Bush Wiretaps and Spies on Democrats, Journalists, and Peace Actvists

Thom Hartmann wrote on Monday, July 10, 2006 about Bush spying on the phone, email, and medical records of his political opponents. CommonDreams.org
Reclaiming The Issues: "Why Is Bush Spying On Democrats?!?" He mentions how Republicans working in Sen Hatch’s office in Nov 2003 broke into the computers of Sen Kennedy and Durbin, to steal discussions of strategy for the Democrats opposition to Supreme Court nominees. These were then leaked to the Wall St. Journal to discredit the strategy. Aslo, Republicans with ties to the White House were convicted of jamming the phones of the Democart’s “get out the vote” effort. Further the Repulbicans were involved in having the League of Women Voters and the Raging Grannies monitored as terrorist groups.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0710-21.htm

Vanity Fair in June or July , 06 has an article on how the Republican operatives such as Michael Ledeen met with and orchestrated with the Italian intelligence service to create the fake memo about Iraq acquisition of uranium from Niger. This memo was distributed to the British and the US to use as the proof that we had to go to war to stop WMDs, even though the CIA and the French, and Joe Wilson all repeatedly said it was a fake. Also, Ledeen was involved in smearing President Carter in November, 1980, just before election day, by pushing some new stories about his Carter’s brother Billy taking big loans from Libya’s Quadaffi.
Democracy Now on 7/11/06 reported that the Italian intelligence service under Bush’s corrupt ally, Berlesconi, had been wiretapping, tailing, and spying on political opponents, judges, journalists, and peace activists. Fake articles were paid for and planted in newspapers to criticize Berlesconi’s opponents. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/144215

Robert Parry in his books also claims that the Republicans G.H Bush and Reagan illegally and secretly, in the October Surprise, negotiated with the Iranians in 1980, promising them more missles and weapons if they would continue to hold the hostages until after Reagan beat Carter in November. This unofficial type of illegal negotiation continued with Reagan’s Iran-Contra felony, where arms were sold to Iran to raise money to fund the Contras who fought against Nicaragua. This happened after the Congress had cut off all funds for the Contras. Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News wrote about how Reagan imported drugs into the US to sell in African American areas to raise money for the contras. Robert Parry wrote a vindication of Webb. Robert Parry mentions in his books how Nixon broke into the Watergate in order to wiretap the phones of the Democratic officials who were calling the state officials to keep track of the delegate votes the each of the Democratic candidates had. Also, Nixon supposedly used his Treasury secretary, Connally, a conservative Democrat, to pressure conservative Democrats to vote for someone they hated, McGovern, so they would make sure that McGovern would get the nomination, instead of a stronger rival such as Muskie or Sanford. Robert Parry wrote two great books about Bush 1 and 2: 'Secrecy & Privilege' and 'Lost History' . http://www.consortiumnews.com/ is his progressive website.

Three Days in Rome by Laura Rozen In which a neoconservative jack-of-all-trades, a pair of Pentagon hawks, and an Iranian exile with a knack for tall tales try to outflank the CIA and conjure a coup in Tehran. Ledeen and others arranged meetings to fan the idea of invading Iran. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/07/three_days_in_rome.html