In a New York Times article on the recent bombings of police and Iraqi forces by the Iraqi resistance was this: "in Kirkuk, insurgents wired an explosive belt onto a dog and detonated the device when the dog wandered into an Iraqi police patrol, wounding one policeman."

Strapping explosives to an innocent dog is a new low in this war. Who would do something THAT cruel?

In a piece in the online version of The Nation about Post writer Dana Milbank and the Washington Post's coverage of a recent hearing by Congressional Democrats on the so-called Downing Street Memo, John Nichols reports on Rep. John Conyers' letter to the Post regarding its coverage of the hearing in which Conyers chaired.

In the letter, Conyers uses the step-by-step method to discredit the newspaper's negative, one-sided "reporting" of the hearing, and the stenographic quality of reporting in general by The Post, as it relates to the Bush Administration.

In the end Nichols summarized brilliantly

The Conyers letter, like the thousands of communications from grassroots activists to media outlets across this country pressing for serious coverage of the "Downing Street Memo" and the broader debate about the Bush Administration's doctoring of intelligence prior to the launch of the Iraq war, is an essential response to our contemporary media crisis. That it had to be written provides evidence of just how serious that crisis has grown.

Thursday on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, discussing the Downing Street Memo, were two former CIA professionals, Ray McGovern and Reuel Gerecht.

Gerecht, now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued that the Robb-Silverman commission findings trumped the Downing Street Memo. Robb-Silverman, of course, found that it was poor intelligence tradecraft, not political pressure, that resulted in the faulty intelligence as related to Iraqi WMD.

The fact that Robb-Silverman discredited American intelligence gathering does nothing to dispel the notion Bush was dead-set on war even as he publicly stated that war was a last option. Robb-Silverman does very little to address the issue: Bush's rush to war.

NeoCons have their backs against the wall on this DSM issue, especially when Scott McClellan refers to any discussion on this issue as rehashing "old debates."

It's starting to look like Watergate days again.

The New York Times is reporting that Congress, by a vote of 254 to 161, defeated an amendment to a spending bill that would have barred the Justice Department from enforcing federal marijuana laws on individuals in states with medical marijuana laws enacted.

Last night at Sparky's I discussed with an attorney that holding detainees at Gitmo without some type of hearing, much less charging them with a crime, is not reasonable, nor will this practice be in the best interest of the United States as it fights the so-called "war on terror."

The attorney disagreed with me because "all those terrorist there (Gitmo) were picked up on a battle-field fighting American troops."

Well, I responded, if that's the case let's hear about the circumstances of their capture and if in fact they aren't terrorist we should be able to hear their case. Discussing this with an attorney I thought perhaps he would recognize that the rule of law is in fact the rule of law. The United States stands for the rule of law, which we attempt to spread around the world. If we don't practice what we preach, we indirectly promote the types of governments (i.e. Saddam's regime) we battle to change.

The attorney disagreed with me without further explanation.

Senator Leahy of Vermont said "our great country, America, was once viewed as a leader in human rights and the rule of law, and justly so. Guantanamo has undermined our leadership, has damaged our credibility, has drained the world's goodwill for America at an alarming rate."

Guantanamo is one of the best recruiting tools for anti-American terrorists. If the Bush administration doesn't do something drastically different with that facility how can he sleep at night knowing that al-Queda and other terrorist groups are plotting suicide bombing attacks on our troops?

New York Times op/ed columnist Thomas Friedman believes more "American boots on the ground" can deliver victory in the Iraq war.

My question: from where are these boots to come?

I believe Mr. Friedman is probably correct, but has he not heard that the military is having a more difficult time meeting its recruiting numbers lately?

For what length of time are these boots to be deployed? We already have our military stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the troops already in these theaters are being deployed longer and often times it isn't their first deployment.

It appears that if Friedman is correct on doubling the amount of boots in Iraq and that the military isn't meeting its recruiting numbers, the all-volunteer military may be a thing of the past. The "D" word comes into play, the draft.

The so-called coalition is getting smaller and smaller as each day goes by, and with no coherent exit strategy this Iraq war has become a travesty entirely created by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. We can't seem to get any of them to budge from or admit failings of their policies. And these guys are supposedly strong on defense?

