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David Zirin and John Cox: French Soccer and the Future of Europe (Edge of Sports). French ultra-right winger Jean-Marie Le Pen is in a funk because the French football team everyone else in the country is in love with (because they defeated Spain and Brazil to make it to the final game against Italy) is multiethnic. Le Pen just doesn't like those people of color being called "French." "It is paradoxical that a victory by France, a country with as grisly a colonial past as any European power, could be a cause for celebration by immigrants and fighters for social justice. But as last year's 'suburb' riots and mass youth demonstrations have shown, there is a battle over the future of French politics and by extension, the future of Europe. Anti- Arab and Moslem sentiment is by no means monopolized by Le Pen and his cronies on the far right. Whether or not they defeat Italy for the title, the astonishing success of France's multi-ethnic team presents another vision for the future of the continent." (7 July 2006)

Daniel Gilbert: If only gay sex caused global warming (LA Times). The danger to life as we know it posed by global warming is several orders of magnitude greater than the dangers posed by all the world's terrorists keeping themselves busy for a decade. Yet the Bush administration, and many others in positions of power, ignore global warming and focus most of their attention on the possibility of terrorist attacks and the terrors of gay marriage and flag-burning. Why? It's not just that they're greedy and block-headed, though there is that. Here's the rest of it. (7 July 2006)

Geoff Kelly: The Buffalo News Pimps the Casino (Artvoice). More and more, the Buffalo News drifts to full-bore stenography. On July 3, the News ran an article by Sharon Linstedt about a survey purporting to prove that the Seneca gambling joint in downtown Buffalo had wide public support. That would be good news indeed for the Seneca Gaming Corporation were it not for the troublesome fact that the survey was a ringer. It was what people in the industry call a "push poll," one in which the questions are written to get a desired outcome. Linstedt knew this because she had seen the questions, but she ignored that information and just worked from the SGC handout. Artvoice editor Geoff Kelly read the survey questionaire, which clearly showed that the numbers on the Seneca Gaming Corporation handout that the Buffalo News published were just more hype, like those mendacious radio and tv ads they ran in the month before the bogus survey was done. It's obvious why SGC would do that: they're hot to suck more money out of the local community than they now are in the two casinos they already have. Greed is easy enough to understand. But why would the Buffalo News publish trash like this? Usually, they keep this kind of misdirection and misinformation on the editorial page. (6 July 2006)

Jimmy Carter: Our Nation Needs Fewer Secrets (Common Dreams/Miami Herald). The Bush Administration and the Wall Street Journal editorial page have been portraying the New York Times as a corporate Benedict Arnold because the Times ran a detailed article on how the US was using the never-ending borderless war on terrorism to justify a program of combing international money records for information on, well, just about everybody. The Buffalo News ran an editorial cartoon depicting Osama Bin Laden in full battle gear with the Times logo tatooed on his arm. Nonsense. We need more articles like that, more newspapers doing what the Times did, more daylight in the rooms these guys prefer to keep shuttered 24/7. More important, says Jimmy Carter, we need to just get rid of all those secrets nobody (except people with something to hide) needs in the first place. (6 July 2006)

Consultant Breached FBI'S Computers (Washington Post). Not only does the FBI have a computer system less sophisticated and less organized than a junior college, but the system is also more vulnerable: A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI's classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The break-ins...gave the consultant access to records in the Witness Protection Program and details on counterespionage activity." (6 July 2006)

Mark Sommer: Against the Iraq War, Buffalo Veteran Heads to Canada (Common Dreams/Buffalo News). For some patriots, the really courageous act is refusing to kill when you know it is wrong, no matter what the White House says. (6 July 2006)

An innocent is executed (For Wayne Journal Gazette). Antonin Scalia, generally regarded as the most arrogant and cynical of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court, describes himself as a strict constructionist, someone who wouldn't tinker with the the Founders' Constitutional intentions. And so he is, except when he feels like going in another direction. He justifies his consistent support of the death penalty on the fact that a majority of American seem to like it. And, he says, because the safeguards are such that innocents are never put to death, only the guility. Which shows he is not troubled by facts, either. (6 July 2006)

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We Shall Overcome: An Hour with Legendary Folk Singer & Activist Pete Seeger (Democracy Now!). On July 3, Democracy Now! broadcast Amy Goodman's 2004 interview with Pete Seeger. The whole hour is terrific. Our favorite line is Pete on why it's worthwhile to keep on keepin' on: "Little things lead to bigger things. That's what seeds are all about." Here's a page with links to a transcript, streaming video and audio versions of the show. Happy Fourth of July.

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Walt Whitman: Song of Myself. The White House and Pentagon are populated by bloodthirsty Constitution-hating fanatics. Law professors at Harvard and Berkeley insist that torture is a virtuous act if it is done by people as virtuous as themselves. The Republic is in trouble, folks! Time to take a break from the lunacy and rhetoric and hypocritical flag-waving to relax with someone who loved people, who loved his country, and who really believed democracy was a good thing. (3 July 2006)

Seymour M. Hersh: Last Stand (New Yorker). Bush, Cheney and Rumsfelt are hot to start a new war in Iran. The Pentagon is telling them they're nuts: an air war won't be effective and there is no hard evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program anyway. Hah! say Rummy, Dick and Dubya: that's just what you guys said before we bombed and invaded Iraq! (3 July 2006)

Alan Dershowitz: Should we fight terror with torture? (The Independent). In what is perhaps his most tortured rationale in favor of torture yet, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz explains that if good guys like us torture people we suspect are bad guys, the people at fault for the torture aren't the guys with the truncheons, electric wires and skin peelers, but rather the poor bastards getting the raps on the head, the electricity through their genitals or their skin peeled off. It's Torquemada redux! (3 July 2006)

War-lover Lieberman may run as independent (NY Times). Consistent with his pouty if-I-can't-have-it-you-won't-either history,Connecticut senator Joseph Lieberman, one of George W. Bush's most enthusiastic backers on the Iraq war, says that if he is defeated in the Democratic primary next month he will run as an independent, a move almost certain to throw his Senate seat to Republicans. (3 July 2006)

Drenching the airwaves with distorted info pays off, Seneca survey shows (Buffalo News). After spending a fortune drenching Buffalo's airwaves with ads telling huge lies about the proposed downtown casino, the Seneca Gaming Corporation hired a pollster to find out if the ads worked. Guess what? In the absence of any counter-ad campaign, the public turns out to have been bamboozled. If they can buy that kind of confusion and city hall with the money they've got to play with now, what will happen once they're sucking a fortune out of Buffalo's economy as well? Consistent with the newspaper's pro-casino posture, this Buffalo News story about the poll doesn't mention the key that it was what people in the industry call a "push poll"--one in which the questions are stacked to get a predetermined result. Respondents were asked "How would you feel about the casino if you knew that it would create 1000 new jobs?" and "How would you feel about the casino if you knew it would bring $5-7 million to the city of Buffalo." There were no questions about the inevitable detrimental effects of the casino. Of course the results were favorable. Zogby was paid to deliver that result, and did. What's the Buffalo News's excuse for covering up the real nature of the survey? (3 July 2006)

Andrew Sullivan: The Founding Fathers save America's soul (Times of London). "The president is not an old-style monarch, empowered in wartime to make up rules as he goes along to defend his subjects. He is not the law. He must obey the law, as all citizens must. And in a series of actions and decisions after 9/11, President George W Bush in effect broke the law, violated his oath of office and pushed the limits of his power beyond the permissible." (3 July 2006)

Uri Avnery: Agatha in the Rain (Gush Shalom). "The connection between the 'kidnapped soldier' and the operation exists only in the realm of propaganda. The same goes for the second pretext: that the aim is to put an end to the launching of Qassam rockets at the town of Sderot....But the Qassams, too, are not the real cause of the 'Summer Rains' operation. Its character shows that it has a much wider aim: to destroy the elected Palestinian government (Israeli propaganda's 'Hamas Government') and bring the Palestinian population to its knees. This is supposed to make it possible for the Israeli government to carry out the 'Convergence' plan, annexing major parts of the West Bank to Israel and preventing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. A clear aim, which the operation is designed to attain by simple means: breaking the Palestinian population by the liquidation of its leadership, destruction of its infrastructure and cutting off of food supplies, medicines, electricity, water and sanitary services - not to mention employment. The message to the Palestinians: if you want to put an end to your suffering, remove the government you have elected. Can this succeed? Exactly like the the success of the British operation. 'Agatha' achieved the very opposite." (3 July 2006)

Adam Liptak: The Court Enters the War, Loudly (NY Times). Berkeley law professor John C. Yoo, the Bush administration's Alfred Rosenberg, is throwing a hissy-fit because the Supreme Court says presidential whim doesn't trump the Constitution. Boalt is going to spend a long time living this turkey appointment down. (2 July 2006)

Brian Higgins as casino pimp (Buffalo News). Some people thought the reason Republican-in-Democrat-drag Congressman Brian Higgins has been silent on the downtown casino issue was because he wanted people to forget that he was one of the obedient assemblymen who voted for the Pataki-Seneca compact that made it possible. Now it appears he's really involved in the sorry affair: he's attempting to broker a deal that would funnel some slot machine profits directly to Buffalo's cultural organizations. He says it's because he supports the arts. More likely, he's helping the Seneca Gaming Corporation make sure the cultural leadership doesn't join the casino opposition. (2 July 2006)

Bruce L. Fisher: Gambling, smoking and more--for the arts? "If I were mayor of Buffalo and looking to buy favor from the cultural community," writes Fisher, the Deputy Erie County Executive, "why stop at taking the dough from people who lose dough at the slot machine joint coming our way? There's real money in asbestos, too; maybe we should give Bolivia, or Chad, or Uzbekistan a piece of Buffalo in which they can avoid our state's toxic-waste regulations and store some PCBs and benzene and nuclear fuel rods -- just so long as they kick back to the Darwin Martin House and the Historical Society. Or how about we decide to give some independent country a 9-acre parcel in which we let the tobacco companies do whatever they want, and let somebody run night clubs and saloons that are the only places in town where drinkers get to smoke? Oops. We already did that." (2 July 2006)

Guilherme Marcondes: Tyger (Salon.com). A terrific animated riff on Blake's "Tyger."

