Excellent article by Chicagot Trib. demonstrates the INSANE PRIORITIES of America's "entertainment uber alles" economics....

Excellent article by Chicagot Trib. demonstrates the INSANE PRIORITIES of America's "entertainment uber alles" economy.

America will NEVER be able to recreate the conditions at the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the entire world looked to America out of awe and respect as a bedrock of freedom and an economic powerhouse. Within weeks of the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, James Baker, George Bush Sr, and other Rethuglican "foreign policy experts" washed their hands of the genocidal dissolution of Yugoslavia (Baker's infamous formulation was "we don't have a dog in that hunt"!), mass-murder and death-camps less than an hour's flight from St. Peters (the Vatican in Rome) notwithstanding. It took newbie President Bill Clinton five long years to amass the political capital to exert US power in the bloody Balkans (as smooth as the restoration of Democratically elected President Aristede in Haiti was, it was widely reviled by the right-wing and corporate media, and the Somalia "Black Hawk Down" debacle was an even more potent icon of Right-Wing "let 'em all die!" selfish isolationism. Clinton and the US military finally reasserted a cease fire in Bosnia and Kosovo, but only by destroying Serbia's industrial infrastructure, and spreading deadly US depleted uranium rounds all over the region.
Republican post-Cold War folly didn't even have to wait for foreign policy debacles to unfold under Bill Clinton: by 1991 George Bush Sr. and Defense Secretaries DICK CHENEY and DON RUMSFELD has already DISSIPATED the "PEACE DIVIDEND," by SLASHING US defense spending and base closings WITHOUT ANY "soft letdown" to help local, defense ("big government taxpayer spending") dependent economies TRANSITION to something else!

Which folly was, of course, ON TOP of the Republican dominated SAVINGS & LOAN scandal, which cost American taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars, over one trillion dollars.

Which LOST OPPORTUNITIES and FAILED POLICIES BASED on GREED, ISOLATIONISM, and "FREE MARKET" economics (which were code for "loot taxpayers to pay for private business follies") were only the tip of the iceberg:

the TRUE INSANITY of America's right-leaning agenda has been NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, the insane, propagandistic Right-Wingers (who dominate the Rethuglican Party) REFUSING TO COMPLY with world nuclear non-proliferation accords, America's righties instead preferring America's NUCLEAR BRINKSMANSHIP, i.e. George W. Bush telling reporters that the US claims the right to bomb other nations who may be building nuclear weapons, even though the USA no longer abides by an entire catalog of treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the nuclear-non-proliferation protocols.

Don't take our word for it: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the very enbodiement of Right-Wing INSANITY, THREATS over treaties and cooperation, from small defenseless countries (Panama, Grenada, Haiti) to larger countries portrayed by Rethuglican propaganda as "threats" (Iraq, Venezueala), to formidable countries that the US government and media are CONTINUALLY making veiled threats to. (Iran, Russia, China, and eventually Pakistan..)


( Bush's nuclear threat -
http://www.war-times.org/issues/2art1.htm )

Far from worshipping "moral values," justice, and international comity, the reactionary right-wing and their corporate media stooges (and their cantakerous fire-and-brimstone lusting preachers) in America WORSHIP MAMON - MONEY, VIOLENCE, THREATS, and the ferocious pursuit of unbridled power.

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An atomic threat made in America
How the U.S. spread bomb-grade fuel worldwide — and failed to get it back

By Sam Roe, Tribune staff reporter
Published January 28, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-061209atoms-day1-story,1,7163234.htmlstory?coll=chi-news-hed


Tribune special report: How the U.S. spread bomb-grade fuel worldwide and failed to get it back.

The urgent call reached Armando Travelli in Vienna.
Get to Romania as soon as you can, the voice on the phone told Travelli, an Argonne scientist-turned-diplomat. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is considering returning the bomb-grade uranium America had given him.

Within days, Travelli stepped inside a sprawling nuclear research reactor in the southern Romanian city of Pitesti. There he saw firsthand the chilling consequences of using highly enriched uranium to cement alliances with backwater dictators. He watched as one worker reached into a pipe and nonchalantly pulled out a spaghetti-like jumble of electrical wires. Later, he learned that other workers had wedged a hunk of wood between two uranium-filled rods to keep them from jostling in the reactor pool. The makeshift repair backfired when the wood swelled and couldn't be removed.

But Travelli, who shuttled back and forth to the facility from Chicago for several years in the 1980s, didn't know the worst of it. When his mission bogged down, Romania secretly used the reactor and the enriched uranium to help separate plutonium--the first step in building an atomic bomb.
Ceausescu has long since faced a firing squad, and his successors disclosed the secret effort. But a quarter-century after Travelli's first visit to the reactor, some of the dangerous material remains there.
Photo: Nuclear fission takes place at a U.S.-supplied research reactor in Pitesti, Romania.

Romania is but one example in a world that reverberates from the fallout of the United States' Cold War folly known as Atoms for Peace, a program that distributed highly enriched uranium around the world. That uranium was intended solely to be used as fuel in civilian research reactors. But it is potent enough to make nuclear bombs and can be found everywhere from Romania, now a crossroads for nuclear smuggling, to an Iranian research reactor at the center of that nation's controversial nuclear program.

Three dozen other nations also obtained highly enriched uranium from the U.S. Then in 1974, India set off its first nuclear weapon, and America scrambled to get the bomb fuel back--an effort led by Travelli out of Argonne National Laboratory near southwest suburban Lemont.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave the mission a new sense of urgency: For terrorists or rogue nations, highly enriched uranium is by far the easiest way to build a nuclear bomb. Only 55 pounds are required. Double that and terrorists would need only limited technical skill to slam two pieces together to start a chain reaction--the same technique used in the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Even since 9/11, though, the worldwide mission to retrieve this uranium repeatedly has fallen short. Now, through exclusive access to the government archive chronicling the effort, the complete story behind that failure can be pieced together for the first time.
When Travelli embarked on his quest in 1978, he thought it could be accomplished with relative ease, taking maybe five years. He was wrong.

Atomic age breeds hope
In the middle of Rome sits one of the city's most famous fountains: the marble and bronze Fontana delle Naiadi, depicting four nymphs riding a swan, snake, horse and dragon. During the waning days of World War II, when Armando Travelli was just a boy, he and his mother would stop at the fountain on their way home from church or while walking in the neighborhood.
"I wish you could see it with the electricity on," he recalled her telling him. "It is so beautiful with lights and the water running."
"What's electricity?" he had asked. With the war on, he had known only candles.
When the conflict ended after the U.S. dropped two atom bombs on Japan, Travelli became part of the nuclear generation that grew to fear atomic energy but also marvel at its power. U.S. officials predicted nuclear bombs would blast holes for harbors, and electricity would be so cheap it wouldn't be metered. Travelli envisioned cars, boats--even his neighborhood fountain--powered by the atom.

Audio: Hear Eisenhower's 1953 speech.
Such dreams were energized by a bold new American experiment called Atoms for Peace. Unveiled by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, the program promised to share some U.S. nuclear technology with foreign nations that vowed to forgo atomic weapons.

"It was the grand bargain," said Ellie Busick, who helped oversee non-proliferation efforts at the State Department in the 1980s and '90s. "We were way ahead in building bombs, but we were not naive enough to think that nobody could ever do this but us."
The Soviets started sharing nuclear technology, too, and a Cold War chess match ensued, with the two superpowers and a few other nations supplying uranium and dozens of nuclear research reactors to their allies. U.S. reactors, for instance, went to Iran, Pakistan and Colombia; Soviet reactors to Libya, Bulgaria and North Korea. Romania, a Soviet satellite courted by the Americans, got two reactors: one from the U.S., another from the Russians.

Reactors became the equivalent of international status symbols; church groups funded some to win overseas converts. U.S. firms vied for lucrative contracts, and Argonne became the heart of Atoms for Peace research, building foreign-bound reactors dubbed Argonauts.
By the mid-1970s, Travelli was a rising young star at the lab. He was designing a research reactor so powerful that it would need two tons of highly enriched uranium fuel--enough, in the wrong hands, to make 72 nuclear bombs.

Washington's bungled moves
America didn't give away its most potent fuel--not at first.

The Eisenhower administration decided to supply foreign nations with only low-enriched uranium, which would be far less useful to bombmakers. But in the early 1960s, when reactor operators complained about the fuel's effectiveness, the U.S. government started providing highly enriched uranium instead.
"That was dumb--to send the easiest material in the world from which to make nuclear bombs to civilian facilities all over the world," said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear fuel expert and science adviser to the Clinton White House.
America initially provided this dangerous uranium fuel with the provision that foreigners return the used material, which remained weapons-grade. But in 1964, the Johnson administration started selling the fuel with no such requirement.

After India detonated its first nuclear weapon, built with the help of a reactor from Canada and heavy water from America, everything changed.
Suddenly, the U.S. wanted its most valuable nuclear material back. One of its first attempts played out 10 months later, in 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War. Two federal nuclear engineers volunteered for a daring raid in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The mission: rescue bombmaking plutonium from a research reactor supplied by the U.S.

With sniper fire crackling all around, the engineers sneaked inside the reactor, packaged the material and were airlifted to safety. Hours later, the Viet Cong overran the area.
Only later was it determined that the engineers had made an embarrassing mistake: In the chaos of the mission, they took the wrong container. They hadn't rescued plutonium, but rather polonium-210, a radioactive material not as useful in weaponry (though the substance recently captured headlines when it killed a former KGB agent). Rather than relying on haphazard missions such as the one in Vietnam, the U.S. decided it needed a formal, concerted effort to retrieve bombmaking material, particularly highly enriched uranium fuel, that America had shipped overseas.
President Jimmy Carter knew something about reactors as he had done graduate work in nuclear technology. But he faced a diplomatic quandary: He couldn't just demand the fuel back, because other nations legally owned it.
Instead, the U.S. set out to do what it had failed to do in the 1960s: Invent a variety of replacement fuels that could adequately power the reactors but be useless for bombs. Then the U.S. could offer these replacement fuels to foreign nations in exchange for the highly enriched uranium.

To lead this effort, Energy Department officials wanted someone who knew reactors inside and out.
They turned to Travelli.
For scientist, a quest begins
Then 44, Travelli had built an impressive résumé that included teaching at MIT and designing and testing advanced reactors at Argonne.
Colleagues found him genial, meticulous and restrained. "You could yell at him and he wouldn't yell back," recalled Jim Snelgrove, an Argonne fuel specialist.
Travelli also had an international flair: He was dapper, well traveled and fluent in Italian, English, French and German.
When his bosses asked him if it were possible to develop fuels that could replace highly enriched uranium in research reactors, Travelli concluded it was.
But when they asked him whether he would lead the effort to invent these new fuels and persuade foreigners to make the switch, he was taken aback.
His life's work had been to spread nuclear technology, not rein it in. Now he was supposed to do a complete turnabout and remove enriched uranium from research reactors, facilities that didn't produce one watt of power?
"I didn't want this to be the accomplishment of my life," Travelli recalled. "My goal was to try to find a source of energy for the whole world."
But his bosses convinced him it was foolish to use weapons-grade fuel in reactors if something safer could be substituted, and so he decided to give it a shot.

Operating out of a small office in Building 362, a three-story brick structure on Argonne's 1,500-acre campus, Travelli started with just two staffers, a $645,000 annual budget and little idea of where to begin. No one even had a list of all the research reactors the U.S. had exported. He assigned one of his workers to try to track down the reactors by scouring the scientific literature and government documents. Occasionally the staffer would burst into his office and exclaim: "I found another one!" CIA agents eventually started coming to Travelli for information, not the other way around. Travelli hung a 5-foot-long metallic map of the world in his office, putting green triangular magnets in spots with Atoms for Peace reactors.

