Important Primer on the Sunni-Shiite rivalry in Iraq – By Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter:
Calling Out Idiot America

Show Details for March 25th, 2007

This week’s Guests:

— Candidate Christine Jennings, discussing new developments in her contested race for Congress (Florida district 13)

— Independent journalist Daniel Hopsicker, discussing his research on 9-11

– Congressional candidate CHRISTINE JENNINGS of Sarasota, Florida discusses the aftermath of that razor-thin, contested election

Christine Jennings, a self-made banker, was the Democratic candidate for an open seat in the 13th Congressional district in Florida (FL-13), which includes Sarasota. The previous occupant was Katherine Harris, who resigned to make an unsuccessful run for US Senate. The tally in Jennings’ contest states that Jennings’ opponent, Republican Vern Buchanan, won the race by less than 400 votes. Countless other candidates, when faced with a losing tally under suspicious circumstances, have conceded and disappeared. However, Christine Jennings has fought to make sure every citizen’s vote who attempted to vote in her contest was counted.

The election last November was run using paperless ES&S electronic voting machines. The machines’ results tell us that 18,000 people apparently showed up to vote, and didn’t cast a vote in the hotly-contested FL-13 race. Many of those same voters voted in low profile contests such as hospital district. About 15% of ballots cast on Sarasota’s touch-screen machines registered no choice in the bitterly fought congressional race, about six times greater than the undervote in the rest of the FL-13 district, which spreads into four other counties. The undervote in the gubernatorial contest on the same ballot was only 2.6%. A meticulous analysis of the 18,000 ballots by the Orlando Sentinel found that the voters casting those particular ballots were disproportionately voting for Democrats in other races. (“SARASOTA RECOUNT Analysis: Ballots favored Dems, November 22, 2006, http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112206S.shtml )

Investigations have turned up a number of anomalies, including hundreds of voters reporting balky equipment on election day, and including a touchscreen slow-response problem that was known by ES&S before the election — the machines had a flaw that sometimes caused machines to respond slowly to a voter’s touch ‘beyond the normal time a voter would expect to have their selection highlighted.’

An official test team investigated for Florida why some 18,000 ballots didn’t have any vote cast. Just yesterday, journalist Kim Zetter published a heretofore secret letter in which ES&S instructs the test team how to investigate, the parameters of what it should and should not investigate. ES&S told the state’s testers not to make statements rendering opinions on security techniques employed or not employed, or statements about possible vulnerabilities. ES&S also told the testers to assume that all of the voting equipment and materials have been physically secured as they should be, physical chain of custody of the equipment and materials has never been compromised, and that only the best election administration practices and procedures have been employed with these systems.

ARTICLES:
“Source Says Second ES&S Letter Tried to Dictate What Florida Test Reports Could Say”
By Kim Zetter
Mar 23, 2007
Informed Consent
http://informedconsent.typepad.com/informed_consent

“E-Vote Memo Is a ‘Smoking Gun’”
By Kim Zetter
March 22, 2007
Wired News
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,73048-0.html

WEBSITE:
http://www.ChristineJenningsforCongress.com

– Independent journalist DANIEL HOPSICKER on oddities he has found re 9-11

Independent journalist DANIEL HOPSICKER will discuss some of the gumshoe work he did in Venice, Florida to unravel oddities about the flight schools, Mohamed Atta and the attacks on September 11. His information seriously clashes with the official 9/11 story.

He is the author of Welcome to Terrorland, Mohamed Atta & The 9-11 Cover-up in Florida (2004: Mad Cow Press). He has also done several series of articles on voting machine companies, as well as on the Duke Cunningham scandal. Hopsicker lives in Venice, Florida.

WEBSITE:
www.madcowprod.com

BOOKS:
Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida

Barry & ‘the Boys’: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History

FILM:
Documentary Mohamed Atta & the Venice Flying Circus

Show Details for March 18th, 2007

This week’s Show:

  — Complete statement of former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson before Congress, with additional clips

—We will include a brief discussion with Karen Renick of Vote Rescue of Austin, who has managed to get a bill introduced into the Texas Legislature that could truly reform elections. HB 3894 by Lon Burnam of Tarrant County calls for hand-counted paper ballots, and the elimination of electronic voting systems for elections in Texas.  http://www.voterescue.org

 

—As the war in Iraq ends four years, BradBlog notes these statements:

Don Rumsfeld 2/7/2003: “It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months”

George W. Bush 5/1/03: “My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

Dick Cheney 6/20/05: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”

<>  ~6:20 pm CDT — VALERIE PLAME WILSON testifies before Congress

http://www.11alive.com/assetpool/images/07316101527_plame250.jpg

On Friday, former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson testified before Congress, breaking a silence of four years since her status was revealed by members of the White House and State Department.

We will be playing audio of the statements of Henry Waxman, D-CA, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the ranking minority member Tom Davis, R-VA. 

We will play the complete prepared statement of Valerie Plame Wilson.

 

Q&A with John Sarbanes, D-MD, follows, along with a summary by Waxman.  In addition, we will play a clip of James Knodell, Director of the Office of Security at the White House, who testified that there was no investigation of the leak done internally by the White House.

We will also repeat a recent statement on The Monitor by Ray McGovern re the source of the forged documents purporting that Iraq was obtaining uranium for nuclear weapons.

 

THANKS to KPFT’s Bruce Wayne for the digital audio he provided to The Monitor of the Plame hearings.

