Run-up to the next war:
Captured Brits were
gathering intelligence| |
Excerpt: The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were gathering intelligence on the Iranians. Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested -- just five days before the crisis began. |
U.S. using Pakistani proxies
to carry out secret war in Iran| |
Excerpt: ABC News is reporting the U.S. is engaged in a secret war with Iran. Since 2005, U.S. officials have been advising a Pakistani tribal militant group with ties to the Taliban on how to carry out deadly guerilla raids inside Iran. The Pakistani group -- called Jundullah -- has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. Most recently, Jundullah took credit for a bus bombing that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in February. Officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Comment: So the U.S. is supporting Pakistani terrorists who conduct border raids and kill Iranian soldiers. Just another day at the office for the criminals of the Bush-Cheney administration. |
Botched U.S. round-up of Iranian
diplomats led to last week's hostage crisis| |
Excerpt: Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born U.S. forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the U.S. accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
Iranian diplomat alleges CIA torture
Excerpt: An Iranian diplomat freed two months after being abducted in Iraq accused the CIA of torturing him during his detention, state television reported Saturday. The United States immediately denied any involvement in the Iranian's disappearance or release. |
|
|
Secret CIA prisons in
Africa hold women, children| |
Excerpt: American intelligence agents are interrogating hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects secretly imprisoned in Ethiopia, human rights organizations said yesterday.
The detainees, from 19 different countries, have allegedly been "illegally" deported to Ethiopia where they are being held in horrific conditions in crowded jails, notorious for torture and abuse.
They include women and children as young as seven months and were arrested in Somalia and Kenya as they fled December's rout of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) around Mogadishu.
"We fear that many of the detainees will face mistreatment and possibly torture or execution in Ethiopian custody," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
Comment: The original AP headline said that these jails are for "Al Qaeda suspects." And the seven-month-old baby is suspected of what kind of Al Qaeda activity, exactly?
U.S. citizen among prisoners in
America's secret Ethiopian jails
Excerpt: The Associated Press reports the CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating hundreds of detainees at secret prisons in Ethiopia. Many of the prisoners were recently transferred there secretly and illegally from Kenya and Somalia. They are being held without charge or access to lawyers or their families. At least one of the prisoners held in Ethiopia is an American citizen. 24 year-old Amir Mohamed Meshal was detained in Kenya, then transferred to Somalia, then to Ethiopia. On Monday, Congressmember Rush Holt of New Jersey called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to demand his release. Meshal's parents live in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. |
Supreme Court tells Bush, EPA has
to do something to protect environment| |
Excerpt: In a defeat for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a U.S. government agency has the power under the clean air law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming.
The nation's highest court by a 5-4 vote said the Environmental Protection Agency "has offered no reasoned explanation" for its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide and other emissions from new cars and trucks that contribute to climate change.
The ruling came in one of the most important environmental cases to reach the Supreme Court in decades. It marked the first high court decision in a case involving global warming.
Comment: In what sense is this "a defeat for the Bush administration"? What's to keep them from simply ignoring the court's ruling, as they've ignored all public criticism and oversight for six years now?
Bush says he takes
climate change "very seriously"
Excerpt: President George W. Bush said he took climate change very seriously Tuesday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the government must regulate greenhouse gases, seen by analysts as a potential watershed in fighting global warming. ... |
Republicans play politics with
American justice
Gonzalez fired U.S. Attorney for
Naval Reserve duty (which is illegal)| |
Excerpt:
But Iglesias's [Naval Reserve] military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror apparently didn't go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S. attorney late last year was that he was an "absentee landlord" who was spending too much time away from the office.
Comment: These bozos can't even come up with an alibi that doesn't lead to still more legal questions ... |
Monica Goodling, mute aide to
Alberto Gonzales, quietly resigns| |
Excerpt: A top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly quit Friday, almost two weeks after telling Congress she would not testify about her role in the firings of federal prosecutors.
There was no immediate reason given, but Monica M. Goodling's refusal to face Congress had intensified a controversy that threatens Gonzales' job.
How Pat Robertson's law school
is changing America
Excerpt: Monica Goodling is only one of 150 graduates of Regent University currently serving in this administration, as Regent's Web site proclaims proudly, a huge number for a 29-year-old school. Regent estimates that "approximately one out of every six Regent alumni is employed in some form of government work." And that's precisely what its founder desired. The school's motto is "Christian Leadership To Change the World," and the world seems to be changing apace. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft teaches at Regent, and graduates have achieved senior positions in the Bush administration. The express goal is not only to tear down the wall between church and state in America (a "lie of the left," according to Robertson) but also to enmesh the two.
Gonzales installed religious zealot
as U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis
Excerpt: It's a major shakeup at the offices of new U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose.
Four of her top staff voluntarily demoted themselves Thursday, fed up with Paulose, who, after just months on the job, has earned a reputation for quoting Bible verses and dressing down underlings.
