demise, the Iraqi government reported 1,254 civilian deaths as of April 3. The Bush administration has offered no estimates" - nor has the PentaPost. IraqBodyCount.org counts 1600+

PentaPost reports, "In the months leading up to the Iraq war, U.S. scholars repeatedly urged the Defense Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country. Late in January, a mix of scholars, museum directors, art collectors and antiquities dealers asked for and were granted a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss their misgivings. McGuire Gibson, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, said yesterday that he went back twice more, and he and colleagues peppered Defense Department officials with e-mail reminders in the weeks before the war began. 'I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected,' Gibson said." History will record that BushFeld was warned - just like 911.

PentaPost reports, "The Bush administration escalated sharp diplomatic warnings to Syria today, accusing Iraq's neighbor of developing chemical weapons, harboring former Iraqi leaders and allowing foreign fighters to enter Iraq to attack U.S. troops." Do any of these words matter? Of course not. If the Bush Nazis want to conquer Syria next, they don't need any "reasons" - might makes right, period. Indict Bush on War Crimes now!

As a farce of a newspaper, the Pentagon Post knows a farce when it sees one. "With the two houses unable to agree on a bottom line for tax cuts, they took the unprecedented step of crafting a budget resolution that contains two separate tax cut numbers, one for the Senate ($350 billion through 2013), the other for the House ($550 billion over the same period). This had the effect -- farce #1 -- of simply postponing resolution of what seems to be intractable disagreement. The final version, however, contained a technical but important twist. It would allow the Senate to pass tax cuts of up to $350 billion by a simple majority vote; anything higher would require 60 votes, a high hurdle in the closely divided Senate. That rule would change, however, once the two chambers passed their competing tax plans and moved to conference. At that stage -- farce #2 -- tax cuts of up to the House number, $550 billion, would be able to pass the Senate by majority vote."

PentaPost opines, "Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY), has out-Lotted Mr. Lott. Mrs. Cubin's remarks came not in a birthday tribute to a centenarian but on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the midst of a serious debate on a gun measure... And unlike in the case of Mr. Lott, Mrs. Cubin's remarks seem to have provoked barely a word of protest from her Republican colleagues... To argue analogously that the amendment would have kept dealers from selling guns in the black community is true only if you subscribe to a worldview in which 'African American' equals 'presumptive drug user.' Yet more astonishing than Mrs. Cubin's obtuseness was that when the full House considered whether to have Mrs. Cubin's words 'taken down' as offensive... it voted in her favor, 227 to 195. Not a single Republican lawmaker voted against the remarks. Afterward, not a word of criticism from House Republican leaders. "

PentaPost reports, "Antiwar activists will rally at Freedom Plaza and supporters of U.S. policy on Iraq will converge on the Mall [Saturday], and anti-globalization demonstrators will make their return to Washington on Sunday in rallies and marches that will close several downtown streets.... [Saturday's] rally will start at noon at Freedom Plaza, followed by a march to the Justice Dept, to the offices of Bechtel Group Inc. and other corporations that activists say stand to profit from the war and to media outlets such as Fox News and The Washington Post, which organizers criticize for their coverage of the war. With the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad, organizers said the focus of the antiwar demonstration would shift from stopping the war to ending the military occupation. 'It violates the Iraqi people's basic right to self-determination and constitutes a new form of colonialism,' said ANSWER organizer Brian Becker. 'It's a brutal occupation. It's not liberation.'"

Remember all the southern Republicans who demanded that Democrats "get over" the Stolen Election of 2000? Gee, why can't they "get over" the Civil War? PentaPost reports, " The unveiling of an Abraham Lincoln statue today in downtown Richmond, a city his armies once conquered, was heralded as part of an effort to heal old wounds. But the ceremony was carried out amid catcalls and protests by promoters of Confederate heritage... About 100 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and their families gathered at the nearby grave of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, to protest the Lincoln statue. 'As long as I'm commander in chief, we will never accept it,' vowed Ron Wilson, national commander of the group. 'We are going to fight these people everywhere they raise their head.'" Boy, that sure sounds a lot like the Muslim jihadists Bush is creating in the Iraq War...

