U.S. holds infants, Americans
in East African secret prisons| |
Excerpt: A network of U.S. allies in East Africa secretly have transferred to prisons in Somalia and Ethiopia at least 80 people who were captured in Kenya while fleeing the recent war in Somalia, according to human rights advocates here. ... At least 150 prisoners, who included men and women of 17 nationalities and children as young as 7 months, were held in Kenya for several weeks before most of them were transferred covertly to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they're being held incommunicado, the groups charge. ... At least one of the transferees is an American citizen identified on a flight manifest as Amir Mohamed Meshar. |
Using U.S. attorneys
for political prosecutions
Newly revealed emails implicate
Karl Rove in US attorney firings| |
Excerpt: The e-mails, which indicate Rove was more deeply involved in the attorney firings than previously acknowledged, also implicate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, says ABC News. This contradicts earlier White House statements that the idea of firing all US attorneys was then White House counsel Harriet Miers' alone. |
Gonzales lied under oath| |
Excerpt: "And so let me publicly sort of preempt perhaps a question you're going to ask me, and that is: I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney."Atty Gen Alberto Gonzales
Comment: Meanwhile, of course, a little-known provision in the PATRIOT Act took that confirmation power away from the Senate, so that the White House could unilaterally replace ethical prosecutors with unqualified cronies. Perhaps they forgot to put a provision in the PATRIOT Act to change the fact that lying to Congress is a felony? |
Startegy of Attorney firings
came from White House| |
Excerpt: The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today. |
E-mails detail White House
tactics behind attorney firings| |
Excerpt: The documents offer an extraordinary look at political tactics within the Bush administration, and show the White House working closely with the Justice Department to justify the firings. The administration even adopted contingency plans for how to "quiet" anyone who complained. And it was the administration that gave the final go-ahead to fire eight prosecutors, all of them Bush appointees. |
White House officials used
outside email systems to bypass
record-keeping (and break law)| |
Excerpt: CREW has learned that to fulfill its statutory obligations under the PRA, the White House email system automatically copies all messages created by staff and sends them to the White House Office of Records Management for archiving. It appears that the White House deliberately bypassed the automatic archiving function of its own email system that was designed to ensure compliance with the PRA. |
Gonzales Deputy who (we were told)
resigned is still on DOJ payroll,
but in a bigger office| |
Excerpt: NPR has learned that the Attorney General's chief of staff resigned from his position this week, the Justice Department took steps to establish him as an attorney elsewhere in the building. Kyle Sampson stepped down on Monday after Justice officials said he was responsible for the attorney general giving incomplete information to Congress over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. |
Guam prosecutor fired five years
ago for investigating Abramoff| |
Excerpt: Well before the current flap over fired U.S. attorneys was making headlines, the interim U.S. attorney for Guam and the Mariana Islands accused the Bush administration of replacing him after he called for an investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a June 2006 report by the Department of Justice's inspector general. Frederick Black had served in the position since 1991 and was replaced in May 2003. |
How Talking Points Memo beat
the big boys on the U.S. Attorney story| |
Excerpt: It's almost too perfect. A mainstream reporter mocks a story a blogger has been working to break, asserting that "it all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!", and that the blogger is "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist," only to backtrack a few weeks later when the story explodes across the front pages of the major dailies. ...
Still, the image is great. While the mocking reporter, Time magazine's Washington bureau chief Jay Carney, was busy dumping on the story of U.S. Attorneys being fired across the country, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, and two of his reporters at his offshoot site, TPMuckracker.com, Paul Kiel and Justin Rood, were busy reporting, using a variety of sources that had been largely untapped by the mainstream press. |
|
|
FBI insisted on using questionable
methods for getting records: report| |
Excerpt: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation ignored warnings by lawyers and continued using questionable procedures to obtain the telephone records of thousands of Americans as part of its counterterrorism probes, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Citing unnamed senior FBI and Justice Department officials and documents, the newspaper said FBI lawyers raised concerns about the practice beginning in October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year. |
U.S. sends seriously wounded
troops back into Iraq| |
Excerpt: As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records. |
Iran / Run-up to the next war:
Congress hands Bush
unilateral power to attack Iran| |
Excerpt: Democratic leaders are stripping from a military spending bill for the war in Iraq a requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel, officials said Monday.
Comment: Checks and whats? Separation of huh? |
Iran's military warns U.S.
against "stupid move"| |
Excerpt: Iran's army commander has warned the United States and other Western powers not to make any "stupid move" over Tehran's nuclear work, and suggested they would be surprised by Iran's military response if they attacked. |
|
|
Senate votes against ending Iraq war| |
Excerpt: A Democratic plan to pull most American combat forces out of Iraq by next March -- the first vote in either full chamber that would have forced an end to the unpopular war -- failed to pass the Senate on Thursday. The resolution got 48 votes in favor and 50 against, with 60 needed for passage. It called for beginning to move some American forces out of Iraq in four months and set a target of getting all combat forces out by March 31, 2008, except for an unspecified residual force that would fight terrorists, protect other Americans and train Iraqis. In the House, a measure that is similar to the Senate's -- except that it is tied to war funding -- cleared a budget committee. It will go to the full House of Representatives for what is likely to be a close vote next week. |
Man who "confessed" to 9/11 also confessed
to fictional crimes, crimes other people did| |
Excerpt: Mohammed also claimed involvement in planning several attacks that never occurred, including assassination attempts on former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and bombings of several landmarks in the US and around the world. The Pentagon blacked out some of Mohammed's remarks, including his response to a question on whether he was tortured in US custody. The Associated Press is reporting the Pentagon also redacted a section in which Mohammed confesses to the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Comment: Anybody get a chance to ask him if he also killed JFK?? If he was the Plame leaker? If he's planning to run for US President? If Mohammed came down from the mountain and told him to confess? But the REAL question is: Is the public as stupid
Terrorist's confession
exposes dark side of U.S.
