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No challenges to "faith-based" government allowed, says Supreme Court| |
Excerpt: Taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious groups get federal funds for social programs, the US Supreme Court says.
The justices ruled by 5-4 that ... Freedom From Religion Foundation had no legal right to bring the case. The group had objected to government conferences held to encourage religious groups to apply for federal grants.
Supreme Court strikes down free speech for students
while upholding First Amendment rights for corporations
Excerpt: The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled against an Alaskan high school student who unfurled a banner that said "bong hits for Jesus" on it, while on his own personal time.
They also overturned a ban on corporate sponsored political ads, saying ... "We give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship."
Comment: So if a corporation wanted to PAY a teenager to stand outside a school holding up a sign saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," that would presumably be fine. That was this kid's big mistake -- not seeking out corporate sponsorship before he tried to exercise his fundamental rights. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Supreme Court reverses Brown v. Board of Education
Excerpt: The nation's schools, which have become increasingly segregated in recent decades, are likely to become even more racially divided as a result of this week's Supreme Court decision curtailing the use of race in school integration plans, attorneys and educational experts said yesterday. The most effective way to achieve racial diversity, is by taking race into account, most experts agree, and they fear that the court's ruling will accelerate the re-segregation of American schools that has been going on for decades.
New Supreme Court majority hates human rights
Excerpt: Way too many folks rolled over when John Roberts and Sam Alito were nominated for the Supreme Court. And now we're seeing the consequences. ...
The conservative activists on the Supreme Court decreed in a series of 5-4 decisions:
• Individuals, who believe their tax dollars are being unconstitutionally misused by the White House to promote religious beliefs, aren't allowed to enter a courthouse to make their case.
• The Environmental Protection Agency can avoid its responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act, even though it's a law reflecting the public will as passed by the democratically-elected Congress.
• Corporations can once again use their checkbooks to flood the public airwaves with political ads during election season, again overruling Congress. |
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It's critical to recognize these decisions -- along with earlier decisions to end privacy between a woman and her doctor, and to make it harder to challenge pay discrimination -- are part of a pattern.
Because the battle for the Supreme Court is not over. As Justice Anthony Kennedy remains a swing vote, conservative activists do not have complete control. Yet. |
Beavis and Butthead in London jihad| |
Excerpt: To keep the billions rolling in, they've got to produce a terrorist every now and then. Only real terrorists are hard to come by, so clowns and stooges with harebrained schemes end up doing bin Laden's perp walk periodically.
Today we have news from London, where a "big [explosive] device" was discovered inside a parked car near Piccadilly Circus. The device consisted of petrol, propane gas cylinders, and nails. The car containing it had been abandoned after its driver was observed piloting it erratically, crashing it, then running off, like a true professional. Ambulance workers called to assist nearby noticed what they initially thought was smoke inside the car, but which likely was petrol vapor, and contacted police.
Comment: Near as I can figure, all this hype is about a poorly-misconstructed Molotov cocktail. It deserves mention in the local section of the London news, but it's just hysterical fearmongering to pretend that this is newsworthy anywhere outside of England. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush plays al Qaida card to
bolster support for Iraq policy| |
Excerpt: Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.
The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues. ...
U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides. |
Judge doubles sentence for
Interior Dept. official in Abramoff case| |
Excerpt: A federal judge chastised the Interior Department's former No. 2 official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and making excuses about it in court.
J. Steven Griles was the department's deputy secretary and is the highest administration official sentenced in the probe. He pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, but on Tuesday his lawyers tried to deflect blame for his faulty testimony.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle was not pleased. "Even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," she told Griles before doubling the five-month prison term he and prosecutors had agreed on. |
White House and Vice President's office
subpoenaed over warrantless eavesdropping| |
Excerpt: A Senate chairman heading an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program subpoenaed documents on Wednesday from the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's office, the National Security Council and Justice Department.
Setting up a possible courtroom showdown, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy gave the administration until July 18 to turn over specified materials that the White House last week declared off limits and highly classified.
Bush-Cheney, of course,
will ignore subpoenas
Excerpt: Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. The White House made clear neither one would testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas. |
Republicans use Justice Department
to subvert justice
Purged U.S. attorney says
Gonzales pushed death penalty| |
Excerpt: Paul K. Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, told members of Congress yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been overzealous in ordering federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, including in an Arizona murder case in which no body had been recovered.
