Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, February 22, 2008 A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist. On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station. Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff - and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint." Read More Here

  Glenn Hurowitz, Maisonneuve Press, February 22, 2008 Like many progressives, I'd heard all the explanations for Democratic failings, and they all boiled down to this: a lack of smarts or competence. But was that realistic? After all, we're the egghead party, the party of science, the party of the PhD. Could we really just be as stupid as we say George Bush is? What I've seen is something quite different: a lack of courage that makes Democrats afraid of implementing the strategies that work. It's why even when Democrats win, they lose. After Democrats took back Congress in 2006, Republicans still manage to bully Democrats and the media into controlling their agenda. It seems like Democrats forgot James Carville's basic lesson of political summer school "It's hard for your opponent to say bad things about you when your fist is in his mouth." Unfortunately, too often, the Democrats are the ones coughing up fingernails. What follows is an excerpt from my new book, Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party (Maisonneuve Press), which illustrates this debilitating weakness in the Democratic Party. **** "The senator agrees with you, but he's not sure about the politics," the senior Democratic Senate aide told me. "But if the politics changes, the senator would definitely like to vote your way -- so good luck; we're behind you." The aide was explaining to me why his boss, a Democrat who represents a rural, Republican-leaning state, hadn't supported higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks in a recent vote. The aide told me that though the senator agreed with the environmental group I was working for that increased auto mileage made sense, he was afraid that his constituents might not support his stance, especially after being bombarded with auto industry ads on the airwaves. It was a response I would hear over and over again from Democrats as I went from leading local and state level environmental campaigns to helping direct those campaigns on the national level. When Democrats voted against us, it was rare to hear them say they didn't agree with us on the merits. Instead, they'd tell us they were afraid: afraid that their constituents wouldn't support a pro-environment position; afraid of defying President Bush and the Republican noise machine; or they'd even admit they were afraid of angering this or that corporate lobby and losing campaign contributions to the Republicans. Read More Here

  Robert Scheer TruthDig, February 19, 2008 The resignation of Fidel Castro is more promising for the burnishing of his legacy than the mostly septuagenarian Cuban hard-liners in Miami and their fawning allies in the Bush administration would like to believe. After all, Mao Tse-tung is still honored in communist China, the fastest-growing capitalist power in the world, and former KGB agent Vladimir Putin is, at least for now, a very popular elected Russian leader. Those hoping for a "freedom flotilla" of Cuban exiles returning to remake Havana in the image of 1959, threatening the very future of Las Vegas with legalized prostitution as well as gambling, are likely to be disappointed. Odds are that Castro's successors, beginning with his rhetoric-weary brother, are likely to finally get serious, after decades of fitful starts and reversals, about ending the grip of a moribund statist economy. Reform leading significantly down the path of the Chinese model, or more appropriately that of Venezuela, which has thrown a lifeline to the ailing Cuban economy, is more likely than sudden upheaval. But those changes will come too late to justify the suffering of the Cuban people for half a century at the hands of a revolutionary, as arrogant as he is idealistic, who witnessed his vision flounder on the rocks of an incredibly cynical U.S. policy. Prime responsibility for that suffering does go to the Colossus of the North, which in the pursuit of economic exploitation and Cold War paranoia consistently preferred Latin American dictatorships to serious experiments in popular rule and strangled the Cuban economy with an embargo in place for the almost five decades since Castro dared move against the U.S. corporations that claimed to own much of the island. Read More Here

Howard Zinn, The Progressive, March 2008 Issue There's a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I've never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" for working people. Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: "Well, I'm writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can't tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now." On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline "Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in '07." The subhead was "7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the '06 rate." A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones. Read More Here

Jon Ponder, Pensito Review, February 22, 2008 Rush Limbaugh, the drug-addled radio entertainer and provocateur, used the New York Times article suggesting John McCain had a too-cozy relationship with a female lobbyist a decade ago - a story sourced to, and apparently leaked by, Republican operatives in the 2000 McCain presidential campaign - to castigate McCain with a rambling discourse on his dark and paranoid view of Americans who do not share his political views: The lesson is liberals are to be defeated. You cannot walk across the aisle with them. You cannot reach across the aisle. You cannot welcome their media members on your bus and get all cozy with them and expect eternal love from them. You are a Republican. Whether you’re a conservative Republican or not, you are a Republican. At some point, the people you cozy up to, either to do legislation or to get cozy media stories, are going to turn on you. They are snakes. If the right lesson is not learned from this, then it will have proved to be of no value. There’s a great opportunity here for Senator McCain to learn the right lesson and understand who his friends are and who his enemies are. He’s had that backwards for way too long. He has thought the New York Times is his friend. He has thought Chris Matthews and these other people in the Drive-By Media are his friends. They aren’t. That’s the lesson today. The story is not the story. The story is the Drive-By Media turning on it’s favorite maverick trying to take him out. The media picked the Republican candidate. The New York Times endorsed that candidate while they sat on this story, and now with utter predictability, they are trying to destroy him. This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends. Why should any of us be surprised or even angry at what the New York Times is doing here trying to take out John McCain? Those of you who listen regularly should have been expecting this all along because it’s utterly predictable. It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. It’s as predictable as Ted Kennedy finding a bar at happy hour. Read More Here

