so who is Helene Cooper

In the May 19 New York Times’ “The Day an Immigrant Refugee Can Say, ‘I’m an American’,” Helene Cooper, whose family migrated to America “in bits and pieces … fleeing coups, revolutions and civil wars” in Liberia, became a U.S. citizen in 1997. Her mom, who came in 1990, became an American only on May 17.
Cooper said her mom worked as “a home health aide. … It was a far cry from our well-off existence in Liberia. But who wouldn’t rather be poor in America than rich in a country where soldiers could enter your home, rape your children and murder your parents?”
Cooper watched her mom tear up as she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” insist on pushing her walker up to the dais to receive her naturalization certificate, “to be next to the (American) flag.”

seems to me she would be fairly impressionable, put her name to a prepared article from the Whitehouse, make her bones and is expendable if this should go sour.
on to David E. Sanger, a quick google search shows that he has been a faithfull stenographer since the chimperor seized power.
He also co-authored with William J. Broad the U.N. Finds New Uranium Traces in Iran story posted in Reuters with different authors
This William J. Broad fellow who is supposedly a science writer at NYT also worked with Judith Miller on strange article those mobile weapons trailers.
Common Dreams has more on this.
Of course this is all BS. we all know it but we can still do research on the internets, once that goes away as it has in China we will be in the same position as the dedicated Faux News listeners.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 3 2006 23:44 utc | 4

Not an original MoA statement by any means but it is worth noting that there are only two people present at ‘the lunch that changed the world’ or whatever, who aren’t white middle class males(WMM). And one of those who isn’t a WMM is only there because she does a halfway decent impression of a WMM.
The Chinese rep is only there because somehow, following a foul-up where the security council seat was meant to be held by Chiang Kai Shek, a sock puppet of WMM, in 1971 the people of China eventually managed to get Taiwan removed from it’s permanent membership role and be allowed to 1/ join the UN and 2/ take up it’s seat on the UN Security Council.
Prior to that, the US delegation to the UN from 1947 until Richard Nixon’s decision to abstain in 1971, consistently abused it’s security council absolute veto.
The way to prevent Chinese membership of the UN much less the Security Council.
A quick aside. Despite 1950 when the USSR attempted to force the UN to allow Chinese membership of the UN and the security council by boycotting the UN, USuk immediately used the USSR absence to rename the USuk forces invading Korea from USuk to the United Nations peace keeping forces.
The USSR, now Russia and the Peoples Republic of China have in the main abided by security council decisions.
It is worth remembering that at the time the USSR was trying to get the UN to allow the People’s Republic of China membership, the USSR had the most to lose by China joining.
When outside the UN/Security Council China had no forum at which to protest the USSR’s breaking of the Sino-Soviet Pact Much less any way/place to counter the Russian separation of Manchura following Japanese withdrawal and the forced separation of Mongolia from the rest of China. Something which still stands today.
However despite all it’s protestation about the UN not being democratic or representative, since 1984 the US has vetoed 42 times; China, 2; France, 3; Russia/USSR, 4; the United Kingdom, 10.
So the veto score is USuk 52, the rest of the world 9. Hmmmm. . . those in the US who accuse the UN of being anti-democratic are correct, but it is the USA delegation itself which is at the forefront of the anti-democatic forces
Anything decided at a meeting such as this lunch cannot be taken seriously because it is one of the most unrepresentative, stacked forums the WMM’s have come up with yet.
The purpose of the meeting is allegedly to nut out what the security council should do.
Current Security Council membership is:
China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, United States, Argentina,Greece, Qatar,
Congo, Japan, Slovakia, Denmark, Peru, United Republic of Tanzania, Ghana.
One of the nation’s represented at the lunch isn’t a security council member, that is Germany.
Also with others, namely Britain and France, Germany is ‘double dipping’ by having an individual representative as well as their proxy EU representative Javier Solana, the fellow who fiddled while the Balkans burned.
So to get a meeting which is representative of all the people in the world likely to be effected by the forum’s decision, it is necessary to leave Javier Solana in place but pull Jack Straw, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Philippe Douste-Blazy.
Their place need be filled a nominee from the African Union, the Pakistani/India subcontinent, ASEAN (association of south east asian nations), Pan-Arabic organisation, Central Asian organisation (all the ‘stans Uzbekistan through Afghanistan and Iran), and a Latin/South/Central American organisation. Otherwise this forum will never be able to provide any useful indication of multi-lateral feeling on this issue.
If the western media informed their consumers properly about these rigged caucuses, then perhaps the population of the west could understand the continual dissonance between these results and the actual security council decisions.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 4 2006 1:18 utc | 6

Very informative about NY Times. Thanks – I would have missed that.
Here is an article about how the US is applying threats and pressure on Chile: vote for the US candidate, Guatemala, for the Security Council rotating chair, not Venezuela.
Michelle Bachelet under pressure; Bush wants Chile to shun Venezuela

Posted by: Owl | Jun 4 2006 7:31 utc | 8

Mandatory Draft Bill
Snuck In – To Be Debated 6-6-06

On February 14, 2006, Congressman Charles Rangel (Democrat – NY) introduced a bill (Universal National Service Act of 2006 – HR 4752 IH) aiming at drafting everyone – men and women alike – from the ages of 18 to 42 into the military for a minimum period of 2 years.
Or to quote the bill: “To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”
The House is to convene on June 6 (06/06/06] to debate and possibly adopt this bill, that is, unless a vast public outcry succeeds in derailing this insanity, which you can do by writing a letter of protest to your congress person through

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 5 2006 14:39 utc | 10