Justice Department officials had branded Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, disloyal because he opposed the death penalty in that case. But Charlton testified yesterday that Gonzales has been so eager to expand the use of capital punishment that the attorney general has been inattentive to the quality of evidence in some cases -- or the views of the prosecutors most familiar with them. |
Another lawyer in Attorney firings flap quits| |
Excerpt: A Justice Department official who was considered as a possible replacement for one of several fired U.S. attorneys announced her resignation Friday. |
It's about suppressing democracy | |
Excerpt: Thanks to rigorous work by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, it is clear that the US. Attorney scandal -- as outrageous as it is on its own -- is part of a much broader effort by the Bush Administration to use government institutions for partisan gain.
In their report -- Using Justice to Suppress the Vote -- the two pro-democracy, pro-civil rights organizations demonstrate that the Administration used federal agencies charged with protecting voters' rights to promote voter suppression, influence voting rules, and gain advantage in battleground states. This was achieved through a four-pronged strategy: dismantling the infrastructure at the Department of Justice; fomenting a fear of rampant voter fraud (which has subsequently been disproved -- it actually occurs "statistically ... about as often as death by lightning strike"); politically motivated prosecutions; and restricting registration and voting. |
Justice Department lies, whitewashes administration's failure to comply with FOIA| |
Excerpt: In its June 2007 report, the DoJ proclaimed "diligent and measurable progress" in FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] compliance across the federal government. FOIA activists, however, claim the DoJ has wildly overstated its success, as the new DoJ report distorts and misleads on key benchmarks. |
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Stinky badges # 61:
Cop gets 90 days in jail for killing
un-armed, mentally disabled man| |
Excerpt: A former state trooper was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in jail for shooting to death an unarmed, mentally disabled man he mistook for a fugitive. |
NYPD beats the crap out of
civil rights attorney and his wife| |
Excerpt: City and state officials are denouncing the arrests of a civil rights attorney and his wife after the couple intervened when, they said, police beat a handcuffed teen in central Brooklyn.
Michael Warren, who once represented Tupac Shakur and the teens charged in the Central Park jogger case, and his wife, Evelyn, said a police supervisor also beat them Thursday after kicking the subdued teen during his arrest on suspicion of car theft.
The couple said that six officers beat the teen "like a rag doll." A sergeant turned on the couple when they stopped their car to ask police what they were doing, Warren said. |
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| COMMENTARY
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America, your president is
about to launch World War III
by The Canadian, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: When the Roman Empire was collapsing, the Emperor decided to avert the Mobs' attention by holding a year's worth of fantastic games and slaughters in the Coliseum. Meanwhile the Barbarians were on the border.
Responses: I said, "War is close"
by The Canadian, Unknown News
Excerpt: If America were to attack Iran, the use of ground forces would be limited to the capture of strategic oil facilities, both on land and off-shore. (Province of Khuzestan has 90% of oil reserves and is close to the Iraq border nearest the Iraqi city of Bazra).
I suggest an attack would be primarily executed via air and seaborn assault. |
The way forward in Iraq is back
by Hazel Burke, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Now, lest you assert that I offer no practical suggestions, only negatives, I provide these concrete steps that America could take to create peace and stability in the world, which would thus help keep oil prices low and help Israel defend its borders:
1) We need to put G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and high members of their administration on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, with the trials to be held under international jurisdiction at the Hague. ... |
Stepford witnesses
by Kevin Good, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Anticipating Congressional investigation of this Administration's shenanigans a 'top secret' no bid contract was awarded to major DoD contractors to develop the 'Stepford Witness'. These robots would testify on behalf of administration officials and if necessary be destroyed and replaced. |
As "W" remains blissfully unaware ...
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Voters believed they were sending Democrats to power in 2006 to end the Iraq War, but the message the Dems received was Vindication of their political posturing. Barack Obama even stated yesterday that impeachment must be reserved for grave offenses, so therefore he would not support impeachment of Bush-Cheney. What, one wonders, would qualify as "grave"? And if not now, when? |
Congress will pass this
bogus immigration bill
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The Bush regime is dedicated to the dismantling of America as a sovereign, independent nation. They are actively undermining the will of the people, the threat of which is now becoming obvious to even some of the biggest Kool-Aid drinkers in the Republican Party. |
The quiet Colin Powell
by Marvin A., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The word that comes to mind when I think of Colin Powell is "coward." Not in the usual, schoolyard taunt sense of the word, but in it's most literal, meaningful sense. |
It’s two minutes to midnight
and my eye is twitching again
by JS Magruder, Why Not Resist?
