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U.S. arming both sides of Iraqi civil war| |
Excerpt: With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups [because they] promise to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups.
Critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans' arming both sides in a future civil war. With an American troop draw-down increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves. |
Court says U.S. can't "disappear" non-citizens on American soil| |
Excerpt: Suspected Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh al-Marri had been held for four years in military detention -- with no indication from the US government when or how his imprisonment might end.
As a non-citizen who had been designated an enemy combatant, [the government claimed] Marri had no right to test the legality of his indefinite detention through the usual habeas corpus process even though he was in the US under a valid student visa at the time of his arrest.
Legal scholars had highlighted the dire implications of the government's position. "Such a statutory construction would create an unprecedented and unconstitutional distinction between the rights of citizens and non-citizens and would permit the government to effectively 'disappear' non-citizens into legal black holes," wrote New York lawyer Paul Smith in a friend-of-the-court brief filed on behalf of the Center for National Security Studies.
In its 86-page decision released on Monday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with that basic argument, rejecting the Bush administration's broad assertion that the courts had been stripped of jurisdiction. All three judges on the panel agreed that the Military Commissions Act did not undercut Marri's constitutional right to the protections of habeas corpus. As a person present on US soil he is entitled to such protection, the court said.
Comment: It was only the luck of the draw that two of the three judges who decided this case were Clinton appointees.
The next step? Bush will demand that the entire Fourth Circuit, not merely three judges, hear the matter. And the Fourth Circuit Court is overwhelmingly Republican -- one Nixon-appointed judge; two Reagan-appointed judges, three judges picked by George H.W. Bush, two judges named by George W. Bush, and four appointed by Bill Clinton. That's 8-4 Cro-Magnon. So I'm sorry to be pessimistic, but I don't think this is going to turn out well, unless we -- you and me, we the people -- speak out loudly and raise a ruckus for freedom. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Republicans use Justice Department to subvert justice
Bush finally signs U.S. Attorney Bill after installing one last 'loyal Bushie'| |
Excerpt: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had once again bypassed the Senate and used an obscure Patriot Act provision to appoint an interim U.S. attorney in California.
The authority Gonzales used was at the heart of the U.S. attorney scandal, and was banned in a bill that passed both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support earlier this year. The legislation was sent to the President for his signature on June 4. During a hearing today, Leahy blasted Bush for stalling:
"That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president's desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can't bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.
"It's almost like they live in an alternate world, as though they're not realizing the reaction of Democrats and Republicans about this misuse of this power. That's wrong." |
Republicans block no-confidence vote on Gonzales| |
Excerpt: Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a symbolic no-confidence vote against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, dismissing the measure as an irrelevant gesture though Democrats had hoped it might intensify pressure on him to resign.
The Democrats had sought a showdown that would force Gonzales to retreat or President Bush to abandon his steadfast support of the attorney general, who has come under harsh criticism from both parties for the dismissals of federal prosecutors and recent disclosures about partisanship in hiring at the department.
Instead, the Democrats' effort failed 53 to 38 in a procedural step that fell short of the 60 votes needed to end debate and move to a vote on the resolution. |
Official close to attorney firings quits| |
Excerpt: A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the dismissals of federal prosecutors said Friday he is resigning. Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors. |
Harriet Miers, top Rove aide subpoenaed by Congress in attorney scandal| |
Excerpt: Of the three network evening news broadcasts on June 13, only ABC's World News reported on the June 13 subpoenas issued by the House and Senate judiciary committees to two former aides to President Bush, former counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor, for their testimony about the firings of former federal prosecutors. During the June 13 broadcast of World News, ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg described the issuance of the subpoenas as "the most significant clash between the White House and Congress since President Bush took office."
Neither NBC's Nightly News nor the CBS Evening News covered the story, although both found time to report that NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is switching teams and that Don Herbert, television's "Mr. Wizard," had died. |
Gonzales meeting with aide sure seems peculiar| |
Excerpt: The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to improperly influence the testimony of a departing senior aide...
