FEATURED ARTICLES
- Three-Card Maestro, By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
- Now He Has the Power, by John Nichols, The Nation
- Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here: Negroponte Will Fit Right In, By Ray McGovern, Truthout
- Unearthed: Fatal Secrets, By Gary Cohn & Ginger Thompson, Baltimore Sun
- The Atrocities of a Pale Rider; John D. Negroponte, by Celerino Castillo 3rd
3 QUOTES
"I may be looking for a three-piece suit.... Fat chance!"
- - Howard
Dean (at his recent DNC Chairman victory celebration)
"When you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those, changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be, or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled."
- - George Dubya
Bush (Explaining his plan to save Social
Security, Tampa, FL, 2/4/ 05
"In Central America, Negroponte is indelibly remembered for his role in increasing the amount of U.S. aid to the Honduran military at the very time that the military's role in supporting brutal death squads was becoming abundantly clear. What kind of a message will this appointment send to the people of Central America? That the U.S. is willing to overlook massive human rights atrocities in the name of collecting intelligence in pursuit of U.S. national interests.""
- - Sandra Coliver (Executive Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights law center that has aided Honduran torture victims)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - February 16th
Feb 21, 1962 -- J.
Edgar Hoover wins a George Washington Award from the Freedom Foundation for "the most outstanding individual contribution to American freedom during 1961." Hoover also won the award in 1958. Don't know which dress he wore.
Feb 22, 2004 -- US Education Secretary Rod
Paige calls the nation's largest teachers union, National Education Association (NEA), a "terrorist organization" during a White House meeting with state governors.
Feb 23, 1989 -- Lt. Colonel Oliver
North is on trial for illegally selling weapons to "moderate elements" in Iran (of all places!) so that unlimited funding would still be available for the CIA's illegal & undeclared war against Nicaragua. Today federal prosecutor Walsh agrees to drop conspiracy charges against North. It's clear the intent of all parties involved in the litigation is to suppress information that might suggest, not to mention prove, just how deeply ex-President, ex-actor Reagan & President (ex-CIA head) Papa Bush were involved in this subversion of the Constitution.
Feb 24, 1991 --Iraq: US-led coalition begins ground
war against Iraqi troops. There is great concern Iraq will launch biological weapons based on anthrax & botulism which a US company has sold them with approval of the US Commerce Department against Pentagon opposition.
Feb 25, 1999 --A Guatemalan Government report blames the military, the paramilitary & the U.S. Government for most of the 200,000 deaths in the country's 36-year civil war.
RHINO SEZ:
This is my blog for the week.
I'll be in Syracuse on Friday (2/25) with Huston Smith, Oren Lyons & other friends & cohorts, for a screening of my documentary, A
Seat At The Table; Struggling For American Indian Religious Freedom and a panel discussion afterward. If you're in the area & interested, it's 2 PM at Syracuse University's Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building.
3 Issues: Bush's hypnotic illogic concerning Social
Security, the implications
of Howard Dean's rise to Chairman
of the DNC & last but absolutely worst, the
nomination of John
Negroponte to be the 1st U.S. Director of National Intelligence
D.N.I. - IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE OF THIOS BLOG ENTRY, READ THE BOTTOM
LINE:
The Atrocities of a Pale Rider; John
D. Negroponte.
On Bush & S.S., I offer the shrub's own explanation and then economist Paul Krugman's evaluation; on Chairman Dean & the DNC, John Nichols writing in The Nation; and on the the nomination of Negroponte, because I believe it's so important for as many Americans to know the history of this man's darkness, I offer several in depth history lessons beginning with a piece by Ray
McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates in addition to preparing & briefing The President's Daily Brief. Rhino asks that you join him in contacting your Congress & Senate representatives and strongly opposing his confirmation.
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George Dubya Bush (Explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, FL, 2/4/ 05
"Because the˜all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those˜changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be˜or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the˜like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate˜the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits g! row, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those˜if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."
