Coming:

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan (C), whose son was killed serving as a U.S. serviceman in Iraq, is escorted by security personnel into the House of Representatives chamber for the State of the Union address by President Bush on Capitol Hill in Washington January 31, 2006.

Going:

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is escorted out of the spectators’ gallery of the House of Representatives prior to the State of the Union Address by US President George W. Bush on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Sheehan was attending the president’s speech as a guest of US Representative Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat who has been an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq.

Gone:

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan (L, blonde hair), whose son was killed serving as a U.S. serviceman in Iraq, is rushed out of the U.S. House of Representatives chamber by security personnel after arriving for the State of the Union address by U.S. President George W. Bush on Capitol Hill in Washington January 31, 2006. There were unconfirmed reports that Sheehan had been arrested.

What a shock!

More details from the DNC’s Associated Press:

Activist Cindy Sheehan Arrested at Capitol

Jan 31 9:50 PM US/Eastern

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush’s State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.

Sheehan, who had been invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., was charged with demonstrating in the Capitol building, a misdemeanor, said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. Sheehan was taken in handcuffs to police headquarters a few blocks away and her case was processed as Bush spoke.

Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.

Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived. Sheehan was to be released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.

"I’m proud that Cindy’s my guest tonight," Woolsey said in an interview before the speech. "She has made a difference in the debate to bring our troops home from Iraq."

Woolsey offered Sheehan a ticket to the speech "Gallery 5, seat 7, row A" earlier Tuesday while Sheehan was attending an "alternative state of the union" press conference by CODEPINK, a group pushing for an end to the Iraq war.

Sheehan was arrested in September with about 300 other anti-war activists in front of the White House after a weekend of protests against the war in Iraq. In August, she spent 26 days camped near Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he was spending a working vacation.

Of course like running against Feinstein, this is just another trick Cindy learned from her handler Medea Benjamin and Code Pink.

Behold some of their media triumphs as recounted by taxpayer-supported, Democracy Now!:

Code Pink Activists Ejected From RNC Three Nights in a Row

While much of the protest at the RNC took place outside the Madison Square Garden, a surprising number of activists managed to disrupt the proceedings inside. For the third night in a row, activists from CODEPINK: Women for Peace were ejected from the RNC after disrupting the primetime addresses of speakers at the convention’s podium. Last night during President Bush’s acceptance speech, he had to stop speaking twice after activists held up antiwar signs before being dragged from the floor of Madison Square Garden. Activist Jodie Evans revealed a pink slip underneath her dress that read “Fire Bush! Women Say Bring the Troops Home Now!” Earlier in the evening, Jorge Medina, whose son Irving was killed in the Iraq war was ejected for wearing a t-shirt with his son’s photo on it and the words “Bush Lied, My Son Died.”

When the protesters disrupted Bush’s speech, delegates and others in the convention would begin chanting “Four More Years” in an effort to drown them out. This tactic seems to have been a coordinated response from the Republicans. Twice last night as Bush was speaking, the chant began for no clear reason. Moments later, Secret Service Agents could be seen dragging a demonstrator from the convention.

Earlier in the week, CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin came within 30 feet of Vice President Dick Cheney as he sat in his box. She unfurled a pink banner that read “Be Pro-Life: Stop the Killing in Iraq.” She also managed to ask Cheney, “How much money have you made in Iraq today?” She was picked up by Secret Service agents and dragged from the floor and down a staircase. That same night, Fernando Suarez del Solar was also ejected from the convention. His son Jesus was killed in Iraq in March 2003. He stood near the Texas delegation and held up a sign that read “Bush Lied. My Son Died.”

The following night, as Dick Cheney was giving his prime-time address, CODEPINK activists Gael Murphy and Tiffany Burns unfurled a banner that read, “Cheney and Halliburton, Making a Killing in Iraq.” We are joined now by a few of the people who managed to disrupt the RNC from the inside.

 Now Medea needs to teach Cindy about timing.

"Make sure the TV cameras are on you first, hon."

Remember the obnoxious creep who put up his "Slasher Santa" display to protest, so he claimed, "the commercialization of Christmas"?

(Despite his being a non-practicing Jew, we were supposed to believe this was an issue very dear to his heart.)

Well, he has set out to improve the world again in his own peculiar fashion.

From the New York Post:

The Devil's Doo

By PHILIP MESSING

January 31, 2006

The Manhattan real-estate dealer who terrified neighborhood kids at Christmas with a grotesque display of a bloody Santa yesterday cursed a 13-year-old girl and smeared dog feces in her hair after her Chihuahua pooped on his sidewalk, cops said.

Joel Krupnik, 57, allegedly went ballistic when he spotted 4-pound Bambi relieving himself in front of Krupnik's $3 million brownstone at 318 E. 18th St. as the girl took her pet for a walk.

A furious Krupnik picked up what Bambi left behind and trailed the unsuspecting girl — whose family asked that her name not be printed — to the vestibule of her nearby apartment building, authorities said.

The hulking, 6-foot-2, 250-pound man cursed the terrified teen, then smeared the dog feces into her hair, according to cops and her mother.

Then he smeared it across her Catholic-school uniform jacket, according to the girl's outraged mom.

"She was scared and she was traumatized," the mom said.

"This man followed her home and followed her into her building and started cursing at her.

"She's always picking it up, but it just so happened that Bambi did it in front of his house, but there was a tree there and my daughter didn't see him go."

After the attack, the girl ran to her apartment and called her mom — a single parent and buyer in the fashion industry — who rushed home.

The mother went to Krupnik's house to confront him. When his wife refused to open the door, the mom went to cops.

"I was upset and angry, but he wouldn't come to the door," she said.

"She's just a baby. She's scared and afraid. He's the creepiest person in the neighborhood. He's not friendly at all. He's scary looking."

Cops busted Krupnik for criminal mischief and menacing, and he was expected to spend the night in custody.

The mom said when cops told Krupnik the girl was only 13, he said dismissively that he thought she was older.

"I heard the whole conversation. He said he wanted to come down and apologize to her," she said. "The police said no and I wasn't going to allow [my daughter] to see him again or have him to talk to her again."

Krupnik's "Bad Santa" display featured a bloody St. Nick holding a knife in one hand and a severed head of a doll in the other.

