"Contact the media. Let them know that you care. The producer at Good Morning America, Shelley Roth, told me that she just doesn’t believe that anyone cares anymore. It’s the same old spiel – ‘Election’s over – Bush won – No one cares – Get over it.’ But here’s the thing; if the defendants at Nuremberg would have stood up and said, ‘The war’s over. Let’s move on,’ that wouldn’t have worked. It shouldn’t work in America, either."
©2001 Buzzflash

Propaganda's Triumph
By Robert Parry

The defection of Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords from the Republican Party brought into sharp relief the contrast between George W. Bush’s mantra about changing the negative tone of Washington and the reality.

The conservative Washington Times may have expressed the schizophrenia best on its May 24 editorial page. The newspaper, which is financed by South Korean theocrat Rev. Sun Myung Moon, highlighted what it called the "outrage of the week" in an editorial that accused Senate Democrats of delivering "a major hit" to "the political civility that President George W. Bush committed himself to restore in Washington."

The editorial complained that Democratic leaders had balked at a plan to let 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., skip some late-night votes by "pairing" him with a Democratic senator who would agree not to vote. Though this decision seems to have come from the Democratic leadership, the Times tossed in freshman Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for blame, with a gratuitous slap at profits she made from commodities trading in the 1970s.

Then, in its own strange "pairing" – given the concern for civility – the Times published a crude editorial cartoon depicting Jeffords with donkey ears. "If he talks like a jackass, walks like a jackass, looks like a jackass, and calls himself an elephant, then he’s probably a dumb jackass," the Washington Times cartoonist wrote.

This unblushing juxtaposition of high-minded language about civility and the politics of insult has become typical of this new political landscape in which language grows ever more distant from reality. Bush’s supporters, in particular, wax eloquent about their commitment to political gentility while continuing the opposite behavior, without a wince for the hypocrisy.

The Jeffords defection, which cost Republicans control of the Senate, ripped off the genteel masks big time. The Wall Street Journal dubbed Jeffords "a big baby" in one online editorial. "Benedict Jeffords," howled the headline of the New York Post.

The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg observed ruefully, "I know that it’s illegal to sew a half-starved weasel into his small intestine, but there are other options." [For a compilation of these and other conservative comments about Jeffords, see The Washington Post, May 25, 2001] Judicial Restraint?

Beyond language, the events of the past decade have made clear that even the application of law is now just a political weapon.

On the same days as the civility editorial and the Jeffords-jackass cartoon, The Washington Times carried advertisements for a "tribute to Honorable N. Sanders Sauls," the Florida judge who rejected Vice President Al Gore’s motion for a Florida recount after Sauls had eaten up precious time last fall and then refused to examine the ballots that had been introduced as evidence. [WT, May 24, 2001]

This latest Sanders Sauls tribute – scheduled for June 7 – is sponsored by the right-wing Judicial Watch, which filed an endless string of lawsuits against Democrats during the Clinton administration and intervened on Bush’s behalf in the recount battle. Sauls, who apparently sees nothing wrong in siding openly with partisan factions, also is being honored in June by the FreeRepublic.com group, another far-right collection of Clinton-haters.

But the Right’s media and attack groups are not alone in their campaign to consolidate public opinion around the legitimacy of Bush’s ascension to the presidency. Elements of the mainstream news media, which increasingly moves in synch with the conservative media, are serving that effort as well.

In a May 16 column, Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly torched those who still object to Bush’s victory or see a pro-Bush tilt in the media. To make his point, Kelly blended three old and new myths about the national press corps.

A 'Liberal' Media

Kelly’s argument opens with the old canard about a "liberal" news media.

The core of this argument – dating back about a quarter century – is that surveys have found Washington journalists more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, though some more refined studies, such as one sponsored by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, judged working journalists generally more liberal than the average Americans on social issues while more conservative on economic ones.

Nevertheless, the fundamental illogic of the "liberal" media argument is the supposition that working reporters control the news coverage, rather than the people who own the newspapers and television networks.

The key -- and obvious -- point is that the owners set the editorial policies and hire editors who enforce these policies. Reporters are essentially hired help whose careers rise or fall depending on how well they please the news executives.

