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Monday, February 13, 2006



1 - Intro
2 - Cam'ron feat. Hell Rell, Jim Jones & J.R. Writer - Get Em Daddy (remix)
3 - Cam'ron feat. Juelz Santana - It's Nothing
4 - Cam'ron feat. Nicole Wray - Love My Life
5 - Hell Rell Freestyle
6 - Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, Lil' Wayne & Notorious B.I.G. - Big Song
7 - Jim Jones - Murder Murder
8 - .40 Cal feat. A-Mafia - What You Want To Talk About
9 - J.R. Writer & .40 Cal - Pushin'
10 - Juelz Santana feat. Young Jeezy - Best Of Both Hoods
11 - J.R. Writer feat. CL Smooth - Mesmerized (remix)
12 - Juelz Santana & Linkin Park - From Bottom To Top
13 - Cam'ron & Juelz Santana feat. Mariah Carey - Mariah (remix)
14 - Jha Jha feat. Jim Jones - I Ain't Wit It
15 - Hell Rell - Dipset The Realest
16 - .40 Cal feat. Bezell & Peedi Crack - Go Go Go
17 - Hell Rell & J.R. Writer - Line Of Fire
18 - Chubby Baby feat. Hell Rell & J.R. Writer - 3 Pots On A Stove
19 - Jim Jones feat. Max & Mel Murder - G's Up (remix)
20 - .40 Cal Freestyle
21 - Cam'ron - Do Your Thing
22 - J.R. Writer Freestyle










Title Stays



1 - DJ Smallz & J-Kwon Intro
2 - I’m A King
3 - Young & Paid
4 - Brick Work
5 - Flossin’
6 - J-Kwon PSA
7 - Fresh Azimiz feat. Bow Wow
8 - Party Over Here feat. Jermaine Dupri
9 - Ten Toes feat. Jermaine Dupri, Stat Quo & Daz
10 - J-Kwon PSA #2
11 - Like Dis feat. Andy Milonakis (comedian)
12 - Run It feat. Chris Brown
13 - Swing feat. Noe Good
14 - Get Back feat. Backdraft
15 - Get XXX’d Again feat. B.G. & Petey Pablo
16 - DJ Smallz & J-Kwon Outro

Smallz and Kwon

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Feb/06

200 Insiders Against the World

Inside the Global Dominance Group

By PETER PHIILLIPS

The leadership class in the US is now dominated by a neo-conservative group of some 200 people who have the shared goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This Global Dominance Group, in cooperation with major military contractors, has become a powerful force in military unilateralism and US political processes.

A long thread of sociological research documents the existence of a dominant ruling class in the US, which sets policy and determines national political priorities. C. Wright Mills, in his 1956 book on the power elite, documented how World War II solidified a trinity of power in the US that comprised corporate, military and government elites in a centralized power structure working in unison through "higher circles" of contact and agreement.

Neo-conservatives promoting the US Military control of the world are now in dominant policy positions within these higher circles of the US. Adbusters magazine summed up neo-conservatism as: "The belief that Democracy, however flawed, was best defended by an ignorant public pumped on nationalism and religion. Only a militantly nationalist state could deter human aggression Such nationalism requires an external threat and if one cannot be found it must be manufactured."

In 1992, during Bush the First's administration, Dick Cheney supported Lewis Libby and Paul Wolfowitz in producing the "Defense Planning Guidance" report, which advocated US military dominance around the globe in a "new order." The report called for the United States to grow in military superiority and to prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge us on the world stage.

At the end of Clinton's administration, global dominance advocates founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Among the PNAC founders were eight people affiliated with the number-one defense contractor Lockheed-Martin, and seven others associated with the number-three defense contractor Northrop Grumman. Of the twenty-five founders of PNAC twelve were later appointed to high level positions in the George W. Bush administration.

In September 2000, PNAC produced a 76-page report entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The report, similar to the 1992 Defense Policy Guidance report, called for the protection of the American Homeland, the ability to wage simultaneous theater wars, perform global constabulary roles, and the control of space and cyberspace. It claimed that the 1990s were a decade of defense neglect and that the US must increase military spending to preserve American geopolitical leadership as the world's superpower. The report also recognized that: "the process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event such as a new Pearl Harbor." The events of September 11, 2001 presented exactly the catastrophe that the authors of Rebuilding America' Defenses theorized were needed to accelerate a global dominance agenda. The resulting permanent war on terror has led to massive government defense spending, the invasions of two countries, and the threatening of three others, and the rapid acceleration of the neo-conservative plans for military control of the world.

The US now spends as much for defense as the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon's budget for buying new weapons rose from $61 billion in 2001 to over $80 billion in 2004. Lockheed Martin's sales rose by over 30% at the same time, with tens of billions of dollars on the books for future purchases. From 2000 to 2004, Lockheed Martins stock value rose 300%. Northrup-Grumann saw similar growth with DoD contracts rising from $3.2 billion in 2001 to $11.1 billion in 2004. Halliburton, with Dick Cheney as former CEO, had defense contracts totaling $427 million in 2001. By 2003, they had $4.3 billion in defense contracts, of which approximately a third were sole source agreements.

At the beginning of 2006 the Global Dominance Group's agenda is well established within higher circle policy councils and cunningly operationalized inside the US Government. They work hand in hand with defense contractors promoting deployment of US forces in over 700 bases worldwide.
There is an important difference between self-defense from external threats, and the belief in the total military control of the world. When asked, most working people in the US have serious doubts about the moral and practical acceptability of financing world domination.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization. www.project.censored.org

A more in-depth review of the global dominance group's agenda and a list of the 200 advocates see: http://www.projectcensored.org/

Wednesday, February 08, 2006




DJ_Drama_And_Young_Buck-Case_Dismissed_The_Introduction_To_G-Unit_South-2006

1 - Case Dismissed!!!
2 - Come And Catch Me feat. Lil' Scrappy & All Star
3 - You Can Get It Too feat. D-Tay
4 - real niggas Across the World
5 - Here We Come feat. D-Tay, Lil Murder & HI-C
6 - I Need A Freak
7 - Move It Like I Do feat. D-Tay & Hi-C
8 - Once A Month!!
9 - Postin Up feat. Shannon Sanders
10 - Where The Haters At feat. All Star, Lil' Murder, & Hi-C
11 - I'll Be Back
12 - Let's Get Dirty feat. D-Tay, Lil' Murder, & Hi-C
13 - G-Unit South
14 - G Shit - All Star
15 - Hood Love
16 - Money In The Bank feat. Lil' Scrappy
17 - Sippin' Purp feat. D-Tay
18 - Pop A Pill feat. D-Tay, Lil' Murder, & Hi-C
19 - We The Fuck Outta Here!
20 - War Witcha Homeboy
21 - Shout Out To Pimp C & Project Pat


Buck


1. lil wayne - intro 0:23
2. lil wayne - fireman (blend) 2:10
3. jay z aztec lil wayne - back then (dj roz mix) 3:31
4. lil wayne - money on my mind 4:13
5. weezy - interview pt. 1 0:30
6. lil wayne - go dj (blend) 1:54
7. weezy - interview pt. 2 0:41
8. jay z ft. lil wayne - u dont know (dj roz mix) 3:21
9. sauce money ft. jay z - pregame 2:07
10. lil wayne juelz santana young jeezy - make 3:25
that crack
11. lil wayne - im a dboy 3:45
12. jay z lil wayne - diamonds on my neck (dj roz 3:01
mix)
13. bobby valentino ft. lil wayne jay z - tell me 1:50
(dj roz mix)
14. lil wayne ft. mack 10 jay z - shine (dj roz mix) 2:45
15. jay z - the watcher 1:29
16. lil wayne - get off tha corner 3:25
17. juvenile ft. jay z - ha (rmx) 1:54
18. hot boys - ha (rmx) 1:13
19. lil wayne - the block is hot 3:00
20. notorious b.i.g. ft. lil wayne juelz santana - 3:21
im with whateva
21. weezy - interview pt. 3 0:18
22. jay z - show you how 2:24
23. jay z - get my shit off (unreleased) 3:07
24. lil wayne - waynes takeover 1:11
25. jay z - imaginary player 3:54
26. lil wayne - i miss my dawgs 4:05
27. beanie sigel ft. jay z - changes (dj roz mix) 4:03
28. jay z ft. lil wayne - dear summer (dj roz mix) 6:59
29. jay z - st. ides commercial (unreleased) 0:47
30. blackface - deez niggaz 2:39
31. blackface - in da hood 2:13


WEEZY & JAYZEEZY
__________________
FROM RENSE



Polls Show
Many Americans Are
Simply Dumber Than Bush

By Paul Craig Roberts
2-6-6

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information.