But his first mission would be so secret--and so odd--that he promised at the time never to utter a word about it, let alone mark it on his office map. The State Department was sending him to Taiwan, which U.S. officials suspected of secretly developing nuclear weapons.

There, in the countryside, sat a research reactor that looked fairly typical: a large, circular, windowless building with a domed roof.
But when Travelli stepped inside, he was astonished. The dark room the size of a theater was completely empty except for a massive, tomblike structure rising 30 feet. There were no signs of researchers or experiments. Soft Chinese music flowed from hidden speakers. Squinting through the dim, green-tinted light, Travelli and his team quietly moved forward, as if entering a temple. Their Taiwanese hosts led them to the structure in the middle, a concrete block that held the reactor core and its valuable nuclear material.
Later, out of earshot of his hosts, Travelli would tell his colleagues: "There is no research going on in there. That's just a machine for churning out plutonium for a nuclear weapon." The State Department told Travelli's team that everything they saw in Taiwan must be held in strict confidence, more so than a standard classified mission. Nothing could be committed to writing. No trip reports, memos or notes. It wasn't just because the U.S. believed the Taiwanese were trying to build the bomb. The secrecy was to protect Canada.
Canada not only supplied Taiwan's reactor, but the facility's core was identical to the one that the Canadians had provided to India, which had used the reactor to help build that nation's first bomb.

So the Americans took the responsibility for trying to neutralize Taiwan's reactor by altering its fuel. Unlike the other reactors Travelli would encounter, this one was fueled by natural uranium, not highly enriched uranium. But when natural uranium is burned, it produces plutonium, which also can be used to make nuclear bombs.

For two years, in 1979 and 1980, Travelli traveled back and forth to Taiwan, poring over schematics of the reactor and calculating how best to change its fuel. At one point, Travelli's team was invited to a reception held by the Taiwanese defense minister.

"I assure you that the reactor you are interested in has no military connection whatsoever," Travelli recalled the minister saying. "There is nothing sinister about it." Travelli thought this statement peculiar, given that no one from his team had directly accused the Taiwanese of trying to build weapons. Not long after, the Taiwanese, weary of the scrutiny, decided to shut the reactor. Travelli went back to his Argonne office and looked at his wall map. The Taiwan case had taken two years to complete. How could he possibly address all of the other research reactors on the U.S. target list in the next three years, as he originally envisioned?

A path strewn with obstacles
The U.S. thought its plan would go smoothly: Argonne would develop new fuels, America would offer them to other nations, and the foreigners would quickly trade in their enriched uranium. Though some nations agreed to the plan, most fiercely opposed it. They feared such a swap would slow their reactors, interrupt research and result in costly safety reviews. Profit and prestige also played a part. Some reactor operators charged scientists tens of thousands of dollars to conduct experiments. If the facilities used a less powerful fuel, they might be seen as second-rate. A few reactors even displayed brass signs boasting: "Fueled with highly enriched uranium."

But the greatest obstacles to retrieving bomb fuel were of America's own making. When Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in 1980, the retrieval effort fell out of favor. With memories of India's test fading and terrorism still viewed as a foreign problem, the Energy Department in 1981 proposed shutting down Travelli's mission, according to government records.

Though the program survived, the message was clear: Influential forces in the department didn't have much use for it. "They just wanted it to all go away," recalled Busick, the former State Department official.
As Travelli wrestled with his own government, he had an unsettling encounter that magnified his plight.
In 1981, during the height of the Cold War, he was attending a nuclear conference in what was then West Germany when a thin man in black glasses and a black suit approached him, stony-faced. The details of that conversation always have stuck with Travelli:
"Is my understanding of U.S. policy correct, that you are trying to retrieve highly enriched uranium from research reactors?" the man asked.
"That is correct," Travelli replied.
"And the reason is to reduce the chance that this material might fall into the wrong hands?"
"That's right."
"And the primary emphasis is on reactors that the United States supplied to its allies?"
"Correct."
"Not those the Soviet Union supplied to her allies?"
"Correct."
The man smiled slowly, shook Travelli's hand and walked away.
Travelli did not know whether this man was a scientist, bureaucrat, spy or some combination. But the meeting made him realize he had little idea what the Soviets and their satellites were up to. He soon would find out: Travelli became deeply involved with the reactor in Romania, a facility beset by problems since America provided it in the 1970s to Ceausescu, the repressive and mercurial dictator. Those working at the reactor were not immune to Ceausescu's bizarre policies. Every spring and fall, buses would pull in front of the facility, and its scientists were herded aboard and driven to nearby fields to plant corn or pick tomatoes.

"Why can't they get the peasants to do this?" one of the scientists, Corneliu Costescu, recalled complaining. "We're nuclear scientists." But Romania's dictator believed it was much easier to round up scientists at nuclear facilities than peasants in villages. Travelli invited Costescu and two other Romanian physicists to America to study whether the bomb fuel used in their facility could be replaced by something safer. After months of work, the Romanian scientists concluded that it could. But higher-ups in Romania weren't convinced, especially because the U.S. refused to pay for the new fuel. Normally, America didn't cover the cost of replacement fuel when swapping it for bomb-grade material. Instead, the U.S. waited until countries used up all theirs, then asked them to pay for the replacement fuel.

But Romania was operating its reactor less and less in order to conserve its highly enriched uranium. A standoff ensued, and several years passed with no progress. During this long delay, Romania, unbeknownst to the U.S., used the American-supplied reactor to help separate plutonium, a serious violation of international rules governing the development of nuclear weapons. Travelli and U.S. officials would not learn of the Romanian action until after the Berlin Wall came down and Ceausescu was executed by his own people. In 1992, seven years after the nuclear infraction, the new Romanian government voluntarily reported the case to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency, satisfied that corrective action had been taken, reported the infraction to the UN Security Council for informational purposes only--one of just a handful of cases ever reported to the council. But even after Romania's admission, the American government did not invest more in its effort to retrieve bomb-grade fuel worldwide.

Instead, it took steps that ensured failure for several years to come.
Reaching out to former foes
Despondent over a lack of progress, Travelli began to neglect his wall map. When people brushed up against it, shifting the magnets around, he didn't bother to fix them. It wasn't as though he had made no headway: By 1993, he had helped retrieve bomb fuel from 19 reactors--about a quarter of all U.S.-supplied facilities--and invented safer fuels that could be used in several dozen more. But in further cost-cutting moves, the Energy Department had eliminated his research budget, preventing him from developing the new fuels needed for the remaining reactors still using highly enriched uranium. Worse, the U.S. was refusing to stop using enriched uranium in more than a dozen reactors on American soil. In fact, in 1993 President Bill Clinton backed a plan in Tennessee to build a giant, $3 billion research reactor complex--a facility that would use bomb-grade fuel.

The plan eventually was canceled, but foreigners derided America's attitude as a colossal double standard: It was OK for the U.S. to use bomb-grade fuel but not for other countries. The foreigners began holding on to their uranium more tightly than ever. With few champions in Congress or the federal bureaucracy, Travelli's program became an orphan, bounced from agency to agency. When Travelli tried to apply pressure from behind the scenes--appealing to congressional staffers for more support, for example--he alienated those in Washington already skeptical of a national security program being run by scientists out of Chicago.

Allan Krass, a retired State Department official, supported Travelli's effort but realized others did not. These officials "really saw it as a bunch of guys who just wanted to get more money so that they could keep their program alive but who didn't have any good ideas and weren't making much progress," Krass said.
Just when it appeared Travelli's quest would die, the State Department in the mid-1990s became increasingly alarmed at reports of thieves stealing small amounts of highly enriched uranium in Russia and other former Soviet republics.

Travelli proposed an idea: What if he expanded his efforts to include the tons of highly enriched uranium the Soviets had distributed over the last three decades?
The State Department had a similar idea. It gave Travelli $1.5 million--money that could be spent only overseas--and in 1993 he flew to Moscow. It was his first trip there, and he did not know what to expect.
To his surprise, he discovered that the Russians had been monitoring his work for years. They had read all of his papers, knew all of his team members' names--even copied his effort by retrieving some of their own nuclear fuel.
"It was eerie, like meeting your long-lost twin brother," Travelli recalled.
He also was startled to see the same mysterious, stony-faced man who had approached him 12 years earlier in West Germany and pumped him for information. The man's name, it turned out, was Nikolay Arkhangelsky, an influential nuclear official. But Arkhangelsky remained elusive.

Travelli would go on to meet with him about 20 times and even travel with him to three countries to tour nuclear facilities. But he never learned basic information about the Russian. His business card simply read "scientific adviser," and some members of Travelli's team came to suspect that he was working for the Russian secret police--a charge Arkhangelsky later would laugh off.

Over the course of several more visits to Moscow, Travelli proposed to Arkhangelsky and the other Russians that the two countries work together to solve the fuel problem once and for all.
Retrieving it one nation at a time, he concluded, was failing desperately. There were just too many reactors requiring too many kinds of fuel.
But what if the U.S. and Russia started from scratch, returned to the lab and tried to invent a single fuel that could replace bomb material in every reactor in the world?

No longer would they have to fear rogue states, friends becoming enemies, unchecked reactors or nuclear terrorists. All the world's bombmaking fuel could be removed from civilian use, and the Atoms for Peace debacle would be over.
After considering it, the Russians agreed to try. Even the reluctant U.S. Energy Department was willing to help pay for the effort.
Finally, Travelli felt success might be at hand.

How we reported this series
To chronicle America's failed quest to retrieve uranium, Tribune staff reporter Sam Roe obtained exclusive access to the government archive of the effort through scientist Armando Travelli.
Roe examined thousands of records never before publicly reviewed, including scientific trip reports, internal memorandums and e-mails, and government correspondence.
He also reviewed congressional testimony, previously classified records, foreign and U.S. research papers, and reports by government agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Roe conducted extensive interviews with Travelli, who led the uranium retrieval effort for a quarter of a century. He also interviewed dozens of U.S. and foreign scientists, nuclear reactor operators, current and former government officials, and top energy officials here and in Russia.

He can be reached at sroe@tribune.com

Cheney was AT CENTER of WH efforts to DISCREDIT Amb. Wilson... by OUTING HIS WIFE as a secret CIA operative

Note how the WHORE Washington Post editors title this post: "Cheney led rebuttal effort."

That is an ERRONEOUS, LYING headline.

What is most amazing about this whole story - the INTENTIONAL "outing" of an entire CIA operation by the Bush-Cheney White House to discredit an outspoken war critic - is that it demonstrates just how ferocious and efficient the Bush-Cheney-Rove Rethuglican SMEAR machine was (and is).

They set out to do nothing less than SMEAR a HERO of the Gulf War1 - Ambassador Joe Wilson was recognized by President Bush1 for courageously negotiating with Saddam Hussein for the release of American and European hostages in the short days before American boms landed in Baghdad in that 1991 war.

And they did it by... "outing" his wife, EXPOSING Valerie Plame as AN UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE engaged in dangerous counter-proliferations work in "threat" nations!

ONLY the cowardly, craven, corrupt, and supremely arrogant Bush-Cheney adminstration could SEEK TO BOLSTER THEIR OWN STANDING, by SMEARING a decorated Gulf War1 hero, and "outing" an UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE who had dedicated her life to - undercover counter-proliferations work!

(To repeat!) the Bush-Cheney White House sought to advance their own power and prestige by SMEARING a Gulf War1 hero, and EXPOSING not only an undercover CIA agent, but RUINING FOREVER her entire cover organization, Brewster-Jennings Co, and ALL the people (including other undercover CIA agents) EVER associated with that cover company!