Comment: How reassuring, to know the Justice Department is investigating its boss. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush Justice Department steers bonuses to the Christianist attorneys| |
Excerpt: Several career lawyers said that some political appointees favored the religious-oriented employees, intervening to steer $1,000 to $4,000 annual merit bonuses to them. |
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FBI breaks privacy laws 1,000+ times| |
Excerpt: The
FBI possibly violated the law or its rules more than 1,000 times since 2002 in collecting data about phone calls, e-mails and financial records while investigating terrorism or espionage suspects, FBI officials said on Thursday.
The potential violations found by an FBI audit were far greater than the approximately two dozen previously documented violations in a U.S. Justice Department report released in March that was based on a much smaller sampling, they said.
Judge orders FBI to turn over thousands
of PATRIOT Act abuse documents
Excerpt: Just one day after a news that an internal audit found that FBI agents abused a PATRIOT Act power more than 1000 times, a federal judge ordered the agency Friday to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the agency's use of a powerful, but extremely secretive investigative tool that can pry into telephone and internet records.
Comment: They found over 1,000 violations in an audit of 10% of the records, so the real number is probably going to be closer to 10,000. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
CIA works closely with
genocidal government of Sudan| |
Excerpt: In news from Africa, new details have emerged about how the CIA is closely working with Sudan in the so-called war on terror despite the Sudanese government's role in the mass killings in Darfur. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sudan has been sending spies into Iraq to gather intelligence on insurgents for the CIA. In Somalia, Sudan has helped the United States cultivate contacts with the Islamic Courts Union and other militias in an effort to locate Al Qaeda suspects hiding there. Sudan has also provided extensive cooperation in counter-terrorism operations, acting on U.S. requests to detain suspects as they pass through Khartoum. Many human rights advocates have criticized the Bush administration's decision to work with Sudan at a time when it is accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur. |
Bush picks Republican cronies to be
immigration judges (which is, of course, illegal)| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. |
Top corporate lobbyist named
as new White House counsel| |
Excerpt: President Bush yesterday tapped veteran lobbyist Edward W. Gillespie as White House counselor. Gillespie's background as one of Washington's top lobbyists for corporate interests quickly proved a magnet for criticism yesterday. As chairman of the firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates, Gillespie has been registered to lobby for 57 companies and associations in the financial services, telecommunications, pharmaceutical and transportation fields.
Opensecrets.org reported that Quinn Gillespie had income of $16.8 million from lobbying during 2006, including $320,000 from the American Hospital Association, $360,000 from AT&T and $600,000 from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Some of the firm's clients have major decisions pending before federal regulatory bodies and other government institutions. |
Surgeon General Nominee claims to "cure" gays| |
Excerpt: [Surgeon General nominee James] Holsinger has a long history of prejudice against gays and lesbians, including founding a church that "ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian." In 1991, Holsinger wrote a document titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality" for the United Methodist Church's Committee to Study Homosexuality. The graphic document argues that gay sex can lead to "lacerations, perforations and deaths."
Comment: By all means, sign this brilliant medical mind to be in charge of America's public health service. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Red Cross to U.S.:
Stop killing so many Afghan civilians| |
Excerpt: NATO must do more to prevent civilian casualties during military operations in Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. NATO-led international forces have killed dozens of civilians in aerial strikes on armed groups which are sometimes carried out without necessary precautions, ICRC director of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl said. On Tuesday, U.S.-led forces mistakenly killed seven policemen in an air strike in the east of the country after Afghan forces came under attack from the Taliban and asked for help, a provincial official said. He said 13 policemen were missing. |
U.S. fire mistakenly kills 8 Afghan cops| |
Excerpt: Mistaking each other for the enemy, Afghan police fired four dozen grenades and U.S.-led coalition troops fought back with helicopter gunships in a fierce battle that left eight officers dead before dawn Tuesday, officials said. |
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Blue Iowa progressive turns Republican Red
