Monday, March 15, 2004

Bush's wife, mom worried Time reveals a Bush-Cheney strategy to take better advantage of their incumbent status: More photo-ops. "Sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month." [Salon] 8:52:20 PM

Bush booted from cockpit? As a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard, George Bush insists he voluntarily stopped flying in 1972 because he simply lost interest in being a pilot. That explanation has never washed (most pilots would rather fly than eat), and now a new possibility has emerged; the Pentagon, suspicious of possible drug or alcohol use, booted Bush from the cockpit. That's the intriguing scenario laid out in a detailed, must-read from Sunday's Spokane, WA., Spokesman-Review newspaper. [Salon] 8:51:26 PM

In Rumsfeld's own words "If Iraq did not have WMD, why did they pose an immediate threat to this country?" Rumsfeld countered with: "You and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase 'immediate threat.' I didn't...It's become kind of folklore that that's what happened." Folklore, huh? Rumsfeld then issued this challenge: "If you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em." The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, also on the CBS panel, obliged, reading Rumsfeld his own testimony to Congress in September 2002: "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people" than Iraq and that "some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent [but] I would not be so certain." [Salon] 8:49:42 PM

Behind the jobs debacle Bush's jobs forecast failed because there's been no jobs recovery at all. [Salon] 8:48:01 PM

Going negative He's the father of the modern attack ad, and he's behind the Bush campaign's new wave of anti-Kerry spots. Alex Castellanos is known as vicious, irresponsible -- and effective. [Salon] 8:47:51 PM

The Arabian candidate How George W. Bush's close ties to Islamic lobbying groups -- and to an accused supporter of Palestinian terrorism -- may have brought him his razor-thin margin of victory in Florida. [Salon] 8:47:32 PM

British Camp Delta Detainee Speaks Out The first British suspect to be released from Camp Delta, Manchester-born Jamal al-Harith, gives a damning account of life in Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta in a three part article in today's Daily Mirror. He describes torture, systematic beatings, forced medication, exposure, inadequate sanitation and denial of religious rights, along with the claim that prostitutes were hired to humiliate inmates. [Kuro5hin.org] 8:46:54 PM

Stations playing Bush campaign ads for free during news? A few nights ago, I was watching the local news on an Hearst-Argyle owned ABC news affiliate, WCVB. They launched into a story about Bush's reelection campaign, and how some of that huge pile of money was being put to action for a new commercial. Then to my surprise they ran it in entirety, full screen, with no voiceover commentary. Our President, with $190M in campaign funds, was getting what seemed suspiciously like a freebie. [Kuro5hin.org] 8:46:08 PM

California attorney general preparing to slam P2P Wired News just ran an article by Xeni exposing a draft letter circulated by Bill Lockyer, California attorney general slamming P2P. The metadata on the Word document shows that it has been edited/reviewed by the Motion Picture Association of America. Another example of Hollywood using the US government to push its agenda to blame and limit technology which it views as a threat. It is me, or is this pretty "smoking gun"? [Joi Ito's Web] 8:44:35 PM

Is U.S. Grossly Mistreating Guantanamo Prisoners? If any significant portion of this story -- told by a recently released Guantanamo Bay "enemy combatant" prisoner -- is true, the United States is probably violating all kinds of international laws. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 8:43:18 PM

Bush Administration Invents Journalists to Tout Programs NY Times: U.S. Videos, for TV News, Come Under Scrutiny. Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines. The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8. The deceptions are bad enough. The shamelessness of these people is even more amazing. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 8:43:02 PM

Copyright Cartel Leads California Attorney General by Nose Xeni Jardin got her hands on (Wired News) a draft letter California's state attorney general is circulating among his colleagues in other states. Turns out the letter has the fingerprints of, you guessed it, the copyright cartel in Hollywood. The goal this time is to wipe out or clamp down on peer-to-peer technology. The notion is absurd on its face, because the Internet itself is effectively illegal if this stuff is illegal. Bill Lockyer has been, on balance, a good AG. But he should not be carrying water for people who would stifle free speech, which is fundamentally the cartel's intent, in the name of protecting copyrights. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 8:42:37 PM

ghost writing the CA Attorney General's policies In the latest example of Word not keeping its secrets, Joi reports that the California Attorney General is circulating a draft letter condeming p2p sharing -- a letter authored by the MPAA. [Lessig Blog] 8:41:27 PM

Bush: flag law breaker? Skippy sez: "I heard, years ago, about a rule prohibiting the use of the flag in advertising for any means. I committed this to memory, but never looked it up. No one ever believed me when I mentioned it, because I couldn’t cite a reference for it. "I looked this up after seeing a link to this page, which compares the latest updates from Kerry's and Bush's blogs side-by-side (ingenious, if you ask me!). It ticked me off that Bush was using the flag, and I decided to find out whether my memory was correct. "It turns out that George W. Bush's website is in violation of the United States Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 3. He owes $100, or thirty days in jail." Link [Boing Boing Blog] 8:40:41 PM

State Attorney - the MPAA's man - urges P2P ban Elected official flaks for Hollywood [The Register] 8:35:44 PM

Bush Family Value$ Since George Bush [Sr.] raised "family values" as a campaign issue repeatedly, though, it seems only fair to take a look at his own family. A computer search showed that over the past five years stories have periodically surfaced chronicling the individual business antics of the president's sons -- each riding comfortably through life in the slipstream of his father's growing power and influence. 10:09:32 AM

Office of Special Plans At Salon, a former lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Air Force describes in withering detail what it was like to be inside the Pentagon during the year leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Five pages of tales on the "Office of Special Plans," the neoconservatives who run it, their continuous bungling, and most significantly, their willful and calculated manipulation of reality to build a case for war on Iraq from the flimsiest premises. [birdhouse.org] 9:52:20 AM

Choke Collar In one day, two examples relating to squashed speech and the RNC: The Republican National Committee is telling television stations not to run MoveOn ads that criticize President Bush. The RNC is trying to convince network execs that the ads are illegally funded, while MoveOn says that "The federal campaign laws have permitted precisely this use of [soft] money for advertising for the past 25 years." [birdhouse.org] 9:51:34 AM

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