Hypothetically, for instance, a poll of the news staff at the New York Post might show that rank-and-file editorial workers favored Gore over Bush, say, 2-to-1, a not-unreasonable supposition given the newspaper’s base in New York City. Using the "liberal media" logic then, one would conclude that the New York Post was an overwhelmingly liberal newspaper.

What that "logic" would miss, however, is that the owner, Rupert Murdoch, is a conservative who hires senior editors who reflect his point of view. These editors decide how stories are assigned, edited and placed within the newspaper. They also write the editorials, pick the columnists – and fire or demote reporters who don’t get with the program.

Therefore, it matters little that the lady writing obits might have voted for Gore or that the fellow putting headlines on wire copy might have voted for Bush. What matters is the political perspective of the people in charge. Kelly, who is editor of The Atlantic, writes as if he’s oblivious to this basic fact of journalistic life.

A Second Myth

Kelly’s second myth was his insistence that "independent news organizations have reported that, under almost any conceivable scenario of recounting the Florida vote, George W. Bush beat Al Gore." Kelly wrote that because of this supposed fact, "the cry that Bush is a robber-president has lost a bit of oomph."

Again, Kelly either was not aware of the latest news from Florida or chose to ignore it. The most recent findings of the unofficial newspaper studies of the Florida vote indicate that Gore – not only was the winner nationally by more than half a million votes – but was the choice of Florida voters.

USA Today estimated that Gore lost a net of 15,000 to 25,000 votes from confusion over poorly designed ballots – far more than Bush’s 537-vote official margin.

Yet, even ignoring those spoiled ballots, the Miami Herald and USA Today found that Gore would have won under reasonable standards for judging the clear intent of voters.

Gore would have defeated Bush by 242 votes if a statewide recount had counted so-called "overvotes" – those mistakenly kicked out by machine counters as having more than one presidential choice – and "undervotes" with perforated chads or multiple indentations, indicating that a malfunctioning voting machine had prevented voters from punching through their choice for president and other races.

Gore’s margin would have been larger if ballots with indentations only for president were counted, too. Bush would have prevailed only if all ballots with indentations were thrown out, the newspapers found. [USA Today, Miami Herald, May 11, 2001]

So, Kelly’s assertion that Gore lost under "almost any conceivable scenario" is wrong.

A Flawed Study

The third myth in Kelly’s column was his reliance on a new study by a group calling itself the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trust.

This group put out a report that purported to find that "contrary to Democratic complaints, George W. Bush has not gotten an easier ride from the American media in the first 100 days than Bill Clinton did in his famously rocky start. … Despite a very good first month, Bush’s coverage overall was actually less positive than Bill Clinton’s eight years ago."

Rather than show any skepticism about these findings, which clash with any clear recollection of the harsh treatment of Clinton versus the rave reviews for Bush, Kelly embraces the report as if it were holy writ.

Kelly even cites as support for his position an article by The Washington Post’s John Harris. But Harris’ article actually had concluded the opposite, that Bush’s coverage indeed was softer than Clinton’s. "The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton," Harris wrote, [WP, May 6, 2001]

In his May 16 column, Kelly also forgets that he was one of the commentators who earlier had perceived a friendly media attitude toward Bush. In a March 7 column listing several factors in Bush’s early success, Kelly wrote that Bush "benefits from an easy and shallow charm, which is useful in winning over an easy and shallow press corps." [Washington Post, March 7, 2001]

Yet, this one Pew-funded study swept away all the observations of Bush getting an easy ride. In a different journalistic time, a study that sharply conflicted with what was apparent to nearly any observer would draw its own scrutiny. What methodology was employed? Were the judgments slanted for some reason?

Any careful examination of the report would have shown it not to be worth the money that Pew ponied up for it. As Bob Somerby of DailyHowler.com has noted, the Pew-funded report covered not the first 100 days as advertised, but only the first 60. (Actually, the study examined about 30 days of the first 60 days, according to the study’s methodology.)

Limited Sample

More importantly, the study based its conclusions on a very narrow – and to a great extent, outdated – selection of news outlets.