LINKS:

For an overview and access to video:
“Hearing Examines Exposure of Covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s Identity”
March 16, 2007
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1205

 

For the text of Cong. Waxman’s introduction,  see  http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070316104030-43341.pdf

For the text of Valerie Plame Wilson’s statement,  see  http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/16/111828/917

 

ARTICLE:
White House Security Chief Reveals — No Probe of Plame Leak There
By E&P Staff
Published: March 16, 2007 1:00 PM ET
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003559300

BLOGGING, etc.

Bradblog.com (includes this chart, which was presented during the Congressional hearing)

 

 

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/PlameHearing_DisclosureChart_031607.gif

Show Details for March 11th, 2007

This week’s Guests:

  — CATHERINE LUTZ on US empire and militarism

  — MARJORIE COHN on Nat’l Security Letters and on women in the military

 

CATHERINE LUTZ on US empire and militarism

View full size

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/faculty/lutz.jpg

George W. Bush turns his attention to Latin America with his visit there this week.  Meanwhile, protests and the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases are going on in Ecuador.

The Monitor takes this opportunity to revisit American empire and increasing militarism.  We’ve previously discussed these issues with Chalmers Johnson, author of “The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic,” and with Cynthia Enloe, author of “Macho, Macho Military.”

Our first guest this evening is Catherine Lutz.  She is Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, with a joint appointment at the Watson Institute for International Studies.  A thread running through her research is the issue of power and inequality.

For the last ten years, she has focused on questions of militaries, war, and society. Through research around military bases in North Carolina, Guam, Okinawa, South Korea, and the Philippines, she has examined the impact of military spending and military practice on communities in political economic and cultural historical perspective.  Some of her research has been conducted for service and activist organizations, including a domestic violence shelter, Cultural Survival, and the American Friends Service Committee.

Prof. Lutz is editor of the forthcoming book, “Bases, Empire and Global Response.”

QUOTE:
“Military bases show us both the coercive underpinnings and the political/economic complexion of the U.S.’s global position.  … Officially, a quarter of a million U.S. troops are massed in 737 major bases in 130 countries in facilities worth $115 billion.”

CURRENT ARTICLE (drawn from her forthcoming book by the same name):
“Bases, Empire, and Global Response”
by Catherine Lutz
Winter 2007
http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/winter07/catherinelutz.html

PREVIOUS ARTICLE:
“Making War at Home in the United States : Militarization and the Current Crisis”
American Anthropologist, 2002, 104 (3): 723-35

WEBSITE FOR FURTHER INFO:
International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases
http://www.no-bases.net

MARJORIE COHN on abuse by FBI of Nat’l Security Letters, and on women in the military

View full size

 http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/photos/big-cohn.jpg

Law professor Marjorie Cohn is a frequent legal analyst on The Monitor.

Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi will discuss with her the abuse of National Security Letters by the FBI.  In addition, we will discuss women in the military (see article link below).  If time permits, we’ll touch on the White House push to remove certain federal prosecutors, as well as the Scooter Libby
conviction.

Professor Cohn is the President of the National Lawyers Guild, and is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law. Her forthcoming book is entitled “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law.”

 

She lectures throughout the world on international human rights and US foreign policy. Professor Cohn has written columns for the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal, is a news consultant for CBS News, and a legal analyst for Court TV. She has provided legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Truthout, and Pacifica Radio.

She is co-author of the book “Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice.”  She was a legal observer in Iran on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and she has participated in delegations to Cuba, China and Yugoslavia. She has lived in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.

WEBSITE:
www.marjoriecohn.com

FORTHCOMING BOOK:
“Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law”
Will be published in July, 2007
[The six ways: illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq; the policy of
torture; war crimes; Guantanamo’s kangaroo courts; unconstitutional laws; and the
unlawful surveillance of American citizens.]

ARTICLE:
“The Private War of Women Soldiers”
by Helen Benedict
Salon
March 7, 2007
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/07/women_in_military/index.html?source=rss
    QUOTE: Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male
comrades and can’t trust the military to protect them.  “The knife wasn’t for the
Iraqis,” says one woman.  “It was for the guys on my own side.”

Show Details for March 4th, 2007

This week’s Topics: The proposed Iraqi oil law and the hijacking of Conservatism

Our guests are Antonia Juhasz and Paul Craig Roberts.

 

 

 

 

 

Antonia Juhasz on the Iraqi oil law

Our first guest is Antonia Juhasz. She is the author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a time.”

Antonia Juhasz is a policy-analyst, author and activist living in San Francisco.

She is the Tarbell Fellow at Oil Change International and Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is a teacher at the New College of California in the Activism and Social Change Masters Program. She is also a guest lecturer on U.S. Foreign Policy at the McMaster University Labour Studies Program in a unique educational program with the Canadian Automobile Workers Union.

Mark Bebawi will discuss the new Iraqi Oil law with her, as well as her book: The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

WEBSITES:

The Bu$h Agenda

Oil Change International

Hands off Iraqi Oil

Paul Craig Roberts re conservatism hijacked

Conservative commentator Paul Craig Roberts returns to The Monitor to discuss his latest views of current events, and his new article, “Americans Have Lost Their Country.”

Dr. Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under Ronald Reagan. He has been called “Father of Reaganomics.” He is former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Currently Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. Former William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. Dr. Roberts is a former Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Author or co-author of several books on economics and politics, including; The Supply-Side Revolution (1985), Alienation and the Soviet Economy: The Collapse of the Socialist Era (1990), The Soviet Union After Perestroika (1991), The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America (2003).

ARTICLE:

“We are witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free press.”

“Americans Have Lost Their Country”

by Paul Craig Roberts

March 1, 2007

http://antiwar.com/roberts