Corrupt, bitter and unpleasant things

May 22nd, 2009

Fearing legal action, according to his daughter, Uncle Dick took the stage yesterday to counterpoint Obama’s reasoned speech on detainees and terrorism. The last eight years were GOOD years for the Vice President, obviously; he doesn’t want to let go of them … and he has no idea how much cognitive dissonance he projected into the national ethers.

The 91% of Pubs … stunning number, I might add — explains a lot … that believe Barack is a Socialist, Fascist or Jihadist were listening intently — the rest of us were wondering WHY THE HELL this old bastard got a prime slot on cable television!

Cheney, nationally revisited, is both embarrassing and disturbing. I’m with Lawrence O’Donnell, who found Dicks address “as sleazy a presentation from a vice president as we’ve had since Spiro Agnew. It was a complete abomination.”

Politico had this to say:

“After a one-two punch from Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney, House Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republican lawmakers worry that their party has overplayed its hand on Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans’ fear: Gingrich’s call for Pelosi’s ouster has set an unattainable goal, and Cheney’s jabs at her during a speech Thursday will allow Democrats to portray the controversy as a partisan attack by one of the GOP’s most polarizing figures. ‘If the story becomes about us and not her, it’s a problem for us,’ said a senior Republican lawmaker.”

Making this story about Nancy Pelosi is another of those tired old maneuvers that won’t get traction in this new era — and — pardon me? That part about the story being about them? When wasn’t it?? The Pub’s are flailing around, trying to make some bit of thrown gunk stick — their winning strategy for generations — and its falling at their feet, piling up to define them. If you don’t think things have changed in these last few months, think about that for a moment.

So, yes, Republicans — this is about you. You’ve shown yourself to be corrupt, bitter and will go down in history as the party that trivialized institutionalized brutality as ‘unpleasant’ and worked public fear like a Carney barker fleeces a crowd!

Everything … everything … boils down to this torture question, in my mind; it’s cancerous, and will continue to eat away at this Republic if it isn’t dealt with harshly. Recently, a conservative talk-show host decided to disprove the water boarding question by doing it … he lasted all of 7 seconds — and changed his mind about it being, simply, ‘unpleasant.’ Every time we see a demonstration of this technique, it’s Disneyesque … we see a calm, relaxed body resting on a board — the truth is, this provokes contortion, thrashing, twisting, choking and fighting for your life. Only a fool thinks differently.

Considering the breathless … but not breathless enough! … preoccupation Dick has with the torture issue, one has to ask — where is his cohort in crime? The Dubby, it appears, was following Barney around with a plastic bag in his hand. Commiserate with his skill set, me’ thinks. And that pretty much answers the ‘who was in charge … and thinks they still are?’ question, eh?

The single bonus read included today is further proof that the torture began long before the legal maneuvers and came from the bowels of the Justice Department — the Bushie DoJ, thank-you-very-much, in constant touch with Pennsylvania Ave.

As for Obama’s speech, ACLUs Anthony Romero had this to say:

We were pleased to hear President Obama speak so movingly about respect for the Constitution, about the critical importance of due process, and about the horrible violation of American values that torture represents.

We do, however, strongly disagree with the president that modifying Bush-era military commissions can solve their basic injustice. Any system designed to produce a pre-ordained outcome — rather than a free and fair trial — is irreparably unjust.

Furthermore, creating a system of indefinite detention — holding detainees for years without facing charges — is a fundamental violation of the Constitution.

And here’s a snip to ponder from David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

Could Cheney Be (Gulp) Right?

The most pointed attack on President Obama in Dick Cheney’s speech yesterday was his claim that after all is said and done Obama is still reserving to himself the right to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the future. We documented that this talking point is a riff off comments made by CIA Director Leon Panetta — and that it’s arguably stretching what Panetta actually said. But it should be noted that Chris Matthews gave David Axelrod a chance to rebut Cheney’s claim, and Axelrod only danced around the question. Watch the video. We asked the White House yesterday to comment on Cheney’s claim and got no response.

We do ourselves no service if we believe that covert interrogations are the exclusive territory of the Bushies — they’ve been going on for decades. This is part of the Exceptionalism dialogues; peeling the onion of a nation founded on, and by, imperialism is done bit by bit, exposing the stink and historical precedent that has tarnished our dream of an ethical America. It’s a dis-ease that most of us wish to ignore; that it is up for all eyes and ears is the potent First Step that begins this process to reconfigure ourselves — and, for that, Dick unwittingly assists the closing of a paradigm.