The study looked at only two newspapers, The Washington Post and The New York Times. No examination was given of the increasingly influential conservative news media or even major regional newspapers. There was no counting of articles from The Washington Times, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald, or the Los Angeles Times.

It’s also not clear why the Pew-funded study did not look at the two biggest-circulation newspapers, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Since The Washington Post and The New York Times both endorsed Clinton and Gore, their editorial pages could be expected to be more supportive of Clinton and more critical of Bush, the key fact that skewed the findings.

By contrast, if the Wall Street Journal had been used, its relentlessly anti-Clinton, pro-Bush opinion articles would have tipped the survey in a different direction.

As for magazines, the study checked out only one -- Newsweek. There was no tabulation of the coverage in Murdoch’s Weekly Standard or other influential right-wing journals, such as the American Spectator, National Review and Moon’s Insight magazine.

For television, the survey was slightly broader but still missed the point about how today’s media influences the public.

The study looked at the evening news programs from CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS. It ignored coverage from the cable networks and the pundit programs, major shapers of political opinion. The study ignored MSNBC and its roster of loudmouth commentators, as well as Murdoch’s conservative-leaning Fox News and AOL Time Warner’s CNN.

Other important media outlets, such as talk radio, were missed altogether, although the impact of the conservative voices of Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy were central to tearing down Clinton at the start of his administration and building up Bush at the start of his. The Pew-funded study had other major shortcomings, endemic to such efforts to categorize coverage as "positive" or "negative" and equate that with fairness. The simple fact is that some actions are more deserving of critical coverage than others.

To say, for instance, that most coverage of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, has been negative would not necessarily mean the coverage was unfair. Similarly, politicians deserve negative coverage sometimes and other times they don’t.

One might hope that the Project for Excellence in Journalism would have exhibited a more sophisticated understanding of the workings of journalism. But this Pew-financed operation seems to be living in the 1950s when a couple of mainstream newspapers could dominate the media agenda and the major TV networks had a lock on what the public would hear from broadcast news.

Trashing the White House

This approach to quantifying coverage also misses the journalistic twists of individual stories. The first weeks of the new Bush administration, for instance, were dominated as much by critical coverage of former President Clinton as they were by positive coverage of Bush.

One of the principal tales was the story of Clinton aides allegedly trashing the White House and stripping Air Force One before departing. The story received front-page coverage in The Washington Post and was trumpeted on the pundit shows and across much of the national news media.

In this case, the Bush White House played a clever game. Officially, Bush's surrogates acted magnanimous in urging the press not to make too big a deal of the vandalism. On background, Bush's operatives fed the press juicy tidbits about slashed wiring, pornographic graffiti and looted government property.

Typical of the media’s lack of journalistic rigor when dealing with negative Clinton stories, the Washington press corps did not demand proof of the vandalism, such as photographs or other hard evidence. Instead, the press corps simply published unattributed accounts of vengeful Democrats ransacking government property, a theme that meshed well with Bush’s public call for a restoration of dignity in the White House.

Nearly four months later, the General Services Administration issued a report finding no evidence that Clinton’s aides had trashed the White House. "The condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy," the federal landlord agency said.

Unlike the front-page treatment of the allegations, the GSA report was either buried deep in newspapers or ignored altogether. The Washington Post ran a wire story on page A13 on May 18, 2001.

Nine days later, Jake Siewart, Clinton’s last press secretary, wrote an opinion column published in the Post’s Outlook section. "After years of watching the Washington press corps at work, I know it’s pointless to ask for apologies," Siewart wrote. "Apparently, most of the commentators and reporters who reported this story four months ago have ‘moved on.’ Being a journalist today means never having to say you’re sorry."

Siewart contrasted the apocryphal damage to the White House to the real damage to the reputation of Clinton aides. "The Clinton staff, who offered the new Bush team detailed briefing books, one-on-one meetings and personal tours to make the transition seamless, got to go home and have their reputations trashed by the people they had helped. All in the name of ‘changing the tone’ in Washington. And the press corps did not just sit back and watch the vandals at work; it lent a hand." [WP, May 27, 2001]

A New Era

What all this indicates is that the nation has entered a new era -- not one of political civility but one in which the words of day-to-day political discourse have grown almost fully estranged from any real meaning or attachment to fact. Propaganda – not journalism – is ascendant.