The casualty numbers are getting bigger and bigger each day and Rumsfeld is still in charge. It's obvious that Rumsfeld is well-liked by Bush, and that's the biggest problem: Bush seems to care more about loyalty than he is concerned about performance.

Get Rumsfeld out and get Colin Powell in.

Today the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal, without comment, by broadcasters and newspapers seeking to have the FCC's corporate media ownership rules reinstated.

The FCC, the regulatory agency that oversees the media industry, a vital part of American democracy, will have to go back to the drawing board with the corporations it supposedly regulates in order to write new ownership rules.

We concerned citizens who are skeptical of today's mainstream media must be on our toes for the next wave of propaganda to come from media corporations, and their continued quest to acquire outlets, leaving less and less diversity of media coverage.

I just felt the Earth move (8:42 A.M.)! It wasn't real intense, but definitely noticeable.

"Lake Worth Sun" was recorded at Earthling Studios in El Cajon, Calif. in March. The song was engineered by Mike Kamoo, written and produced by me.

"Lake Worth Sun" was one of 13 songs recorded during the session and will be available soon.

If and when you wake-up one day and finally realize that you're running the wheel of The American Dream like a mouse in a cage, then this song is for you (realaudio). It's a song by Peter Mayer that attempts to put the elusive chase of classism to the aural arts.

It's title: "Waking Up (from the American Dream)"

It's far from the best song ever written; wait a minute--it's kinda like a country-rap song with a traditional chorus. And it has a bridge that's kinda cool.

The song, and other great stuff, can be found at The New American Dream web site, a site that communicates responsible consumption. It's an organization that was co-founded by Juliet Schor, a respected and leading sociologist.

Rep. Bernie Sanders is an independent Congressman from Vermont, who will be running for Senate in 2006. Last Friday, Bernie made a speech at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, where he talked about outrage.

One of the difficulties many of us have in dealing with the Bush Administration and the extreme right-wing group that now controls Congress is that the word "outrage" has increasingly lost its meaning. Virtually every day there is another action, another lie, another assault on the very foundations of what our country is about--so much so that we cease to be shocked or appalled. We shrug our shoulders and say "what's new?"

What does "outrage" mean anymore when we have an Administration that took us into a war under false premises--a war that has cost us over 1,600 dead, 12,000 wounded and $300 billion--in addition to the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people?

What does "outrage" mean anymore when we have a Majority Leader in the House who threatens our independent judiciary; who leaves the voting rolls open for three additional hours while he secures the votes he needs at five in the morning to win a prescription drug bill written by the pharmaceutical industry; who calls a special session of Congress to address a tragic situation affecting one family?

What does "outrage" mean anymore when we have a White House that tells us how much they love our troops but threw 140,000 veterans off of VA health care several years ago, and brings forth a budget this year which devastates health care for our veterans and leaves the VA totally unprepared to take care of the thousands of soldiers who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?

What does the word "outrage" mean when, at a time when the US already has the most unfair gap between the rich and the poor in the industrialized world, we have a President who provides hundreds of billions in tax breaks to the very richest people in our society and cuts back on health care, education and affordable housing for low and moderate income people?

What does "outrage" mean anymore when the White House and the Republican leadership are some of the very few people in the world who do not understand the profound dangers of global warming and who, day after day, aide and abet those who are destroying our environment?

What does "outrage" mean when we have a president who tells us in every speech how much he believes in "freedom," but who proposes legislation like the USA Patriot Act and other bills which are undermining the basic freedoms and constitutional rights of the American people? All this talk about "freedom," and yet he wants to deny the women of this country the freedom to control their own bodies.

Sadly, I could go on and on telling you what the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership are doing, but you already know all about that. And you also know, as I do, that our political challenge is not simply talking to each other about the horrendous republican record.

Our challenge now is to determine how we bring people together to end this horrific period of American history, and how we create a government which represents all of our people, and not just the CEO's of large corporations and extreme right-wing fundamentalists.

I will tell you what the major issue will be: and that is the collapse of the middle class, the increase in poverty and the growing and obscene gap between the rich and the poor. It is not acceptable to me that for the first time in the modern history of the United States, the younger generation will likely have a lower standard of living than today's adults--despite a huge increase in worker productivity.

