When confronted this week with news that the latest CNN Poll had found 61 per cent of Americans want out of Iraq, war criminal, serial draft dodger & all-round crook, Dick ‘Strangelove’ Cheney said: ‘So?’ 

When then asked specifically if he cared what the American people think, the representative from the dark side said: ‘No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls’. 

Obama's speech on race 

Tuesday, March 18 at 8:27 AM 

from the Center for American Progress  

Adding to the litany of complaints about one of the nation's primary counter-terrorism safety nets, a Justice Department audit has concluded that the FBI provided the government-wide terrorism watch list with incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information about suspects for almost three years. 

America’s days as the world economic hegemon are winding down.  

The sad thing about this mess is that it was completely avoidable.  

from Crikey ….. 

President Chickenhawk 

Jeff Sparrow writes: 

With preparations begun for the first military-commissions trial for detainees at Guantanamo - six "high-level" prisoners who could get the death penalty - the customary attacks on the fairness of the proceedings there are mounting here and abroad.  

Adding to the discord is the refusal of Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser for the military commissions, to exclude any evidence against the defendants that has been extracted through waterboarding. 

The charge sheet is horrifying, inexorable and convincing. The multinational firm Monsanto, which sells 90 percent of genetically modified organisms (GMO), massively lies to many people and even the whole planet with great success - the power that money and the - apparently unlimited - support of the United States government bestows.  

The moral bankruptcy of our new cardboard cutout Prime Minister has been revealed to all those with eyes that see. 

Yesterday, slavishly abetted by the feeble & inept ‘leader’ of the opposition, Brendan Nelson, Kevin Rudd perpetrated one of the most shameful & immoral acts ever committed in our nation’s Parliament, casting a stain on our country & its people. 

McClatchy reports that an "exhaustive" Pentagon-sponsored review of "more than 600,000 Iraqi documents" captured after the 2003 invasion "has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network."  

The Bush family did not have a distinguished history before Samuel Bush ingratiated himself to the wealthy and powerful. Although they appear to have been present in this country from the early Colonial period, they had gained no distinction.  

from Crikey ….. 

Mungo: What a difference a month makes 

Mungo MacCallum writes: 

A Texas oil executive was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for approving the payment of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime so he could secure large oil shipments through a United Nations program.  

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin also fined David Chalmers $9 million.

Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington.  

If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq.  

Secret research handed to the Howard government showed its $46 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to promote Work Choices failed dismally. 

The research - based on polls of hundreds of people every fortnight from August 2005 to February 2006 - showed that weeks of TV advertising only served to entrench apprehension about Work Choices - which John Howard is still defending while on the lecture circuit in Washington.