John Lewis on the Voting Act renewal (Atlanta Progressive News). The Atlanta Congressman discusses Republican opposition to renewal of the Voting Rights Act (2 July 2006)

Amy Sutherland: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage (NY Times). How benign silence trumps nagging and guilt-tripping. You may find this piece as useful as one on how to change a tire. (1 July 2006)

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Stephen T. Banko: All I know of war, all I've heard of peace. "Nor does a day pass when I don't wonder how we came to a place in America where peace is unpatriotic. I have seen the face of war and I have held the hands of dying comrades. I have killed and I have bled and I know beyond doubt that now, rather than lead a million men to war, I would rather die alone --for peace." Remarks from New York's most decorated Vietnam War veteran at the June 16 "Peace Has No Borders" event in Buffalo. (30 June 2006)

Dick Hirsch: Evaluating Byron Brown: "He really looks good in a suit." Byron Brown dresses well and he speaks in sentences, both qualities lacking in recent Buffalo mayors. But, unlike his recent precedessors, the backbone seems to be missing. (30 June 2006)

Cahal Milmo: 'Environmental insanity' to drink bottled water when it tastes as good from the tap (The Independent). Even though the UK has the safest and purest water in the world, Brits are spending two billion pounds a year on bottled water. It's pretty much the same in the US. Bottled water that is, in most cases no better than tap water, is not only expensive but it is alos environmentally destructive. So, other than giving you something to do with your hands, why do you buy that crap? (30 June 2006)

Jerry Zremski: Former vets with GOP ties boost war effort in blogs (Buffalo News). How do you tell the difference between government propaganda and a war-lover with a laptop? Maybe by checking what the writer was doing just before he started offering newspapers articles about how well Bush's war is going, which is just what Buffalo News report Jerry Zremski did. (30 June 2006)

Tim Grieve: Why the Rove story mattered (Salon.com). A month or so ago Truthout.com published a piece saying it had reliable inside information that Karl Rove had been indicted. Even though everyone involved, including the special prosecutor, has now said the story was untrue, Truthout.com has yet to admit that it presented wish-fulfilling rumor as fact. Tim Grieve, Salon.com's top political reporter, explains why Salon.com questioned the Truthout story from the beginning and why Truthout's failure matters to web readers. "As DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas Zuniga said Tuesday in a warning about quoting 'crap internet sources' simply because they 'write what you want to hear,' the liberal blogs should aim to be 'the reality-based community, not the 'make up your own reality' community.'"(30 June 2006)

Dave Saldana: Orwell was an optimist (UE RankFile). You are not paranoid. No matter how worried you are that the government is listening to your phone calls or tracking your internet use, you are not paranoid. Hell, you ain't half as worried as you ought to be....Today's thought police wear wingtips and propagandize with bland reassurances and contradictory denials: 'We didn't do anything, and we only did it to protect you.' If 1984 were written today, Big Brother would be laughed off as the work of an unimaginative hack. (30 June 2006)

David Swanson: The Iraq War as Trophy Photo (TomDispatch). The Bushite hacks at the FCC went berserk because Janet Jackson flashed a tit at a Superbowl. Here's the real obscenity, and it should be broadcast on every tv station and published in every newspaper and newsmagazine. (30 June 2006)

D.T. Max: The Injustice Collector (New Yorker). Is James Joyce's grandson suppressing scholarship? He says that if his grandfather saw what the scholars were up to he'd die laughing. (30 June 2006)

Linda Greenhouse: Justices, 5-3, Broadly Reject Bush Plan to Try Detainees (NY Times). "The Supreme Court on Thursday repudiated the Bush administration's plan to put Guantanamo detainees on trial before military commissions, ruling broadly that the commissions were unauthorized by federal statute and violated international law." (30 June 2006)

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. (US Supreme Court). The 29 June decision (in pdf format) telling the Bush administration they can't continue violating U.S. an international law just because the law doesn't let them treat people they don't like the way they'd like to treat them. (29 June 2006)

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June 13-14 is Cinegael Buffalo, three days of films and discussions about Beckett, Joyce, and other things Irish. Click here for the full schedule. And on June 16 come out for Peace Has No Borders. Cindy Sheehan, Steve Banko and a lot of other good folks will be gathering in a major peace demonstration at the Peace Bridge Friday June 16. Click on the link for details about where, when, the organizations involved, how you can get the terrific poster Michael Morgulis designed for the event, and more.

Bruce Jackson: What the EPA inspectors in Buffalo didn't see. Erie County Executive Joel Giambra did what Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown didn't do but should have: he told the EPA about the Seneca Gaming Corporation's studies showing the grain elevators they're taking down are covered with 54,000 square feet of 4-14% asbestos, a goodly portion of which is going into the air only a block from a densely populated neighborhood. By the time the EPA inspectors got to Buffalo Sunday afternoon, the wrecking crew had pulled their machinery off the street and swept up the debris, so they didn't see the worst of it. Here's a slideshow of photos over the past ten days showing the takedown and the garbage floating off into Buffalo's air. (12 June 2006)

Buffalo Creek Asbestos Survey. A 904kb PDF of the document commissioned by the Seneca Gaming Corporation (a copy of which Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown's attorneys had but which the mayor's staff would not admit to having until Joel Giambra made it public) indicating that the H-O Oats grain elevator was coated with 54,000 square feet of 4-14% asbestos-bearing material. (12 June 2006)

Tribes look far afield for casino sites (Sacramento Bee). Indian casinos are big money, not just for the tribes, but also for developers and politicians. So they're a lot of shuffling around trying to create imaginary reservations on which casinos can be built. Generally, the Department of the Interior turns a blind eye to the games being played, and finally some members of Congress are starting to ask why. (12 June 2006)

California's Crisis In Prison Systems A Threat to Public: Longer Sentences and Less Emphasis On Rehabilitation Create Problems (Washington Post). "This is what conditions are like at one of California's best prisons, the California Rehabilitation Center: Built to hold 1,800 inmates, it now bulges with more than 4,700 and is under nearly constant lockdown to prevent fights. Portions of the buildings, which date to the 1920s, are so antiquated that the electricity is shut off during rainstorms so the prisoners aren't electrocuted. The facility's once-vaunted drug rehab program has a three-month-long waiting list, and the prison is short 75 guards. It is even worse throughout the rest of California's 32 other prisons, which make up the second-largest system in the nation after the federal Bureau of Prisons. Despite a vow from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to cut the prison population, it has surged in recent months to more than 173,000, the worst overcrowding in the country, costing taxpayers more than $8 billion a year. More of those inmates return to prison because the state has the nation's highest recidivism rate." (11 June 2006)

Diane Christian: Zarqawi's Face. "We are invited to stare at Zarqawi's dead head for standard warrior and political reasons. Like the medieval heads atop the pikes to warn of the punishment for treason (Thomas More), or the 200 Philistine foreskins David used to buy the king's daughter, or the scalps or genitals or ears in the notched belts of conquerors, the enemy body is a bounty harvested by the victors who win by killing. Be they the king's good servants, the fearless and untamed warriors, the men or women without restraint, they're the living, the enemy is dead. The message is we win. The message is a lie." (10 June 2006)

Nir Rosen: The Life and Death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi (truthdig). Commentary from one of the only Western journalists to have reported from inside the Iraqi insurgency. He concludes: "More will come to replace Zarqawi and avenge his death. Iraq's Shias will be blamed for Zarqawi's death, and Shias in the region --perhaps even in Saudi Arabia, or in Lebanon, where sectarian tensions are rising--will find themselves targets of violence. Expect a new group, calling itself the Zarqawi Brigades (or battalions, or army), to claim responsibility for some major attacks on Shia targets. Far from putting an end to the Iraqi insurgency, Zarqawi's death will most likely prolong it." (10 June 2006)

Robert Fisk: Zarqawi's End is Not a Famous Victory (Counterpunch). "So, it's another "mission accomplished". The man immortalised by the Americans as the most dangerous terrorist since the last most dangerous terrorist, is killed--by the Americans. A Jordanian corner-boy who could not even lock and load a machine gun is blown up by the US Air Force--and Messrs Bush and Blair see fit to boast of his demise. To this have our leaders descended." (10 June 2006)

Bush's trademark bravado banished (Newsday). No more flight suit with padded crotch and huge banners screaming "Mission Accomplished." Bush is trying a new approach to being Supreme Leader: "Wearing a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie, a much more somber Bush told reporters that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed. He never once cracked his trademark half-smile - his critics call it a smirk - and he pointedly did not say things would be better now in Iraq." (10 June 2006)

Terri Judd: For the women of Iraq, the war is just beginning (The Independent). Liberation for whom? Women's secular freedom in Iraq is one more victim, one more piece of collateral damage, in Bush's war in Iraq. (10 June 2006)

Tom Robbins: Dem Party Animals (Village Voice). It was business as usual for the Democrats at the party's state convention: no complexity, no dissent, and not even talk of reform. Everything was focused on anointing Hilary and Spitzer and keeping power exactly where it has been, is, and will be. (10 June 2006)

Middle East Wars Flare Up At Yale (Jewish Week). Yale's sociology and history departments voted to hire University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, a top Middle East scholar, but Yale's tenure committee, in a rare move, blocked the appointment. The primary reason seems not to have been his scholarship, but rather his criticism of Israel's West Bank policies in his blog, "Informed Comment." That produced an organized campaign--successful, as it turned out--to ruin his appointment. (8 June 2006)

Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states. A pdf file of the restricted 92-page Council of Europe report on the CIA's rendition and secret detention program and the role of several European nations which have been secretly collaborating in it. (8 June 2006)

Mark Benjamin: "You want to shoot them" (Salon.com). "Convinced that kids were spying on them, sick of seeing buddies blown apart, the Marines accused of the Haditha massacre cracked." (8 June 2006)

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Bruce Jackson: Greed and the demolition of the H-O Oats elevator (Artvoice). "Barry Snyder and his Seneca gambling operation made two huge PR moves in Buffalo last week, both of them designed to shore up the Seneca Gaming Corporation's claim that a Buffalo casino is a done deal and that all opposition is, therefore, pointless. One of the moves, aided and abetted by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, was based on in-your-face bullying; the other, aided and abetted by the Buffalo News, on not-very-subtle extortion." (Casino Chronicles #12) (8 June 2006)

Elizabeth Kolbert: The Big Sleazy: How Huey Long took Louisiana (New Yorker). "Someday Louisiana is going to get 'good government,' " Earl Long once declared. "And when they do, they ain't going to like it." (8 June 2006)

Robert B. Reich: Estate Tax Pyramid Scheme (TomPaine.com). Some of the richest families in America aren't investing in business. They're investing in politicans they're counting on to protect their access to billions of dollars earned by dead people. (8 June 2006)

Craig Unger: The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed (Vanity Fair). "The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false. Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful 'black propaganda' campaign with links to the White House." (8 June 2006)

Lifesaving kits in short supply (Newsday). Why should the families of GIs in Iraq be the people responsible for providing clotting bandages to prevent bleeding deaths? (8 June 2006)

Data Theft Affected Most in Military (Washington Post). The computer stolen from the home of a VA analyst last month contained identity-theft-class information of nearly 80 percent of the men and women now on active duty, as well as about 25 million vets. In the wrong hands, this data could cause astonishing mischief. The owners of the wrong hands are no doubt looking for the missing computer as diligently as is the FBI. (8 June 2006)

Specter accuses Cheney of interfering with surveillance investigation (Knight-Ridder). Vice President Cheney has been working very hard to make sure that the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation into illegal use of private phone records by the Bush administration comes up empty. (8 June 2006)

Cheney: Our office is above the law (New Standard). "Thickening the haze of secrecy surrounding the executive branch, the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney has declared itself exempt from a yearly requirement to report how it uses its power to classify secret information." Why aren't the conservatives going nuts? Or is it that there aren't any sane conservatives left? (7 June 2006)