We must put an end to the disgrace of the United States being the only major country on earth without a national health care program that guarantees health care for every man, woman and child. We will also continue our efforts to lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs.

We must end our absurd trade policies which are costing us millions of decent paying jobs, and are driving wages down. Workers in the united States must not be asked to compete against desperate people in China who earn 30 cents an hour and go to jail when they try to form an independent union. Corporate America must start re-investing in the United States, and creating good paying jobs here.

We must put an end to the reality that many of the new jobs that are being created in our country do not pay a living wage or provide decent benefits. That is why we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage. It is incomprehensible that the national minimum wage remains an obscene $5.15 an hour.

We must put an end to the anti-union national labor board approach which is making it almost impossible for workers to form a union. Employers, with impunity, fire labor organizers and harrass those who are fighting for collective bargaining. The right to form a union is a constitutional right and must be protected so that workers can negotiate fair wages and working conditions.

We must end the absurd national priorities of the Republican leadership which provide hudnreds of billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent, and then cut back on health care, education, affordable housing, veterans needs and programs for the poor.

And lastly, of course, we must end this absurd effort to privatize Social Security and destroy the most successful anti-poverty program in american history. Not only must we not privatize social security, but we must strengthen it and make absolutely certain that it will be there for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Many in America believe that we live in a classless society, unlike, perhaps, England with its history of royalty and knights, etc.

Classism.org defines class as:

A class consists of a large group of people who occupy a similar economic position in the wider society based on income, wealth, property ownership, education, skills, or authority in the economic sphere.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both have a series on this subject, taking class out of its dark room of taboo topics.

Class discussions are more important now than ever because the very rich (the top 1%) are becoming even richer at the expense of everybody else.

In an opinion piece written by NY Times it was reported that the top 0.1 percent have seen their share of total income doubled in the last 20 years, while those in the top 10 percent didn't see close to that amount, and those in the remaining 80% have experienced a decrease in share of total income.

That's disturbing news because if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent the trend is expected to continue.

Education is supposedly the great equalizer when it comes to class, however, government support of financial aid has been pulled from many of those who can't afford college. Less and less of the economically disadvantaged--who primarily attend under-performing, urban-situated public schools--will be unable to attend college, thus perpetuating the ever-widening chasm of class.

The two political parties for the most part--other than V.P. candidate John Edwards--seem to not want to bring up this issue of ever-widening class division. The time is ripe for a grassroots movement to reclaim the runaway train of economic injustice which survives on propaganda served by the superrich via the mouthpiece of the Bush Administration and its surrogates.

If in fact we are in a real war, why are the rich getting tax cuts? If in fact we are in a real war, why are many corporations raking in billions and billions of dollars--getting rich?

The real war should be on the economic policies that come from Washington and those who advocate repealing estate or inheritance tax. Class and wealth should be less concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, as is the trend. One idea is to repeal the notion that just because a specific sperm cell penetrates a specific egg cell the offspring is guaranteed wealth.

When the Newsweek piece on Koran desecration at the "War on Terrorism" detention camp at Guantanamo Bay was discussed on NPR's Talk of the Nation show (May 16, 2005) I emailed a question that was asked on-air.

My question:

"what relationship does the consolidation of media and the use of anonymous sources have, if any?

the competition amongst outlets to break a story seems fierce, and the relaxation of the rules of gathering stories seems to be all too common."

The guest, Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., and a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, who answered the question, denied any relationship.

It seems to me that there is a connection between a corporate news organization's quest for profits and the pursuit of news stories, which in the process of gathering a reporter and/or editor may relax its publishing rules in order to be the first to report a story.

News has become more competitive as news organizations become more corporate-led, which is due in large part to recent media consolidations.

Professor Bob Reid at the University of Illinois' Department of Journalism wrote in Spike Magazine:

Making profit the main goal of journalistic endeavor has demoralized many of the best reporters and editors. This has led a few of the more ambitious or more insecure journalists into some serious ethical lapses that have resulted in fabricated, sensational or under reported stories.

I publicly ask Mr. Houston to reconcile these two opinions.