Yet, rather than climbing the ramparts to battle for the traditional values of journalism – reason, fairness and truth – many Washington media figures have chosen to spare themselves and their careers.
©2001 Robert Parry

Quotable Quote

"Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does!" … Groucho Marx

One of the Bush crowd's key critiques of the Clintonites was their addiction to the permanent campaign, always spinning and gaming and playing the electorate for advantage rather than simply governing. Yet the Bush White House seems more addicted than its predecessor ever was. And for sitting presidents, alarmism is a particularly dangerous tool. While candidates for office can scaremonger to their hearts' content, a president's popularity is inextricably tied to the public's perceptions of the well-being of the country.
©2001 Joshua Micah Marshall

It is all well and good for the media to cough up occasional chunks of pre-digested Bush-bashing, but this must not be mistaken for a bright new age of journalistic integrity. When a protest march promoting voting reform receives as much press coverage as a ghostly image etched in mineral deposits on a dirty window in Florida, then maybe I, too, will believe.
©2001 Carol Schiffler

Bush's Faustian Deal With The Taliban
by Robert Scheer

Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists and destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.

Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.

The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women?

At no point in modern history have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan, where in the name of madness masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha, and they may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter.

The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme religious theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior, from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown. It is this last power that has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House.

The Taliban fanatics, economically and diplomatically isolated, are at the breaking point, and so, in return for a pittance of legitimacy and cash from the Bush administration, they have been willing to appear to reverse themselves on the growing of opium. That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising. But it is grotesque for a U.S. official, James P. Callahan, director of the State Department's Asian anti-drug program, to describe the Taliban's special methods in the language of representative democracy: "The Taliban used a system of consensus-building," Callahan said after a visit with the Taliban, adding that the Taliban justified the ban on drugs "in very religious terms."

Of course, Callahan also reported, those who didn't obey the theocratic edict would be sent to prison.

In a country where those who break minor rules are simply beaten on the spot by religious police and others are stoned to death, it's understandable that the government's "religious" argument might be compelling. Even if it means, as Callahan concedes, that most of the farmers who grew the poppies will now confront starvation. That's because the Afghan economy has been ruined by the religious extremism of the Taliban, making the attraction of opium as a previously tolerated quick cash crop overwhelming.

For that reason, the opium ban will not last unless the United States is willing to pour far larger amounts of money into underwriting the Afghan economy.

As the Drug Enforcement Administration's Steven Casteel admitted, "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country -- or certain regions of their country -- to economic ruin." Nor did he hold out much hope for Afghan farmers growing other crops such as wheat, which require a vast infrastructure to supply water and fertilizer that no longer exists in that devastated country. There's little doubt that the Taliban will turn once again to the easily taxed cash crop of opium in order to stay in power.

The Taliban may suddenly be the dream regime of our own drug-war zealots, but in the end this alliance will prove a costly failure. Our long sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession.
©2001 Robert Scheer

Democrats Rebuff GOP In Senate
By Mark Benjamin

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Democrats said Wednesday they will reject GOP calls for special procedural protections for Bush administration nominees after the Senate changes hands and will propose that Democrats have a one seat majority over Republicans in all Senate committees.

Democrats said Wednesday they would follow precedent set by the 83rd Congress in 1953, when the GOP presided over a Senate with 48 Republicans, 47 Democrats and 1 independent. Republicans had one more senator on each committee when Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower moved into the White House after the 1952 elections.

Alaska and Hawaii weren't states in 1953, so there were only 96 senators.

Last week, Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords dramatically bolted the GOP, citing its increasingly conservative policy and little tolerance for dissent. Jeffords will be an independent, but will vote with the Democrats on organizing the Senate.

With Democrats set to control the Senate for the first time in more than six years, Republicans repeatedly have said they want some way to move possible stalled Bush administration nominees out of potentially deadlocked Senate committees and to the Senate floor.