Excerpt: As Osama bin Laden's "Military Operational Commander", Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was responsible not only for "the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution... from A to Z" of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but also for the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center, the murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, the attempt by the shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a plane, the murder of two US soldiers in Kuwait, and other bombings in Bali, Mombassa and Turkey.
Moreover, his confession to the tribunal alluded to more than 20 terrorist crimes which he planned but did not succeed in carrying out, including "Dirty Bomb Operations on American soil", post-9/11 "Second Wave" attacks on the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Plaza Bank in Washington state and the Empire State Building in New York, and further attacks on New York's suspension bridges and stock exchange; on American nuclear power plants; on Heathrow airport, Canary Wharf and Big Ben; on the Straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar, on Singapore and the Panama Canal; on NATO's headquarters in Brussels; on three American embassies; on Israel itself and four Israeli embassies; and on Western targets in Thailand and South Korea.
As if that were not enough, Mohammed informed the tribunal that he was responsible for planning the assassinations of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II and the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Oh, and he also intended to destroy "an American oil company owned by the Jewish former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on the Island of Sumatra". |
After Katrina, gov't knowingly installed
defective flood pumps in New Orleans| |
Excerpt: The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. |
Gonzales blocked wiretapping probe
in which he was a likely target| |
Excerpt: Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.
Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work. |
Treason in the White House
White House never investigated leak,
says Bush-Cheney Security Chief| |
Excerpt: Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, revealed today that to his knowledge the White House has never ordered a probe, report, or sanctions as a result of the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. "I have no knowledge of any investigation in my office," he said. ...
Shortly after the leak was revealed by Novak, President Bush said he wanted an investigation to identify the leaker:
A senior official quoted Bush as saying, "I want to get to the bottom of this," during a daily meeting yesterday morning with a few top aides, including Rove.
Bush: "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." |
Outed CIA agent Plame, summoned before Congress, breaks silence| |
Excerpt: Valerie Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity. "I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency," Plame told House members. Rebutting an assertion by White House officials to reporters that she had sent her husband on the trip, Plame said a CIA colleague broached the idea after a call in early 2002 from Vice President Cheney's office seeking information about Iraqi activity in Niger. Plame said she "wasn't overjoyed" at the idea because it would leave her alone at bedtime with their 2-year-old twins. |
Cheney's office deleted
Libby/Plame-era emails| |
Excerpt: Fitzgerald's letter says that "we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
Comment In any previous presidency in my lifetime, a revelation like this about a high-level government official would be followed within days by that official's resignation, and in particularly egregious cases you might have seen prosecution.
In the Bush-Cheney administration, we've seen at least a hundred scandals of similar size and scope, all reported in the mainstream press and then forgotten and ignored. |
Attorney General Gonzales
involved in Plame cover-up| |
Excerpt: Everyone seems to have forgotten that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales also presided over one of the more sordid aspects of the Plame scandal. When Gonzales first learned that the Justice Department had started an official investigation into the Plame leak, Gonzales waited twelve hours before putting the White House staff on notice that they had to preserve documents and electronic files. Which seemed then -- and seems now -- like an open invitation to "shredding and deleting," not to mention getting your story straight. In short, obstruction of justice. |
| |
"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."
| |
|
|
Sane Christians know, "The Rapture is a racket"| |
Comment: When con-men regale Christians with tales of the Rapture (for a price) or when war-makers like George W Bush claim to be Christians, there's no more vivid example of taking God's name in vain. |
Iraq's Prime Minister fears U.S.
will force him out by June if
he doesn't make pro-Sunni reforms| |
Excerpt: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fears the Americans will torpedo his government if parliament does not pass a law to fairly divvy up the country's oil wealth among Iraqis by the end of June, close associates of the leader told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Aside from the oil law, the associates said, American officials have told the hard-line Shiite Muslim prime minister that they want an Iraqi government in place by year's end acceptable to the country's Sunni Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
Comment: "Divvying up the oil fairly" is a euphemism for "sharing it with the minority Sunnis," which the largely Shiite government under al-Maliki may be hesitant to do. Al-Maliki's claim that the U.S. is demanding that oil and political power be handed to the Sunnis squares with the Seymour Hersch article a couple weeks ago claiming that the U.S. is pursuing a policy of backing the Sunnis over the Shiites in multiple conflicts throughout the Middle East. Toppling the Shiite-led government of Iraq and attacking Iran would both be evidence of this pro-Sunni agenda. |
US officer "upset" that Iraqi suspects
were taken alive, court hears| |
Excerpt: A US military officer sounded "pretty mad and upset" that a group of soldiers had taken suspected Iraqi insurgents alive during a raid in which they had been told to kill all military-aged males, a court was told Tuesday.
A soldier who has pleaded guilty to killing those detainees told the court that he shot them because his squad leader told him to do it after having been reprimanded when he radioed back to base to say he had prisoners to transport.
Private William Hunsaker showed little remorse for his crimes, saying he had only agreed to an 18-year sentence because "I got tired of lying to everybody and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison for -- in my eyes -- killing three terrorists." |
Estimated long-term cost for U.S. vets
wounded in Iraq: $2,500,000,000,000| |
Excerpt: From official statistics supplied by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, we now know that the Iraq war is costing roughly $200m a day, or $6bn every month; the total bill so far is $400bn. But, in their studies, economist Linda Bilmes and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz consider three scenarios that were not even conceivable to Bush, Rummy, Wolfowitz et al back in 2003. In the first, incurring the lowest future costs, troops will start to be withdrawn this year and be out by 2010. The second assumes that there will be a gradual withdrawal that will be complete by 2015. The third envisages the participation of two million servicemen and women, with the war going on past 2016.