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some degree.

Despite the media's failure, about half the population has managed to discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is not a necessary component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?

The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of Bush's performance as president. But a majority believe Bush's policies have made the US more secure.

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US. Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.

We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan. In the recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half of the government. In Iraq, Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis with Islamist Shia allied with Iran.

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!

What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?

Americans share this disability with the Bush administration. According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration astonished?

The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead, purposes of the US government.

Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States.

The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.
HERE'S A LITTLE BED TIME READING.

FROM RENSE.COM






Russian MP Says US To Attack Iran Late March
Muslim riots a US psyop aimed at getting EU support for war

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | February 7 2006

A top Russian parliamentary leader has told Ekho Moskvy radio station that an attack on Iran is inevitable and that it will occur on March 28th. The leader of the Liberal Democrats Vladimir Zhirinovsky also believes that the Muslim riots were orchestrated by the US to garner European backing for the military strike.

Rhetoric has heated significantly in the past week with Donald Rumsfeld yesterday warning that a military option was on the table, echoing the comments of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist who said that the US was prepared to take military action.

Also, Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that Iran would pay "a very heavy price" if the Islamic Republic defiantly resumes full-scale uranium enrichment to build nuclear weapons.

Zhirinovsky told the Russian radio station that, "The war is inevitable because the Americans want this war. Any country claiming a leading position in the world will need to wage wars. Otherwise it will simply not be able to retain its leading position."

"The date for the strike is already known — it is the election day in Israel (March 28). It is also known how much that war will cost,” said Zhirinovsky.




Commenting on the Muslim riots sweeping the Middle East and Europe, Zhirinovsky (pictured above) said that the publication of the offensive cartoons was a planned psyop on the part of the US and aimed to “provoke a row between Europe and the Islamic world”.

“It will all end with European countries thanking the United States and paying, and giving soldiers,” said Zhirinovsky.

The possible inorganic manufactured nature of the riots has to be seriously considered. The three most offensive cartoons that caused the outrage were not even printed in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper but were added in and handed out by Danish imams who “circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries,” according to the London Telegraph.

It also appears highly suspicious that Muslims in Gaza City and other places had gained access to a plentiful supply of Danish flags to burn in front of the waiting world media as soon as the controversy broke out.

It now comes to light that Merete Eldrup, managing director of JP/Politikens Hus, the company that published the cartoons, is the wife of Anders Eldrup. Anders Eldrup is a Bilderberg member who has attended the last five Bilderberg meetings. The Bilderberg Group is a shadowy organization that meets once a year to steer global policy. It is now widely acknowledged that Bilderberg set the date for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.



The violent demonstrations, on the back of last November's French riots, are clearly having the effect of hardening European sympathy towards Muslims, even as the governments of major European countries open the floodgates to mass immigration. This greases the skids for an accelerated invasion of Iran who yesterday announced they were cutting trade with Denmark over the offensive cartoons.

Director of the Russian Political Research Institute Sergei Markov previously warned that Israel was likely to conduct air strikes against Iran in the spring.

The window of opportunity seems to be forming for the US and Israel. The White House meeting memo proves that UN consultations and possible sanctions are mere window dressing for a plan of action that has already been decided upon. What remains to be seen is if the US or Israel will attempt to manufacture a staged war provocation to goad the Iranians into signing their own death warrant. The memo, released by QC Philippe Sands, contained details of a discussion between Tony Blair and George Bush where a plan to paint a US spy plane in UN colors and fly it low over Iraq in the hope that Saddam would order it shot down was debated.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Chavez says Bush worse than Hitler
Sat Feb 4, 2006 8:49 PM ET



By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told a rally of thousands of supporters on Saturday that U.S. President George W. Bush was worse than Hitler and vowed to buy more arms to defend his nation as their diplomatic relations deteriorated.

"The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush," Chavez said from a stage decorated with a huge red image of himself as a young soldier.

Already frayed ties between the United States and the socialist leader worsened further this week after Chavez expelled a U.S. military attache accused of espionage and the White House responded by ordering out a Venezuelan diplomat.

Chavez, a retired army paratrooper who often accuses Washington of trying to overthrow him, warned he could shut Venezuelan oil refineries in the United States and sell oil for the U.S. market elsewhere if Washington cuts off ties.

U.S. officials have made no suggestion they plan to break relations. Washington has repeatedly dismissed Chavez's threats and charges as inflammatory rhetoric aimed at stirring up nationalist sentiment among his poor supporters.

Washington and Caracas recently locked horns over a U.S. block on sales of Spanish military equipment to Venezuela. The Spanish aircraft contained U.S.-made technology, which requires countries to get Washington's clearance for the sale.

Chavez, who last year bought helicopters and 100,000 rifles from Russia, said he would seek to buy more arms to defend Venezuela against any attempt to topple his government. U.S. officials say the purchases could destabilize the region as Chavez moves to create a huge military reservist movement.

"I ask for permission ... to buy another cargo of arms because the gringos want us unarmed. We have to defend our fatherland," he said. "Venezuela needs 1 million well-equipped men and women, and well-armed."

The Venezuelan leader has put himself at the center of regional opposition to Bush, who he calls "Mr. Danger," while Washington brands Chavez a worrying threat to regional stability and criticizes his alliance with Cuba.

Flush with cash from high crude prices, Chavez is promoting socialist reforms at home and aggressively challenging U.S. free-market proposals by allying himself with his South American neighbors, as well as Cuba and Iran.

U.S. officials reject charges the expelled naval attache contacted Venezuelan officers for state secrets. Chavez on Saturday read out e-mails he said were communications between the officers and the U.S. Embassy.

Since his 1998 election, Chavez has clashed repeatedly with the United States, which he accuses of planning an invasion and backing a brief 2002 coup attempt that he survived with the help of loyal troops.

Saturday, February 04, 2006






1. Third Times The Charge
2. I'm Back
3. USDA's The Click
4. Ya Dig
5. Cadillac
6. Reintroduction
7. One's For CTE w/ Slick Pulla & Bloodraw
8. Gangsta Party w/ Slick Pulla
9. Say I w/ Christina Milian
10. Better Than Ever
11. U Can't Stop These Gangsters W/ Slick Pulla
12. I Kno U Don't Love Me w/ Slick Pulla
13. Trap Star Feat Slick Pulla
14. Jeezy The Snowman
15. Burnin Up w/ Slick Pulla & Bloodraw
16. Makin It Look Easy
17. I'm A G w/ Slick Pulla
18. Snitches Ft. Bloodraw
19. Studio Gangsters
20. After 2 Million Sold
21. Lil Buddy w/ Bloodraw
22. Still Don't Kno
23. Verbal Intercourse
24. For The Hood
25. We Major
26. Still I Love It
27. We Did It Again

SNOWMAN

Friday, February 03, 2006

****new link , hopefully works, too tired to double check ******







01-Clyde_Carson-Hyphy_Juice
02-Keak_Da_Sneak-Contact_Sport
03-Federation-Scraper_To_A_Benz
04-Scweez_Ft_Antonio-Yes_Sir_(Stay_Hyphy)
05-Champ_Bailey_Ft_J_Valentine-U_C_It
06-Hood_Star_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Cant_Leave_Rap_Alone
07-Yukmouth-Playa_Hata_(G-Unit_Diss)
08-Block_Boys_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Do_You
09-Too_Short_Ft_The_Game-Im_Wit_It
10-Tyquan_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Im_In_Love_With_A_Rippa
11-The_Pack_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Yes_Sir
12-Keak_Da_Sneak-Aaadddiiimean_(Remix)
13-The_Mossie_Ft_Mistha_F.A.B-Throw_it_Up_(Prod_By_Droop_E)
14-San_Quinn-Look_What_I've_Done_For_Them
15-Killa_Klump_Ft_Frank_Sticks-Yadaboyz
16-Messy_Marv_Ft_Ashanti-Untitled_(Snipit)
17-Mac_Dre_Ft_Andre_Nikatina-Cadillac_Girl
18-The_Pack-Vans
19-The Pack-Im so hood
20-The Pack-Im A Rock Star
21-Gorilla_Pits_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Hallways
22-Flow_Masters_Inc_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Super_Shirt_Off
23-Block_Boys-Shake_Ya_Dreads

New Bay Vol 2/Heat


Published on Friday, February 3, 2006 by the Denver Post (Colorado)
George Bush's Ministry of Truth
by Reggie Rivers

When I first read George Orwell's novel "1984" in high school, I was struck by the ability of the Ministry's of Truth to cause the public to forget a truth simply by stating its opposite.

