Niagara Falls Reporter http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com PRESIDENT NOW CLAIMS TO BE LITERATE By Bill Gallagher August 29 2006 DETROIT -- President George W. Bush and his handlers lie about all things great and small. They are addicted to deception and are always able to propagate their prevarications with the reliable assistance of the mainstream media. From the ridiculous claim that Bush is a voracious reader to the laughable suggestion that he had never linked Iraq and Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks, this administration treats the American people like they are dumb as rocks. The president's book-reading binge is one of the biggest howlers the Busheviks have ever tried to foist on a demonstrably gullible public. "U.S. News & World Report" carried a piece claiming that Bush is "eager to dispel his image as an intellectual lightweight" and is striving to be known as a "man of letters." The magazine reports, "In fact, Bush has entered a book-reading contest with Karl Rove, his political adviser." Now a whopper for the ages: "White House aides say the president has read 60 books so far this year (while the brainy Rove, to Bush's competitive delight, has raked up only 50)." That is pure crap. Anyone who believes Bush has breezed through 60 volumes of serious literature this year should be eligible for a mental health disability or a Bush Cabinet appointment. I would, however, accept the 60 number as Bush's lifetime count. This is the man who didn't bother reading a CIA briefing paper entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S." This is the commander in chief who never bothered reading his own State Department reports warning that Iraq could erupt into sectarian violence. This is the president who prides himself on just glancing at headlines but "rarely" reading newspaper articles because "a lot of times there's opinion mixed in with news." Instead, Bush relies on his crack staff to keep him informed. In truth, Bush always chooses fawning support over challenging exchanges. Better to rely on The Daily Condi than to read yourself and, God forbid, think and reflect. But we are now told a man who disdains complexity and subtlety, the most visceral president in American history, has transformed and is reading books faster than Rush Limbaugh gets his prescriptions filled. George W. Bush's previous commitment to literature was best reflected in his determination to get through "My Pet Goat" with a second-grade class in Florida on Sept. 11, 2001. The president stuck with the reading drill for six minutes after being informed that planes had struck the World Trade Center. Now Bush is adding "reader in chief" to his many titles. The White House has graciously provided a partial list of the books he's devouring at a clip that would make Thomas Jefferson seem like a slacker. Bush's reading list looks like he's possessed of wide-ranging intellectual curiosity. Don't let his cowpoke ways and frequent mangling of the English language fool you. We are blessed with a leader who truly is a man of letters, a born-again Renaissance man in our midst. Bush, we are told, has read everything from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" to Leigh Montville's "The Big Bam: The Lives and Times of Babe Ruth" to Richard Carwardine's "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power" to David Oshinsky's "Polio: An American Story." I would love to have the time and discipline to read more about Oppie, the Babe, Abe and polio. So far, I've only been able to read the reviews of those books. I have never had any desire to participate in a book-reading contest. Reading books is about their intrinsic value, not some juvenile competition. I don't keep track of my reading consumption, but my best guess is that I've read 20 to 25 so far this year. I would highly recommend my most recent reads to our newly bookish Bush: Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11" and Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq." The volumes share a frightening assessment of Bush's policies, isolation from reality and monumental failures. But there is no way Laura, Barbara and Condi -- Bush's nanny corps -- would ever allow him to read anything that might strain his psyche. Such worrying is better left to the entire nation. Back in the days when Bush was governor of Texas and executing people at about the same rate he claims he's reading books, he said something most revealing: "I know there is no evidence that shows the death penalty has a deterrent effect -- but I feel in my gut it must be true." Bush's gut told him Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and conducting a pre-emptive war there would make the world safer and democracy would blossom in the Middle East. If Bush had read anything about the British experience in the region following World War I, he might have thought otherwise. That would require actually reading and thinking -- not responding to his bowels, twitches or itches. To sell his gut instincts, Bush had to use fiction: Iraq was somehow linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. While the big lie worked very well, Bush is now denying he employed it. In his bizarre news conference last week, Bush again deceptively conflated the war with the Sept. 11 attacks. Reporter Ken Herman of Cox Newspapers had the guts to call Bush out on his deliberate deception. Here's the exchange. Bush: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were ... Herman: What did Iraq have to do with that? Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what? Herman: The attacks upon the World Trade Center. Bush: Nothing. Except for it's part of -- and nobody ever suggested that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. Amazing. The Busheviks were never so candid about Iraq's non-involvement in the attacks before the invasion. For a long time, most Americans bought the monstrous lies and supported the war based on them. And the lies live on. A Zogby poll in March showed 85 percent of the U.S. troops in Iraq believe they are there "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks." Seventy-seven percent of them believe the major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaeda in Iraq." The troops believe those lies because that is what the Bush military is telling them. Affairs of state forced Bush to cram his reading at this summer's truncated trek to his Texas ranch -- a mere ten days. Albert Camus' "The Stranger" was one the White House touted. Camus, a Noble laureate, was born in Algeria and wrote in French. Sacre bleu! Bush, we're told, read the English translation of the story of Meursault, an alienated, unfeeling man. "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart grabbed the existentialist moment: "A classic novel about a westerner that kills an Arab for no good reason and dies with no remorse. Why that should strike a nerve, I don't know." Books unread are truths unspoken. "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" also appear on Bush's recent reading list. At first, I wondered how someone who struggles with modern English finds entertainment and relaxation in Shakespeare's Elizabethan verse. Then again, those plays are so filled with treachery, lies, deceptions and killings, Bush must find them familiar and comforting. Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net. ***** Norwegian police find Munch's "The Scream" Reuters Thu Aug 31, 2006 Norwegian police recovered "The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by Edvard Munch on Thursday, two years after the works were seized from a museum by gunmen. "We are 100 percent certain they are the originals," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage was much less than feared." "The Scream" depicts a terrified figure under a blood-red sky. The other, "Madonna," shows a bare-breasted woman with long black hair. Two armed men broke into the Munch Museum in Oslo in August 2004 and yanked the two works from the walls in front of dozens of terrified tourists. The paintings, both from 1893, have been missing even though three men were convicted in May of taking part in the theft and were sentenced to up to eight years in jail. Two of them were ordered to pay $122 million in damages. ***** August 30, 2006 Pop Goes the Bubble! The Great Housing Crash of '07 By MIKE WHITNEY Counterpunch.org This month's figures prove that the so-called "housing bubble" is not only real, but that its cratering faster than anyone had realized. As the UK Guardian reported just yesterday, "the orderly housing slowdown predicted by the Federal Reserve will (soon) become a full-blown crash". All the indicators are now pointing in the wrong direction. Consumer confidence is down, inventory is at a 10 year high, and the number of homes sold in July was 22% lower than last year. As Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics said, "Things seem to be getting worse very quickly. Freefall is a strong word, but I think it's the right one to use here." (UK Guardian) The housing bubble is a $10 trillion equity balloon that will explode sometime in 2007 when more than $1 trillion in no-interest, no down payment, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) reset; setting the stage for massive home devaluation, foreclosures and unemployment. ("By some estimates housing activity has accounted for 40% of all the jobs created since 2001". Times Online) July's plunging sales are just the first sign of a major slowdown. The worst is yet to come. The blame for this rapidly-approaching meltdown lies entirely with the Federal Reserve, the privately-owned collection of 10 central banks who cooked up a way to shift wealth from one class to another through low interest rates. Sound crazy? Well, just as high interest rates cause the economy to slow down; low interest rates have the exact opposite effect by stimulating the economy through increased spending. It's all pretty clear-cut. When the stock market nose-dived in 2000 the Fed lowered rates 17 times to an unbelievable 1% to keep the economy sputtering-along while the Bush administration dragged the country to war, gave away $450 billion a year in tax cuts, and awarded zillions in no bid contracts to their friends in big business. All tolled, the Bush-handouts amounted to roughly $3 trillion dollars, the largest heist in history, and it was carried out under the nose of the snoozing American public. At the same time, America's debts and deficits have continued to mushroom behind the smokescreen of low interest rates. Rather than face the recession which should have followed stock market crash, the Fed chose to increase the money supply (which doubled in the last 7 years) and lower the qualifications for getting mortgages. (I read recently that 90% of first time home buyers not only lie on their mortgage applications, but that 50% of them say that they earn TWICE as much as they really do. The applications are not cross-checked with IRS statements) Now, tens of thousands of Americans live in $400,000 and $500,000 homes without a penny of equity in them and with loans that are timed to increase dramatically in 2007. (Many of the monthly payments will double) So, how can we blame the Fed for the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the average homeowner? Well, because they knew the effects of their "cheap money" policy every step of the way. First of all, the Fed knew exactly where the money was going. Greenspan endorsed the shabby new lending-regime which put hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of people who never should have qualified for mortgages. They were set up to fail just like the victims in the stock market scam who kept dumping their life savings in the NASDAQ when PE's were shooting through the stratosphere. Secondly, the Fed knew that wages had actually regressed (2.3%) since Bush took office, so they knew that the soaring value of real estate was entirely predicated on debt not real wealth. In other words, home values increased because of the availability of cheap money which inevitably creates a buying-frenzy. It had nothing to do with real demand or growth in wages. And, thirdly, according to the Fed's own figures, "the