Estimating long-term costs using even the second, moderate scenario, Bilmes tells me: "I think we are now approaching a figure of $2.5 trillion."
Thousands of veterans
return with mental illness
Excerpt: Nearly a third of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who received care from Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2005 were diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial ills, a study published Monday has concluded. |
Halliburton moves headquarters to Dubai| |
Excerpt: The company said the move is aimed at growing its Middle East business which, according to analyst Pickering, generated 17 percent of Halliburton's 2006 oil service revenue and was its fastest-growing region.
According to a report from Reuters, Lesar told reporters: "At this point in time we clearly see there are greater opportunities in the eastern hemisphere than the western hemisphere."
Investigations close in on Halliburton
Excerpt: Over the past few years, information has been dripping out about a scheme in which an international consortium led by a Halliburton subsidiary apparently bribed Nigerian officials to win construction contracts worth $5.3 billion. The four-member consortium, called TSKJ, beat out a bid from another group headed by Bechtel Corporation, and it now seems possible that Bechtel may be dragged into the scandal as well. In addition, there are questions about whether Vice President Dick Cheney, the former head of Halliburton, had knowledge (or chose not to have knowledge) of the illegal payments. |
Republicans turn their backs
on Bush's prized 'No Child' Act| |
Excerpt: More than 50 GOP members of the House and Senate -- including the House's second-ranking Republican -- will introduce legislation today that could severely undercut President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, by allowing states to opt out of its testing mandates. |
Int'l Criminal Court willing to consider
war crime charges against Bush, Blair| |
Excerpt: The court's chief prosecutor told The Sunday Telegraph that he would be willing to launch an inquiry and could envisage a scenario in which the Prime Minister and American President George W Bush could one day face charges at The Hague.
Comment: Seven nations have refused to accept jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court at The Hague -- Communist China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, Yemen -- and the United States of America.
That's the company the U.S. keeps in the Bush-Cheney administration. |
Evangelical coalition
comes out against torture| |
Excerpt: The uncoupling of American evangelism from the administration of George Bush gathered pace yesterday when one of the largest national umbrella groups of socially conservative Christians issued a statement critical of US policy towards detainees and repudiating torture as a tactic in the war on terror.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents about 45,000 churches across America, endorsed a declaration against torture drafted by 17 evangelical scholars. The authors, who call themselves Evangelicals for Human Rights and campaign for "zero tolerance" on torture, say that the US administration has crossed "boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible" in the treatment of detainees. |
Gen. Petraeus linked to high-profile suicide in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Now, a new article reveals -- based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- that [ethics expert] Col. Ted Westhusing's apparent suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human right abuses and liars." One of those commanders: the new leader of the "surge" campaign in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus. |
White House “sanitizes” a century of historical records| |
Excerpt: More than 1 million pages of historical government documents -- a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol -- have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by the Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old. |
FEMA, not done screwing over
Katrina survivors, evacuates trailers| |
Excerpt: Shortly after noon, FEMA agents began rapping on the trailer doors, their knocks resounding inside the tinny white homes. Everyone in the park, the agents announced without warning, would have to pack and leave within 48 hours.
Where do we go now? Why? What about school?
To the residents of the Yorkshire Mobile Home Park, all of them families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency crews offered answers that were uncertain and sometimes contradictory. As residents spilled out of their homes to meet their similarly bewildered neighbors, the adults wondered where they would be sent next, and how far they might wind up from their jobs. Some began sobbing. Then the children, seeing their parents' tears, began crying, too. A woman fainted, and an ambulance came. ...
The park would be evacuated, and quickly, FEMA officials decided. Officials began telling tenants to pack up even before the agency had decided where they would go.
Comment: I know where FEMA should go. Put FEMA offices in these FEMA trailer
parks. Let the evacuees live at FEMA headquarters. It's a simple solution and would
ensure this would never happen again. |
In D.C., an encampment to stop the war| |
Excerpt: The Encampment to Stop the War was pitched yesterday on the Washington Mall directly in front of the capital in full view of the Democrat-led congress demanding that they defund the U.S. war on the people of Iraq. It kicked off yesterday morning with 4 large trucks rolling into the Washington Mall, loaded with scaffolding, staging, conference room tents, medical supplies and all the equipment we needed to set up the Encampment. People began arriving to camp against the war at about noon.
Video of arrests inside Rayburn Building
Excerpt: Yesterday, activists attempted to attend the House Appropriations Committee hearing. This video shows Capitol police denying the people access, while packing the room with corporate lobbyists and Congressional staffers. The Democrats -- who now control this committee -- didn't want the people to witness their crimes as they were assembled to vote for more money for the war. |
Experts agree: War in Iraq is lost| |
Excerpt: The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."
Those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire." The surge won't bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror. |
Bush urges more federal agencies --
Agriculture, Commerce, Energy --
to meddle in Iraq boondoggle| |
Excerpt: When Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez got back to his office, he asked his staff members to develop a list of Iraq-related projects for the agency. They did, and two months later, they shared it with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, expecting that diplomats on the ground would welcome a little help from Washington.
Instead, the document, "Secretary Gutierrez's Five Priority Areas for Economic Reform in Iraq," set off a bureaucratic grenade in Baghdad's Green Zone. The second item on the list called for the United States to pressure Iraq's government to cease providing people with monthly food rations, which more than half of Iraq's population relies on for sustenance.