Deputy U.S. Attorney John Marty is just one of the people dropping themselves in rank to simply a U.S. Attorney position. Also making the move are the heads of Paulose's criminal and civil divisions and the top administrative officer.
The move is intended to send a message to Washington -- that 33-year-old Paulose is in over her head.
... before getting the plum U.S. Attorney spot, Paulose was a special assistant to Alberto Gonzales and apparently big buds with none other than 5th amendment invoker Monica Goodling. |
Questions raised about election-timed, evidence-free prosecution in Wisconsin| |
Excerpt: State purchasing supervisor Georgia L. Thompson, who was originally hired under [Democratic Governor] Jim Doyle's Republican predecessor, awarded a state contract to Adelman Travel, which became controversial because two of the company's officers had donated the state maximum to Doyle's re-election campaign.
There was no evidence that Thompson personally profited from the contract and nothing to suggest she approved the contract for political reasons. U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic brought charges anyway and managed to win a conviction, which was thrown out swiftly yesterday. ... |
Iglesias was ordered to prosecute group for registering low-income Latino voters| |
Excerpt: Behind all the furor around U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, one of eight federal prosecutors who were fired by the Bush administration, was an effort by the Republican Party to suppress massive voter registration in New Mexico during the 2004 election. ... During the 2004 election campaign, New Mexico ACORN engaged in a huge voter registration drive in which individuals were paid to bring in valid voter registrations. It only took one informant to come forth and "confess" to obtaining registrations fraudulently for the whole New Mexican Republican machinery ... to proclaim that this mass voter registration was illegal. |
Sen Hatch (R-Utah) lies
about fired U.S. Attorney| |
Excerpt: Hatch said, "[Carol Lam]] was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton."
... Publicly-available documents about Lam's career indicate that she is not a law professor, she's "been a federal prosecutor for nearly 18 years and [has] never been a fundraiser for any president". ... |
|
|
12,000 more called for meat-grinder duty| |
Excerpt: The Pentagon will call up 12,000 National Guard soldiers for service in Iraq to fill gaps in the overworked army, according to America's NBC News.
The National Guard is a volunteer militia but the report said members would receive an involuntary call-up to report for duty in Iraq. |
Reid threatens to cut off war funds
if Bush vetoes withdrawal bill| |
Excerpt: Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid yesterday endorsed the Senate's toughest antiwar bill yet, a bid to cut off funding within a year, sending a clear signal to President Bush that the Iraq debate will continue in Congress regardless of whether he carries through on his veto threats. Reid (Nev.) announced that he had teamed up with Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.), one of the Democrats' strongest war critics, on legislation to set a deadline of March 31, 2008, for completing the withdrawal of combat forces and ending most military spending in Iraq. "If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period," Reid said in a statement. The Feingold-Reid bill calls for Bush to begin withdrawing troops within four months, similar to the language in the Senate's $122 billion spending package. But it would prohibit funding beyond the March 31 deadline, except for counterterrorism, security and training operations. |
Pentagon officer created phony intel
to support Iraq/al-Qaeda link| |
Excerpt: According to the Inspector General's report, both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had thoroughly examined the possibility of an active relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida and determined there were "no conclusive signs [of a relationship]," and "direct cooperation ... has not been established."
Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans, however, created a briefing based on a previous report, "Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al Qaida." The presentation was aimed at discrediting the conclusions of the CIA and the DIA.
Cheney again claims Saddam Hussein
worked with al-Qaeda, while Defense
Dept again says, no, he didn't
Excerpt: Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.
Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ...
However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.
Comment: The big lie never ends. |
Sen Feinstein's Iraq conflict of interest| |
Excerpt: In an interview with this reporter in September, Michael R. Klein, a top legal adviser to Feinstein and a long-time business partner of her husband, stated that, beginning in 1997, he routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini Corporation (where Blum is majority owner) had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest. Although Klein's startling admission was intended to defuse the issue of Feinstein's conflict of interest, it had the effect of exacerbating it.
Comment: Since this article was published, Diane Feinstein has resigned as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations. Hopefully, that won't be enough to forestall her indictment. |
Tainted wheat gluten could
be in humans' food too| |
Excerpt: The tainted wheat gluten that triggered a massive pet food recall also ended up in processing plants that prepare food consumed by people, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.
While agency leaders offered assurances Monday that the U.S. food supply remains safe, they said they cannot yet completely rule out contamination of human food by the suspect wheat gluten, which contained melamine, a chemical found in plastics and pesticides.
According to import records, the wheat gluten was shipped to the United States from China between Nov. 3 and Jan. 23 and contained "minimal labeling" to indicate whether it was intended for humans or animals.