PentaPost reports, "In his dark suit, knotted tie and official congressional ID pin on his lapel, Republican House member Mike Ferguson looked out of place at the Rhino Bar and Pumphouse, a Georgetown saloon popular with college kids. 'He shouldn't have even been at the bar,' 21-year-old Georgetown U. junior Michelle Mezoe told us. 'He and his group' - two unidentified staffers, also wearing suits - 'stuck out like sore thumbs.' Yesterday Mezoe accused the congressman, a 32-year-old married father of three representing New Jersey's 7th District, of grabbing her in the wee hours Wednesday morning. She said Ferguson removed his ID pin and handed it to her, saying she could keep it if she would 'come back and have a drink with me.' Mezoe said she refused to return it unless Ferguson apologized for his 'disrespectful' behavior. An apology was not forthcoming" - in fact, Ferguson is blaming Mezoe! We DEMAND 24x7 harassment by all media scandalmongers who stalked Clinton and Condit!

PentaPost reports, "A shuddering sense of outrage at Bush and the US fell over the Arab world today as television networks and newspapers reported a U.S. air assault that Iraqi officials said killed 58 people at a vegetable market in Baghdad. 'Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad,' said a huge headline in al-Dustur, a newspaper in Amman, Jordan... 'Mr. Bush has lost us. We are gone. Enough. That's the end,' said Diaa Rashwan, head of the comparative politics unit at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. 'If America starts winning tomorrow, there will be suicide bombing that will start in America the next day. It is a whole new level now.' The anger was a clear sign that U.S.-Arab relations, despite Bush's campaign to win hearts and minds, was at a low point. 'Bush is an occupier and terrorist. He thought he was playing a video game,' said George Elnaber, 36, an Arab Christian. 'We hate Americans more than we hate Saddam now.'"

PentaPost reports, "Ten days into a war fought under the flag of disarmament, U.S.-led troops have found no substantial sign of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction... U.S. forces have tested 10 of their best intelligence leads, four that first day and another half-dozen since, without result. There are nearly 300 sites in the top tier of a much larger list that the DIA updated in the run-up to war. The 10 sites reached by Friday were among the most urgent. If equipped as suspected, they would have posed an immediate threat to U.S. forces. 'All the searches have turned up negative,' said a Joint Staff officer who is following field reports. 'The munitions that have been found have all been conventional.'... [Bush] is determined to conduct the weapons hunt without the U.N. agencies... [Hans Blix said UNMOVIC 'would not accept 'being led, as a dog' to sites that allied forces choose to display.'" The Democrats.com $1,000 reward for evidence of Iraqi WMD remains unclaimed...

PentaPost reports, "Marine Cpl. Bret Woolhether heard the first round and tried to take cover, but it was too late. 'I just turned my head, saw the flash of white, saw the warm red running down my hand,' the 20-year-old from Fond du Lac, Wis., recalled at a hospital today. 'I thought it was the end. I saw that round hit. I thought I was done.' They call it the turkey shoot, and they are the targets. Every day, Marines trying to keep critical supply lines open to forward units heading toward Baghdad run a gantlet through the strategic crossroads city of Nasiriyah -- over one bridge, up a few miles and then over another bridge. If they make it without getting shot at, they are lucky. [It] has become perhaps the most treacherous few miles in Iraq. A contingent of about 120 Marines trying to make it to the first bridge Wednesday came under fire from assault weapons and RPG's; about 15 of their Humvees and seven-ton trucks were destroyed and more than 60 of the Marines were wounded."

PentaPost reports, "Intelligence analysts at the CIA and Pentagon warned the Bush administration that U.S. troops would face significant resistance from Iraqi irregular forces employing guerrilla tactics, but those views have not been adequately reflected in the administration's public predictions about how difficult a war might go, according to current and former intelligence officials. CIA analysts 'thought there was a good chance we would be forced to fight our way through everything. They were much more cautious about it being an easy situation.' With U.S. and British troops being forced to defend a more than 200-mile supply line from the Kuwaiti border to U.S. troops 50 miles from Baghdad and to fend off small-scale attacks by the Iraqi irregular forces, analysts at the CIA and the DIA are complaining that their reports [were] softened as they moved to the White House." Just like 9-11, Bush ignored the warnings - at the cost of precious American lives. Impeach Bush Now!

PentaPost reports, "Despite the rapid advance of Army and Marine forces across Iraq over the past week, some senior U.S. military officers are now convinced that the war is likely to last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait, senior defense officials said yesterday. The combination of wretched weather, long and insecure supply lines, and an enemy that has refused to be supine in the face of American military might has led to a broad reassessment by some top generals of U.S. military expectations and timelines. Some of them see even the potential threat of a drawn-out fight that sucks in more and more U.S. forces. Both on the battlefield in Iraq and in Pentagon conference rooms, military commanders were talking yesterday about a longer, harder war than had been expected just a week ago, the officials said. 'Tell me how this ends,' one senior officer said yesterday."