total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006"up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion". Times Online. UP $10 TRILLION IN 7 YEARS! That is the very definition of a humongous, economy-killing equity monster. In other words, the Fed knew the ACTUAL SIZE OF THE BUBBLE and chose to steer it towards the nearest iceberg without warning the public. This is what Greenspan called "a little froth". There is no real growth in the American economy. Figure it out. Last year Americans saved less than 0% of their net earnings while they borrowed a whopping $600 billion from their home equity to piss-away on a consumer spending-spree. Once home prices begin to retreat, that $600 billion will evaporate, real GDP will shrivel, and the economy will begin flat-lining. (Consumer spending is 70% of GDP) The Federal Reserve's plan is so simple; we shouldn't dignify it by calling it a conspiracy. It's merely a matter of hypnotizing the masses with low interest rates while trillions of dollars of real wealth is diverted to corporate big-wigs and American plutocrats. It might not be rocket science, but it worked like a charm. Now, the trap-door has been sprung; the country is dead-broke and all the levers are in place for a police state. As the housing-balloon slowly limps towards earth, the new Halliburton detention centers are up and running, the National Guard is in Rummy's control, the Feds are able to listen-in on every phone call we make. The noose is beginning to tighten. New Orleans was just a dress rehearsal for the new world order; 300,000 million Americans reduced to grinding poverty while the economy explodes into sheets of flames. Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com ***** Ilene PRoctor INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS Press Contact: Ilene Proctor and Margery Epstein Direct Line: (310) 271.5857 Cell: (310) 721.2336 E-mail: proctor@artnet.net www.ileneproctor.com Camp Democracy Sept. 5 - 21st in Washington DC Beginning September 5th, we will launch a non-partisan camp for peace, democracy, and the restoration of the rule of law. Camp Casey will move from Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to create a larger camp focused not only on ending the war but also on righting injustices here at home and on holding accountable the Bush Administration and Congress. Join us 9/5 - 8 and 9/12 - 21: CONSTITUTION AVE, between 14 & 15 Streets; and 9/9-11 ON THE NATIONAL MALL, from 3RD TO 7TH ST. The full and constantly updated schedule is available online: http://campdemocracy.org/schedule Highlights of Camp Democracy First Week Events: Sept. 4th: 8 p.m. Precamp Fundraiser with investigative journalist Greg Palast and Code Pink Co-Founder Gael Murphy discussing the latest breaking news about Katrina Devastation, Middle East Wars and more. Busboys and Poets 2021 14th Street NW - Near U St. Metro, Green Line. $25 requested donation. Sept. 5th: Opening Day with Gold Star Families for Peace, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out. Free Concert featuring Anne Feeney and Emma's Revolution. Sept. 6th Progressive Democrats of America: Organizing the Progressive Agenda 3-4 p.m. Panel Discussion on National Health Care led by Joel Segal Rep. Conyer’s Lead Staffer on Heath. 4-5 p.m. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, just back from New Orleans, on Gulf Coast Disaster. 6-7 p.m. Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Lynn Woolsey on legislation cut off funding for Iraq War. Congress Members Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, and Bob Filner will also speak. Sept 7th 3-4pm Discussion with producer Robert Greenwald Producer of documentaries including: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election. Sept.9th 2-4 p.m. Whistleblowing 101 with Former Reagan Admin. CIA Official Ray McGovern & Lt Colonel (USAF ret) Karen Kwiatowski followed by Free Public Viewing of film "Why We Fight." Mike Stark - Target of Bill O'Reilly Threats - discusses counter-acting right wing hate radio. Sept. 10th 3 pm Col. Ann Wright (USAF ret.) who resigned from the State Dept. to protest Iraq War will speak. Sept. 11th 10:30-noon Sheldon Rampton, Center for Media and Democracy: The Best War Ever, Larry C. Johnson former CIA Official, War Lies and U.S Intelligence, joined by ARUN GANDHI, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, on peace and nonviolence. Free Public viewing of film about Gandhi “100 Years of Nonviolence.” Camp Democracy Spokespeople David Swanson Organizer of Camp Democracy 202-329-7847 david@davidswanson.org Nancy Lessin, Co-founder, Military Families Speak Out 617-320-5301 mfso@mfso.org Linda Schade Executive Director VotersforPeace lindaschade@earthlink.net Michael T. McPhearson Executive Director of Veterans For Peace 314-303-8874 vfped@sbcglobal.net David Cline National President of Veterans For Peace 201-876-0430 daoudc@aol.com Ellen Barfield Board Member of Veterans for Peace 410-243-5876 ellene4pj@yahoo.com Sue Udry Legislative Director of United for Peace and Justice 301-565-4050 sue@unitedforpeace.org Mike Hersh National Staff Member of Progressive Democrats of America 240-483-3191 mikehersh.com@verizon.net Nick Mottern Director of Consumers for Peace 914-806-6179 nickmottern@earthlink.net Vicenta Montoya 702-386-5705 Vicenta532@aol.com Gael Murphy 202-412-6700 gael@codepinkalert.org Lee Siu Hin National Coordinator of the National Immigrant Solidarity Network 626-695-3405 siuhin@aol.com Dave Lindorff Author of "The Case for Impeachment". 215-793-9390 dlindorff@mindspring.com Kevin Zeese Executive Director of DemocracyRising.US 301-996-6582 kzeese@democracyrising.us Larry Everest Author of "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda". 510-472-8484 larryeverest@yahoo.com Debra Sweet National Coordinator, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime 718-809-3803 debra@worldcantwait.org For Cindy Sheehan (who's not coming to Camp Democracy,for health reasons): Tiffany Burns 562-912-5859 campcaseymom@yahoo.com PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS: http://campdemocracy.org/spread/hartmann