Comment: Why is this catastrophe unfolding so slowly? Why wasn't wheat gluten double-checked as soon as the ingredient made the news, weeks ago? Why was "minimal labeling" good enough to ship it to American factories? I don't know much about FDA's head honcho Andrew von Eschenbach, except that he's from Texas, land of Bush cronies, and that the man he replaced, Lester Crawford, was one of many Bush-appointed cronies and crooks. Certainly, no-one should have any confidence that Bush-Cheney would appoint someone to run FDA who's well-qualified and motivated to fulfill FDA's mandate. |
Number of Iraqi prisoners
to skyrocket during "surge"| |
Excerpt: For the past several years, the United States itself has held about 13,000 individuals captive and now holds about 18,000 captives. But as the Baghdad security plan also known as Fard Al Kanoon moves forward, Petraeus is planning for the possibility of holding as many as 40,000 captives. American commands will hold many of those detainees indefinitely to collect intelligence about local networks and terrorist or insurgent activity, providing regular reviews of their cases to assess the security risks they would pose if put back on the street. |
Is Guantanamo the future of America?
Guantanamo conditions 'worsening'| |
Excerpt: Conditions for detainees at the U.S. military jail at Guantanamo Bay are deteriorating, with the majority held in solitary confinement, a report says.
Amnesty International said the often harsh and inhumane conditions at the camp were "pushing people to the edge". It called for the facility to be closed and for plans for "unfair" military commission trials to be abandoned. |
Australian Gitmo prisoner gets tiny sentence in exchange for media silence| |
Excerpt: New questions are being raised about the imprisonment of the Australian citizen David Hicks following a plea-deal that will see him released from jail by the end of this year. Hicks became the first Guantanamo prisoner convicted under the Military Commissions Act. A military jury recommended the maximum sentence of seven years. But on Friday, the Pentagon revealed it had struck a deal with that will see Hicks serve a nine-month prison term, most of it in Australia. Under the deal, Hicks is barred from speaking to reporters and must renounce his claim to have suffered abuse in U.S. custody. Hicks has been held for five years. Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said: "They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver." |
Gitmo prisoner says he was
tortured into USS Cole confession| |
Excerpt: A Saudi terror suspect says U.S. interrogators tortured him for five years and he confessed to involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole just to satisfy them and ''make the people happy,'' according to a Pentagon transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay. |
He didn't want to be a spy, so they imprisoned him at Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: British resident Jamil el-Banna, 44, knew Abu Qatada, a cleric accused of being al-Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe. In 2002 Mr Banna, a father of five from London, was seized by the CIA and secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay, after MI5 wrongly told the Americans that his travelling companion was carrying bomb parts on a business trip to Gambia. On Friday, his companion, Bisher al-Rawi, was released without charge after four years in the U.S. detention camp, after it emerged that he had helped MI5 keep track of Qatada. But Mr Banna's incarceration in Cuba continues.
It has now emerged that only days before Mr Banna's arrest, MI5 visited him at his home and attempted to recruit him as an informer, with the lure of a new identity, relocation and money. The Guardian has obtained this MI5 document in which the intelligence officer details, in his own words, that encounter. |
Guantanamo is not a prison:
11 ways to report on Gitmo
without upsetting the Pentagon
by Karen Greenberg,
| |
Excerpt: Number 3: Guantanamo is not about guilt and innocence "Today, it is not about guilt or innocence. It's about unlawful enemy combatants," Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., the Commanding Officer of Guantanamo tells us. "And they are all unlawful enemy combatants." This, despite the existence of the official category "No Longer an Enemy Combatant" which does not come up in our discussions. Nor was the possibility that any of the detainees at Guantanamo might have been mistakenly detained ever discussed. |
|
|
Exit Iraq? Republicans say "Yes!"| |
Excerpt: QUESTION: Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? ANSWER: Yes 52% No 39% Undecided 9%
No, those are not particularly shocking numbers. We have known for a long time that Americans favor the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
What is interesting about these numbers is who they come from. The Strategic Vision polling group asked 600 likely Iowa caucus goers the question in a survey conducted March 30-April 1, 2007. To be more precise, the survey queried 600 likely Republican caucus goers. ... |
Giuliani's wife worked for
company that killed dogs| |
Excerpt: A few days after GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani announced that his wife, Judith, would be welcome to attend cabinet meetings at the White House, the New York Post reports this morning that the registered nurse worked as a traveling saleswoman for a company that killed dogs to demonstrate surgical staples to potential clients.
... a Giuliani spokesman said "only that Judi had not been involved in procuring dogs for sales demonstrations -- but did not comment on whether she participated in demonstrations involving dogs." |
Ford executive prevents President from blowing himself up| |
Comment: Why is the recurring and phenomenal stupidity of America's President mentioned in the media only in articles like this -- for chuckles, in the implied context of comedy?
Seems to me, the staggering intellectual absence of President Bush is newsworthy, and ought to merit mention in the serious coverage of the ordinary day-to-day catastrophes he's created. |
Police raid finds tomato growing operation| |
Excerpt: Guns drawn, police serving a marijuana search warrant at a Pullman apartment found green leafy plant material. It just wasn't the kind they normally find in residences in the college town.
It was tomato plants.
