Judge rules torture
victims can't sue Rumsfeld| |
Excerpt: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has won dismissal of a lawsuit against him and three Army officers filed by nine people from Iraq and Afghanistan who claim they were tortured at U.S. military prisons. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington said Tuesday that the officials are entitled to immunity from claims of international-law violations. Those who sued can't claim protection from the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment because they haven't been convicted of a crime, the judge said. |
Republicans play politics with
American justice
White House/DoJ liaison
takes Fifth Amendment| |
Excerpt: As suspicions about the White House role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year continue to deepen, one of the people who could shed light on what happened -- Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison -- has suddenly decided to clam up, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. |
Gonzales lied about involvement, his assistant testifies| |
Excerpt: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrongly stated he was not involved in discussions about the firings of federal prosecutors, his former chief of staff told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate," testified Kyle Sampson, who quit this month as Gonzales' top aide. "I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign." |
Gonzales' Chief of Staff says
Rove added Iglesias to the list| |
Excerpt: In dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, D. Kyle Sampson also revealed that New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias was not added to the dismissal list until just before the Nov. 7 elections, after presidential adviser Karl Rove complained that Iglesias had not been aggressive enough in pursuing [trumped-up charges of Democratic] voter fraud. Previously, Rove had not been tied so directly to the removal of the prosecutors.
Comment: Sorry about editing the Washington Post so blatantly, but the story just doesn't make sense otherwise. Iglesias wasn't merely fired for ignoring voter fraud, he was purged for not pursuing bogus charges against political enemies. That's the heart of this entire scandal, and the Post's omission purposely reduces the story to complete nonsense. |
Justice Department apologizes for lying
to Congress about Rove involvement| |
Excerpt: The Justice Department on Wednesday apologized to Congress for inaccuracies in a February letter that suggested that White House political adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys. The admission came on the eve of congressional testimony by Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. |
Time magazine has nothing
to say about attorney scandals| |
Excerpt: In just the last week, new documents emerged contradicting Alberto Gonzales's account of his role in the firings, a low-level Department of Justice staffer announced her intent to plead the Fifth if asked to testify before Congress, and Justice officials admitted that it had misled Congress when it denied last month that Karl Rove played a role in deciding which U.S. attorneys got the boot. Yet the new issue of Time, on stands today, contains precisely zero stories on the scandal. Nothing. As though it's not happening. |
What those Justice Department
emails really reveal| |
Excerpt: So here we have several disturbing revelations pertaining to the way the Justice Department operates. And all were revealed via a series of emails pertaining to just one U.S. attorney by way of an unrelated scandal. We see from this one example that a federal prosecutor's attempts to make just a few recommendations on good government and proper procedures with respect to the way federal crimes are prosecuted were shunted aside as unnecessary hurdles to more charges, more convictions, and more sentences. That's worth knowing. And it makes you wonder what else we'd discover were this administration not so hell-bent on keeping everything it possibly can hidden from public scrutiny. |
FBI agent was told to
keep quiet over attorney firings| |
Excerpt: An FBI agent was warned to keep quiet about the dismissal of a U.S. attorney after he told a newspaper her firing would hurt the agency's ongoing investigations and speculated politics was involved, a U.S. Senate panel heard on Tuesday.
FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the handling of the incident, saying: "I do not believe it's appropriate for our special agents in charge to comment to the media on personnel decisions that are made by the Department of Justice." |
White House used outside
email accounts to skirt law| |
Excerpt: Scott Jennings, the deputy director of political affairs in the White House, and his assistant used "gwb43.com" e-mail accounts to communicate with the General Services Administration about a partisan briefing that Mr. Jennings gave to political appointees at GSA on January 26, 2007. When Mr. Jennings's assistant emailed the PowerPoint presentation to GSA, she wrote: "It is a close hold and we're not supposed to be emailing it around."
Comment: In addition to the blatant illegality of this, it's also potentially a risk to national security. One would assume that whitehouse.gov communications are well-shielded and firewalled off from hackers, spies, eavesdroppers, and such -- a private concern that slaps together gwb43.com almost certainly has nowhere near the same security.
Company that hosts gwb43.com
is involved in other scandals
Excerpt: Karl Rove went out and hired his own, bespoke, politically wired nameserver company. Of course, Karl would never give business to any company that hadn't sworn fealty to the authoritarian agenda, but I imagine Karl is also getting a level of, erm, personal service that he wouldn't get from a fiddy-dollar administrator like GoDaddy or Yahoo or whatever. And it would be irresponsible not to speculate what those services were ... |
Questions for Karl Rove
and President Bush| |
Excerpt: Why were these eight U.S. attorneys ousted? Why did the Justice Department misrepresent the reasons for the firings? Why were political aide Karl Rove and other top administration advisers involved in the decisions of whom to fire? Why is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' aide who helped coordinate the firings, Monica Goodling, invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress? And what did the president know and when did he know it? |
House votes to repeal part of
PATRIOT Act used to purge attorneys| |
Excerpt: By a 329-78 vote, the House today followed the Senate in passing legislation that repeals a PATRIOT Act provision "that grants the Attorney General the authority to make indefinite interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys, who can then serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation." |
Bush jokes about attorney scandal| |
Excerpt: "I have to admit we really blew the way we let those attorneys go," he told guests at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Annual Dinner on Wednesday. "You know you botched it when people sympathize with lawyers." |
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FBI chief tramples
on PATRIOT Act provision| |
Excerpt: Director Robert Mueller blames poor training and supervision for the bureau's Patriot Act abuses and promises new training programs. He might want to sign up for the first class himself.
Mueller misstated a key provision of the act in appealing to Congress this week for new authority that was actually granted last year.