by The Alchemist, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: I don't agree with every single thing Ron Paul stands for, but dammit, he STANDS for something, is against foreign military adventurism, corporate influence in government, phony wars, government intervention in our lives, and is for cutting our bloated military and returning America to a sound economic and diplomatic footing. Sounds pretty good to me. |
Staying humble and counting my blessings
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: We got out of the over-crowded city alive! People who live near me don't know how good they have it. They have their days too, where they want to pack it all in and go live in Pennsylvania or upstate New York. Then they have a reality check, come back to earth, and realize they have to make the best with the forever changing, forever growing suburban neighborhood. |
Bush rallies Republicans for delusional immigration reform bill
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Pumped up by his victory tour in Albania and feeling the love of all those foreign folks, Bush travels to Congress to promote a new immigration law to replace the current immigration law he doesn't enforce. |
Palestine and the politics of wishful thinking
by E13, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Israel is probably the most corrupt "democracy" in the Western world -- not only for what it does to the Palestinians, but for the greed, lawlessness and lack of accountability of politicians. |
A sin and a travesty
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Worry, so full of worry that the tomorrow that comes will be far worse than it is now. No place to run from this hell that's going to come. Fearful, so afraid of the coming police state that will crush every last drop of freedom we ever had. |
A whopper of a net censorship
and citizen assault plan by AT&T
by JR Mooneyham| |
Excerpt: So they've already been spying on us and turning over our life stories to apparently corrupt and malevolent politicians. Now they're actively going to interfere with what we can see and do on the net, too. And who's to say that interference won't have a political slant as well? |
Twenty things you should know
about corporate crime
by Russell Mokhiber, Common Dreams
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Excerpt: Most professionals in Washington work for, are paid by, or are under the control of the corporate crime lobby. Young lawyers come to town, fresh out of law school, 25 years old, and their starting salary is $160,000 a year. And they're working for the corporate criminals. |
The dying continues in Iraq while at home we bury our heads in the sand
by Joseph l. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers| |
Excerpt: The war in Iraq grinds on without much regard for an American president's pipe dreams of victory, a congressional majority's impotent attempts to stop it and most of the American people's wish that it would just go away ...
The only surge in sight is an inevitable surge in the numbers of those troops being killed and wounded.
The Army and Marines scrape and scratch and scheme and pay big bucks and beguile high school dropouts, even those with criminal records, in their efforts to recruit enough young men and women to replace the casualties and those who are leaving the service.
The administration doesn't want you to worry about any of this. It's summertime, shopping time, surf's up. Head for the beach and bury your heads in the sand ... |
Why the U.K. must break
with the American crazies
by Anatole Kaletsky, The Times of London [UK]
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Excerpt: I say this with growing despair, because I too have returned from a fact-finding tour, to America. Viewed from across the Atlantic it is clear that the parochial British obsession with WMD and "sexed-up dossiers" bears no relationship to the catastrophes now unfolding in the Middle East and beyond -- not only in Iraq, but also in Gaza, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and soon maybe Syria, Iran and Pakistan. What people are talking about in America is not whether the invasion of Iraq was legally or morally justified but why it went so disastrously wrong and whether the same blundering fanatics will launch another catastrophic military adventure, most likely a bombing campaign against Iran, to distract attention from failure in Iraq. After all, the neoconservative ideologues who still run the Bush Administration have nothing left to lose politically -- and in their fevered imaginations they still think they could inflict military defeat on the "Islamofascists" in what they now see as an even greater historical confrontation than the Cold War. |
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Iran -- Run-up to the next war:
Attack on Iran would be "madness", says UN's International Atomic Energy Agency chief| |
Excerpt: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency cautioned on Thursday that an attack on Iran over its refusal to freeze programs that could make nuclear weapons would be "an act of madness," in indirect warnings to the United States and Israel. |
Cheney's office argues for war on Iran| |
Excerpt: A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran's nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.
