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Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Bush, Big Oil at it again. Always at it. This time it is just a little more blatant. Here's to the worst planet money can buy. From the story: Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Gonzales Questions Habeas Corpus

In the most shockingly cynical, mis-directed and mind-boggling statement by an Attorney General in perhaps the history of the world, Gonzales offered his own feeble-minded re-interpretation of the United States Constitution. In an further attempt to somehow justify the criminal activities of the Bush Administration, Gonzales stated, "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,". So in order to take it away, does not one have to have it in the first place? My god, where did Bush find this guy? Answer: the same pea pod of neocons who are bent on taking away the rights of the US people, imposing imperial rule on the United States and expanding US hegemony to the rest of the world. It may be time to dust off those Hitler references.

Pentagon's Propaganda Machine

The Pentagon has been planting "news" stories in the foreign press for several years. Government propaganda in the U.S. is supposedly illegal though the Bush administration seems to flaunt this with impunity and FOX news is all too happy to assist. Setting the constitution aside, the Pentagon has announced a new "media war" unit to add it's own noise to the din of misinformation in the world. Fearing that insurgents and anyone else deemed unfriendly to U.S. policy (including U.S. citizens) are gaining the upper hand in the dissemination of information, disinformation and misinformation, the Pentagon will continue to plant U.S.-friendly news stories in all media outlets that it can manage to infiltrate including 24 hour news channels, the Internet and newspapers. What is different? Nothing. The Pentagon is merely announcing that it is doing something that it has been doing all along. They are covering their butts so no one can act surprised when U.S. citizens wak

Bush Nixes Public Access to EPA Libraries!

If you cannot squelch public opinion and facts with propaganda and lies, just block access to the facts. It seems that the self-appointed "Decider", George W. Bush, has decided to "end public access to research materials" at EPA Regional libraries without Congressional consent. In an all out effort to impede research and public access, Bush has implemented a loosely covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of a budgetary constraint move. Scientists are protesting, but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006. ... The suppression of information to the public and efforts to control the flow of information of the sciences has reached critical mass. Shades of the once science fictional book, Fahrenheit 451, are dangerously close to reality and the banning and burning of books looms all to surreal, but are more fact than science fiction now. Who could have ever envisioned that Ray Bradbury's vicious, futuristic, dysto

Oh Hell Yes!

NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional Judge orders immediate halt to program Thank you ACLU! (CNN) -- A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the U.S. government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately. In a 44-page memorandum and order, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, -- who is based in Detroit, Michigan --struck down the National Security Agency's program, which she said violates the rights to free speech and privacy. Taylor's ruling stems from a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. According to The Associated Press, Taylor is the first judge to rule the eavesdropping program unconstitutional. (Read the complete ruling -- PDF) The defendants "are permanently enjoined from directly or indirectly utilizing the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) in any way, including, but not limited to, conducting warrantless wiretaps of telephone and Internet communications, in contravention of the Foreign

Block the Vote, Ohio Remix

Published: June 7, 2006 New York Times: If there was ever a sign of a ruling party in trouble, it is a game plan that calls for trying to win by discouraging voting. The latest sign that Republicans have an election-year strategy to shut down voter registration drives comes from Ohio. As the state gears up for a very competitive election season this fall, its secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has put in place "emergency" regulations that could hit voter registration workers with criminal penalties for perfectly legitimate registration practices. The rules are so draconian they could shut down registration drives in Ohio. Mr. Blackwell, who also happens to be the Republican candidate for governor this year, has a history of this sort of behavior. In 2004, he instructed county boards of elections to reject any registrations on paper of less than 80-pound stock — about the thickness of a postcard. His order was almost certainly illegal, and he retracted it after he came