Why the FBI is after the Anderson Papers (Chronicle of Higher Education). The FBI has been trying to get its hands on the papers of the late journalist Jack Anderson. Senate testimony this week finally revealed why: a man once imprisoned for child sodomy who has a history of mental illness and fabricating stories told them to. This has to be true; nobody can make this stuff up. (7 June 2006)

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Stephen T. Banko: The Other Side of the Gun. "The unit involved at Haditha was on its third deployment to Iraq....This war is remotely detonated, lethal, and anonymous. All that is left are those civilians you see every day. If the enemy has no face, you see him in every face. All the propaganda says you are helping the civilians. All the cheerleading says democracy is at hand. All the casualty counts are telling a different story....Haditha is not excusable but it is sadly predictable." (7 June 2006)

Tom Engelhardt: Collateral Damage. The Real Meaning of Haditha. (TomDispatch). "Our President, in March 2003, just couldn't resist opening the Pandora's Box of Iraq. Since then, from that box has emerged every horror with which we are now familiar. Unlike in Greek myth, however, at the bottom of the box wasn't Hope, but another H-word: Haditha." (7 June 2006)

Violent Baghdad deaths top 6,000 (BBC). More people are being killed in Baghdad every month: in January it was 1068, in may it was 1398. What, exactly, was it the Americans went there for? (7 June 2006)

Tim Rutten: Under fire in Iraq, at home (LA Times). More journalists have been killed covering the Iraq War than were killed covering World War II, Vietnam or Korea. (7 June 2006)

French state and national railway guilty of collusion in deporting Jews (Guardian). "In a historic judgment, the French state and the state railway company SNCF were found guilty yesterday of colluding in the deportation of Jews during the second world war and ordered to pay compensation to the family of two victims." (7 June 2006)

From logistics to turning a blind eye: Europe's role in terror abductions (Guardian). The Bush administration is dragging down everyone it touches: "The UK stands accused of not only allowing the use of British airspace and airports, but of providing information that was used during the torture of one suspect. The report adds that there is strong evidence to suspect two European states, Poland and Romania, of permitting the CIA to operate secret prisons on their soil, despite official denials." (7 June 2006)

Eugene Robinson: Distracter in Chief (Washington Post). With so many critical problems on the table why is Bush wasting time with an anti-gay amendment that won't pass anyway? "What uncharted realm lies beyond brazen cynicism? A wasteland of utter shamelessness, perhaps? A vast Sahara of desperation, where principle goes to die? Someday George W. Bush and the Republican right will be able to tell us all about this barren terra incognita, assuming they ever find their way home. The Decider's decision to whip up a phony crisis over same-sex marriage -- Values under attack! Run for your lives! -- is such a transparent ploy that even conservatives are scratching their heads, wondering if this is the best Karl Rove could come up with. Bush might as well open his next presidential address by giving himself a new title: The Distracter." (7 June 2007)

Ian Gibson: Continuing the US vendetta against Cuba (Guardian). "Cuba is the only country in Latin America that does not receive assistance from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which are supposed to contribute to the development of third world countries. It is also the only nation on the continent with whom the EU has not signed a cooperation agreement. Yet social advances continue, underpinned by moderate but consistent economic growth." Cuba has higher literacy and life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than the US. In response to which, the US is pressuring the EU to do as much harm to the Cuban economy as possible. (7 June 2006)

Seneca claim to Island rebuffed (Buffalo News). The Supreme Court refused to overturn U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara's 2002 ruling that the Senecas had never lived on Grand Island and had negotiated away whatever rights they may have had to it before 1815. (See Buffalo report entries for 4 June for more on this.) (6 June 2006)

Energetic Seneca casino design (Buffalo News). One more Buffalo News editorial sucking up to the Senca Gaming Corporation. The editorial goes gaga over the Senecas' preliminary casino design, says a casino is bad for Buffalo, but at least this design will provide a place for children to play while the casino kills the city's economy. Nothing like taking a firm stand. (6 June 2006)

Lieberman faces showdown over Iraq (Reuters). Ole Mush-mouth, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, long an uncritical Bush supporter on the Iraq war and many other issues, and in many ways the most Republican senator on the Democratic side of the aisle, is in a primary fight that may cost him his job. He holds out the promise that if he loses he might run as an independent, splitting the vote and throwing the seat to the Republicans. What a piece of work. (6 June 2006)

Elizabeth Drew: Power Grab (New York Review of Books). "During the presidency of George W. Bush, the White House has made an unprecedented reach for power. It has systematically attempted to defy, control, or threaten the institutions that could challenge it: Congress, the courts, and the press. It has attempted to upset the balance of power among the three branches of government provided for in the Constitution; but its most aggressive and consistent assaults have been against the legislative branch: Bush has time and again said that he feels free to carry out a law as he sees fit, not as Congress wrote it. Through secrecy and contemptuous treatment of Congress, the Bush White House has made the executive branch less accountable than at any time in modern American history. And because of the complaisance of Congress, it has largely succeeded in its efforts." (5 June 2006)

John Lahr: Citizen Penn (Observer). A first-rate piece on actor and activist Sean Penn. (5 June 2006)

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Diane Christian: Negatives. The US, says President Bush, doesn't torture, because only bad people torture and the US is good. Therefore, people who say the US tortures just don't understand us. No, George: twisting the language doesn't upend reality. "The problem is not erroneous perception; it's the actual facts. We are torturers?like Saddam, like terrorists. We were and are." (4 June 2006)

Bruce Jackson: Why Haditha Happened. Administration damage control specialists have taken to the talk shows, saying that Haditha is the result of inadequate training, which they are going to fix by making sure our GIs have better training. Nonsense. Haditha happened for the same reason My Lai and Abu Ghraib happened: all three are direct, perhaps inevitable, consequences of US policy and governmental ethics and values. (4 June 2006)

Bruce Fisher: "It ain't Seneca land." The front page of the Buffalo News for 4 June 2006 featured an article by Michael Beebe, "For Senecas, return to Buffalo Creek helps right an old wrong," the gist of which seemed to be that since the Buffalo Creek area was aboriginal Seneca land, it was only reasonable that they should establish there a tax-exempt casino that would drain Buffalo's economy. The problem, argues Deputy Erie County Executive Bruce Fisher, is that Beebe's article is predicated on a fundamental error of fact: Buffalo Creek was never aboriginal Seneca territory. (4 June 2006)

U.S. Court of Appeals: Affirming Judge Arcara in the Grand Island case. The 2004 decision in which the Court of Appeals said Judge Richard Arcara was right when he said the Seneca Nation of Indians had no aboriginal land rights to Grand Island, New York. (4 June 2006)

Bush Re-enters Gay Marriage Fight (Washington Post). The war in Iraq gets bloodier and bloodier, the economy is teetering on the edge of disintegration, and after the astonishing outpouring of world fellowship for the US after 9/11 the Bush administration has made the US the most hated nation in the world. Moreover, the President's poll numbers keep dropping, even among the idiotically faithful, and Fox News has begun to ask some questions. How is Bush coping with all this? Going after same-sex marriage. That homophobe zygote-hugging senator from Tennesse is all atwitter over it. (4 June 2006)

Farhad Manjoo: Was the 2004 election stolen? No. (Salon.com). Robert F. Kennedy's recent Rolling Stone article saying the Republicans stole the Ohio vote from Kerry in the 2000 election is causing a big stir in some parts of the blogosphere. That would be great, if Kennedy had his facts right and if he presented fairly all of the facts he does have. But he seems to have done neither. (4 June 2006)

Blix Say U.S. Impedes Efforts to Curb A-Arms (CommonDreams/NY Times). According to the former chief UN nuclear arms inspector, the Bush administration's unwillingness to work and play well with others is making the world ever more dangerous. (4 June 2006)

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Bruce Jackson: The Nine Biggest Lies About the Proposed Buffalo Creek Casino (Artvoice). A few days ago the Buffalo News published a letter from developer Carl Paladino that consisted of one lie after another about the proposed Seneca gambling joint in downtown Buffalo. The letter is not unlike the massive disinformation campaign the Seneca Gaming Corporation unleashed on all Buffalo television and most Buffalo radio stations last month. What's so scary about the truth that has those guys spending so much time, effort and money trying to hide it? (1 June 2006)

Bruce Jackson: Barry Snyder and Byron Brown to Buffalo and Joel Giambra: Screw you! Five images from the Senecas' downtown destruction site. Do you think the city of Buffalo would have let the Seneca gambling organization demolish structures in the heart of town without any serious environmental studies if the mayor's and councilmembers' children were downwind, living in those projects, playing on those streets? (1 June 2006)

Lindsay Waters: The Lure of the List (Chronicle of Higher Education). The most prestigious journal of literary criticism (Critical Inquiry) has published a list of the top literary critics and theorists. Und zo? (1 June 2006)

James C. Goodal: Bush's War Against the Press (NY Law Journal). "If it wasn't clear before that President George W. Bush has declared war on the press, it is now." (1 June 2006)

Probe Into Iraq Deaths Finds False Reports (Washington Post). What more and more seems to be the murder of 24 Iraqi men, women and children by pissed-off Marines is on the way to becoming this war's My Lai. (1 June 2006)

Rick Santorum doesn't live here anymore (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). It turns out that the homophobic senator from Pennsylvania has been operating under a phony address. We always knew there was something queer about that guy. (1 June 2006)

Justices Set Limits on Public Employees Speech Rights (NY Times). One more whack at the First Amendment by Bush's anti-truth squad: You can say whatever you like, so long as it doesn't make any of your bosses uncomfortable. (28 May 2006)

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Peace Has No Borders. Cindy Sheehan, Steve Banko and a lot of other good folks will be gathering in a major peace demonstration at the Peace Bridge Friday June 16. Here are the details about where, when, the organizations involved, how you can get the terrific poster Michael Morgulis designed for the event, and more. (28 May 2006)

Steve Banko: A Memorial Day letter. Stephen T. Banko is New York's most-decorated veteran of the conflict in Southeast Asia. He saw close friends die and sustained serious wounds. In this letter to several friends he offers a necessary corrective to some of the flag-waving speechifying going on this weekend. (28 May 2006)

John Carroll: Keep the flag out of Molly Ivins brain (San Franciso Chronicle). For the Bush administration it's not leaking when you blow the cover of a covert CIA agent to ruin her husband's credibility. It's only leaking when someone tells a reporter about major government mistakes, corruption and perversion. The Bush administration would like the press to just go away, but absent that it would like to intimidate or manipulate it into being docile and obedient. "The government is waging war on the press for the reasons that entities usually wage war -- it wants to claim our territory. It wants to plant a flag in Molly Ivins' brain. And, by God, we're not going to let that happen." (28 May 2006)