Embassy officials were incensed. Although the embassy's economists favored changes to the ration system, they believed that dismantling it as Commerce was proposing could spark riots that might topple the Iraqi government. |
White House urges court to throw out
spying lawsuit against AT&T| |
Excerpt: The federal government is urging an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, warning that disclosure of such activities could compromise national security. The documents were filed late Friday and released Monday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the suit. Moreover, the government said, the very merits of the case and whether it should be dismissed cannot be resolved in court because a "state secrets privilege" does not allow it. |
Chair of Joint Chiefs
calls homosexuality "immoral"| |
Excerpt: In an interview earlier this week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace called homosexuality "immoral" and said he supports the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy because the military "should not condone immoral acts." Last December, a Zogby Interactive poll of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found 73 percent of those polled were "comfortable with lesbians and gays."
Comment: What kind of raving lunatic honestly believes that mutually consensual sex is worse than torturing a man until he spouts nonsense confessions, holding infants in secret prisons, sending soldiers who are too wounded to wear armor back into combat, or endangering your own intelligence agents to get revenge on their families? And those are just the headlines THIS WEEK. |
Democrats cancel debate
sponsored by Fox News| |
Excerpt: The Nevada State Democratic Party has decided to cancel its partnership with the Fox News Channel in a Democratic primary debate scheduled for August 14. ... [Fox News chairman Roger] Ailes also received criticism for making a joke that compared Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to a terrorist. Said Ailes, "And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'" |
News from America's
very bestest ally, Israel:
Thousands of Palestinians detained
in 40 years under Israeli military rule | |
Excerpt: Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been detained during 40 years of Israeli rule, including 140,000, or 4 percent of the current population, in the past two decades, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Today's inmate count is among the highest since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War. |
Humiliation and child abuse
at Israeli checkpoints| |
Excerpt: According to interviews with women in the United States, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli border officials periodically force Christian and Muslim females of all ages to remove their clothing and submit to searches. In some cases the children are then "felt" by Israeli officials. |
Olmert pans Palestinian peace talks| |
Excerpt: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday peace talks with the Palestinian coalition government would be impossible as long as it refuses to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Comment: Yes indeedie, Israel really wants peace... |
|
|
Norway to restore ties with Palestine| |
Excerpt: "The unity government's program takes important steps toward meeting the demands set by the international community. On this basis, Norway will therefore resume political and economic relations with the Palestinian government," Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement.
The Palestinian parliament on Saturday voted in favor of the landmark unity cabinet, which is hoped to end a turbulent year of factional bloodshed and an international boycott.
U.S. "disturbed" that Palestinians
claim right to resist repression
Excerpt: The United States said Saturday it was disturbed by the Palestinian unity government's claim of a right to resist Israel and disappointed by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's speech on Saturday expressing that right. |
Trashing (or saving?) the planet
U.S. odd man out in climate consensus| |
Excerpt: A consensus on the need to protect the world's environment is emerging among rich and developing nations, but the United States remains at odds with other countries on key points, Germany said on Saturday.
Environment ministers of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, and officials from leading developing countries, were meeting to prepare for a June G8 summit where they plan to discuss specific targets for protecting the environment. "On two issues, the United States were the only ones who spoke against consensus," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting, which he chaired on behalf of Germany's G8 presidency.
Gabriel said the U.S. remained opposed to a global carbon emissions trading scheme like the one used in the European Union and rejected the idea that industrialized nations should help achieve a "balance of interests" between developing countries' need for economic growth and environmental protection.
Comment: As in so many other areas where we were once a leader, a pioneer, a trail blazer, now we're not even a follower, but an outright foot-dragger and laggard, in environmental protection (and so doing actual harm to the health of the human race -- especially its children -- as well).
But I guess this goes along with the whole 'down with human rights' thing too in America (where people are today presumed guilty until proven innocent, and they're not allowed to prove innocence, and while they're 'detained' we torture them for fun). |
Winter has been world's
warmest on record| |
Excerpt: The next-warmest winter on record was in 2004, and the third warmest winter was in 1998, Lawrimore said. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1995. |
|
|
'Yahoo betrayed my husband'| |
Excerpt: Yu Ling's husband is now in Beijing Prison No. 2, serving a 10-year sentence for inciting subversion with his pro-democracy internet writings. According to the written court verdict, the Chinese government convicted Wang, in part, on evidence provided by Yahoo.
After a year of preparation, Yu flew into Washington, D.C., last week for one purpose: to find a lawyer and sue the internet giant. She told her story to Wired News in the Virginia headquarters of The China Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group headed by former dissident Harry Wu, who helped arrange Yu's travel to the United States.
Comment: Hope she wins every dime Yahoo has in the bank. |
Rice ignored eleven of Rep Waxman's requests for information| |
Excerpt: The California Democrat also explained that he had sent Dr. Rice 16 inquiries since 2003, but only 5 of the letters, that were also signed by committee Republicans, had received responses. "Under the Bush Administration, several agencies followed a policy of not responding to minority party requests," Waxman stated. |
Muslims, kicked off plane
for praying, sue US Airways| |
Excerpt: Six Muslim scholars who were kicked off a US Airways flight last fall have filed a lawsuit claiming the airline discriminated against them and violated their civil rights. The imams, most of whom are from Arizona, were returning from a religious conference in November when they were taken off a plane in Minneapolis, handcuffed and questioned. They had prayed on their prayer rugs in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport before the flight, and after they boarded, a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant. |
Baptist leader suggests eugenics
to eliminate future gays| |
Excerpt: The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality which they view as sinful is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling. ... |
Richardson to legalize medical marijuana| |
Excerpt: Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday he realizes his action could become an issue in the presidential race.
