back with liberal hippyness.
Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, was awarded a no-bid contract worth over $7 billion to help rebuild Iraq. The process for awarding this rare and lucrative contract was coordinated by Dick Cheney's own office in the White House. [Time, 5/30/04] Dick Cheney still receives deferred compensation from Halliburton, showing a lingering financial interest in the company. [Washington Post, 9/26/03; Richard B. Cheney Personal Financial Disclosure, May 15, 2002]
Despite the Cheney favoritism, Halliburton has shown little regard for American taxpayers -- from overcharging the military for gas to not delivering meals to troops. Halliburton is a symptom of a wider problem: a House committee found that at least $1 billion has been wasted in Iraq because of a lack of planning and poor oversight.
Today we're asking you to get out the facts about Dick Cheney and Halliburton's wasteful use of our tax dollars in Iraq. Join the thousands of existing members of our Media Corps by writing a letter to the editor, calling in to a radio talk show, or reaching out to the public through some other media channel.
Everything you need to participate, including contact info for media outlets, is right here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/onlinehq/mediacorps
After you've written your letter, share it with us and tell us where you sent it by reporting back here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/onlinehq/politics.php
The Media Corps is John Kerry's online rapid response network, made up of a group of committed supporters who want to bring our campaign's message home to local media markets. Members of our Media Corps are making themselves heard in countless national and local newspapers, on dozens of talk radio shows, and through other channels.
If you can contribute a little bit of time, creativity and energy, we'll supply you with all the information you need to become a member of our online communications team.
If you don't have time today, but would like to participate in future Media Corps actions, sign up here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/signup/mediacorps.php
Thank you,
Mary Beth Cahill
Campaign Manager, Kerry for President
Writing Points:
Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995-2000. In addition to providing him with a massive salary and bonus for just eight months of work in 2000, Halliburton's board of directors voted to give Cheney a $20 million retirement package when he resigned. Following his departure from Halliburton, Cheney retained possession of 433,333 options of Halliburton stock. [Washington Post, 9/26/03; Richard B. Cheney Personal Financial Disclosure, May 15, 2002; May 15, 2003; New York Times, 8/12/00; LA Times, 7/24/00; AP, 7/18/02]
For months, Cheney denied any involvement in Halliburton contracts. On "Meet the Press," he even said "...I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts..." [NBC News, "Meet the Press", 9/14/03]
Time Magazine recently reported on a smoking gun email between the Department of Defense and the Vice President's office showing that Cheney's office "coordinated" a multi-billion dollar, no-bid government contract for Halliburton, his former employer. [Time, 5/30/04]
As an example of overspending, Halliburton billed the government for 36 percent more meals than were served. In all, Halliburton charged $186 million for meals that were never delivered. [Detroit Free Press, 6/16/04]
A Halliburton subsidiary was criticized for abandoning numerous $85,000 trucks with flat tires, housing company officials in a five-star Kuwaiti hotel, raising prices for gasoline deliveries in Iraq and ordering empty trucks to crisscross the country to run up the gas bills. [Detroit Free Press, 6/16/04]
Only one week remains before the June 30th transfer of authority in Iraq, yet Iraqis remain mired in joblessness and poverty. Despite the Bush administration’s promises, the U.S. has failed to address the catastrophic levels of unemployment, estimated to be at least 30%. Out of 7-8 million employable people, 2 million Iraqis are out of work.
Calling the continuing high unemployment rate "a crisis that undermines efforts to stabilize the country," the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) released an issue brief on Iraq’s unemployment situation. "The Iraq Jobs Crisis: Workers Seek Their Own Voice" underscores the importance of investing in Iraq’s people.
The Bush administration is falling far short of its assurances to create jobs in Iraq. As Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post reported: "About 15,000 Iraqis have been hired to work on projects funded by $18.6 billion in U.S. aid, despite promises to use the money to employ at least 250,000 Iraqis by this month" (Washington Post 6/20/04).
Meanwhile, Iraq Revenue Watch reports that the United States is rushing to commit $2 billion of Iraq’s oil revenues before Iraqis take power on the June 30th transition date, leaving Iraq’s "sovereign" government with little control over oil money.