The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney's office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Comment: In the World War III of Cheney's dreams, all of the Middle East will get "the Baghdad treatment." But don't worry, says the maniac, there won't be any "blowback" from that scenario... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Might be necessary to attack Iran, says Sen Clinton| |
Excerpt: Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it might be necessary for America to confront Iran militarily, addressing that possibility more directly than any of the other presidential candidates who spoke this week to the National Jewish Democratic Council. |
State Dept nut-job says Iran is arming Taliban| |
Excerpt: Afghanistan's defense minister on Thursday dismissed claims by a top U.S. State Department official that there was ''irrefutable evidence'' that the Iranian government was providing arms to Taliban rebels. On Wednesday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Paris that Tehran was directly supplying weapons to the Taliban. He told CNN there was ''irrefutable evidence'' that arms shipments were coming from Iran's government. The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion, but stressed that the United States has proof that weapons from Iran were reaching Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Comment: Saying that weapons from country X are ending up in country Y is in no way proof that the government of country X is sending them there, you yahoos. And Iranians sure are busy: "supplying weapons" to Iraq insurgents, "supplying weapons" to Taliban insurgents, and pulling within weeks of developing nuclear weapons that experts said would take them at least ten years to put together. Plus, Iran is causing all the global warming, they're the ones who kidnapped that cute little blonde girl on vacation, and it's their fault that Jericho got cancelled. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Kooky former Ambassador John Bolton: Attack on Iran "almost seems imperative"| |
Excerpt: Bolton was ostensibly on the show to discuss the Palestinian unrest. But, as in his two prior appearances on Hannity & Colmes, Bolton used that issue as an excuse to drum up war fever against Iran. Rather than consider what options the US might be able to play in quelling the violence, Bolton wasted little time looking for opportunities to exploit it. He quickly told Alan Colmes, who hosted the first part of the interview, "The real issue is did Hamas decide to do this on its own or did some outside force like Iran have something to do with it?" |
US government claims China is supplying arms to terrorists through Iran| |
Excerpt: New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.
U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports.
Comment: This report is from the Washington Times, a right-wing nut newspaper that often serves as the Bush-Cheney's Pravda. So it's almost certainly bullsh*t, and we've included it here solely to inoculate you from what might be the next propaganda virus. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
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After four years of occupation and months of "surge" about 40% of Baghdad is under control| |
Excerpt: Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno ... said there was a long way to go in retaking the city from Shiite Muslim militias, Sunni Arab insurgents and al-Qaida terrorists. He said only about "40 percent is really very safe on a routine basis" -- with about 30 percent lacking control and a further 30 percent suffering "a high level of violence." |
American mercenaries increasingly involved in Iraqi hostilities| |
Excerpt: US private security companies are getting increasingly involved in military action in Iraq, fighting insurgents, enduring attacks and taking hundreds of casualties that have been sometimes concealed, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
Citing unnamed US and Iraqi officials and company representatives, the newspaper said that while the military has built up troops in Baghdad, the security companies, funded by billions of dollars in US military and State Department contracts, have been engaged in a parallel surge. |
Torture and secret prisons -- America's most famous export
Nuremberg prosecutor says he's aghast at Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: "I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters
in a telephone interview.
"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." |
US interrogates terror suspects in Ethiopian jails| |
Excerpt: The CIA's system of unlawful kidnappings of terrorist suspects known as "extraordinary renditions" appears to have been extended to the Horn of Africa. New cases have emerged of the transfer of terror suspects to prisons in third countries, where they have been questioned and allegedly mistreated -- this time in East Africa. In total more than 100 terror suspects are thought to have been arrested in Somalia and Kenya and transferred to Ethiopia to face interrogation by US officials. |
An innocent man's journey through four prisons in three countries over two years| |
Excerpt: When the questions were over, they locked him in a concrete room for 10 days. The room was three feet long and one and a half feet wide and insufferably hot. He wore iron handcuffs. It was impossible to stand up or move about. "All my thoughts were about how my life was going to end," he says. |
Evidence keeps piling up: Abu Ghraib-esque torture was officially sanctioned| |
Excerpt: A recently retired CIA officer, who served more than fifteen years in the clandestine service, told me that the task-force teams "had full authority to whack -- to go in and conduct 'executive action,' " the phrase for political assassination. "It was surrealistic what these guys were doing," the retired operative added. "They were running around the world without clearing their operations with the ambassador or the chief of station." |
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Judge says Bush will have to pardon Libby within six to eight weeks| |
Excerpt: A federal judge Thursday ordered Lewis "Scooter" Libby to report to prison within weeks to begin serving a 30-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about his role in disclosing a covert CIA officer's identity to the media.