"So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do," said Richardson, one of the candidates in the crowded 2008 field. "What we're talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them." |
Feds prosecute dying woman
for medical marijuana| |
Excerpt: A California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. |
Man jailed for life for one marijuana
cigarette is pardoned ... after 20/20 report| |
Excerpt: After the 20/20 report, Dallas voters ousted [racist judge] Keith Dean from the bench, and Friday Tyrone Brown was granted a "conditional pardon" by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The pardon requires Brown to live with his mother, report to a parole officer, find a job and work with a therapist.
Comment So all it takes to get within sniffin' distance of sanity in the Texas judicial system is coverage on ABC News. |
Patient's pain irrelevant --
Chronically ill man gets 25 years in prison| |
Excerpt: Florida's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Richard Paey, a wheelchair-using father of three who is currently serving a 25-year mandatory prison sentence for taking his own pain medication. In doing so, the court let stand a decision which essentially claims that the courts have no role in checking the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government when an individual outcome is patently unjust. |
South Carolina bill would add
another obstacle to abortion| |
Excerpt: South Carolina lawmakers are considering legislation that would force women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound image of their fetus. The proposed bill has angered abortion rights groups, who say politicians in South Carolina are trying to interfere in a medical decision women should make with their doctors. |
Terrorists proving harder to profile| |
Excerpt: The demographics of those being arrested are so diverse that many European counterterrorism officials and analysts say they have given up trying to predict what sorts of people are most likely to become terrorists. Age, sex, ethnicity, education and economic status have become more and more irrelevant.
Comment So to paraphrase from an old Bush speech, it turns out that now you're either against us, or -- you're against us. |
RIAA lawsuit hits family with
no computer or Internet access| |
Excerpt: "I don't understand this," James Walls told his local paper, the Rockmart Journal. "How can they sue us when we don't even have a computer?" The confused family believes that the copyright infringement must have been the work of their home's previous occupant, as they have lived there for less than a year. It's not hard to believe however, as the RIAA has in the past filed a lawsuit against a dead woman.
RIAA must turn over attorney
billing records to Oklahoma mother
Excerpt: RIAA's legal team is spiraling into disaster as a judge has ruled that an Oklahoma mother is entitled to get billing records and timesheets from the RIAA. Debbie Foster wants the records to help her calculate how much the RIAA has spent in attorneys fees after their failed attempt to sue Foster. The judge has ruled that the RIAA has until March 26th to cough up the documents. |
Sleepless nights may hinder moral judgment| |
Excerpt: Sleep deprivation may lead not only to bleary-eyed mornings, but clouded moral judgment as well, a study suggests. Army researchers found that when they subjected a group of volunteers to two sleepless nights, the lack of shut-eye seemed to hinder participants' ability to make decisions in the face of emotionally charged, moral dilemmas.
Comment: Hmm. It appears the well-documented increase in sleep problems among American adults may be one thing which has helped the Republicans get away with so much. And I'm sure people like Karl Rove have been aware of this for years (the Repubs have excellent researchers on their payroll for just this sort of thing). This helps explain the motivation for so many Republican policies seemingly intended to keep the masses stressed out and unable to relax... |
Elite law school grads get $200,000
signing bonus as Supreme Court clerks| |
Excerpt: That will be $200,000 on top of a starting salary of $145,000 to $160,000. Which adds up to an awful lot of Pottery Barn sectional furniture for someone who is, on average, 26 years old and just two years out of school. As Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out recently, that $360,000 beats the heck out of the $212,100 he's taking home for, well, chief justice-ing the entire nation. |
What's wrong with Microsoft Windows Vista?| |
Excerpt: Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is a giant step backward for your freedoms. Usually, new software enables you to do more with your computer. Vista, though, is designed to restrict what you can do. Vista enforces new forms of "Digital Rights Management (DRM)". DRM is more accurately called Digital Restrictions Management, because it is a technology that Big Media and computer companies try to impose on us all, in order to have control over how our computers are used. |
|
Lightning round news
|
Israeli envoy recalled over
bondage gear street shame
Mistaken raid may cost
canceled celeb police show
Have you clicked our
(new and improved) Mystery links?
|
|
Walter Reed Hospital is paradise
by The Alchemist, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: Oh, our poor troops, all f*cked up in da head with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Well, try watching your infant bleed out in your arms after an American mortar attack. Or your 14-year-old daughter gang raped by some All-American sausage crew. Or your 5-year-old boy shot down like a dog. Poor, poor Americans? Give me a f*cking break. |
It's put up or shut up time, for Homo sapiens
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: As we do the work of replacing this Tyranny with a just order, we can expect every tool of oppression to be brought to bear. If it has happened elsewhere in the Imperium, it will happen here. |
Three rows of pawns and other new chess rules discovered
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Little known provisions in the PATRIOT Act and signing statements combined with Executive Orders now allows three rows of pawns to protect the unitary executive homeland row. |
Let's clear up our thinking a little on the "health care issue"
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Health care executives are not Rotarian business people practicing fair exchange of value. These are true gangsters hauling in vast amounts of loot, managing "the business of health care" with methods traditionally used to manage the illegal drug, prostitution, gambling and loan sharking "businesses." |
Me thinks the Dr. doth protest too much
by JS Magruder, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: CS's letter reminds me of people who blame the homeless for not pulling themselves together and getting a job, finding housing, etc. I'd argue that by the point someone is homeless, it hardly matters how or why they arrived at the condition. Rather, I have an obligation to try and do what I can without applying the absurd reasoning of "If I can do it, why can't they?" It hardly matters what I'm capable of, and it shouldn't be a criteria for determining whether or not to extend help to those in need. I'd expect the same approach from a physician. By the time someone has diabetes, it is sort of condescending to suggest what they might have done to prevent it. |
Lightning consumed the skies in every direction
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: People were panicking -- there was utter chaos and sheer madness. Everyone was fleeing to -- where? I don't know! |
In opposition to Tyranny, they who survive win
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: As paradoxical as it seems, I am convinced that those we oppose are actually very weak people, psychologically speaking. A big part of the reason that they are so dangerous is that they must do everything possible to cover up and deny the inner torments, insecurities and infirmities that define their beings. The lesson here is that if we not only merely survive but also create in the minds of our opponents that somehow, even at some distant time, we might overcome them, then we will win. They will self-destruct as a result of their paranoia. |
The real war criminals
by Rose and The Alchemist, Unknown News| |
Rose says To lump all the US soldiers -- soldiers who were certain, because it is what they were told by their superiors, that there was a tie between bin Laden and Iraq and that they were fighting an enemy that attacked us -- into the category of "war criminals" is, in my opinion, inaccurate and unfair.