"I think he was using old talking points," joked Georgetown law professor Viet Dinh, who drafted the original Patriot Act in 2001 while serving in the Justice Department. |
Guantanamo detainee Hicks pleads
guilty at Guantanamo after defense
lawyers are barred from "trial"| |
Excerpt: An American military tribunal sentenced an Australian to nine months in prison Friday after he pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism -- in the first conviction at a U.S. war-crimes trial since World War II.
Comment: So why didn't we have these trials in 2002? Before we invaded Iraq? These are the individuals allegedly most responsible for the killings in New York and DC aren't they? Certainly more responsible then the insurgents in Baghdad, the residents of Fallujah or anyone in Iraq?
Comment: I don't give David Hicks' guilty plea any credence. It was coerced, and to my mind holding someone for seven years without a trial is a bigger crime than anything I'll ever believe Hicks did.
Trial would have done
Stalin proud, says lawyer
Excerpt: The secret agreement that resulted in David Hicks facing only nine more months in prison may do fatal damage to an already discredited system of dealing with terrorism suspects, legal experts say.
The combination of a sentencing deal arranged behind closed doors and the conditions imposed on Hicks, including a year-long gag order and a declaration that he was never tortured, has shown the process to be a political and not legal one, Australian and US observers say. |
Blowback from Ohio's 2004
stolen election is escalating| |
Excerpt: Felony convictions have also resulted in 18-month prison sentences for two employees of the Cuyahoga BOE as a result of what the county prosecutor in the case calls the "rigging" of the outcome in the recount following the 2004 presidential election. Further problems surfaced in the conduct of Cuyahoga County's May, 2006 primary, in the wake of which Michel Vu, Executive Director of the county's Board of Elections recently resigned. In tandem, the shake-up in Ohio's biggest county reflects a widening storm surrounding the outcome of the 2004 presidential election and the conduct of elections overall in the nation's most pivotal state. |
Swift Boat donor withdrawn
as Ambassador to Belgium| |
Excerpt: Facing almost certain defeat in the Senate, the White House on Wednesday withdrew the ambassadorial nomination of Sam Fox, who contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat veterans' controversial campaign against Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in the 2004 presidential race. The withdrawal, a rare setback for the sort of nomination that normally would sail through the Senate, reflected both the muscle Democrats are exercising in Congress and the problems likely to surround any Bush appointee linked to the attacks on Kerry. |
Republican's start-up company got
lucrative White House mail contract| |
Excerpt: It is of course absurd to believe that Cheney or his staff would have had any interest in Wade having the funds, provided through a White House contract, to buy Duke Cunningham antiques and a yacht. It's not so hard to believe, however, that Wade's connection to Cheney, going back to their days in the Cheney Pentagon, may be a useful place to start looking for why Wade's MZM beat out more than fifty more established firms to get its first federal contract from one of the most secretive and powerful offices in town. Among the many lingering unanswered questions on this aspect of the case is who, in May 2002 -- just two months in advance of Wade getting the White House contract -- facilitated MZM getting authorized to be a federal supplier in the first place. This was done through a small branch of the Department of the Interior called the Minerals Management Service. That service and the Department itself have reportedly become the subject of their own sprawling corruption probe. |
UK experts quietly uphold Lancet findings on Iraq deaths| |
Excerpt: UK government experts quietly backed the methods used by scientists who concluded last October that more than 600,000 Iraqis had been killed in violence since the 2003 invasion. The government had publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet. But documents obtained by BBC showed advisers had concluded that the controversial study relied on sound methods and called the research “robust.” |
Military labels soldiers' injuries
"personality disorders" to deny
benefits to thousands of soldiers| |
Excerpt: But instead of sending Specialist Jon Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.
"It's getting worse and worse every day," says the official who handles discharge papers. "At my office the numbers started out normal. Now it's up to three or four soldiers each day. It's like, suddenly everybody has a personality disorder." The reason is simple, he says. "They're saving a buck. And they're saving the VA money too. It's all about money." Defense Department records show that across the entire armed forces, more than 22,500 soldiers have been dismissed due to personality disorder in the last six years. By discharging soldiers under Chapter 5-13, the military could be saving upwards of $8 billion in disability pay. |
Anti-contraception activist resigns
as U.S. head of family planning| |
Excerpt: The head of the federal office responsible for providing women with access to contraceptives and counseling to prevent pregnancy resigned unexpectedly Thursday after Medicaid officials took action against him in Massachusetts. The Health and Human Services Department provided no details about the nature of the Massachusetts action that led to Dr. Eric Keroack's resignation. Just five months ago, Keroack was chosen by President Bush to oversee HHS' Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget. The pick angered Planned Parenthood and other groups that support abortion rights. Keroack had worked for an organization that opposes contraception. |
Bush's GSA chief accused
of political corruption| |
Excerpt: With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.
When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country." |
Run-up to the next war:
U.S. launches show of force for Iran| |
Excerpt: The maneuvers bring together two strike groups of U.S. warships and more than 100 U.S. warplanes to conduct simulated air warfare in the crowded Gulf shipping lanes.
The U.S. exercises come just four days after Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines who Iran said had strayed into Iranian waters near the Gulf. Britain and the U.S. Navy have insisted the British sailors were operating in Iraqi waters. |
The truth, untold in American
media, of Brits held by Iran| |
Excerpt: Before people get too carried away, the following is worth bearing in mind. I write as a former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Iranians claimed the British soldiers had strayed into Iranian territorial waters. If they had, then the Iranians had every right to detain them for questioning.
The difficulty is that the maritime delimitation in the North West of the Persian Gulf, between Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, has never been resolved. It is not therefore a question of just checking your GPS to see where you are. This is a perfectly legitimate dispute, in which nobody is particularly at fault....