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Three-Card Maestro
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times, February 18, 2005
...In 2001, some readers may recall, Mr. Greenspan argued that we needed to cut taxes to prevent the federal government from running excessively large surpluses. Even at the time it seemed obvious from his tortured logic that he was looking for some excuse, any excuse, to help out a Republican administration. His lack of sincerity was confirmed when projected surpluses turned into large deficits, and he nonetheless supported even more tax cuts. This week, Mr. Greenspan offered no excuse for supporting privatization. In fact, he agreed with two of the main critiques of the administration's plan: that it would do nothing to improve the Social Security system's finances, and that it would lead to a dangerous increase in debt. Yet he still came out in favor of the idea...
MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/opinion/18krugman.html?
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Now He Has the Power
by John Nichols, The Nation, February 17, 2005
Unlike past DNC chairs, [Howard] Dean won't have to scream for attention. Taking
over as chairman of a party that is locked out of the White House and unable
to muster anything more than a "minority leader" to
flex its legislative muscle, Dean has positioned himself as the most camera-ready
Democrat in the country. As such, he is in a position to make his party--as opposed
to an individual candidate or faction--more newsworthy and potentially more dangerous
than it has been in decades.
Dean has become the Democratic Party's Rorschach test. Frustrated grassroots activists and donors see him as the tribune of their antiwar, anticorporate and anti-Bush views. Big thinkers see him as an idea filter who understands the potential of neglected issues and strategies. State and local party officials recognize him as a former governor who understands that Democrats can compete in all fifty states and is more likely to listen to them than Congressional leaders who remain obsessed with "targeted" states and races. Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson sums up the pro-Dean sentiment when he says Dean will "bring new spirit and new energy to the party, the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time." But his enthusiasm is not echoed by the Democratic insiders in DC who have gotten so used to playing politics by GOP rules that they see Dean as a "madman" on a suicide mission that will wreck everything they know
MORE: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050307&s=nichols
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Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here: Negroponte Will Fit Right In
By Ray McGovern, t r u t h o u t | Perspective, 19 February 2005
The nomination of John Negroponte to the new post of Director of National Intelligence
(DNI) caps a remarkable parade of Bush administration senior nominees. Among
the most recent: Alberto Gonzales, confirmed as attorney general: the lawyer
who advised the president he could ignore the US War Crimes Act and the Geneva
Conventions on torture and create a "reasonable basis in law...which would provide
a solid defense to any future prosecution." Michael Chertoff, confirmed as Secretary
of Homeland Security: the lawyer who looked the other way when 762 innocent immigrants
(mostly of Arab and South Asian descent) were swept up in a post-9/11 dragnet
and held as "terrorism suspects" for several months. The dictates of PR trumped
habeas corpus; the detentions fostered an image of quick progress in the "war
on terrorism." John Negroponte: the congenial, consummate diplomat now welcomed
back into the brotherhood. Presently our ambassador in Baghdad, Negroponte is
best known to many of us as the ambassador to Honduras with the uncanny ability
to ignore human rights abuses so as not to endanger congressional support for
the attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of Nicaragua in the eighties.
Negroponte's job was to hold up the Central American end of the Reagan administration's
support for the Contra counterrevolutionaries, keeping Congress in the dark,
as necessary. States-side, Negroponte's opposite number was Elliot Abrams, then
assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, whose influence has
recently grown by leaps and bounds in the George W. Bush administration...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021905C.shtml
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"Unearthed: Fatal Secrets - A carefully crafted deception
By Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1995
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A dangerous truth confronted John Dimitri Negroponte as he prepared to take over as U.S. ambassador to Honduras late in 1981. The military in Honduras -- the country from which the Reagan administration had decided to run the battle for democracy in Central America -- was kidnapping and murdering its own citizens. "GOH [Government of Honduras] security forces have begun to resort to extralegal tactics -- disappearances and, apparently, physical eliminations ` to control a perceived subversive threat," Negroponte was told in a secret briefing book prepared by the embassy staff. The assertion was true, and there was worse to come...
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-negroponte4,0,2326054.story
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