The Ministry's three slogans - "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" - revealed its talent for reversing the meaning of words.

In high school, I assumed that this type of manipulation would never work in the real world, but now and again I wonder - especially when I hear President Bush attempt to reshape our perception of actual events by telling us that the truth is the opposite of what we're seeing.

During the State of the Union address this week, he said, "We seek the end of tyranny in our world." Yet, his administration has engaged in extremely tyrannical behavior: invading a sovereign nation, incarcerating people without trials, committing torture, spying on its own citizens and shrouding itself in secrecy.

Regarding the war in Iraq, he said, "If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores." Though it has long been proved that the Sept. 11 terrorists weren't from Iraq, had no connection to Iraq, and are not now in Iraq, President Bush continues to insist that the war is related to Sept. 11.

He said, "There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat." Of course, there can be peace and honor in retreat, but since he practices a doctrine of never considering alternatives and never admitting mistakes, denigrating the merits of retreat is like a scorched-Earth policy that forces combatants forward even if it's suicidal to continue.

He said, "We are on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory." Because of the challenges related to fighting a shadow army of insurgents, the coalition has been on the defensive for most of the war. The only thing that has been clear from the start is that the Bush administration never has had a well-developed plan.

About the war, President Bush said, "We are winning." More than 2,200 U.S. troops have been killed, more than 16,500 have been injured, and combat operations have cost hundreds of billions of dollars with no end in sight. The statement "We are winning" is pure puffery.

"Our coalition has learned from experience in Iraq," he said. President Bush loves to suggest that he has learned things, but he never reveals what he has learned and, when pressed, he always insists that he wouldn't change any of his previous choices.

True to form, he followed up his comment about learning with, "Hindsight alone is not wisdom. Second-guessing is not a strategy." This is clever speechwriting, but it's simply not true. If a drunk driver received a DWI citation or, worse, caused an accident, the courts would use hindsight and second-guessing to punish him and to instill greater wisdom in his future choices.

President Bush said, "However we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our nation has only one option." Again, he suggests that he has learned something, but then insists that the only possible choice is to continue doing what he's been doing from the start.

Whether it's deliberate or accidental, President Bush is channeling the Ministry of Truth in making these statements that are intended to manipulate the American people into believing the words coming out of his mouth more than the evidence they can see with their own eyes.

His poll numbers continue to drop, so it seems that Americans, unlike the citizens in Orwell's book, are able to see through his lies.

Former Denver Bronco footbal player Reggie Rivers is the host of "Global Agenda" Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. on KBDI-Channel 12. His column appears every Friday.


01-Clyde_Carson-Hyphy_Juice
02-Keak_Da_Sneak-Contact_Sport
03-Federation-Scraper_To_A_Benz
04-Scweez_Ft_Antonio-Yes_Sir_(Stay_Hyphy)
05-Champ_Bailey_Ft_J_Valentine-U_C_It
06-Hood_Star_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Cant_Leave_Rap_Alone
07-Yukmouth-Playa_Hata_(G-Unit_Diss)
08-Block_Boys_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Do_You
09-Too_Short_Ft_The_Game-Im_Wit_It
10-Tyquan_Ft_Keak_Da_Sneak-Im_In_Love_With_A_Rippa
11-The_Pack_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Yes_Sir
12-Keak_Da_Sneak-Aaadddiiimean_(Remix)
13-The_Mossie_Ft_Mistha_F.A.B-Throw_it_Up_(Prod_By_Droop_E)
14-San_Quinn-Look_What_I've_Done_For_Them
15-Killa_Klump_Ft_Frank_Sticks-Yadaboyz
16-Messy_Marv_Ft_Ashanti-Untitled_(Snipit)
17-Mac_Dre_Ft_Andre_Nikatina-Cadillac_Girl
18-The_Pack-Vans
19-The Pack-Im so hood
20-The Pack-Im A Rock Star
21-Gorilla_Pits_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Hallways
22-Flow_Masters_Inc_Ft_Mistah_F.A.B-Super_Shirt_Off
23-Block_Boys-Shake_Ya_Dreads

New Bay Vol 2/Heat
It's Capitalism Or A Habitable Planet - You Can't Have Both

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change

by Robert Newman

There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.

Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.

Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalism somehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.

On these pages we have been called on to admire capital's ability to take robust action while governments dither. All hail Wal-Mart for imposing a 20% reduction in its own carbon emissions. But the point is that supermarkets are over. We cannot have such long supply lines between us and our food. Not any more. The very model of the supermarket is unsustainable, what with the packaging, food miles and destruction of British farming. Small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers or community-owned shops selling locally produced food provide a social glue and reduce carbon emissions. The same is true of food co-ops such as Manchester's bulk-distribution scheme serving former "food deserts".

All hail BP and Shell for having got beyond petroleum to become non-profit eco-networks supplying green energy. But fail to cheer the Fortune 500 corporations that will save us all and ecologists are denounced as anti-business. Many career environmentalists fear that an anti-capitalist position is what's alienating the mainstream from their irresistible arguments. But is it not more likely that people are stunned into inaction by the bizarre discrepancy between how extreme the crisis described and how insipid the solutions proposed? Go on a march to the House of Commons. Write a letter to your MP. And what system does your MP hold with? Name one that isn't pro-capitalist. Oh, all right then, smartarse. But name five.

We are caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of climate change and peak oil. Once we pass the planetary oil production spike (when oil begins rapidly to deplete and demand outstrips supply), there will be less and less net energy available to humankind. Petroleum geologists reckon we will pass the world oil spike sometime between 2006 and 2010. It will take, argues peak-oil expert Richard Heinberg, a second world war effort if many of us are to come through this epoch. Not least because modern agribusiness puts hundreds of calories of fossil-fuel energy into the fields for each calorie of food energy produced.

Catch-22, of course, is that the very worst fate that could befall our species is the discovery of huge new reserves of oil, or even the burning into the sky of all the oil that's already known about, because the climate chaos that would unleash would make the mere collapse of industrial society a sideshow bagatelle. Therefore, since we've got to make the switch from oil anyway, why not do it now?

Solutions need to come from people themselves. But once set up, local autonomous groups need to be supported by technology transfers from state to community level. Otherwise it's too expensive to get solar panels on your roof, let alone set up a local energy grid. Far from utopian, this has a precedent: back in the 1920s the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Battersea had their own electricity-generating grid for their residents. So long as energy corporations exist, however, they will fight tooth and nail to stop whole postal districts seceding from the national grid. Nor will the banks and the CBI be neutral bystanders, happy to observe the inroads participatory democracy makes in reducing carbon emissions, or a trade union striking for carbon quotas.

There are many organisational projects we can learn from. The Just Transition Alliance, for example, was set up by black and Latino groups in the US working with labour unions to negotiate alliances between "frontline workers and fenceline communities", that is to say between union members who work in polluting industries and stand to lose their jobs if the plant is shut down, and those who live next to the same plant and stand to lose their health if it's not.

We have to start planning seriously not just a system of personal carbon rationing but at what limit to set our national carbon ration. Given a fixed UK carbon allowance, what do we spend it on? What kinds of infrastructure do we wish to build, retool or demolish? What kinds of organisational structures will work as climate change makes pretty much all communities more or less "fenceline" and almost all jobs more or less "frontline"? (Most of our carbon emissions come when we're at work).

To get from here to there we must talk about climate chaos in terms of what needs to be done for the survival of the species rather than where the debate is at now or what people are likely to countenance tomorrow morning.

If we are all still in denial about the radical changes coming - and all of us still are - there are sound geological reasons for our denial. We have lived in an era of cheap, abundant energy. There never has and never will again be consumption like we have known. The petroleum interval, this one-off historical blip, this freakish bonanza, has led us to believe that the impossible is possible, that people in northern industrial cities can have suntans in winter and eat apples in summer. But much as the petroleum bubble has got us out of the habit of accepting the existence of zero-sum physical realities, it's wise to remember that they never went away. You can either have capitalism or a habitable planet. One or the other, not both.

Email to: rnewman@dircon.co.uk

Published on Thursday, February 2, 2006 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Has Lost Americans' Confidence
by Jay Bookman

President Bush has forfeited the faith of the American people, and judging from his language Tuesday night, he knows it. In his 2006 State of the Union speech, the president felt it necessary to warn us against "economic retreat," against retreating "from our duties in the hope of easier life."

"There is no peace in retreat," the president said, "and there is no honor in retreat." He warned against "abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders," promising that "the United States will not retreat from the world."

