Creeping Fascism From Nazi Germany to Post 9/11 America

Creeping Fascism From Nazi Germany to Post 9/11 America

Far from expressing regret, the president bragged about having authorized the surveillance "more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks," and said he would continue to do so. The president also said:

"Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it."

On Dec. 19, 2005 then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-NSA Director Michael Hayden held a press conference to answer questions about the as yet unnamed surveillance program. Gonzales was asked why the White House decided to flout FISA rather than attempt to amend it, choosing instead a "backdoor approach." He answered:

"We have had discussions with Congress...as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."

Hmm. Impossible? It strains credulity that a program of the limited scope described would be unable to win ready approval from a Congress that had just passed the "Patriot Act" in record time. James Risen has made the following quip about the prevailing mood: "In October 2001 you could have set up guillotines on the public streets of America." It was not difficult to infer that the surveillance program must have been of such scope and intrusiveness that, even amid highly stoked fear, it didn't have a prayer for passage.

It turns out we didn't know the half of it.

What To Call These Activities

"Illegal Surveillance Program" didn't seem quite right for White House purposes, and the PR machine was unusually slow off the blocks. It took six weeks to settle on "Terrorist Surveillance Program," with FOX News leading the way followed by the president himself. This labeling would dovetail nicely with the president's rhetoric on Dec. 17:

"In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.... The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September 11 helped address that problem..."

And Gen. Michael Hayden, who headed NSA from 1999 to 2005, was of course on the same page, dissembling as convincingly as the president. At his May 2006 confirmation hearings to become CIA director, he told of his soul-searching when, as director of NSA, he was asked to eavesdrop on Americans without a court warrant. "I had to make this personal decision in early Oct. 2001," said Hayden, "it was a personal decision...I could not not do this."

Like so much else, it was all because of 9/11. But we now know...

It Started Seven Months Before 9/11

How many times have you heard it? The mantra "after 9/11 everything changed" has given absolution to all manner of sin.

We are understandably reluctant to believe the worst of our leaders, and this tends to make us negligent. After all, we learned from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that drastic changes were made in U.S. foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue and toward Iraq at the first National Security Council meeting on Jan. 30, 2001. Should we not have anticipated far-reaching changes at home, as well?

Reporting by the Rocky Mountain News and court documents and testimony in a case involving Qwest Communications strongly suggest that in February 2001 Hayden saluted smartly when the Bush administration instructed NSA to suborn AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest to spy illegally on you, me, and other Americans. Bear in mind that this would have had nothing to do with terrorism, which did not really appear on the new administration's radar screen until a week before 9/11, despite the pleading of Clinton aides that the issue deserved extremely high priority.

So this until-recently-unknown pre-9/11 facet of the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" was not related to Osama bin Laden or to whomever he and his associates might be speaking. It had to do with us. We know that the Democrats who were briefed on the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (the one with the longest tenure on the House Intelligence Committee), Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) and former and current chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA). May one interpret their lack of public comment on the news that the snooping began well before 9/11 as a sign they were co-opted and then sworn to secrecy?

It is an important question. Were the appropriate leaders in Congress informed that within days of George W. Bush's first inauguration the NSA electronic vacuum cleaner began to suck up information on you and me, despite the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment?

What Happens at a CIA 'Black Site'

What Happens at a CIA 'Black Site'

The kidnap and torture program of the Bush administration, with its secret CIA "black site" prisons and "torture taxi" flights on private jets, saw a little light of day this week. I spoke to Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in his first broadcast interview. Bashmilah was a victim of the CIA's so-called extraordinary rendition program, in which people are grabbed from their homes, out of airports, off the streets, and are whisked away, far from the prying eyes of the U.S. Congress, the press, far from the reach of the courts, to countries where cruelty and torture are routine.

Bashmilah is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and by the New York University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic in a lawsuit with four other victims of CIA rendition. They are suing not the U.S. government, not the CIA, but a company called Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Corp. A former Jeppesen employee, Sean Belcher, entered an affidavit in support of Bashmilah, reporting that Jeppesen executive Bob Overby bragged, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights," further explaining to staff that he was speaking of "the torture flights," and that they paid very well.

Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'

Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'

Why do they have to break the law to protect us?

Why do they have to break the law to protect us?

I realize I have difficulty at times understanding things, but some of the arguments I have heard coming from the government lately baffle me and I hope other American citizens as well.

We need to "torture" people to protect us? since when? I thought we as Americans were the "good guys", didn't we win WW2 and beat the Nazis and the Japanese when they were trying to take over the world. Didn't we "win" the Cold War, without there ever being a real shooting war?

Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future

Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future

Just as the American people and the world are beginning to recognize the necessity of shifting to renewable energies, Big Coal, in collusion with an out-of-step administration, is pushing their dirty fossil fuel as the solution to our nation's energy crisis.

Big Coal and its cohorts envision a "clean coal technology" future fueled by liquifying and gasifying coal, capturing the carbon emissions and injecting them underground. By 2030 the West Virginia Division of Energy -- a nascent state agency formed in July, 2007 -- wants to oust oil and exalt coal by displacing the 1.3 billion gallons of foreign oil the state currently imports every year.

The WVDoE believes "that higher energy prices are providing and will continue to provide market opportunities" for a variety of alternative coal technologies including "coal waste, coal fines and coal bed methane," according to a document released in December 2007 called, "A Blueprint for the Future."