In ruling that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff must begin his prison term, probably within six to eight weeks, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected defense attorneys' request to allow Libby to remain free while they appeal his conviction for perjury and obstructing justice. |
West Virginia professor thinks he's found cause and cure for honeybee colony collapse| |
Excerpt: Amrine has worked with beekeepers across the country and in Europe. In 2006, he was named Researcher of the Year by Florida State Beekeepers for the help he gave some members of the group. "Every time we went to Florida, we got at least a 93 percent kill of mites," Amrine said. "The beekeepers were amazed to see how well this worked. They've been fighting the mites and Colony Collapse Disorder for the past several years." |
ACLU sues over deportation of mentally disabled brown-skinned U.S. citizen| |
Excerpt: The family of a mentally disabled man who was recently deported to Mexico sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Monday, claiming the agencies mistakenly removed an American citizen and that the U.S. government should help find him.
The family said it has been searching for Pedro Guzman in Tijuana for a month, and fears that he's living in the streets or possibly worse.
"My worst fear is that he is no longer living," said Guzman's brother, Michael Guzman. "He doesn't know how to read. He often can't remember the family phone number. He even gets lost if he gets off the main street in Lancaster."
It all began when ... Guzman, a resident of the desert city of Lancaster, was sentenced April 19 to 120 days in jail for a misdemeanor trespassing violation, according to the suit filed in federal court.
At the Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles, he was asked about his immigration status and responded that he was born in California, according to the suit.
Sometime after that, the Sheriff's Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement for deportation, according to the suit. |
Crooked Alaska Senator diverts $10-million to buddies in Florida| |
Excerpt: The reason emerged last week: Published reports disclosed that a Michigan builder who threw a fundraiser for [Alaska Senator Don] Young in Florida two years ago owns undeveloped land that would become a lot more valuable if Coconut Road were extended and connected to the interstate. |
Senators want DoD to explain Web limits| |
Excerpt: A key Senate committee wants a full explanation by Sept. 1 about why Internet access has been limited for deployed troops, including to such popular Web sites as MySpace and YouTube.
The Senate Armed Services Committee did not, however, go so far as to order Internet access restored. |
Turks setting up "buffer zone" in Kurdish Iraq| |
Excerpt: The United States signaled on Thursday that it did not back Turkish intentions to set up a narrow buffer zone inside Iraq to bolster defenses against infiltration into Turkey by terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but U.S. remarks fell short of an outright rejection of the idea. ...
"Temporary use of a narrow strip as a buffer zone should never be considered as invasion of Iraqi territory," said one military official. |
Head of Lieberman's personal political party asks Lieberman to resign| |
Excerpt: Connecticut for Lieberman Party Chairman John Orman called Tuesday for Sen. Joe Lieberman to resign, saying his advocacy of a military strike against Iran could explode into a global conflict.
"He has crossed the line," said Orman, a professor of politics at Fairfield University. "His unilateral warmongering could lead to a new World War III." |
Los Alamos Lab managers accused of security breach| |
Excerpt: Officials with the contractor that runs Los Alamos National Laboratory sent top-secret data regarding nuclear weapons through open e-mail networks, the latest potentially dangerous security breach to come to light at the birthplace of the atomic bomb, two congressmen said.
Comment: Of course, this is the same thing the Bush-Cheney White House routinely did -- sending email through non-secure networks owned by Republican operatives, instead of through presumably better-shielded servers on the official networks the law requires them to use. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Secret UN report condemns US for Middle East failures| |
Excerpt: The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummeled into submission" the UN's role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report. |
Militarized police crackdown in Detroit includes tanks, BATF; U.S. Marshals; National Guard ...| |
Excerpt: Officers from 21 agencies today are wrapping up Operation Eight Mile, a three-day crackdown on drugs, prostitution and other crimes in communities bordering the Eight Mile corridor from Harper Woods to Farmington Hills. ...
Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans['s] department coordinated the effort. ... Other departments include Macomb and Oakland Sheriff's departments; Detroit and State Police; officers from Harper Woods, Eastpointe, the five Grosse Pointe departments, Warren, Roseville, Hazel Park, Ferndale, Oak Park, Southfield, Livonia, Redford and Farmington Hills; prosecutors from the three counties; agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the U.S. Marshal; the state Department of Corrections; and National Guard also are in the task force. ...