"Never give in to the belief that America is in decline," he begged his fellow citizens, "or that our culture is doomed to unravel."

Retreat. Decline. Retreat. . . . The White House had advertised the speech as optimistic, but its unconscious recurring theme, its underlying tone, proved to be anything but.

The president's language did, however, reflect the nation's mood. For months, almost two-thirds of Americans have been telling pollsters that the country was headed in the wrong direction. Almost two-thirds say the economy is fair or poor, despite the fact that by many standard measures it's doing pretty well. And while President Bush says we're winning in Iraq, 60 percent disapprove of how he has handled that critically important challenge.

Some might interpret those numbers to mean that the American people are losing faith in this country — that's clearly the president's fear, for example. But I think that's wrong. We have lost faith in our leadership, which is a very different thing.

That loss of faith applies not just to the president but to government in general: Approval ratings for Congress are even lower than those for Bush. And it stretches beyond government. Too many of our corporate executives seem trapped in the gone old days, unable to adapt to new challenges, with thousands of jobs disappearing as a consequence. Too many of the rest are enriching themselves by squeezing hundreds of millions of dollars out of their workers' hides, while government cuts taxes on their proceeds.

Across all realms, there's a sense that our leaders lack the courage, the moral strength and the intellectual independence to address fundamental problems. Again, Bush's speech offers the perfect example.

In another echo of President Carter's infamous "malaise speech" of 1979, Bush pledged Tuesday night to break our oil addiction, to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

That's a worthy goal, but the president made no mention of taking such difficult steps as raising auto fuel-efficiency standards. He promised only the painless option of boosting spending on clean-energy research by 22 percent in the 2007 budget.

That "bold" new investment amounts to just 6.8 percent of ExxonMobil's profit for the fourth quarter, or what we spend in four days in Iraq.

No pain, no sacrifice, no hard work. Pick your topic; it's a story repeated over and over again.

In Iraq, the Bush administration didn't do the hard work of planning and preparing for an occupation and never committed the resources or manpower to make it work. The results are all too glaring.

After the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, we were promised a government ready to respond to the next disaster, but Hurricane Katrina proved that to be all talk as well. The administration just never took the job seriously, and it showed.

The same is true of the Medicare prescription drug plan. It's gonna cost us $500 billion we don't have, and even at that price it has been an administrative nightmare.

Go through the list — what project has this administration succeeded in pulling off, other than its own re-election and the creation of a right-wing Supreme Court? The answer is nothing.

In fact, they refuse even to acknowledge some of our most pressing problems. Man-made climate change is threatening to disrupt the environment on a planetary scale, and we do nothing. Last year our national savings dropped to the lowest level since the depths of the Great Depression, and we do nothing. We finance our greed and selfishness not by our own productive sweat and toil, but by borrowing another $2 billion every day from the rest of the world, money that our children and grandchildren will have to repay.

The president's right about this much: The American people do not like to retreat, and are by nature optimistic.

But optimism is a right purchased through hard work and sacrifice. We used to know that, but the memory's been lost.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.

© 2006 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
US Media at 'All-Time Low'
by Julia Day

Arabic-language media have an unprecedented chance to take over as the world's premier news source because trust in their US counterparts plummeted following their "shameful coverage" of the war in Iraq, a conference heard today.
The US media reached an "all-time low" in failing to reflect public opinion and Americans' desire for trusted information, instead acting as a "cheerleader" for war, said Amy Goodman, the executive producer and host of US TV and radio news show Democracy Now!, at a news forum organised by al-Jazeera.


If people in the US had a true picture of war - dead babies, women with their legs blown off, dead and dying soldiers - they would say 'no' ... we need a media that is independent and honestly showing us the images, the hell, ugliness and brutality of war, not selling us war.

Newsweek's Paris bureau chief, Christopher Dickey, said the US media were dying because of cutbacks and weren't interested in covering the world outside America.

But other delegates questioned whether Arabic media were up to the challenge.

"The US media have done a shameful job of reporting on the Arab world. With the rise of al-Jazeera and independent media there is a chance for the Arab media to react back, but instead what we get is a clash," said Ethan Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices Online and research fellow at the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

"I would urge everyone involved with new Arabic media not just to report on this [Arabic] world more fairly and accurately, but to report on the whole world more fairly and accurately. I challenge al-Jazeera and the new Arabic media players to do a better job that the US in covering the rest of the world," he said.

Ms Goodman said in the run-up to the Iraq war a study of NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS newscasts over a fortnight recorded 393 interviews on the conflict, of which only three reported the anti-war movement.

"This is a media cheerleading for war and does not represent mainstream opinion in the US," she added.

Ms Goodman said she believed the policy of embedding reporters with coalition forces was "a total failure for independent journalism ... western audiences need to see the other side of the story - from communities and hospitals".

"If people in the US had a true picture of war - dead babies, women with their legs blown off, dead and dying soldiers - they would say 'no'," she said.

"There is nothing more important than the media - it is more powerful than any bomb or missile and we have to take it back ... we need a media that is independent and honestly showing us the images, the hell, ugliness and brutality of war, not selling us war."

Mr Dickey, the Middle East regional editor and Paris bureau chief at Newsweek magazine, said US media were "dying".

"After 25 years as a foreign correspondent I know what the US wants from the rest of the world: to forget about it."

"There's this idea that the US media is controlling the agenda. In fact the US media is dying. Resources, money and staff are being cut back. Twenty years ago Newsweek had 25 staff in Paris, today it has one: me," said Mr Dickey.

He added that the gap between what the US and Arabic media reports was widening, with American reports being "all about victory and the Arabic being all about victims".

Faisal al-Kasim, host of al-Jazeera's The Opposite Direction show, said that as a result of a perceived failure of western media to reflect the full picture more people were turning to Arabic media.

"Even Arabs who live in the west are giving up watching western networks and tuning to Arabic networks instead," Mr al-Kasim said.

However, concerns were aired at today's conference about the ability of the Arabic media to operate independently.

Lawrence Pintak, a director of the Adham Centre for Electronic Journalism and a former CBS foreign correspondent, urged delegates against thinking that Arabic media were allowed the freedoms to which western journalists were accustomed.

"I am concerned that someone from the US or Europe who doesn't know the Arabic world will think that all is goodness and light when we know that is not the case," he said, citing the beating of journalists during the Egyptian elections and the detention of journalists in Yemen and Morocco.

However, Mr Pintak there was a "great sense of possibility" about journalism in the Arabic world, likening it to the interest in the profession in the US following Watergate.

Concerns were also aired about the ability of al-Jazeera's soon-to-launch English language station, al-Jazeera International, to reproduce the success of its main Arabic network across the world.

"We might as well buy a new channel in the US," Mahmud Shammam, the bureau chief for the Dar Al Watan newspaper and Newsweek Arabic.

"[Al-Jazeera International] will not have Arabic characteristics and that's a big challenge."

Hugh Miles, a journalist and United Nations media consultant, said al-Jazeera was massively popular in north Africa but because conspiracy theories about its agenda were rife, the new English-language channel would be watched very carefully.

"If al-Jazeera International is perceived to be biased or insensitive to Islam - on the Danish cartoon issues for example - there will be a loss of faith in the al-Jazeera brand," he said.

"The Arabic service has done a tremendous job in establishing al-Jazeera as a trusted name. It would be a terrible shame to see that image jeopardised."

But the director of al-Jazeera's research centre, Mostefa Souag, attempted to allay fears about the new channel, saying the network's managing director, Wadah Khanfar, has confirmed its editorial stance "will not be far away" from its sister station.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Thursday, February 02, 2006


DON'T THINK THAT I'M NOT 'FAIR AND BALANCED"

LET SEE WHAT A COUPLE FAMOUS RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVES THINK OF BUSH.

HAHAHA

DAMN HE'S A SHITTY PRESIDENT.




CONSERVATIVE PAT BUCHANAN SLAMS BUSH






Bush Is Running Out of Alibis
by Patrick J. Buchanan


Posted Feb 03, 2006

"The road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline," railed President Bush in his State of the Union. Again and again, Bush returned to his theme.

"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. ...

"Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. ...

"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.

Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it.

Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.

"Abroad, our nation is committed to a historic long-term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world," said Bush. "Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends upon it."

Intending no disrespect, this is noble-sounding nonsense. Our security rests on U.S. power and will, and not on whether Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, Cuba or even China is ruled by tyrants. Our forefathers lived secure in a world of tyrannies by staying out of wars that were none of America's business. As for "the end of tyranny in our world," Mr. President, sorry, that doesn't come in "our world." That comes in the next.

"By allowing radical Islam to work its will, by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals or even in our own courage," said Bush.