UB finally has 2020 vision (Buffalo News). Except for some gratuitous asides directed at the back of former UB president William Greiner, here's a strong editorial on the value of a major educational institution in a city like Buffalo. If the editorial page would look at the impending disaster of the parasitic downtown casino with the same energy, someone might even say they were doing more than flack work and puffery. (28 May 2006)

Harold Meyerson: For Neocons, the Irony of Iraq (Washington Post). n the beginning, neoconservatism was a movement of onetime liberals enraged at the wave of violence and disorder that overtook the cities in the 1960s. Riots convulsed urban America in that stormy decade, crime rates soared, student radicals seized campuses. How could anyone see all this, the first generation of neocons inquired, and still remain a liberal?" This is, of course, just what the Neocons' war has accomplished in Iraq. "The war, and the failure to establish order that led to the barbarism that's driving Iraqis away, can't be laid solely on the neocons' doorstep, of course. These second-generation neos needed a trio of arrogant, onetime CEOs -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld -- to actualize their vision. But actualize it they did, and the ideologues whose forebears once argued that the drugged-out Bronx was a monument to liberal folly have now made blood-drenched and depopulating Baghdad the monument to their own neocon obsessions." (28 May 2006)

Sean Peter Kirst: Land claim winners' lack of grace a disgrace (Syracuse Post-Standard). While Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and his helper Rich Tobe were secretly helping the Seneca Gaming Corporation screw the city of Buffalo this past month, New York courts and officials elsewhere in the state were publicly screwing the Iroquois. Does this mean New York is balanced or that it is completely out of whack? (28 May 2006)

Peter Dreier: Why Mines Deaths Are Up (The Nation). It's not just in the Middle East that people are dying because of Bush administration carelessness and avarice. "Mine workers have faced increasingly unsafe conditions because of rollbacks of health and safety regulations, the appointment of former mining industry executives to federal mine safety agencies and the slashing of the budget and staff for safety inspection." (28 May 2006)

VA Knew Early About Data Theft (Washington Post). But they sat on it for 13 days. Protecting the vets or protecting their jobs? Clearly they failed at the first. Hopefully they also failed at the second. (28 May 2006)

Spectator: The View from Here. If the Democrats can get their heads out of wherever they've put them, they've got a great issue this year: repetitive Republican incompetence. The latest is identity theft at the VA, political blackmail at HUD, and four dead French soldiers reminding us about the war Bush forgot. (28 May 2006)

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Joan Vennochi: Short-timer at the anchor (Boston Globe). ABC dumped Elizabeth Vargas as evening news anchor because she got pregnant. What century is ABC News reporting on? (25 May 2006)

"Global warming kills" (Salon.com). All about "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's film responding to the Bush administration's continuing state of denial about global warming. (25 MAy 2006)

Seymour M. Hersh: Listening In (New Yorker). Of course the Bush administration has been listening to your telephone calls illegally. And of course General Michael Hayden, Bush's nominee to head the CIA, had to lie his ass off for the Senators who wanted him to do just that so they could rubber-stamp Bush's nomination. (24 May 2006)

Uri Avnery: Who's guilty? The victim, of course (Gush Shalom). "This is an Israeli tradition, which has unfortunately also been accepted by the international media: the Israeli security forces always 'react' to the violence of the other side. But, curiously enough, the killed and wounded are mostly on the other side. ...In matters concerning the army and police, the news in all the media, without exception, from Maariv to Haaretz, from Channel 1 to Channel 10, is indistinguishable from government propaganda. (with honorable exceptions in opinion columns and the op-ed pages.) The chances of the victims getting fair coverage are close to nil. After all, the victims are always to blame." (23 May 2006)

Marc Ash: Information Sharing on the Rove Indictment Story (TruthOut). The Big Story on the web the past two weeks has been the TruthOut report of Karl Rove's indictment. Thus far, everyone involved (Rove, Rove's attorneys, White House flacks, the Special Counsel's office, etc.) has either refused to comment or has said the story is untrue. Here's an update from TruthOut: they stand by their story, saying that not only has there been a sealed indictment of Rove, but that Rove may be in the process of turning into a witness, giving them Cheney to save his own skin. The print press spends a lot of ink trying to trivialize web-based news and commentary sites (take a look at the Washington Post smearjob response to this story by Howard Kurtz: "The claim that President Bush's top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny."). If TruthOut's story turns out to be right, if the web has in fact scooped the print press by weeks on this key story of White House corruption, that monolog will have to be rewritten. If it turns out that TruthOut got it wrong, TruthOut and all the web sites that broadcast its report (this one included) will have some serious apologizing and rethinking to do. (23 May 2006)

Michael Massing: The Storm over the Israel Lobby (NY Review of Books). "The nasty campaign waged against John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has itself provided an excellent example of the bullying tactics used by the lobby and its supporters. The wide attention their argument has received shows that, in this case, those efforts have not entirely succeeded. Despite its many flaws, their essay has performed a very useful service in forcing into the open a subject that has for too long remained taboo." (22 May 2006)

Bruce Jackson: Remembering Creeley (Artvoice). A September 2001 conversation about poetry, painting and music with the late poet Robert Creeley. (19 May 2006)

U.N. Panel Back Closing Prison at Guant?namo (NY Times). The U.N. wants the U.S. to stop torturing and terrorizing prisoners. It wants the U.S. to stop killing prisoners. It wants the U.S. to stop holding people without any legal safeguards. It wants the U.S. to shut the prison it uses in Cuba to keep prisoners it is holding illegally away from U.S. courts. It wants, in sum, the U.S. to behave as if it were a law-abiding, human rights-respecting nation. Fat chance. (19 May 2006)

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Larry Gross: Abe Rosenthal's Reign of Homophobia at The New York Times (TruthDig). Former NY Times Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal, who died May 10, was a journalistic hero for the way he stood up to the Nixon White House in the matter of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He was also a raging homophobe, who kept the word "gay" out of the paper and blocked publication of stories about the AIDS epidemic at a time when such stories were desperately needed. (17 May 2006)

David Barber: The Legend of 'Howl' (Boston Globe). Allen Ginsberg's poem is 50 years old. According to the legend, it changed the voice of American poetry and no poem since has matched the fame of its first line, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked." The poem indeed had its own voice, but also resonated with the voices and rhythms of Ginsberg's two primary teachers, William Blake and Walt Whitman, which is perhaps one reason it continues to be such a damned fine poem. (17 May 2006)

US to abandon one of its torture techniques (Knight-Ridder). The US has told the U.N. Committee Against Torture that it will prohibit "waterboarding" by its interrogators, which means its interrogators have to stop doing it now. In saying this, the US doesn't admit its interrogrators ever did any such thing. As the late comedian Lenny Bruce used to point out, "you don't need a law saying 'Don't do it to the baa-baa and others' unless people are doing it to the baa-baa and others." (17 May 2006)

Dutch strip citizenship from Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Der Spiegel). "Dutch Minister of Immigration and Integration Rita Verdonk says she withdrew Ayaan Hirsi Ali's citizenship because the native Somali lied on her 1997 application for Dutch citizenship." Most other people in the Netherlands say it's because Verdonk is a nutcase power-freak. Either way, expelling the activist writer and parliament member is a huge embarrassment for the Dutch government. (17 May 2006)

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling (ABC News). As a rule, when journalists come up with a story about illegal or incompetent behavior by government agencies, the agencies' reaction is to spend more agency money finding the bastard who talked than fixing the problem. With the US government's heightened phone-snooping ability, ABC news investigative reporter Brian Ross discovered, that task of finding and killing the messinger is easier than ever before.

Robert Creeley at 80. This Sunday would have been the poet Robert Creeley's 80th birthday. A lot of his Buffalo friends are going to celebrate it even if Bob can't join them. There will be poetry readings, music, food, drink, screenings, things to look at and more Saturday evening from 7-12+ at The Church on Delaware and Sunday afternoon from 2-4 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Amiri Baraka, Joanne Kyger, Tom Raworth, Carl Dennis, Bill Sylvester and others will read poems, David Felder will premiere a new composition based on Creeley's words and voice, other folks will do other things and everybody will carry on as they see fit. Here, in MS Word format, is the pretty-much complete list of participants, performers, contributors and organizers. (16 May 2006)

Iraq War Images Uncensored (AfterDowningStreet.Org). Don't look at this if you've got a weak stomach. This is what the Iraq War really looks like, the images you are never shown on network tv or in any American newspaper. If you'd seen images like this three years ago this stupid war would be long over, and we'd probably have a different president. For Bush, the war in Iraq is patriotic words. These gruesome images tell a different story. (16 May 2006)

Bruce Jackson: The H-O Oats grain elevator and the Seneca wrecking ball: two photographs. The Seneca Gaming Corporation, which wants to set up a gambling joint in downtown Buffalo, is poised to wreck another structure on the site they purchased from Buffalo developer Carl Paladino and other sellers. Here are two photographs of what they'd like to destroy this time. (16 May 2006)

Bruce L. Fisher: Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra sues Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown and others to stop illegal Seneca Gaming Corporation demolition in Buffalo. Erie County's Commissioner of Environment and Planning has issued an order instructing the Senecas' demolition contractor to stop wrecking things, and Erie County has sued the of Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown and several other city officials to force them to start obeying local and state environmental laws. (15 May 2006)

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You want to know how

much the Supreme Court screwed you: here's Al Gore as the president you could have had (SNL). Al Gore opened Saturday Night Live with one of the great ironic/couldda-been-realistic performances ever on network tv. You never saw it in real life because that scoundrel Dubya and his cronies were so busy driving America into the sewer. Speculating about might-have-beens is a useless enterprise, of course. Except for this time. Take a look. (15 May 2006)

Warren Buffett: Casinos are bad economics (casinowatch.org). Warren Buffett owns the Buffalo News, the editorial columns of which have again and again told Buffalonians to accept the Seneca casino imposed on the city by Governor George Pataki, no matter how much harm that casino does to the city. But when the possibility of a casino arose in Buffett's home state of Nebraska he vigorously opposed it. Here's what he had to say about the casino he didn't want in his neighborhood, but which his editorial writers at the Buffalo News are urging Buffalonians to accept in theirs. (15 May 2006)

Molly Ivins: The Best Little Whorehouse in Washington (Truthdig). "I don?t care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie till they puke, and I don?t care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they?re not screwing the public. On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead?has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock ?n? roll, Hookergate is rife with public-interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children." (15 May 2006)

At Falwell's University, McCain Defends Iraq War (NY Times). John McCain has always been a political whore but he's never been close enough to a presidential run to get this naked about it. He's now sucking up to Jerry Falwell. (13 May 2006)

Prosecutor in C.I.A. Leak Case Points to Notes by Cheney (NY Times). The one thing scoundrels fear more than anything else is an honest man. It looks more and more like Bush & Co. really screwed up in appointing Patrick Fitzgerald special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame outing case. He seems to be one, and unlike almost anyone in the White House, Fitzgerald seems interested in the truth. (13 May 2006)

Jason Leopold: Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators (Truthout). "Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning." (13 May 2006)