But scientists and environmentalists say "clean coal" does not exist; it is a misnomer and an oxymoron. The National Resources Defense Council has said, using the term "clean coal" makes about as much sense as saying "safe cigarettes." The extraction and cleaning of coal inevitably decimate ecosystems and communities.

Huckabee wives should 'graciously submit'

Huckabee wives should 'graciously submit'

In June 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a "statement on the family" that asserted, "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." Two months later, then-governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full-page ad in USA Today specifically endorsing the Convention's view on marriage..

Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet

Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet

But the neocons were dealt an unexpected body blow with the Dec. 3 release of a stunning U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago, a finding that contradicted Bush's belligerent rhetoric about Iran's nukes possibly provoking "World War III."

The National Intelligence Estimate knocked the wind out of the neocons' hope for a military confrontation with Iran before the end of Bush's term.

At a Dec. 4 press conference, Bush was left sputtering an unpersuasive claim that his warning about "World War III" on Oct. 17 was uttered while his intelligence advisers were keeping him in the dark about the new information that supported the NIE.

On Dec. 5, Bush tried to regain his political balance by blaming Iran for the doubts about its nuclear program.

"The Iranians have a strategic choice to make," Bush said in Omaha, Nebraska. "They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities and fully accept the longstanding offer to suspend their enrichment program and come to the table and negotiate, or they can continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interest of the Iranian people. The choice is up to the Iranian regime."

Still, the NIE represented a declaration of independence by professional U.S. intelligence analysts who had been bullied by the neocons over the past three decades and especially during the run-up to the war with Iraq. [For the fullest account of this history, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.]

How to Really Love Your Country: Five Objectives for True Patriots

How to Really Love Your Country: Five Objectives for True Patriots

1. How we spend our money

The U.S. is responsible for almost half of the world's annual military expenditures of over $1 trillion, yet President Bush approved another record increase in the U.S. defense budget for 2008. The total estimated cost of the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts is now $811 billion, much more than the $518 billion spent on the Vietnam War. Congressional Democrats estimate that the average American family of four has contributed over $20,000 to the war in the Middle East.

As 40% of each American citizen's tax bill - about $5000 a year - goes for military equipment that protects us from Cold War enemies, we spend only 1/10 of 1% of our GDP on infrastructure (in 2005), compared to 9% for China. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave D to D- grades to our drinking water, navigable waterways, and energy power grids. Every time our power structures go out or our roads and bridges crumble, the money needed to fix them is being spent in Iraq, or on unstable allies in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

2. What We Give to the World

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, nearly half of the guns sold to developing countries in 2005 came from the United States.

In 2003, 20 of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms sales in the developing world were declared undemocratic or human rights abusers by the U.S. State Department's own Human Rights Report. --( the rest at the link)

Giuliani Administration "Stonewalled" Auditors Over Expenses

Giuliani Administration "Stonewalled" Auditors Over Expenses

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his senior aides Thursday blamed anonymous bookkeepers for his administration's practice of billing the travel expenses for his personal security detail to obscure city agencies.

But a top aide was unable to say why Giuliani's administration and his successor's rebuffed questions from the city's top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were "stonewalled" by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called "disturbing."

Why the warmongering geniuses like Charles Krauthammer just don't get

Why the warmongering geniuses like Charles Krauthammer just don't get

In a recent column titled "On Iraq, a State of Denial," Krauthammer shows a complete ignorance--or disregard--for what is probably Clausewitz's primary tenet of armed conflict: that all engagements in war should directly support the war's strategic purposes and political aims. But in his rush to chant hosannas over the recent "good news" about "declining violence" in Iraq, Krauthammer asserts that our stated political goals aren't even worth pursuing.

Like most of the neocons, Krauthammer shamelessly overplays the success of their pet surge strategy, describing the violence in Iraq as being "dramatically reduced" and celebrating the "revival of ordinary life in many cities." The closest thing to "ordinary life" we've seen is the woman in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood who is "thrilled and relieved" when her son and husband manage to get home from work at night without getting killed. Please don't ask me to speculate as to how Krauthammer justifies classifying that sort of scenario as a "revival" or "ordinary."

Krauthammer has ridicule galore for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi for asserting that "we have not achieved political benchmarks." That's just crybaby language for left wing losers whose limp-wristed, hand-wringing positions on the war only vary "in how precipitous to make the retreat" as far as he's concerned.

Sure, there's no "top down" political solution attainable as of yet, Krauthammer admits. But, he asks, should that "invalidate our hard-won gains?" Moreover, "Why does this [lack of political progress] mean that we cannot achieve success by other means?"

Well, Doctor, had you studied a little bit about war before you began telling everyone where and how and when to fight one, you might have run across this rather pertinent Clausewitz quote:

"If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits." -Carl von Clausewitz Prussian General and philosopher

Despite Promises To 'End Earmarks,' Giuliani's Law Firm Sought Millions In Pork For Clients

Despite Promises To 'End Earmarks,' Giuliani's Law Firm Sought Millions In Pork For Clients

GIULIANI: Oh, you have to end earmarks. I mean, the idea of anonymous spending of billions and billions and hundreds of billions of dollars is totally undemocratic and creates total unaccountability. You have to end earmarks.

But Giuliani's own law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, has contributed to this explosion of spending. Bloomberg News reports:

In all, Bracewell & Giuliani sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired the firm after Giuliani joined in March 2005, Senate records show. Giuliani, 63, isn't registered as a lobbyist. The firm paid him $1.2 million last year, according to his personal financial-disclosure form.