"There is nothing outlandish about Iranian claims, and we have no right in law to be boarding Iranian or other shipping in what may well be Iranian waters.
The UN Convention on the Law of The Sea carries a heavy presumption on the right of commercial vessels to "innocent passage", especially through straits like Hormuz and in both territorial and international waters. You probably won't read this elsewhere in these jingoistic times but, in international law, we are very probably in the wrong. As long as the Iranians neither mistreat our Marines nor willfully detain them too long, they have the right.
A doctored British map?
Excerpt: The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.
Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one. |
Fate of Iranian diplomats held
hostage by U.S. remains unknown| |
Excerpt: As the Western media turns its attention to the fate of 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters over the weekend, the status of five Iranian officials captured in a U.S. military raid on a liaison office in northern Iraq on Jan. 11 remains a mystery.
Even though high-level Iraqi officials have publicly called for their release, for all practical purposes, the Iranians have disappeared into the U.S.-sanctioned "coalition detention" system that has been criticized as arbitrary and even illegal by many experts on international law. |
Iran accuses British of shooting
at Iranian consulate in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Iran has sent a formal letter to the British Embassy in Tehran protesting an alleged incident in which British troops surrounded an Iranian consulate in Iraq and fired shots into the air, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported Sunday on its Web site. Britain has denied any aggressive action, saying the shooting was an exchange of gunfire after British troops on a foot patrol near the Iranian consulate were ambushed. |
US jet fighters violate
Iran's airspace: military| |
Excerpt: US warplanes have violated Iranian airspace in the southwestern oil-rich province of Khuzestan, Al-Alam Arabic language news satellite channel quoted a local military chief as saying on Sunday. |
Russian media quotes military
experts predicting April attack| |
Excerpt: The devastating implications of a US strike on Iran are clear. And that begs the question: how could the US public be convinced to enter another potentially ugly and protracted war?
Former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi chillingly noted that the Pentagon's plans to attack Iran were drawn up "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States." Writing in The American Conservative in August 2005, Giraldi added, "The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites ... As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States." |
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Bush-Cheney steps up campaign
against Syrian government| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has launched a campaign to isolate and embarrass Syrian President Bashar Assad, using parliamentary elections in late April as a lever, according to State Department officials and Syrian exiles. The campaign, which some officials fear is aimed at destabilizing Syria, has been in the works for months. ...
White House slams Pelosi
for taking trip to Syria
Excerpt: The Bush administration on Friday condemned plans by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Syria and possibly meet its president, who the United States has accused of helping destabilize the region. |
Bush-Cheney illegally rewrote forest rules, says court| |
Excerpt: A federal district judge ruled Friday that the Bush administration illegally rewrote rules for managing 192 million acres of federally owned forests and grasslands in 2005 and must consider the environmental impact of its plan before offering another policy blueprint.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco suspends the forest rules the administration adopted Jan. 5, 2005. Hamilton said the government did not adequately assess the policy's impact on wildlife and the environment and did not give sufficient public notice. |
Rosie O'Donnell on Iran, Iraq, 9/11 and Building 7 VIDEO | |
Excerpt: "In America we are fed propaganda, and if you want to know what's happening in the world, go outside of the U.S. media, because it's owned by four corporations -- one of them is this one. And you know what? Go outside the country to find out what's going on in our own country, because it's frightening. It's frightening. ... Democracy is threatened in a way it hasn't been in 200 years, and if America doesn't stand up we're in big trouble."
Comment: This video clip is everywhere now, but if you haven't seen it it's well worth a click. Even ignoring the time wasted as the blonde chick talks, has this much honesty ever been squeezed into seven minutes of network TV in America? |
Girl in prison for shove to get released early| |
Excerpt: Shaquanda Cotton, the black teenager in the small east Texas town of Paris whose prison sentence of up to 7 years for shoving a teacher's aide sparked nationwide controversy, will be released Saturday morning, prison officials confirmed on Friday.
Her release, ordered by a special conservator appointed to overhaul the state's scandal-ridden juvenile prison system, is the first of what could be hundreds as a panel of civil rights leaders begins reviewing the sentences of every youth incarcerated by the Texas Youth Commission to weed out those being held arbitrarily.
Comment: The wheels of justice in America spin so very quickly, when a major newspaper (in this case, the Chicago Tribune) gives a damn. What's terrifying to remember is that without the Tribune's attention, Shaquanda could have easily spent seven years in prison -- and if she got into a fight behind bars or sassed a guard, they probably could have easily extended her stay.
This is America in 2007. |
Texas Atty General ignored evidence
of abuse at juvenile prison| |
Excerpt: The abuse allegations at the West Texas State School in Pyote are at the center of a widening scandal at the Texas Youth Commission. State leaders dispatched law enforcement officials this week to the commission's headquarters and all 22 of its youth facilities, including the school, after learning that TYC officials knew about abuse claims for months but did nothing. |
Cities set limits on serving
food to homeless people| |
Excerpt: Cities are cracking down on charities that feed the homeless, adopting rules that restrict food giveaways to certain locations, require charities to get permits or limit the number of free meals they can provide.
Orlando, Dallas, Las Vegas and Wilmington, N.C., began enforcing such laws last year. Some are being challenged.
Last November, a federal judge blocked the Las Vegas law banning food giveaways to the poor in city parks. In Dallas, two ministries are suing, arguing that the law violates religious freedom. |
Circuit City dumps
3,400 'overpaid' employees| |
Excerpt: The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, will get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.