PentaPost reports, "With the nation at war, the White House has introduced a new justification for Bush's $726 billion tax cut: Do it for the troops. Three times in the past week, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has urged the passage of Bush's tax cut, as he put it Monday, 'to make sure that the economy can grow and that jobs can be created, so that when our men and women in the military return home, they'll have jobs to come home to.'... Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) yesterday linked his support for the war spending to his tax-cut opposition. 'I find it disturbing that this request comes as Bush continues to dig us further in debt by pushing through a massive tax cut to benefit the most affluent,' he said. 'That's simply wrong considering our nation is at war and our service men and women are being asked to give the ultimate sacrifice halfway around the world.'" Tell your Senators - no tax cuts for the rich!

PentaPost reports, "Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Justice Department and FBI have dramatically increased the use of two little-known powers that allow authorities to tap telephones, seize bank and telephone records and obtain other information in counterterrorism investigations with no immediate court oversight, according to officials and newly disclosed documents. The FBI, for example, has issued scores of 'national security letters' that require businesses to turn over electronic records about finances, telephone calls, e-mail and other personal information. The letters, a type of administrative subpoena, may be issued independently by FBI field offices and are not subject to judicial review unless a case comes to court, officials said. John Ashcroft has also personally signed more than 170 'emergency foreign intelligence warrants,' three times the number authorized in the preceding 23 years, according to recent congressional testimony."

David Broder writes for PentaPost: "Under the shadow of war with Iraq, the House and Senate last week fought a series of skirmishes over the federal budget for next year. One big, overriding question was at stake: Would Bush and the Republican majorities in Congress step up to the costs of battle, of homeland defense and of national obligations at home, or would they pass the costs on to future generations? The answer, sadly, is that youngsters yet unborn will see their choices limited and their prospects blighted by the decision of today's politicians to press ahead with an unaffordable tax cut even while the costs of war and reconstruction make earlier spending estimates wildly unrealistic."

PentaPost reports, "The U.S. Army is conducting a criminal investigation into whether its soldiers caused the deaths of two Afghan prisoners at Bagram air base in December... The men died while under U.S. control, and a military pathologist listed homicide as their official cause of death... Many al Qaeda and Taliban operatives captured by U.S. and allied forces reportedly have been brought to the base at Bagram, about 35 miles north of Kabul, where a detention center has been established. U.S. officials will not identify prisoners held there... One of the prisoners, listed as Dilawar, 22, from the Khost area in southeastern Afghanistan, died on Dec. 10 from 'blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease,' according to his death certificate. The other, Mullah Habibullah, about 30, from the southern province of Oruzgan, died on Dec. 3. According to King, his death was also attributed to a blunt force injury, in addition to a blood clot in the lung."

BuzzFlash reader Mary carefully analyzed a PentaPost article on "valuable new information" on Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. "This article tells us that the inspections were always a farce and a set-up. First because we were not interested in disarmament in the first place, or we would have planned for it - rather than planning to attack Iraq for a year before we got around to dealing with disarmament. And secondly, because we sabotaged the very inspections that we insisted on being held. We are furthermore going to supplant the UN's legitimate role in post-war inspections and replace it with a team of people who spied for us on the previous set of sham UN inspections... The whole thrust of the new "inspections" team they are setting up is only to come up with a 'smoking gun,' and fast. It is all appearances, all fakery."

PentaPost reports, "As part of a noontime protest north of Lafayette Square across from the White House, about 20 activists ran into the intersection of 16th and H streets NW and lay down on the pavement, as police encircled them and kept nearly 200 chanting supporters on the sidewalk... Officers blocked traffic while members of the group were taken one by one to a police van, watched by dozens of journalists, office workers and tourists. Some onlookers jeered protesters; others applauded them. About 20 other activists, including some high school and college students, split from the main protest and staged similar blockades at two intersections on 16th Street and another on 17th Street. They returned to 16th and H, and six of them were arrested. 'The whole point is to show that this is a little bit of the chaos that must be going on in Baghdad,' said Josh Healey, 18, a University of Wisconsin student on spring break." No mention of the Blackhawk helicopters roaring overhead...