The United States has broken yet another promise to Iraqis. While denouncing the corruption of the former regime, the U.S.-led administration of Iraq has squandered billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer dollars and Iraqi oil revenue, given out bid-free contracts to huge U.S. corporations like Halliburton, and left Iraq’s working families out in the cold.
While foreign contractors are making windfall profits, millions of Iraqis are unemployed, which in turn fuels anger and resentment, strengthening the insurgency in Iraq. To help restore security and save lives in Iraq, aggressive job creation should be the number one priority.
Be one of the first to read this ever important report:
www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=262
Chances are, you haven’t been thinking about a Supreme Court retirement lately. But of course, you know that the Supreme Court is closely divided over Roe v. Wade. If one of the Justices who support Roe retires, the anti-choice movement is ready to strike.
Consider this: when Michigan passed a complete ban on legal abortion just weeks ago, it set in motion a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. We’ve seen this same strategy used by opponents of a woman’s right to choose in legislatures across the country. Even Congress passed - and President Bush signed - an unconstitutional abortion ban with the hope that it comes before a Supreme Court sympathetic to their cause. We can’t let this happen.
The Supreme Court will end its 2003-04 term within the next few weeks, so this is the time of year retirements are often announced. We need you - and all pro-choice Americans - to be prepared for immediate action the minute a Supreme Court Justice retires so that we can get the best possible jump on the far-right forces who will try to seize the opportunity.
We’ve got just the tool for you: our wallet-sized "Emergency Instructions for a Supreme Court Retirement" card. Simply print, cut and fold the card, and keep it in your wallet. The minute you hear that a Supreme Court Justice is retiring, you’ll be ready for action, wherever you are.
It’s really as simple as that. When the time comes, it will only take a few minutes to start the fight to protect the Supreme Court from President Bush and his allies in Congress. Print one for yourself. Forward this message. Print one for a friend. Click here to get started.
It's been several months since George Bush announced he is trying to lead this country by endorsing a discriminatory, unnecessary and undermining amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We just learned that an actual vote on this proposal has been scheduled in the United States Senate just three weeks from now. You and so many others have been great. But it is time to turn up the heat - click here!
With three weeks to go, we are asking you to do two things:
Contact your Senators right now - even if you have already done so, and;
Open email from us over the next three weeks because we will be encouraging you to do something new and extremely important each week.
We must win this vote and win it big. Members of Congress tell us they're hearing from the other side by a 10 to 1 margin right now. That's why your action today is so critical.
During the next few weeks, we intend to get 250,000 people to oppose the Constitutional amendment. That's right: 250,000. We need new people - but we also need to you to repeat your opposition, even if you have done so dozens of times already. Even if your legislator already opposes the Amendment. Persistence makes a difference. It tells our leaders that we will not stop, no matter what.
Click here to voice your opposition to any discriminatory constitutional amendment. Again. And then - invite everyone you know to turn up the heat with us this summer and win this critical battle.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Thank you,
Seth Kilbourn and the activist team at
Human Rights Campaign.
P.S. Please visit our web site to see our new video with Senator John Kerry and HRC President Cheryl A. Jacques.
Please take a moment to let the EPA know you support reducing mercury pollution by participating in the official comment period. The deadline for comments is June 29th.
Stop Toxic Mercury Pollution - Sign the Petition
Bob Fertik, co-founder
Democrats.com
p.s. For each signature we collect, the sponsor will contribute $1 to Democrats.com to help us build a powerful progressive majority for change. So sign the petition - and pass it along to your friends!
Getting a Grip on the Gipper
A Tribute to Ronald Reagan
by Michael I. Niman
Coldtype 6/21/04
On the morning of Ronald Reagan's death, I was strolling across the
University of California's Berkeley campus. I wasn't aware that Reagan was
on his deathbed, but he was on my mind none-the-less. As I passed
Berkeley's historic Sproul Plaza, I remembered Reagan's quote as governor
during the heyday of Berkeley's anti-Vietnam War protests when he bellowed,
if it takes a "bloodbath" to pacify UC's campuses, "let the bloodbath
begin." In the years that followed, American police officers beat and
gassed protestors not only in California, but across the US, with students
shot dead in Jackson, Mississippi and Kent, Ohio. Reagan, however, lived on
for over three more decades.