Here’s Jon Stewart to put the Obama/Cheney smack down in perspective. We can finally laugh about 9/11 … or at least its use to spin us up. About freakin’ time!

This collection includes links galore — and my favorite bits: the Mcclatchy disclaimer on Cheney’s facts and a short group of blog posts that get to the heart of this; some amusing. Be sure to open the Hal Brown link for fun old movie posters.

This is Memorial weekend, as I’m sure you know … some of you won’t read this until next week. The blunt force of the wars has already been felt — the actual consequences linger, and will continue to for decades. I have a certain hesitancy on this holiday; while I honor the service of those who fought for the country, I question almost every battle they were sent to fight. Patriotism is a rare and extraordinary thing — in the majority of instances, it is merely nationalism that is celebrated this weekend.

It’s too early for any of the traditional reads to pop up, but I’ll send this along, respectfully. Jill Biden, Wes Clark, Walter Cronkite, Kim Cattrall and others are promoting a program called Beyond Tribute … to “convince stores to donate a portion of their holiday promotion proceeds to medical treatment and family support for veterans. By Veterans Day, we hope to be able to raise significant money for veterans in need from the very businesses that usually capitalize on these solemn holidays.” You can join their effort by clicking the link and taking their pledge, grass-roots style.

Have a safe, sane and restful weekend!

Jude

Cheney’s speech contained omissions, misstatements
Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, Mcclatchy Newspapers
Thu May 21,

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s defense Thursday of the Bush administration’s policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

In his address to the American Enterprise Institute , a conservative policy organization in Washington , Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that’s considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were “legal” and produced information that “prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.”

He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair , as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.”

In a statement April 21 , however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn’t think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

— Cheney said that President Barack Obama’s decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was “flatly contrary” to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.
However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.”

— Cheney said that the Bush administration “moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks.”

The former vice president didn’t point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan.

— Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration’s interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on “a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency.”

However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld .

“The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own,” said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin , D- Mich. , and John McCain , R- Ariz. “The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees.”

— Cheney said that “only detainees of the highest intelligence value” were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad , the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.

He didn’t mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed’s alleged role in 9-11.

The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods “was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida ,” Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow , who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration’s detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.

— Cheney said that “the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence,” but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA , the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department , the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.

Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri , who’s known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi , whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002 . While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq’s links with al Qaida , which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.

— Cheney accused Obama of “the selective release” of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

“I’ve formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained,” Cheney said. “Last week, that request was formally rejected.”

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA , which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

— Cheney said that only “ruthless enemies of this country” were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005 , that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri , from Macedonia in January 2004 .

Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan , where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania .

In January 2007 , the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.

— Cheney slammed Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.

The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush’s second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates .

“One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back,” Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007 , interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. “So we need help in closing Guantanamo .”

— Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account “dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.”

Cheney didn’t explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida , a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.

The late Iraqi dictator’s association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.

The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam’s regime “has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President ( George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait .”

A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad , at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no “direct operational link” with al Qaida .

Obama vs Cheney: Future vs Past
Darin Murphy, HuffPo
May 21, 2009

We couldn’t ask for a better favor this morning than the one handed to us by Barack Obama and Dick Cheney. At no other time, not even during the election, have we been able to see such a clear juxtaposition between where we are now as a country and where we used to be. Election ‘08 was little more than a theater of the absurd that ended promptly on November 4th. This morning, however, was real life, a real opportunity to stand in the age of reason and look back vividly on the age of fear, spite and distortion. We saw a current leader and policy maker lay out every detail of what he stands for, what he has done, what he intends to do and refrain from doing and exactly why, whether you agree or not. He grounded his policy stance in his constitutional scholarship and took nothing personally. He made it absolutely clear that his policies will be made in accordance with the rule of law and not the other way around. We learned that Gitmo is not jot one problem but a series of problems, each of which have to be treated differently. He reminded America and the world of the simple truth that nothing is just that simple; that reducing issues to black and white terms while ignoring important details of color will do nothing but endanger us in the long run. And he did so with respect for our troops and our intelligence.