Of course, the Bush-Cheney White House could ONLY get away with such an appalling display of cynicism and treachery WITH THE FULL COMPLICITY of the whore corporate media, who IMMEDIATELY jumped on the administration's version of the story ("Ambassador Wilson is a scoundrel taking JUNKET trips to Niger because his wife is a corrupt nepotistic overpaid CIA desk jockey!"), and failed to ask the obvious question we just twice posted, "HOW THE HELL can you boost your own prestige, by OUTING an ENTIRE CIA undercover organization, and SMEARING a Gulf War1 hero?"

Washington media whores, THY NAME is LIES and TREACHERY.


=========================================


Ambassador Joe Wilson proved beyond a doubt that President George W. Bush LIED when he included the "Niger yellowcake uranium ore shipped to Iraq for Saddam's WMD program" in his (Bush's) bombastic 2003 State of the Union address. The "Niger yellowcake uranium ore for Iraq" story had BEEN DISPROVED by Ambassador Wilson's visit to Niger, on behalf of the CIA, and Mr. Bush was well aware that this rational for war with Iraq had been disproved when he included it in his SOTU speech in January of 2003.

(TRANSCRIPT from Bush's 2003 SOTU speech INCLUDED AT BOTTOM this comment!)

It was Ambassador Wilson who REBUTTED the White House "yellowcake ore for Iraq's WMD program" story.

It was Dick Cheney and the George W. Bush White House who sought, NOT to "rebutt" Ambassador Wilson, but to THOROUGHLY SMEAR HIM as a liar and partisan and (after "outing" his wife as a CIA operative) as some kind of NEPOTISTIC hack taking a JOY RIDE JUNKET to Niger at a time that America was at war with global terrorists.

Within that distinction - SMEAR JOB vs honest rebuttal - lies the Washington Post's MEDIA WHOREDOME and NAZIESQUE SMEAR-MONGERING.

The WHORE Post well knows that Ambassador Wilson's story was CORRECT, and that the Bush-Cheney White House sought to SMEAR him, even at the expense of "OUTING" and ENTIRE CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATION.

But, the WHORE Post would PREFER TO MISLEAD THEIR READERS, even after all these years.

Blood on their hands, lies in their pages, and relentlessly joining the Rethuglican White House in SMEARING honest critics of an appallingl, abusive government. The Washington Whore Post is DESPICABLE.

----------------------------------------------------------
President Bush's LYING "Saddam WMD Program!" comments
from his 2003 SOTU speech, from official US govt. White House website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

<< The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide. >>

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Ex-Aide Says Cheney Led Rebuttal Effort

By Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 26, 2007; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012500171.html?referrer=delicious

Vice President Cheney personally orchestrated his office's 2003 efforts to rebut allegations that the administration used flawed intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and discredit a critic who Cheney believed was making him look foolish, according to testimony and evidence yesterday in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff.

Cheney dictated talking points for a White House briefing in the midst of the controversy that summer, his former press aide, Cathie Martin, testified, stressing that the CIA never told Cheney that a CIA-sponsored mission had found no real evidence that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.

Ha! Media whores document each other's whoreishness. WP article serves up uber whore TIM RUSSERT as "OPTION 1" when VP wanted to CONTROL THE MESSAGE

Well, it's amusing to read uber-whores THE WASHINGTON POST report from the Libby (TREASONOUS OUTING of an undercover CIA operation for political revenge) trial that Vice President Dick Cheney's office considered UBER-WHORE TIM RUSSERT to be their "#1 [choice to] CONTROL THE MESSAGE," to downplay the MALICE and DECEPTION the Bush White House used to launch the United States on a costly INVASION OF IRAQ, when it was AL QAIDA, and 15 SAUDI HIJACKERS, who attacked on America on 9-11-2001.

You hear that Tim Russert, you media WHORE? The White House USED YOU to JUSTIFY THEIR INVASION of a nation of 25 million people. Now that more than half-a-million Iraqis and over 3,150 American soldiers have been killed, we hope Mr. Russert, the Washington Post, and the other blood-money whores of the DC media enjoy their million dollar salaries earned in blood (of others) and propaganda lies.

(With a hat-tip to Bartcop for pointing us to this latest WP tidbit or actual journalistic truth, and to the former MediaWhoresOnline.com, who put TIM RUSSERT, CHRIS MATHEWS, and the Washington Post's HOWARD FINEMAN as their MEDIA WHORES OF THE YEAR back when MWO was still running.)

<< Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It [Russert's pathetic dereliction of journalistic duty as subservient Meet the Press host] is our best format." >>

=========================================================


In Ex-Aide's Testimony, A Spin Through VP's PR
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501951.html

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format."

It is unclear whether the first week of the trial will help or hurt Libby or the administration. But the trial has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it.

With a candor that is frowned upon at the White House, Martin explained the use of late-Friday statements. "Fewer people pay attention to it late on Friday," she said. "Fewer people pay attention when it's reported on Saturday."

Martin, perhaps unaware of the suspicion such machinations caused in the press corps, lamented that her statements at the time were not regarded as credible. She testified that, as the controversy swelled in 2004, reporters ignored her denials and continued to report that it was Cheney's office that sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate allegations of Iraq's nuclear acquisitions. "They're not taking my word for it," Martin recalled telling a colleague.

Martin, who now works on the president's communications staff, said she was frustrated that reporters wouldn't call for comment about the controversy. She said she had to ask the CIA spokesman, Bill Harlow, which reporters were working on the story. "Often, reporters would stop calling us," she testified.

This prompted quiet chuckles among the two dozen reporters sitting in court to cover the trial. Whispered one: "When was the last time you called the vice president's office and got anything other than a 'no comment'?"

At length, Martin explained how she, Libby and deputy national security adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush's State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa.

After "delicate" talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA "approved" the claim and "I am responsible" -- but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to say that "we did not express any doubt about Niger."

During her testimony, Martin, a Harvard Law School graduate married to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and a close pal of Bush counselor Dan Bartlett, seemed uncomfortable, shifting in her chair, squinting at her interrogators, stealing quick glances at the jury, and repeatedly touching her cheek, ear, nose, lips and scalp.

Martin shed light on the mystery of why White House press secretary Scott McClellan promised, falsely, that Libby was not involved in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. After McClellan had vouched for Bush strategist Karl Rove's innocence, Libby asked Martin, "Why don't they say something about me?"

"You need to talk to Scott," Martin advised.

On jurors' monitors were images of Martin's talking points, some labeled "on the record" and others "deep background." She walked the jurors through how the White House coddles friendly writers and freezes out others. To deal with the Wilson controversy, she hastily arranged a Cheney lunch with conservative commentators. And when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof first wrote about the Niger affair, she explained, "we didn't see any urgency to get to Kristof" because "he frankly attacked the administration fairly regularly."

Questioned by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Martin described how Hadley tried to shield White House spokesmen from the Niger controversy. "Everybody was sort of in the dark," she explained. "There had been a decision not to have the communicators involved."

But Martin, encouraged by Libby, secretly advised Libby and Cheney on how to respond. She put "Meet the Press" at the top of her list of "Options" but noted that it might appear "too defensive." Next, she proposed "leak to Sanger-Pincus-newsmags. Sit down and give to him." This meant that the "no-leak" White House would give the story to the New York Times' David Sanger, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, or Time or Newsweek. Option 3: "Press conference -- Condi/Rumsfeld." Option 4: "Op-ed."

Martin was embarrassed about the "leak" option; the case, after all, is about a leak. "It's a term of art," she said. "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."

For all the elaborate press management, things didn't always go according to plan. Martin described how Time wound up with an exclusive one weekend because she didn't have a phone number for anybody at Newsweek.

"You didn't have a lot of hands-on experience dealing with the press?" defense attorney Theodore Wells asked.

"Correct," Martin replied. After further questions, she added: "Few of us in the White House had had hands-on experience with any crisis like this."

Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Mr. Sulzberger and the NY lyin' Times KNOW how illegal the Bush administration is... which makes their crony media coverage all the more despicable...

Perhaps bashing a 'news' organization for having an 'honest moment' is impolitic or not polite... but in the case of the appalling New York Times, IF this Times editorial is correct, that the Bush administation has a propensity to:

ASSAULT on the rule of law...
- DISDAIN for the [rightful, constitutional] powers of Congress....
- willingness to CON THE PUBLIC...
- refusal to heed expert advice.....
- refusal... to recognize facts on the ground...
- witholding evidence....
- imposing outrageous secrecy and control over the courts....
- [running] OUTLAW eavesdropping operations....
- Orwellian claims of secrecy....
- ttorney General Alberto Gonzales routinely stonewalls legitimate Congressional requests for documents and information on a wide range of issues
- trampling on civil liberties and the constitutional balance of power

THEN we can only ask, WHY THE HELL isn't the Lyin' Times in a FULL COURT PRESS for HONESTY, INTEGRITY, and THE RULE OF LAW by the US government, in the way they (the NY Times) once helped the Rethuglicans in Congress make a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS (impeachment) out of President Clinton's aborted, fleeting, short-lived affair?

(All the above listed elements are DIRECT QUOTES from the NY Times' OWN EDITORIAL! and do NOT include other SERIAL ABUSES and CRIMES by the Bush White House, including OUTSOURCING TORTURE to "terrorist nation" Syria!! LIES-to-WAR, and the criminal OUTING of an entire UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATION as a means of running a PROPAGANDA DISINFORMATION CAMAPAIGN against an outspoken critic of the invasion of Iraq (i.e. smearing Ambassador Joe Wilson, who publicly denounced President Bush for including the "Niger uranium yellowcake ore for Iraq's WMD program" when Bush well knew the story was unsubstantiated, unproven - false.)

The NEW YORK TIMES is as aware of ALL the above outrages, and many more, as the readers of this blog are... yet they CONTINUE to give the administration the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, and soft-reporting on the hard stories, KNOWING FULL WELL the Bush administration's propensity to "CON THE PUBLIC"... from the "BAIT & SWITCH WHITE HOUSE"!


The NY Times can't help their wicked, lyin' ways. On the SAME DAY as the above, honest editorial, the Times phrases the headline for the massive anti-escalation protest in Washington DC in the PASSIVE, MISLEADING voice:

"Protest Focuses on Troop Increase for Iraq"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/washington/28protest.html

How about an HONEST, active-voice headline, you NYT whores?!

Like, maybe, "Tens of thousands PROTEST WAR ESCALATION in Iraq" ??

--------------------------------------------------------

The Bait-and-Switch White House

(unsigned editorial) published January 27, 2007
by the NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/opinion/27sat1.html

We often wonder whether there is a limit to the Bush administration’s obsession with secrecy, its assault on the rule of law, its disdain for the powers of Congress, its willingness to con the public and its refusal to heed expert advice or recognize facts on the ground. Events of the past week suggest the answer is no.

In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Bush stuck to his ill-conceived plans for Iraq, but at least admitted the situation was dire. He said he wanted to work with Congress and announced a bipartisan council on national security.

That lasted a day. By Wednesday evening, Vice President Dick Cheney was on CNN contradicting most of what Mr. Bush had said. We were left asking, once again, Who exactly is running this White House?

While Mr. Bush has been a bit more forthright lately about how badly things have gone in Iraq, Mr. Cheney spoke of “enormous successes” there and refused to pay even curled-lip service to consulting Congress. Whatever votes Congress takes on Iraq, Mr. Cheney said, “it won’t stop us.”

Whenever the vice president does this sort of thing, and it’s pretty often, Americans are faced with an unpleasant choice: Are Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney running a bait-and-switch operation, or does the vice president simply feel free to cut the ground out from under Mr. Bush?