Reagan's death was as Orwellian as his presidency, with the corporate media
engaged in an orgy of adoration - not of the real Reagan, but of a mythical
character they were constructing literally before our eyes. Yes, Reagan did
come off as a kind old grandfatherly man. But by all accounts, Adolph
Hitler was also kind - to dogs and Aryan children. But Hitler's ultimate
legacy isn't that of a kind dog-lover. And Reagan's legacy shouldn't be
that of a kind old man.
Reagan's Terrorist Legacy
He was no grandfather to Nicaraguan children, for instance. In 1981 he
launched a covert US war against Nicaragua whose government Reagan
ignorantly termed as "Marxist." Under his command, we financed, armed and
trained a mercenary band of terrorists known as the "Contras." US Government
documents that have since become public detail how the Contra terrorists
targeted schools, health clinics, public utilities and public transportation
as well as elected officials (from 1981 to 1984 they murdered 910 government
officials and over 8,000 civilians). They bombed doctor's offices, blew up
school buses, destroyed electric plants and killed police officers, elected
officials and patriotic Nicaraguans who supported their elected government.
Under Reagan, the US mined Nicaragua's harbors and ordered the CIA to blow
up several of that country's largest fuel depots, later ironically arguing
that the Inter-American Development Bank shouldn't loan money to Nicaraguan
fishermen since that nation didn't have adequate fuel for its fishing fleet.
A Congressional intelligence report documented that Reagan's Contra army,
who Reagan equated as "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers," had
"raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children." The
report also documents that "groups of civilians, including women and
children, were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded" by the Contras,
who Reagan also dubbed as "freedom fighters."
The US Congress, for its part, was so disgusted that it cut off all funding
for Reagan's "freedom fighters." Undeterred, the Reagan administration
covertly raised funds for the Contras by selling weapons to the US' official
enemy, Iran, as well as aiding the Contras in illicit narcotics shipments to
US-based drug dealers. This fiasco has historically been termed the "Iran
Contra Affair."
The Contra War ended in 1989, with a fed up Nicaraguan population finally
crying "uncle" and voting a US-supported government into office. The war
cost Nicaragua over 50,000 lives and left the Nicaraguan economy and
infrastructure in shambles - a state it remains in today.
Reagan's Treason in Iran
The Iran Contra Affair wasn't Reagan's first contact with Iran, however. In
1979, when Jimmy Carter was running for reelection, Iranian students were
holding over 50 Americans hostage with the approval and support of Iran's
fundamentalist government. Candidate Reagan sent an envoy to meet with the
Iranians during his campaign, allegedly arranging for Iran to NOT release
the hostages until after the US presidential election, leaving Jimmy Carter
appearing powerless and humiliated in the face of a foreign enemy (This is
best documented in Gary Sick's book, "October Surprise: America's Hostages
in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan," published by Random House's
Times Books).
The ultimate payoff for the Iranians was the Iran-Contra arms deal and a
general hands-off approach to Iran during Reagan's presidency. By any
definition, this deal was treasonous. Reagan's team conspired with a
hostile enemy of the US, encouraging it to maintain hostility against the US
while further endangering the lives of the American hostages, who Iran
ultimately released on the first day of Reagan's presidency.
After conspiring with the Iranians, however, Reagan also double-crossed
them, selling weapons to their enemy, Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The Reagan
administration continued to sell not only conventional weapons, but
biological and chemical weapons components to Iraq even after it was
documented that they were using banned chemical weapons against their own
Kurdish population and against the Iranians. The Reagan administration also
worked to thwart international condemnation of Saddam's regime. The
Iran-Iraq war cost over one million lives, with the Reagan administration
supplying weapons to both sides.