The earmarks include $1 million for Buffalo, New York-based Calspan Corp. for a program to help military pilots control their aircraft; $1.2 million for Charlotte, North Carolina-based United Protective Technologies LLC, for developing protective treatments for helicopter windshields; and $800,000 for Burlingame, California-based AtHoc Inc., for an Air Force emergency-notification system.

The Media Drools over Bush Apologists Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack

The Media Drools over Bush Apologists Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack

Even more misleading, I felt, was O’Hanlon and Pollack’s description of themselves as “two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” This claim caught the attention of other news organizations. In “a bit of a surprise,” Charles Gibson declared on ABC’s World News, “two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war” had written of a significant change in Iraq; the White House was so “thrilled” with the piece, Martha Raddatz reported, that it had distributed it to the press corps. O’Hanlon and Pollack were invited to discuss their findings on CNN, Fox News, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and MSNBC’s Hardball.

Yet the quickest of Google searches would have raised doubts about both men’s bona fides as critics of the war. While they have strongly criticized some Bush policies in Iraq—who hasn’t?—both were supporters of the invasion. Pollack was especially vocal. In The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, published in 2002, he argued that Saddam Hussein was actively seeking a nuclear weapon, that if he got one, he would no doubt use it to blackmail the U.S., that the UN’s sanctions-based containment policy was breaking down, and that as a result, only a full-scale invasion could deter him. Pollack had worked for President Clinton’s National Security Council, and his liberal credentials helped win over many commentators otherwise skeptical of George W. Bush. In a piece headlined, THE I-CAN’T-BELIEVE-I’M-A-HAWK CLUB, in February 2003, Bill Keller (then a columnist for the Times, now its executive editor), wrote admiringly that “Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush.”

In addition, Pollack, from late September 2002 to mid-February 2003, wrote or co-authored three op-eds for the Times, each more insistent than the last on the need to invade. If Saddam were not ousted, Pollack warned, he was certain to gain a nuclear weapon in the second half of this decade, if not before. Pollack disparaged the efforts of UN weapons inspectors, dismissed assurances from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed ElBaradei that Iraq’s nuclear program was in check, and urged President Bush to avoid the “inspections trap.” “Yes,” he declared, “we must weigh the costs of a war with Iraq today, but on the other side of the balance we must place the cost of a war with a nuclear-armed Iraq tomorrow.” Pollack elaborated on NPR, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, Charlie Rose, Oprah, and, most frequently, CNN, where he was a consultant.

In light of all this, Pollack’s effort to pass himself off as a harsh critic of the Bush administration seemed less than forthcoming. And it was disappointing to see the Times—which had published his earlier briefs for the invasion and thus knew his position—let him get away with it. - (more at the link)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Treats 9-11 Families with contempt

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Treats 9-11 Families with contempt

9/11 families decry McConnell obstructionism.

A group of family members of September 11 victims today called out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for blocking legislation that would implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. The bill has already passed the House and Senate; McConnell is refusing to let it move to be signed by the President. "It is long overdue for passage and as a consequence, American lives remain at risk," they write.

Read their full letter below:

Dear 9/11 Families and Friends,

The bill implementing many of the remaining 9/11 Commissions recommendations is stalled because Senate Republicans have blocked an important 'next step'. It is called a conference, where the House and Senate hammer out their differences on bills and is therefore a cornerstone of our democratic legislative process.

The bill in question, (S.4), is called Improving America's Security Act. When enacted, it will improve security on the home front. It is long overdue for passage and as a consequence, American lives remain at risk.

Please voice your strong opposition to this partisan stall tactic. Call, email or fax Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office. Tell him to stop blocking the Conference on S.4. Tell him to let the bill move forward!

The contact information for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is (202) 224-2541 or McConnell@senate.gov or fax (202) 224-2499.

GOP Senator McConnell Misleads Public About His Office's Role In Pushing Smear Of Graeme Frost

GOP Senator McConnell Misleads Public About His Office's Role In Pushing Smear Of Graeme Frost

A couple hours ago Atrios linked to this report by local Kentucky station WHAS11 news. In it the station accused GOP Senator Mitch McConnell of misleading the network's reporter when McConnell told him on camera a few days ago that his office played no role whatsoever in pushing the smear of SCHIP posterkid Graeme Frost and his family.

As you all know, the news broke today that McConnell's communications director admitted in an interview with Kentucky's Courier-Journal that he'd initially alerted reporters to the smear campaign being waged by the winger bloggers against the Frosts. For all the background on this, go here.

Now a Kentucky blogger has just posted some video of WHAS11's report alleging that McConnell had misled them. In it you can watch WHAS11's footage of an interview they did with McConnell on Friday, in which he adamantly denied any involvement from his office

Fox News Porn: Too Hot for the Internet?

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Is the Military Our Last, Best Hope for Averting War with Iran?

Is the Military Our Last, Best Hope for Averting War with Iran?

HOW GOP TORTURE TALK DAMAGES OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

HOW GOP TORTURE TALK DAMAGES OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

Impeachimg Cheney Not Another Distraction

Impeachimg Cheney Not Another Distraction

Tuesday's attempt by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, to introduce a motion calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney was a perfect illustration of why Congress has a lower approval rating than President Bush.