All of that was distressing enough. But in Friday’s Times, Adam Liptak gave an account of the way the administration — after grandly announcing that it was finally going to obey the law on wiretapping — is trying to quash lawsuits over Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping operations by imposing outrageous secrecy and control over the courts.

Justice Department lawyers are withholding evidence from plaintiffs and even restricting the access of judges to documents in cases involving Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the warrantless interception of e-mail and phone calls. In one suit, Justice Department lawyers tried to seize computers from the plaintiffs’ lawyers to remove a document central to their case against the government.

In response to these and other serious concerns, the Justice Department offered only the most twisted excuses, which a federal judge rightly compared to “Alice in Wonderland.”

When government lawyers tried to take back a document that has circulated around the world, the judge asked a Justice Department lawyer, “Who is it secret from?” The answer: “Anyone who has not seen it.”

These are not isolated events. The government has made the same Orwellian claims of secrecy in a lawsuit over the president’s decision to create secret C.I.A. prisons for terrorism suspects. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales routinely stonewalls legitimate Congressional requests for documents and information on a wide range of issues. He negotiated a secret agreement to give supposed judicial oversight to Mr. Bush’s wiretapping program, with a court that does not permit anyone into its hearings to argue against the government.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney claim that they are protecting the powers of the presidency. At least that’s the bait they use to explain their trampling on civil liberties and the constitutional balance of power. But by abusing the government’s legitimate right to claim secrecy in court hearings, they will make it harder for other presidents to do that when it is actually justified. And with that switch, they have done grievous harm to the credibility of the Oval Office and the country.

Media whores CENSOR the story that Rethuglican Senators FILIBUSTER Minimum Wage Bill...!!

Our GODDAMNED MEDIA WHORES, after DEMEANING the Democrats every attempt to assert SOME control over the Rethuglican Congress and Bush administration (by ridiculing the Dems rare attempts at invoking the FILIBUSTER threat before the November 2006 elections switched control of Congress to the Democrats), now CENSOR the story of Republicans actually USING the FILIBUSTER to STOP.... AN INCREASE IN America's minimum wage!

Americans media WHORES, you are actively working WITH the reactionary Rethuglican Party to IMPOSE POVERTY and IGNORANCE on America, and to DESTROY the American middle class, by LYING in your reporting, and self-censoring those stories that indicate Republican misgovernance and political fraud.

The New York Times and Washington Post: they will put 100 reporters on KEN STARR's illegally leaked Grand Jury report on Bill Clinton's brief affair, but they WON'T TELL YOU that the Republican White House ILLEGALLY "outed" an entire CIA undercover organization to legitimize their lies to war; and that the Rethuglicans now use the FILIBUSTER to prevent minimum wage Americans from getting an increase in pay for the first time in over 10 years!

-------------------------------------------
Note: the short answer to Senator Kennedy's question "what do Republicans have against America's working men and women?" is that the Republican reactionary right-wing PREFERS CHATTEL SLAVERY as an economic model, with the great white race "CHOSEN," by god, to dominate and subjugate all lesser races, as the ante-bellum economic model existed in the Deep South before the Civil War.

In the cold, black hearts of reactionary right-wingers, ANY improvement in working conditions (for whites as well as blacks and other minorities) is akin to the traumatic fear of "SLAVE INSURRECTION!" - i.e., the destruction of the great master race by animal-like subhumans. This latent fear and loathing on the part of the reactionary right has building for decades. In the years shortly after WWII America produced fully 50% of the world's global production output; and in 1800s white Europeans and Americans represented almost 1/2 of the world's population. Since those benchmarks, European and American dominance in both population and economic production have been in great (relative) decline, heightening the reactionary fear that white America will be overrun by the "great unwashed brown-skin masses" that just a few generations ago were completely dominated by Anglo/Euro/American control.

Right-Wing contempt for working Americans is actually minor compared to Right-Wing CONTEMPT for our environment!

The reactionary right-wing agenda is SO filled with HATE (for their fellow human beings) that, as an intellectual or mental effort to CONTROL what they perceive as an "evil world," tens of thousands of RIghties actually PRAY for the fate that befell Pompey during the Imperial Roman era: they PRAY for FIRE AND BRIMSTONE to descend on America's cities, they PRAY for the DESTRUCTION of America and the world, and they will tolerate ARSENIC in their drinking water, MERCURY in their fish, pesticides and toxins in their food, and tons of other toxins in their air, as long as they perceive that their "plantation owners" glorious confederate leadership is leading them in the fight against all the savage races that are "overruning" the world.

------------------------------------------------


Kennedy to Republicans: "What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"
By Bob Geiger
Jan 25, 2006
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/01/kennedy-to-republicans-what-is-it-about.html

It's a sure bet that Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has a lot of bottled-up frustration from years of fighting the Republican party to get a simple minimum wage increase for America's families and it boiled over on the floor of the Senate Thursday night.

Angry about Republican filibustering of the minimum wage increase that easily passed the House of Representatives two weeks ago, Kennedy erupted on the Senate floor, demanding of the other side of the aisle "When does the greed stop?"

After listing many of the unrelated and pricey amendments for business that the GOP has tried to join to a minimum wage hike, Kennedy blasted Republicans and demanded to know how they can be as cruel as they are to the working poor in America.
"We have now had amendments that have been worth over 200 billion dollars… Amendments that have been offered. We've had amendments on education of 35 billion dollars. We've had health-savings amendments that will benefit people with average incomes of $112,000… We've had those kinds of amendments and we're looking at the Kyl amendment at 3 billion dollars. But we still cannot get two dollars and fifteen cents -- over two years. Over two years!

"What is the price, we ask the other side? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring?

"When does the greed stop, we ask the other side? That's the question and that's the issue."
Kennedy, upset about the noises Republicans made just three weeks ago about their renewed bipartisan spirit and seeing them already blocking simple legislation that is favored by the vast majority of Americans, angrily chided them for the ridiculous number of amendments they have offered on a bill that went untouched through the House.

"Make no mistake about it -- they have on the Republican side, 70 more amendments. 70 more amendments!" said Kennedy. "We have none. We're prepared to vote now. 70 more amendments… 'Oh yes, we want an increase in the minimum wage, we want this, we want that but… let's have some other kinds of amendments that have virtually nothing to do with this.'"

But Massachusetts' Senior Senator -- who has seen his efforts to increase the minimum wage shot down in the Senate three times in the last two years -- really unloaded on his Republican colleagues for their utter contempt for working people in this country.

"240 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations. 36 billion dollars in tax breaks for small businesses. Increase in productivity -- 42 percent over the last 10 years," yelled Kennedy emotionally. "But do you think there's any increase in the minimum wage? No. At 12 after five today, on Thursday, I speak for all of our Democrats and say we're prepared to vote now. Now!"

"Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans that you want to pile all your amendments on this? Why don’t you just hold your amendments until other pieces of legislation? Why this volume of amendments on just the issue to try and raise the minimum wage? What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it? Something. Something! What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"

And at this early stage of the 110th Congress, Kennedy has already had it with the hypocrisy that has always characterized the Republicans in dealing with Senate Democrats -- and he called them on it.

"We don’t want to hear any more from that side for the rest of this session about permitting or not permitting votes in here when you're denying it on the most simple concept of an increase in the minimum wage," said Kennedy. "We don’t want to hear any more about that."

"This is filibuster by delay and amendments. I've been around here long enough to know it when I see it and smell it, and that's what it looks like, that's what it is, make no mistake about it. Make no mistake about it."

NY Times, Washington Post CENSOR Libby perjury and CIA-outing story...

A quick glance at the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post today reveals how we, Americans, got into this horror of an ever-expanding war for Iraqi oil and whichever targets the Bush-Cheney-Rethuglican Party decides to attack next.

While this MSNBC (Chris Mathews) video clip details how the Bush-Cheney White House with prior intent sought to learn as much about Ambassador Joe Wilson so as to discredit his opposition to the US invasion of Iraq, and with this PREMEDITATED EFFORT learned that Ambassador Wilson's wife was actually an undercover CIA counter-proliferation agent,


http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/msnbc/fv.htm??g=05a1123d-f3e7-46b1-b6af-d0bb2bb99f72&f=00&fg=copy

....a quick glance at the Post and Times front pages reveals that the Times puts.. INDIA YOGA in public schools story ABOVE the Libby PERJURY and OUTING OF CIA OFFICER story! and the whore Washington Post follows suit by "US troops Authorized to KILL IRANIANS in Iraq" story.

Well, we repeat... with Saddam Hussein in power, their were neither Al Qaida Sunni terrorists in Iraq, nor many effective Iranian agents. Now that the Times and Post have ENABLED the US invasion of Iraq, BOTH Al Qaida AND Iran are now actively engaged in Iraq. GOOD GOING, WHORES!


As if that isn't bad enough, not only have the Post and Times tried to WHITEWASH the ETHNIC CLEANSING and Guernica-eque reality of life in Iraq (Fallujah was America's first Guernica in that hapless nation); not only do the Times and Post help the Bush administration push THOUSANDS MORE US TROOPS into a sniper haven where an unemployed Iraqi male can become a feared and respected warrior simply by shooting at American soldiers... but the Times and Post are now ratchetting up their "SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL" agenda re the Cheney-Bush administration's CRIMINAL OUTING of an ENTIRE CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATION to INTIMIDATE a war critic.

Yes, the whores at the Post and Times pretend that only Valerie Plame and her "bad egg" husband were the victims of the Plame-gate "outing" of Valerie Plame's identity; when in fact HER ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION, Brewster-Jennings Energy consultants; and ALL the contacts of that CIA undercover organization, were irreprably DAMAGED as Mr. Cheney, Mr. Bush, Mr. Libby, and Mr. Rove sought to publish Valerie Plame's name in the whore US media as "payback" against her outspoken husband.

The Washington Post and New York Times: RELENTLESS WHORES for the DISSOLUTION OF AMERICAN LAW and democracy.

Washington Post whores "Iraq oil is OUR oil" theme...

The Washington Post is in a full-court press, as they were in the late 1990s to IMPEACH the democratically elected president over a string of TRIVIAL, often FABRICATED SCANDALS. ("Travel-office-gate," "file-gate," "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL," "White House TRASHING scandal," all four of which were ENTIRELY FABRICATED "scandals.")

Having helped the Rethuglican Party IMPEACH the Democratic President (Bill Clinton) by tag-teaming the above scandals; having helped the Rethuglican Party STEAL the election of 2000 by joining in with the Rethuglicans in saying "minority voters in Florida should have no more influence on America's elections than Jews had in Nazi Germany;" having helped the Rethuglican Party NEUTER the Democratic Opposition in early 2001 by publishing the FABRICATED "White House Trashing Scandal", which effectively SMEARED Al Gore and the Democrats, and drove the popular-vote winner of the November 2000 election (Gore won the popular vote in November 2000 by over 500,000 votes) clean out of Washington DC; and of course having BUILT UP GEORGE BUSH as a HERO after 9-11, and helped the Bush-Rethuglican Party PUSH THEIR LIES-to-WAR AGENDA at FULL TILT, as fast as the whore Post's presses could print the latest garbage "Saddam is going to fly radio control airplanes into your homes tomorrow morning!" lies....

WELL, NOW THE WASHINGTON POST WANTS TO DIVY UP IRAQ's OIL, WHILE THAT NATION IS UNDER OCCUPATION BY THE US MILITARY.

Well, at least the ghoulish SOBs at the Whore Post are consistent - consistently predatory, parasitic, democracy gutting LIARS.