Krupnik, who has three children, explained the display by saying he was protesting the commercialization of the holiday.

First Santa, now Bambi. Nobody is safe around this psychotic jerk.

You see, if the West refuses to send Hamas billions of dollars, it’s "blackmail."

From those lovers of terrorism at the AFP:

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal says the attempts by the West to force change on Hamas are doomed to failure.

Hamas accuses West of blackmail over aid threat

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas has accused the West of blackmail after the major players in the peace process told it to renounce violence and recognise Israel’s right to exist or else see funding to the Palestinians cut.

European Union and Russia (known as the Middle East quartet) warned at talks in London on Monday that payments could be slashed if the winner of last week’s general election did not radically alter its principles before entering government.

The victory of the radical Islamist movement, behind dozens of suicide attacks in a five-year uprising, has already led Israel to warn that it will have no dealings with a Palestinian Authority which includes "terrorists" and to sit on customs revenues that it should hand over.

Hamas has made clear that its embrace of democracy will not lead it to give up its "right to resist Israeli occupation", even though it has not carried out any attacks for more than a year.

"The international aid which is offered to our people is a humanitarian need for the Palestinian people who are still living under Israeli occupation," Ismail Haniya, who led the list of Hamas candidates in last week’s election, told AFP.

" This aid should not be linked to unfair conditions," he added.

While funding would continue for the time being, the quartet said "it was inevitable that future assistance to any new government would be reviewed by donors against that government’s commitment to the principles of nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations."

Hamas’s overall leader, the Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal, said the attempts by the West to force change on Hamas were doomed to failure.

"Our message to the US and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain," Meshaal wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

" Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail," he added.

Cracks were already showing Tuesday in the quartet’s united resolve, with Russian President Vladmir Putin saying the international community must continue to provide aid to the Palestinians despite Hamas’s victory.

"Refusal of aid to the Palestinian people would be a mistake in any event," Putin said at a news conference.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had said in London that Hamas should be given some breathing space to change its hardline stance before the prospect of cuts would come into play.

Pressed on how long the European Union would be prepared to give Hamas, Solana said: "I think that it will depend how long it takes in time for the formation of the government."

"According to the president (Mahmud Abbas), it will probably take about three months or something like that, in which the negotiation will have to take place between the president and the majority group."

"That is the time in which they have to clarify all these things. If we have not got any sign that they move in that direction it will be very difficult."

The EU has given about 500 million euros (613 million dollars) annually to the Palestinians since 2003, but the decisive win by Hamas has left the bloc in a quandary because the group figures on both US and EU terrorist blacklists.

The donor-dependent Palestinian Authority is already facing a financial headache in trying to find the money to pay salaries for January, a problem which Israel’s decision to suspend customs revenues payments will only exacerbate.

Two hundred million shekels (40 million dollars) were due to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday before Olmert’s announced that he would not "in any way to allow a situation in which money transferred by the government of Israel will somehow end up in the control of murderous elements."

I love it when news organizations put quotes around "terrorists." Of course they’d like to write "freedom fighters," but they dasn’t as yet.

But soon.

The DNC’s Associated Press has been all over the map with this story. They have put out at least four different versions, including this one which would seem to be mostly about how tough things are in East St. Louis:

Sheila Thomas hugs Defense Attorney Paul Sims.

Workers Are Sentenced in Vote Fraud Case

By JIM SUHR, Associated Press Writer

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. Jan 30, 2006 — A former Democratic election worker in this impoverished city was sentenced Monday to a year and a half in federal prison for scheming to buy votes in the November 2004 election. A City Hall volunteer also accused in the scheme was given probation.

U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy said the case reflected an American election process "under attack" by fraud.

Former precinct committee member Sheila Thomas and her attorney, Paul Sims, declined to comment after the sentencing. Yvette Johnson told reporters: "I’m just glad that it’s over."

The two were convicted last year of felony conspiracy to commit vote fraud, along with a local Democratic Party chairman [Charles Powell, Jr.] , a former city official [Kelvin Ellis] and another precinct worker who are expected to be sentenced in February.

Prosecutors said the defendants schemed to buy votes with cash, cigarettes and liquor. Their case rested largely on secretly recorded audiotapes in which the defendants could be heard talking about paying $2, $5 or more per vote to get key Democrats elected in East St. Louis.

The city of 31,500 people, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, became one of the nation’s poorest cities with the decline of its smokestack factories and the exodus of whites in the 1960s. Its schools were broke for years and the deed to City Hall once went to a man to cover a multimillion-dollar judgment over a jail beating.

In other versions of this same story the AP is still calling it an "alleged scheme," despite the convictions.

And you’d never know from this article, but this case involves at least nine people who have either confessed or been convicted. In fact, close to twenty Democrat officials have been indicted or convicted for similar acts in East St. Louis in the last year.

But the AP didn’t think any of that was newsworthy.

I guess they figured it might detract from their portrait of the perps as poor victims who are just trying to survive in such a woebegone town.

Oh, by the way, the unnamed Kelvin Ellis will also be tried for attempted murder of a government witness. The witness had threatened to expose a prostitution ring Ellis was running out of East St. Louis City Hall.

Mr. Ellis had even spent time in prison for abusing a city post before becoming the Director of Regulatory Affairs in East St. Louis.

But my those Republicans are corrupt.

Of course you would never know it from the headline. But the Associated Press must please its DNC masters:

FEMA Acknowledges Blunders During Katrina

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Poor planning and communication plagued FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina, a top agency official said Monday, acknowledging that other federal departments’ offers to help rescue storm victims went unheard or were ignored.

But new documents released hours later showed that state officials, in at least some cases, initially turned down federal assistance as the Aug. 29 storm bore down on the Gulf Coast.

Two days before Katrina hit, offers by the Department of Health and Human Services to help evacuate or move Louisiana patients were turned down by the state’s health emergency preparedness director, according to an internal e-mail.

The state official, identified in the Aug. 27 e-mail as Dr. Roseanne Pratts, "responded no, that they do not require anything at this time and they would be in touch if and when they needed assistance," HHS senior policy analyst Erin Fowler wrote.

But in an interview Monday night, Louisiana Medical Director Dr. Jimmy Guidry said HHS was helping state health officials plan for evacuating hospitals and nursing homes by the eve of the storm. The federal department also stayed after Katrina hit to help the state coordinate transportation assets, like ambulances and military vehicles, Guidry said.