The Alchemist says Americans have the right, and the duty, to think for themselves, and to question our so-called leaders. Time and again they have lied us into war... Do you think that the mother of slaughtered Iraqi or Afghan children excuses our troops for "just following orders?" |
Dance, Foxholes, dance
Nitpicker| |
Excerpt: On more than one occasion, I worked with Fox News producers and reporters. Once, in Herat, I saw one of the Foxholes approached by a couple of soldiers. One of the soldiers said he was glad they could finally talk to a "conservative" reporter. The reporter laughed and said, "Someone's got to balance out the liberals." But, later, I ran into that same reporter in Bagram. He wanted an interview with some soldiers and, when I grabbed one at random to ask if he wanted to talk to Fox News, the soldier -- an Army captain -- said he didn't, because, as a Democrat, he wasn't a fan of the network's politics. The reporter, shaken up, said that was ridiculous. The network had no politics, but only told the truth. "Whatever," said the captain and walked off. The reporter, after a few beats narrowed his eyes at the soldier's back and quietly hissed, motherf*cker. |
So, since Bush's FBI isn't collecting
your phone records for national
security, why is it collecting them?
Lambert's Blog
| |
Excerpt: But the inspector general's probe concluded that many of the letters were "not sent in exigent circumstances" and that "there sometimes were no open or pending national security investigations tied to the request," contrary to what U.S. law requires. No subpoenas had actually been requested before the letters were sent. The phone companies nonetheless promptly turned over the information, in anticipation of getting a more legally viable document later, FBI officials said. |
Was I a good American in the time of George Bush?
by Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian
| |
Excerpt: Before the current administration, it had always been easy to condemn the "good Germans" who did nothing while Jews, Gypsies and others were rounded up for extermination. One likes to believe that one will be different, will harbor Anne Frank in one's secret annex, smuggle people across the border, defy the authorities who do evil. Those we scornfully call good Germans merely did little while the mouth of hell opened up.
I now know the way that everyday life can be so absorbing, survival so demanding, that it seems impossible to do more on top of it or to drop the routine altogether and begin a totally different life. There is the garden to be watered, the aged parent in crisis, the deadline looming; but there are also the crimes against humanity waiting to be stopped. Ordinary obligations tug one way even when extraordinary ones tug the other way. The Bush administration is by no means the Third Reich, but it produced an extraordinary time that made extraordinary demands on US citizens, demands that some of us rose to -- and too many did not. |
Republican propaganda is not news
by Matt Stoller, Politico| |
Excerpt: Falsifying information that is favorable to Republicans and problematic for Democrats is a regular tactic of Fox News. Specific examples are breathtakingly dishonest, including the Obama Madrassa smear, Carl Cameron's false claims that John Kerry referred to himself as a "metrosexual" and "news anchor" Brit Hume repeating the false canard that the public does not trust the Democratic Party on national defense.
But it's the sweep of the disinformation campaign that suggests a genuine pattern of propagandistic manipulation of the public. The Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland conducted a study in October 2003 of public knowledge and attitudes about current events, focusing on media consumption habits. The study examined three generic misconceptions about the march to war in Iraq -- alleged WMDs, purported Iraqi involvement in 9/11, and supported international support for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. While three-fifths of Americans held at least one of these misconceptions at the time, speaking to the poor quality of American punditry, Fox News viewers stood out -- their viewers were "three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions." |
Let presidential candidates
sue one another for libel
by Joseph H. Cooper, The Christian Science Monitor
| |
Excerpt: How do we make America's 2008 presidential campaign more honest? With lawsuits -- lots of libel lawsuits, to be specific.
Comment: I'm only submitting this to help add to the ideas in circulation: I have no idea how much (if any) this would help matters. It might even hurt, as those with deeper pockets would usually have the legal and political edge, and the trials might take ages to be resolved (far longer than any election campaign). The current record for longest lived single American court case might be around 50 years, I believe. |
Everything's hunky-dory at Walter Reed,
says Nat'l Guard Adjutant General
by Sharon Rose, Unknown News | |
Excerpt: "I had my staff contact every soldier who is or has been stationed at Walter Reed. In reply, each soldier provided a response and a description of their care to date. In all instances, I am happy to report, the soldiers were satisfied with the hospital care. Only one has expressed any negative remarks regarding the care or service at WRAMC." Major General Gus L. Hargett; Jr. |
| |
Excerpt: Despite a flagrant mocking by the U.S. Administration, France recovered promptly from its firm stand against the Iraq invasion. Changing the name of french fried potatoes to freedom fries did not affect the gourmet industry either. |
Update on my brother's murder
by sheriff's deputies in San Diego
by Kristopher Hayes, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: We were initially told that the investigation of my brother's "suicide by cop" would take up to twelve days to be completed. Now they say we won't ever find out when they conclude their investigation and may need to read it in a newspaper. |
Let go of the rock!