=================================================

Iraq Struggles to Finish Oil Law
Forging an Agreement Requires Balancing Sharply Divided Interests, Ethnic Groups
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 24, 2007; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301534.html

Four months ago, about 80 oil company executives and consultants packed an office on St. James's Square in London for a briefing on exploration prospects in Iraq's Kurdish region and a Kurdish draft of an Iraqi national petroleum law.

Despite the immense risks of working in Iraq -- pipeline explosions, kidnappings, insurgency, political infighting -- the oil company executives were lured by the potential rewards, which are immense, too. Outside Saudi Arabia, no country has proven oil reserves as big as Iraq's. And the oil there is high quality, easy and cheap to produce, and bottled up in reservoirs that many major oil companies were familiar with three decades ago before wars and sanctions drove them out.

"Exxon Mobil has more seismic data on Iraq than on Houston real estate," says Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. who used to work for Mobil. "If Exxon had security on the ground, the following day it would have crews there," Gheit said. "And money would be no object."

Gheit estimated that Iraq could easily produce 6 million barrels a day, more than three times its current output and enough to help keep a lid on world prices.

Four months after the London meeting, however, security remains elusive and so does the national petroleum law. Barham Saleh, Iraq's deputy prime minister, said in a recent telephone interview that a compromise was "very, very close."

The proposed law has taken on significance beyond oil. While Iraq and foreign oil companies are eager to tap new revenue, the Bush administration and many Iraqis also hope that the law can be a model for resolving disputes and can bind Iraq's warring factions together.

Agreement has been reached on sharing oil revenue on a per-capita basis, a benefit for Sunnis who live mostly in areas with less production. A deal also has been struck that recognizes the power of regional authorities, such as the Kurdish Regional Government, to award oil contracts, but establishes a national petroleum commission with the power to review contracts within 60 days. A "revamped" national oil company would continue to manage existing production while new regional affiliates would participate in new exploration and production.

"We need to close the deal on one or two small issues," Saleh said. "A number of the major issues have been resolved."

But an adviser to the Kurdish authorities said those "small issues" included some significant details. On Friday, the Kurdistan Regional Government posted an item on its Web site denying news reports that a deal was complete. The "important annexes to the law are still pending," it said.

Outstanding issues include how much oil revenue will go to the central government; a charter for the new national oil company; the role of the oil ministry; and the principles upon which the new commission could reject regionally negotiated contracts. Also unsettled is whether the commission will require a simple majority vote or a two-thirds vote to reject a contract's terms. Those provisions must all be part of one package with the petroleum law, Kurdish leaders said.

If the Shia-dominated Iraqi central government spends heavily on its own projects, it could deny the Kurds and other regional authorities significant shares of oil revenue.

Even if negotiators agree on a draft, it must win approval from Iraq's cabinet and fractious parliament, which hasn't met in weeks.

The United States has been pressing Iraq to complete the law. "As awful as the Saddam Hussein government was, it did have a record of dealing with foreign investors that wasn't that bad," said James A. Placke, an expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "That's gone and hasn't been replaced."

Now, forging a petroleum law requires a balancing of sharply divided interest and ethnic groups, not just the word of a dictator.

"This is not a regular piece of Iraqi legislation being signed off on," said Jonathan Morrow, an adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government. If successful, he said, "it . . . might show the way forward in Iraq."

Saleh suggested that a deal might discourage attacks on oil installations and reduce corruption. "Since we all agree on revenue sharing, all elements of Iraqi society will have an interest in maximizing revenues and best business practices," he said.

For now, however, the oil sector is a mess. Since the first attack on a pipeline on June 1, 2003, it has been a struggle to keep oil flowing. Basic production equipment has been looted or destroyed. Many wells still are not working properly. And last year, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction complained that Iraq's oil ministry was not reporting on its budget and had spent "only a fraction" of money set aside for capital costs.

While the Bush administration once thought that Iraqi oil revenue would cover occupation and reconstruction costs, the Iraq government still relies heavily on U.S. technical and financial aid. Placke estimated that Iraq produced 1.85 million barrels a day last year, less than the year before, less than the prewar output and well below the U.S. target of 3 million barrels a day.

Placke, who was part of the Iraq Study Group, estimated that 200,000 barrels a day is siphoned from the main export line through southern Iraq, put on barges, and loaded onto tankers waiting in the Persian Gulf. What's left after discounts and bribes goes to militias or insurgent groups, he said.

In the south, some local Shia militia, clan or clerical groups are trying to claim the rights to some Iraqi fields and a voice in negotiating access for foreign companies. A stake in a billion-barrel field could be more important than a stake in the parliament or cabinet. Some experts worry that, as in Sudan, oil could contribute more to tearing the country apart than to uniting it.

A senior Iraqi government official involved in the petroleum-law talks said that if militias and clans were to cut separate deals with foreign companies, it would be a "recipe for disaster and civil war." He warned foreign companies against signing such deals. "We are very interested in credible investment in the oil sector," he said. "We cannot afford to have these cowboys running around trying to manipulate the situation in Iraq."

The national petroleum law remains a touchy subject in part because of widespread suspicion that the U.S. invasion in 2003 was motivated by designs on Iraq's oil riches.

The Iraq Study Group report contained three pages of recommendations for the sector, including suggestions that international oil companies invest in the country and the government fight corruption on contracts.

"Before embarking on controversial measures such as this law favoring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government must prove that they are capable of protecting the country's sovereignty," Kamil Mahdi, a senior lecturer in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter in England, wrote in the Guardian newspaper. "A government that is failing to protect the lives of its citizens must not embark on controversial legislation that ties the hands of future Iraqi leaders, and which threatens to squander the Iraqis' precious, exhaustible resource in an orgy of waste, corruption and theft."

In a telephone interview, Mahdi said, "My main worry is that if I were an official in the ministry of oil negotiating a contract and living under the kind of threats that people in Iraq are daily experiencing, I would probably be in a very weak negotiating position."

While the debate continues, the Kurdistan Regional Government is pushing ahead. In 2002, at the suggestion of Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader who is now Iraq's president, the Turkish conglomerate Cukurova Group set up an oil unit called Genel Enerji to look for oil in Kurdistan. Genel signed a production-sharing agreement in July 2002 and took over the Taq Taq oil field in February 2003 on the eve of the U.S-led invasion. It signed another exploration contract in July 2005. A Norwegian firm, DNO, and a Canadian firm, Heritage Oil, also struck exploration and production deals in the Kurdish region.

Tariq Shafiq, a former executive of Iraq National Oil and director of the consulting firm Petrolog & Associates, has drawn up three contracts -- service, buyback and production-sharing -- that the government will use in its new petroleum law. He said the Kurdish production-sharing contracts give away too much to the foreign companies; he said that after paying for capital and operations costs, as much as 55 percent of the oil goes to the foreign firms. "These, in the eye of many, are illegal and would have to undergo review to bring them in line with this law," he said.

But Kurdish authorities said they have no intention of submitting existing contracts for review. Duran said Genel's contract was renegotiated last November and falls within the 20 percent share production that would be the ceiling under the new law. "The commercial terms of the PSA are in conformity with internationally acceptable PSA terms," Duran said in an e-mail response to questions. "Therefore, our PSA is not generous at all."

Major U.S. oil companies haven't signed any contracts in Kurdistan yet. Some of them have tried to build goodwill with the central government. Chevron, for example, helped clear mines from the coastline. Others have collected seismic data or trained Iraqi oil company technicians in Dubai.

Some major companies from other nations -- Russia's Lukoil, a Chinese state company, France's Total -- are hoping to get their big Hussein-era concessions back. Their prospects remain uncertain.

Right on time, as George W. Bush MIRES America in his war of LIES, corruption, and incompetence, the Wash Post WHORES "Knee Jerk Opposition" op-ed.

Ms. Marcus, thanks for the TEXT-BOOK example of a Washington WHORE Post WHORE-IFFIC response to demean and belittle the Democratic opposition to the THUGGERY and GROSS CORRUPTION of the Bush White House.

If there were a "just" God, he would make you serve in a front line Iraq combat unit, helpless to prevent the stress and blood trauma as that occupied nation responds to an occupation of corruption that would make the North and South Vietnamese black-marketeers at the height of the Vietnam war blush. Or he would put you down in New Orleans, as your family is forced to abandon its home, while still liable for the mortgage, as Mr. Bush fails to provide a long-term environmental plan for the traumatized city.

Instead, you are just another sycophantic, parasitic Washingtonian, "earning your paycheck as millions of American families live in abject dread of a crippling illness.
------------------------------------------------


The Knee-Jerk Opposition
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, January 24, 2007; A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301564_pf.html


If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad. Such is the knee-jerk state of partisan suspiciousness that when the president actually endorses a tax increase -- a tax increase that would primarily hit the well-off, no less -- Democrats still howl.

Such is the level of distrust that when the president finally disavows the free lunch and comes up with a program not financed with deficit spending -- indeed, one that would actually bring in extra revenue as the years go on -- Democrats still howl.

Listening to Democratic reaction to Bush's new health insurance proposal, you get the sense that if Bush picked a plank right out of the Democratic platform -- if he introduced Hillarycare itself -- and stuck it in his State of the Union address, Democrats would churn out press releases denouncing it.

This sad situation is largely of Bush's own making. He is reaping the poisonous state of affairs that he helped sow for six years. So many of the president's policies have been dishonest and wrongheaded, so much of his politics has been slashingly partisan, Democrats would be crazy if their instinctive reaction to a Bush plan for fill-in-the-blank wasn't intense distrust.

It's too bad, because the president's proposal to cap the deductibility of employer-sponsored health insurance deserves more of a chance than Democrats, from their initial reactions, seem inclined to give.

Instead of the irrational current system, in which all employer-sponsored health-care costs are deductible, Bush would create a standard deduction that would replace existing deductions for health insurance, both employer-sponsored and privately purchased, and other medical costs.

The deduction would be $15,000 for a family policy, leaving 80 percent of those with employer-sponsored coverage unaffected.

Yes, the plan should be more progressive, structured with refundable tax credits rather than a deduction, so that all can share equally in the benefit.

Yes, there are big risks involved, primarily that the already-teetering employer-based system will collapse as healthy individuals use their tax deduction to buy cheaper, private insurance, leaving employers with the older and the sicker.

And, yes, it's fair to argue that a more comprehensive approach -- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has proposed one -- is needed.

But Democrats -- if they care more about addressing health-care needs than scoring political points -- ought to be finding ways to improve and build on the Bush proposal, not condemning and mischaracterizing it. Given that nothing's going to pass without Democratic approval, what's the risk in engaging in the discussion?

The Bush plan starts with an assessment that has long been clear to sensible people across the political spectrum: The way the tax code now treats health insurance is unfair, regressive and counterproductive.

The fact that employers can deduct the full cost of health insurance premiums means that the richer you are, the bigger tax benefit you reap. That built-in advantage is exacerbated by the fact that the better-paid tend to have pricier insurance.

This unlimited subsidy increases wasteful spending, encouraging employers to purchase gold-plated plans and employees to use them. This drives up the cost of health care and, ultimately, insurance in a vicious cycle that ends up increasing the ranks of the uninsured.

Meanwhile, those who don't have employer-sponsored coverage get no tax break; the Bush plan would not only help those who already buy insurance on the private market, it would also encourage those currently uninsured to purchase coverage.

As Jason Furman, a leading Democratic economist, wrote last summer in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, "[R]educing subsidies for pricey plans would likely lead to a health insurance system that includes more cost sharing, promotes more consumer consciousness, and plays a modest, but potentially meaningful, role in restraining health spending."