"They sent people to help us out," Guidry said of HHS officials in Louisiana. "They helped us get all those assets lined up."

At the time of the HHS e-mail, Guidry said, the state was still weighing "what the needs would be" for patient safety — including those whom officials initially did not want to move for fear of worsening their conditions. "At that point in time there was no request as to any kind of evacuation," Guidry said.

At least 40 bodies, many of them elderly patients, were found inside a flooded New Orleans hospital after Katrina hit. Additionally, 34 patients at a nursing home near New Orleans died Aug. 29 in the wake of massive flooding brought by the storm’s surge. The nursing home’s owners have since been charged with negligent homicide for failing to evacuate the patients.

The e-mail was released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating the government’s response to Katrina. It also released a Senate interview of Louisiana Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry, during which he told investigators that "we have done nothing to fulfill this responsibility" of ensuring evacuation plans are in place for at-risk populations.

"We put no plans in place to do any of this," Bradberry said in the Dec. 21 interview, of which 12 pages were released by the Senate committee.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the panel’s chairwoman, called the documents "disturbing findings that our investigation will examine very closely." The committee is scheduled to examine evacuation procedures in a hearing Tuesday.

At a hearing Monday, the chief of response operations at the Federal Emergency Management Agency told senators he was unaware that the Interior Department offered to send boats, planes, trucks and personnel to rescue Katrina’s victims immediately after Katrina hit.

"Communications and coordination was lacking, preplanning was lacking," FEMA official William Lokey testified. "We were not prepared for this."

"Does that suggest a symptomatic problem when you, as a federal coordinating official, do not get word that these assets are available?" Collins asked.

"At minimum, that shows we have a lot more work to do at the federal level," Lokey replied.

Underscoring communication problems between state and federal officials, Lokey said FEMA rejected a request by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for rubber boats to rescue victims stranded in flooded areas. Instead, he said, FEMA provided a smaller number of flat-bottom boats that could not be punctured by debris in the water.

Lt. Col. Keith Lacaze, the state Wildlife and Fisheries assistant administrator, said the rubber boats could have been used to rescue sick and immobile victims in shallow-water areas.

"I believe the rafts would have been beneficial, especially in the early stages," Lacaze said.

But Lokey strove to explain an internal FEMA e-mail, dated Sept. 1, indicating the agency was pulling back its search and rescue task force efforts in Louisiana even as other federal departments frantically kept trying.

Lokey said rescues were suspended only temporarily — perhaps only a day — because of looting and other security problems in the days right after the storm hit

"They did not pull out," Lokey said.

"They just pulled back?" asked Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., the panel’s top Democrat.

"They redirected in other places and they did not go into the hazardous area until they ascertained exactly what the threat was and were able to get law enforcement people to accompany them," Lokey said.

The testimony came in the latest hearing of the Senate inquiry into the government’s sluggish response to Katrina. The panel is expected to issue its findings in mid-March. A separate House panel is concluding its own investigation with a report due Feb. 15.

Still, our one party media will make sure this minor detail is soon forgot. The script has long since been set in stone.

It was all Bush’s fault.

Was there ever any doubt?

Ah, the Soros dollars the Chavez bolivares Medea Benjamin the grassroots are speaking out and demandingMother Sheehan run for the Senate against the conservative reactionary warmonger Diane Feinstein (D-San Francisco):

All kidding aside, this is obviously the lame effort of some deluded putz. Remember all those "Hillary For President" sites that have cropped over the last eight years?

But you know the real "Let’s Get Cindy To Run" site will soon be appearing, courtesy of Cindy’s professional handlers. It’s probably been in the works for months. (They just have to convince her to take the pay cut.)

And it will be just as slick as Soros’s Fenton Communications can make it.

(Thanks to ever watchful Zilla for the heads up.)

Not satisfied with just committing treason in their latest edition, the Washington Post has decided to explain how anyone who supports our twice-elected President must be a racist.

It's scientific:

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, January 30, 2006; A05

Put a group of people together at a party and observe how they behave. Differently than when they are alone? Differently than when they are with family? What if they're in a stadium instead of at a party? What if they're all men?

The field of social psychology has long been focused on how social environments affect the way people behave. But social psychologists are people, too, and as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, they have grown increasingly interested in examining what drives these sharp divides: red states vs. blue states; pro-Iraq war vs. anti-Iraq war; pro-same-sex marriage vs. anti-same-sex marriage. And they have begun to study political behavior using such specialized tools as sophisticated psychological tests and brain scans.

"In my own family, for example, there are stark differences, not just of opinion but very profound differences in how we view the world," said Brenda Major, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, which had a conference last week that showcased several provocative psychological studies about the nature of political belief.

The new interest has yielded some results that will themselves provoke partisan reactions: Studies presented at the conference, for example, produced evidence that emotions and implicit assumptions often influence why people choose their political affiliations, and that partisans stubbornly discount any information that challenges their preexisting beliefs.

Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy — but only in candidates they opposed.

When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats — the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

"What automatic biases reveal is that while we have the feeling we are living up to our values, that feeling may not be right," said University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek, who helped conduct the race analysis. "We are not aware of everything that causes our behavior, even things in our own lives."

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases — against Republicans — noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said.

Nosek said that though the risk of bias among researchers was "a reasonable question," the study provided empirical results that could — and would — be tested by other groups: "All we did was compare questions that people could answer any way they wanted," Nosek said, as he explained why he felt personal views could not have influenced the outcome. "We had no direct contact with participants."

For their study, Nosek, Banaji and social psychologist Erik Thompson culled self-acknowledged views about blacks from nearly 130,000 whites, who volunteered online to participate in a widely used test of racial bias that measures the speed of people's associations between black or white faces and positive or negative words. The researchers examined correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts.

The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.

"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."

Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.

Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.

For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies — Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences — he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research.

The following cartoon is from the site The Black Commentator. It accompanied a joint press release from the People for the American Way and the NAACP condemning black Judge Janet Rogers Brown:

But it's Republicans who are the racists.

(Thanks to English Queen for the heads up.)

And of course evil Karl Rove is behind it all.