Macomb County Sheriff Mark A. Hackel said the public will see more of these collaborative police efforts in the future.
"Instead of just doing it one week out of the year, you are going to see it on a more continuous basis throughout the year," Hackel said. |
ACLU presses case to unseal Bush papers| |
Excerpt: The
American Civil Liberties Union renewed its challenge Thursday against the Bush administration's filing of secret materials to a federal appeals court that will rule on its warrantless surveillance program. The government has filed the papers with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the ACLU wants those documents unsealed. |
Wikipedia entry for Republican 'voter fraud' founder scrubbed| |
Excerpt: Mark F. "Thor" Hearne must really want to hide something about his discredited past as the front man for the GOP front group calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR).
In the latest chapter of a string of attempts by Hearne to cleanse his public record as lead snake-oil salesman of the mysteriously-funded "non-partisan" group that he founded to push propaganda about a massive (if non-existent) Democratic 'voter fraud' epidemic, it seems his Wikipedia page has been expurgated of all references to the ACVR. |
Official 2008 Olympics merchandise made by child labor| |
Excerpt: The report by the Playfair Alliance, released in London, said Chinese children as young as 12 were involved in packaging licensed stationery products for next year's games at a factory in southern China. The Playfair Alliance researched working conditions at four factories in southern China making 2008 Olympic bags, headgear, stationery and other products. Researchers found some of the workers earned half the legal minimum wage in China and were made to work up to 15 hours per day, seven days a week. |
Half a million names on FBI's "terror watch" list| |
Excerpt: A spokesman for the interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which maintains the government's list of all suspected terrorists with links to international organizations, said they had 465,000 names covering 350,000 individuals. Many names are different versions of the same identity -- "Usama bin Laden" and "Osama bin Laden" for the al Qaeda chief, for example.
In addition to the NCTC list, the FBI keeps a list of U.S. persons who are believed to be domestic terrorists -- abortion clinic bombers, for example, or firebombing environmental extremists, who have no known tie to an international terrorist group.
Comment: I grow weary of being lied to and spied upon, and to tell the truth (a rare commodity these days) I doubt there are fifty people in America who fit the popular definition of 'terrorist', and I'll wager 45 of them are pathetic sad sack dim bulb daydreamers -- like the JFK jerks, the Sears Tower twits, and most of America's highly-publicized "terrorist" arrests. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
News from America's very bestest ally, Israel:
Israel plans attack on Gaza| |
Excerpt: Israel's new defense minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there. According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas's military capability in days. |
U.N. envoy: Anti-Hamas rhetoric undermines democracy| |
Excerpt: Alvaro de Soto, the just-retired UN coordinator for the Middle East, has warned that international hostility to the Palestinian Hamas movement, now fighting in the bitterly escalating civil conflict in Gaza, could have grave consequences by persuading millions of Muslims that democratic methods do not work.
The Peruvian diplomat's sensational valedictory dispatch, written last month and published exclusively in the Guardian [PDF], traced increasingly violent responses to the victory of the Islamist group in the Palestinian elections in January 2006. |
Gay Pride banned in Israel| |
Excerpt: The Knesset approved Wednesday in a first reading two bills aimed at preventing the gay pride parade from taking place in Jerusalem, and in any other place in the country. |
Arms an increasingly important Israeli export| |
Excerpt: Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security" sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems--precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. |
Hamas offers instant amnesty to Fatah leaders| |
Excerpt: On its first day of full rule in Gaza, the Islamic militant Hamas on Friday granted amnesty to Fatah leaders, signaling that it seeks conciliation with the defeated forces of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Many had feared more bloodshed, particularly after victorious Hamas gunmen executed several Fatah fighters in the streets gangland-style on Thursday, in the final phase of the decisive five-day battle over Gaza. |
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Top Georgia court will hear case of teen imprisoned for 10 years for consensual sex| |
Excerpt: Georgia's Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear the state's arguments for keeping in prison a man who had consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. The attorney general later said the man's release could open the floodgates for hundreds of incarcerated child molesters looking for a way out.