And so what do Democrats say when a Republican president suggests doing something along these lines? "It's a bad policy," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.) told the New York Times. "We are trying to bring tax relief to the middle class. The president is trying to increase their tax liability." Likewise, the Senate Democrats complained: "President Bush's Health Insurance Proposal Amounts to a Tax Hike for the Middle Class."

This is flat wrong: According to the administration's analysis, on average, the top fifth of taxpayers would face a tax increase; the rest would save money.

If you doubt that some variation on Bush's plan is at least worth considering, try this thought experiment: What if the current system had the standard deduction that Bush wants and he was proposing, instead, to remove the cap and allow unlimited tax breaks, a benefit for the better-off and those with the priciest insurance?

Wouldn't Democrats be denouncing that, and demanding my imaginary status quo?

marcusr@washpost.com

"SCANT EVIDENCE" of Iran smuggling weapons into Iraq -LAT. The Whore Media has SO DUMBED-DOWN America, that millions of Americans believe Iran does.

George W. Bush is so brazen and confident of his ability to MISINFORM, mislead, and LIE to the American public - via the captive, servile, dishonest, and corrupt corporate media - that he has actually tried to make a CAUSUS BELLI - an EXCUSE FOR WAR - of Iran's alleged "smuggling weapons to Iraqi insurgents."

The plain facts are that the CORE of the Iraq insurgency are SUNNIS who have been disenfranchised by the US invasion, and either support or tolerate
a.) secular former Baathist party insurgents; or
b.) radical, hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, "Jihadis" of a similar disposition to Saudi WAHABI fundamentalists... from whom Osama bin Laden and AL QAIDA developed.

IRAN simply has NO NEED to suppy insurgents in Iraq with weapons, because;
#1. Iranians are OPPOSED to the Sunni rebels; and
#2. The US MILITARY is SUPPLY THE SHIITE ARMIES with as many weapons as they can beg, borrow, steal... or sell!

President George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense DONALD RUMSFELD are CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT for having allowed insurgents to LOOT TONS and TONS and TONS of munitions and high-explosives from Saddam's semi-destroyed ammo dumps and armories, WITH US SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWING TRUCKS ARRIVING AT and DEPARTING FROM the bunkers, but instead, in what can only be described as Nazi-esque fashion, the Bush administration and its neo-con enablers are trying to portray IRAN as GUILTY of the administration's own CRIMINAL CULPABILITY.

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Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link
U.S. warnings of advanced weaponry crossing the border are overstated, critics say.

By Alexandra Zavis and Greg Miller, LA Times Staff Writers
January 23, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraniraq23jan23,1,5002907.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

BAQUBAH, IRAQ — If there is anywhere Iran could easily stir up trouble in Iraq, it would be in Diyala, a rugged province along the border between the two nations.

The combination of Sunni Arab militants believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and Shiite Muslim militiamen with ties to Iran has fueled waves of sectarian and political violence here. The province is bisected by long-traveled routes leading from Iran to Baghdad and Shiite holy cities farther south in Iraq.

But even here, evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq's troubles is limited. U.S. troops have found mortars and antitank mines with Iranian markings dated 2006, said U.S. Army Col. David W. Sutherland, who oversees the province. But there has been little sign of more advanced weaponry crossing the border, and no Iranian agents have been found.

In his speech this month outlining the new U.S. strategy in Iraq, President Bush promised to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks that he said were providing "advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." He is expected to strike a similar note in tonight's State of the Union speech.

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case. Some suggest Bush and his aides are pointing to Iran to deflect blame for U.S. setbacks in Iraq. Others suggest they are laying the foundation for a military strike against Iran.

Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those statements proved wrong. The administration's charges about Iran sound uncomfortably familiar to some. "To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week, referring to the administration's comments on Iran.

*

Lowered credibility

The accusations of Iranian meddling "illustrate what may be one of our greatest problems," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Defense Department official and military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"We are still making arguments from authority without detail and explanation. We're making them in an America and in a world where we really don't have anything like the credibility we've had in the past."

Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are nominal U.S. allies.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during Hussein's reign, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped its Badr Brigade militia.

But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see as Iraq's prime minister.

The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq's current prime minister, Nouri Maliki, also has strong ties to Iran.

Some U.S. officials have also suggested that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, has provided aid to the Sunni insurgents, who have led most of the attacks against U.S. forces. Private analysts and other U.S. officials doubt that. Evidence is stronger that the Iranians are supporting a Shiite group that has attacked U.S. forces, the Al Mahdi militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Top U.S. intelligence officials have been making increasingly confident assertions about Iran.

"I've come to a much darker interpretation of Iranian actions in the past 12 to 18 months," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in recent congressional testimony. Previously, Tehran's priority was to maneuver for a stable Iraq dominated by its Shiite majority, but that attitude has changed, he said.

"There is a clear line of evidence that points out the Iranians want to punish the United States, hurt the United States in Iraq, tie down the United States in Iraq," he said.

One high-ranking intelligence official in Washington acknowledged a lack of "fidelity" in the intelligence on Iran's activities, saying reports are sometimes unclear because it is difficult to track weapons and personnel that might be flowing across the long and porous border... (cont'd.)

Chaves pays down foreign debt. Can he manage his nation's Capital Infrastructure Investments?

Contrary to the deceitful babble of the corrupt American "capitalist" media lords, Hugo Chavez IS playing by the rules of capitalism and "free trade," and in this case paying down Venezuela's foreign debt from $27 to $21 billion this year.

Chavez pledged just days ago to NATIONALIZE some of Venezuela's critical infrastructure industries, that he would take control of telephone, power and oil companies. Of course this has international investors crying foul, those who like to make PROFITS on another nation's critical infrastructure - preferably the more profit, the better, even if those profits come from MONOPOLY ( NOT "free-market") CONTROL of a given sector of a nation's critical infrastructure. i.e. the "Economic Hit-Man" model of predatory "investment," lending, finance, and politically supported economic extortion.

Now free-market capitalists at the Wall St. Journal, Investors Business Daily, and others (probably including Bloomberg, the publisher of this particular report) will say that "INVESTORS _DESERVE_ an honest return on their investments" for creating - building, financing, and managing - portions of a nation's infrastructure.

Later in this Bloomberg article, some bond-holders lament that Chavez is SPENDING so much money that, given low oil prices, Venezuela may go deeper into debt, and not pay down its foreign debts and bonds.

BUT, WHAT is Chavez SPENDING Venezuela's declining (for now) oil revenue on..??

ans.- "A surge in spending on health care, food programs for the poor and infrastructure projects may leave Venezuela short of funds should oil keep falling, Kastner said."

AS IN, "a SURGE in INFRASTRUCTURE spending."

Clearly, you do not have to be a Wall St. capitalist to INVEST in a nation's infrastructure, especially in a nation that makes billions exporting oil. And "feeding the masses" is actually not that expensive a proposition, not if a nation is purchasing food stocks at commodity prices, and distributing those food programs efficiently and without two much parasitic corruption.

Clearly, Venezuela's challenge is to EXECUTE its capital, infrastructure investments in an effective, productive and efficient manner... which goals depend on developing a technically competent workforce and managerially competent management.

Going by the China capitalist model, neither of the above in insurmountable - technically competent workers or competent management.

Chavez certainly presents an interesting case study as to whether "the little neighbor to the South" can withstand the predatory instincts of the "big gringo to the north."

-----------------------------------------------------

Chavez tells el Gringo d'el norte to "Go to Hell."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-01-21-chavez-us_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

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Pimco, ING, Axa Say Venezuelan Bonds Will Rally, Chavez to Pay Off Bonds
By Agnes Lovasz
Jan. 23, 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTNkYbFkaRkQ&refer=home

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Investment Management Co., ING Groep NV and Axa SA, the three largest owners of Venezuelan dollar bonds, have faith in President Hugo Chavez.

The companies, which hold a combined $1.6 billion of the country's debt, say Venezuela will repay the bonds even after a drop in oil prices reduced revenue and Chavez pledged to seize assets from international investors. The country's securities are the second-worst performers among emerging markets this year.

``The ability to pay is tremendous,'' said James Barrineau, who helps manage $11 billion of emerging-market debt at New York- based Alliance Bernstein, a unit of Axa, Europe's second-biggest insurer. The country ``has always promised to pay the debt and that hasn't changed.''

The 32 percent decline in oil prices in the past six months and Chavez's announcement on Jan. 8 that he would take control of telephone, power and oil companies, have hurt stocks and bonds. Venezuelan debt has fallen 1.1 percent since that date, according to figures compiled by JPMorgan & Co. The Caracas Stock Exchange Stock Market Index lost 29 percent.

Pimco, ING and Axa say the bonds are undervalued because Chavez, 52, vowed on Jan. 13 to pay down debt this year. Axa, based in Paris, owned about $808 million and Pimco, in Newport Beach, California, held $204 million of Venezuelan securities, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Amsterdam-based ING said the firm holds $600 million of the notes.

`Wouldn't Hold Stocks'

Venezuela's $4 billion of 9.25 percent bonds due 2027 have fallen 1.4 cents on the dollar since Jan. 8. They were quoted at 123.25 cents yesterday, yielding 7.09 percent, JPMorgan data show.

``I wouldn't hold stocks or do any private business there, but we don't have to cut positions as a sovereign bondholder,'' said Tim Haaf, who helps manage $7.8 billion in emerging-market assets at Pimco in Munich, where the fund management company's parent, Allianz SE, is based.

Venezuelan dollar bonds have fallen less than the 6.9 percent drop in Ecuador's debt, where a new president has pledged to default, JPMorgan data show. Indonesia's 8.5 percent bonds due in 2035, which have the same BB- credit rating from Standard & Poor's as Venezuela, yield 6.61 percent.

Chavez, a critic of the U.S. who calls President George W. Bush "the devil,'' roiled stock investors again on Jan. 21, when he said the government won't pay the market price for shares in CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, the nation's biggest phone company. The shares fell 11 percent yesterday.

Reassuring Bondholders

Venezuela earned $57.8 billion in revenue from oil in 2006, according to government figures. That's about 16 times the $3.5 billion that Citigroup Inc. estimates the country needed to pay in interest on its bonds. Oil makes up about 90 percent of the country's exports and more than half of government revenue.

The administration started using the money to reduce foreign debt last year, buying back $3.9 billion of Brady bonds -- securities named after former U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, who helped arrange a 1990s restructuring.

Chavez reassured bond investors by telling the National Assembly in Caracas on Jan. 13 that ``we could pay our entire foreign debt with the reserves we have.''

He pledged to reduce the debt to $21 billion this year, from the $27 billion that the government said was outstanding on Sept. 30. The extra yield investors demand to hold Venezuelan dollar- denominated debt rather than U.S. Treasuries has since narrowed to 2.14 percentage points, from 2.22 points on Jan. 9, according to JPMorgan indexes.

Oil Dollars

Banco Central de Venezuela's foreign-currency reserves grew an average 26 percent in the past four years to $37 billion, data from the bank shows. Oil income will boost foreign-currency reserves, including funds held for welfare and infrastructure projects, by more than 20 percent to $66 billion this year, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates.

``We're confident Chavez is willing to pay down debt,'' said Robert Drijkoningen, who manages $10 billion of emerging market debt at ING Investment Management in The Hague. ``And there's the capacity because of an abundance of oil dollars.''

Not all investors share that confidence. Oliver Kastner, who manages $7 billion in emerging-market debt at Deka Investment GmbH in Frankfurt, said he started unloading Venezuelan bonds when oil prices weakened and would keep selling in response to Chavez's ``investor unfriendly'' proposals.

``It's negative for stocks, for the corporate sector and the government bond market,'' Kastner said. ``Chavez should realize investors won't be able to stay in the country for long if he says such crazy things.''