Comment: In America, your home can be raided by police, solely because it's alleged that you possess a heat lamp for growing plants -- an item so common it's sold in virtually all hardware stores, garden shops, at Target stores, etc. |
Wisconsin bumbler Tommy Thompson
promises hilarious "presidential campaign"| |
Comment: There are exactly two things to know about presidential "candidate" Tommy Thompson. Number one, he is not the GOP candidate named Thompson who's an actor on "Law and Order." That's someone else. Number two, the man is stunningly, ridiculously, deliciously inarticulate. He was governor of my home state of Wisconsin for fourteen years, and he always ... ALWAYS ... sounds like a complete moron. Just this week, the local Fox affiliate played a clip of him from CNN -- which was presumably chosen to make him look as good as possible -- and he was completely incoherent. Thompson has made noises about a presidential run for a long time. Thank God he waited until the era of YouTube. This is going to be hilarious.
Tommy Thompson's fun-
lovin' past may emerge
Excerpt: "Tommy had an apartment in Madison before he was elected governor," read the June 22, 1994, letter. "He kept the apartment after he was elected [to the state legislature]. Supposedly there were several women who joined him there." In fact, there allegedly were as many as four long-term affairs before Tommy Thompson finally left for Washington, D.C., to become secretary of Health and Human Services. |
While Bush blasted Pelosi for
trip to Syria, White House arranged
trip to Syria for Republicans| |
Excerpt: the chief of staff to Republican Congressman Joe Pitts, who went to Syria, stated unequivocally that this trip was "done in cooperation with the administration." That would be the very same administration that has spent days and days attacking Pelosi for doing the same thing -- attacks that the big news orgs have eagerly spent a great deal of time and resources amplifying.
FLASHBACK: Hastert traveled abroad,
told foreign leaders to ignore Clinton
I>Excerpt: In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to "bypass" President Clinton and "communicate directly with Congress."
Carter says White House
'ordered' him to not go to Syria
Excerpt: Yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter revealed that he was barred from visiting Syria last year when he was abroad monitoring the Palestinian elections: "I have known President Bashar al-Assad since he was a college student, and I thought it might be helpful if I went and urged him to support the peace process in the Middle East. But for the only time in my life as a former president, I was ordered by the White House not to go."
Comment: I'm old enough to remember Jimmy Carter as President, before he became the PR industry's favorite humanitarian. And he was always a mealy-mouth mega-wimp. It somehow doesn't surprise me at all that he takes his orders from George W Bush. |
'Swift Boat' underwriter installed
as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium| |
Excerpt: Sam Fox, a 77-year-old St. Louis businessman, gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat group. He is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and was dubbed a "ranger" by Bush's 2004 campaign for raising at least $200,000. He is founder and chairman of the Clayton, Mo.-based Harbour Group, which specializes in the takeover of manufacturing companies.
Fox has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s.
... Democrats had denounced Fox for his donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign. The group's TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat's election loss.
... "It's sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate," Kerry said in a statement. |
Investigators probe Bush crony at GSA| |
Excerpt: U.S. investigators are looking into whether the head of the General Services Administration improperly engaged in partisan politics at government expense.
The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it is looking into whether GSA head Lurita Doan violated a ban on using government resources for partisan politics, during a meeting that featured a presentation by a White House political operative on Republican election strategy. |
White House knew about Kerik's ethical
problems before cabinet nomination| |
Excerpt: Alarmed about the raft of allegations, several White House aides tried to raise red flags. But the normal investigation process was short-circuited, the sources said. Bush's top lawyer, Alberto R. Gonzales, took charge of the vetting, repeatedly grilling Kerik about the issues that had been raised. In the end, despite the concerns, the White House moved forward with his nomination -- only to have it collapse a week later. |
Wolfowitz accused of
cronyism at World Bank| |
Excerpt: A controversial raise for a World Bank employee who has been romantically involved with the Bank's President Paul Wolfowitz was not the work of the Bank's Ethics Committee, as originally alleged by Wolfowitz's office, according to the watchdog group that leaked the information. Members of the Ethics Committee of the Board, the relevant body that would have approved the raise, which has triggered allegations of nepotism at the Bank's highest levels, say that they knew nothing of the salary hike, according to the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization. |
Seattle pays $1 million to WTO protesters| |
Excerpt: The city of Seattle will pay $1 million to World Trade Organization protesters who were arrested in Westlake Park seven years ago and will clear their records, in a settlement announced Monday. The money will pay for plaintiffs' legal fees, with the rest divided among up to about 175 protesters, who will get at least $3,000 each, depending on how many file claims, said their attorney Mike Withey. The city already has paid $800,000 to settle multiple claims involving police misconduct during the WTO protests. |
Journalist jailed for refusing
to hand over tapes finally freed| |
Excerpt: After a record seven and a half months behind bars, San Francisco video blogger Josh Wolf has been released. Wolf walked out of a federal prison in Dublin, California Tuesday after prosecutors dropped a key demand that had made him the longest-jailed journalist for protecting a source in U.S. history. Wolf was jailed on August 1st of last year when he refused to turn over video that he had shot of an anti-G8 demonstration in San Francisco. Wolf's release was okayed after prosecutors agreed to drop their effort to make him testify before a grand jury and identify protesters shown on his video. In return, Wolf posted the uncut video on his website, gave prosecutors a copy and testified he knew nothing about violent incidents at the protest. |
Judge grants "conscientious objector"
status to anti-war Marine| |
Excerpt: A federal judge has ordered the Marines to discharge a San Jose lance corporal as a "conscientious objector" who had an aversion to killing and participating in war. Robert Zabala, 23, must be released from the Marines Corps Reserves by mid-April, U.S. District Judge James Ware said in a 21-page ruling Thursday.
