WTF Is It Now?!?

"The CIA and the Venezuela Coup"

How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez?
Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. That's what it's always done and there's no reason to think that tomorrow morning will be any different.

Consider Chavez's crimes:
Branding the US attacks on Afghanistan as "fighting terrorism with terrorism", he demanded an end to "the slaughter of innocents"; holding up photographs of children killed in the American bombing attacks, he said their deaths had "no justification, just as the attacks in New York did not, either." In response, the Bush administration temporarily withdrew its ambassador.

Read the whole thing at Counterpunch


Robert Reno: 'The oil president hits a slick spot'

The United States now confronts the excruciating problem of having a president who is virtually owned by the domestic oil industry and is, at the same time, a virtual hostage to foreign oil producers.

This situation is complicated to the point of agony by the reality that Israel is all but alone among nations of the Middle East in having no significant oil reserves. Now is the point at which George W. Bush will actually start to earn his salary and be forced to live beyond the wits of the White House speechwriters who served him so admirably after Sept. 11. Their skill transformed his loss in the 2000 popular vote into approval ratings so close to unanimous that the 2004 elections began to look like a costly waste of time.

But precisely because he is an oil president, Bush will be vulnerable to such potential political disasters as $3-a-gallon gasoline or oil shortages that could result in a doubling of residential electric bills. This is why, even as Bush must maintain support of Israel, Americans must say a prayer every night that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil supplier, remains in the grip of its feudal monarchy. It's also a reason Bush must be particularly sensitive to new charges that Enron, his most generous benefactor, helped engineer the California electric power crisis in 2000.

Finally, since Enron and other oil interests practically had the run of the Bush White House, the president needs to explain why newly released documents reveal that environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists, were given only 48 hours to provide input into the energy program being drawn up by Vice President Dick Cheney, an input that, in any event, was largely ignored.

Read the whole thing at New York Newsday