Spending Binge

A surge in spending on health care, food programs for the poor and infrastructure projects may leave Venezuela short of funds should oil keep falling, Kastner said.

Chavez, who won re-election in December, boosted spending 56 percent in the first 10 months of last year after increases of 43 percent in 2005 and 61 percent in 2004. The jump in spending fueled growth above 10 percent for the six quarters through Sept. 30, 2006, making Venezuela the fastest-growing economy in Latin America.

``They are spending a lot and if oil prices decline, they will be in trouble,'' said Alberto Ramos, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York.

Crude oil dropped more than a third to $53 a barrel since it peaked on July 14. It would have to slump almost another 50 percent to reach the $29 a barrel that Venezuela assumed in drafting its $54 billion budget for this year.

Chavez, while referring to its debt as ``immoral,'' has made payments in tough times. He paid the debt in 2003 after a three- month nationwide strike almost shut down the country's oil industry. The economy shrank 9.4 percent that year, following an 8.9 percent contraction in 2002.

To contact the reporters on this story: Agnes Lovasz in London at alovasz@bloomberg.net

Washington Post whores insane "Jeb would lead us to promised land" article... WHORES!

In an insane article that fully illustrates the depths of Washington Post editorial depravity, a Palm Beach Post writer writes a sycophantic paen to Jeb Bush, saying "under the 5th year of Jeb's presidental administration, Osama bin Laden has been captured, and US troops are now returning from... Iraq." No need to mention the INSANITY of INVADING Iraq when it posed NO threats to its larger neighbors (neither Iran nor Turkey was in the least bit worried about an Iraq invasion while the American government and whore media were running around saying "The sky is falling, and Saddam's radio-controlled airplanes will come crashing in to your breakfast nook!"). In addition, Iraq on the eve of President's Bush's illegal, unauthorized, and fraudulently hyped invasion was SURROUNDED by US forces, EMBARGOED by US enforced UN economic sanctions, and DIVIDED by the US enforced "No Fly Zones," which effectively partitioned Iraq into three different countries; the Kurds in the North wouldn't even allow an Iraqi flag to fly in their "no fly zone" enforced autonomous region, and the United States COULD have provided a similar level of autonomy for Shiites in the south of Iraq, had US policy been a little less murderous and Machiavellian. So right off the first paragraph, our Palm Beach Post writer writing in the Washington Post starts by insinuating that the INVASION OF IRAQ was a worthy goal and decent political aim... just screwed up because George, not Jeb, was president at the time.


Thus we see that the writer, S.V. Date, is an insane sycophant from the Palm Beach Post, whose LYING reporting from 1998 helped "Big Sugar" SABOTAGE the "Penny-per-pound Sugar tax" made possible the Rethuglican resurgence in Florida. In 1998 Palm Beach and Florida environmentalists sought to make Big Sugar pay a portion of the cost of restoring the Everglades from the pollutants of sugar field runoff. While the overwhelming majority of Floridians felt that preserving the Everglades was worth the money and effort, the Palm Beach Post joined with Big Sugar in making the environmental effort look like another case of "tax-and-spend government run amok!" and the penny-per-pound amendment was narrowly defeated in the '98 election. Worse, that election broadcast, refined, and legitimized the entire "out of control liberal tax-and-spend government!" narrative of the Republican propaganda machine, laying the foundation for Jeb Bush's and Katherine Harris' STEALING of THOUSANDS of legitimate votes in the 2000 presidential elections - Jeb and Katherine and the Republican Party DISENFRANCHISING thousands of LEGAL Florida voters by hiring Choice Point corporation to purge voter rolls in minority precincts of any voters having a name even close to anyone convicted of a felony anywhere in Florida, whether that felony conviction matched that voter or not.

Although Jeb Bush had been OPPOSED to Everglades restoration (because he is in the pocket of Big Developers who lust over the possibility of paving over the Everglades), when the US Congress overwhelmingly stepped in an funded a $7.8 BILLION dollar FEDERAL restoration program, Jeb suddenly became a big fan - he saw the opportunity of using those BILLIONS of American tax dollars as a SLUSH FUND for crony contractors and consultants. The result? BILLIONS spent on Everglades restoration.... WITH VERY LITTLE TO SHOW FOR IT, thanks to Jeb Bush/Republican SABOTAGE and CORRUPTION.

BECAUSE THE WHORE Palm Beach POST provides NO oversight of the SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS federal Everglades restoration fund, the JEB BUSH Florida gubanatorial administration has been able to USE that $7 billion as an almost bottomless SLUSH FUND for Bush-Rethuglican connected contractors and consulting firms. And now one of the Palm Beach Post's writers is writing an op-ed for the Whore Washington Post, "If only Jebby were president, we would have a great and wonderful nation."

What an insane example of the press/media putting sycophantry ahead of their ostensible job, as "watchdogs" of government incompetence and corruption.

WHOREDOM, they name is PALM BEACH "investigate no Jeb Bush fraud" POST and WASHINGTON COWARDLY "see no outrages, hear no outrages, and for god's sake, print NO outrage exposes" POST.

=======================================================


What Would Jeb Do?
By S.V. Date
Sunday, January 21, 2007; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901364_pf.html

Tuesday would have marked his sixth State of the Union address -- and it might have been his best yet.

The nation is in great shape, President Jeb Bush would have reported: record tax cuts propelling the economy to greater heights; a revolutionary school-vouchers program for the first time granting low-income parents real education choices; and, five years after the capture of Osama bin Laden, the final 20,000 U.S. troops returning home from Iraq.

The president would break into his fluent Spanish and wave at his Mexican-born wife, Columba, gazing at him from the balcony. The cameras would settle on their eldest, George P. Bush, 30, and commentators would speculate on whether the dashing lawyer would soon run for Congress and carry on the Bush dynasty.

Yet contrary to the best-laid plans of the Bush family, it won't be John Ellis "Jeb" Bush addressing the nation this week, all

because of that disastrous November Tuesday a dozen years ago. That was the day Jeb -- the articulate and handsome workaholic, the one who as a boy spoke of his White House ambitions, and the one the Bush family counted on to avenge the Great Usurpation of 1992 -- narrowly lost his bid to be governor of Florida. Meanwhile, his older brother George W. had overcome long odds and won the Texas governorship, putting George an insurmountable step ahead of Jeb in the race for the presidency.

But what if Jeb had won the Florida governorship in 1994, been reelected and then taken the White House in 2000? How would the nation be different? What sort of State of the Union would he deliver this week?

This is more than an exercise in alternative history. Because of Florida's term limits, Jeb stepped down as governor three weeks ago, but he should not be counted out of the national political scene. I've covered Jeb Bush for eight years as a state capital reporter, and I'm convinced that he remains the GOP conservative wing's best hope for a post-Iraq comeback. And his own political ambitions burn as brightly as ever. Perhaps 2012 or 2016 or -- why not? -- maybe even 2008, if things break right.

Jeb and George W. are seven years apart but have much in common. Both are stubborn. Both appear convinced that anything that government does the private sector can do better. Both are enamored of tax cuts. And both seem to believe that voters don't have the right to observe the workings of their administrations and should simply trust them to do the right thing. However, the two display real differences on issues spanning crisis management, fiscal policy, foreign policy and, perhaps most important, personal style. Jeb pays much more attention to detail than his brother, and is far more dogged and competent in advancing his agenda -- meaning that a Jeb presidency over the past seven years would have been distinct from his brother's -- and a future one would be as well.

Look first to the home front. On key domestic policy issues such as tax cuts and education reform, Jeb probably would have mirrored his brother's instincts and proposals, though he might have displayed greater staying power in seeing them through.

Under President Jeb, the nation still would have had large federal tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the rich -- or the "risk takers" and "job creators," in Bush family parlance. In Florida, he reduced taxes by $12.2 billion over his eight years, with more than half of that going to the wealthiest 4.5 percent of the population. That saved the average risk taker more than $1,500 a year by the time Jeb left office. And much as President George W. Bush cites tax cuts as the explanation for any positive economic results, Gov. Jeb Bush says that his tax cuts created jobs in Florida and gave us the best economy in the country. (In reality, Jeb had the lowest job-creation rate of any Florida governor dating to 1971.)

On education, Jeb quickly pushed into law a testing program, just as his brother did in Texas and later nationally through No Child Left Behind. Unlike George W., however, Jeb succeeded in introducing the nation's first statewide school-vouchers program. The results are unclear: Jeb says that students who used vouchers to attend private schools received better educations than they had been getting in public schools. But all we know is that the vast majority of such schoolchildren received religious educations at the public's expense. Gov. Bush refused to release the scores for the few voucher children who had to take the public-school standardized test, so whether their educations were superior or awful remains anyone's guess.

For a brief period, George W. sought to include school vouchers in NCLB, but he eventually relented; Jeb, I believe, would never have let it drop. Indeed, much more than his older brother, Jeb seems to take pleasure in the business of governing, as opposed to just campaigning. Whereas George W. claims to stay at 30,000 feet and see the big picture, Jeb is all about the details. He kept long hours as governor, took home fat binders to study each night and knew enough about policy matters to make detailed and cogent arguments for his ideas. It's hard to imagine a President Jeb countenancing the explosion of pork-barrel earmarks in the federal budget the way his brother did, for example. During his eight years as governor, Jeb took the time to slash thousands of such projects out of Florida state budgets, most of them inserted by Republican lawmakers.

His willingness to delve into the nitty gritty probably would have made Jeb a radically different commander in chief than his brother during one of the most dramatic and tragic events of the Bush presidency: Hurricane Katrina.

When a spate of hurricanes struck Florida in the late summer of 2004, Jeb responded quickly. He didn't dream up schemes to give hurricane victims private-school vouchers for their children. He didn't try to privatize disaster response. Instead, he worked on obvious, sensible things: He implemented an effective and thorough evacuation, and then came in quickly with massive assistance, including search-and-rescue teams, water, ice, food, law enforcement -- in more or less that order.

This was Jeb's shining, nonpartisan leadership moment in Florida and, the tragedy notwithstanding, he relished the challenge. He loves to compete, and standing up to a category four or five storm is the ultimate challenge a Florida governor can face.

In the state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center on the southern edge of Tallahassee, with its giant display screens and dozens of computers, Jeb was in his element, walking around, getting status reports about how many shelters were open, effortlessly issuing commands without worrying about obstructionist judges or meddlesome state legislators.

Had Jeb been president in the days before Katrina struck, he would have known that such a huge storm threatened catastrophe for New Orleans. He would have known that the levees could break -- and he would have made sure that the city and state governments got all the help they needed. Jeb would not have undermined the Federal Emergency Management Agency with cronyism and incompetence. He would have "federalized" Katrina while the storm was still in the Gulf, taking over the evacuation and even using the military to empty the Lower Ninth Ward ahead of the storm, if that's what it took.

"I have learned a lot during my tenure as governor," Jeb told the Pensacola News Journal during that hurricane season. "One is when to be partisan and when not to be. Storms don't hit just Rs and Ds or independents. They're all Floridians."

I believe Jeb was being candid. He would have responded just as vigorously if the storm had struck a predominantly black, poor and entirely Democratic town as he did when it hit Republican-rich cities such as Pensacola, Punta Gorda and Stuart. A poor Florida city is still a Florida city, and to let a hurricane kill hundreds of Floridians, or to allow it to destroy a town without quickly rebuilding, is to let the hurricane defeat him.

Jeb Bush doesn't do defeat.

That leads to the key question of a Jeb Bush presidency. In public, of course, Jeb has supported his brother's decision to invade Iraq. "It's tough," he said in a recent interview with Newsmax.com. "Thank God the president has been resolute, because it's not a popular war." But would Jeb have made the same choice? Would his state of the union speech this week have to include a lengthy discussion of a war in Iraq gone horribly wrong?

