Sean McCormack, press aide for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday that Rice "does not recall seeing the memos. If she did not see them, it's unlikely the president saw them."

Does anybody read anything in this administration?

To me Mr. Bush and his minons should give the taxpayers back our money because they are miserable failures to be responsible, thinking, and caring adults.

BTW- I'll be hosting "Bring Our Troops Home, Now!" poetry event at Oh My Goddess Coffeehouse, Denver. Saturday, June 26th, 8 p.m. It is part of a nationwide actions called by national groups- WinWithoutWar.org and UnitedforPeace.org. Come down to read or listen. So give a shout!

I'll be hosting "Bring the Troops Home, Now!" poetry reading at Oh My Goddess Coffeehouse, 8 p.m., Saturday, June 26th, 1528 East Colfax Ave., Denver.

Two major advocacy groups, United for Peace and Justice and Win Without War are working together in calling for nationwide actions between June 25-27.

The League of Women Voters does the right thing by withdrawing support of DRE (paperless) machines.

Bogus terrorism charges dropped in Boston against Joe Previtera, who dressed in black shawl and hood with stereo wires attached as the infamous Abu Ghraib prisoner, protested in front of a military recruitment office. Reading down in the article I found this to be disconcerting and highly improper- "The police woke me in the middle of the night and showed me pictures of U.S. soldiers with smiling Iraqi children," says Previtera. "The officers told me these were pictures that I'd never see in the media, and that the Boston Globe and The New York Times were communist papers."

Beyond belief that Fox News gives a big thumbs up for Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Reviewer Roger Friedman states, As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty, and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.

The 9/11 Commission wraps up. However there are a few questions still unanswered. The Madcow Morning News writes, "The truth which no one dares speak of is that as we approach the third anniversary of the Sept 11 attack there has still been no official investigation into the murders of 3000 people that day...at least no investigation to which the American people have been privy.

Results from the FBI’s ballyhooed 4000-man investigation have never been revealed. And the Congressional Intelligence Committee investigation met in secret; its report contained the famous 28 page "gap."

And anyone looking to the 9/11 Commission to offer answers will be disillusioned to learn the panel was only charged with identifying what might have prevented the White House, Pentagon, CIA, and FBI from being taken by surprise in a way not seen since Pearl Harbor.

The 9/11 Commission, in other words, will answer only the question of what should have been done differently. There’s nothing in the panel's mandate about letting the American people in on the answer to the only question worth asking: what happened?"

Andrew McCarthy tries to mount a defense, "Torturing Good Governance" of the legal memorandums from DoJ and DoD at NRO. However, the very first lines of his argument invokes the false argument to emotion. "It was the chaotic aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. I can't remember if it was the next day, a few days later, or maybe even longer than that." He then goes on to a laundry list of so-called impediments to investigators of suspected terrorists, including the discredited argument that there was a "wall" against sharing information between criminal and intelligence agents.

This is Mr. McCarthy's views on the Fifth and Fourth amendments to the Constitution: "There was, of course, Miranda, the Supreme Court's fabled bolstering of the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination clause, which systematically required police, before trying to talk to detainees, to discourage them from speaking. There was the Fourth Amendment, the Constitution's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures, which presumptively barred investigators from arresting people or searching locations absent probable cause that a crime had been committed."

Mr. McCarthy sees fit to invoke 9/11 three times in order to "scare" the reader into accepting his argument that there can only be the Bush view in prosecuting his faux "war on terror". He does not address the underlying thesis that only the President, without the enumerated checks and balances as defined by the Constitution, can set aside U.S. law and international law.

The list of prominent and thoughtful people who consider Mr. Bush's policies harming national security is growing. Mr. McCarthy's article argues that "the government memos should still be able to recognize that they were sober and necessary treatments by able legal minds. Their insights edified the policymakers, who, by the way, never adopted the most provocative suggestions." As Sen. Kennedy graphically pointed out that the prison torture at Abu Ghraib was encouraged by the illegal and immoral intent and actions from the highest levels of civilian and military commanders.

For a more concise analysis on the OLC memo go here.