Under House rules, Kucinich offered a privileged resolution calling for impeachment. That meant the full House had two days to consider Kucinich's motion.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., didn't want to wait that long. He moved to table (i.e., kill) Kucinich's motion. That was not a surprise. Hoyer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the rest of the Democratic leadership remain steadfastly opposed to impeachment.

Hoyer counted on a quick vote to kill it. But Republican House members decided they wanted to cause a little mischief. During an unusually long vote, enough Republican members switched their votes to pass the measure by a 251-162 margin.

The Republicans thought they had an opportunity to force Democrats to debate impeaching Cheney on the House floor in front of the C-SPAN cameras. So Hoyer pulled another ace from the bottom of the deck and moved to have the resolution referred to the House Judiciary Committee. That passed by a 218-194 vote.

Kucinich's motion could end up being buried in that committee, which is led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. Previous impeachment efforts have gone nowhere in Conyer's committee, and this effort will likely meet the same fate.

Little news coveragewas devoted to this vote, and what there was focused more on the politics than the substance of what happened. While both parties accused the other of playing partisan games, the reality is that this was the first real attempt to highlight the misdeeds of the Bush administration and force the Democrats to take a stand on impeaching Bush and Cheney.

And caught in the middle of this was Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

On one side are Pelosi and Hoyer, who gave the freshman congressman a plum assignment on the House Rules Committee. Welch's loyalty to the Democratic leadership is reflected by his support of the leadership's stand against impeachment.

On the other side are his constituents, who support impeachment. A recent WCAX poll found 61 percent of Vermonters support impeachment of President Bush and 64 percent support impeachment of Vice President Cheney.

Blackwater - They're Christian Supremacists With a Conversion Agenda

Blackwater - They're Christian Supremacists With a Conversion Agenda

Bill Maher interviewed Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, on the most recent episode of Real Time. I a just a few minutes Scahill covers the mercenary army's origins (they're named after a swamp), its leader Erik Prince (who has deep ties with the extremist far right) and its plans for world domination (opening bases all over the country, thousands of men they can send to international and domestic conflicts of natural disasters.) Maher and Scahill also talk about how Blackwater mercenaries are better paid and have better armor than American troops in Iraq and how they make fighting the insurgency more difficult since they "commit crimes, shoot up Iraqis" and then the Iraqis retaliate against American troops. ( VIDEO AT LINK )

Bush Started Lying Before Iraq

Bush Started Lying Before Iraq

The Environment

One of Bush's first PR slip-ups as President came when his EPA announced that it would withdraw a new standard for arsenic in drinking water that had been developed during the Clinton years. Bush defended this move by claiming that the new standard had been irresponsibly rushed through: "At the very last minute my predecessor made a decision, and we pulled back his decision so that we can make a decision based upon sound science and what's realistic." And his EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, said the standard had not been based on the "best available science." This was a harsh charge. And untrue.

The new arsenic standard was no quickie job unattached to reasonable scientific findings. The EPA had worked for a decade on establishing the new, 10-parts-per-billion standard. Congress had directed the agency to establish a new standard, and it had authorized $2.5 million a year for studies from 1997 through 2000. A 1999 study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) had concluded that the existing 50-ppb standard "could easily" result in a 1-in-100 cancer risk and had recommended that acceptable levels be lowered "as promptly as possible." EPA policy-makers had thought that a 3-ppb standard would have been justified by the science, yet they took cost considerations into account and went for the less stringent 10 ppb.

Bush's arsenic move appeared to have been based upon a political calculation--even though Bush, as a candidate, had said he would not decide key policy matters on the basis of politics. But in his book The Right Man, David Frum, a former Bush economic speechwriter, reported that Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, had "pressed for reversal" of the arsenic standard in an attempt to win votes in New Mexico, one of a few states that have high naturally occurring levels of arsenic and that would face higher costs in meeting the new standard.

Several months after the EPA suspended the standard, a new NAS study concluded that the 10-ppb standard was indeed scientifically justified and possibly not tight enough. After that, the Administration decided that the original 10 ppb was exactly the right level for a workable rule, even though the latest in "best available science" now suggested that the 10-ppb level might not adequately safeguard water drinkers.

The arsenic screw-up was one of the few lies for which Bush took a hit. On the matter of global warming, he managed to lie his way through a controversy more deftly. Months into his presidency, Bush declared that he was opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 global warming accord. To defend his retreat from the treaty, he cited "the incomplete state of scientific knowledge." This was a misleading argument, for the scientific consensus was rather firm. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of thousands of scientists assembled by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, held that global temperatures were dramatically on the rise and that this increase was, to an unspecified degree, a result of human-induced emissions.

In early June 2001 the NAS released a report Bush had requested, and it concluded global warming was under way and "most likely due to human activities." Rather than accept the analysis it had commissioned, the Bush White House countered with duplicity. Press secretary Fleischer maintained that the report "concludes that the Earth is warming. But it is inconclusive on why--whether it's man-made causes or whether it's natural causes." That was not spinning. That was prevaricating. The study blamed "human activities" while noting that "natural variability" might be a contributing factor too.

Still, the Bush White House wanted to make it seem as if Bush did take the issue seriously. So on June 11, he delivered a speech on global warming and pledged to craft an alternative to Kyoto that would "reduce" emissions. The following February he unveiled his plan. "Our immediate goal," Bush said, "is to reduce America's greenhouse-gas emissions relative to the size of our economy."