Immediately afterward, we got a healthy dose of nostalgia from 2004, a rehashing of a linear argument that was long ago lost. A man who claimed to have no political agenda opened his remarks with a barb about the length of the Commander-in chief’s speech. Indeed, the former vice president’s total time at the lectern was maybe a fourth of the president’s, but the president had a lot more ground to cover, not to mention a lot more ground to stand on. Cheney’s only goal was to defend his torture policies, and apart from that there wasn’t really much else he could talk about. He couldn’t talk about Iraq, which he only mentioned once in passing, brushing off the whole six-year debacle as “high and low points.” He couldn’t talk about the real reason he ordered the waterboarding of one guy over 100 times — to get him to say that Iraq was linked to Al Queda and justify a bogus invasion. He couldn’t talk about those things because they’re political cyanide, so he had to fill his time with fear-induced anger, inaccurate claims, righteous indignation and cheap shots at Europe. From the outset he played his trump card: 9/11. He played it over and over again as if he and the other 19% of Americans who support him are the only ones who remember it. They aren’t.

But this was clearly Cheney playing to his audience, for it’s all he has left. The bully pulpit now belongs to the new president, and all Cheney can do is preach to his choir. That’s why he spoke from within the cozy confines of the American Enterprise Institute while Obama enjoys the broader stage of the National Archives. But it goes deeper than that. Obama gets the bigger platform and the longer time slot because more people are inclined to listen to him, and that’s because he’s inclined to listen to more people. Cheney and his president didn’t want to listen to anyone. That is why his era is bygone and his influence on our future is dwindling. ++

Who Is This “Dick Cheeny” Guy and Why Should I Care What He Thinks?
Dave Rees, HuffPo
May 21, 2009

I’m using my channel-flicker to flick through the channels today, and I see this 100-year-old grouchy guy named “Dick Cheeny” giving a speech at the “American Enzyme Institute” (?), and it looks like his mouth is about to slide off the side of his face and expose his skull, so I stop and watch.

Lo and behold, the guy isn’t speaking about enzymes at all. As far as I can tell, he’s talking about torturing people — namely, that President Obama, who is president, which means he is in charge, which means he decides American foreign policy, which means everyone else can shut up, isn’t doing enough of it.

My initial thought was, “Who is this Dick Cheeny guy and why should I give a flying purple goddamn what he thinks?” Do people believe he’s important? Because he sounds like someone who lives on the subway and wears origami sailor hats made out of Soldier of Fortune magazines.

As far as I could tell, his speech was actually some weird kind of mouth-yoga where you keep returning to “9/11″ position every thirty seconds.

For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour.

Actually, no, Mr. Face-sliding-off, I don’t recall that on 9/11 you were “in your office” (at the RadioShack where you work?). You could have been bussing tables at Applebee’s, or stuffing envelopes from home, or drinking a protein shake made of your own bile. How would I know? I have no idea who you are. Why are you on my television?

But then Cheeny started talking about how “rounding up random Afghan teenagers and torturing them in Cuba’s armpit has saved trillions of American lives,” and “if we let a bunch of scraggledy-bearded douchebags into the American penal system, somehow they’ll hypnotize the guards and convert the wardens and build a mustard-gas-Islam-fart-bomb,” or whatever, and I started thinking, “Wait a minute, this guy looks familiar.”

Then he started in about “dark days” and “gathering threats” and “nefarious enemies” and “the desert-people are scheming” and “even a piece of cheese can be a mighty weapon” and then I remembered:

This is the guy everyone in America deemed a total asshole and decided to ignore about five years ago.

THE END.

(All quotes from memory) ++

Dick Cheney: Nothing is More Consistent with American Values than Torture
Blue Texan, FireDogLake
Thursday May 21, 2009

From Dick Cheney’s remarks at AEI this morning:

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

Anything is permissible in defense of the Fatherland Homeland.

Harry Truman, 1950.

I know that it would be easier to catch and jail criminals if we did not have a Bill of Rights in our Federal and State constitutions. But I thank God every day that it is there, that that Bill of Rights is a fundamental law. That is what distinguishes us from the totalitarian powers.

This seems to be lost on the former Vice President. ++

Cheney’s zombies
HAL BROWN, Capital Hill Blue
May 21, 2009

The fright fight of the far right: watching Dick Cheney trying to scare the living crap out of America I was reminded of the classic 1968 black and white George Romero film “Night of the Living Dead”. I could visualize flesh eating radical Muslim zombies released into my own neighborhood by clever liberal ACLU lawyers. I wondered what nightmares we’ll all be having tonight.

They’re coming.

Knowing that nobody has ever escaped from a super-maximum security prison, the far right has a talking point I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of.

They’re coming.

Heidi Harris, the earnest conservative radio host is convinced that lefty lawyers will wave their fairy wands to tease out loopholes in the law and free a hoard of Christian-flesh eating radical Muslim zombies. No kidding. On the MSNBC “The Ed Show” she seemed to tremble with fear as she described the Al Qaeda terrorists moving next door while Ed Schultz and his other guests rolled their eyes and chortled in disbelieve.