GOP lawmakers are worried about the fate of controversial Bush appointees like Theodore B. Olson, whose nomination was only forced from an evenly split Judiciary Committee onto the Senate floor under special rules agreed between the two parties for organizing the 50-50 Senate.

Now Republicans say that because Democrats -- although the dominant party -- do not have an absolute majority, special arrangements to speed other nominees through the Senate should be devised.

"With a 50-49-1 makeup of the Senate, it is a unique situation, and it is not the same as a 51-49 majority," Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott said Tuesday. "Therefore a number of Republican senators feel a host of issues must be addressed before they would support an organizing resolution."

But Democrats said Wednesday they would reject any mechanism to give Republicans any more control over nominees.

"There is no Senate precedent for that," said Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for incoming Majority Leader Tom Daschle said. Schmelzer said Democrats would stick to the historical precedent set by the 83rd Congress following the 1952 elections, where the resolution organizing the Senate gave the GOP one-seat majorities on all committees and extended no extra parliamentary tools to the minority party.

"That is what we will be proposing," Schmelzer said. "It is in line with Senate precedent."

Republicans did not return repeated calls for comment Wednesday. But some GOP senators have said privately they have little or no hope of putting up much of a fight when Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess next week.
©2001 Mark Benjamin

Dead Letter Office

Heil Bush,

Dear Gruppenfuhrer Landrieu,

Congratulations you have just been awarded the Vidkun Quisling Award for 2001. Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling and last year’s winner Volksjudge Antoni (light-fingers) Scalia.

With your vote to weaken workers safety laws and thereby save your corporate masters billions of dollars, while eliminating useless, worn out workers from corporate responsibility, you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new world.

Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala party in das Fuhrer Bunker, formerly the White House on 7-4-2001. We salute you Frau Landrieu! Sieg Heil!

Signed,
Deputy Fuhrer Cheney

Heil Bush

Energy Crisis Populism
By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas -- Gray Davis, the Al Gore of California (are we sure this man has a bellybutton?), has suffered a conversion to populism. Funny how populism always comes back again when people notice they are getting gouged by corporations.

The last time we had unregulated electricity markets in the United States was in the 1880s, and energy writer Harvey Wasserman describes it as "an unmitigated disaster: a short-term free-for-all followed by an avalanche of corporate consolidation."

George Westinghouse and J.P. Morgan (General Electric) were the largest among the few remaining behemoths. Morgan wanted to "avoid the inconveniences of competition, which he considered barbaric, an unconscionable waste of resources." They monopolized urban lighting, power and trolley companies by the simple expedient of buying entire state legislatures, not to mention one of the most corrupt Congresses in our history -- the one that inspired Mark Twin's famous observation on our only native criminal class.

In 1893, the country was hit by a terrible depression and part of the populist response was to form "munis" -- municipally owned utilities. In Detroit, the price of running a streetlamp fell from $132 in 1894 under private control to $63 a year in 1902 under municipal control. War raged between the munis and the private utilities. "Munis everywhere offered cheaper rates and a political freedom unknown where private barons owned both the utility and the government."

I bring up this history because Ken Lay of Enron Corp., the country's largest electricity trader, appears to have been studying J.P. Morgan. The New York Times reported last week Lay had called the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and told him he would support his continuing as chairman if he changed his stance on energy deregulation to coincide with Enron. Lay denies there was a quid pro quo and says the decision about the chairman will be made by the White House. However, there is considerable evidence that Lay and the White House are as one.

Enron and its executives gave $2.4 million to federal candidates in the last election, 72 percent of it to Republicans. Lay personally is one of Bush's major, major donors. That's a lot of "access."

Lay is a busy fellow. In addition to helping Dick Cheney with the White House energy plan, he was in California last week visiting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Riordan, both potential candidates for governor against Davis. Michael Milken and other luminaries also attended.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Lay wants more rate increases, an end to state and federal investigations of price manipulation, and less regulation. He also wants more federal control over the power grid and believes state power authorities should be scrapped.

Let's see now. If you were running for governor of California, would you run on a plan devised by the company that is making staggering profits (a 281 percent increase in revenues in the first quarter) out of your state's misery?