Ray McGovern: My Encounter with Rumsfeld (CounterPunch). With only a few exceptions, the mainstream ignored former CIA analyst Ray McGovern's encounter with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week (scroll down to our entries for May 5 for the Democracy Now! coverage and a bit of video from ABC News). McGovern didn't actually call Rumsfeld a liar, but Rumsfeld clearly showed that is exactly what he is. Here's McGovern's take on the event. (9 May 2006)

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John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt: The Israel Lobby (London Review of Books). Any doubts about the existence of an "Israel Lobby" should have been dissipated by the widespread savaging of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt after the Kennedy School of Government and the London Review of Books published their recent study of the Israel Lobby. Here, they respond to some of the most egregious attacks on their work, especially the deceptive and misleading screed by Harvard Law School torture advocate and Israel apologist Alan Dershowitz.. "Although we are not surprised by the hostility directed at us, we are still disappointed that more attention has not been paid to the substance of the piece. The fact remains that the United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East, and it will not be able to develop effective policies if it is impossible to have a civilised discussion about the role of Israel in American foreign policy." (8 May 2006)

Files uncover Nazis' trail of death (Boston Globe). The Nazis were sticklers for detail, and there are millions of them in the Nazi archives at Bad Arolsen. They noted, for example, the man who died of "collapse of the heart, loss of blood circulation, fractured limbs," and the name of every one of the 300 prisoners killed with a Genickschuss, a single shot at the base of the skull, to celebrate Der Feuhrer's birthday on April 20, 1942. For decades, Holocaust survivors have been trying to get the German government to give the world a chance to look at the records in Bad Arolsen but the Germans found one excuse after another to restrict access. Recent publicity forced them to open the doors, and the grim secrets are finally being made public. (8 May 2006)

Spectator: The View from Here. Spectator is very very angry. Why, he wonders, aren't you? (8 May 2006)

Philip French: The KO blow from RKO (The Observer). The second volume of Simon Callow's magisterial biography of Orson Welles, Orson Welles: Hello Americans, which has just been published, is a fit companion for volume one, The Road to Xanadu, published 11 years ago. (8 May 2006)

Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert (The Independent). "Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed." (8 May 2006)

Senecas to Niagara Falls development officials: Get lost (Buffalo News). While Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown steadfastly refuses to ask any questions of a Seneca casino's impact on the city's economy (how much did Byron get from construction unions in his recent campaign?) and Councilmember Brian Davis offers kissass resolutions that might as well have been written in the Seneca Gaming Corporation PR office, the Senecas' Niagara Falls casino bosses show what kind of treatment Buffalo officials can expect once their Buffalo casino is built: contempt and scorn. (5 May 2006)

Neil Young: Lookin' for a Leader (Boston Globe). (5 May 2006)

The Slow Rot at Supermax (LA Times). The Abu Ghraib scandal showed that the US is as good at managing an old fashioned torture prison as any third-world dictator. The Federal penitentiary at Florence, Colorado, shows that the US is right up there in modern, high-tech, brain- and soul-rotting technology as well. They can turn you to mush without ever swinging a billy club or making you form feces-smeared human pyramids. And at Florence, nobody takes any pictures to show anyone anything. (5 May 2006)

C.I.A. Director Porter Goss Resigns (NY Times). CIA director Porter Goss was pushed out after only 18 months on the job, not long after Bush's recent appointment of John D. Negroponte to the new job of national intelligence director, which was followed by Negroponte's being given the CIA director's seat at security meetings. (5 May 2006)

Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Takes on Rumsfeld Over Justification for Iraq Invasion (Democracy Now!). Protestors who interrupted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's speech in Atlanta Thursday were dragged from the building by security thugs. One tried to do the same to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was simply asking a question about Rumsfeld's lies from a microphone. McGovern, who had bought a ticket, refused to budge, and Rumsfeld had to tell the thugs to back off. Here's a transcript of the exchange between McGovern and the increasingly-flustered Rummy, and Amy Goodman's interview with McGovern about it the following day, along with links to mp3 and streaming videos of the whole thing. (5 May 2006)

Video of Ray McGovern's Atlanta encounter with Donald Rumsfeld (ABC News). (5 May 2006)

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Michael Beebe: Seneca 'fronts' attract FBI's interest (Buffalo News). It's right ou

t of "The Sopranos": the powerful mob boss forces legitimate business to give a piece of everything to his family. Only this one is real: Seneca gambling boss Barry Snyder at the Seneca Niagara Casino has forced companies dealing with the Casino to funnel millions of dollars to his son's common-law wife. Is Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown asking what similar scams do they have planned for their Buffalo Creek operation? Is Byron Brown asking any questions at all? (4 May 2006)

Six out of 10 young Americans cannot find Iraq on a map (The Independent). "Six out of 10 Americans aged 18 to 24 cannot locate the country. Two-thirds do not know that the October 2005 earthquake that killed 70,000 people struck in Pakistan. Indeed, more than 40 per cent cannot locate Pakistan in Asia....One-third of those questions were not able to find Louisiana on a map of the US." Another recent survey showed a vast majority of the troops in Iraq believe Saddam Hussein had WMD and was involved in the 9/11 plot. So the poor bastards destined to be killed or mutilated in George W. Bush's folly not only don't know why, they don't even know where. (4 May 2006)

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman: The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005 (Multinational Monitor). Of course Halliburton is on the list. So are BP, Delphi, ExxonMobil, Ford and several others. Here's how they made the list. (4 May 2006)

Report blames top U.S. officials for alleged torture of detainees (Knight-Ridder). "Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees by U.S. forces is widespread and, in many cases, sanctioned by top government officials, Amnesty International charged Wednesday" (4 May 2006)

The full Amnesty International report on U.S. sanctioned torture to the UN Committee Against Torture (Amnesty International). The report discussed in the previous item. (4 May 2006)

Jury Decides Against Execution for Moussaoui (NY Times). The Bush administration spent a fortune trying to turn the idiot Zacarias Moussaoui into the Highjacker-We-Got-And-Executed, even though there never was any evidence connecting him with the 9/11 attacks. Moussaoui was happy to cooperate because he was desperate to become a martyr and he could only do that if the Bush administration got a jury to help them kill him. The jury wouldn't go for it: they refused to go to Bush's lynching party. (3 May 2006)

Stephen Colbert's Take at the White House Correspondents Dinner (Democracy Now!). Amy Goodman's coverage of Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents dinner, with links to streaming video and mp3. (1 May 2006)

Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner: full transcript (Daily Kos). There are only three daily tv news journalists worth watching any more: Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now," John Stewart on Comedy Central's "Daily Show," Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report." Colbert is right about everything, only you have to change all the signs: everything Colbert says is right is wrong and everything he says is wrong is right. He's perfect, as long as you know the code. A few days ago, he got to tell the White House Correspondents what they should have been thinking about the Warmaker-in-Chief. If you go to the Democracy Now site you can download mp3 audio or streaming video of his astonishing performance. (1 May 2006)

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Robert J. McCarthy:Spitzer, Faso air views on casino (Buffalo News). The leading Democrat and Republican contenders for NY governor both find problems with the proposed Seneca gambling casino in Buffalo and one of them says hat if elected he'd look to reoopen the issue. To that, Buffalo news reporter Robert McCarthy gratuitously and incorrectly comments, "While neither candidate, if elected governor, could substantially change the state's agreeement with the Senecas to allow a casino in Buffalo..." You'd expect to find nonsense like that in a bad editorial, not in a news article. In fact, a governor could insist that everyone involved obey the law and carry out the environmental impact studies, which have thus far been studiously avoided by everyone involved. Shedding daylight on the impact of this operation would substantially change everything. Even the fence-straddling Byron Brown would have to admit it's a stinker in all regards. (30 April 2006)

Neil Young's Living With War (Neilyoung.com). Neil Young's new album of songs about Bush and his wars is all online. Just click on the url and then don't click on anything else and it will play in its entirety. Didactic, but good stuff. And it's free. (30 April 2006)

Bush challenges hundreds of laws (Boston Globe). "President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, 'whistle-blower' protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research. Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. (30 April 2006)

Examples of the president's signing statements (Boston Globe). Ten instances in which Bush declared himself above the legislation he was at that moment signing into law. (30 April 2006)

Adam Liptak: In Leak Cases, New Pressure on Journalists (NY Times). In its relentless fight to keep the American people from knowing the truth, the Bush administration is moving to use espionage laws to punish reporters who publish up information the administration doesn't want the public to know. (30 April 2006)

Tough Primary Race Confronts Lieberman (Washington Post). Here's one to watch: a Connecticut blueblood is challenging Joe Lieberman in the state's Democratic primary. Many Connecticut Democrats would like to dump Lieberman for his uncritical endorsement of Bush's war policy and his support of Republicans wanting to intervene in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. Others just can't stand his voice, which has grown more mushy as he has drifted to the right. (30 April 2006)

John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society (NY Times). "John Kenneth Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, teacher and diplomat and an unapologetically liberal member of the political and academic establishment that he needled in prolific writings for more than half a century, died yesterday at a hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97." Kennedy, Johnson and even Nixon took him seriously, as well they should have; these current idiots wouldn't let someone of his competence through the gates. Click here for the Boston Globe obituary. (30 April 2006)

Iraq set to be more expensive than Vietnam (The Independent). George W. Bush will shortly have pissed away more of your tax dollars in his war for Iraq's oil than John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon pissed away in Vietnam. He hasn't killed as many people yet, but he's working on that too. Click here for The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, the Congressional Research Service report on which that article was based. (29 April 2006)

Sibling rivalry jeopardized Moroun's grip (Windsor Star). Detroit shipping mogul Matty Maroun, who owns the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, wants to build a privately-owned bridge that would compete with the Peace Bridge for truck traffic. He made much of his money by driving his sisters out of the business started by his father. Here's how he did it, along with a survey of his current holdings. (28 April 2006)

Spectator: The View from Here: gas prices, ethanol scam, Rove on the loose, Erie County confusion. With gas heading toward $4 a gallon, maybe it's time to revisit Dick Cheney's secret White House meetings with oil executives to set Bush administration energy policy. Maybe policy wasn't the only thing fixed in those secret meetings... And what about the Great Ethanol Scam, which does nothing to decrease America's oil addiction but pours billions into the coffers of Archer Daniels Midland? ...Rove has been reassigned not to make the White House more efficient but to make sure the House doesn't go Democrat. Thus far, the Republicans have successfully blocked every possible investigation into White House failure and Constitutional violation. A Democratic Congress wouldn't be so blind to the Bush administrations failures and abuses....The Erie County charter review committee recommends hiring a professional county manager (which is a good idea) but keeping the present county executive (which would make the county manager's job impossible. (28 April 2006)

Joan Chittister, OSB: Gone are the days when war was between armies (National Catholic Reporter). The woman in the airport has a son who has no buttocks. He lost an eye and an arm as well. "But he can stand now," she said, "That's all that counts." And for what? " Two whole societies have been grievously wounded by a war that did not need to be....From where I stand, so-called 'pre-emptive war' in a day of 'strategic' nuclear weapons is simply madness masking as governance. That 'doctrine' is heresy and it must go -- not simply to protect the integrity of other nations but to preserve our own, as well." (28 April 2006)