Relative to the size of our economy? This was a ruse. Since the US economy is generally growing, this meant emissions could continue to rise, as long as the rate of increase was below the rate of economic growth. The other industrialized nations, with the Kyoto accord, were calling for reductions below 1990 levels. Bush was pushing for slower increases above 2000 levels. Bush's promise to lower emissions had turned out to be no more than hot air.

September 11

As many Americans and others yearned to make sense of the evil attacks of September 11, Bush elected to share with the public a deceptively simplistic explanation of this catastrophe. Repeatedly, he said that the United States had been struck because of its love of freedom. "America was targeted for attack," he maintained, "because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." This was shallow analysis, a comic-book interpretation of the event that covered up complexities and denied Americans information crucial for developing a full understanding of the attacks. In the view Bush furnished, Osama bin Laden was a would-be conqueror of the world, a man motivated solely by irrational evil, who killed for the purpose of destroying freedom.

But as the State Department's own terrorism experts--as well as nongovernment experts--noted, bin Laden was motivated by a specific geostrategic and theological aim: to chase the United States out of the Middle East in order to ease the way for a fundamentalist takeover of the region. Peter Bergen, a former CNN producer and the first journalist to arrange a television interview with bin Laden, observes in his book Holy War, Inc., "What [bin Laden] condemns the United States for is simple: its policies in the Middle East." Rather than acknowledge the realities of bin Laden's war on America, Bush attempted to create and perpetuate a war-on-freedom myth.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush was disingenuous on other fronts. Days after the attack, he asserted, "No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft--fly US aircraft--into buildings full of innocent people." His aides echoed this sentiment for months. They were wrong. Such a scenario had been imagined and feared by terrorism experts. And plots of this sort had previously been uncovered and thwarted by security services in other nations--in operations known to US officials. According to the 9/11 inquiry conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees, the US intelligence establishment had received numerous reports that bin Laden and other terrorists were interested in mounting 9/11-like strikes against the United States.

Fourteen months after the attack, Bush said, "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th." But his actions belied this rhetoric. His White House refused to turn over information to the intelligence committees about a pre-9/11 intelligence briefing he had had seen, and the Bush Administration would not allow the committees to tell the public what intelligence warnings Bush had received before September 11. More famously, Bush would not declassify the twenty-seven-page portion of the committees' final report that concerned connections between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi Arabia. And following September 11, Bush repeatedly maintained that his Administration was doing everything possible to secure the nation. But that was not true. The Administration did not move--and has not moved--quickly to address gaping security concerns, including vulnerabilities at chemical plants and ports and a huge shortfall in resources for first responders [see Corn, "Homeland Insecurity," September 22].

It did not start with Iraq. Bush has been lying throughout the presidency. He claimed he had not gotten to know disgraced Enron chief Ken Lay until after the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. But Lay had been one of Bush's larger contributors during that election and had--according to Lay himself--been friends with Bush for years before it. In June 2001, Bush said, "We're not going to deploy a [missile defense] system that doesn't work." But then he ordered the deployment of a system that was not yet operational. (A June 2003 General Accounting Office study noted, "Testing to date has provided only limited data for determining whether the system will work as intended.") His White House claimed that it was necessary to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to "secure America's energy needs." But the US Geological Survey noted that the amount of oil that might be found there would cover up to slightly more than two years' worth of oil consumption. Such a supply would hardly "secure" the nation's needs.

Speaking for his boss, Fleischer in 2002 said, "the President does, of course, believe that younger workers...are going to receive no money for their Social Security taxes." No money? That was not so. A projected crunch will hit in four decades or so. But even when this happens, the system will be able to pay an estimated 70 percent of benefits--which is somewhat more than "no money." When Bush in August 2001 announced he would permit federal funding of stem-cell research only for projects that used existing stem-cell lines--in a move to placate social conservatives, who opposed this sort of research--he said that there were sixty existing lines, and he asserted that his decision "allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research." Yet at the time--according to scientific experts in the field and various media reports--there were closer to ten available lines, not nearly enough to support a promising research effort.

Does Bush believe his own untruths? Did he truly consider a WMD-loaded Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to the United States? Or was he knowingly employing dramatic license because he wanted war for other reasons? Did he really think the average middle-class taxpayer would receive $1,083 from his second tax-cut plan? Or did he realize this was a fuzzy number cooked up to make the package seem a better deal than it was for middle- and low-income workers? Did he believe there were enough stem-cell lines to support robust research? Or did he know he had exaggerated the number of lines in order to avoid a politically tough decision?

It's hard to tell. Bush's public statements do suggest he is a binary thinker who views the world in black-and-white terms. You're either for freedom or against it. With the United States or not. Tax cuts are good--always. The more tax cuts the better--always. He's impatient with nuances. Asked in 1999 to name something he wasn't good at, Bush replied, "Sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something." Bush likes life to be clear-cut. And perhaps that causes him to either bend the truth or see (and promote) a bent version of reality. Observers can debate whether Bush considers his embellishments and misrepresentations to be the honest-to-God truth or whether he cynically hurls falsehoods to con the public. But believer or deceiver--the result is the same.

With his misrepresentations and false assertions, Bush has dramatically changed the nation and the world. Relying on deceptions, he turned the United States into an occupying power. Using lies, he pushed through tax cuts that will profoundly reshape the US budget for years to come, most likely insuring a long stretch of deficits that will make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the federal government to fund existing programs or contemplate new ones.