"We're very pleased with it," Zabala's attorney, Stephen Collier, said Monday. "I think it's a good decision and that it makes clear to the armed services that they can't deny conscientious-objector discharges from the military." |
U.S. protects terror group in Iraq| |
Excerpt: The U.S. military in Iraq routinely protects a group that is classified as a terrorist organization and that the Iraqi government wants to leave.
CNN reported that the Iran opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, is a source of intelligence on Iran. "What we have here is a policy that described the people here from the MEK as a protected group, and one of our coalition partner countries is actually protecting them in the camp where they mostly are, but there is no change in our policy that the MEK, we still regard them as a terrorist organization," former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said on a CNN report.
While the U.S. government considers the group a terrorist organization, meaning that banks freeze its assets and Americans dealing with it would be committing a crime, U.S. troops regularly escort its members from its base, Camp Ashraf to Baghdad, CNN reported. |
Florida lets some ex-felons vote ... kind of| |
Excerpt: The American Civil Liberties Union expressed disappointment with today's announcement by Governor Charlie Crist and the Board of Executive Clemency regarding Florida's new rules for restoration of civil and voting rights. "The new rules are needlessly complex and will only confuse and deter potential applicants, and also confound corrections and elections officials. The burdens of paperwork and hearings will continue to impede voting," said Laleh Ispahani, Senior Policy Counsel for the national ACLU. "Complicated schemes such as this one have proven unworkable in other states. One such state, Maryland, overhauled its formerly complex policy just last month." |
Five more years in Iraq, say British defense papers| |
Excerpt: A confidential planning document drawn up by defense chiefs called the Operational Tour Plot, parts of which have been disclosed to this newspaper, reveals that troops will be serving on operations in the Gulf until at least 2012. |
Kissinger says military victory
is not possible in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said Sunday the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible. |
Edwards drops from second Fox debate| |
Excerpt: ''We believe there's just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending they're objective,'' said Jonathan Prince, Edwards' deputy campaign manager.
It's the second time Edwards has decided to skip a debate because of its affiliation with Fox News. Edwards decided in March that he would pass on an Aug. 14 debate in Reno, Nev., co-hosted by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party. |
Pfizer's $35 million fine:
Equivalent to a speeding ticket| |
Excerpt: How much money is the $35 million criminal fine Pfizer was forced to pay this week for illegal marketing of Genotropin? Last year Pfizer's profit was $11 billion. ...
$11 billion translates into nearly $35 million in profit EVERY DAY. So the $35 million criminal fine was equivalent to one day's profit.
Let's put that in perspective: If you make $50,000 a year, that means you earn $137 every day. That is equivalent to a regular speeding ticket. |
Ford Motor Co loses billions,
but executives get
multimillion dollar bonuses| |
Excerpt: Struggling Ford Motor Company awarded multimillion dollar bonuses to its executives last year despite the fact that it posted a record loss of 12.7 billion dollars, according to a document filed Thursday with securities regulators.
The automaker said in March it would be awarding "modest" bonuses to all company employees in order to recognize their work in reducing costs and "courageously" restructuring the company as it shutters plants and lays off 40,000 workers.
The bonuses amounted to an average of 500 dollars each for factory workers. |
Royal Air Force pilots are asked
to consider suicide flights| |
Excerpt: The head of the RAF's elite One Group who is in operational control of Typhoon, Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier fighters and bombers, is reported to have asked the pilots: "Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaida commander?" |
Homeland Security Dept wants
master key for the Internet| |
Excerpt: Effectively it would mean that U.S. spooks could snoop on anyone in the Worldwide wibble and place control of the Interweb tubes firmly in the paws of the U.S. government.
The information that Homeland security is after the "key-signing key", currently held by Verisign, was revealed to the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Lisbon. |
Bush lies about military support for surge| |
Excerpt: Bush just spoke to the nation, trying to convince the public to support his Iraq quagmire, and he claimed again that the surge, the escalation, was the idea of his commanders in the field, and he's just following their advice.
In fact, all of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, ALL opposed the surge. |
Pre-abortion ultrasound requirement
is probably unconstitutional,
says S.C. Attorney General| |
Excerpt: South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster told legislators Wednesday that doctors could be required to show women seeking an abortion an ultrasound image of their fetus, but the proposal may be unconstitutional if it's interpreted to force an unwilling patient to view the image. |
Feds lied about interrogation of protesters| |
Excerpt: A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.
