In a private conversation picked up by an open microphone during a Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Monday, Blair said the force was essential to stopping violence between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

"I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed," Blair told Bush.

Bush's position is that he wants to hear the report of a U.N. mission to the region on whether such a force would be worthwhile.

He has declined to endorse calls for a ceasefire from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others, insisting Israel has a right to defend itself and blaming Syria and Iran for supporting Hizbollah.

The White House said in a statement on Friday announcing Blair's July 28 visit that the United States has no closer ally than Britain and Bush appreciates Blair's leadership.

An ample agenda for their talks was laid out that reflected a panoply of international crises.

"The two leaders will consult on efforts to secure a lasting peace in the Middle East, consolidate democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, prevent Iran from obtaining the means to build nuclear weapons, end the genocide in Darfur, and promote free and fair trade," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

The video has been one of the most popular clips on the Web and spawned countless remarks on the particulars of etiquette for world leaders. Coupled with Bush's use of an expletive at the summit and a U.S. senator comparing the Internet to a "series of tubes," the incident reveals anew the power of the Web - and YouTube, specifically - to beam embarrassing political gaffes around the world.

Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, agrees that today, public figures have to be more careful in "a thousand ways." But he maintains sites like YouTube can be revealing.

"If they're not doing something that's embarrassing, they have nothing to worry about," he says. "A president ought to know enough not use an expletive in a fairly open meeting and almost any male alive today knows that you don't offer uninvited massages to any female, much less the chancellor of Germany."

Many writers saw a sexist aspect to Bush's back rub. "This isn't a Sigma Chi kegger, it's the G-8 Summit," wrote blogger Christy Hardin Smith on Firedoglake.com.

(Bush was actually in Delta Kappa Epsilon. Another Web 2.0 truism: Blogs are not always friendly with the facts.)

Earlier this week, Bush was recorded using the s-word while discussing the Mideast with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. An mp3 of Bush's line, posted by The New York Times, has been a popular download - ranking two spots ahead of Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" on The Hype Machine, a Web site that charts the most-linked audio tracks by blogs.

No one need remind former presidential hopeful Howard Dean of the political ramifications of the Web - nor Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.

The 82-year-old Republican, chairman of the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation, has been parodied mercilessly by bloggers after referring to the Internet as a "series of tubes" and for mistakenly calling an e-mail "an Internet." A music video for the "DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix" is currently playing on YouTube.

Like Bush's closed-door G-8 meeting, a speech by Stevens was once unlikely to reach many people. But now sites like YouTube can strike anytime, anywhere.

Even when you're getting a massage.

The Senate's top Republican, Majority Leader Bill Frist, said he would seek to put Bolton's nomination on the Senate agenda right away.

"I encourage swift action on the confirmation of John Bolton, and have asked that Chairman (Richard) Lugar and the Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings as soon as possible, so that we can ensure that he continue the important work that he has started at the UN."

Asked earlier Thursday whether the White House would seek Bolton's confirmation by the US Senate, Bush spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that "there are conversations going on" with Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

"And obviously the op-ed piece by Senator Voinovich was a welcome bit of prose," said Snow.

One White House official said that Democrats who thwarted Bolton's confirmation last year might insist on new hearings before any fresh vote.

Another option, Snow said later, would be to try to bypass the committee and go directly to a vote by the full Senate.

According to the Election Assistance Commission, more than 61 percent of votes in the 2004 presidential election were cast and/or tallied by EVMs. Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, estimates that the figure will jump to 80 percent by November, which will see elections for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.

Matt Schultz, an attorney with Kennedy's law firm, Levin Papantonio, describes the process of competition for HAVA's $300 million of contractor funds as "a race to the bottom." "There is no question in my mind that these companies sacrificed security and accuracy, mass-producing a cheap product to cash in on tons of federal money," Schultz says. "It's an industry-wide problem."

Qui tam lawsuits stem from a provision in the Civil False Claims Act, which Congress passed in 1863 at the behest of President Abraham Lincoln to respond to price gouging, use of defective products and substitution of inferior material by contractors supplying the Union Army. The provision allows private citizens to file a suit in the name of the U.S. government charging fraud by government contractors and other entities that receive or use government funds.