Does Bush lie more than his predecessors, more than his political opponents? That's irrelevant. He's guiding the nation during difficult and perhaps perilous times, in which a credible President is much in need. Prosperity or economic decline? War or peace? Security or fear? This country has a lot to deal with. Lies from the White House poison the debates that must occur if Americans are going to confront and overcome the challenges of this century at home and abroad.

Combating Muslim Extremism

Combating Muslim Extremism

All the major Republican presidential candidates have bought into George W. Bush's rhetoric of a central struggle against Muslim extremism and have thus committed themselves to a generational, often self-generating war. By foregrounding this issue, they have ensured that it will be pivotal to the 2008 presidential race. The Democratic candidates have mostly been timid in critiquing Bush's "war on terror" or pointing out its dangers to the Republic, a failing that they must redress if they are to blunt their rivals' fearmongering.

Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani in his recent Foreign Affairs article complains that the United States has been on the "defensive" in the war on "radical Islamic fascism" and says with maddening vagueness that it must find ways of going "on the offensive." He promises that "this war will be long." Giuliani is being advised on such matters by Representative Peter King, who has complained that "unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country"; by Daniel Pipes, who has questioned the wisdom of allowing American Muslims to vote; and by Norman Podhoretz, author of World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Combining the word "Islam" with a European term like "fascism" is profoundly offensive; a subtext of anti-Muslim bigotry pervades Giuliani's campaign, a sop to the Christian and Zionist right.

John McCain depicts withdrawal from Iraq as "defeat," saying in Michigan on September 21 that it would "would strengthen Al Qaeda, empower Iran and other hostile powers in the Middle East, unleash a full-scale civil war in Iraq that could quite possibly provoke genocide there and destabilize the entire region.'' But continued occupation of Iraq, a major Muslim country, is just as likely to lead to the consequences McCain fears. Some front-runners, like Mitt Romney, argue for a big expansion in US military forces, without explaining how that would help with counterterrorism.

The Republican candidates have taken their cues from Bush and his Administration. They have continued to vastly exaggerate the threat from terror attacks (far more Americans have died for lack of healthcare or from hard drugs) and have demonized Muslims. India's Hindu-extremist RSS, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda and Colombia's FARC (a hard-drug smuggler) are seldom referred to by Republican politicians worried about terrorists, even though all these movements have been extremely violent and have threatened US interests.

Advocates of the "war on terror" fantasize about the Muslim world as a Soviet Union-type challenge to the United States. In fact, the dozens of countries with majority Muslim populations are mostly strong allies of the United States. One, Turkey, is a NATO ally, and six (Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Pakistan) are non-NATO allies

Portraits of Clergy Sex Abuse (Photo Essay)

Portraits of Clergy Sex Abuse (Photo Essay)

The Climate Change Censor

The Climate Change Censor

It is a race against the eraser. By the end of the Bush administration, we could all be rubbed out.

Utterly unashamed, the White House heavily deleted yet another major document on global warming. It blanched out the Senate testimony of Julie Gerberding, director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the report that she delivered last week, she said climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans and the nation's public health infrastructure."

Gerberding said that the CDC "can serve as a credible source of information on health risks and actions that individuals can take to reduce their risk."

What was missing, according to a draft testimony made available to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's website by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, were these far more direct conclusions:

"The public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern."

(Obviously, that had to go because that raised the question of why the White House left such a serious concern unaddressed.)

How Fools Communicate - Right-wing e-mail

The chain (email) gang

[T]he e-mail forward doesn't fit into our existing model of the right-wing noise machine's structure (hierarchical) or its approach (broadcast). It is, instead, organic and peer-to-peer…. The smear forward has its roots in two distinct forms of Internet-age communication. First, there's the electronically disseminated urban legend ("Help find this missing child!"; "Bill Gates is going to pay people for every e-mail they send!"), which has been a staple of the Internet since the mid- '90s. Then there's the surreal genre of right-wing e-mail forwards. These range from creepy rage-filled quasi-fascist invocations ("The next time you see an adult talking…during the playing of the National Anthem–kick their ass") to treacly aphorisms of patriotic/religious uplift ("remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ…and the American Soldier").

For a certain kind of conservative, these e-mails, along with talk-radio, are an informational staple, a means of getting the real stories that the mainstream media ignore…. Mike D'Asto, a 29-year-old assistant cameraman living in New York, received so many forwards from his conservative father he started a blog called MyRightWingDad.net, where he shares them with other unwitting recipients. "I suddenly have connected to all these people who receive these right-wing forwards from their brothers-in-law," D'Asto told me. "Surprisingly, a very large number of people receive these."

And that, of course, is the problem.

And what a problem it is. It's difficult enough to push back against nonsense disseminated by Fox News or Limbaugh, but manufactured right-wing gossip spread via email is even more nefarious.

Hayes' whole article is definitely worth reading, but I just wanted to highlight a couple of points. First, it's not a bipartisan problem.

From the beginning, the vast majority of these Internet-disseminated rumors have come from the right. (Snopes lists about fifty e-mails about George W. Bush, split evenly between adulatory accounts of him saluting wounded soldiers or witnessing to a wayward teenager, and accounts of real and invented malapropisms. In contrast, every single one of the twenty-two e-mails about John Kerry is negative.) For conservatives, these e-mails neatly reinforce preconceptions, bending the facts of the world in line with their ideological framework: liberals, immigrants, hippies and celebrities are always the enemy; soldiers and conservatives, the besieged heroes. The stories of the former's perfidy and the latter's heroism are, of course, never told by the liberal media. So it's left to the conservative underground to get the truth out. And since the general story and the roles stay the same, often the actual characters are interchangeable.