Attorney General Thurbert Baker has caught heat for appealing a state judge's decision to void Genarlow Wilson's 10-year sentence, but he said at a news conference Thursday that he has no choice under the law. The state Superior Court had no authority to reduce or modify the trial court's sentence, he said.
Comment: What an idiotic waste of taxpayer's money! There is no principle of justice at stake. Perhaps it boils down to racial bigotry.
A ten year jail sentence for a blo*w-j*b is revised to "just" two years, but he's still in jail. The kid has his own website: .
SirJ PERMANENT LINK |
Chief of National Hurricane Center in hot water for truth-telling| |
Excerpt: In recent interviews with the Miami Herald and other media, [director of the National Hurricane Center Bill] Proenza has strongly criticized leaders of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for spending millions of dollars on a public-relations campaign while hurricane forecasters deal with budget shortfalls. |
U.S. contractors thrive in Colombia| |
Excerpt: U.S. defense contractors are receiving nearly half the money allotted by Washington to fight cocaine trafficking and leftist rebels in Colombia, throwing into doubt their mission to train Colombians to replace them. |
Fox "News" barely covers Iraq war| |
Excerpt: Fox spent half as much time covering the Iraq war as did MSNBC during the first three months of the year and considerably less than did CNN, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The Iraq war occupied 20 percent of CNN's daytime news hole and 18 percent of MSNBC's. On Fox, the war was talked about only 6 percent of the time. Another story that has reflected poorly on the Bush administration, the controversy over US attorney firings, also received more attention on MSNBC (8 percent of the news hole) and CNN (4 percent) than on Fox (2 percent), the Project for Excellence in Journalism found.
Comment: It never hurts to state the obvious: Fox News ain't news, it's Fox Propaganda. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Cunningham financier admits role in scandal| |
Excerpt: A New York financier has admitted playing a key role in the scandal that brought down former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, according to a guilty plea unsealed this week.
Thomas Kontogiannis said he helped finance the purchase of Cunningham's $2.5 million house in Rancho Santa Fe, in a deal that evolved from two military contractors' alleged plans to bribe the congressman. |
Inane ID requirements worry federal workers| |
Excerpt: Workers are voicing such fears as the federal government begins phasing in a new ID badge system designed to increase security at federal facilities, say officials at two unions that are considering filing challenges to the system.
One of the chief concerns, union officials say, is that sensitive personal information could become public as a result of online questionnaires that workers must fill out before they qualify for new "smart card" badges that eventually will be required to enter their workplaces. The questionnaires, which ask for names of workers' friends and neighbors, also in some cases ask workers to sign release forms allowing investigators to get access to their financial and medical histories. |
New Orleans turns to international aid| |
Excerpt: The cash-strapped city of New Orleans is turning to foreign countries for help to rebuild as federal hurricane-recovery dollars remain slow to flow.
Kenya Smith, director of intergovernmental relations for Mayor Ray Nagin, said city leaders are talking with more than five countries. He wouldn't identify the countries, saying discussions were in the early stages. But he said the city is "very serious" about pursuing foreign help. |
Judge OKs lawsuit against Ashcroft and others over Sept 11 abuse case| |
Excerpt: A Pakistani man who says he was abused in detention after the September 11 attacks can name the
FBI director and a former U.S. attorney general in his lawsuit against the government, an appeals court ruled on Thursday.
Javaid Iqbal, a Muslim, was held for more than a year at a Brooklyn detention center after the September 11 attacks. He, along with hundreds of Muslims and Arabs sued the U.S. government, claiming they were abused and held for no legitimate reason. |
Bush administration says bloggers aren't journalists, deserve no confidentiality| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration on Thursday blasted a congressional proposal that would shield a broad swath of news gatherers, including some bloggers, from revealing their confidential sources. |
Informant in wildly overhyped "JFK terror plot" is a crack dealer| |
Excerpt: The government informant who infiltrated a terrorist plot to blow up Kennedy Airport is a former crack dealer who has been quick to cut deals with authorities, according to sources and court records. |
Vatican calls for Catholics to shun Amnesty International over support of abortion| |
Excerpt: The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion, it was reported last night. |
Yes Men propose fuel from human flesh| |
Excerpt: The fake speech, delivered by 'Shepard Wolff' (aka Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), unveiled a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum.