Analysts and economists said the move is an uncertain experiment that could backfire for the chain. The risks: Morale could sink and customers could avoid the stores. Also, knowledgeable customer service is one of the few ways Circuit City can tackle competitors that include Wal-Mart, they say.
Comment: What a brilliant idea for an electronics store -- lay off all your knowledgeable, experienced employees. We're not exactly Circuit City's best customers, but we've shopped there occasionally, and of course, we'll never, ever shop there again. |
Victimized by Menu Foods
contaminated pet food?| |
Excerpt: If you believe you have been victimized by contaminated pet food, and you are potentially interested in being a representative of a class of similarly situated persons, please complete the below form. If you reside outside Wisconsin, please go to this link, and complete the form. To contact us by phone, please call : 608-257-3175.
These guys are suing, too.
Excerpt: We have been contacted by dozens of people who have lost their pets due to Menu Foods alleged negligence. We are pet owners too, and we sympathize fully with you. It could just have easily been one of us.
Pet food recall extended
to include 'treats' from Del Monte
Excerpt: Which includes not only Jerky Treats, Gravy Train Beef Sticks, and Pounce Meaty Morsels, but also six Ol' Roy products make exclusively for Wal-Mart. |
Muslims removed from flight sue
bigoted passengers who complained| |
Excerpt: Six Muslim men removed from a plane last fall after being accused of suspicious behavior are suing not only the airline but the passengers who complained -- a move some fear could discourage travelers from speaking up when they see something unusual.
The civil rights lawsuit, filed earlier this month, has so alarmed some lawyers that they are offering to defend the unnamed "John Doe" passengers free of charge. They say it is vital that the flying public be able to report suspicious behavior without fear of being dragged into court.
When you drive up the road towards the airport, there's a big road sign that says, 'Report suspicious behavior,'" said Gerry Nolting, a Minneapolis lawyer. "There's no disclaimer that adds, 'But beware if you do that, you might get sued.'"
Comment: Some people were probably suspicious because they looked Muslim ... and if that's about what it amounts to, they should definitely be sued. |
TSA missed 90% of bombs at Denver airport| |
Excerpt: Undercover agents were able to slip bombs and IEDs past the Transport Security Agency checkpoint at Denver airport 90 percent of the time. ... |
Apartheid in Israel:
Murdering Palestinians is
"like playing a video game"| |
Excerpt: Yehuda Shaul stopped abruptly in the middle of a litter-strewn park in this West Bank city to point to a Palestinian school that he and other members of the Israeli army once commandeered so they could shoot at Palestinian gunmen. Shaul operated a grenade machine gun, a lethal though highly inaccurate weapon.
"Anything hit within a radius of 8 meters is killed. Anybody within 16 meters will be injured," he said. "When I first learned of my mission, I freaked out." But the young soldier did as he was told, firing as many 100 rounds per night into a crush of Palestinian homes, not knowing whom he might have wounded or killed.
"It was like playing a video game," he recalled. |
Nazi SS officer responsible for
murder of at least 100,000 people was
employed by the Israeli secret service| |
Excerpt: In the late 1940s, Walther (Walter) Rauff, an SS officer who was responsible for the murder of at least 100,000 people and was wanted by the Allies as a war criminal, was employed by the Israeli secret service. Instead of bringing him to justice it paid him for his services and helped him escape to South America. Documents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that have been released over the past several years show that the Americans were aware that Rauff's case was not exceptional. |
IDF prepared for possible
major incursion into Gaza Strip| |
Excerpt: The Israel Defense Forces last week completed its preparations for a possible major incursion in the Gaza Strip, including special training for most of the units that might be involved and an exercise at the command headquarters level. But military sources say the government prefers to avoid an escalation with the Palestinians. |
Israel barring Palestinians
until after Passover| |
Excerpt: Israel is banning Palestinians from entering the country for the next ten days, until the end of the Passover holiday. The holiday begins Monday night and lasts a week. |
Attorney General adds another
rape count against Israeli President| |
Excerpt: Attorney General Menachem Mazuz informed President Moshe Katsav's attorneys Sunday that he intends to add an additional rape count to the draft indictment against the president.
The decision to add the count was made after additional police questioning of A., who Katsav is suspected of raping while she was his subordinate at the Tourism Ministry, as well as after Katsav was questioned under caution last week at the President's Residence. |
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US Army jammed Swiss
and French media satellites| |
Excerpt: The US Army mistakenly jammed the satellite signal of a number of news organizations earlier this year -- including the French and Swiss national news agencies -- in an attempt to shut down an Iraqi TV station, according to a Swiss newspaper.
Daily Tages-Anzeiger reported in yesterday's edition that the incident occurred on January 23 and lasted about 24 hours, affecting a large number of radio, television and internet services, including those of Agence France Presse (AFP) and its Swiss counterpart Schweizerische Depeschagentur (SDA).
Comment: This Associated Press report assumes you already know that the U.S. can bring telecommunications to a halt at any time they wish. |
War for empire
Senate votes to kind of
someday maybe end the war| |
Excerpt: The Senate narrowly approved a war-spending bill Thursday that calls for most American combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008, thereby defying a veto threat by President George W. Bush and setting up a new confrontation over the war. The Senate bill, and a House bill that passed earlier, must now be reconciled through negotiations between the chambers before the legislation can be sent to the president's desk.