Long known as "Lincoln's Law," it is now commonly referred to as the "Whistleblower Law." Since the mid-'80s, qui tam recoveries have exceeded $1 billion, mostly after exposing medical and defense overcharging.

Mike Papantonio, partner in the law firm and co-host with Kennedy on "Ring of Fire," a weekly radio show on the Air America Network, explains the value of the qui tam approach. "The problem with injunctive relief, or [a writ of] mandamus, or prohibition-type writs, is it all comes down to politics. ... How do you bring injunctive relief with [Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth] Blackwell? How do you get [Florida Governor] Jeb Bush to do anything? They won't. You have to move outside of that political realm."

In 2004, Blackwell was in charge of implementing state and federal election laws, while, at the same time, co-chairing the state's 2004 Bush/Cheney Campaign. Under his watch, election officials neglected to process registration cards from Democratic voter drives, purged tens of thousands of voter registrations and distributed EVMs unevenly, leaving some voters waiting up to 12 hours. According to Kennedy, "at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted." Ohio was decided by 118,601 votes.

The contents of the suit could be under judicial seal for at least 60 days while the U.S. Department of Justice considers whether or not to join the suit. If U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales decides not to join the suit, Levin Papantonio may approach individual state attorneys general. If no one joins, the firm is free to, as Papantonio puts it, "stand in the shoes of the Attorney General and fight on behalf of the taxpayers and the nation."

"The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system," warns Kennedy. "Whoever controls the voting machines can control who wins the votes."

The numbers give Democrats a surprising money edge going into a crucial period in the congressional campaigns. Republican Party strategists, however, say GOP candidates as a whole are better financed than their Democratic challengers.

In House races, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also had more cash on hand than the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to their FEC filings. But the Democratic edge is much slimmer - $31.9 million to $26.5 million for the Republicans.

But the ease with which these Middle East hawks tolerate the slaughter of Arabs in Lebanon - as well as in Iraq and in the Palestinian territories - has a flavor of racism that has poisoned U.S. policy as far as many Muslims are concerned and indeed has strengthened popular support for Islamic extremists on the Arab street.

On July 17, New York Sen. Clinton shared the stage in a pro-Israel rally with Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations who has espoused anti-Arab bigotry in the past and now proudly defends Israel's "disproportionate" violence against Lebanese civilians.

"Let us finish the job," Gillerman told the crowd. "We will excise the cancer in Lebanon" and "cut off the fingers" of Hezbollah. Responding to international concerns that Israel was using "disproportionate" force by bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, "You're damn right we are." [NYT, July 18, 2006]

In other public statements, Gillerman has been even more disdainful of Muslims. At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington on March 6, Gillerman virtually equated Muslims with terrorists.

"While it may be true - and probably is - that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim," Gillerman quipped to the delight of the AIPAC crowd. [Washington Post, March 7, 2006]

Despite Gillerman's professed uncertainty about whether "all Muslims are terrorists," this crass case of anti-Muslim bigotry didn't generate any noticeable protest. It would have been hard to imagine any other ethnic or religious group being subjected to a similar smear without provoking a noisy controversy.

Not only did U.S. officials and politicians - both Republican and Democrat - avoid criticizing Gillerman or almost anything else about AIPAC, they bowed to its legendary power to make or break American political leaders.

Clinton's Stance

Four months later, Sen. Clinton and other Democrats joined Gillerman at the New York rally to endorse Israel's devastating military attacks on Lebanon in response to a July 12 cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers in an effort to distract Israel from an offensive in Gaza and in support of a proposed prisoner exchange.

Clinton, who is considered a Democratic presidential frontrunner in 2008, pleased the crowd by denouncing Hezbollah and Palestinian militants in Hamas as "the new totalitarians of the 21st Century" who believe in neither human rights nor democracy. (As for the democracy part, Hamas won the last round of Palestinian elections and Hezbollah has become a political force in Lebanon, holding seats in parliament.)

Clinton was joined by two Democratic congressmen who also endorsed Israel's bombing raids on Lebanon.