Michael Froomkin smacks down the illegal and illogical arguments of John Yoo's op, "All Necessary and Appropriate Force" in the L.A. Times today (you have to a member to access the article). A significant number of the graduating law class from U.C. Berkeley protested Prof. Yoo during their graduation at what is amply evident in this article that Mr. Yoo has used his legal knowledge to circumvent the Constitution, Bill of Rights, U.S. law, and the Geneva Convention.

The moral and legal perversion that Mr. Yoo has come up with at the behest of Mr. Bush, Mr. Ashcroft, and Mr. Rumsfeld can be stated by Sy Hersh. "[Hersh] said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened.


This is fundamentally wrong both morally and legally. Brad DeLong states, "...we have an administration that needs to be removed from office not later than the close of business today."

Narrow minds.

There wasn't any poetry reading last night at Oh My Goddess Coffeehouse, but there was a group art show opening. I thought the art was the kind that you would see for first time artists, which is what they were. After looking at the sculptural pieces hanging I went outside and sat down at one of the tables. Soon enough a young guy came by and reintroduced himself as being one of the listeners to an anti-war poetry reading that I had hosted a few months ago at the same coffeehouse. We chatted for a little bit before he brought up the fact that he would vote for Bush if Kucinich didn't win at the convention. This young man brought up two arguments for voting for Bush. The first was that Bush being elected would continue to keep people out of their "complacency", and the second was that he would not vote for Kerry on the basis of "the lesser of two evils".

I brought up the fact that having Bush in control meant that millions of third world women would not have access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptive methods. He wouldn't listen. So, in fact, he is condemning millions of women to untimely deaths because he can only see a partisan advantage to Bush being in office again and not a Democrat like John Kerry.

His view was amazingly parochial and seemed to consist of how Bush would affect Americans but not the rest of the world's population. I think that the wars of aggression by Bush shows that he is antithetical to the Constitution, and he is a clear and present danger to the Bill of Rights that we Americans have lived under for over two hundred and twenty five years.

Voters like this young man need to have their world views opened up so that they can see that Bush is not just a useful "prop" to keep progressive Americans involved but his actions have killed, injured, and maimed tens of thousands of the world's people either through war or through his religious views being promulagated in rulings that affect how U.S. funds are used by world aid agencies.

A preliminary draft report by the Miami-Dade Independent Review Panel on the conduct of police during the FTAA meeting shows that "Demonstrators who came to Miami to protest during November's Free Trade Area of the Americas conference are due ''heartfelt apologies'' because they were met by the equivalent of ''martial law.'' In some cases, police reacted with an ''unrestrained and disproportionate use of force'' and ``civil rights were trampled.''

Since the chief of police John Timoney was instrumental in the tactics used during the Republican Convention in Philadelphia during 2000 and has been consulted with by both major political parties and host cities law enforcement organs for 2004. There can only be more repression and illegal "pro-active" detentions and harrassment by both local and federal law enforcement officers of Americans who are willing to exercise their rights under the first amendment.

The officials of each city, Boston and New York, have not issued any protest permits yet.

What has been the case over the years has been massive law enforcement of over-response to people who want to use their rights to assembly and expression. With the utilization of reporters being embedded in law enforcement units ala the US military operations in Iraq there is the real danger that only one side of the argument will be heard- the establishment point of view. What has happened in Iraq is that non-embedded reporters were targeted by coalition forces because those reporters were not part of "the establishment" and therefore "fair game" for military units, and such "justifications" are now being used by such law enforcement officials such as John Timoney. The targeting of non-embedded journalists has been documented by such news programs as "Now with Bill Moyers".

The counterconvention at the RNC 2004 in New York city has been in the planning stages for the last six months. A permit to use Central Park was recently turned down by Mayor Bloomberg because 250,000 people would "trample and damage" the flora of the park. How many Coloradoans will be going to the counterconvention in NYC?

There was a large contingent of Coloradoans that went to the March for Women's Lives. The lives of women who are low income and of a minority will continue to be further degraded by this administration and its Republican allies in the legislature and judiciary branches if there is another four years. I believe that using these huge publicity platforms like the RNC 2004 can be effective in getting the message out that the policies is a threat to the quality of life for many Americans.

BTW- I'll be hosting the open mic poetry event at Oh My Goddess this Sunday. Come on down and read or listen.