'We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant', said 'Mr Wolff' as he showed 3D animations of human flesh being rendered into the fuel. |
Faced with law-breaking Bush official, GOP plays the race card| |
Excerpt: In a hearing Wednesday examining the findings that Bush appointee Lurita Doan of the General Services Administration appeared to violate the Hatch Act by politicking in a federal workplace, several Republican Congressmen played the race card. On a number of occasions, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led his colleagues in accusing their Democratic counterparts of targeting Doan because she was a black woman and a Republican.
"You're an African-American Republican so you've got a big bull's eye on you," Davis, the former chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said to Administrator Doan at one stage. |
ACLU honors five Americans who spoke against PATRIOT Act abuses| |
Excerpt: Representatives of Library Connection in Connecticut -- Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, George Christian and Janet Nocek -- and a "John Doe" ISP received National Security Letters (NSLs) from the FBI but were gagged from revealing that the FBI had sought information from them. Instead of complying with the broad requests, which were issued without any judicial oversight, the librarians and John Doe joined the ACLU in separate legal challenges. The FBI has since dropped its gag order on the librarians, but continues to prevent the New York "John Doe" from speaking publicly. |
Duke Prosecutor Nifong disbarred in ethics case| |
Excerpt: Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar for breaking rules of professional conduct while handling rape allegations against Duke University lacrosse players.
Comment: Surely there's a more harsh penalty available for what appears to be a flagrant abuse of governmental power. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Parents get two years in prison for allowing underage drinking| |
Comment: This mom served beer at her son's 16th birthday party. She collected car keys to be safe, and no one was over the legal limit for intoxication. Now she'll spend over *two years* in prison because the judge (running for re-election) has "seen too many photographs of teenagers being killed in car wrecks because of drinking and driving". robinhd PERMANENT LINK |
Critic of Israel's policies denied university tenure| |
Excerpt: In Chicago, students and faculty at DePaul University are taking action over an academic freedom controversy that is drawing increasing national attention. Last week the university announced it would deny tenure to Norman Finkelstein, one of the most prominent critics of the Israeli government in American academia. The political science department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recommended tenure for Finkelstein, but the college's dean and the University Board on Promotion and Tenure recommended against it.
In another controversial move, DePaul also said it was denying tenure to professor Mehrene Larudee, who was set to become chair of her department. Larudee had the unanimous support of her department, the college personnel committee and the Dean. Critics say she was targeted because she supported Finkelstein's case.
More than fifty people turned out for a demonstration in support of the two professors on Wednesday. Student supporters have held a twenty-four hour sit in at the DePaul president's office. Meanwhile the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting DePaul's faculty association is considering taking votes of no confidence in the school president and other administrators in light of the tenure denials.
Comment: I've never quite understood the hubbub over 'tenure'. A mechanic, an editor, a medic, a taxi driver, a sausage maker, an office worker, on and on, anyone with a job outside of so-called academia who makes waves at work, gets passed over for promotion, or gets fired. That's America.
Dershowitz is a dipsh*t, of course, and I'm sorry Finkelstein didn't get his promotion, but on the present-day scale of outrages in America, this just doesn't register for me. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
'Creation museum' sued by fellow creationists| |
Excerpt: There is trouble in paradise, with a fight of biblical proportions raging between a Kentucky-based creationist group and the Australian group from which it sprang. ...
Both groups believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, that the earth and everything else was created in six days around 6,000 years ago.
But in the last several years, they have increasingly feuded about finances and power. |
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Lightning round news
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Soldier who helped capture Saddam is ignored by VA
God said Pi = 3; Stand by your beliefs, dammit
Jolie bans Fox News from movie premiere
Iraqi Parliament speaker ousted over alleged assault
Death penalty for porn in Iran
Billy Graham's wife is buried -- in a plain, plywood casket made by a convicted murderer
Salman Rushdie is Sir Salman now, and Iran cries "Islamophobia"
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