Comment: Bush and the far-right have been claiming that the Democrats in the House and Senate actually voted AGAINST funding the war (presumably because they are "forcing" him to veto the bill). The claim that the Democrats voted against funding the war is absolutely not true. This bill actually gives the Pentagon more money than it asked for, because they added funds to pay for troop withdrawals and medical care. Also, it barely needs pointing out, but I absolutely cannot help myself: proposing to end the war a year from now at the earliest is a giant pile of crap. |
Bush cites Iraqi bloggers who
visited White House as proof
that Baghdad's getting better| |
Excerpt: It turns out, the White House made clear hours later, that he was quoting two brothers, Mohammed and Omar Fadhil. They write an English-language blog from Baghdad called IraqTheModel.com. Both of them got to meet Bush in the Oval Office in 2004. |
One out of forty Iraqis have
been killed in U.S. war and occupation| |
Excerpt: According to Human Rights Watch, Saddam Hussein, as bad as he was, managed to kill at most 290,000 people during his quarter-century in power -- less than half of Bush's four-year death total. Saddam would have had to have ruled another twenty-four years to even come close to matching what George W. Bush has 'achieved' in four years. Can you imagine why the Iraqis might not feel so 'grateful' about being invaded? I sure can. |
Bush war on terror draws
fire as misguided venture| |
Excerpt: A growing number of analysts and former U.S. officials say the global war on terrorism has undermined U.S. influence abroad, forced onerous costs in American lives and money in Iraq, and unleashed a huge government spending spree that has often funded projects unrelated to national security.
It has also produced a climate of fear in the United States that helped justify the war in Iraq and the curtailment of civil liberties at home, they said.
"The atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty, and the vagueness of the definition of the enemy, makes the country more fearful and more susceptible to being steered in irrational directions," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. |
Iraqi death toll hits 400
for the past three days| |
Excerpt: Nearly 400 people have been killed in Iraq over the past three days, officials and medics said Friday, as insurgents and sectarian militias defied a massive US security crackdown billed as a last chance to restore order to Baghdad. An American general on Friday said that suicide attacks and car bombings had soared by some 30 percent since the start of the crackdown last month, and that insurgents had used a child in a second suicide attack last week. Comment: "Suicide attacks and car bombings had soared by some 30 percent since the start of the crackdown last month" ... So much for Bush's BS.
Iraqi justice minister resigns
Excerpt: Iraq's justice minister says that he has offered his resignation to the prime minister as a series of bombings left at least 14 people dead across Iraq. |
Bush is, of course, lying
about Iraq spending deadline| |
Excerpt: The real deadline for Congress to provide more money for the war in Iraq is well beyond the April 15 deadline cited by President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The Pentagon can take several penny-pinching steps without harming troop readiness or other dire consequences predicted by the Bush administration until Congress actually comes up with the money.
Mid-April is about when $70 billion provided by Congress for the war will run out. After that, Pentagon accountants will move money around in the department's more than half-trillion dollar budget to make sure operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not disrupted. |
General says U.S. Army has lost 130 helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan| |
Excerpt: The U.S. Army has lost 130 helicopters in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third to shoot-downs, its aviation director said Friday. He complained that industry is not replacing them fast enough.
"While the military may be on a war footing, our nation's industry is not on a war footing," said Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt. |
Afghan war may be lost: experts| |
Excerpt: Two Afghanistan experts painted a sobering picture of the conditions there yesterday, arguing support among Afghans for NATO forces is plummeting, the U.S.-driven policy of poppy eradication is wrongheaded, and the war might not be winnable in its present form.
U.S. scholar Barnett Rubin and Gordon Smith, Canada's former ambassador to NATO, delivered their withering comments to a Commons committee only days after Canada's top military commander, Gen. Rick Hillier, touted progress being made there. |
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Trashing (or saving?) the planet
Deadly jellyfish found
along Australian coast| |
Excerpt: A deadly species of jellyfish, translucent and the size of a thumbnail, is spreading along Australia's coastline as a result of global warming, scientists warned today. |
The most polluted city on earth| |
Excerpt: In the most polluted city on earth, the smog is so thick that it seems to consume its source. Iron foundries, smelting plants and cement factories loom out of the haze then disappear once more as you drive along Linfen's roads. The outlines of smoke stacks blur in the filthy mist. No sooner are the plumes of carbon and sulfur belched out than the chimneys are swallowed up again.
"We only see the sun for a few days each year," said Zhou Huocun, a doctor in the outlying village of Liucunzhen. "The color of our village is black. It is so dirty that nobody airs their quilts outside any more so we are getting more parasites. I have seen a steady increase in respiratory diseases as the air quality gets worse and worse." |
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Bush-Cheney hired government contractor
to evaluate contractor's own program| |
Excerpt: The government contractor that set up a billion-dollar-a-year federal reading program for the Education Department and failed, according to the department's inspector general, to keep it free of conflicts of interest is one of the companies now evaluating the program.
Reading First, part of President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind education law, provides intense reading help to low-income children in the early elementary grades. RMC Research Corp. was hired to establish and implement the program starting in 2002, under three contracts worth about $40 million. |
Republican fundraiser pleads guilty| |
Excerpt: Bradley R. Hiller, 34, has agreed to repay $7,836 to the Hoosier Beverage Association, for which he was a public affairs consultant in 2004 when he signed someone else's name on an unauthorized check, among other accusations. That amount is a fraction of the $146,775 Hiller could not account for when he oversaw the Senate Majority Campaign Committee through late-2003. He also had served on the Indiana Election Commission.
The former insider spent six months in prison after pleading guilty in 2005 to theft and filing a fraudulent campaign finance report. |
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah declines U.S. state dinner| |
Excerpt: George Bush is no fan of state dinners. In the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency, the White House hosted no fewer than 30 such events, whereas Dubya has hosted a mere four. So, it's something of a big deal that Bush invited Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, a close friend of the Bush family, to be guest of honor at a state dinner in mid-April.