Glenn Beck: "Hand, you are my only friend, the only one who always agrees with me and loves me without question. Hand, I will always stick with, and to, you forever." Wolf Blitzer: "Somebody adjust my pole NOW! Adjust the pole NOW!" Tom Brokaw: "Shay, where doesh Russert keep hish got-damned vodka hidden?" George W. Bush: "How can they say I'm not popular – just look at this crowd of smilin' people applaudin' me. Okay, what time do we leave the Rose Garden and go make that speech at the Heritage Foundation?" Poppy Bush: "It's a hell of a way to show your oldest boy you disapprove of him, I say – all this chumming up to Bill Clinton and endorsing John McCain and so forth – but it must be done and when something hard must be done, I'm just the gent to do it." Hillary Clinton: "This poll says that most voters think I'm too bossy, calculating and harsh. You people better find a way to make me look authentic and soften my image or you're all fired!" Larry Craig: "It's always 'use a condom, Larry, use a condom, Larry' with guys like you – like I do this all the time in men's rooms or something." John Gibson: "Gee, I wish we had a War on Christmas all year long." Mike Huckabee: "Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle built for two – where the hell is the goddamned Christian base hiding?" John Kerry: "I'm going to help Barack fight for every vote – just like I did in 2004!" Rush Limbaugh: "You boys take your clothes off while I put some of this special sugar in the Kool-Aid. Yeah, heh, heh, 'sugar'." Chris Matthews: "You gotta nice smile, kid, you gotta gorgeous face, what are you 16, 17 years old? You gotta big future -- you'll do good in the TV business. HAH! Here, turn around so I can get a good look at your backside…the twenty bucks is on the dresser." John McCain: "Did I have an affair with that lobbyist in 2000? Wow, what a sex machine I was eight years ago!" Barack Obama: "Don't forget: Cleavon Little DID clean up that town." Keith Olbermann: "One more Britney Spears story and I'm buying the sniper rifle." Bill O'Reilly: "You know, the blacks they have this new thing they call the blues, or maybe the rhythm and blues – I think I'll try it out but, if it isn't up to my standards, it may be time to fetch the rope." Dan Rather: "Crap, next I'll be doing the jewelry report on the Home Shopping Channel." Tim Russert: "Who's got my vodka? Who the hell's got my got-damned VODKA?!" Brian Williams: "Bring me my eyebrow grease, pronto!"

http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/486413.html

Police concerned about order to stop screening

By JACK DOUGLAS Jr. Star-Telegram Staff Writer

function PopupPic(sPicURL, sHeight, sWidth) { window.open( "http://media.star-telegram.com/popup.html?"+sPicURL, "", "resizable=1,HEIGHT=" +sHeight+ ",WIDTH=" +sWidth); } STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON <!-- STAR-TELEGRAM/RODGER MALLISON --> Barack Obama speaks Wednesday at a Democratic rally in Dallas' Reunion Arena. Police were told to stop screening people for weapons before the rally began. DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. "Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd." The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment. Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked. Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection. They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event. "How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman. JACK DOUGLAS Jr., 817-390-7700

If this book had been written by Jimmy Breslin, it would be, “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight Part Deux.” Only this book was not written by Jimmy Breslin and the consequences to our prestige as a nation, respect in the world and national security are much more serious. However it is a very interesting read, at many times incredible in the audacity of some missions sometimes just shocking in the stupidity displayed by what are supposed to be our nation’s best. Mr. Weiner lays out the history of the CIA from the very beginning until our very recent history. In the process through extensive interviews and research of declassified documents, he tells a very unnerving story of what our CIA is, what it was meant to be and what it thinks it is. It is a damning indictment of the agency, the various directors and many of the presidents in power during its existence. Towards the end of the book, he pretty clearly sums up what the book is about, “Nineteen men had served as director of central intelligence. Not one met the high Standards Eisenhower had set. The agency’s founders had been defeated by their ignorance in Korea and Vietnam and undone by their arrogance in Washington. Their successors were set adrift when the Soviet Union died and caught unaware when terror struck at the heart of American power. Their attempts to make sense of the world had generated heat but little light. As it was in the beginning, the warriors of the pentagon and diplomats at State held them in disdain. For more than half a century, presidents had been frustrated or furious when they turned to the directors for insight and knowledge.” Well that is what the book is about but before you get to that point, there is history, poignant stories, incredible blunders, and one of the best actual spy stories ever written. A true opus. Politically, the book is straight down the middle. You will find out that neo-cons were attracted to the agency from the beginning are were wrong from the beginning. I guess we could have seen it coming. They claimed 500 Soviet Missiles aimed at the US when there were only 4 and that is just the beginning. A featured character is Mr. Paul Wolfowitz who has managed to fail upwards for many years now. On the other side of the spectrum, the book paints President Eisenhower as perhaps our sharpest president in this entire era. However the idea of some guy putting on his underwear in the morning is a little disturbing. In today’s times it’s hard to remember the red menace and how that colored their thinking of the time, but it is shocking to learn how right wing and secretive Robert Kennedy was. An icon of liberalism definitely not portrayed that way in this book. The entire account of the Bay of Pigs invasion very much syncs with other accounts I have read so I have no reason to doubt the Robert Kennedy reporting. Other presidents: LBJ is an insecure mess. RMN is a drunken hawk. GRF, though having served in the Senate Intelligence committee for many years was surprised to find out he knew nothing of what the CIA was doing. JEC is a nice man, but not entirely as innocent as most people thought. RWR is out of the loop entirely, with a dark side and a cast of incredible characters to carry out some of the most disastrous missions in the entire agency history. Bill Casey definitely is not portrayed in gushing terms as Valerie Plame described him in her book. WJC was not a hands-on manager when it came to intelligence and was distrusted by the CIA and all the military. GWB, the worst period, as much of a nightmare to the agency as the rest of the United States. He would be the one to eventually undo the CIA and turn into ashes. Nobody comes off unscathed. A fair, fascinating look into the annals of the CIA and our presidents policies and relationship with the agency. A must read.