by Kathy Fisher and Jim Kirwan, Kirwan Studios| |
Excerpt: The only check upon the slaughter that's going on comes from that much-maligned human conscience (that most have tried to forever-silence) -- yet most cannot STOP the NIGHTMARES. This is nature's way to end this practice by the slow torture of those who pull the triggers and operate the gunsights of OUR multi-billion dollar killing machines (the same ones we rent or sell to ISRAEL -- to desecrate and murder all those that we don't dare to do ourselves). |
Summing up our predicament
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: Little doubt that the meltdown is under way. The only question remaining is whether or not the super rich will effect a mass murder/suicide scenario, or whether they will agree to join the rest of the species and try to save ourselves from the impending disasters that they have engineered through their greed and ignorance. |
Alibis to justify the Bush-Cheney Reich
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: We're in Afghanistan still because the Taliban continue to resist our puppet regime and fight back against the occupation forces. If *only* they would surrender and consent to be governed by Bush's puppets, then we could torture, imprison and execute them all and then we would have peace in Afghanistan! But no, they continue to resist. Why can't they lay back and accept their dominion by Amerika? |
They're quite mad, you know
P.M. Carpenter's Commentary
| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war reminds me of flying-ace Snoopy, with goggles down and steely determination, though of course his victories are all in his head. Or maybe a Vegas high-roller, who, after an unbroken four-year losing streak, decides to bet what little is left in one last gamble.
The first metaphor is that of delusion; the second, that of pathetic desperation. Still, either is superior to the administration in sanity or wisdom, since neither is playing with other people's lives. In doing the latter, one enters the decidedly unmetaphorical realm of criminal recklessness -- which some men in uniform, perhaps looking for civilian brownie points, now want to broaden. |
Whatever happened to the Bill O'Reilly/Andrea Mackris sex scandal?
by Daryl D., Blogcritics Magazine| |
Excerpt: The Bill O'Reilly/Andrea Mackris scandal not only begs for questions about it's "sudden" disappearance, but reveals, once again, how hypocritical and morally corrupt the right wing religious fanatics in this country are. Bill O'Reilly's audience not only aggressively defended him, but maintained their viewership over the years. Fellow right wing pundit Michelle Malkin, who freaks out at the mention of the words "gay" or "sex," didn't issue any condemnation of Bill O'Reilly's immoral behavior. Michael Savage, who was fired from MSNBC for wishing AIDS and death on a homosexual caller, seemed rather silent about the situation. Rush Limbaugh, who ended up being exposed as an illegal drug user after condemning illegal drug users, defended O'Reilly. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and other darlings of the right wing didn't issue any condemnation either. On October 21, 2004, the fiercely heterosexual Matt Drudge tried very hard to smear Andrea Mackris. |
In debt we trust as the economy goes bust
by Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
| |
Excerpt: Not only does perpetual indebtedness serve the American financial system, it serves the political establishment as well by making it exceedingly difficult to protest that establishment when one is over one's head in debt. As a matter of fact, perpetual indebtedness serves to make the consumer subservient not just because his credit rating might be used against him should he choose to organize politically, but to a certain extent, the consumer, particularly if he/she is uninformed, often feels a certain sense of "gratitude" for those pieces of plastic and the "privilege" of owning one's own home.
Debt industry propaganda markets not only the very expensive use of someone else's money, but an idea, an image, and philosophy -- that is, the notion that this is America, and where else in the world can one have what one wants so instantly? Notice Mastercard's use of the word "priceless" in many of its commercials that depict families enjoying an expensive evening at a restaurant or baseball game courtesy of Mastercard. What's "priceless", of course, is not what is consumed, but sacred family time. The logic of Mastercard's ads communicate the message that since no price can be put on family time, why would you not want to charge the expenses of that time with Mastercard? You may be in perpetual debt, but wasn't it all worth it to have those priceless moments with family? Whether by way of playing on "family values" or using some other manipulative tactic, all debt industry marketing strategies are designed [in the words of that industry] to encourage consumers to "accept more debt."
The collection industry, which thrives on confusion, issuing reams of unintelligible instructions with its credit cards, and essentially builds it industry on lending to poor risk customers, is hugely profitable. This astonishingly de-regulated industry has created a no-win set up for consumers with steadily increasing interest rates and a dizzying array of fees that Curtis Arnold, founder of cardratings.com, says can very quickly mushroom into unmanageability for even the most conscientious card holders who use their cards responsibly and pay off their balances monthly. ...
Comment: Life in the highly computerized 21st century is a MMORG -- Massively Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Game. Every endeavor, pastime, financial relationship, job, debt, obligation, duty -- even births and deaths -- are governed by an intricate set of Rules. The Rules are interpreted by computer programmers and system designers, implemented by computers (with a piquant touch of randomness resulting from human data entry clerks, CSRs and corporate executives), and enforced by SWAT teams, judges and juries.
I am reminded, once again, of Bruce Sterling's prescient novel, Distraction. This excerpt is set in 2044, but might as well be NOW:"It had never occurred to the lords of the consumer society that consumerism as a political philosophy might one day manifest the grave systemic instabilities that Communism had. But as those instabilities multiplied, the country had cracked. Civil society shriveled in the pitiless reign of cash. As the last public spaces were privatized, it became harder and harder for American culture to breathe. Not only were people broke, but they were taunted to madness by commercials, and pitilessly surveilled by privacy-invading hucksters. An ever more aggressive consumer-outreach apparatus caused large numbers of people to simply abandon their official identities. In my twenties, as a result of poor decision-making I once had 14 separate outstanding debts, payable monthly. It was hell. It ended badly.
I haven't had any debts for a long time now, and in Fascist America it feels even better to pay with cash -- almost a subversive act to withdraw cash from the bank and then hand-deliver the moola to a store clerk.