But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? It is one thing to believe in ideals, another to be the prisoner of some democratist ideology.

Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.

Given the franchise, Arab and Islamic peoples from Pakistan to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Egypt have now voted for candidates with two credentials. They seemed to be devout Muslims, and they appeared dedicated to tossing America out of the region and the Israelis into the sea.

With opposition also rising to his free-trade policy, Bush reverted to the same tactic: Caricature and castigate critics of his own failed policies. "Protectionists," said Bush, pretend "we can keep our high standards of living, while walling off our economy."

But it was protectionists from Lincoln to Coolidge who gave us the highest standard of living on earth. And the record of Bush's merry band of free-traders? The largest trade deficits in history, a $200 billion trade surplus for Beijing at our expense in 2005, and 3 million lost manufacturing jobs since Bush first took the oath.

If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.

It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12168


GODDAMN!!!

EVEN RIGHT WING " DOUCHEBAG HALL OF FAME MEMBER " ROBERT NOVAK TRASHES BUSH






The Real Bush?
by Robert Novak


Posted Feb 02, 2006

While jumping up on cue to cheer during the speech and delivering rave reviews afterward in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, conservative members of Congress were deeply disappointed by George W. Bush Tuesday night. It was not merely that the president abandoned past domestic goals. He appeared to be moving toward bigger government.

The consensus on the Right was that President Bush's fifth State of the Union Address was his worst. Republican congressmen agreed privately that he was most effective at the beginning with his familiar message of why U.S. forces cannot abandon Iraq. The problem for these lawmakers was the rest of the 51-minute presentation, which was filled with unpleasant surprises.

With polls showing the president's approval rating persistently anemic (as low as 39 percent), the speech aimed at a kinder, gentler Bush. But beyond atmospherics, the policy initiatives staked out new directions in the sixth year of his presidency that raised questions. Is this the real George W. Bush? Is he really his true father's son and not Ronald Reagan's?

The president seemed more comfortable with his foreign policy declarations than with what followed, but even here he did not live up to expectations. Pre-speech tips from White House aides and from Bush himself had pointed to laying down the law to the Iranian regime (step back from nuclear arms) and the Hamas party in Palestine (recognize Israel). He did so, but not with the force and specificity promised.

As expected, Bush backed away from what a year earlier were labeled as the two great initiatives of his second term. He complained that "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security," unintentionally setting off self-congratulatory celebration by Democrats on the floor. But Bush made no promises about trying to revive his personal accounts. The president did not even give the comprehensive tax reform the courtesy of a death notice. It went unmentioned and apparently unmourned.

Prior to the speech, one conservative Republican senator fantasized about Bush turning to Democrats and calling on them to pass permanent tax cuts and then turning to Republicans and calling on them to cut spending. He did call for permanent tax cuts and for control over spending, but so briefly and undramatically that the president's demands lost their impact.

However, what bothered conservatives most about Tuesday night's performance was not what the president failed to do but what he actually did. The pre-speech public relations drumbeat had promised the president would deliver a new energy initiative to Americans angry about the price of gasoline. Indeed, Bush deplored that "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world" and promised to end "our dependence on Middle Eastern oil." It was how he would accomplish this that stunned conservatives.

The president proposed that the government preside over a wide array of non-petroleum energy options. That has all the characteristics of an "industrial policy," with the federal government picking winners and losers. While violating the Republican Party's free market philosophy, this is a course with a lengthy pedigree of failure all over the world.

The same State of the Union address that neglected the Republican goal of reforming the tax system called for an American Competitiveness Initiative that also promises an extension of growing, intrusive government. That would expand still more the federal role in education. Instead of shrinking the federal government, Bush wants to grow it.

None of this change in direction will lead to a kinder, gentler Democratic Party in Congress. Tuesday night's response by newly elected Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, while far more partisan than the president's speech, was relatively moderate and restrained. But it will not be Kaine with whom Bush must deal in this election. It is the fiercely partisan Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi and George Miller.

Bush's softer rhetoric can be stiffened as this year moves toward the serious business of midterm elections. But what happens to the blueprint for big government laid out by President Bush Tuesday night? That will not be easy to reverse.


http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12163

Put the Politicians in the Enron Docket
Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:52:22 -0800

By Robert Scheer
Published from Truthdig

There simply would be no Enron story were it not for the deregulation of the energy market ushered in by Republican politicians.

FINALLY, after four years of legal maneuvering, the trial of Enron top dogs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling opens a new window on the outrageous practices of our modern-day robber barons. But it is depressing that the politicians who benefited from Lay’s largesse, and who changed the law enabling Enron’s chicanery, are going unpunished and even uncriticized.

Indeed, the larger crime, in any proper moral dimension of that word, was committed in the rewriting of the law on corporate regulation to permit Enron’s very existence as a humongous stock market swindler. There simply would be no Enron story were it not for the deregulation of the energy market ushered in by Republican politicians, as Lay himself acknowledged freely in a 2000 interview when asked to explain the “common thread” in Enron’s business model.

“I think the common elements first are that, basically, we are entering markets or in markets that are deregulating or have recently deregulated, and so they have become competitive, moving from monopoly franchise-type businesses to competitive, market-oriented businesses,” said Lay.

Enron’s domination of those deregulated markets was made possible, to a large degree, through the work of the powerful Washington couple, Phil Gramm, then-Republican senator from Texas, and his wife Wendy, then-chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Perhaps predictably, neither Gramm has been charged with any crimes in connection with the Enron scandal, and both are barely mentioned in the two leading books on the scandal by New York Times business writers. But their antics, well-documented by the leading public-interest watchdog group Public Citizen, are the key to understanding the Enron debacle.

Back in 1993, when Enron was an upstart energy trader and Wendy Gramm occupied the position of chair of the CFTC, she granted the company, the biggest contributor to her husband’s political campaigns, a very valuable ruling exempting its trading in futures contracts from federal government regulation.

She resigned her position six days later, not surprising given that she was a political appointee and Bill Clinton had just defeated her boss, the first President Bush. Five weeks after her resignation, she was appointed to Enron’s board of directors, where she served on the delinquent audit committee until the collapse of the company.
There was perfect quid pro quo symmetry to Wendy Gramm’s lucrative career: Bush appoints her to a government position where she secures Enron’s profit margin; Lay, a close friend and political contributor to Bush, then takes care of her nicely once she leaves her government post.
Although she holds a Ph.D. in economics and often is cited as an expert on the deregulation policies she so ardently champions, Gramm insists that while serving on the audit committee she was ignorant of the corporation’s accounting machinations. Despite her myopia, or because of it, she was rewarded with more than $1 million in compensation.
A similar claim of ignorance of Enron’s shenanigans is the defense of her husband, who received $260,000 in campaign contributions from Enron before he pushed through legislation exempting companies like Enron from energy trading regulation.
“This act,” Public Citizen noted, “allowed Enron to operate an unregulated power auction – EnronOnline – that quickly gained control over a significant share of California’s electricity and natural gas market.”

The gaming of the California market, documented in grotesque detail in the e-mails of Enron traders, led to stalled elevators, hospitals without power and an enormous debt inflicted on the state’s taxpayers. It was only after the uproar over California’s rolling blackouts, which Enron helped engineer, that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission finally re-imposed regulatory control – and thereby began the ultimate unraveling of Enron’s massive pyramid of fraud.

Because the second President Bush effectively stalled a more timely response by the FERC, Enron’s demise came too late to prevent California from losing its shirt in its desperate attempt to keep the lights on. The state was forced to hurriedly sign price-gouging long-term energy contracts in order to prevent more damage.
And Bush, even at that late date, still attempted to save Enron by reversing the policy of the Clinton administration aimed at closing off foreign-tax shelters of the type favored by the company’s duplicitous executives. Bush, who received $1.14 million in campaign contributions from Enron, according to Public Citizen, couldn’t understand why the company should not be allowed to have 874 subsidiaries located in offshore tax and bank havens.
As the trial reveals just how fraudulent those offshore Enron operations apparently were, keep in mind that this President Bush was most loathe to clear out those refuges of corporate pirates.
EAZIER SAID THAN DUNN
(let it fully load before u watch it)






Eazy Remix / Tribute Video





Real Mothaphukkin G'z



Kama Sutra worm seduces PC users


By Joris Evers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

A new e-mail worm that spreads under the guise of pornographic content has jumped to the top of the worldwide virus charts.

When run on a Windows PC, the worm copies itself to shared network locations and sends itself to e-mail addresses found on the target computer. The pest includes a timed attack that attempts to disable antivirus and firewall software and delete certain files, including Office documents, on the third day of the month, according to antivirus software vendor F-Secure.