For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.
But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident. |
MSNBC re-writes history of Iraq| |
Excerpt: ... Amazingly, they've contrived to ignore Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran who in 1953 was overthrown in a UK/CIA-backed coup, which installed the brutal and corrupt Shah in his place. The overthrow of Mossadeq is probably, together with the 1979 Islamic revolution, the seminal moment in the history of 20th century Iran, and MSNBC has just wiped it out for political convenience. Mossadeq had dared to nationalize the Iranian oil industry at the expense of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now British Petroleum), and such defiance could obviously not be tolerated by the masters of the world. |
Award given to American
who was imprisoned and tortured
in Iraq by U.S. military| |
Excerpt: A year ago, Donald Vance learned what its like to be falsely accused by the U.S. military of aiding terrorists. He was held without charge for more than three months in a high-security prison in Iraq, and interrogated daily after sleepless nights without legal counsel or even a phone call to his family.
On Wednesday, the former private security contractor was honored for his ordeal in Washington and for speaking out against the incident. At a luncheon at the National Press Club, Vance received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, an award named in memory of Army helicopter gunner Ron Ridenhour who struggled to bring the horrific mass murders at My Lai to the attention of Congress and the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. |
Washington Post rewrites Reuters wire report to further Bush-Cheney line| |
Excerpt: In other words, The Post uses the classic Judy Miller/Michael Gordon technique from the New York Times of passing on Bush Administration propaganda by ensuring that it is prominently placed -- together with the appropriate weasel words referring back to the original, completely unquestioned, government source -- so that there is no technical lying, although the intent is obviously to deceive (the last two honest paragraphs in the Reuters article have also gone missing). |
Debunking the obvious:
"Enemy" unlikely to follow
retreating soldiers back to America| |
Excerpt: In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that "this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here." The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on American streets.
But is it true?
Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn't. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland. |
21 workers murdered at market,
the day after McCain's silly photo op| |
Excerpt: A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed today when a suicide bomber detonated a truck laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital.
The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the U.S. presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.
The Kirkuk bloodshed erupted when a bomber driving a truck full of explosives hidden by sacks of flour targeted an Iraqi police station that U.S. soldiers were visiting. The full force of the blast hit a nearby primary school.
From a CBS News reporter in Iraq
Excerpt: "It's disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It's electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.
"Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour ... and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized." Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that's the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.
"If he did walk around that market, and I didn't see him do it, and he didn't announce he was going to do it, you can bet your life there were an awful lot of soldiers deployed to make sure that nobody came near that place. He's talking rubbish. And he should not get away with it."Allen Pizzey, CBS News |
Bush cracks joke about
severed head from Afghanistan| |
Excerpt: When the green metal box first arrived in Washington from Kabul, allegedly bearing the skull of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, President George W. Bush is said to have said, only half in jest: "So if it turns out to be Zawahiri's head, I hope you will bring it here."
Afghan tribal chiefs had sent what they believed to be the skull of Ayman al-Zawahiri in hope of collecting a $25 million reward. The Americans, needing proof, asked Egypt for a DNA sample from Zawahiri's brother, whom the Egyptians were holding. |
Iraqi insider details 'shocking' U.S. missteps| |
Excerpt: "The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in The Occupation of Iraq, newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word "ignorance" crops up repeatedly. |
Google restores catastrophic
Hurricane Katrina damages| |
Excerpt: Google is once again using maps that show New Orleans in ruins. This comes after Google was scrutinized for replacing storm-damaged maps of the city on its popular map portal with maps that showed the city as it existed before Hurricane Katrina. |
Wal-Mart infiltrates
anti-Wal-Mart groups| |
Excerpt: The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter's phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., The Wall Street Journal reported. As part of the surveillance, the retailer last year had a long-haired employee infiltrate an anti-Wal-Mart group to determine if it planned protests at the company's annual meeting, according to Bruce Gabbard, the fired security worker, the Journal said. |
Canada votes against renewal
of Anti-Terrorism Act| |
Excerpt: In February, the Canadian Parliament voted 159 to 124 against renewing and expanding anti-terror laws that were introduced after 9/11. Think of it as Canada's version of the PATRIOT Act. Under the now-defunct laws, the government had the right to indefinitely detain foreign-born people (citizens included) suspected of terrorist activity and to "compel" them to testify. Sound familiar?
The legislation was voted down despite accusations by the conservative Prime Minister that the Liberal Party was "soft on terror," and despite the fact that "real and serious" terror plots were foiled in Toronto as recently as June 2006. |
Urban air pollution is
'more dangerous than Chernobyl'| |
Excerpt: Air pollution in major cities may be more damaging to health than the radiation exposure suffered by survivors of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, according to a report published today.