Jeff Miers: On a wing and a prayer (Buffalo News). Deep Purple's Ian Gillan has a terrific new CD/DVD, most of it recorded in Buffalo with Buffalo musicians. (28 April 2006)

Mark Fiore: Genocide on the March! (Village Voice). "You too can help by doing absolutely nothing." After you've watched the animation, click here for information on the Genocide Intervention Network (28 April 2006)

New York Killers, and Those Killed, by Numbers (NY Times). Who gets murdered in the Big Apple, and who does the murdering. (28 April 2006)

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Bruce Jackson: The Common Council and the Seneca Creek Casino Hype (Artvoice). Buffalo's mayor and Common Council members have the power to stop the planned Buffalo Creek gambling casino. Will they do it? How have Tom Golisano's public stand against the casino, the Buffalo News articles showing the failure of the Niagara Falls casino to stimulate development and the drain the Niagara Falls casino has been on the regional economy, and this series of articles in Artvoice influenced their thinking? Are they thinking at all? Do they read anything at all? We asked them and here's what they said. (Casino Chronicles #10). (27 April 2006)

Adam Kirsch: The Music of Self-Justification (New York Sun). Philip Roth has a new novel, "Everyman." "If this Everyman is no Mickey Sabbath, masturbating demonically on his mistress's grave, he is also not quite the homme moyen sensuel that Mr. Roth clearly wants him to be. Rather, he comes across as the distilled essence of all of Mr. Roth's protagonists: bright, ferociously articulate, self-obsessed, maddened by lust, ensnared by family, endlessly pleading his case before the world.The family resemblance to Portnoy and Zuckerman and Kepesh is inescapable, especially when even this quiet man - who insists that 'most people ... would have thought of him as square' - falls into a sexual obsession of a very Rothian kind.The hero ruins his second marriage, by far his happiest, out of overpowering lust for a young Danish model, and his odes to her body ('that little hole and what she liked him to do with it') have the unmistakable accent of Mr. Roth's transgressive eroticism." (27 April 2006)

Daniel Swift: Fallen god of small things: Norman Mailer (Financial Times). "Norman Mailer is self-consciously at the centre of his own literary world. Reading him is an intimate experience; as if you were there in his imagination. The play of his language, the thrill of ideas crawling through syntax on to the page are the reward for time spent in Mailer?s company and the raucous fluidity of his mind. But his dizzying self-reference comes at a cost, and that cost may perhaps be given a name: the big empty. His new book is the consequence of a lifetime spent working at being Norman Mailer. It has all the egocentric bravura that we have come to expect of him, but without the tight grasp of the tiny that made him important in the first place. It is the shell of his own identity." (27 April 2006)

Street for Black Panther dropped (Chicago Sun-Times). A Chicago alderman abandoned her attempt to have a street named for Fred Hampton, the Black Panther murdered in his bed by Chicago Police in 1969. Members of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police objected, saying that Hampton was a person who had advocated anti-police violence. He talked; they killed; they win. (27 April 2006)

John Dickerson: Shooting an Elephant: Why Republicans are screwed (Slate). "It isn't easy being a Republican these days, either. Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low, gas prices are near an all-time high, and Iraq continues to burn. Voters have an even lower opinion of the GOP-controlled Congress. Ideological disputes within the party make it hard for believers to pick sides, and incompetence at the top makes it difficult to follow through on the agenda items Republicans do agree on, like reducing the deficit. Bad news from Iraq and any number of scandals tied to the GOP erupt regularly. A month ago, the Republican political class was merely worried. Now its members are talking about avoiding catastrophic losses.'" (27 April 2006)

Paul Rogat Loeb: Dying for Nixon, Dying for Bush (CommonDreams.org). "Who wants to be the last man to die for George Bush?" (26 April 2006)

US to free 141 of its Guantanamo torture victims (LA Times). The Pentagon is cutting loose a third of the prisoners it has held and tortured at Guantanamo for four years because they pose no threat to US security and, presumably, never did. They join 250 other victims who have been released since the US set up the camp in Cuba in an attempt to keep it beyond the reach of the US courts. Thus far, "only 10 of the 490 alleged 'enemy combatants' urrently detained at the facility have been charged; none has been charged with a capital offense." (26 April 2006)

Steve Siegel: Local business will be hurt by a casino (Buffalo News). A Niagara University professor of hospitality management says the proposed Buffalo Creek casino spells death for a lot of Buffalo's businesses and says instead of bringing jobs to the community it will just displace good jobs with lousy jobs. Why aren't Buffalo's mayor and Comon Council even asking the kinds of questions proposed in this cogent article? (26 April 2006)

Fox News's Snow to Become New White House Press Secretary (Washington Post). It's the perfect marriage: a commentator from the news channel that put out the most misinformation on Iraq and which remains as unsullied by facts as the most rabid talk show (e.g., when Cheney was roundly booed at a recent public appearance Fox edited out the boos) is now the White House mouthpiece. (26 April 2006)

Jane Jacobs, Social Critic Who Redefined and Championed Cities, Is Dead at 89 (NY Times). "Jane Jacobs, the writer and thinker who brought penetrating eyes and ingenious insight to the sidewalk ballet of her own Greenwich Village street and came up with a book that challenged and changed the way people view cities, died yesterday in Toronto, where she moved in 1968. She was 89." (26 April 2006)

Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: Bush's Thousand Days (Washington Post). "Observers describe Bush as 'messianic' in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose. But, as Lincoln observed in his second inaugural address, 'The Almighty has His own purposes.' There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war (also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war." (24 April 2006)

No Saugerties Casino! Buffalo isn't the only community in which residents are opposing a gambling operation imposed by the Governor's office. The same fight is going on in Saugerties, where the mayor and village board, the supervisor and the town board, and the county legislature have all voted unanimously in opposition. They've been joined by the Conservative, Democratic and Republican parties, the Saugerties Council of Churches, and all 14 candidates in the November 2005 local election. (24 April 2006)

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Uri Avnery: Who's the dog? Who's the tail? A recent Kennedy School white paper on the Israeli Lobby produced a vitriolic storm of retaliation. "At the basis of the phenomenon lies the uncanny similarity between the two national-religious stories, the American myth and the Israeli. In both, pioneers persecuted for their religion reached the shores of the Promised Land. They were forced to defend themselves against the 'savage' natives, who were out to destroy them. They redeemed the land, made the desert bloom, created, with God's help, a flourishing, democratic and moral society. Both societies live in a state of denial and unconscious guilt feelings - over there because of the genocide committed against the Native Americans and the horrifying slavery of the blacks, here because of the uprooting of half the Palestinian people and the oppression of the other half. Both here and there, people believe in an eternal war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. Anyhow, the American-Israeli symbiosis is unique and far too complex a phenomenon to be described as a simple conspiracy. I am sure that the two professors did not mean to do so. The dog wags the tail and the tail wags the dog. They wag each other." (24 April 2006)

Jean Baudrillard: The Pyres of Autumn (New Left Review). "The French exception is no more, the ?French model? collapsing before our eyes. But the French can reassure themselves that it is not just theirs but the whole Western model which is disintegrating; and not just under external assault?acts of terrorism, Africans storming the barbed wire at Melilla?but also from within. The first conclusion to be drawn from the autumn riots annuls all pious official homilies. A society which is itself disintegrating has no chance of integrating its immigrants, who are at once the products and savage analysts of its decay. The harsh reality is that the rest of us, too, are faced with a crisis of identity and disinheritance; the fissures of the banlieues are merely symptoms of the dissociation of a society at odds with itself." (24 April 2006)

Ted Gioia: The FBI vs. Alan Lomax (LA Times). Because of an casual remark an anonymous informant said he overheard, the FBI kept close tabs on folklorist Alan Lomax for 40 years. The file runs several hundred pages and is chockful of speculation and trivia. "An FBI report dated July 23, 1943, describes Lomax as possessing 'an erratic, artistic temperament' and a 'bohemian attitude.' It says: 'He has a tendency to neglect his work over a period of time and then just before a deadline he produces excellent results?. He has no sense of money values, handling his own and Government property in a neglectful manner. Neighborhood investigation shows him to be a peculiar individual in that he is only interested in folk lore music, being very temperamental and ornery.' The file quotes one informant who said that 'Lomax was a very peculiar individual, that he seemed to be very absent-minded and that he paid practically no attention to his personal appearance.' This same source adds that he suspected Lomax's peculiarity and poor grooming habits came from associating with the hillbillies who provided him with folk tunes." Your tax dollars at work. (24 April 2006)

Michael Beebe: Seneca 'fronts' pay off for a few (Buffalo News). Finally we learn why Mickey Brown was forced out of Seneca Niagara Casino: he wanted to run it honestly and that didn't play in Barry Snyder's rakeoff economy. (24 April 2006)

Peter Slatin: Freedom Less Than Zero (Slatin Report). The reconstruction at Ground Zero is indeed turning out to be a monument?to the ego of New York Gov. George Pataki. "
Along with its general sour taste, there are many things to dislike about this latest version of the Ground Zero plan. Two elements stand particularly large. The first, and the closer it comes to reality the more it bears repeating, is Freedom Tower itself. If all goes as currently set forth, construction will begin in earnest on this building within a month. When completed, it will rise as a stark counterpoint to the new 7 World Trade Center, which is arguably architect David M. Childs' finest building. As much as the shimmering No. 7 lights up the northern edge of Ground Zero, Freedom Tower will occlude its piece of sky, standing not as a beacon but looming like an unfortunate headstone on the jagged horizon of Lower Manhattan." (24 April 2006)

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails (Washington Post). What, exactly, were the nasty things Saddam's jailors did that we went in to stop in Bush Rationale for the War #13? (24 April 2006)

Is this the new mistress of French politics? (London Times). As French Premiere Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy get one thing wrong after another, S?gol?ne Royal's chances of becoming France's first woman president get better and better. (24 April 2006)

Bill Moyers: A Time for Heresy (TomPaine.com) This is the heresy of our time ? to wrestle with the gods who guard the boundaries of this great nation?s promise, and to confront the medicine men in the woods, twirling their bullroarers to keep us in fear and trembling. For the greatest heretic of all is Jesus of Nazareth, who drove the money changers from the temple in Jerusalem as we must now drive the money changers from the temples of democracy." (24 April 2006)

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Jerry Zremski: How much land is enough (Buffalo News). Remember when Seneca Gaming Corporation Barry Snyder said the nine acres they'd bought in downtown Buffalo was all they wanted for their gambling operation and got all huffy when anyone questioned his word? It turns out that not long before he made that statement the Seneca Nation Tribal Council passed a resolution setting out the tribe's "Buffalo footprint," the downtown land it might really try to acquire. A map shows it moving over to the waterfront from the present site and all the way over to Main street, including HSBC arena. (21 April 2006)