"Since when should a response to aggression and murder be proportionate?" said Rep. Jerrold Nadler.

"President Bush has been wrong about a lot of things," said Rep. Anthony D. Weiner. "He's right about this."

Similarly, attorney Alan Dershowitz, a frequent TV commentator, posted at the liberal HuffingtonPost.com blog site that Israel's killing of large numbers of Lebanese civilians was justified by the need to take out Islamic radicals operating in civilian neighborhoods. He wrote:

"My argument is that by hiding behind their own civilians, the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians. This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option and the terrorist with a win-win option."

In challenging HuffingtonPost readers to respond to his logic, Dershowitz appears oblivious to the racist element in his thinking, that killing large numbers of Muslim civilians to eliminate a few of Israel's enemies is justifiable. If the situation were reversed - armed Muslims slaying large numbers of Israeli civilians to get at a few Israeli leaders - Dershowitz would surely call the killings acts of terrorism or even genocide.

9/11 Logic

Osama bin-Laden justified the 9/11 attacks, which involved the murders of nearly 3,000 civilians, as a way to attack the military and financial centers of the United States, the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers.

Though terrorism is classically defined as violence against civilians to achieve a political goal, the concept has always carried with it the notion of proportionality. For instance, an assault against a genuine military target in wartime may cause civilian casualties - so-called "collateral damage" - but that is not usually considered terrorism.

If, however, civilian deaths are wildly disproportionate to the military target, the attack could constitute terrorism, say, the destruction of a residential high-rise or some other civilian building to kill a couple of enemy targets.

In that sense, one could argue that George W. Bush acted as a terrorist at the start of the Iraq War when he ordered U.S. military aircraft to blow up a residential restaurant in Baghdad based on faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein might be eating there.

Though Hussein wasn't present, 14 civilians, including seven children, died. One mother collapsed when her headless daughter was pulled from the wreckage.

Similarly, during the Israeli fight for independence, Zionist extremists, including later national leaders Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, were members of terrorist groups that attacked Palestinian civilians and British authorities. In one famous case, Jerusalem's King David Hotel, where British officials and other foreigners lived, was blown up.

But many Americans have come to regard terrorism as a strictly Muslim phenomenon. They hold that view despite well-known evidence to the contrary in large part because neoconservatives and other politically powerful forces drum this false idea into the heads of the U.S. population.

Cheney Speech

Take, for example, the speech that Vice President Dick Cheney gave to the same AIPAC conference at which Gillerman wondered whether or not "all Muslims are terrorists." Cheney substantively agreed that terrorism was almost exclusively a Muslim tactic - one that flourished because it didn't draw a sufficiently harsh U.S. response.

"Over the last several decades, Americans have seen how the terrorists pursue their objectives," Cheney said. "Simply stated, they would hit us, but we would not hit back hard enough.

"In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 Americans, and afterward U.S. forces withdrew from Beirut. In 1993 we had the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu, and the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. Then came the attack on the Saudi National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995; the killings at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and, of course, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000."

However, Cheney's one-sided recounting of history reflected an anti-Muslim bias on two levels. First, it ignored the long history of terrorism practiced around the world by people of nearly all religions and ethnic backgrounds.

In 1976, for instance, Chile's U.S.-backed dictatorship sponsored a terrorist bombing on the streets of Washington, killing Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt, yet then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush protected Chile's leaders from exposure and prosecution. [See Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]

Even today, the current Bush administration is blocking attempts to bring another anti-communist terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, to justice over his alleged role in blowing a civilian Cuban airliner out of the sky, also in 1976 when George Bush Sr. was CIA director. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bush Family's Terrorism Test."]

Cheney's speech also ignored more recent acts of terrorism committed by non-Muslims. For instance, there was no reference in his speech to home-grown right-wing terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and executed for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

For that matter, Cheney offered no self-criticism of the "shock and awe" violence that the Bush administration inflicted on Iraq, killing thousands of civilians in a war launched over false claims about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.

For Vice President Cheney and Ambassador Gillerman, these examples don't seem to count, presumably because the perpetrators weren't Muslim.

