From the pages of Daily Kos:
We Must Never Forget: February 5, 2003
by Al Rodgers

Colin Powell went to the UN and engaged in one the most infamous acts of Propaganda in World history.
We must never forget.

From the pages of: Mahablog
The news We've Been Waiting For??

--Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
--According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. [Richard Sale, UPI, February 5, 2004]

**Per Kos: "Hannah, by the way, is a "senior national security aide" for Cheney, and was, in fact, the administration's main point of contact with Chalabi's INC."**



Also on today's Mahablog...

"Check out Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" in today's Washington Post, expecially the part about "The AWOL Story That Won't Die." This paragraph popped out:

NBC Nightly News devoted a two and a half minute "In-Depth" segment to the issue, in which David Gregory said that while Bush was "never formally accused" of anything, "there is no record that proves Bush showed up to fulfill his obligations" from May 1972 to May 1973. The report includes video from 2000 of Bush saying "I fulfilled my obligation."

That old "liberal media" strikes again, huh? But here's a "clip & save" link to use next time you run into a Bush supporter who insists the AWOL charge can't be substantiated, because records are missing -- this blogger says records exist that should clear up the truth about Bush's National Guard duty.

Village Voice-A Disturbing Tidbit about Al Sharpton
Sleeping With the GOP
A Bush Covert Operative Takes Over Al Sharpton's Campaign

While Bush forces like the Club for Growth were buying ads in Iowa assailing then front-runner Howard Dean, Sharpton took center stage at a debate confronting Dean about the absence of blacks in his Vermont cabinet. Stone told the Times that he "helped set the tone and direction" of the Dean attacks, while Charles Halloran, the Sharpton campaign manager installed by Stone, supplied the research. While other Democratic opponents were also attacking Dean, none did it on the advice of a consultant who's worked in every GOP presidential campaign since his involvement in the Watergate scandals of 1972, including all of the Bush family campaigns.

From the pages of The Gotham City 13-
Bush and the Press-
A symbolic relationship

Monsignor Joseph Champlin/American Catholic.org
We Can Move Toward Harmony
Truths Jews, Christians and Muslims Hold in Common


These points are important for us, as a nation, to remember as we move into an uncertain future with those whom we wish to retain as our allies. It's also personally imperative for the sake of harmony that we focus our understanding on what we share as human beings vs. what drives us apart. I hope my secular-minded readers will indulge me.

Excerpts from the section entitled "We Can Move Toward Harmony":

The 10 spiritual commonalities shared by Christians, Jews and Muslims are indeed remarkable. But it would be inaccurate and naïve not to recognize that real differences do exist. Moreover, years of conflict have generated, among some, intense bitterness, hatred and mistrust.

Despite those divisions, if we know and understand each other better, then it should be easier for us to love one another more. Religion, instead of being a source of division, could become a basis for unity.

For such a positive global development to take place, we need to take some practical domestic steps. Individuals can educate themselves through print publications or Web sites such as the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs , Jewish-Christian Relations and the Middle East Policy Council.

Families might discuss these 10 spiritual commonalities to deepen their own awareness and appreciation. Parishes could arrange for visits to both synagogues and mosques. Dioceses might facilitate public dialogue among Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders.

Each of us needs to take the important step of praying individually and with others "that we all may be one" (see John 17:21), just as our loving God has envisioned us from the beginning.

Msgr. Joseph M. Champlin, a widely published author, exchanged pulpits with a local rabbi two years ago, preaching in the synagogue, while the rabbi spoke at a Sunday Mass. This was a first for both their 150-year-old congregations. Last year, Msgr. Champlin invited Dr. Anis Obeid, raised as a Druze Muslim, to describe the basic articles of that religion at a Sunday Mass at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Syracuse, New York, where the author is rector. Those exchanges and the tragedy of September 11 led to this article.

U.S. Newswire
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Files FEC Compliant Against Grover Norquist, Ken Mehlman;
Alleges Violation of Federal Campaign Laws Over 'Master Contact List'

-[The group is] alleging that Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform and Bush-Cheney '04 violated federal campaign laws. According to The Washington Post, Norquist gave Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager for Bush- Cheney '04 a "master contact list," including the names and information of conservative activists in 37 states compiled by Norquist over a period of 5 years.
-CREW's complaint alleges that both parties, Norquist and Mehlman are in violation of the law regardless of whether Americans for Tax Reform or Norquist personally contributed the list. Americans for Tax Reform is a corporation and campaigns are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations. According to FEC regulations, Bush-Cheney could not accept the list if it came directly from Americans for Tax Reform.
-"The public needs to know that no one, including the President of the United States, is above the law. FEC laws are clear and must be followed,"

See Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington website.

See Forbes.com: "Did Bush-Cheney '04 Break Campaign Law?"

Grover Norquist is one of the "Think-Tank Bottom Feeders" (as described in this tongue-in-cheek Austin, Texas-based column).

Among the brightest lights was anti-tax absolutist Grover Norquist, who called his co-panelist Dick Lavine a "Bolshevik," defined taxation as "taking money from people who have earned it and giving it to those who haven't earned it" (presumably the latter would include guests of the tax-exempt, "nonpartisan" TPPF), denounced graduated tax rates as "the [mass murderer] Richard Speck approach," and advocated abolishing public schools altogether: "Don't raise taxes, and don't fund monopolies!" The assembled elected officials – when not attacking "politicians" – generally took a more moderate line. Rather than abolish public education outright, they simply intend to starve it to death.

Salon.com (subsc. or free one-day pass req.)
Hitting the mainstream media:
Bush's Missing Year
In 1972, George W. Bush dropped out of his National Guard service and later lied about it. With the media finally paying attention, will he now come clean?

JWR/Omer Bartov
Did Hitlerism Die with Hitler?

....those who foolishly think that doing away with Israel, not least in a "one-state solution," would remove anti-Semitism had better look more closely at the language of these enemies....
Hitler taught humanity an important lesson. It is that when you see a Nazi, a fascist, a bigot, or an anti-Semite, say what you see. If you want to justify it or excuse it away, describe accurately what it is that you are trying to excuse away. If a British newspaper publishes an anti-Semitic cartoon, call it anti-Semitic. If the attacks on the Twin Towers were animated by anti-Semitic arguments, say so. If a Malaysian prime minister expresses anti-Semitic views, do not try to excuse the inexcusable. If a self-proclaimed liberation organization calls for the extermination of the Jewish state, do not pretend that it is calling for anything else. The absence of clarity is the beginning of complicity.

Washington Post
Auschwitz Under Our Noses

Come Fly With Me!

"Come fly with me,
let’s float down on Air Force Two
In Cheney land, there’s a huntin' strand
And you’ll shoot a duck or two
Come fly with me, Antonin,
just me and you..."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks. The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.