Unfortunately our US MMORG requires 2 forms of ID in many instances. Legally, a credit card ought not be obligatory to function, but as a practical matter serious players desire the additional capabilities obtained with a 2nd ID document (i.e. credit card.)
All I can say about that is, treat your creditors better than your best friend, your wife or your dog. Imagine that your best friend loaned you money and you promised to pay the money on the 1st. Would you blow off your friend and then whine that you were only 29 days late and it shouldn't be counted against you; it wasn't a "missed" payment but merely "late"?
But if you have a friend who asks for a loan, just *give* him the freaking money and don't expect it back. It is better to have a friend than a debtor! |
30-day countdown to war
by Bob Moriarty, 321Gold
| |
Excerpt: Bush and the Gang of Fools in Washington will be part of it; we don't have two carrier groups in the Middle East to support tourism. When it happens, kiss the dollar and the United States of America goodbye. If you don't own gold now, buy some fairly soon. My experience as a combat intelligence officer tells me the attack will be in the next month.
Comment: I don't have the gut feeling that 30 days is the right number. But I plan to get very busy this week and re-doublecheck my TEOTWAWKI preparations (I have already chomped through several stockpiles of pre-WW3 food, but this might be IT, so back to the store! |
Air America 2.0 begins today
by Mark Green, Air America
| |
Excerpt: Speaking personally, my brother and I are excited by this important challenge and look forward to working with the Air America professionals -- in front of the mic and behind it -- who have held this dream together. Steve Green has been a very successful businessman accustomed to making money -- and he doesn't intend for AAR to be an exception. I've been an author, public interest lawyer and the NYC Public Advocate. For me this feels like a continuation of so much I've done in the progressive movement over three decades. Air America is like a public advocate for the country, exposing problems and offering solutions.
We're both optimists in the spirit of Walt Whitman, who wrote that "America is always becoming." Well, Air America too is always becoming. |
Civil liberties advocates' worst fears
realized with PATRIOT Act scandal
Editorial, People For the American Way
| |
Excerpt: At issue are "national security letters" -- an executive branch mechanism that was greatly expanded by the Patriot Act and essentially allows the government to circumvent the longstanding requirement that warrants be obtained before individuals' private data, such as telephone records, bank statements, or Internet data can be examined without those individuals' approval. According to the inspector general's report, the FBI has been obtaining national security letters inappropriately or even illegally, and the result has been an unwarranted intrusion into Americans' privacy. |
Not "crossing the line", obliterating it
by Bonnie Erbe, U.S. News & World Report
| |
Excerpt: When a U.S. senator (to wit, Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican) feels free to call a prosecutor at home and hang up on him for resisting political pressure in the course of executing his prosecutorial duties, the line between politics and law enforcement has been so thoroughly violated that it no longer exists. |
On the big issues, the New York Times
flips the bird to normal Americans
by David Sirota, AlterNet
| |
Excerpt: The first example comes from the Times' piece today about congressional Democrats' anti-war Out of Iraq Caucus, the New York Times is so blinded by its elitist, Serious Person disdain for the vast majority of the public that it actually published this absurdly oxymoronic statement:"Even with a majority of Americans opposing the war, the caucus is struggling to overcome its fringe image." I say this statement is oxymoronic because Democrats who want to bring the troops home from Iraq do not have a "fringe image" among the public, which also -- according to polls -- strongly wants the same thing. |
Why the media passes off bunk as news
by Drew Curtis, Christian Science Monitor| |
Excerpt: So whose fault is all this, the media's or the public's? Both. Real news is simply not a ratings leader. Evening network news shows aren't shown during prime time because they can't hack it. This is also why prime-time news shows consist almost entirely of celebrity interviews and pedophile arrests. Note which type of "news" gets the better time slot. |
60,000 marriages broken
by Iraq, including mine
by Stacy Bannerman, The Progressive
| |
Excerpt: Although the majority of Americans are opposed to the "surge," most members of Congress are reluctant to block the supplemental appropriations request that will fund it, claiming that they don't want to abandon the troops. Congress has abandoned the troops for nearly four years. It is the soldiers, their families, and the people of Iraq that pay the human costs. The tab so far: more than 3,000 dead U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded, over half a million Iraqi casualties, roughly 250,000 American servicemen and women struggling with PTSD, and almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine. |
Iraqi MP: Some lawmakers to lose immunity| |
Excerpt: Iraq's Parliament is to be asked to strip immunity from several of its members to allow them to be investigated for various alleged crimes, senior lawmaker Abbas al-Bayyati said Wednesday.
Comment: Purge instead of surge? |
A short history of STUFF
by The Feral Metallurgist, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: It all would have been so different if humans hadn't discovered some STUFF called oil. |
Here's your gun, go to war now
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: I want you to look me straight in the eye without tearing up, and tell me this sh*t of a lie of a war is worth your kid's life! |
DNA bouillabaisse gumbo
by Kevin Good, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: Genealogists and historians have taken this mess to the full sixth degree of separation. They discovered the Thurmond family bought their slaves from Dutch seafaring entrepreneurs who were the ancestors Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Captain Rodham, in Africa, bought people from the Kenyan ancestors of Senator Barack (did you know his middle name is Hussein?) Obama and offered them free passage to a new life in America, a fast track through the INS system, a Social Security number and jobs Americans wouldn't do. |
Conspiracies:
What's credible and what's not?
by Debby, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: I personally paid attention to Ronald Reagan speak about the shadow government and the likes when he was running for President. I heard it come out of his mouth and how he was against the power it held over the government. I had never heard of anything like that until then. After he went in to office an attempt was made on his life. ...
Conspiracies:
Who am I to discredit someone else? by Debby, Unknown News
Excerpt: I am not interested in talking about a conspiracy about Reagan. ... |
|