From the New York Sun:

Deliberate' Neglect Laid to Bush In Policy on Katrina's Aftermath

BY JOSH GERSTEIN – Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 30, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Clinton told a largely friendly audience here Saturday night that the slow pace of government-sponsored reconstruction following Hurricane Katrina was the result of a deliberate decision by the Bush administration and may have been motivated by a desire to discourage Democratic voters from returning to the devastated region.

"I think that basically we are now watching a deliberate policy of neglect take root," Mrs. Clinton said during an appearance at a fund-raiser for legal services charities. "It is deeply troubling for any American to believe that your government would abandon such a huge part of our country and such an important part of our history."

Mrs. Clinton said she suspected that the assignment of President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, to oversee the relief effort indicated that political mischief was afoot. "Cynical minds might suggest that the destruction of the Democratic vote in Louisiana was a mixed blessing. If you rebuild New Or leans, all those Democrats might come home," she said during a 90-minute public interview conducted on an auditorium stage by a former television host, Jane Pauley.

A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, rejected Mrs. Clinton's claims that the administration was intentionally foot-dragging on disaster recovery in the Gulf. "It's patently untrue and it's unfortunate she would suggest such a thing," he told The New York Sun yesterday.

Mr. Duffy said Mr. Bush has already directed $85 billion to recovery efforts in the Gulf. "He stands by that commitment just as he did in the rebuilding of New York City after 9/11. I think it might be best if we return to the spirit that brought New York back from the ashes," the spokesman said.

I'm only surprised Hillary left out the part about Bush and Rove dynamiting the levees.

She must be trying to appear more moderate.

Good news for Mother Sheehan, the DNC and haters of freedom everywhere.

From those terrorist enablers at the Associated Press:

Zawahiri, in New Videotape, Says He Survived Airstrike

Monday, January 30, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a videotape aired Monday that President Bush was a "butcher" and a "failure" because of a deadly U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeting the bin Laden deputy, and he threatened a new attack on the United States.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape, which U.S. intelligence officials were analyzing. The official said the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera showed Al Qaeda believed it was important to convey that al-Zawahiri is alive.

In Washington, FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said the bureau would ask agents around the United States to review ongoing cases and tips in light of the new tape, especially with two major events this week — the State of the Union in Washington and the Super Bowl in Detroit.

Al-Zawahiri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said a Jan. 13 airstrike in the eastern village of Damadola killed "innocents," and he said the United States had ignored an offer from Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden for a truce.

"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies," he said, referring to Bush. "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses."

The airstrike hit a building in Damadola, where U.S. intelligence believed al-Zawahiri had been attending an Islamic holiday dinner. The strike killed four Al Qaeda leaders — including a man believed to be al-Zawahiri's son-in-law — but intelligence officials said later they believe al-Zawahiri sent his aides to the dinner in his place.

Thirteen villagers also were killed in the strike, angering many Pakistanis. The attack was believed to have been launched by a Predator drone from Afghanistan, where some 20,000 U.S. troops are based.

"The American planes raided in compliance with Musharraf the traitor and his security apparatus, the slave of the Crusaders and the Jews," he said, referring to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

"In seeking to kill my humble self and four of my brothers, the whole world has discovered the extent of America's lies and failures and the extent of its savagery in fighting Islam and Muslims."

The video was al-Zawahiri's first appearance since the airstrike and came 11 days after the latest audiotape by bin Laden.

The U.S. counterterrorism official noted that the video was disseminated quickly, demonstrating al-Zawahiri's ability to get his message out even faster than bin Laden. That suggests the two are not hiding together and bin Laden may be in a more remote location than his deputy, the official said.

On Jan. 19, Al-Jazeera broadcast an audio message from bin Laden in which he referenced a secret British government memo disclosed in a Nov. 22 newspaper story. But al-Zawahiri's message Monday references the attack that took place just more than two weeks ago.

The last video from al-Zawahiri came Jan. 6, when he called the U.S. decision to withdraw some troops from Iraq a victory for the Islamic world.

The Al-Jazeera newscaster said Monday the network was airing excerpts from the al-Zawahiri tape, and it showed two short segments. It was not immediately known how long the entire tape was.

In the video, al-Zawahiri spoke before a black background. No automatic weapon was visible, unlike past videos by the Al Qaeda deputy in which a gun often appeared leaning next to him. In the bottom left corner, the video had the logo in Arabic and English of Al-Sahab, an Al Qaeda video production company that made some past videos by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri.

"My second message is to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures," he said, speaking in a forceful and angry voice.

"The lion of Islam, Sheik Usama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma. But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and — God willing — on your own land."

Al-Zawahiri then vented more fury at the United States and Britain, its main coalition partner in Iraq.

"Your leaders responded to the initiative of sheik Usama, may God protect him, by saying they don't negotiate with terrorists and that they are winning the war on terror. I tell them: You liars, greedy war mongers, who is pulling out from Iraq and Afghanistan? Us or you? Whose soldiers are committing suicide because of despair? Us or you?" he said.

"You, American mother, if the Pentagon calls to tell you that your son is coming home in a coffin, then remember George Bush. And you, British wife, if the Defense Department calls you to say that your husband is returning crippled and burnt, remember Tony Blair."

The video comes after bin Laden warned that Al Qaeda is preparing attacks in the United States but offered a truce "with fair conditions" to build Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Al Qaeda leader did not spell out conditions for a truce in the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera.

U.S. officials said after the bin Laden tape that they had no sign that Al Qaeda was preparing an imminent attack in the United States.

In an Arabic transcription of the entire tape on the Al-Jazeera Web site — but not aired — bin Laden made an oblique reference to how to prevent new attacks on the United States but did not specify if those were conditions for a truce.

The tape was the first message from bin Laden in more than a year. The CIA authenticated the voice on the tape as that of bin Laden. Al-Jazeera said the tape was recorded in the Islamic month that corresponds with December.

The White House firmly rejected bin Laden's suggestion of a negotiated truce.

"We don't negotiate with terrorists," Vice President Dick Cheney said at the time. "I think you have to destroy them."

During the year of silence from bin Laden, al-Zawahiri issued several video and audiotapes, including one claiming Al Qaeda responsibility for the July 7 London bombings.

Every day it gets harder and harder to tell Zawahiri's rants from those of Mother Sheehan.