The worm, dubbed W32/Nyxem-E by F-Secure, arrives attached to an e-mail message. It uses a variety of subject lines, including "School girl fantasies gone bad." The body text also varies, but it can include references to the Kama Sutra, the ancient Sanskrit book with pictures and explanations about different sexual positions. The worm executes when the user opens the attachment.

"This worm feeds on people's willingness to receive salacious content on their desktop computer," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for antivirus vendor Sophos, said in a statement.
FILE THIS UNDER "RAPE AT THE PUMP"





Oil giant Shell reports record profit of 22.9 billion dollars in 2005

02/02/2006 08h48


©AFP/File - Mychele Daniau
LONDON (AFP) - Anglo-Dutch oil group Royal Dutch Shell reported net profit in 2005 of 22.94 billion dollars (19.03 billion euros), a record figure and an increase of 30.0 percent compared to 2004.

The company, which benefited from spiraling oil prices over the year, said that the profit figure had been adjusted to take into account changes in the value of its stocks.

In the fourth quarter alone, the company generated net profit of 5.395 billion dollars.

On average, the company produced the equivalent of 3.518 million barrels of oil per day during 2005, a slight decline compared with 3.772 million bpd in 2004.

For 2006, the company reiterated its production target of the lower end of a range of 3.5-3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. It also stuck by a goal of replenishing its reserves to keep them at a constant level for the 2004-2008 period.

Shell also said it would invest 19.0 billion dollars in 2006 and spend 5.0 billion dollars buying back its own shares to boost returns to shareholders.


01. co-reed - bread in all forms
02. frankie krutches - brooklyn bullshit
03. jadakiss ft. snyp and styles p - still down
(produced by breez)
04. j hood and gravy - freestyle
05. az - royal salute (speaks on 50)
06. jim jones ft. stack bundles amd max-b - cold rockin
07. maino ft. fabolous and young jeezy - coke freestyle
08. push montana - rookie of the year
09. odb ft. fat joe and curtains - burnin up
10. stack bundles - what they want
11. gravy - lax freestyle
12. jae millz ft. kayos and ill will - city 2 city
13. sam scarfo and buju banton - who want it
14. lil wayne ft. [pall wall fat joe and ric ross - holla
at me baby
15. ll coll j ft. j-lo - control myself
16. young jeezy and christina milian - say i
17. gravy - hustling freestyle
18. frankie krutches - red bandana
19. talking to you -fredd knuxx

Get That Coke III


DON'T WORRY SHEIKH EL CAMPAIGN BIN CONTRIBUTION , WE REALLY

DIDN'T MEAN THAT NONSENSE ABOUT YOUR OIL

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

By Kevin G. Hall / Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth.

Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

Presidential adviser Dan Bartlett made a similar point in a briefing before the speech. "I think one of the biggest concerns the American people have is oil coming from the Middle East. It is a very volatile region," he said.

Through the first 11 months of 2005, the United States imported nearly 2.2 million barrels per day of oil from the Middle East nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. That's less than 20 percent of the total U.S. daily imports of 10.062 million barrels.

Imports account for about 60 percent of U.S. oil consumption.

Alan Hubbard, the director of the president's National Economic Council, projects that America will import 6 million barrels of oil per day from the Middle East in 2025 without major technological changes in energy consumption.

The Bush administration believes that new technologies could reduce the total daily U.S. oil demand by about 5.26 million barrels through alternatives such as plug-in hybrids with rechargeable batteries, hydrogen-powered cars and new ethanol products.

That means the new technologies could reduce America's oil appetite by the equivalent of what we're expected to import from the Middle East by 2025, Hubbard said.

But we'll still be importing plenty of oil, according to the Energy Department's latest projection.

"In 2025, net petroleum imports, including both crude oil and refined products, are expected to account for 60 percent of demand ... up from 58 percent in 2004," according to the Energy Information Administration's 2006 Annual Energy Outlook.

Some experts think Bush needs to do more to achieve his stated goal.

"We can achieve energy independence from the Middle East, but not with what the president is proposing," said Craig Wolfe, the president of Americans for Energy Independence in Studio City, Calif. "We need to slow the growth in consumption. Our organization believes we need to do something about conservation" and higher auto fuel-efficiency standards.







OOPS,WE JUST CAN'T SEEM TO FIND THOSE RECORDS THAT MIGHT IMPLICATE US, SORRY




Fitzgerald hints White House records lost

By Pete Yost / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is raising the possibility that records sought in the CIA leak investigation could be missing because of an e-mail archiving problem at the White House.

The prosecutor in the criminal case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff said in a Jan. 23 letter that not all e-mail was archived in 2003, the year the Bush administration exposed the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Lawyers for defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby this week accused prosecutors of withholding evidence the Libby camp says it needs to mount a defense.

"We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed," Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to the defense team.

But the prosecutor added: "In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system." His letter was an exhibit attached to Libby's demand for more information from the prosecution.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, said the vice president's office is cooperating fully with the investigation, and referred questions to Fitzgerald's office.

Libby is charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI regarding how he learned of Plame's identity and what he did with the information.

The Presidential Records Act, passed by Congress in 1978, made it clear that records generated in the conduct of official duties did not belong to the president or vice president, but were the property of the government.

The National Archives takes custody of the records when the president leaves office.

"Bottom line: Accidents happen and there could be a benign explanation, but this is highly irregular and invites suspicion," said Steve Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists government secrecy project.

"A particular subset of records sought in a controversial prosecution have gone missing," Aftergood said. "I think what is needed is for the national archivist to ascertain what went wrong and how to ensure it won't happen again."

Wednesday, February 01, 2006





FUNNY HOW HARD THE MEDIA(AND OPRAH) WENT AT AUTHOR JAMES FREY FOR HIS LITTLE MILLION PIECES BOOK.
THEY SAID PART OF THE BOOK WAS FICTION.HE EXAGGERATED HIS ACTIONS AND ADDICTIONS.

THIS WAS HUGE NEWS ?

THEY TORE HIM APART.

COMPARE THAT TO LYING TO THE ENTIRE PLANET ABOUT WMD'S , INVADING ANOTHER COUNTRY, BANRUPTING YOUR NATION, BREAKING YOUR MILITARY AND KILLING THOUSANDS OF YOUR PEOPLE AS WELL AS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT IRAQIS.

I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW FUCKED THIS WAS WHEN I WAS EMAILED THIS.




Oprah "Freys" President Bush:


For the past week, liberal commentators have expressed one simple fantasy: that Oprah Winfrey get a chance to grill President Bush the way she went after fabulist author James Frey. Here they get their wish.

By Greg Mitchell

(February 01, 2006) -- In the days since Oprah Winfrey sliced and diced writer James Frey on her TV show for misleading the public with lies in his bestselling memoir, many liberal commentators have expressed a single wish: to watch Oprah have the opportunity to do the same with President George W. Bush concerning the alleged lies that got the U.S. into Iraq (2200 lost American lives ago).

Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, observed on Tuesday, "If there were justice in the world, George W. Bush would have to give his State of the Union address from Oprah's couch....Bush should have to face the wrathful, Old Testament Oprah who subjected author James Frey to that awful public smiting the other day."


Syndicated columnist Norman Solomon cited the Winfrey/Frey tussle, then charged, "Yet the journalists who interview Bush aren't willing to question him in similar terms." On "The Daily Show" Monday, Jon Stewart contrasted Oprah's tough questioning of Frey with obsequious TV news treatment of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others. Maureen Dowd compared "disgraced author" Frey with "a commander in chief who keeps writing chapter after chapter of fictionalized propaganda."

So I have taken the liberty of pushing all this dreaming one step beyond, imagining an Oprah sitdown with the president, based on the transcript of her latest sesssion with Frey, with just a few words obviously changed here and there. Here it is, without commercial interruption, or claps and boos from the audience. It even has a happy ending.

*
Oprah: President Bush is here and I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel really duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of citizens in your statements about WMD in Iraq and Saddam’s connection to Al Qaeda. I think it's such a gift to have millions of people to believe in you and your office and that bothers me greatly. So now, as I sit here today I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't. So first of all, I wanted to start with The Huffington Post report titled, "The Man Who Conned Oprah" and I want to know—were they right?

Bush: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate. Absolutely.

Oprah: Okay.

Bush: I think they did a good job detailing some of the discrepancies between some of the actual facts of the events.

Oprah: Was your description of how Saddam Hussein was about to get nuclear weapons true?

Bush: He was about to get nuclear weapons, yes.

Oprah: About to?

Bush: I mean, that was one of the details I altered about him.