Not Terrorism

A second point undermining Cheney's argument was that some of the cases he cited weren't acts of terrorism.

In the case of the 1983 bombing in Beirut, for instance, the attackers targeted the Marine barracks because the Reagan-Bush administration's mission creep had led U.S. forces to intervene militarily against some Muslim elements in the civil war then raging in Lebanon. Muslim villages were even shelled by a U.S. warship. So, while the killing of the Marines was horrible, it wasn't terrorism.

Similarly, the "Black Hawk Down" incident in the Somali city of Mogadishu wasn't an act of terrorism; it was a battle between U.S. Special Forces units and militia troops loyal to a local warlord. Indeed, the Somali militia was reacting to a surprise attack by the American troops, not vice versa.

What Cheney appeared to be saying was that anytime American troops are killed in a conflict whatever the factual circumstances, they are the victims of "terrorism" - with all that word's emotional and propagandistic value. Conversely, acts ordered by President Bush and U.S. allies can never be considered "terrorism" whatever the facts may suggest.

There has been a similar blurring of lines in regard to attacks by Iraqi insurgents against U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. While some incidents, such as the destruction of mosques and the killing of civilians, do constitute terrorism, bombs directed at U.S. troops as they patrol Iraqi territory are military ambushes or sabotage, not terrorism.

While some Americans might want Iraqi insurgents who are responsible for killing U.S. troops to bear the opprobrium of the disgraced title of "terrorist," the selective application of the word - as favored by Cheney and Gillerman - carries its own danger.

Since U.S. policy forbids negotiations with "terrorists," peace talks with Iraqi insurgents would be barred. That, in turn, could lead to an indefinite war in Iraq and vastly more death and destruction on all sides.

That might serve the goals of some neoconservative ideologues - and ironically the interests of Osama bin-Laden - but it is almost certainly not in the interests of U.S. troops in Iraq - nor of the American people.

Further, when a loaded charge like "terrorism" is leveled against a specific ethnic or religious group - but not against others who have engaged in comparable practices - that kind of selective outrage is generally called bigotry or racism.

Those ugly tendencies have been part of many war fevers in the past. Now, as the Bush administration prepares the American people for even a wider war in the Middle East, this pernicious form of bigotry will surely play a big part again. [For more, see Consortiumnews.com's "The Abyss Beckons."]

The agreement resulted from an audit by the FEC of the committee's records for Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2002. The audit found DeLay's committee had not properly reported contributions, disbursements and cash on hand.

It also found the committee failed to properly report outstanding debts and obligations and did not follow federal rules for paying for shared federal and nonfederal activities.

The audit was conducted last August. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, had filed a complaint calling for enforcement action against the committee.

"The reason DeLay became so powerful was all about the money, the amounts of money he could pull in and could distribute to his colleagues," said Melanie Sloan, the watchdog group's executive director. "Nearly every Republican in Congress received money from ARMPAC, thus consolidating his power base. They loved him because he kept them flush. Now we find out, they brought in huge amounts of money, but they did it illegally."

Dani DeLay Ferro, DeLay's spokeswoman and his daughter, said the fine and shutdown of ARMPAC were voluntary. The audit "concerns highly technical FEC reporting rules, which due to their complexity, the commission has since reformed and simplified," Ferro said in a statement.

The FEC said ARMPAC corrected financial errors in its fundraising reports and refunded $111,913.19 to its nonfederal account. ARMPAC officials told the FEC that some of the mistakes were the result of misinterpretation or failure to understand the agency's regulations. The group disagreed with FEC counting some transactions as debts and obligations.

The FEC audit found that ARMPAC:

- Failed to report $74,295 in financial activity in 2001 and $166,340 in 2002.

- Failed to report debts and obligations totaling $322,306 to 25 vendors.

- Failed to separate expenses between its federal and nonfederal account, resulting in the nonfederal account paying $203,483 more than its allowable expenses.

ARMPAC officials told the FEC they can't raise the money to refund $91,569.81 to the nonfederal account and agreed to use any contributions exceeding $5,000 to pay the debt and will not spend more than $5,000 until the debt is paid. DeLay's campaign fundraising committee bought ARMPAC's donor list for about $34,000.