But Abdullah declined, which is, shall we say, a tad embarrassing. ..."'It is not convenient' was the way it was put," says one official. ... |
Wal-Mart backs away from New York City| |
Excerpt: Frustrated by a bruising, and so far unsuccessful battle to open its first discount store in the nation's largest city, Wal-Mart's chief executive said yesterday, "I don't care if we are ever here."
H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of the nation's largest retailer, said that trying to conduct business in New York was so expensive -- and exasperating -- that "I don't think it's worth the effort." |
New York Times changes, back-dates article after Wikipedia fact-checkers find error| |
Excerpt: Is it common journalistic practice to change old articles like that? Is it considered ethically appropriate for a major newspaper to just pretend that they were right all along, and give neither credit nor acknowledgement for their error? |
Google pretends Hurricane
Katrina never happened| |
Excerpt: "Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google, don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine.'" |
Study finds Census Bureau reported Japanese-Americans to US security agencies| |
Excerpt: The U.S. Census Bureau provided information to U.S. surveillance agencies during World War II to identify persons of Japanese ancestry, according to a new study by two scholars of census history, who say their research confirms the bureau's actions, despite decades of official denials. |
The rightwing war on women
Abortion raids in Dominican Republic| |
Excerpt: Yanira Then says she went to a clinic in her low-income Santo Domingo neighborhood, where her doctor said she had suffered a miscarriage. Then was still in her hospital gown that February morning when her doctor's office was stormed by police, prosecutors and television news cameras. Accused of having had an abortion, Then, a 27-year-old law student, was arrested along with two other patients, the nurses and her physician.
She faces 3 to 10 years in prison. The doctor faces 50. |
New York Governor Spitzer
pledges to uphold abortion rights| |
Excerpt:
Spitzer also called for more awareness about the Plan B morning after pill and better sex education for teenagers. |
Mexicans march to
demand legalized abortion| |
Excerpt: Several thousand women marched through the Mexican capital in support of a bill to legalize abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, a proposal that has drawn harsh criticism from the Roman Catholic Church. ...
"A woman can decide to have an abortion or not have it, but it's her decision," said former presidential candidate Patricia Mercado, a leftist and feminist. "A secular state has the obligation to give the right to women to take this decision in the best conditions." |
Poles march to demand total abortion ban| |
Excerpt: Thousands of Poles took to Warsaw's streets Wednesday to demand a complete ban on abortion, including in cases of rape or incest.
Two separate marches merged into a demonstration of 4,000 people in front of parliament, where lawmakers were debating amending the constitution to tighten Poland's anti-abortion law, already among the most restrictive in the EU. |
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$27 million anti-science
museum to open soon| |
Excerpt: The museum, in Boone County near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, is being built by a non-profit group called Answers in Genesis. It is scheduled to open on Memorial Day. Museum and Northern Kentucky tourism officials are expecting it to be a boon to the region, bringing in at least 250,000 visitors in its first year. |
GlaxoSmithKline Vitamin C product
has nary a whiff of Vitamin C| |
Excerpt: Two New Zealand schoolgirls humbled one of the world's biggest food and drugs companies after their school science experiment found that their ready-to-drink Ribena contained almost no trace of vitamin C. |
Liberty Dollar sues
U.S. Mint, Alberto Gonzales| |
Excerpt: On Tuesday, Liberty Dollar filed a law suit -- Liberty Dollar v Henry M. Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, Edmond C. Moy, Director, US Mint -- at the U.S. District Court in Evansville Indiana. The law suit is requesting for the court declare that the Liberty Dollar is not a federal crime, as the U.S. Mint has previously claimed. It would also require the court to enter a permanent injunction against the U.S. Mint, forcing it to remove any reference to the Liberty Dollar being illegal from its website. |
Wired wants your help in compiling
list of ISPs that sell user data| |
Excerpt: We're asking those of you who are customers of the non-responsive ISPs to call, write, FTP or IM or Twitter your ISP and ask them to clarify how they use, store or even sell data about you. Report the results back and we'll add it to the spreadsheet. |
Forrest Gump gets a clue| |
Excerpt: A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Matthew Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush's political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president's chief campaign strategist.
Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced. |
EMI-Apple in deal to
sell protection-free music| |
Excerpt: EMI Group PLC. announced a deal Monday with Apple Inc.'s iTunes to sell its music catalog without the anti-piracy protection known as DRM restrictions.
The London-based music company said in a press release that it would make the premium downloads available for retail on a global basis.
"Selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry," Steve Jobs, Apple's (down $0.84 to $92.91, Charts) CEO, said in a statement. "EMI has been a great partner for iTunes and is once again leading the industry as the first major music company to offer its entire digital catalogue DRM-free." |
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Lightning round news
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John McCain's MySpace page "enhanced"
Not worried enough about toxins?
Lie-detection software could
scan e-mail, text messages
Nevada brothel offers free
sex to returning troops
Meteor/jetliner near miss
Parents want to continue
shock treatment on autistic son
Group finds toad the size of a small dog
Mouse absconds with Maine man's dentures
Dog allegedly performs
Heimlich maneuver on owner
Bizarre hexagon on Saturn snapped
Chernobyl-based birds avoid radioactive nests
New leopard species announced
Jail shower reveals that inmate is a she
Have you clicked our Mystery links?
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What is the death toll now?