Oprah: Okay. And why?

Bush: Because all the way through the run up to the war I altered details about every single one of the WMD possibilities to render them unidentifiable.

Oprah: Nuclear weapons are more dramatic than conventional weapons?

Bush: I don't think either is more dramatic than the other.

Oprah: But why did you lie? Why did you do that?

Bush: I think one of the coping mechanisms I developed was sort of this image of myself that was greater, probably, than—not probably—that was greater than what I actually was. In order to get through the experience, I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was—and it helped me cope. When I was selling the war … instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.

Oprah: And did you cling to that image because that's how you wanted to see yourself? Or did you cling to that image because that would make a better sell job?

Bush: Probably both.

Oprah: How much of your statements on WMD and Saddam’s connections to Al Qaeda were fabricated?

Bush: Not very much. I mean, all the people are real.

Oprah: But I acted in defense of you and as I said, my judgment was clouded because so many people seemed to have gotten so much out of it. But now I feel that you conned us all. Do you?

Bush: I don't feel like I conned everyone.

Oprah: You don't.

Bush: No.

Oprah: Why?

Bush: Because I still think the war is about WMD and Al Qaeda and nobody's disputing that I was a addicted...to fighting Saddam. And it's a battle to overcome that.

Oprah: Your charges about WMD, you said that that was true then. Would you say that today?

Bush: I…I...I had documents that supported it. About nine months after the war, I was speaking to somebody from State. They said that they doubted it happened that way, but that there was a chance that it did—that cases like that are reviewed on an individual basis.

Oprah: This is what I don't get. Because when you were here before, you said that there were about 400 pages of documents..That there were documents and reports. Because I said, "How can you remember such detail? And that's how you explained it to me.

Bush: Absolutely.

Oprah: Do you now wish you had added a disclaimer?

Bush: I don't know if I wish I had offered a disclaimer or if I had just talked about certain events in a different way. I think that would have been the more appropriate thing to do than putting in a disclaimer.

Oprah: I appreciate you being here because I believe the truth can set you free. I realize this has been a difficult time for you … maybe this is the beginning of another kind of truth for you.

Bush: I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think this is obvious-- this hasn't been a great day for me. It certainly hasn't been a great couple weeks for me. But I think I come out of it better. I mean, I feel like I came here and I have been honest with you. I have, you know, essentially admitted to…to...[sigh]...to lying.

Oprah: Which is not an easy thing to do.

Bush: No, it's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. I mean, if I come out of this experience with anything, it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure that I don't repeat them.

Oprah: Good.
***new link***




Tracklist:
1 - Have A Party feat. 50 Cent, Nate Dogg
2 - The Infamous feat. 50 Cent
3 - Get Shot The Fuck Up feat. Big Noyd (Full Song/Classic)
4 - Dump feat. Nate Dogg
5 - Real Niggaz
6 - Shorty Wop
7 - Win Or Lose
8 - Get Away
9 - Pray For Me feat. Lil' Mo
10 - Clap
11 - Crawlin' (Dissin' Jay-Z)
12 - What's Ya Poison feat. Cormega
13 - Adrenaline
14 - I'm Goin' Out feat. Lil' Cease
15 - The Realest feat. Kool G Rap
16 - Can't Fuck With Niggaz I Fuck With feat. Raekwon
17 - Nightime Vultures feat. Raekwon
18 - Drop A Gem On 'Em
19 - Still Shinin'
20 - Hell On Earth
21 - Rare Species
22 - Survival Of The Fittest
23 - Give Up The Goods feat. Big Noyd
24 - One Million Strong feat. Ice Cube, Smooth B, Chuck D, The Rza, Killah Priest
25 - Da Bridge 2001 feat. MC Shan, Nature, Tragedy, Capone, Nas (Full Song/Classic)
26 - We Live This feat. Big Noyd
27 - Self Conscience feat. Nas (Full Song/Classic)
28 - A Ho Is A Ho
29 - Handcuffs
30 - God part 2
31 - God part 3
32 - Quiet Storm
33 - Quiet Storm (remix) feat. Lil' Kim
34 - It's Mine feat. Nas (Full Song/Classic)
35 - Live Nigga Rap feat. Nas
36 - Give It Up Fast feat. Nas
37 - Eye For An Eye feat. Nas, Raekwon
38 - Let's Go feat. Raekwon
39 - Fall Back feat. Tragedy Khadafi
40 - Infamous Minded feat. Big Noyd
41 - What U Rep feat. Noreaga
42 - Wanna Be Thugs
43 - Talkin' Sidewayz
44 - It's A Craze
45 - Where Ya From feat. 8Ball & MJG
46 - Where Ya Heart At

Get at the Mobb


New weapon could mean the end of collateral damage

The U.S. military has been developing a gunship that could literally obliterate enemy ground targets with a laser beam.

The military plans to test the Advanced Tactical Laser, a laser weapon mounted on a C-130H air transport that could destroy any weapon system without collateral damage.

The laser could have tremendous repercussions on the battlefield, particularly in urban warfare in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq. "It's the kind of tool that could bring about victory within minutes," an official said.

The applications of ATL could change military dynamics on the battlefield. Officials envision the laser being able to destroy or damage targets in an urban area with virtually no collateral damage. The range of ATL was expected to be 10 miles.

The project has been headed by Boeing Missile Defense Systems in a project with the U.S. Air Force. Boeing has already taken delivery of the aircraft and plans to modify the platform for the ATL program.

Officials said a C-130H transport that belonged to the U.S. Air Force's 46th Test Wing was being modified to contain a high-energy chemical laser. The platform would also contain battle management and beam control subsystems.

Under the program, Boeing would test the aircraft in July 2006. The aircraft would have all subsystems on board except the high-energy laser. Officials said a low-power surrogate laser would be used instead of the kilowatt-class, high-energy laser.

At the same time, the high-energy laser would be completed in Albuquerque, N.M. Officials said the first ground tests of the laser would take place in the summer of 2006.

By 2007, Boeing plans to install the laser on the aircraft and operate the weapon during flight. The laser, designed to be fired through an existing 50-inch-diameter hole in the aircraft's belly, would be demonstrated for military missions.

Officials said ATL was being developed through the Pentagon's Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program. Should the tests in 2007 prove successful, the Pentagon was expected to approve full-scale development of the airborne tactical laser.

The ATL was deemed as complementary to the Airborne Laser program for the Missile Defense Agency. ABL was meant to mount a megawatt-class chemical laser on a Boeing 747-400 freighter aircraft.

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/laser.htm




^^^^
just added to DoucheBag Hall of Fame
SMH at Rense.com for publishing this.

Jim Mortellaro's comments about Canadians ALL looking foolish because of one clowns comments make this guy's entire post seem suspect.




Rense.com

Zionist Threats And
Harrassment Continue


By Jim Mortellaro
2-2-6

Beginning three days ago, two more so-called 'men' began their tirade on this writer. Like the first person, they informed me that I was a Rense supporter and that makes me an anti-Semite. Me. Of all people, with a Jewish side to our family in which 2.15% survived the camps. That would be two out of 93 human beings. You picked the wrong person, guys.

However, let's get back to fool number one. I now have his name and address. The man lives in Toronto. He is the son of a (I won't go there, not to worry), he is a member of a very wealthy family there, with interest in (major interest) in a very large corporation.

That makes him a poor little rich kid - no matter his age.

Interestingly, I got his name from a number of sources, not the least of which was a good ol' US of A three letter agency. Others wrote privately to tell me the likelihood that it was so and so. For purposes of this piece, let us refer to this man as, PLRB, Poor Little Rich Boy.

On Monday at 12 noon sharp, I received his phone call. It went exactly like this.

Me: "Hello"

Caller: "Well, did you figure it out yet?"

Me: "Oh, hiya PLRB, how ya' doin?"

Caller: "Fine, how are you doin'?"

Followed by a "CLICK" hang-up by the perp, PLRB.

So, I suppose by his reaction, I got it dead on. In fact, Jeff Rense had additional supportive information which matched both the emails I received privately, as well as the information provided by the US of A three letter agency people.

Now begins the process of determining just how far to take this matter in order to punish the man for harassment and threats. Not to mention name calling and four letter words uttered on a public utility. This matter also involves two governments and agencies noth inside and outside of the governments, which dictate what to do in such situations. Harassment, threats and cussin' are serious infractions with both the USA and Canada. The new Canadian Prime Minister should not take kindly to one of his own citizens making a damned fool of himself by such machinations, not to mention making the country look damned foolish.