PentaPost reports, "'It's a baldfaced lie to suggest that' the coalition for this war is greater than that for the 1991 war,' said Ivo H. Daalder... 'Even our great allies Spain, Italy and Bulgaria are not providing troops.' The administration asserts that 44 nations are part of the coalition, but officials reach that number by lumping nations providing military units or logistical assistance with an eclectic group of nations that are voicing only political support. The administration further suggests another 10 or so nations support the campaign but do not wish to be publicly identified. The first Persian Gulf War was prosecuted by a 34-nation military force, with each nation listed in the coalition contributing troops on the ground, aircraft, ships or medics. Dozens of others nations voiced support for the war against Iraq in 1991, meaning that under the standards used by the current Bush administration, the size of the 1991 coalition likely topped 100 countries."

PentaPost reports, "U.S. and British marines took over the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr today, and other U.S. troops rolled northward toward Baghdad as the United States and Britain expanded their campaign to oust President Saddam Hussein across several fronts. TV images of the U.S. Third Infantry division rolling across the desert unimpeded created the impression of a cakewalks, but in southeastern Iraq, British and U.S. marines reported surprisingly stiff resistance as they advanced toward key oil installations and port facilities. At one point U.S. Marines were pinned down in a two-hour firefight as Iraqi troops opened fire with machine guns and anti-tank rockets. One U.S. Marine was killed in fighting inside Iraq, the first casualty of hostile fire since the war began on Wednesday, according to U.S. Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a military spokesman in Doha, Qatar. No other details were given. Earlier, eight British marines and four Americans died in the crash of CH-46E Sea King helicopter."

PentaPost reports, "GOP lawmakers and lobbyists say the tactics the Bush administration uses on friends and allies have been uniquely fierce and vindictive. Just as the administration used unbending tactics before the U.N. Security Council with normally allied countries such as Mexico, Germany and France, the Bush White House has calculated that it can overcome domestic adversaries if it tolerates no dissent from its friends... The forms of pressure: exclusions from White House guest lists, a loss of access to key Bush aides, calls to dissenters' superiors, veiled threats saying the White House has noted the transgression or even shouted accusations... 'I think this monomaniacal call for loyalty is unhealthy,' [Club for Growth's Stephen] Moore said. 'It's dangerous to declare anybody who crosses you an enemy for life.'" Hey guys - stand up to Bully Bush and join the Democrats!

As if murder and imperialism weren't bad enough, PentaPost reports: "Experts warned this week that a war in Iraq will cause 'massive and possibly irreversible' environmental damage to the Persian Gulf region and significantly add to the problem of global warming. As about 250,000 U.S. and British troops prepared to move against President Saddam Hussein's forces, international environmental leaders said the ensuing damage to Iraq's ecosystem and food and water supplies may eclipse the destruction to that region during the 1990-1991 Gulf war. 'I think it will be comprehensive damage and I don't think it will be localized to the area of Iraq, regardless of how precise and surgical our bombing campaign will be,' said Ross Mirkarimi, a San Francisco-based environmental analyst who made two trips to Iraq shortly after U.S.-led forces drove the Iraqis from Kuwait."

PentaPost reports, "Republicans are implicitly challenging the patriotism of some Democrats who have criticized Bush's war plans, a sign that the divisive politics marking the 108th Congress are unlikely to cease during wartime. While many foreign leaders and tens of millions of Americans oppose war with Iraq, Bush and GOP congressional leaders are reacting with vitriol to Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) for saying this week Bush 'failed miserably' in his diplomacy, an assessment shared publicly by many other Democrats. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) this week told Daschle in French to 'shut your mouth,' and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), normally reserved in his rhetoric, said Daschle came 'mighty close' to providing comfort to the nation's enemies. In an interview yesterday, DeLay said Daschle and other outspoken congressional Democrats are only 'emboldening Saddam Hussein' by echoing concerns raised by France and other international critics of Bush's approach."

PentaPost writes, "I hate to be giving advice to Saddam Hussein at this moment, but clearly, the most effective path for any enemy of America is to put on a helmet that makes him look like Franz Liebkind, the unreconstructed Nazi in Mel Brooks' 'The Producers,' get himself a John Deere tractor and drive it into a shallow decorative pond. That'll shut down any American city but good. For more than 24 hours now, a lone farmer from Whitakers, N.C., has held the capital of the free world hostage, causing the authorities to shut down several major thoroughfares and paralyzing much of the city. The tobacco farmer, Dwight Watson, 50, supposedly questions the wisdom of U.S. tobacco farming policies." Can one person make a difference? Absolutely!