Osama bin-Reagan
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the Reagan administration ordered the CIA to build
an army of fundamentalist warriors to drive the Soviet Union out of that
country. Among the leaders that they recruited, armed and trained, was
Osama bin Laden. The Afghani members of this army evolved into the Taliban.
The foreign fighters recruited primarily in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia later
became al Qaida. These bastard sons of the Reagan foreign policy are the
Gipper's ultimate legacy. I'll remember the old bastard more for his role
in laying the groundwork for September 11th than I will for his kindly
smile.
Reagan will also be remembered quite well in El Salvador and Guatemala -
especially on the Day of the Dead when folks go to cemeteries to remember
their deceased ancestors. In El Salvador, Reagan armed and trained a brutal
military linked to psychotically violent death squads responsible for
killing tens of thousands of Salvadorans. In 1982 Reagan reported to
Congress that the Salvadoran government was making strides in improving its
human rights record. American newspapers, which during the Reagan era still
carried some news critical of US puppet governments, reported during the
same week that Salvadoran troops massacred, in one village alone, 700-1,000
people who were mostly women, children and elderly folks who didn't think
they needed to flee. A week later the same newspapers carried reports of
institutionalized rape and torture carried out by US armed Salvadoran
forces. Then there was the rape of American nuns at the hands of Salvadoran
troops trained in Fort Benning, Georgia at the School of the Americas. By
the end of the Reagan presidency, approximately 70,000 Salvadorans were
killed.
Scorched Earth
Next door in Guatemala, a 1982 coup brought Rios Montt, a member of a
California based evangelical Christian church, to power. Reagan gave his
blessing to the coup, restoring US military aid cut under Jimmy Carter.
Montt proceeded to declare a state of siege launching the hemisphere's most
brutal contemporary war against indigenous people. Montt's genocidal
"Scorched Earth" campaign resulted in the destruction of approximately 400
Mayan villages and the deaths of some 100,000 people (some estimates range
up to 200,000), with surviving Maya-Catholic residents resettled into
strategic "Model Villages" under the theological control of evangelical
Christian missionaries.
People in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala entered the 1980s with hope.
Reagan killed that hope. That, along with a decade of unspeakable horror,
is Reagan's legacy to the people of Central America, who only knew him as a
brutal butcher, never ever seeing him as a kind old man.
Reagan also was a friend to the racist apartheid regime in South Africa,
vetoing a bipartisan congressional bill that would have enacted sanctions
against that government. He also backed the totalitarian junta in Argentina
and attempted to normalize relations with the murderous Pinochet regime in
Chile - both governments that have since fallen to popular democratic
movements. He also expressed support for the brutal Marcos dictatorship in
the Philippines.
The Pied Piper of Armageddon
Reagan's foreign policy wasn't just marked by the coddling of dictators.
His administration also put forth a bizarre and quite terrifying proposition
that nuclear war could be winnable. This was more or less an insane
scorecard sort of deal, where if a few of us survived, while none of them
survived, then this technically would be a victory, marred only by nuclear
winter.
This Strangelovian proposition, of course, put the Soviets on edge. Hence,
we have since learned, when the comic old Gipper cut loose one of his zany
one-liners in front of an open microphone, stating that he just declared the
Soviet Union "illegal" and that we would "begin bombing in five minutes," the
USSR went into high alert activating its nuclear arsenal and damn near
ending life on earth as we know it. Anti-nuclear activist, Dr. Helen
Caldicott called Reagan "the pied piper of Armageddon." Under his watch we
had the largest anti-war demonstration (Nuclear Freeze) in American history,
with between 700,000 to 1.2 million people gathering in New York's Central
Park to denounce his policies.
Reagan was equally destructive back home where his tax cuts for the richest
Americans set the pace for a draconian upward redistribution of income while
gutting government programs for jobs, housing, health and education. He cut
the school lunch program, famously declaring that ketchup would suffice as a
vegetable in school cafeterias. At protests we chanted "Ketchup is a
condiment - Reagan is a vegetable."