I previously wrote, "This time, they picked the wrong man." In times past, I would have let it go. I would even have considered letting it go in this instance, had not the wanna bees come to the fore to begin their own campaign of harassment and threats. But this time there was the element of threats against my family and my business. Wanna get my goat? Now you know how. But be prepared to pay the consequences. I mean that.

When the frost is on the pumpkin, that's the time for apple dunkin'. But if the apple is rotten, one does not leave it in the water for someone else to bite into. No. One removes it and tosses it so that when it arrives on the ground, it is broken up into little pieces, little harmless pieces.

If you consider this to be a threat, you are quite mistaken. It is not a threat. It is a promise.

More to follow ...


Morty

Morty@MortysCabin.Net
Jim Mortellaro, AKA, Morty

http://www.mortyscabin.net


Looks like Morty needs to get outta the cabin a little more often

http://www.rense.com/general69/cpontn.htm


SKEEZER TELL ALL

Nas' Baby Moms Tells All


Wednesday - February 1, 2006
Solange

Carmen Bryan is talking to King magazine about cheating on Nas with Jay-Z, which reportedly fueled the pair's long and bitter feud.

Bryan spoke about how she met Hova at the Roxy.

"He just followed us the whole night. I was like, 'Who is this fool? What does he want?' But he was very persistent," she explained, and Jay eventually won her over. "I kept thinking this would be horrible if Nas ever found out," Bryan admitted.

The closest call was "Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve party in '99. Nas had me stuck in this one corner the whole night. I spot Jay-Z and he sees me, but he can't see Nas 'cause it's so crowded. He's coming over with a bottle in hand and I'm shaking like a leaf, sweating bullets. My makeup is running, I'm like, 'Oh my God, tonight's the night.'" It wasn't. But eventually, "I came clean because I felt like Jay-Z ... was trying to belittle Nas by dropping subliminal things about me and Jay in their songs. ... Then, afterward, Nas lost it."

Nas is now married to singer Kelis and signed to Def Jam.

Unfortunately for Carmen Bryan she is stuck married to a janitor with a fierce gambling addiction and just came out of rehab.


http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.3861


More Dishonesty from Bush in State of Union
by Matthew Rothschild

President Bush riddled his State of the Union speech with dishonest presentations, and he failed to adequately address the crucial issues facing this country.

On Iraq, Bush said “we are winning” and we are on “a clear path to victory.” Saying so doesn’t make it so.

The number of attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi army and police went up last year.

Casualties keep mounting, with 2,237 U.S. soldiers killed and more than 16,000 wounded. The casualties among Iraqi civilians are magnitudes higher.

“We’re on the offensive in Iraq,” Bush said. But U.S. troops increasingly are retreating to fortified bases.

We are “continuing reconstruction efforts,” Bush said, though the United States has diverted much of the money earmarked for reconstruction and used it instead for security purposes (that is, when the money wasn’t squandered or skimmed).

And, as he is wont to do when he is losing ground, Bush conjured up the image of bin Laden, saying that Osama and Zarqawi would take over that “strategic country” if the United States were to pull out suddenly.

This, too, is a falsehood.

“There is no threat of a government run by Al Qaeda or sympathetic to it taking over Iraq, or even parts of Iraq, once the Americans leave,” writes reporter Nir Rosen, who has spent many months there. In a trenchant piece in the current issue of the Boston Review, Rosen notes that the Shiites in the south control the army and the Kurds in the north have a powerful militia, and neither of them is in league with Al Qaeda. Quite the contrary. And even “the indigenous Sunni, who constitute the majority of the resistance, are fierce Iraqi nationalists. . . . Once the Americans leave and the Sunnis are taking part in the government, which they will no longer view as collaborationist, they will have no common cause with foreign mujahideen, only a conflict of interests that will be quickly and violently solved, resulting in no more foreign fighters enjoying Iraqi hospitality.”

On the NSA spying scandal, Bush was even more dishonest.

He said: “If there are people inside our country who are talking with Al Qaeda, we want to know about it because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.”

But no one is suggesting that the United States “sit back.”

All critics want is for Bush to follow the law and to go to the FISA court to get a warrant to wiretap that call. The FISA court has granted 99.997 percent of Bush’s requests for such warrants. What’s so hard about asking for a warrant?

But Bush pretended in his speech, just as he has in his actions, that the FISA law doesn’t even exist. He didn’t mention it at all. He did say his actions are justified both by the Constitution and by “statute,” but the only statute that explicitly deals with wiretapping specifies that a FISA warrant is the “exclusive means” by which domestic wiretapping can occur. (Bush’s lawyers cite Congress’s authorization of military force against Al Qaeda, but that is a specious argument, since Bush wanted to include in that authorization some language that would have given him the power to do warrantless wiretapping, and Congress refused to go along with that, as former Senator Tom Daschle has noted.)

Bush also said that “appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed,” but the Congressional Research Service studied this question and concluded that Bush did not fully inform the intelligence committees and thus acted in a way “inconsistent with the law.”

On Iran, though pundits have been saying Bush was less bellicose than he could have been (now there’s a standard!), he did hiss: “The nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons,” he said.

And then the snake began to rattle: “Let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom.

Our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.”

“One day” is not exactly comforting, and Bush said similar things to the people of Iraq in the lead up to the invasion of that country.

On the economy, Bush said it was “healthy and vigorous.” But American workers would beg to differ. They’ve seen their real wages fall 0.8 percent last year, and total compensation (including health benefits) fell, as well, by 0.2 percent.

Wages and benefits are simply not keeping up with inflation.

Bush said that “America has created 4.6 million new jobs” in the last two-and-a-half years. But what he didn’t say was “recent job gains lag far behind historical norms,” as the Economic Policy Institute notes.

Bush is like a doctor who knows how to write only one prescription: tax cuts for the rich. When the economy is strong, he proposes tax cuts for the rich. When the economy is weak, he proposes tax cuts for the rich. And so in his State of the Union address, he proposed more tax cuts for the rich.

And he coupled that with a pledge to reduce “the growth of non-security discretionary spending.” This is government spending that actually goes toward helping meet some of the crying needs of our society. Bush wants none of that.

On health care, he had all of two paragraphs, and they amounted to nothing. He said he wanted to strengthen health savings accounts, but as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, tax breaks for these accounts will be “targeted primarily to higher-income taxpayers who would have new tax sheltering opportunities and potentially new tax breaks to cover out-of-pocket medical costs. The majority of Americans would get little (or nothing) from these tax breaks.”

What’s more, according to the center, this proposal may actually increase the number of the uninsured, which now totals 45 million Americans.

Bush proposed absolutely nothing about another crucial issue: and that’s the need for campaign finance reform. As Republicans in Congress quiver over Jack Abramoff’s singing, and as it becomes clearer by the day that our legislature is up for sale, Bush didn’t go near the only solution to this problem: full public financing of campaigns.


He also barely mentioned the word the environment. How could he, when he’s been freeing up one industry after another to pollute? How could he, when he’s sabotaged every international effort to do something serious about global warming?

He did wake up to the fact that America is “addicted to oil.”

It’s about time.

He’s done nothing about this for five years, with Cheney saying, back in 2001, that conservation is a lifestyle choice and that we’ll be as dependent on foreign oil in 2020 as we were in the year 2000.

Yes, we are addicted to oil, but Bush is not making us go to Oil Guzzlers Anonymous, he’s not making us pay more for our drug, he’s not forcing those who make the chief drug-dispensing devices, cars and SUVS, to stop loading their products with engines that abuse this drug.

And that’s the biggest hypocrisy of all.

His energy bill last year did nothing to raise the fuel-efficiency standards on Detroit. Amazingly, our fuel standards are now lower than China’s! Our fuel economy standards in 2005 are 21 miles a gallon for all cars and SUVs. In 1987, they were 22.1 miles a gallon. We’ve been going in reverse. And when the energy bill was up last year, Republicans in Congress not only voted down Democratic amendments to increase fuel-efficiency standards, they actually made it more difficult to raise those standards in the future.

For a President who has been so openly hostile to science, Bush turned around and stressed the importance of basic research and the teaching of science and math in the classroom. Then he turned around again and demanded the prohibition of “human cloning in all its forms,” citing God: “Human life is a gift from our Creator.”

Throughout his speech, he soaked up the applause. But he revealed his hostility to free speech and dissent when he bristled at Democratic taunting on Social Security and when he juxtaposed, in the Iraq War context, “responsible criticism” with “defeatism.”

Power has gone to his head.

Matthew Rothschild has been with The Progressive since 1983. His McCarthyism Watch web column has chronicled more than 150 incidents of repression since 9/11.

© 2006 The Progressive
Cost of the War in Iraq
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