F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana (NY Times). In case you had any doubts about whether or not the FDA was now completely a political organization: it has just declared there are no medical benefits from medical marijuana use. Its own federal studies show otherwise, but they're not going to slavishly follow mere facts. (21 April 2006)

Bogus corruption inquiry engulfs French government (The Independent). This reads like one of those novels you buy at the last minute from one of those turning racks at the airport newsstand. Two French investigating judges have had their agents raid the offices of the French equivalents of CIA and the Pentagon. More raids are coming. They're trying to find out if the phony plot to discredit French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the "Clearstream affair," was engineered by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. (21 April 2006)

Nat Hentoff : Mutiny at the Supreme Court (Village Voice). If President Bush thought his two appointments to the Supreme Court gave his imperial presedency a free hand to violate the Constitution he's got another think coming. Samuel Alito may have crawled into bed with the rationalizer-in-chief Antonin Scalia and his shadow Clarence Thomas, but Chief Justice John Roberts seems actually to have read the Constitution and taken it seriously. (2`1 April 2006)

Joel Giambra: Petition to join the anti-casino lawsuit. Erie County Executive Joel Giambra has filed a petition to intervene in the state lawsuit attempting to force New York State to obey its own environmental law in regard to the proposed Seneca Creek casino. Here is a summary of the petition by Deputy County Executive Bruce L. Fisher with a link to a Word file of the full petition (21 April 2006)

Diane Christian: Human Sacrifice. Bush's and the militants' sanctimonious slaughter in Iraq has increased hostility in much of the civilized world to those who claim the god-given right to kill. "How does Abraham differ from the schizophrenic who hears a voice saying to kill the baby, from the dictator/leader who sends troops to conquer enemies, from the priest who believes blood must be offered to the sun to keep the world alive, from the militant who believes terror is the tool to compel social comity?" (20 April 2006)

Belinda Lanks: The Incredible Shrinking City (Metropolismag.com). Buffalo's mayors and common council, confronted with declining population and tax base, have been casting about for a magic bullet that would solve all the city's ills: the Adelphia bubble, the BassPro store that never quite materializes, the self-cannibalizing Seneca Creek casino. Youngstown, Ohio, suggests that there are saner ways to deal with this kind of urban crisis."When the mills shut down in the 1970s and '80s, the smokestacks and foundries that symbolized steel belt manufacturing cities gave way to factory shells and rust. First unemployed, workers then began to move away for good. Unlike former steel powerhouses, such as Pittsburgh and Allentown, that have tried to attract new industry and grow their way back to prosperity, Youngstown, Ohio, is hitching its future to a strategy of creative shrinkage." (20 April 2006)

Sean Wilentz: The Worst President in History? One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush (Rolling Stone). "George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history." (20 April 2006)

Snyder puts onus on leaders of Buffalo (Buffalo News). Seneca Gaming Corporation president Barry Snyder held a rambling press conference in Niagara Falls yesterday in which he blamed Buffalo officials for what appears to be a rapidly disintegrating relationship between SGC and Buffalo and Erie County officials. When asked about the SGC's 10K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contracted his previous public statements, he said he was going to rewrite the report. He also said, "A filing is a filing. It's just a piece of paper." And so is a contract. Just a piece of paper. And his word? Just words. (20 April 2006)

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Bruce Jackson: Why Doesn't the Buffalo News Editorial Page Tell the Truth? (Artvoice). Do Buffalo News editorial writers read what Buffalo News reporters write about casinos and the damage they do in places like this? If they do, how can publisher Stan Lipsey explain the discrepancy between the fact part of the paper and the opinion part of the paper? If they don't, why doesn't Lipsey tell them they ought to? He's paying for both teams; they might as well learn to listen to one another, or, at least, the opinion part ought to learn to pay attention to the fact part. As things stand, editorial page editor Stephen Bell is publishing one misleading "the Buffalo Creek casino is a done-deal" editorial after another, when nothing could be further from the truth. (20 April 2006)

Malcolm Gladwell: Here's Why (New Yorker). Why do we do what we do. Because we have reasons. Fewer than you think. (20 April 2006)

Bob Wing: Ruin, Rubble and Race: Lessons on the Centennial of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Developers used the 1906 San Francisco disaster as a convenient way to get rid of the city's poor Chinese population and to make a lot of money on the rebuilding process. While it was going on, many of the displaced Chinese were herded into prison-like compounds away from town. Sound familiar? "Disasters not only reveal hidden inequalities but also grossly aggravate the existing power imbalances between rich and poor, between white and non-white. The power elite has usually planned ahead for disaster, suffers less and recovers faster from the shock. They have lawyers, bankers and politicians, ready to fight for their interests. For most of us, the most vital response to natural disasters--before, during and after the event--is organizing our communities and workplaces to survive, rebuild and fight for our interests against the predators in our midst. In areas susceptible to disaster, it is critical to integrate disaster planning into our day to day organizing against gentrification and for social justice. For example, in the Bay Area we should include planning for the next big earthquake in the ongoing struggle against the gentrification of the Bay View, West Oakland and other poor communities in the region. And of course the fight in the Gulf region is still at fever pitch. It is crucial to support the fight to prevent the transformation of New Orleans from a largely black working class city into a gentrified theme park featuring jazz, creole food and gambling." 19 April 2006)

Germany Agrees to Open Holocaust Archive (NY Times). What a difference a bit of bad publicity makes. The previous item has been superceded: "Germany agreed Tuesday to allow access to a vast trove of information on what happened to more than 17 million people who were executed, forced to labor for the Nazi war machine or otherwise brutalized during the Holocaust. The German government announced at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here that it was dropping its decades-long resistance to opening the archives kept in the town of Bad Arolsen. The files, which make up one of the largest Holocaust archives in the world, are more than 15 miles long and hold up to 50 million documents, some seized by the Allies as they liberated concentration camps." (19 April 2006)

Tensions Rise in Long Feud Over Access to Nazi Archive (Washington Post). One of the largest collections of WWII historial documents is off-limits to nearly everybody. In theory, it is controlled by an international commission, but the German and Italian governments say free access to the collection would violate the privacy rights of the victims of the German and Italian governments during the war. Sixty-one years after the war ended and they're fretting about privacy rights? No: they're worried about lawsuits. (18 April 2006)

Carl Bernstein: Senate Hearings on Bush, Now (Vanity Fair) "After Nixon's resignation, it was often said that the system had worked. Confronted by an aberrant president, the checks and balances on the executive by the legislative and judicial branches of government, and by a free press, had functioned as the founders had envisioned. The system has thus far failed during the presidency of George W. Bush?at incalculable cost in human lives, to the American political system, to undertaking an intelligent and effective war against terror, and to the standing of the United States in parts of the world where it previously had been held in the highest regard. There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived." (18 April 2006)

Derrick Z. Jackson: Robbery, not reconstruction, in Iraq (Boston Globe). American companies have been robbing the Iraqis blind, and because the Bush administration insisted that Iraqi law exempt them from prosecution, there's not a thing the victims can do about it. (18 April 2006)

Steve Martin: The New Page Six (New Yorker). The NY Post's hot gossip Page 6 turned up as bribe central. Steve Martin does a full disclosure version, with adoring strokes for TomDelay, Charlize Theron, Paris Hilton, and Angela Jolie's baby. (17 April 2006)

Phil Fairbanks: Hidden costs of gambling (Buffalo News). The second part of Fairbanks' excellent report on the real costs of the Niagara Falls casino and legalized gambling in general. If the Buffalo News' editorial writers read the front part of the paper, maybe they'd stop writing those wimpy roll-over-and-play-dead editorials telling Buffalonians that the casino is a "done deal" (it isn't) and that they should hope for a bigger slice of the pie from Albany (it'll never happen; anyway, the pie is poisoned). (17 April 2006)

David Staba: A Casino Project That Was Once Lauded is Now Drawing Criticism (NY Times). When NY Governor George Pataki cut his three-casino deal with the Seneca Nation all the pols in sight, including current Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, applauded. Now it's looking more and more like a loser for everyone but the Senecas. Brown is waffling, the governor is saying nothing about it, and the Seneca's gambling boss is making threats. Class act, folks. (17 April 2006)

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Phil Fairbanks: Casino promises?still waiting (Buffalo News). Part 1 of a two-part series. When Governor Pataki announced his three-casino deal with the Senecas he promised huge development for the stricken city of Niagara Falls and the struggling city of Buffalo. Niagara Falls has had its casino for nearly three years now. It took in $306 million last year, most of it from local gamblers. There has been no spinoff development. Next year's financial report will show a bigger decline in NF's non-casino income because the few local hotels now getting business from casino customers will lose it to the casino's new hotel. Local restaurants are folding, incapable of competing with a huge operation that pays no sales or occupancy taxes. Niagara Falls' share of the slot machine drop--expected to be $13 million this year--isn't a fraction of the local money lost in the casino itself. The only positive seems to be is jobs, but nobody outside the casino is sure how many there really are and how many non-casino jobs they've displaced. All studies of urban casinos show an immediate spike in jobs, than an overall decline as casino jobs displace a greater number of non-casino jobs. This problem would be far worse in Buffalo than Niagara Falls. (16 April 2006)

Matthew Rothschild: The Human Costs of Bombing in Iran (The Progressive). The got all huffy, but finally neither George Bush nor Scott McClellan denied Seymour Hersh's resport that the Bush administration is considering using tactical nuclear weapons in war against Iran. "The number of deaths could exceed a million, and the number of people with increased cancer risks could exceed 10 million." The US "would be violating the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, which prohibits nations that possess nuclear weapons from dropping them on nations that don't." Who thinks for a moment that Bush, who gets his marching orders from God and Dick Cheney, gives a hoot? The Geneva Convention prohibits torturing prisoners of war and the US Constitution requires a charge before, not years after, detention, and neither of those seems to have influenced any Oval Office decisions. (16 April 2006)

Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist Fired, Prize-Winning Writers Resign Following Merger with New Times Media (Democracy Now!). For years the weekly Village Voice has been known for some of the best investigative journalism in the business. They merged with New Times Media earlier this year, and shortly after, the chain's owner established himself as the Voice's managing editor and began cutting back on investigative journalism and squelching any criticism of the Bush administration. Lately, the paper has been hemorraging its top reporters, some fired by the new owner, some by resignation. Amy Goodman talks with several of them and with one who stayed. (16 April 2006)

David Corn: 2008 Looking Like 1968 (TomPaine.com). Hillary Clinton is doing everything but changing her name and wearing a wig to keep from expressing an opinion on the Iraq War. "She is for the status quo?as long as it doesn't last too long. That's not much of a position?and certainly not an act of inspiring leadership." If she attacks the war, the Republicans will accuse her of not having any balls (she might consider owning up to that fact and moving on); if she doesn't, anti-war Democrats will call her a Bush toady or Republican in Democrat drag. Meanwhile, Russ Feingold is calling things as he sees them and more and more Democrats are listening. He may not have enough of a base to stop the Hillary freight train, but he can keep it from being handed to her on a platter. (16 April 2006)