Tired of seeing the New York Times getting all the headlines with their treason, the Washington Post has decided to join in the fun of betraying its country's most vital national secrets.

This self-styled military expert, William Arkin, must surely be aware it is a gross and illegal violation of national security to release code names. (Ask Kissinger about "Umbra.") Of course that didn't stop him from writing a book that does just that a year ago, either.

In fact, Mr. Arkin considers himself more of an activist than a journalist. (Not that there is any discernible difference in our one party media.)

Arkin is a former Greenpeace "researcher." He is currently involved with Harry Belafonte's Institute for Policy Studies and those Solons at Human Rights Watch.

Worthies like Mr. Arkin cannot be bound by the laws of mere mortals.

NSA Expands, Centralizes Domestic Spying

By William M. Arkin | January 30, 2006

Code Name(s) of the Week: DIAZ, Emergejust, Freedom, Highpoint, PASSGEAR, Viceroy

The National Security Agency is in the process of building a new warning hub and data warehouse in the Denver area, realigning much of its workforce from Ft. Meade, Maryland to Colorado.

The Denver Post reported last week that NSA was moving some of its operations to the Denver suburb of Aurora.

On the surface, the NSA move seems to be a management and cost cutting measure, part of a post-9/11 decentralization. "This strategy better aligns support to national decision makers and combatant commanders," an NSA spokesman told the Denver paper.

In truth, NSA is aligning its growing domestic eavesdropping operations — what the administration calls "terrorist warning" in its current PR campaign — with military homeland defense organizations, as well as the CIA's new domestic operations Colorado.

Translation: Hey Congress, Colorado is now the American epicenter for national domestic spying.

In May, Dana Priest reported here in The Washington Post that the CIA was planning to shift much of its domestic operations to Aurora, Colorado.

The move of the CIA's National Resources Division was then described as being undertaken "for operational reasons."

The Division is responsible for exploiting the knowledge of U.S. citizens and foreigners in the United States who might have unique information about foreign countries and terrorist activities. The functions extend from engaging Iraqi or Iranian Americans in covert operations to develop information and networks in their home countries to recruiting foreign students and visitors to be American spies.

Aurora is already a reconnaissance satellite downlink and analytic center focusing on domestic warning. The NSA and CIA join U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) in Colorado. NORTHCOM is post 9/11 the U.S. military command responsible for homeland defense.

The new NSA operation is located at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, at a facility commonly known as the Aerospace Data Facility.

According to Government Executive Magazine — thanks DP — "NSA is building a massive data storage facility in Colorado, which will be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of Congress every two days." This new NSA data warehouse is the hub of "data mining" and analysis development, allowing the eavesdropping agency to develop and make better use of the unbelievabytes of data it collects but does not exploit.

Part of the move to Denver, Government Executive reported, was to expand NSA's base of contractors able to support its increasingly complex intelligence extraction mission.

Contracting documents from 2004 and 2005 obtained by this reporter identify numerous Top Secret and compartmented computing and signals intelligence projects being run by prime contractors Lockheed Martin; Northrop Grumman Mission Systems; and Raytheon on behalf of NSA in Colorado to building the domestic warning hub and data warehouse. The projects have the code names DIAZ, Emergejust, Freedom, Highpoint, PASSGEAR, and Viceroy.

Ironically, the only federal agency seemingly absent from the domestic intelligence trifecta is the Department of Homeland Security, perpetually out to lunch.

Note: A free copy of my book Code Names to any reader who can tell me — in English — what any of these programs actually do.

It is illegal to leak code names, which are highly classified, as this jackanapes has done. It is also illegal to solicit information about such secret programs with offers of a reward.

Behold US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 3, § 793:

Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information:

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any… information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it…

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Mind you, this is the very law which to the Washington Post's delight is being absurdly applied against "Scooter" Libby.

Apart from his sedition, the "analysis" Arkin presented is simply laughably uninformed. It's clearly intended to try to whip up more outrage about NSA's "domestic spying."

Which is his only real purpose for this non-story. That and delivering some more vital information to our country's enemies.

But never mind all that. Our watchdog media is doing its mission. Safeguarding our freedoms by destroying our national defense.

One story at a time.

As we all know, professional peacenik Mother Sheehan is all for murder and mayhem for a good cause.

And a good cause for her is anything or anyone who is against the United States.

In this photo released by Venezuela's Miraflores Press, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez embraces visiting U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, left, whose son was killed in Iraq, and Elma Beatriz Rosado, the widow of slain Puerto Rican nationalist Filiberto Ojeda Rios during his national broadcast 'Hello President' in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006. All three joined in condemning the government of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Who is this hero, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, you might ask?

Well, he's the leader of a terrorist organization, of course.

Don't just take our word for it. Even the left-leaning Wikipedia sayeth so:

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (April 26, 1933 – September 23, 2005) was the "Responsible General" of the Boricua Popular Army, or Ejército Popular Boricua – Los Macheteros, a clandestine paramilitary, organization, considered by United States law enforcement agencies to be a terrorist organization, based on the island of Puerto Rico, with branches throughout the United States and other countries. Los Macheteros is an ultra-minority political group that campaigns, supports, and promotes the independence of Puerto Rico through violent means from what they characterize as an oppressive U.S. colonial rule they claim has lasted 107 years.

Ojeda Ríos was wanted as a fugitive by the FBI for his role in the 1983 Wells Fargo depot robbery in West Hartford, Connecticut, as well as a bail bond default in September 1990.

After years of hiding, Ojeda Ríos was killed on September 23, 2005 when members of the FBI surrounded his clandestine house in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.

Biography

Ojeda Ríos was born April 26, 1933 in Naguabo, Puerto Rico. An amateur musician, he played trumpet and guitar.

In 1961, he moved his family from Puerto Rico to Cuba and was recruited into the General Intelligence Directorate, the Cuban intelligence service. A year later he returned to Puerto Rico, allegedly to spy on the United States military.

In 1967 he founded and led the very first of Puerto Rico’s new militant political groups, the Armed Revolutionary Independence Movement (MIRA). The organization was disbanded by police in the early 1970s and Ríos was arrested.

He subsequently skipped bail and moved to New York, organizing the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) with former MIRA members as a membership base.