Davis, meanwhile, is preparing to sue FERC for not putting a cap on energy prices after the commission's finding last year that the California market is dysfunctional and the rates are "unjust and unreasonable." Bush went to California and, as the Los Angeles Times put it, "wagged his finger and lectured Californians that the energy issue needs action ... not political excuses and blame-laying. But he brought little action with him and once again stiffed the state."

The last president who capped energy prices was that mastermind Richard Nixon. What Davis wants FERC to do is considerably different. He is willing to guarantee power companies profits of 30 percent to 40 percent, which all would have to agree is rather on the generous side.

California's power problem is short term: The state is building new plants at an amazing rate (four this year, four next). But in the meantime, Californians have watched prices go from $30 a megawatt in 1999 to $1,900 this spring. That's ridiculous.

Bush worries that a cap will "spread the shortage," but as others have pointed out, it is more likely to increase short-term supplies and save California utility companies. The state can then build its way of the supply problem -- which is actually a transmission problem.

According to Davis, Bush agreed with him that it makes no sense that the price of natural gas going from Texas to California is $14 per BTU, while the price going from Texas to New York is $5. He agreed to see if something could be done about it.

True, California's plan is stupid in that consumers have no incentive to turn off their air conditioners, but letting the utility companies charge the ratepayers (as happened in San Diego) willy-nilly would be even stupider. The distribution system for electricity is still a "natural monopoly." You can't give monopolies free rein because, as has been proved time and again, there is no limit to greed. Those old populists knew what they were talking about.
©2001 Molly Ivins

The Jeb Bush Affair Story That Won't Go Away
by Al Martin

Al Martin Raw has once again scored yet another coup in our ongoing effort to bring the truth to the American people.

Governor Jeb Bush called a news conference to deny allegations of having an affair with one Cynthia Henderson. Ms Henderson, a former Playboy bunny, is a senior employee at the Florida State Department of Resource Management.

The Governor did not however specifically address allegations made on the Al Martin Raw Website that he was aware he been videotaped by an FBI surveillance camera at the 2001 Super Bowl held in Tampa. Nor would the Governor address what was raised on Al Martin Raw that in fact Ms. Henderson was seeking money to keep quiet about her affair with the Florida Governor.

Governor Jeb Bush further denied a previous rumor that he had an affair with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. But that was a different affair altogether.

In fact, Al Martin Raw knew it was Cynthia Henderson in this case, and not Katherine Harris, but withheld that information.

Governor Jeb Bush said he was responding to increasing media pressure on this subject, more specifically on allegations from a website called Democrats Dot Com. This site has been known to use information from the Al Martin Raw website. After the Governor's denial, the Democrats Dot Com backed down, saying they had perhaps been given wrong information about their allegations.

Of course, it should be noted that Democrats Dot Com is nothing more than a recirculator of others' stories and does no independent investigation of its own.

However, we at the Al Martin Raw website stand behind the allegations in our story (http://www.almartinraw.com/column6.html. And we will not back down.

The source of our story comes from a highly placed individual within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who has a long track record of credibility in such matters and who was in a position to know of this matter, to wit Jeb and the girlfriend at the Super Bowl.

The problem with the Democrats Dot Com website is that it gives Jeb Bush an out to say that these allegations are just "political." After Al Martin Raw broke this story, it was on countless newswires. Bush is however insinuating that they are the only ones who made this allegation and so there is a political motive. We thoroughly investigate our information even in this age of corporate journalism in which investigative journalism has become passé.

The Al Martin Raw Website continues to vigorously investigate and, yes, even spend money on investigating new stories. And here's more information you won't find anywhere else. Ms. Henderson worked for Neil Bush back in the Iran Contra days when he was running Gulf Stream Realty, the west coast Florida land fraud company.

Another source has revealed to Al Martin Raw that the reason the Bushes have carried her all these years and made sure she's earned a living and gotten good appointments is because of things she may have found out about Neil and Jeb when she was working for Neil in the mid 1980s.