"A lot of the chain letters that were accusing Al Gore of things in 2000 were recycled in 2004 and changed to Kerry," says John Ratliff, who runs a site called BreakTheChain.org, which, like Snopes, devotes itself to debunking chain e-mails. One e-mail falsely described a Senate committee hearing in the 1980s where Oliver North offered an impassioned Cassandra-like warning about the threat of Osama bin Laden, only to be dismissed by a condescending Democratic senator. Originally it was Al Gore who played the role of the senator, but by 2004 it had changed to John Kerry. "You just plug in your political front-runner du jour," Ratliff says.

And second, remember the chain email accusing Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim? Hayes digs into that, too, and highlights the bogus attack's origin.

Where Does the Right-Wing End and the Media Begin?

Where Does the Right-Wing End and the Media Begin?

Rory O' Connor: You speak in your book about "movement conservatism," which you call a "radical new force in American politics that took over the Republican Party." What role if any do the media play in movement conservatism?

Paul Krugman: The media are a very important force in it. They shape perceptions, and they conceal issues. Look at the 2000 presidential campaign, for example, where the media were so heavily biased against Al Gore. That's what brought Bush to within a Supreme Court decision of the White House. So if you look at, certainly these last seven years, the role of the media in not telling you reasons why you should be skeptical about the course of the war, for example, it's enormously important.

We have a situation right now in which there are several major parts of the news media that are for all practical purposes part of "movement conservatism" -- Fox News, the New York Post, the Washington Times -- and in which other news organizations are intimidated, at least to some extent. I sometimes talk about what I call "asymmetrical intimidation." If you say a true but unflattering thing about Bush or in fact about any other prominent conservative, oh, boy! People are going to go after you. I mean, I've got people working full-time going after me, right? But if you say a false, unflattering thing about a Democrat or a progressive, no risk ... And that shapes coverage, no question about it. It's better now, but it's still very asymmetric. The other thing we should mention about the media is their addiction to the trivial. We've got the most substantive election coming up, I think, ever. We've got clear differences on policies between parties. And what are we seeing news stories about? John Edwards' hair and Hillary Clinton's laugh ... this is horrifying! And again -- it's asymmetric. I can think of lots of unflattering things to say about any of the Republican candidates -- Mitt Romney's saying his sons are serving the country by helping him get elected! -- but it doesn't get nearly as much play in the media.

ROC: It sounds like you're saying there's a bias in the media. If you are, what is the bias?

PK: The media's bias, a large part of it is in fact right-wing bias, because they are effectively part of the right wing. Fox News ... there's nothing like Fox News on other television networks that you can look at. There is no liberal equivalent of Fox News, there is no network that, if a conservative got the Nobel Peace Prize, would have responded the way Fox News did to Al Gore's Peace Prize, by first saying nothing at all, then when they figured out the line, talking about how fat he is ... So there's no correspondence there.

Beyond that, there's two things at least; first, the hatred of substance -- they really want to talk about all that trivia -- and there's also the fetish of evenhandedness. If one candidate says something that's completely false, and the other something that's true, the media will say, "Some people believe what that guy said was false, and some people say it was true." Way back in the 2000 campaign, I wrote a piece in which I said that if Bush said the earth was flat, the headline would read: "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Planet." I was thinking specifically about what Bush was saying about taxes and Social Security, which were just out and out lies! But no one would say that, and they still won't. It's better now, a little, but they still won't say it, and that tends -- I imagine in some future environment that might work to the advantage of some dishonest candidates on the left -- but the fact of the matter is the Big Lies are all on the right right now. So it works much more to their advantage.

The Spies Who Shagged Your Fourth Amendment

The Spies Who Shagged Your Fourth Amendment

Democrats had a chance to stop the Bush administration's domestic spying. Twice. In June they surrendered to a law that lets secret, warrantless spying continue, sidelining a special court's oversight role. They promised the measure would be temporary. But they're about to do it again, and let the blank check stand for six years, never once asking the question that disintegrates the administration's argument about needing that dictatorial authority: If the wiretapping of phone or internet communications targets only suspected al-Qaida operatives (as long as one of the parties is abroad, supposedly), and potentially millions of such communications are being targeted, is the administration suggesting that millions of Americans are having contact with suspected terrorists? In effect, yes. It's an absurd proposition. Don't expect Democrats to muster the capacity to shatter it.

We need a new "Crucible" — a morality play that, like Arthur Miller's classic of 1953 that linked Cold War McCarthyism to the Salem witch trials, updates the genealogy to include the hysterical age of Sept. 11.

New CO2 evidence means climate change predictions are 'too optimistic'

New CO2 evidence means climate change predictions are 'too optimistic'

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing much faster and will be harder to control than scientists have predicted, a study has found.

An international team of researchers has found that, since 2000, the rate at which CO2 has been pumped into the atmosphere is 35 per cent greater than most climate change models have allowed for.

The conclusions have serious implications for forecasts of how much and how quickly the world's temperature will rise and mean that global warming will be harder and more expensive to control than feared. The results also mean that international efforts to bring CO2 emissions under control will need to be more far-reaching.

Professor Nicholas Owens, of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said that the findings were so worrying that they made previous widely accepted forecasts of climate change seem unduly optimistic.