The study suggests high levels of urban air pollution cut short life expectancy more than the radiation exposure of emergency workers who were sent into the 19-mile exclusion zone around the site straight after the accident. |
Florida police arrest activist
for feeding homeless| |
Excerpt: Eric Montanez, 21, of the charity group Food Not Bombs, was charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of destitute people in the city center, police said on Thursday.
Montanez was filmed by undercover officers on Wednesday as he served "30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle," according to an arrest affidavit. The Orlando area is home to Disney World and Universal Studios Florida. |
Police officer, fired for tasering
handcuffed man, gets his job back| |
Excerpt: A Lorain police officer who was fired for using a stun gun on a handcuffed man in the back of a cruiser last May was given his job back by an arbitrator yesterday. |
Cannabis could hold the key to
ending multiple sclerosis misery| |
Excerpt: Researchers investigating the role of cannabinoids -- chemical substances contained within cannabis -- the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), have found they could significantly enhance therapy, not only by reducing nerve damage and erratic nerve impulses, but perhaps even by hindering development of the condition.
Comment: Sigh. Even in my best moods on the sunniest of days, I can't imagine any awful disease or crippling accident I wouldn't cheerfully wish on any and every employee of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. What kind of conscience-deprived zealots against freedom could work for an outfit dedicated to destroying peoples' lives -- as punishment for relaxing with marijuana instead of Miller Lite... |
Mysterious disappearance of U.S. bees| |
Excerpt: U.S. beekeepers have been stung in recent months by the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees threatening honey supplies as well as crops which depend on the insects for pollination. Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent. |
Son says dead spook
fingered LBJ in JFK killing| |
Excerpt: E. Howard Hunt scribbled the initials "LBJ," standing for Kennedy's ambitious vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Under "LBJ," connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that's never been solved. Next his father connected to Meyer's name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer's name was the name David Morales, yet another CIA man and a well-known, particularly vicious black-op specialist. And then his father connected to Morales' name, with a line, the framed words "French Gunman Grassy Knoll."
So there it was, according to E. Howard Hunt. LBJ had Kennedy killed. It had long been speculated upon. But now E. Howard was saying that's the way it was. And that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the only shooter in Dallas. There was also, on the grassy knoll, a French gunman, presumably the Corsican Mafia assassin Lucien Sarti, who has figured prominently in other assassination theories. |
|
Lightning round news
|
How Bush's 16-word lie built the case for war
Pre-industrial workers had
a shorter workweek than today's
VA patient has wrong testicle removed
Cadbury is lying about cream eggs VIDEO
YouTube is happy to help Thai censors,
but user removes king mockery
Gay weddings OK at Disney parks
Florida housing sex offenders under bridge
Top twenty corporate crooks
CIA retaliated against polygraph
expert, lawsuit alleges
Community sues to oust 3-year-old
Minnesota Republican
compares Bush to gonorrhea
Commies don't grow up big and tall
DWI laws now apply
to bicyclists, mower riders
Monument to canned beef
"The daughter of the deceased could not
provide sufficient proof that it was his
final wish to be pressed into a diamond"
Algae-munching biologist
in underwater experiment
Christians crucify themselves
to celebrate Good Friday
Thailand blocks YouTube
for clip mocking king
Wacky kids superglue the locks
Dolphin 'chat line'
Aziz says he loved Saddam like a brother
Japanese leak U.S. secrets in porn swap
Ikea offers pre-fab housing
Craigslist ad strips home of everything
Cops say student who left fake bomb
didn't want to do English paper
|
|
Who's next to get screwed?
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: First it was the steel industry, then it was textiles, then it was manufacturing, then the auto industry, then the high-tech sector, and now the housing bust. The North American Union is just another manifestation of "Free Trade," politically correct jargon for corporate fascism, with the ultimate goal of putting an end to the United States as a sovereign nation, instead leaving the U.S. an entity whose importance would be little more than that of a glorified trading post in a global economy controlled by multi national corporations. |
A man of extraordinary courage
Major Michael D. Mori, U.S.M.C.
by Robyn Shelly, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The United States can be very proud of Major Michael Mori. He stands for those "American" values that George Bush and his cronies trumpet long and loud, but rarely seem to uphold. He is proof that there are still people of integrity in the United States. |
The Decider's new clothes
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: This is the US Justice Department you're questioning. Would they lie to you? |
Just another day in my life
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: I find myself constantly shaking my head. One minute you read that 80% of Americans say they think the Government had something to do with 9/11, and you think to your self, good, they're waking up, it's a start ... And then something happens to diminish that little spark of hope, and you two steps back to where you were before. |
When the dark curtain finally closes
by Robert J., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The uncomfortable reality is that we are screwed. There are no good options available to us at this point. The only thing I can think to do is to help minimize the suffering of those that care enough to find a safe place to ride out the storm. I don't believe it will do any good to struggle against this. The snowball has picked up too much speed to be stopped now, even if you could reform our broken government into a compassionate and functional democracy. The economic, geopolitical damage has been done. |
Coyote comix #1 & #2
by Don Nash, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: When in the course of human events, it becomes clear that governments have failed all the people ... |
Neither pinkos nor libertarians
by jodi d. and Albert C., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: We received these two emails within about fifteen minutes of each other, and we've received dozens like these over the last eight years. Obviously, neither email has anything to do with the other, but it seems to me they belong together like a matched set of bookends ... |
Female chauvinist pigs?