Cheney and Rumsfeld outsourcing terror (rawstory). "The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say." Condi opposed the operation but was overruled. (16 April 2006)

Robert Scheer: Now Powell Tells Us (truthdig.com). Former Secretary of State Colin Powell admits "that he and his department?s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us." (16 April 2006)

Molly Ivins: White House Whopper Becomes Instant Classic (truthdig.com). "Personally, I think this is a really good time not to keep up. The more you try, the less sense it makes, although getting us used to having it all make no sense at all may be an extremely sneaky Karl Rove ploy to justify the war in Iraq. Hard to say." (16 April 2006)

US on par with Nazi Germany, says RAF officer in Iraq trial (Guardian). An RAF doctor refused to serve in Iraq because the war was an "imperial invasion and occupation," which he believed comprised "active aggression and systematically applied war crimes, serious violations of international law." The prosecutor said "that soldiers could not be expected to read and understand numerous books on international law," which is to say, they should just shut up and follow orders. That excuse was offered, without much success, at several Nuremburg trials in 1946. (16 April 2006)

William Sloane Coffin on Bill Moyers' NOW (PBS). It's important to remind yourself, when the news media spend most of their time and space on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other sanctimonious killers-by-proxy, that there are people of authentic principle and decency in this world. William Sloane Coffin, who died last week at the age of 82, was one. Here's a Bill Moyers conversation with Coffin taped in March 2004, along with several worthwhile links. (15 April 2006)

Berlusconi Suffers Setback Over Recount (NY Times). Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi claimed the 82,850 contested ballots in last week's Italian election entitled him to a recount, but it turns out that there are only 5,266 of them, not enough to undo Romano Prodi's triumph. Belusconi, true to form, is refusing to give up, saying he'll force the government to a standstill if they don't award him the election he lost at the polls. He controls nearly all of Italy's newspapers and tv stations, so he can make a lot of noise. One reason he may be fighting so hard: there were some criminal charges a few years ago that were put into a drawer because the Italian courts said they didn't have the power to try a sitting prime minister. A successor might open that drawer. (15 April 2006)

Donn Esmonde: Folks finally catching on to casino myths. (Buffalo News). "The $7 million annual payout to the city is a poor return for mostly local folks dropping $150 million at the casino," writes Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde. "And casino jobs come at the cost of existing ones, as money spent at a casino isn't spent at malls, ballparks and businesses. Add it up, and it doesn't compute. The last thing this city needs is another hole in its sink. A Buffalo casino helps the Senecas, who pocket most of the profits. It helps Albany, which gets a slice of the slot machine take. It hurts Buffalo, which gives more than it gets. It is nice that more folks are catching on. You can't play us for suckers if we're not at the table." Wouldn't it be nice if the folks who write those roll-over-play-dead editorials at the News read Esmonde's columns? Wouldn't it be better if Esmonde wrote the editorials? (15 April 2006)

Documents link Rumsfeld to prisoner's interrogation. Questions raised about his knowledge of abuse (Boston Globe). Is it torture if we don't call it torture? Of course not. So how can you call Rummy's knowledge of the torture going on in Guantanamo torture? What they were doing to that guy was, well, not-torture. (15 April 2006)

Derrick Z. Jackson: Empty boasts on weapons labs (Boston Globe). More and more evidence is coming out that the Bush administration cooked the data and lied their collective asses off to march us to war in Iraq. So why do Democrats Clinton and Lieberman still back them up? The White House is now calling newspapers that publish evidence of the deceptions "reckless." If that's "reckless," what is lying your way to slaughter? (15 April 2006)

April 13 all-casino issue:

Bruce Jackson: Tom Golisano vs. The Casino (Artvoice). Talk to the head of any major Buffalo corporation, educational or arts institution and they'll tell you city hall's pursuit of the proposed Seneca casino in the heart of town is civic suicide. But because of fear, distaste for conflict or dislike of being in the public eye, not one of them has been willing to take a public stand on the issue. Until now, that is: Tom Golisano, the billionaire owner of the Buffalo Sabres and longtime critic of the New York State Lottery, called a press conference to announce his opposition. In this exclusive interview he explains his reasons for going public and tells what he plans to do now. (13 April 2006)

Bruce Jackson: Byron Brown Discovers the Senecas' 10-K (Artvoice). "If you want an indicator of the impact and significance of Tom Golisano?s Tuesday afternoon press conference in which he announced his strong opposition to a casino in downtown Buffalo, you need look no further than the press release issued that evening by the office of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. Brown has, for the past two years, done everything a human being in public life could do to keep from taking a position on the casino issue. He has adopted the posture of someone just going along with an engine put in place by his predecessor, Anthony Masiello. He has, so far as anyone knows, done no investigation of his own about whether a downtown casino would be good or bad for Buffalo. He?s just gone along and made no waves." And now he says he has some questions. He hasn't seen the light, but at least there's some movement. (11 April 2006)

Geoff Kelly: "Joel Giambra: We're Going to Court" (Artvoice). "On Wednesday morning, April 12, Erie County Executive Joel Giambra held a press conference to pronounce his own position on a downtown Buffalo casino. He also outlined the course of action he expected the county to take in opposition to such a casino....Giambra?s remarks came on the heels of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown?s press release on Tuesday night, which itself came on the heels of Tom Golisano?s press conference on Tuesday afternoon. It?s worth noting, however, that Giambra officials alerted the media that the county executive would be making some such statement as far back as Friday. April 7. Brown?s statement came apparently out of the blue." (11 April 2006)

Matthew Spina: Golisano opposes casino (Buffalo News). The Buffalo News coverage of Tom Golisano's April 11 press conference announcing his opposition to the Buffalo Creek Casino. Consistent with its tradition of presenting both sides of any argument, the News includes a long statement from someone in Albany who says spending at a casino is no different from any other spending. Their "expert" apparently didn't know that the Senecas' casinos are tax exempt and free of environmental controls, which is one of the reasons the Niagara Falls casino has driven so many local businesses into oblivion. The phrase is "fair and balanced" guys, not "ignorant and wrong." (11 April 2006)

Matthew Spina and Brian Meyer: Casino talks marked by divisiveness (Buffalo News). A Seneca Gaming Corporation official threatened to put a few slot machines in a trailer and call it a casino if city officials don't give them everything they want. Some members of the Common Council find the threat of creating a cheap eyesore blackmail. Another SGC official says the first official didn't really mean it; he was just giving an example of something. Meanwhile, oppposition to the downtown casino continues to grow. (11 April 2006)

Citizens for Better Buffalo. Website of the organization that has been organizing the lawsuits in state and federal court seeking to force everyone involved in the proposed Buffalo Creek casino to start obeying state and federal environmental law. The site contains information on the lawsuit, links, how to contribute to the legal effort, etc. (11 April 2006)

Citizens Against Casino Gambling in Erie County. Website of the organization that has worked to keep a casino out of Erie County since Governor Pataki announced the deal he'd cut with the Seneca Nation three years ago: reports, studies, links, etc. (11 April 2006)

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Special Seneca casino lawsuit issue, 4 January 2006:

Want to contribute to the legal battle to save Buffalo by blocking the illegal downtown casino? Click here for how to do it.

Bruce Jackson: Editor's note on this Special issue of Buffalo Report: The proposed Seneca casino in Buffalo is a bad deal, not a done deal. (4 January 2006)

Donn Esmonde: Casino suit tries to save us from ourselves  (Buffalo News). "This is how it works around here. Politicians fail us, but enlightened citizens use the courts to make it right. It is why we will get a better bridge to Canada. It is why we will get a historic Erie Canal project instead of the bland landscaping originally planned. Without a lawsuit, neither one would have happened. Now folks are suing to stop what looks like another mistake. It is not the neatest, quickest or cleanest way to get the right thing done. But sometimes politicians leave people little choice." (4 January 2006)

Mark Sommer: Federal lawsuit to block casino in Cobblestone District (Buffalo News). Details on the lawsuit and the press conference announcing it. (4 January 2006)

David Staba: Buffalo Lawsuit Challenges a Casino Off Indian Land (NY Times). 4 January 2006). "In the latest salvo between local advocates and government officials over this city's future, a coalition of citizens' groups, churches, business people and lawyers filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday to halt construction of an Indian casino on the Buffalo River waterfront.The suit alleges that federal officials, including Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, failed to abide by a 1988 law regulating gambling facilities established off reservation land when they approved the proposed Buffalo casino." (4 January 2006)

Carolyn Thompson: Federal lawsuit seeks to halt Indian casino in Buffalo (AP/Newsday). "A group of casino opponents sued Interior Secretary Gale Norton and other federal officials Tuesday to try to stop a nine-acre city parcel from becoming a Seneca Indian casino, likening the plan to 'self-cannibalization.' 'Why would (New York state) place right in the heart of its second-largest city a foreign country to reach out and pick the pockets of the poorest in its community?' asked Joseph Finnerty, an attorney representing the coalition of gambling opponents, religious leaders and preservationists in the U.S. District Court lawsuit." (4 January 2006)

Citizens for a Better Buffalo: Press release on filing of Federal lawsuit opposing Buffalo casino. A group of organizations and individuals have joined in legal efforts to protect the community from those who would substitute a Seneca casino for development that would really do the community some good. This press release announces the filing of their first lawsuit in Federal district court in Buffalo on 3 January 2006.

Dianne Bennett: Casinos are simply bad business. The only people who profit from a downtown casino are the people who own them and the people who build them. Everyone else, from local business owners, to city residents, to ordinary works, loses. A downtown casino isn't development; it kills development. (4 January 2006)

Rep. John J. LaFalce: 3 September 2002 letter to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton  telling her that the Seneca Settlement Act, of which he was coauthor, does not authorize an Indian casino in downtown Buffalo. Norton ignored his advice, which lead to the lawsuit filed January 3, 2006.

John J. LaFalce: 30 December 2005 statement. One of the authors of federal act used by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to justify ceding Buffalo land to the Seneca nation for the purpose of building a casino says he stands by his earlier letter to Norton saying the act does not apply to the Buffalo situation at all. (4 January 2006)

The Federal complaint filed January 3, 2006 (pdf format), arguing that the proposed Seneca casino in downtown Buffalo is illegal, and naming as plaintiffs Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, the National Indian Gaming Commission and others. (4 January 2006)

Buffalo-Niagara Partnership: Opposition to a Seneca Casino in Downtown Buffalo. The Partnership's 24 February 2004 statement opposition locating a casino in the Buffalo Convention Center (which was then one of the possible sites) or any place else in the city on the grounds that it would destroy local businesses and be a disincentive to investment.

The Pataki-Seneca Compact (1.5Mb onprintable PDF). You won't find this 700-page document on any New York State website currently, nor will you find it on the City of Buffalo's website. You'd almost think they didn't want you to see it. (The Central Library in Buffalo has the Compact in hard copy in two volumes. (4 January 2006).

Previous Buffalo Report (and a few other) casino articles

 

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