Tom Kelm writes, "The Washington Post's coverage of the Global Vigils for Peace in today's paper was pathetic. The only article was in the Metro section, and the only vigil mentioned was the one on the Mall. There were thousands of vigils in over 140 countries. Yet, the Post only mentioned one of them. Their coverage in general has favored pro-war voices over those who favor peace. This behavior undermines the credibility of the publication which is supposed to report the news, not act as a propaganda arm of the GOP. Let the Washington Post know that this pro-war, conservative, and pro-Republican bias is unacceptable. Demand that pro-peace voices get equal space in their coverage and that pro-peace voices get just as prominent coverage as pro-war voices. Here is some contact information from www.washpost.com, the publication's business web site. The current Post Ombudsman is Michael Getler. You can reach him by e-mail at ombudsman@washpost.com or by phone at 202-334-7582."

The Pentagon Post is mad at Bush - not for launching a criminal W-ar of aggression in Iraq, but for doing it so clumsily that we have just two allies. PentaPost insists the W-ar is about "disarming" Iraq, thus ignoring the proven fact that Iraq has no nuclear program left, and the nearly-proven fact that Iraq has no chemical or biological weapons either. Iraq is the first application of the PentaPost doctrine, which declares: "The United States is ready to use its strength to face threats to world peace that it tried to contain or ignore in the first decade after the Cold War." In other words, the entire world belongs to the US, and our military can conquer any nation it pleases as long as it incants the magic words "world peace." Excuse us, but that's exactly the reason the United Nations was created. There's only one word for such a unilateralist doctrine - Imperialism.

PentaPost reports, "Today's protests coincide with antiwar events in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles and demonstrations around the world. Hannah Shatz, 23, of Greenville, Mich., is one of 56 people with the Coalition Against War who traveled overnight by bus from Ann Arbor, Mich., to attend today's protest. 'I'm here today in W's hometown because the person I love is in the Army, and I don't want him to go to war,' she said, adding that her husband is a helicopter mechanic in the Army. 'Saddam Hussein is a threat to his own people. Something has to be done but not war.' said Shatz, wearing a navy blue T-shirt that shows a mushroom cloud with the words 'That's all folks.'"

PentaPost reports, "A US-backed U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing war against Iraq appears doomed to fail, though the Bush administration agreed to a British request to continue negotiations until Monday... US officials in recent days have claimed, without providing evidence, that they were within striking distance of reaching the necessary nine votes on the deeply divided Security Council. But officials were noticeably gloomy today after a British compromise offered Wednesday was largely rejected by the six countries that are officially undecided. In addition to an almost certain French veto, and the possibility of a Russian veto, officials said they were convinced they would not even achieve what they call the 'moral victory' of nine votes... The apparent defeat of the resolution would be a stunning diplomatic setback for Bush and... Blair... The failure to win all but a handful of votes for military action is an unusually public rebuff of the US. "

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich writes, "Is President[sic] Bush's war in Iraq about oil? Of course it is. Sometimes, the obvious answer is the right one: Oil is a major factor in the President's [sic] march to war, just as oil is a major factor in every aspect of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf... Oil obviously drives U.S. policy in the Middle East. So who can doubt that this war in Iraq concerns oil?" Alternet adds, "Although Dennis Kucinich was aggressively attacked by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen for suggesting that the preemptive strike on Iraq was based on oil, the Post refused to print the presidential candidate and Ohio Democrat's response. This was especially frustrating, since the Post editorial stance and balance of editorial page columns have been decidedly pro-war. You can tell the Post how you feel about this omission at ombudsman@washpost.com."

Here's a remarkable buried paragraph from a PentaPost story: "British officials also expressed fresh concern that failure to obtain a resolution authorizing war against Iraq would expose them to potential prosecution by a newly established International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over war crimes. Britain is a signatory to the treaty establishing the tribunal, but the United States is not. Blair was advised by his attorney general last October that military action to force 'regime change' in Baghdad would violate international law." It's heartening to learn that the "rule of law" still applies in Britain - and it's shocking to realize that Bush is willing to wantonly violate international law, and has pulled the US out of the ICC to escape "personal responsibility" - spending the rest of his wasted life behind bars.

PentaPost reports, "Few would suspect that Rove regularly trades tips with Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager; she tells Rove how Bush's proposals are faring among Democrats, while Rove makes sure her clients are included in White House events... Brian Lunde, former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and one of the few Democrats on the list, helped the Bush 2000 campaign round up Democratic supporters. After Bush took office, Lunde has recommended Democrats for White House appointments, especially in cases requiring selections from both parties. During consideration of trade proposals and protective measures for the steel industry, Lunde could suggest to Rove potential Democratic supporters, which, in turn, advanced the interests of such Lunde clients as the Business Roundtable and Nucor Steel, which backed the administration initiatives."