In 1976, Ojeda Ríos renamed the FALN to the Boricua Popular Army —or Ejército Popular Boricua in Spanish—also known as Los Macheteros (”The Machete Wielders”).

Los Macheteros killed a Puerto Rican policeman, shot 15 unarmed US Navy personnel in two attacks (killing 3 and wounding 12), and bombed several US government facilities.

Charges against himm

1. Act of Domestic Terrorism
2. Aggravated Robbery (1985)
3. Aggravated Robbery of Federally Insured Bank Funds (1985)
4. Armed Robbery (1985)
5. Bond Default (1990)
6. Conspiracy to Interfere With Commerce By Robbery (1985)
7. Foreign And Interstate Transportation Of Stolen Money (1985)

Of course none of this is news, but it’s always amusing to see just how far Mother Sheehan will go to earn her paycheck.

(In case you missed it, Chavez paid for her services down there.)

From those America-haters at the French AFP:

Social forum wraps up in Caracas with Sheehan calling Bush a ‘terrorist’

CARACAS (AFP) – The six-day World Social Forum wrapped up in Caracas with US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan calling President George W. Bush a "terrorist" during an event hosted by Venezuela’s leftist leader.

"By his own definition, he is a terrorist," said Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, who gained notoriety for setting up a protest camp outside the US president’s Texas ranch last year.

"George W. Bush is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people and his definition of a terrorist is someone who kills innocent women, men and children," she told other invited guests at the live broadcast of President Hugo Chavez’s weekly program.

Sheehan called for the impeachment of Bush whom she accused of "war crimes."

She was visibly moved as Chavez, clad in his trademark red shirt, put his arm around her, holding her close to him as he addressed jubilant supporters and delegates from the World Social Forum.

The forum brought together some 70,000 activists, mainly from around the Americas, for six days of debate on globalization, poverty and war, marked by virulent attacks on Bush and the Iraq war, but also by some concern over the dominant role played by Chavez and Cuban officials.

In downtown Caracas, where participants debated a plethora of issues, ranging from free trade and imperialism to the debt burden in Latin America, a banner covered four stories of a high-rise building with the words: "Bush lied, fire him."

Chavez was given rock star treatment by participants, who on Friday joined him in singing the socialist "International" and hailing Cuba’s communist President Fidel Castro.

And street vendors in the city center did brisk business selling Chavez memorabilia, such as talking dolls and wooden statuettes, pins, badges, T-shirts and posters.

Chavez projected himself as a leader of the world social movement designed as an ideological counterpoint to the Davos World Economic Summit of political and business leaders. He also warned against turning the forum into "a folkloric and touristic event."

Chavez opponents dismissed the whole thing as a gabfest dominated by archaic leftist ideals.

There were also grumblings within the forum, where some participants complained over the dominant role played by Chavez, and to a lesser degree by Cuba, which deployed an 800-strong state delegation to the non-governmental event.

"I’m very disappointed," said Cesario Ribero, a delegate from a Brazilian social movement. "Chavez took over the forum, it became very governmental and pushed aside the organizations," he said.

Olivier de Marcelus, 62, from a Swiss anti-globalization group, called the Venezuelan and Cuban state presence "a little invasive."

He said he understood Chavez represented a symbol of hope for many people in Latin America who seek political change, but warned against allowing governments and "old leftist projects" to take over the event.

"We need to concentrate on finding other avenues than the form of socialism that has been tried in eastern Europe and Cuba," said de Marcelus, a civil servant from Geneva.

He said, however, the get-together was a useful networking opportunity, particularly for small movements that seek to learn from the experience of others and gain support for their own cause.

Indigent Americans who traveled to Caracas with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign said they attended the forum to draw attention to their plight.

"We’re here to let people know how we are struggling," said Zenaide Cosme, 37, a homeless mother of five from Philadelphia.

"The United States is not the American dream people imagine," she said, as a nearby speaker drew loud cheers by proclaiming: "we need a Hugo Chavez in the United States."

I bet you didn’t know that being surrounded on two sides by the US military is viewed as a great thing by Iran’s ruling mullahs. You didn’t?

Well, sit back and let the New York Times explain to you how this is a terrible situation for us and just the ticket for Iran:

Explosions rock Saddam Hussein’s complex in central Baghdad during the U.S.-led “shock-and-awe” aerial campaign.

Guess Who Likes the G.I.’s in Iraq (Look in Iran’s Halls of Power)

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: January 29, 2006

NOT long after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in 2003, a top aide to L. Paul Bremer III, then the head of the American occupation authority there, excitedly explained that Iraq had just become the front line in Washington’s effort to neutralize Iran as a regional force.

If America could promote a moderate, democratic, American-friendly alternate center of Shiite Islam in Iraq, the official said, it could defang one of its most implacable foes in the Middle East.

Iran, in other words, had for decades been both the theological center of Shiite Islam and a regional sponsor of militant anti-American Islamic groups like Hezbollah. But if westward-looking Shiites — secular or religious — came to power in southern Iraq, they could give the lie to arguments that Shiites had to see America as an enemy.

So far, though, Iran’s mullahs aren’t feeling much pain from the Americans next door. In fact, officials at all levels of government here say they see the American presence as a source of strength for themselves as they face the Bush administration.

In almost every conversation about Iran’s nuclear showdown with the United States and Europe, they cite the Iraq war as a factor Iran can play to its own advantage.

"America is extremely vulnerable right now," said Akbar Alami, a member of the Iran’s Parliament often critical of the government but on this point hewing to the government line. "If the U.S. takes any unwise action" to punish Iran for pursuing its nuclear program, he said, "certainly the U.S. and other countries will share the harm."

Iranians know that American forces, now stretched thin, are unlikely to invade Iran. And if the United States or Europe were to try a small-scale, targeted attack, t he proximity of American forces makes them potential targets for retaliation. Iranians also know the fighting in Iraq has helped raise oil prices, and any attempt to impose sanctions could push prices higher.

In addition, the Iranians have longstanding ties to influential Shiite religious leaders in Iraq, and at least one recently promised that his militia would make real trouble for the Americans if they moved militarily against Iran.