Raunch culture is everywhere
by Helen Redmond, CounterPunch
| |
Excerpt: Raunch culture is everywhere and impossible to avoid. Its toxic presence is found in all mass media outlets: internet, television, radio, films. And even bars and restaurants.
There has been a truly staggering explosion of television shows whose plots brazenly and unapologetically revolve around displaying women's body parts. Not a brain to be found. Fembots. Stepford Wives. The success of these shows depends on the copious use of soft-core pornographic imagery. Shows like: Girls Gone Wild, The Real World, Pussycat Dolls Present: Search for the Next Doll, The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman, America's Next Top Model, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, and The Girls Next Door. Notice how often women are referred to as "girls." Decades after the movement for women's liberation, even a seemingly simple change like referring to females correctly has not been achieved. In most of these programs women compete against each other for male approval and attention. The contestants reinforce the worst female stereotypes, that women are conniving, backstabbing, jealous, insecure, and crybabies. And they are also "bitches," the second most popular word to refer to women, after "girls." |
Triumph of the vile
Or 300 bottles of idiocy on the screen
by Gary Brecher, The Exile [Moscow, Russia]
| |
Excerpt: Only amateur fascists admire Sparta guys; they're still pissed off because people like me dared to warn them the Iraq war was going to be a disaster. Now the neocons have gone so over the deep end of delusional thinking that they've resorted to fantasizing about Sparta, where nobody ever argued, where everyone yelled and stabbed and otherwise kept their mouths shut.
It's downright hilarious the way this movie punishes every smart character. Every time someone wants to argue with the war party in this movie, he's evil. Everybody who talks in a normal tone of voice is evil. Snyder shows two scenes where the Spartans murder Persian envoys arriving under a flag of truce. And both times, you're supposed to cheer.
Since when do Americans cheer when truce parties are murdered? Well, that's pretty easy to answer, actually: since Iraq. These diehard neocons have gone insane because there's no way they can argue for an invasion of Iran any more. But they still want it, bad. So they've taken a crash course in fascism, jumping all the way to cheering for Sparta and booing for Athens -- because Athens stands for brains and flexibility and talking things out. They can't win the argument, so they want to kill anybody who tries to argue. That's why Leonidas kicks the Persian envoy down a well.
The film only approves of two things:
1. Yelling
2. Bashing. |
The uncensored anger manifesto
by Layla Anwar, ChoicesChanges.com
| |
Excerpt: During weekends, you can take time for your leisure, tend your garden, go to a gym, invite your friends, barbecue, go dancing, party. You can have fun. But of course, it is natural, it is written in your constitution "the pursuit of happiness" is just for you, and only for you. I don't need to remind you. You already know it by heart.
And when you are with your friends you can be so very interesting. You can tell them how fucked up the world is, how people can't get along. You will point your finger in our direction and hold us as an example. Oh yes, you know so much. Your press told you all about it.
And when you are done with all of the above, you will go back to sleep in your cozy bed, switch the lights off and snore in total oblivion. All the way to that state you are so familiar with, all the way back into your usual comatose indifferent self.
And we are still here, counting the minutes, the seconds and hoping we will taste life again. A life we had before you and your ilk took it all away. |
Proposal would regulate baking soda
by Radley Balko, Reason| |
Excerpt: I actually think drug policy reformers should embrace this bill. In fact, I think they should urge the Missouri legislature to pass it. Better yet, let's pressure Armand Hammer to stop its shameless crack profiteering, and put out a substitute baking soda that can't be used by crack pushers. It needn't be effective as a baking additive. In fact, it can be completely useless. The only important thing is that it can't be turned into crack. |
Your modern-day Republican Party
by SilentPatriot, Crooks & Liars
| |
Excerpt: Cato Institute President Ed Crane asked Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney if he believed the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no review. Romney said he would want to hear the pros and cons from smart lawyers before he made up his mind. [ ... ] Crane said that he had asked Rudy Giuliani the same question a few weeks ago. The mayor said that he would want to use this authority infrequently.
That is the modern Republican Party. Its base, its ruling factions, simply do not believe in our most basic Constitutional guarantees. |
An administration's epic collapse
by Joe Klein, Time
| |
Excerpt: When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration -- arrogance, incompetence, cynicism -- are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.
Comment: This article's existence and publication in Time has received much media attention, but of course, the author and the magazine ought to be ashamed of themselves for six years of 'trying to be respectful' -- turning their backs on treason in the White House, pretending it isn't happening -- while Bush and his cohorts have dismantled American civil rights, public protections, international respect, and constitutional law. |
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 |