Ms. Henderson may have found out the extent of the fraud they were committing at Gulf Stream Realty Group. Besides being a counsel, Ms. Henderson also had an affiliation with one of Jeb's artifices - IMC -- the International Medical Corporation Swindle.

The reason the Bushes may have carried her all these years is because of something she found out about the extent of the Bush Brothers' frauds during the Iran Contra period. Nobody has investigated this.

Why didn't they get rid of Ms. Henderson? She could have been smart. She could have made copies of incriminating documents and squirreled them away. The Bush Brothers, particularly Neil and Jeb, have been known for having many affairs and many women. So why was this woman treated differently? Why have they tried to help her over the years, to make sure she was consistently employed at a $60,000-70,000 a year level? Because she found out, while being affiliated with Neil, during the Iran Contra period, just how much fraud Neil and Jeb had been committing through various fraudulent artifices they were controlling at the time.

Maybe Ms. Henderson just knows too much about Neil and Jeb Bush's Iran-Contra profiteering…
©2001 by Al Martin

The Cartoon Corner

This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of Kevin Siers.

California's Screamin'

Sung to the tune of "California Dreamin'
With apologies to The Mamas & The Papas

(instrumental intro)

Power grids are down.
Californians pray.
Hear Dubya talk:
"They'll just have to pay!"
The globe is getting warm.
But Bush says he'll delay.

California's screamin'
About how much they'll pay.

Bush stopped all research
To find a better way.
Got this state down on its knees
'Cause of Election Day.
You know this White House has been sold.
Big Oil is gonna stay.

California's screamin'
About how much they'll pay.

(instrumental break)

Power grids are down.
Californians pray.
Hear Dubya talk:
"They'll just have to pay!"
Bush friends are the sellers.
Enron eased the way.

California's screamin'
About how much they'll pay.
(California's screamin')
About how much they'll pay.
(California's screamin')
About how much they'll pay.
New lyrics by W.K. Tong

National Strikes One, Two, Three.

Greetings from the very beautiful and independent state of Vermont. You may not have known that Vermont is also the birthplace of National Strikes One, Two, Three, AKA The Baseball Strikes. Needless to say, National Strike One went very well, indeed, here in Vermont as well as throughout the rest of the nation. The fact that Senator Jeffords, of Vermont, made public his intention to leave right wing Republicans, one day after National Strike One ended, has sent a powerful signal to all. This announcement and party switch also occurred in the week following the Voter March in Washington, DC, and San Francisco. He could have picked any week of any month to switch parties. That he chose the week following two national protest demonstrations is significant to our efforts. If our Senators sense the majority of us are in favor of right wing policies, they would not feel compelled to oppose them. Senator Jeffords got the message loud and clear here in Vermont, and he joined National Strike One by refusing to participate in what he could not agree with ethically or legally.

For more information about National Strike Two, as well as how to create a permanent national strike force capability, to protect us from election fraud, go to the new Strike Two webpage at the following link: http://hometown.aol.com/estrellaberosini/index.html

Best Wishes,
Estrella Holtzknecht/Berosini
founder of National Strike One, AKA The Baseball Strikes,
and Personal Election Protection, PEP, AKA Permanent National Strike Force Capability

The Great International Voluntary Rolling Blackout

As an alternative to George W. Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21, from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. It doesn't matter what time zone you, what state, what country. If we all turn out the lights at 7 p.m. regardless of where we live, the "blackout" will roll across the planet!

It's a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights, televisions, radios and more from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. on June 21. If it plugs in, turn it off! Light a candle to read by, kiss your lover in the moonlight, take a stroll in the dark, tell your children ghost stories, or make up a new and innovative activity that requires no electricity. All you have to do is have fun in the dark.

Forward this web site as widely as possible, to your government representatives and environmental contacts.

Nathan Rudy
Council Vice President, North Plainfield
184 Sandford Avenue
North Plainfield, NJ 07060 http://members.bellatlantic.net/~nrudy/

National Pro-Democracy Convention
Shaping the Future of Democracy in America: From Voter Disenfranchisement to a Voters' Bill of Rights … June 29 - July 1, 2001

From June 29 to July 1st, 2001, the Center for Constitutional Rights and a coalition of civil rights/human rights organizations, including www.votermarch.org, are sponsoring a National Pro-Democracy Convention at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Convention is being convened in response to the disenfranchisement of thousands, if not millions of voters in the recent Presidential election.