They’re coming.

Thanks to copyright free photos on Wikimedia Commons, instead of writing any more I’ll make this column my first photo essay. Just picture these are all blood thirsty terrorists freed by Barack Obama who Cheney would have you think is either the least patriotic president in history or too dumb to whistle and waterboard at the same time.

[open link for series of posters]

There. Have I scared you as much as I scared myself?

The horror move scenario of Al Qaeda hoards on Main Street which Cheney has described might make a good movie. Perhaps he could get “24″ series creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran to write the script. After all, he seems to believe “24″ is true to life. ++

Cheney’s Speech: Obama “Deserves An Answer”
(TRANSCRIPT, VIDEO)
Nico Pitney, HuffPo
05-21-09

Dispatches From the Dark Side
Allison Kilkenny, Smirking Chimp
May 21, 2009

Does Cheney Make Obama Look Good Enough?
David Swanson, Smirking Chimp
May 22, 2009

Cheney Claims CIA Documents Will Show That He Is Still In Charge
Steve Young, Smirking Chimp
May 22, 2009

Obama and Cheney Don’t Play Safe in Battle Over Security…
Phil Bronstein, editor San Francisco Chronicle, HuffPo
May 21, 2009

Cheney’s War Against Obama
Jacob Heilbrunn, HuffPo
May 21, 2009

bonus

Did White House OK Earliest Detainee Abuse?
Ari Shapiro, All Things Considered, NPR
5/20/09

[open link to listen]

It is clear that increasingly abusive interrogation techniques were used on Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee, in the months between his capture and the first Justice Department memo authorizing harsh interrogations. But the legal guidance that authorized those early interrogations remains shrouded in secrecy.

Zubaydah was picked up on March 28, 2002. The Justice Department issued its first memo on torture four months later on Aug. 1.

Zubaydah’s lawyer, Brent Mickum, believes documents and testimony in the public record establish “beyond question that Abu Zubaydah was subjected to torture before the issuance of the Aug. 1 memorandum.”

‘Harsher and Harsher Methods’

The public record includes testimony from Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator who was with Zubaydah during April and May of 2002. Soufan told Congress last week that “contractors had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.”

Soufan testified that in the first two months of Zubaydah’s interrogation, a CIA contractor used nudity, sleep deprivation, loud noise and extreme temperatures during interrogations. That contractor has been identified as a psychologist named James Mitchell. Mitchell has not commented publicly in recent years, and he could not be reached for this story.

Soufan told senators of describing Zubaydah’s treatment to FBI supervisors as “borderline torture.”

The use of “borderline torture” against Zubaydah months before the first Justice Department memo authorizing harsh interrogations raises the question of whether Mitchell had legal permission to use abusive techniques.

The CIA suggests that he did.

“The Aug. 1, 2002, memo from the Department of Justice was not the first piece of legal guidance for the interrogation program,” according to agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

But the CIA will not describe what the first legal guidance was.

Top-Secret Cables

One source with knowledge of Zubaydah’s interrogations agreed to describe the legal guidance process, on the condition of anonymity.

The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top-secret cable to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the administration’s legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.

A new document is consistent with the source’s account.

The CIA sent the ACLU a spreadsheet late Tuesday as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The log shows the number of top-secret cables that went from Zubaydah’s black site prison to CIA headquarters each day. Through the spring and summer of 2002, the log shows, someone sent headquarters several cables a day.

“At the very least, it’s clear that CIA headquarters was choreographing what was going on at the black site,” says Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer who sued to get the document. “But there’s still this question about the relationship between CIA headquarters and the White House and the Justice Department and the question of which senior officials were driving this process.”

Gonzales did not respond to a request for comment through his lawyer.

‘A Complete Charade’?

Attorneys who have worked in the White House counsel’s office describe it as “highly unusual” for the White House to tell interrogators what they can and cannot do. Bradford Berenson worked in the counsel’s office under President Bush, though he had no role in authorizing harsh interrogations.

“These were highly unusual and extraordinary times after 9/11,” says Berenson, “but ordinarily the White House counsel’s office is not in the business of providing advice to anyone outside the White House itself.”

All through the summer of 2002, top officials across the government were trying to sort out the ground rules for legal interrogations.

“I can’t believe the CIA would have settled for a piece of paper from the counsel to the president,” says one former government official familiar with those discussions.

“If that were true,” says the former official, “then the whole legal and policy review process from April through August would have been a complete charade.” ++

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
~ Barack Obama

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Entry Filed under: Political Waves