The Stench of Urine
It was under Reagan's watch that the streets of America's cities began to
stink of urine as the term "homelessness" entered the American lexicon. The
economic miracle celebrated last week on network TV was known at the time as
the "Reagan Recession." The rich got richer. A lot richer. And many in
the middle class suddenly became poor for the first time in generations.
Millions of Americans continue to live on the streets or in their cars. We
now have the "working homeless" and "homeless families" joining the legions
of despair. This is all Reagan's legacy. He was a mean nasty old bastard
of a man.
Perhaps the area where he differed most from his predecessor was in regards
to the environment. Jimmy Carter actually had an energy policy. He mounted
solar collectors on the roof of the White House and began an earnest push
toward mandating the use of renewable energy while setting mileage standards
for automobiles.
In 1979 Carter made the ultimate mistake - he was honest in the White House.
In contrast to the irresponsible consequence-free consumerism that followed
in the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush era, Carter warned Americans that the party
needed to end - that we would have to live collectively as adults and face
the consequences of our actions.
In contrast to our current terminal SUV-laden childish "I'm an American and
I can drive anything I damn please" culture, Carter warned, "We can't go on
consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are
also importing inflation plus unemployment." Carter went even further,
questioning the whole economic, environmental and cultural impact of
conspicuous consumption itself. In his "Malaise Speech" on July 15th, 1979,
Carter warned, "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families,
close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to
worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined
by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning
things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've
learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives
which have no confidence or purpose."
With this speech, Carter challenged the very ethos of the upcoming Reagan
Revolution - greed, irresponsibility and living for consequence-free
immediate gratification, the world be damned. Carter told Americans that we
had to live responsibly, and this, along with Reagan's Iran treason, was his
ultimate downfall. Carter proposed capping oil imports at 1977 levels,
cutting oil usage 50% by 1990 and engaging in an unprecedented peacetime
spending plan to develop alternative fuel sources, with the goal of
producing 20% of our energy from solar sources by the year 2000.
Gutting Reality
One of Reagan's first acts in office was to order the working solar panels
removed from the roof of the White House. He then scrapped the rest of
Carter's energy plan, never replacing it with one of his own. Americans
went on a 25-year drunk, buying larger and more powerful cars while building
more and more roads to drive them on, all while starving mass transportation
coffers. The result is the global climate change and oil wars and energy
insecurity that we are now seeing. Take a deep breath. Reagan's putrid
legacy is all around us.
Ultimately, the Reagan presidency undermined American culture, legitimizing
greed as an acceptable value. He promised to shrink government but instead
gave us record deficits driven by tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations
coupled with increases in military spending. He allowed Savings and Loan
administrators such as Neil Bush to loot their own banks, ultimately costing
us almost one trillion dollars. He set back conservation efforts and the
fight against global warming by 25 years, all but guaranteeing an
environmental calamity. He had no qualms about taking the food out of the
mouths of poor children. He poisoned our judiciary with ideologically driven
reactionary judges such as Antonin Scalia, ultimately leading to George W.
Bush's appointment to the White House.
He transformed us from being a mature nation responsibly planning for our
future into a hedonistic band of overgrown toddlers on a credit card high.
He got reelected because it's more fun to spend than to save, and easier to
pillage than to conserve. This culture of selfishness and irresponsibility
is Reagan's true legacy. He not only poisoned our environment. He poisoned
our national ethos. Most of our current problems, including the imbecile
now in the White House, have their roots in the Reagan presidency.
May He Rot in Hell
We shouldn't allow the corporate media to engage in unchallenged historic
revisionism. Looking at the media's celebration of Ronald Reagan's life
gives credibility to Gore Vidal's argument that we are now living in the
United States of Amnesia. No. Reagan was not a great man. And we were not
always at war with Eurasia. Don't be afraid to speak the truth and
articulate history as you remember it or credibly learned it. Ronald Reagan
was one of the most destructive Americans ever to live. Generations will
suffer because of his actions. Don't be afraid to speak to this reality.
Tell it to the folks at the water cooler. Blast it out over the internet to
all of your friends. Shout it loudly from atop of the nearest building.
Ronald Reagan was a mean old heartless bastard. May he rot in hell!