Monday, January 12, 2004

Goin's On In D.C. FEATURED ARTICLES - Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq?, 60 Minutes, cbs.com, - Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, UK Independent, - Five Impolite Questions For The President, By Don Williams, Knoxville News Sentinel, - The Barreling Bushes, By Kevin Phillips, LA Times, QUOTE OF THE DAY In the shadow of the Capitol dome, thousands of DC residents live with the burden of conditions that have no place in the strongest, wealthiest nation in the world. Poverty. Illiteracy. HIV infection rates 10 times the national average. No public hospital. Substandard housing. Crumbling schools. We have an obligation to right these wrongs... As my party's nominee for the presidency, I will insist that the Democratic Party platform include DC statehood. As President, I pledge to use my first State of the Union address to call on Congress to grant statehood for the District of Columbia. I will appoint a special adviser on DC affairs, to work with Congress toward this important goal. - - Congressman Dennis Kucinich KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JANUARY 12th, 1971 -- The Reverend Philip Berrigan, founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship anti-Vietnam War organization, is indicted with five others on charges of conspiring to kidnap National Security Advisor & future Nobel Peace Prize recipient Henry Hank Kissinger & to bomb the heating systems of federal buildings in Washington, D.C. At the time, Berrigan was serving 6 years at a federal prison in Connecticut with his brother Daniel for their destruction of military draft records in Maryland during 1967/68. In 1969, the two brothers, both Catholic priests, launched a hunger strike in Danbury Prison as part of their antiwar protest. In 1970, Berrigan conspired with others outside of the prison to stage the more dramatic publicity stunt of kidnapping Kissinger & depriving federal buildings of heat in the dead of winter. Philip was indicted on antiwar conspiracy charges along with Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth McAllister, & three other priests (Joseph Wenderoth, Neil McLaughlin, Anthony Scoblick, a former priest) & Eqbal Ahmad, a fellow of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of Public Affairs. In the subsequent trial, the 6 avoided conviction on the more serious charges of conspiracy to kidnap & bomb federal buildings; Berrigan & McAllister were convicted of smuggling mail out of a federal penitentiary. JANUARY 13th, 2002 -- In a heroic act of attempted self-sacrifice, the shrub fainted briefly in the White House residence after choking on a pretzel while watching a National Football League playoff game on TV. RHINO HERE: Tuesday is the DC primary which not many of the candidates are taking seriously. But as the Quote of the Day & the Let's Free DC Blog entry from which that quote is taken shows, Dennis Kucinich thinks it worth his time to campaign in the District aggressively. You can read his entire essay at: http://blog.letsfreedc.org/200311.php#559 The latest big story about the lies & crimes of the shrub gang is a new book & an appearance on CBS TV's "60 Minutes" by former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill . Below are links to the story. Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq? 60 Minutes, cbs.com, 1/12/04 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml?cmp=EM8707 Bush was demanding excuse to invade Iraq in January 2001, says ex-treasury secretary By Andrew Gumbel, UK Independent, 12 January 2004 The Bush administration started making detailed plans for the invasion of Iraq within days of coming to office, with the President himself anxious to find a pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein, a high-ranking former cabinet member said yesterday. The revelation is the latest in a string of potential embarrassments for the White House offered by the former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, who has gone on the record for a new book looking at his bumpy two years at the centre of US power, The Price of Loyalty. Mr O'Neill said invading Iraq was "topic A" at the very first meeting of President George Bush's National Security Council, 10 days after his inauguration on 20 January 2001, and continued to be an abiding theme in follow-up meetings.  "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq," said Mr O'Neill, who was a participant in all the meetings and provided voluminous minutes and other documents to the book's author, Ron Suskind. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying 'Go find me a way to do this'."... MORE: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=480363 For those wondering where are the courageous truth seeking journalists who are willing to step out from the ranks of Karl Rove hypnotized media pom pom girls, meet Don Williams of the Knoxville Tennessee News Sentinel. Five Impolite Questions For The President By Don Williams, Knoxville News Sentinel, January 9, 2004 Dear Mr. President: If I knew you were reading this, I'd be grateful and surprised. You've been quoted as saying you don't read negative press. Recent reports suggest that your handlers arrange public appearances so that you seldom even see protesters against your policies. Still, should this find its way to your eyes, I have five impolite questions, along with a few follow-ups. 1)  "Why won't you tell us about those daily briefings you received in the nine months or so leading up to Sept. 11, 2001?... 2) Would you please acknowledge that it was mostly elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - not Iraq - who worked with al-Qaida to bring down the World Trade Center?... 3) Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of the Valerie Plame Wilson affair?... 4) Does some fundamental religious belief - say, that the end of the world is coming soon - influence your policies on the environment and on nuclear weapons?... 5) Does it worry you that the dollar appears to be in freefall just now?"... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_2563050,00.html Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by Kevin Phillips, whose new book, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," has just been published by Viking Penguin. In his concise summary of the Bush family ties to Mideast Oil & the corruption & conflicts of interest they have produced, Phillips concludes: "There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president. But there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty's many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one." Crazy conspiracy blather from a left wing wacko? No way! Kevin Phillips is no lefty. While a former Nixon staffer, he authored "The Emerging Republican Majority," he voted for Reagan twice & says he'd have eagerly voted for John McCain. He's still a Republican, but is aghast at what the Republican Party has become under the shrubies. A BuzzFlash Interview with Kevin Phillips is posted at: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16249 A Buzzflash Book Review of Kevin Phillips ' new book, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush" http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/dynasty.html 9:22:30 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - The Barreling Bushes The Barreling Bushes Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest By Kevin Phillips, LA Times, January 11, 2004 WASHINGTON - Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links. As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens - though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden - going back to the 1970s. How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-phillips11jan11,1,59027.story "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 7:05:44 AM    comment

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