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Future historians will hold George Bush as one of the greatest mass murderers in history. He will be ranked alongside Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Mussolini. Corporate, church, and political leaders who backed him -- and continue to back him now -- should be prosecuted with him at the Hague, as accessories in his crimes against humanity. |
They learn it from us
by J.S. Magruder, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Children, like it or not, model their behavior on adult authority figures, and the authority figures haven't exactly been the picture of Christian kindness in respect to the Works of Mercy. |
Face the fear, people
by Sherri B., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: We're afraid of what might be coming to us if we act, and we're afraid of what we might do if we're confronted. Will we risk our kids to child services if we get arrested and go to jail? Will we give up our homes? Can we physically fight back against a cop if we're illegally threatened? Will we risk being killed for what we believe? Can we spend months, even years, in a courtroom or "holding cell"? |
Newspeak Project Management System
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: This classified document is code named 'Dictatorship for Dummies', and the manual is based on George Orwell's warnings in the book 1984 ... |
When will American soldiers refuse to take illegal, immoral orders?
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: As a practical matter, mutiny is refusal to follow orders to take the fight to the designated enemy. It can be explicit and organized, or tacit. In either case the officer corps finds that it is dealing with an "unreliable" force that is willing to fight only in self-defense including fighting against "loyal" units. |
The magical slickness of
"That's the way it is"
by HappySysiphus, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Business leaders are the way they are, but do we really have an accurate picture of the way they are? And does "the way they are" make sense the way we think it does, or in some other way perhaps? |
The only known cure for stupidity
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Dealing with frightened sick people is a wet dream for opportunist and con men. That is why it is traditional for doctors to take an oath to not take advantage of patients and their families and try to do as little harm as possible. |
In plain sight:
Alternate ways to fund the war
by A Proud Liberal
| |
Excerpt: I wonder why there has not been a proposal to fully fund and support our troops but pull the funding for the civilian contractors. Congress could simply limit money spent in Iraq to the equipping, training, supplying and paying members of the military. Funds for the medical and veterans' benefits should be fully funded. They could put a stop to the profiteering that has been an integral part of this fiasco from the beginning. The administration would not be able to make their political hay out of not supporting the troops. They would be forced to admit to the fact that our military prowess has deteriorated so badly that further persecution of the war would be impossible without the contractors. They would have difficulty explaining why funding just the troops would be far more inexpensive than continuing with the status quo. |
The secret White House communication system
by Joseph Cannon, TrustMe
| |
Excerpt: If the Bush White House used GWB43 to route around history, we must ask a question straight out of the Parsifal legends: What is GWB43 and who does it serve?
The answer, surprisingly enough, takes us into the dark mysteries of the 2004 election in Ohio.
A list of domains that share mail-servers and name-servers with gwb43 reveals numerous sites connected to either powerful Republicans or to the Religious Right. On the mail-server list, we find domains connected to Bush, Newt Gingrich, and ohiogop.org. |
'One more-time,' THIS TIME,
is one-time too many!
by Jim Kirwan, Kirwan Studios| |
Excerpt: Iran is not the backward nation that Japan was when we sent in the Great White Fleet. The Iranians have already had enough of US Imperialism to last them for many Centuries to come -- so they have promised us all: that they will utterly destroy Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, the Green Zone, and whatever else we have sent into the Gulf, to interdict the flow of oil. |
Department of Peace vs.
more pure baby sausage steps
by Lambert's Blog
| |
Excerpt: And now the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) that's been driving our imperial role since 1946 has started to cannibalize itself: the Republicans -- reminding us of the old joke whose punchline is "it's my nature" -- have looted their own base along with everything else. You just can't "lose" $8.6 billion from Iraq, botch armoring the troops, build schools -- and what about those schools -- that rain piss and shit on the students and end up with an effective imperial war machine. Na ga happen. |
To fully comprehend
the folly of attacking Iran
by Daniel F., Opening Inner Space
| |
Excerpt: Now comes the scary part. What if the people who hatched this mad idea of attacking Iran did not care? What if, to paraphrase IT workers, "it is not a bug but a feature"? What if the plan was to place our troops in such peril that the nation would accept full scale nuclear war against people who are currently our allies in order to commit genocide. Would you even want to live under a government where the leaders were that insane? |
James Madison:
"Impeach Bush over Purgegate!"
by Thom Hartmann, Scoop
| |
Excerpt: The Congressional Register from that day lays out Madison's entire speech. Because it's thorough and detailed, and offers a brilliant insight into the thinking of the most important of the Framers of our Constitution (Madison), I reproduce it in its entirety below. Because it's rather long, however, I've also bolded and italicized those parts that get right to the nub of the matter so you can skim it first, and then go back and read the entire thing in context. ...
"If the president should possess alone the power of removal from office, those who are employed in the execution of the law will be in their proper situation, and the chain of dependence be preserved; the lowest officers, the middle grade, and the highest, will depend, as they ought, on the president, and the president on the community. The chain of dependence therefore terminates in the supreme body, namely, in the people; who will possess besides, in aid of their original power, the decisive engine of impeachment." |
A peculiar outrage
by Terry Jones, The Guardian| |
Excerpt: It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe -- especially with a bag over their head -- but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.
And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilized world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.
Comment: Unlike the "Judeo/Christian" west, most Muslims do take honor and respect seriously. |
Stats say the GOP is dying.
But red-staters are breeding
like drunken ferrets. Who wins?
by Mark Morford, San Francisco Chroncile
| |
Excerpt: Here's the good news: The Republican party is dying. Slow, painful, twitching, secreting war and intolerance and desperation like a fetid gas, snarling and gagging like Jabba the Hut being choked by the hard chain of progress and hope and relaxed social mores and an upcoming Generation Next that seems to sense that screaming about gays and women's rights and Muslims and drugs actually doesn't do much to move the human experiment forward in the slightest. |
Are we politicians or citizens?
by Howard Zinn, The Progressive
| |
Excerpt: As I write this, Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration's "surge" of troops, and the Republicans' refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.
That was suggested in a recent message from MoveOn, which polled its members on the Democrat proposal, saying that progressives in Congress, "like many of us, don't think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war."
Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It's as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. ... |
Red state blues
by Michael Ventura, Austin Chronicle
| |
Excerpt: I forget the name of the Kansas town where we stopped for lunch. It was like a scene in an old Western: We walk in; everybody looks; everybody stares as we take our seats. Dave, he could be a businessman from down the road (as, in fact, he is) -- distinguished looking, tall, gray hair, casual clothes. He walks into this diner alone, and he's fine. Me -- maybe it's the hat, the gray ponytail, how I walk, I don't know. But the people in that Kansas diner, in particular -- they looked at me with naked, livid hatred. (So did old women in Nebraska the next day. As I passed, one said to another, "Well, he's different." She spat "different" as though the word meant something vile.) In the diner, one farmhand couldn't take his eyes off me. Sitting with his friends at lunch, he stopped eating and stared at me. His face was trembling -- trembling! -- with rage and hate. I expected something nasty to go down, but all he did was stare. I was baffled. Why me? |
Confront your local oppressors
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Face it folks, we are now in the opening stages of a civil war based largely on class. If you don't even know who in your community is calling down the dogs on you, what chance do you have? |
The future looks very bleak
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: In reality, policy in Washington is not determined by the wants and needs of the American people, but by the whim of the wealthy and powerful elite whose seemingly inexhaustible riches and thirst for more riches supercedes everything else. These corrupt and treasonous individuals within the halls of power will stop at nothing, including war and murder, in order to attain their diabolical ends. |
I read the news today, oh, boy
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: To find out more I surfed the corporate national TV news network ABCCNNMSNBCFox. The limited number of sites were all covering a local 'Cub Scout lost in the woods' story. I tried the corporate national radio news network. They were all Rushing and gushing some slander about the far-left-wing wacko liberal radical Islamo-fascist threat and selling mattresses, dog food and miracle cures. |
Us and them
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Why are we so different? What part of our brain is turned on, while that part of their brain is turned off altogether? We comrades come from all walks of life, yet we are of like minds -- we see through the lies, but more importantly, we have the integrity to challenge the lies in the first place. |
The endless f***ing chess match
by Bob in CC and The Alchemist, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: It is difficult to discover that one's cherished ideals are less than true. We were all inculcated with the mythos of America the Beautiful. But she is riddled with vices, not least among them the propensity to shed innocent blood for the profit of a few privileged individuals. |
Is Air America Radio under CIA control?
by HappySysiphus, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Air America, the radio network, is there to establish "the line" so to speak of what people on the "Leftward Extreme" of the "Legitimate" political spectrum supposedly think. |
300 -- blatant war propaganda
by golem78, Most Embarrassing Moment
| |
Excerpt: Throughout the entire movie, the warmongering Spartans are glorified as righteous and superior. Even when they break laws and start a war and kill foreigners, they're supposedly justified. Anyone who opposes them, including pacifist Spartans who want peace and not war, are portrayed as traitors. The intended analogy aimed at democrats and left-wing antiwar protesters is clear.
Supposedly the war-mongering Spartans are "fighting for freedom" (never mind that Spartans had slaves) and "the enemy" is an inhuman, soulless horde of foreigners, mirroring the xenophobic distrust many republicans display towards the United Nations.
Over and over again do characters in the movie say things aimed at elevating Spartans above all other nations or races. The mention of 1000 nations fighting against Sparta are an obvious reference to the worldwide anti-Americanism and the fact that the US is pretty much alone in its so-called "war on terror." |
A tale of two cases in US "war on terror": Jose Padilla and Chiquita Brands
by Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Website
| |
Excerpt: In announcing the Chiquita plea bargain, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor made the following curious statement: "Funding a terrorist organization can never be treated as a cost of doing business. American businesses must take note that payments to terrorists are a whole different category. They are crimes.... American businesses, as good corporate citizens, will find ways to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law and still remain competitive."
Clearly implied in this statement is that Chiquita's financing of the death squads in Colombia was a means of increasing its competitiveness and its profits.
How does this work? Quite simply, the right-wing terrorists earn their money by terrorizing the workers, murdering those who seek to organize struggles for higher wages or improved conditions and threatening the rest that the same will happen to them if they don't submit. |
Ol' Smedley knew a racket
when he saw (and slew for) one
by Mark Drolette, Smirking Chimp| |
Excerpt: When you say 'support the troops,' just what, exactly, do you mean? Because, really, what does it mean? We've all heard and seen it for years now and yet no one, to my knowledge, has ever defined it. |
The Republican Party vs. George Bush
by Cenk Uygur, Daily Kos
| |
Excerpt: I suspect that right now if you asked the question, "Which party understands your concerns and has your best interests in mind?" the Democrats would crush the Republicans. The jury is in. Republicans are for the rich and connected and they don't care about the average guy.
You know who reinforced this idea over and over -- Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. How many no-bid contracts does Halliburton have to get, how many political cronies have to get jobs in place of qualified, decent people, how many tax cuts for billionaires do you have to pass and how many people do you have to leave to die in New Orleans before people get the message? |
My time as a hostage at
Miami International Airport
by Tyler Brûlé, International Herald Tribune
| |
Excerpt: With no water, no toilets and little fresh air, it was not a snapshot that Florida tourism or any other body hoping to up U.S. tourist numbers would have been proud of. After two and half hours and much complaining, I finally got the call.
"You should really do something about this tear in your passport," said the officer. |
Point/Counterpoint 2003:
This war will destabilize the entire
MidEast region and set off a
global shockwave of anti-Americanism
by Nathan Eckert and Bob Sheffer, The Onion
| |
Excerpt: Trust me, it's all going to work out perfect. Nothing bad is going to happen. It's all under control. |
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, |