Unlike George, who ridiculed his classmates at Yale University for opposing the Vietnam War but then sought refuge in the National Guard, Jeb was troubled enough by that war that, according to his mother in a 1984 interview, he considered registering as a conscientious objector. Ultimately, he chose not to hurt his father's political career -- at the time, George H.W. Bush was President Richard M. Nixon's ambassador to the United Nations -- and registered for the draft. He was never called. "I had no compelling reason to go to Vietnam" he told the Miami Herald in 1994.

But he has grown more hawkish over time. Jeb Bush was a 1997 signatory to the Project for the New American Century, the neoconservative blueprint for a more "Reaganite" foreign policy. And his mother, Barbara, recalls in her memoirs a 1990 dinner gathering with President George H.W. Bush, their four sons and Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak. At the time, the president was pondering how to handle Saddam Hussein, who had invaded Kuwait, and Jeb (then 37) agreed with his brothers that their father should deal with Hussein harshly.

Yet Jeb did not sign on to PNAC's 1998 call to invade Iraq and depose Hussein. He also likes and respects former secretary of state Colin L. Powell; perhaps Jeb would have followed the "Powell Doctrine" in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden more zealously and using overwhelming force. With about 300,000 troops stabilizing Afghanistan, Iraq might not have become the imperative that it became under George W.

Finally, there is a chance that Jeb's more internationally minded background -- he majored in Latin American studies in college and later lived in Venezuela for two years as a young bank officer -- might have made him open to a nuanced, more even-handed foreign policy, less susceptible to his neoconservative friends urging him to deal with Iraq once and for all.

It is impossible to know, but I suspect that the United States still would have gone to war in Iraq under President Jeb Bush. He would have been amenable to a compelling case from the same neocon camp that influenced George W., and Hussein's 1993 assassination attempt against George H.W. Bush could have clinched the deal. However, once in Iraq, Jeb would have been less prone to botch the job through inattention and cronyism. As with Florida's hurricanes, Jeb probably would have considered the task of invading, occupying and rebuilding a foreign country too important to outsource to political hacks or ideologues.

Once the family's brightest hope for this generation, Jeb may now prove a victim of the political ruin his older brother has brought to the Bush brand. Barely three in 10 Americans think that George W. is doing a good job. What are the chances that voters will gamble on the First Brother?

No one should write Jeb's political epitaph just yet. Even a 2008 presidential run should not be ruled out entirely. Should John McCain or Rudolph W. Giuliani or Mitt Romney fail to build a dominating presence by mid-summer, there is probably only one Republican who could come in at such a late date and still build an effective organization and a powerful fundraising machine in a matter of weeks: Jeb Bush. After all, Jeb raised about $35 million to win reelection as Florida governor four years ago. Pulling in $100 million in a few months is well within the realm of the possible.

In all likelihood, though, 2008 would be tough. The Iraq war is not getting any more popular, and U.S. troops may not be coming home quickly enough to allow Jeb a credible run.

A better fit for Jeb this time around is the number two slot. It would ensure his claim to be the GOP's front-runner in future contests. Coming on the heels of the George W. Bush presidency, the prospect of a Vice President Jeb Bush is not quite as scary as a President Jeb Bush. And the campaign trail is the ideal venue for Jeb to sell himself to the national media. The gap between Jeb, the Serious and Thoughtful Grownup, and George, the Perpetual Frat Boy, would become a major story line.

McCain swung by Tallahassee in December 2005 to sound out Jeb about running with him, and any Republican candidate would be foolish not to put him on the short list. He can raise money by the bucketfuls. Unlike his father and brother, Jeb does not tread gingerly through debates as though they were minefields, but uses them to his advantage. The fact that he has a Mexican-born wife could put Democrats on the defensive in California. And he remains popular in electoral-vote-rich Florida.

Jeb Bush will turn 54 next month. He has plenty of time. Given his personality and his sense of mission -- not to mention that his father and brother have already succeeded at this -- it seems impossible that Jeb would not run for president. Whether in two or six or 10 years, the United States will face the prospect of yet another Bush in the White House. Americans will then quickly learn what we in Florida already know: This Bush not only combines his father's interest in governing and his brother's permanent campaign but also brings a relentlessness to impose his will that seems entirely his own.

And ultimately, if Jeb is hobbled by the myth or reality of "Bush fatigue," one cure seems certain: Hillary Rodham Clinton. Should the junior senator from New York run away with the Democratic nomination, Jeb would have a ready answer for those who lament a Bush Dynasty.

"We're going to have a dynasty either way," he could respond. "The question is: Which one do you want? My family or hers?"

svdate@earthlink.net

S.V. Dáte is the Tallahassee bureau chief for the Palm Beach Post and author of "Jeb: America's Next Bush" (Tarcher/Penguin).

Media Whores STILL PIMPING Bush's war...

Note: The great MediaWhoresOnline.com, whom we try to emulate (in our brutal, unpolished way), TWICE had readers vote Newsweek's HOWARD FINEMAN as... "MEDIA WHORE of the YEAR," against, of course, tremendous competition from other Whore-iffic media pundits such as Tim Russert and sloberball slow-pitch expert Chris Mathews, who at times has gushed over (according to Mathews) Bush's alleged warrior-leader manliness.

That is, MWO readers voted for Howie Fineman to be WHORE OF THE YEAR - TWICE! For Fineman's swarmy rationalization of the insane Right-Wing agenda (then making a constitutional crisis over Clinton's short-lived dalliance with Monica). Today, Fineman has UPPED the stakes - making swarmy rationalizations of Bush's insane "conquer, enslave, and intimidate the world!" neo-con, neo-confederate nightmare.

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The Mainstream Media's Take on Iraq: Right, Left... And Dead Wrong
Arianna Huffington
01.20.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-mainstream-medias-ta_b_39103.html


Divorced from the reality of what's going on in Iraq. Wedded to a deluded perception of the war. Unwilling to acknowledge widespread and irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Sound like anyone you know? No, I'm not talking about President Bush -- though it's certainly true of him as well. I'm talking about the mainstream media, and their relentless depiction of the Iraq war as a left/right issue, even as the facts give lie to this hoary framing.


According to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, 60 percent of Americans oppose Bush's escalation of the war, and 65 percent want to "withdraw right away" or "withdraw within a year." Other polls reach the same conclusion: Iraq is simply not a right vs. left issue.
But you'd never know it from watching the pundits on television.

Here's Howard Fineman on Countdown with Keith Olbermann: "...that's the tension that people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are caught in as they try to move to the left on the war without taking themselves out of the mainstream of the country."

Of course, what Fineman means by "left on the war" is being in favor of ending the war, and against Bush's handling of it. No Democrats need worry that taking those positions will take them out of the mainstream.

But don't tell that to Candy Crowley. Here was her cobweb-covered analysis of Ted Kennedy's anti-escalation measure: "What Senator Kennedy is going to do is lay down the liberal view of things, which is to say, he will say, look, no additional troops and no additional money for additional troops, unless Congress approves."

The "liberal view of things"? More like the view of things of almost two-thirds of the nation.

Likewise, Judy Woodruff on Meet the Press, saying Iraq is "a huge problem for the Democrats. Their base wants the United States out of Iraq yesterday." So anyone who wants out of Iraq belongs to the Democratic base? Someone should give Howard Dean a raise for doubling the size of the party.

What makes this moldy messaging so disturbing is that ferreting out the truth of the matter wouldn't involve complex analysis. It would just require a glance at Capitol Hill.

Is Chuck Hagel, co-sponsor (along with Carl Levin and Joe Biden) of the Senate resolution condemning Bush's surge plan, a "liberal?" Is he "left on the war"? Is he "part of the Democratic base"? Is he "out of the mainstream"?

Or how about North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones? After enthusiastically supporting the war, Jones has become a harsh critic of Bush's Iraq policy. According to the media framing, that would make Jones a "liberal," right? But he's actually the proud owner of a 93 percent rating from the American Conservative Union for his seven-term voting record.

Then there's Sen. Sam Brownback, who, upon returning from Iraq earlier this month, announced, "I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution." This flaming liberal has a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union, and is considered one of that group's "Best of the Bests." On Monday, Brownback will speak at the second annual conference of pro-life bloggers in Washington. Boy, are the pro-lifers going to be shocked when someone as "liberal" as Brownback shows up.

When the macro framing of the war is so warped, it makes productive discussion of how to deal with Iraq even harder. The encouraging thing is that while so many in the mainstream media continue to believe that being in favor of ending the war means you're a "left-winger" and "out of the mainstream," a growing number of politicians don't.

How long will it take for the media to recognize reality and drop their outdated, obsolete, and thunderingly inaccurate framing of the war debate?

Iraq is not about right and left. It's about right and wrong -- and the vast majority of the public clearly knows this. It's time for the media to catch up.

Bush now disliked by Americans... more than Dick Cheney!

The presidential contender who LIED his way through his first presidential campaign (by pledging to be a " more bipartisan candidate... a uniter, NOT divider") and then STOLE _both_ of his presidential election "wins" (by having Rethuglican election officials STEAL legal American votes from being counted, i.e. massive DISENFRANCHISEMENT in Florida in 2000 and Ohio and other states in 20004) is reaping the whirlwind of his lies, conceits, arrogance, and dismal incompetence.

Dick Cheney is so detestable as to give The Grinch (who stole Christmas) a run for the money in the "cold, black, shrivelled heart" department, and his popularity polls reflect that dismal image, and now George W. Bush has finally eclipsed Cheney as being an object of loathing in American opinion polls.

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Fox Poll: More Americans Dislike Bush Than ... Cheney!
By Eric Kleefeld
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/18/fox_poll_more_americans_dislike_bush_than_cheney

This has to be a milestone: A new poll has found that the American people dislike President Bush more than they dislike ... Dick Cheney. The poll — by Fox News, of all people — finds that President Bush's unfavorable rating is 58%, while Cheney's unpopularity rating is five points lower at 53%. Bush can, however, still take some small solace from the fact that his approval rating is one point higher than Cheney's; the President's is 38%, while the VP's is 37%.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of other numbers that are striking for a Fox poll: Only 39% of Americans view the GOP favorably, and 49% view them unfavorably. Meanwhile, a majority of respondents — 51% — have a favorable view of Dems, compared to only 35% who have an unfavorable view of what Fox likes to call the "Democrat Party."

Media Whores, California radio DJs': mother DIES from drinking too much water in their idiotic contest....

Listening to stupid radio blabbermouths is definitely HARMFUL to your country, your society, and your fellow Americans, and in this case, listening to IDIOT talk-show DJs was FATAL to a mother of three children in California.

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Police Probe Death After Radio Contest
By JULIET WILLIAMS, AP
Jan. 18 2007
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/police-probe-death-after-radio-contest/20070117182009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

SACRAMENTO, Calif.- As participants in KDND-FM's water-drinking contest chugged bottle after bottle, a listener called in to warn the disc jockeys that the stunt could be fatal.

Attorneys for the family of Jennifer Lea Strange said they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the radio station that held the drinking contest.

Talk About It: Post Thoughts

"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of them responded.

Another DJ said with a laugh: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."

Those comments, and others made during the Jan. 12 "Morning Rave" radio show, appeared to give little regard to the risk of water intoxication. But just hours after the contest, a woman who guzzled nearly two gallons was dead.

On Wednesday, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department launched a criminal investigation into the incident, and attorneys for the family of Jennifer Lea Strange said they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the radio station.

The county coroner said preliminary autopsy findings indicate Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three, died of water intoxication.