The political committee also provided seed money for DeLay to launch Texans for a Republican Majority, the fundraising committee at the center of a Texas election fundraising investigation. DeLay was charged with money laundering in connection with that investigation, triggering Republican House rules that forced him to relinquish the majority leader post while the charges were pending. DeLay denies the charges.

DeLay resigned from Congress June 9 after more than two decades in the House. He had planned to withdraw from the race for his District 22 House seat, but a judge's ruling in a Democratic lawsuit forced DeLay to remain on the Texas ballot. The state's Republican party leader is appealing that decision, which DeLay has criticized.

Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs John Hillen told lawmakers that the sale of up to 36 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan would help bolster a key US ally in the global fight against terrorism.

"This sale is a presidential priority and a key element of the administration's South Asia strategy unveiled in March 2005, aimed at broadening our strategic relationships with our key regional partners: India, Afghanistan and Pakistan," Hillen said at a hearing of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee.

However the committees leaders -- both Democratic and Republican -- were irate over the sale.

"What we can say for the public record is that a sequence of actions and inactions by the State Department recently resulted in a host of serious national security and compliance issues," said the panel's Republican chairman Henry Hyde at the hearing, accusing the administration of "flouting of Congress' role."

"This insolence flies in the face both of custom and the intent of the Constitution," added his Democratic counterpart, Tom Lantos.

To avoid being circumvented in the future, the two lawmakers on Thursday introduced HR 5847, a bill that would require quarterly updates on possible upcoming arms sales and would enforce a 20-day consultation period before a proposed sale could go forward.

Lawmakers expressed concerns that the fighter jets' sophisticated technology could fall into the wrong hands.

"While I support the substance of the sale, we have had long-standing concerns over the security plan to protect the US technology in these aircraft and missiles in sales to a country that produced the A Q Khan nuclear proliferation network," Lantos said.

But the administration insisted that the sale not only was not a security risk, but would make America safer.

"The sale will send a very clear signal of our commitment to a long-term relationship with Pakistan ... and it will strengthen the hand of President (Pervez) Musharraf and his government in supporting us in the war on terror and in continuing to make other politically difficult, yet strategic choices," Hillen said.

US President George W. Bush's administration notified the Congress of the five billion dollar aircraft sale late last month.

Washington had blocked the sale of F-16s to Pakistan for 15 years to protest its nuclear weapons program, but gave the green light in March 2005 to reward the South Asian ally for its help in the "war on terror."

Pakistan already has more than 30 multi-role F-16s made by US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp.

India has in the past expressed concern about weapons sales to its arch-rival and neighbor Pakistan.

The EU executive was due to present a report to justice and interior ministers next Monday recommending such steps, but the document has been delayed for two months, prompting threats of unilateral action by the Czech Republic, normally one of Washington's most faithful allies on foreign policy.

"We received the information from Canada and the United States too late to present it at the Council next week," European Commission spokesman Pietro Petrucci confirmed.

He said the report would be issued in the second week of September. The Commission said in January it wanted progress before it reported in July and warned it had the power to recommend sanctions.

The United States, which tightened immigration measures after the September 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, cites security concerns and worries about overstays for maintaining the requirement, which it would require legislation to change.

"We have very close relations with the United States and we cannot understand why we are subject to such discrimination," a Czech diplomat said, noting Czechs could travel freely anywhere in the world except for the United States and Canada.

He said Prague was disenchanted that the EU had not invoked a clause under which all member states are bound to act in support a member that is subject to discriminatory treatment.

"This has been going on for two years and the Union has still not invoked the solidarity clause," the diplomat said.

"Either the EU helps us on this or we will get out of the system and introduce visas unilaterally, which of course will bring an (EU) infringement procedure against us."

U.S. officials say talks are continuing to overcome the problem, a source of embarrassment with countries which are generally supportive of Washington in EU and NATO councils, but no time frame can be set for a resolution.

One noted the timing was awkward in the run-up to mid-term congressional elections in November.