All of those calculations have reduced Iranian fears of going ahead with their nuclear program — a prospect that frightens not just the United States, Europe and Israel, but many of the Sunni Muslim-dominated nations in the region, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In recent days, Iran has moved aggressively to restart its nuclear program, insisting that it is aimed only at research and producing energy. The United States and Europe, who remain suspicious of Iran’s intentions, are trying to block it, with cooperation from Russia and China, and have threatened to take Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Disagreement between the West and Iran on this issue is not new. But Iran’s apparent confidence that it can move ahead with little risk of serious punishment is. It is part of a change in the way Iran has decided to address the world, abandoning a strategy of diplomatic compromise pursued by the reformist president Muhammad Khatami, who served from 1997 until last year.

The hard-line conservative, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June to replace Mr. Khatami, has joined the religious leadership in a policy of confrontation.

With the Americans stuck fighting a protracted, murky war in Iraq, the Iranians felt they were in a position to defy the West even over the nuclear issue.

A Western diplomat based in Tehran said that Iran’s recent behavior has been infuriating, an apparent effort to undermine the diplomatic process. The envoy said that in August, when Europe was about to offer what it called a compromise, the Iranians balked even before seeing the proposal.

"Before we even met, they said: ‘We know what’s in it. We know what we are looking for is not there,’ " the diplomat said, insisting on remaining anonymous so as not to antagonize Iranian authorities.

The West has tried to push back, but Iran has barely budged. Part of the reason, the diplomat said, is that "what was seen as power then may be seen as weakness now," referring to the American presence in Iraq.

This month, Iran welcomed the Iraqi cleric Muktada al-Sadr in a way that helped send just that message. The cleric’s militia, the Mahdi Army, rose up twice in 2004 against the American military. Mr. Sadr and his followers have since joined the political process in Iraq, but during his visit to Tehran he warned that any attack on Iran could inspire a response from his militia.

"If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them," he said in comments reported by The Associated Press. "The Mahdi Army is beyond the Iraqi Army. It was established to defend Islam."

Not all Iranians think their country’s aggressive drive to resume its nuclear program will work as a long-term strategy.

Iran’s influence in Iraq and Afghanistan has limits, said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a political science professor at Tehran University. "It might work as a deterrent for a military strike against Iran but it is not a deterrent to lift the pressure against Iran’s nuclear program."

Still, there is near unanimity in the government that the nuclear program should not be canceled. Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University who said he has close ties with many in government, said there was a compromise among the core factions over how far to go in the nuclear program. Basically, he said, there is agreement to develop a weapons capability, but not to go as far as building a bomb.

The logic, he said, is based on an assessment that if Iran builds a bomb, it could set off an arms race in the Middle East that could "eventually undermine Iran’s conventional superiority if others, like Syria and Egypt, get the bomb."

 

Is there anyone in their right mind who doesn’t realize how much better positioned we now are to face down Iran than we would be if our closest military forces were "over the horizon in Okinawa"?

In fact, if we weren’t in Afghanistan and Iraq we’d be up the proverbial creek and paddle-less in the extreme in providing any credible deterrence to Iran’s nuclear weapons development.

Happily for everyone but America-haters like the Timesmen, we are actually in a fairly good strategic position to call the shots in Iran. But not to those military experts at The Times.

And mind you, this NYT article is not an editorial. It is presented as a news report. Yet it is laced with belly laughs like this:

And if the United States or Europe were to try a small-scale, targeted attack, the proximity of American forces makes them potential targets for retaliation.

This is simply Orwellian.

But the article does provide one insight.

It tells us just how far The Times is willing to pervert reality to try to aid and comfort our country’s enemies.

It turns out that not a sparrow falls that it isn’t Bush’s fault.

Just ask that fount of objective journalism, The New York Times:

Fear, fueled by a recent wave of violence, has left the central market district in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, nearly empty at night.

Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos

By WALT BOGDANICH and JENNY NORDBERG
Published: January 29, 2006

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As his plane lifted off the runway here in August 2003, Brian Dean Curran rewound his last, bleak days as the American ambassador in this tormented land.

DEMOCRACY UNDONE

Haiti, Mr. Curran feared, was headed toward a cataclysm, another violent uncoupling of its once jubilant embrace of democracy more than a decade before. He had come here hoping to help that tenuous democracy grow. Now he was leaving in anger and foreboding.

Seven months later, an accused death squad leader helped armed rebels topple the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Haiti, never a model of stability, soon dissolved into a state so lawless it stunned even those who had pushed for the removal of Mr. Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest who rose to power as the champion and hero of Haiti’s poor.

Today, the capital, Port-au-Prince, is virtually paralyzed by kidnappings, spreading panic among rich and poor alike. Corrupt police officers in uniform have assassinated people on the streets in the light of day. The chaos is so extreme and the interim government so dysfunctional that voting to elect a new one has already been delayed four times. The latest date is Feb. 7.

Yet even as Haiti prepares to pick its first elected president since the rebellion two years ago, questions linger about the circumstances of Mr. Aristide’s ouster — and especially why the Bush administration, which has made building democracy a centerpiece of its foreign policy in Iraq and around the world, did not do more to preserve it so close to its shores.

The Bush administration has said that while Mr. Aristide was deeply flawed, its policy was always to work with him as Haiti’s democratically elected leader.

But the administration’s actions in Haiti did not always match its words. Interviews and a review of government documents show that a democracy-building group close to the White House, and financed by American taxpayers, undercut the official United States policy and the ambassador assigned to carry it out.

As a result, the United States spoke with two sometimes contradictory voices in a country where its words carry enormous weight. That mixed message, the former American ambassador said, made efforts to foster political peace "immeasurably more difficult." Without a political agreement, a weak government was destabilized further, leaving it vulnerable to the rebels.

Mr. Curran accused the democracy-building group, the International Republican Institute, of trying to undermine the reconciliation process after disputed 2000 Senate elections threw Haiti into a violent political crisis. The group’s leader in Haiti, Stanley Lucas, an avowed Aristide opponent from the Haitian elite, counseled the opposition to stand firm, and not work with Mr. Aristide, as a way to cripple his government and drive him from power, said Mr. Curran, whose account is supported in crucial parts by other diplomats and opposition figures. Many of these people spoke publicly about the events for the first time.

Mr. Curran, a 30-year Foreign Service veteran and a Clinton appointee retained by President Bush, also accused Mr. Lucas of telling the opposition that he, not the ambassador, represented the Bush administration’s true intentions.