CNN provided one Limbaugh explanation for "phony soldiers" remark, ignored his subsequent contradiction

CNN provided one Limbaugh explanation for "phony soldiers" remark, ignored his subsequent contradiction

On the October 19 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, national correspondent Susan Candiotti provided one of Rush Limbaugh's original explanations for his remarks characterizing U.S. service members who support U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," but she failed to note Limbaugh's subsequent, contradictory explanation of that comment. Describing the controversy surrounding Limbaugh's September 26 comments, Candiotti stated that Limbaugh "denied" he was "criticizing soldiers who are publicly opposed to the war," and "instead said that he was criticizing just one individual, someone who was actually convicted for pretending to be a soldier, who had bashed the war."

Indeed, on his September 28 nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh insisted he was "talking about one soldier with that 'phony soldier' comment, Jesse MacBeth." MacBeth pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for pretending to be an injured Iraq war veteran. Later in the September 28 broadcast, Limbaugh again asserted, "I was talking about one genuine, convicted, lying, fake soldier." But as Media Matters for America noted, Limbaugh actually referred to "phony soldiers," plural when he made the remark during his September 26 broadcast. Responding to a caller's statement that supporters of withdrawal "like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media," Limbaugh responded, "The phony soldiers" [emphasis added]. While Candiotti noted that Limbaugh had "used the term 'phony soldiers,' " she did not point out the contradiction.

Republicans Launch Baseless Smear Campaign on Children

Republicans Launch Baseless Smear Campaign on Children

Graeme Frost two weeks ago gave the Democrat's response to the President's radio address. You will remember that his family is middle class, and he had public health insurance that saved his family from financial ruin after he and his sister were grievously injured in a car wreck, both needing physical therapy. But, the Neo-con attack dogs immediately and shamelessly Swiftboated him.

The Real Iraq We Knew - 12 Former Army Captains

The Real Iraq We Knew - 12 Former Army Captains

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq’s oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with “the surge,” we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents’ cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet — moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much “battle space,” are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted draw-down is further escalation of attacks — on U.S. troops, civilian leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.

'Our humanity has been compromised'

'Our humanity has been compromised'

Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America's recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he "never laid hands on anyone" in his many interrogations, adding, "I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those "good Germans" who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It's up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war's last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country's good name.

Study Reveals Economic Pain as Millions of American Workers Struggle to Make Ends Meet

Study Reveals Economic Pain as Millions of American Workers Struggle to Make Ends Meet

The Bush recovery has been good for Wall Street, but not Main Street. The economic recovery that began in 2001 has brought slow job growth, limited wage gains, and continued rising inequality. While families at the top of the income ladder have seen their incomes rise faster than inflation, those in the middle and bottom have seen theirs fall.

....The reality, however, according to research we released this week, is that nearly 41 million people live in families that don't earn enough to make ends meet, and government benefits do not fill in the gap. These families work, but their earnings aren't enough. Most low-wage workers don't get the kinds of employer-sponsored benefits common for higher-waged workers, so without government help, these families are left out in the cold, often unable to afford health insurance, decent child care or other necessities.

Is Mitch McConnell(R-Ky) Secretly Financing Right Wing Attacks On a 12-Year-Old?

Is Mitch McConnell(R-Ky) Secretly Financing Right Wing Attacks On a 12-Year-Old?

The NYTimes parses the disgusting all-out spitefest against this family, and coughs up another quote from a "an aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell" -- gee, they sure do get around, don't they?

Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, "I think it's really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy."...

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off, glad to let bloggers take the heat for attacking a family with injured children.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches. (emphasis mine)

Smells like a political bait and switch maneuver to me, with the GOP leadership leaving the skeezy tactical bag holding to the more than happy to hold it foaming at the mouth wingnuttia denizens. News flash to Sen. McConnell: if you had anything to do with this, the slime stops at your door as well. Attacking minor children for political gain is craven and wrong. Period. Was this coordination on attacks against a 12 year old done with Sen. McConnell's approval -- or is his control over his staff so lax that he had no idea this was being done? And, either way, how does this qualify as "leadership?"

Is anyone in the media going to actually dig into this and find out how involved the McConnell oppo shop has been in all of this? Because I would love to hear a yes or no answer on any of the above questions.

Free Republic Hate Mongers Swiftboat 12 Year Old

Free Republic Nut Jobs Swiftboat 12 Year Old

Conservatives have more recently turned their targets on young Graeme Frost himself. A poster at the Free Republic propagated information alleging that Frost was actually a rich kid being pampered by the government. Among other bits of information, the post by the Freeper "icwhatudo" asserts that Graeme and his sister Gemma attend wealthy schools that cost "nearly $40,000 per year for tuition" and live in a well-off home.

The smear attack against Graeme has taken firm hold in the right-wing blogosphere. The National Review, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Powerline, and the Weekly Standard blog have all launched assaults on the Frost family. The story is slowly working its way into traditional media outlets as well.

Here are the facts that the right-wing distorted in order to attack young Graeme:

1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

3) They bought their "lavish house" sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.

4) Last year, the Frost's made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.

5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

Desperate to defend Bush's decision to cut off millions of children from health care, the right wing has stooped to launching baseless and uninformed attacks against a 12 year old child and his family.

Right wing bloggers have been harassing the Frosts, calling their home numerous times to get information about their private lives. Compassionate conservatism indeed.