With the Voter's Bill of Rights as a primary focus, the National Pro-Democracy Convention will be a vehicle to gather up and galvanize the disparate and disaffected constituencies and movements outraged by the flawed election to build a permanent force for real democracy.

The Convention will include a range of important activities:

* Preceding the convention, there will be a Training Institute for anyone interested in intensive work towards election reform.

* The kick- off event for the Convention will be a National Town Hall Meeting, where national leaders will speak out about Election 2000 and offer recommendations for democratic reforms.

* Throughout the convention, there will be continuous information and discussion around the principles outlined in the Voters' Bill of Rights and strategies for strengthening the pro-democracy movement.

The organizers of the Pro-Democracy Convention are determined that what happened during the 2000 presidential election will never occur again in our country. We accept the challenge to energize the broadest coalition of organizations, constituencies and individuals to fulfill this nation's promise of truly being a bright beacon of democracy and human rights for the world.

To register or for more information, see
www.pro-democracy.com or e-mail demconv@ccr-ny.org.

TO OUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

We, the undersigned voters, know that our cherished democracy is endangered from within by the grave and potentially fatal flaws in our voting systems exposed by the Presidential Election of 2000.

As our elected representatives, you have the duty, the opportunity, and the privilege to correct these flaws and to restore fair and honest elections throughout our nation. To this end, we charge you to construct and pass a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS, which shall include:

Strict enforcement and extension of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the disenfranchisement of voters and require full investigation and criminal prosecution of any offenders;

Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots

Funding to replace old and unreliable voting machines to ensure that every vote is counted fairly and accurately

Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special interests

Replacement of the Electoral College with a majority-rule election, or substantial reform of the Electoral College to allow for proportional representation

Measures to increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to voter registration and turnout, including language barriers, physical barriers, archaic equipment, and lack of resources

Enactment and enforcement of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS will restore trust in our government and encourage participation in our democratic processes. The linchpin of a democracy is the process by which we select our representatives and leaders. The right to vote is our defining right as citizens of this nation. We call upon our elected representatives to protect our Constitution from abusive exercise of government power by enacting a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

We pledge our full and constant support for enactment of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.

A Note of Protest:

It is likely that 50% of the U.S. population is strongly dissatisfied with the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the office of President. There are three likely reasons:
1. Bush won the election under questionable circumstances;
2. Bush has espoused a reactionary platform that places him far to the right of mainstream America;
3. Bush has demonstrated none of the intellectual attributes expected of a president.

In the interest of democracy, one could discredit election gripes (point number one) as being unfair to our longstanding electoral college process.. Also, one might disregard Bush’s agenda (point number two) because the hallmark of the United States Constitution is tolerance for divergent political and moral beliefs.

However, point number three leads to a more egregious problem, namely that a rather anonymous man, with no distinguishing ambition or vision has, by virtue of family wealth and connection, been installed as President of the United States. Even the most cursory glance at George W. Bush’s history and character builds a strong case for charges of nepotism and cronyism. Such a glaring display of favoritism, to benefit an individual with no considerable talent, runs counter to the spirit of competition and fair play that has driven the engine of American capitalism for more than two hundred years.

There is a way to tangibly and immediately raise a voice in protest of George W. Bush as President. For the remainder of his term, conscientious Americans should simply write "George W. Bush is an Idiot" on all U.S. currency that passes through their hands.

This protest has already begun. The first bills were marked and spent in San Francisco as of January 26, 2001. What is important, though, is to not only begin marking all currency (and to continue the effort throughout the Bush presidency), but to forward this memo as much as possible so as to replicate the message throughout our money supply.

In an effort to mark money more industriously, many of us have ordered a BUSH IS A FRAUD rubber stamp; these self-inking rubber stamps are useful for marking the "Fraud" message in red ink.

Make your voice heard,
Steven Capozzola
San Francisco, California