Records show that Mr. Curran warned his bosses in Washington that Mr. Lucas’s behavior was contrary to American policy and "risked us being accused of attempting to destabilize the government." Yet when he asked for tighter controls over the I.R.I. in the summer of 2002, he hit a roadblock after high officials in the State Department and National Security Council expressed support for the pro-democracy group, an American aid official wrote at the time.

The International Republican Institute is one of several prominent nonprofit groups that receive federal funds to help countries develop the mechanisms of democracy, like campaigning and election monitoring. Of all the groups, though, the I.R.I. is closest to the administration. President Bush picked its president, Lorne W. Craner, to run his administration’s democracy-building efforts. The institute, which works in more than 60 countries, has seen its federal financing nearly triple in three years, from $26 million in 2003 to $75 million in 2005. Last spring, at an I.R.I. fund-raiser, Mr. Bush called democracy-building "a growth industry."

Translation: The New York Times will never be happy until we invade Haiti and restore the defrocked priest and Communist Aristide back in power. The Solons at The Times and other democracy lovers like Senator John Kerry (D-France) have been pushing this agenda for almost 15 years.

This is just the latest installment of The Times’ bi-annual call for the US to invade Haiti. Kerry has also used The Times’ editorial pages to call for the US to attack Haiti and reinstall the America-hating dictator Aristide.

The following passages are from Kerry’s May 16, 1994 editorial for the New York Times:

Haiti’s military rulers continue to thumb their noses at the United States and the rest of the world. Since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrande Aristide in September 1991, the international community has consistently tried to pressure the junta to step aside, but nothing has worked –not diplomacy, not tighter sanctions, not a partial naval embargo. By tolerating their defiance and unrelenting brutality, we have empowered Haiti’s military thugs…

Opponents argue that President Aristide is so flawed that he does not deserve our help, that an invasion would be bloody and costly and could involve us in a long-term military quagmire…

Some argue that intervening in Haiti is not worth the loss of an American life. We should remember that American soldiers were at risk when we intervened in Grenada, Panama and Iraq. Those who supported Presidents Bush and Reagan ought to ask themselves why the Haitian situation is different. Is it simply that the President is of a different political party? What other facts are different? …

No one should ever casually entertain the use of military power. Certainly I do not; it is a most serious proposition. But it is imperative that we and other nations in the hemisphere put the option on the table now. It is the best means to avoid a unilateral response under emergency conditions later on. It’s also the best means of putting teeth in our diplomacy now.

The people of Haiti cannot restore democracy — cannot overthrow a drug-running, gun-wielding military regime — by themselves. They need our help. If our stated goal of restoring democracy is real, if our concern for the Haitian people is genuine, if our credibility as a world leader is important, then we must confront the crisis in Haiti with the will to act.

Why the surprise? There is no hypocrisy here. The Democrats and their lickspittles in our media have been amazingly consistent on this point.

These Solons are always eager to use our military power to help the enemies of our country. They believe war is always justifiable when it hurts US interests.

Wouldn't it be great?

Can't you just imagine the fun we would have exploring some of Mother Sheehan's more untoward comments?

From the DNC's Associated Press:

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez greets U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006.

Jan 28, 8:47 PM EST

Sheehan Considers Challenging Feinstein

By IAN JAMES
Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who set up camp near President Bush's Texas ranch last summer, said Saturday she is considering running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein to protest what she called the California lawmaker's support for the war in Iraq.

"She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won't call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops," Sheehan told The Associated Press in an interview while attending the World Social Forum in Venezuela along with thousands of other anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

"I think our senator needs to be held accountable for her support of George Bush and his war policies," said Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Feinstein's campaign manager, Kam Kuwata, said the senator "doesn't support George Bush and his war policies."

"She has stated publicly on numerous occasions that she felt she was misled by the administration at the time of the vote," Kuwata said by phone from California.

But with troops committed, Feinstein believes immediate withdrawal is not a responsible option, Kuwata said.

"Senator Feinstein's position is, let's work toward quickly turning over the defense of Iraq to Iraqis so that we can bring the troops home as soon as possible," he said.

Sheehan accused Feinstein of being out of touch with Californians on the issue.

She said she would decide whether to run after talking with her three other adult children. The Democratic primary will be held in June, and candidates must submit their statements for the voter guide by Feb. 14.

Kuwata said Feinstein and Sheehan appear to have a fundamental disagreement over whether troops should be pulled out right now. "That's why they have elections, and if she decides to file (paperwork to run), so be it," he said.

Sheehan said running in the Democratic primary would help make a broader point.

"If I decided to run, I would have no illusions of winning, but it would bring attention to all the peace candidates in the country," she said.

Sheehan, 48, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., said she would head to Washington on Sunday for protests against Bush's State of the Union address on Monday, and then return to California to discuss her idea of running against Feinstein with her son and two daughters.

"I can't see – if they think it's going to help peace – that they would be opposed to me doing it," she said.

Sheehan and other peace activists met Saturday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, himself a critic of Bush and the Iraq war.

"He said, why don't I run for president? … I just laughed," she said.

There, there. Let's have none of that false modesty, Mother Sheehan. We know you have the weight of the world on your broad shoulders.

Heck, I'd even be tempted to start a fundraiser here for her. But with Soros' and Chavez's money behind her, laundered through Code Pink, Global Exchange and a hundred other 501c3s and 527s, al-Cindy should be able to buy quite a few votes even without our help.

Seriously, though. This is the third or fourth time this story has passed through the news cycle. And not one of our one party media's "journalists" has thought to mention that Cindy's puppet master, Medea Benjamin, ran against Feinstein the last time she was up for election in 2000.

United States Senate
100.0% ( 25702 of 25702 ) precincts reporting as of Dec 18, 2000 at 12:48 pm

Statewide Returns	County Returns | Other Races

Candidate Party Votes Percent
	View Map
* Dianne Feinstein Dem 5,932,522 55.9 Tom Campbell Rep 3,886,853 36.6 Diane B. Templin AmI 134,598 1.2 Medea Susan Benjamin Grn 326,828 3.1 Gail Katherine Lightfoot Lib 187,718 1.8 Brian M. Rees Nat 58,537 0.5 Jose Luis Camahort Ref 96,552 0.9

They haven't figured out what is going on yet?

Sheesh.