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Recent
Stories
June
17, 2003
Peter
Phillips and Jason Spencer
Entertainment Media 2003
Wayne Madsen
Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy
June
16, 2003
Frida
Berrigan
Death in Aceh: US Weapon Aid the
Repression
Publius
Candidate Dem and Citizen Green
Tarif
Abboushi
Roadmap or Roadkill?
Rep. John
Conyers
Bush's Deceptions about Iraq Threaten Democracy at Home
Julian
Samuel
A Review of Pilger's The New Rulers of the World
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies,
Part 2
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Counting Bush's
Lies, part 2
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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June
17, 2003
Outting Ashcroft's
Latest Hypocrisy
The
Attorney General is a Homophobe, Except When It Comes to Political
Contributions
By WAYNE MADSEN
Attorney General John Ashcroft's recent decision
to ban the Justice Department's annual Gay Pride observance from
department facilities certainly rang the old hypocrisy alarm.
It was the summer of 1999, before I was
a full-time journalist and when Ashcroft was making noise about
running for President. In fact, he had already set up a campaign
exploratory committee. In those days, Ashcroft was a leading
opponent of the Clinton administration's proposal to give the
FBI practically unfettered access to encryption keys used to
encode sensitive e-mail and phone calls. The system, called Clipper
Chip, was finally withdrawn. However, Ashcroft actually emerged
as one of the major critics of across-the-board attempts by the
FBI to monitor private communications. He even decided to oppose
the FBI's attempt to establish a national wiretap center, called
"Net Center."
It is interesting to compare then-Senator
Ashcroft's policies with those of Attorney General Ashcroft.
Not only has Ashcroft championed all the FBI's original proposals
for increased surveillance capabilities but he has provided the
FBI with electronic snooping powers far beyond anything ever
 envisaged by the Clinton administration.
Ashcroft's metamorphosis from an anti-surveillance Dr. Jekyll
to a Big Brother Mr. Hyde should be the subject of every psychiatric
text book.
But back to 1999 and Ashcroft's nascent
presidential run. The Senator's opposition to Clinton administration
attempts to ban the export of strong encryption technology earned
him the appreciation of America's largest software companies,
especially those that bundled strong encryption capabilities
with their programs. And the fact that the American Civil Liberties
Union attended anti-Clipper strategy meetings in Ashcroft's own
Senate office made him appear less menacing to the more liberal
computer companies on the West Coast.
In fact, some of these software companies,
located mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area, were so thankful
for Ashcroft's stance, they offered him $100,000 for his presidential
campaign. In those days I was doing part-time consulting for
some of these companies, so I became the "bag man"
to make the approach to the Ashcroft campaign.
After approaching a few GOP functionaries
I knew and making a couple of phone calls, I was invited to the
Monocle restaurant, a big time lobbyist hangout located just
behind the Hart and Dirksen Senate office buildings near Union
Station. There, I met Kirk Clinkenbeard, a campaign adviser to
Ashcroft. We finally got around to the bottom line: some San
Francisco area software moguls were interested in donating money
to Ashcroft's presidential run and it was to the tune of 100
grand!
But then there was the big catch. Some
of these high-tech millionaires worked for companies that either
had gay investors or gay executives and Ashcroft's previous statements
on homosexuality could be a problem.
The answer: No problem. Senator Ashcroft
had just been in San Francisco. A gay man walked up to Ashcroft
and, obviously trying to engage the senator in a debate about
gay rights, revealed his orientation to Ashcroft. The senator
said while he thought homosexuality was a sin, he still "loved"
the man. In essence, I was told Ashcroft had to cater to his
fundamentalist base in Missouri, the constituency that previously
elected him as state Attorney General and Governor, in addition
to Senator. Ashcroft's rhetoric and what he would actually do
as president were two different things.
In retrospect, we now know that Ashcroft's
rhetoric and his actual policies are one and the same. Ashcroft
doesn't "love" gays, but he was more than willing to
accept money from businesses invested in by gays to help propel
himself into the White House.
It's pure Ashcroft hypocrisy. When I
was told the beers I was drinking at the Monocle were on Ashcroft's
tab, I asked, "as a Pentacostalist, isn't Senator Ashcroft
a teetotaler?" Answer, "no problem, the senator doesn't
drink but he doesn't mind if others do." Sure, especially
when someone is dangling $100,000 in front of him. And Ashcroft's
temperance certainly hasn't stopped him from taking money from
the Coors and Schlitz brewing companies.
Then there is Ashcroft's wife, Janet
Roede Ashcroft, a native of New Jersey who has taught at the
Business School of Howard University, a historically African-American
college. Her husband has long championed groups devoted to the
Confederacy and opposed to affirmative action and civil rights.
Shortly after Ashcroft was nominated by President Bush to be
Attorney General, Janet admitted to ABC's Good Morning America
that she had been attacked by a rapist some time ago. Washington
insiders report the rape did not happen over 35 years ago as
stated by Mrs. Ashcroft -- while she and John were dating as
students at the University of Chicago Law School -- but occured
much later near their Northeast Washington, DC home near Howard
University and after Ashcroft was elected to the Senate. Janet
said after the attack, Ashcroft's "response was absolutely
the most caring, considerate response."
Maybe that was then, but in yet another
case of Ashcroft hypocrisy, our moralistic Attorney General,
who lambasted President Clinton for his extramarital affairs,
reportedly has a roving eye. Perhaps, Mrs. Ashcroft should follow
Mrs. Clinton's lead and write a book about her life with John.
Now that's a book I will be first in line to buy or even ghost
write.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of the
forthcoming book, "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of
George Bush II."
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
Weekend Edition Features
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
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