PentaPost reports, "In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a broad critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy, restating her opposition to an attack against Iraq. 'I do not believe that going to war now is the best way to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,' Pelosi said. 'Before going to war we must exhaust all alternatives, such as the continuation of inspections, diplomacy and the leverage provided by the threat of military action.' In her first major foreign policy address as Democratic leader, Pelosi suggested Bush has wasted the goodwill the United States received after Sept. 11, 2001. 'We cannot turn away from the network of alliances and international organizations that we have helped build,' she said."

PentaPost writes, "A senior Republican lawmaker, firing back at Bush for recent statements blaming Congress for underfunding emergency workers, accused the White House of factual inaccuracy and inadequate communication. In an extraordinary departure from the public unity that has characterized White House relations with congressional Republicans, House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) wrote to urge White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to 'be responsible' and 'move on from this pointless and harmful debate' over legislation passed last month that included money for 'first responders' involved in homeland security... 'I believe White House statements that Congress only provided $1.3 billion for first responders are factually inaccurate because you have narrowly chosen programs that only you believe will support the first-responder community,' Young wrote in the three-page letter accusing the White House of various contradictions and inconsistencies."

PentaPost reports, "Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed 'not authentic' after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts, Mohamed ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council. ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim -- made twice by Bush in major speeches and repeated by Colin L. Powell yesterday -- that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment... Bush, in his speech to the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 12, said Iraq had made 'several attempts to buy-high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons'... In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, Bush said Iraq had 'attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.'" We're sick of the lies - impeach Bush and Powell!

PentaPost reports on Bush's 8th solo press conference after 2+ years, compared to Clinton (30), Poppy (58), Raygun (16), Carter (45), Ford (37), Nixon (16), and LBJ (52). "Communications director Dan Bartlett said this White House uses news conferences more sparingly than other types of presidential events, because 'if you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction.' 'In this case, we know what the questions are going to be, and those are the ones we want to answer,' Bartlett said. 'We think the public will see the thought and care and attention he's given to a lot of the different questions that are being asked about the diplomatic side and the military side and the potential post-Iraq issue. These are all legitimate questions that he has answers for and wants to talk about.'" So how come Bush didn't have an answer for ANY of the questions he was asked, and how come he couldn't WAIT to stop talking???

PentaPost blames Bush's Iraq failure on "a number of factors. These include its hard-edged rhetoric, and what many say is a growing distrust of the administration's motives and its failure to make a case that Iraq poses an imminent danger." Start with the "Fox Factor": "The blunt talk often used by Bush and other senior U.S. officials when referring to Iraq - often effective among supporters at home - has not translated well among foreign audiences." Second is the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle axis of W-ar: "The Pentagon intensified its military buildup around Iraq even as the inspections got underway, signaling that the United States was prepared to go into battle regardless of what the United Nations decided." Last is the Bushit Factor: "Most fundamentally, the administration has not been able to convince enough people around the world that Iraq posed enough of a threat to justify war," by constantly switching rationales from "regime change" to "disarmament" to "democracy."

We recently renamed the Washington Post as the Pentagon Post (PentaPost for short) for its one-sided support for the Pentagon Axis of War: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle. Now Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman have compiled the data. "Over the six-month period from September through February, the leading newspaper in the nation's capital has editorialized 26 times in favor of war. It has sometimes been critical of the Bush administration, it has sometimes commented on developments in the drive to war without offering an opinion on the case for war itself, but it has never offered a peep against military action in Iraq. Does this shockingly one-sided treatment on the Post editorial pages of the major issue of the day matter? It matters a lot." If you subscribe to the PentaPost, cancel your subscription and say No War in Iraq!

The Washington Post is dead. It has simply become the propaganda arm of the Pentagon. Even though Hans Blix said this week Iraq is "cooperating on substance," the PentaPost declares its support for Bush's W-ar resolution that says Iraq has failed "at any time ... to cooperate fully." The PentaPost turns reality on its head when it declares Bush's resolution is NOT a "unilateral diktat from the Bush administration." It smears France and Russia by declaring their "priority is not disarming rogue states, or strengthening world government, or even preventing war per se. It is, rather, to neutralize what the French call the American 'hyperpower.'" And it concludes by urging Bush to declare unilateral W-ar: "When its security is threatened [HOW???], there is no reason for the United States to accept such paralysis -- especially when it has the unambiguous terms of U.N. resolutions on its side."