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Excerpt: From around 1981-1986 I had an uncontrollable eye twitch that would come and go in concert with the risk of nuclear war. I'm not making this up. After Reagan made his quip about "We start bombing in five minutes", I twitched for hours nonstop until it was clear he was joking. I remember watching The Day After, and my eye wouldn't stop for days. The twitch was clearly a manifestation of stress, yet only in response to things out of my control -- I suffered not a single twitch through deaths, divorce, serious illness -- but plant the suggestion of nukes in my head and off goes my eye. ...
Anyway. It's been years, (well, since around 1986) and my eye has largely left me alone, until recently. For the past week my twitchy eye has been back in full force. |
Just sick and tired of being sick and tired
by A Proud Liberal
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Excerpt: Barack and Hillary only voted against the bill after its passage was assured. The fix was in and the moneymakers are still making it hand over fist. The contractors of death and destruction continue to make magnitudes of money more than the average grunt on the front line. |
Iraq and American death count to 2017
by Chycho
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Excerpt: The coalition death estimates in Figure 1 were obtained using simple linear extrapolation from the available data at Iraq Coalition Body Count. The Iraq civilian death estimates were obtained from the 2006 Lancet report and an approximation for the total number of deaths expected for 2007, based on the same monthly approximations as the coalition casualties.
The numbers from this estimate are devastating. It is expected that over 8 million Iraqi civilians and well over 27 thousand coalition troops will be dead by March 2017. The monthly death rate for coalition troops will increase to approximately 300, while Iraq's monthly death rate will increase to close to 95 thousand, which is frighteningly close to the more than 130,000 deaths per month witnessed in Rwanda in 1994. ... These numbers do not included the expected death toll due to Depleted Uranium poisoning.
Comment: And that's optimistically excluding the dead from the other wars America will start between now and then. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush wants Iraq to be just like Israel/Palestine
by Juan Cole, Informed Consent
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Excerpt: "In Israel," Bush said, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."
These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal.
The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots. It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch Indonesia -- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the region? |
Washington Post weeps for Scooter Libby
by Eric Boehlert, Media Matters
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Excerpt: If it weren't for the soothing tones of the Washington Post's opinion pages, I'm not sure how I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby would sustain himself in his hour of need. The paper's editorialists have been instrumental in bucking Libby up, reassuring him time and again that his conviction in connection with the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation was a wild miscarriage of justice and the result of an out-of-control prosecutor.
Post columnist Richard Cohen became the latest to rush to Libby's wounded side, calming the convicted felon, insisting he had been hit by a "runaway train," engineered by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. |
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Pelosi whines, "I'm not happy with Congress, either"| |
Comment: Instead of promising many accomplishments and a big change in direction for Congress, Pelosi should have focused on accomplishing one thing: Ending the Iraq War.
Instead, she and her buddies have infuriated people by making meager efforts to pass numerous bills, as if, for example, the entire country is waiting breathlessly for the Feds to spend more money on stem cell research...
Mr. Chuckles PERMANENT LINK |
The rightwing war on women
Louisiana lawmakers approve abortion ban| |
Excerpt: The 99-1 vote sends Senate Bill 161, sponsored by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, to a compromise committee of representatives and senators to settle minor differences over House language and the version the Senate adopted unanimously earlier this session. The bill would ban the procedure called "partial-birth abortion" by opponents and medically known medically as "intact dilation and evacuation." |
New Hampshire repeals parental notice of abortion| |
Excerpt: Gov. John Lynch signed legislation Friday that made New Hampshire the first state to repeal a law requiring a parent be notified before a minor received an abortion. The 2003 law never took effect because of a court challenge, and the repeal took effect immediately.
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Anti-abortion terrorist gets five years, and A.P. won't call it terrorism| |
Excerpt: David McMenemy, 46, pleaded guilty in January to arson against a business affecting interstate commerce. He could have been sentenced up to 20 years in prison.
Police said McMenemy drove to Davenport and crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Health Care Center lobby at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 11. He then lit a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline on fire, walked away from his car and surrendered to firefighters. |
Twenty arrests in abortion raid| |
Excerpt: Police on Saturday night arrested 20 people, including 14 women who had their babies aborted, in a raid conducted on an abortion clinic in San Andres Bukid, Manila, ABS-CBN News reported.
Members of the Manila Police District Station 6 raided an apartment on Coral Street in San Andres Bukid after a receiving a tip that the place had been turned into an abortion clinic. |
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Blair is named Mideast Envoy| |
Excerpt: In a joint announcement on Wednesday, the US, UN, EU and Russia confirmed that Mr Blair would be adopting this role with immediate effect, and it emerged that his first trip would be to Ramallah next month. Ladies and gentlemen, the Quartet just acquired a fifth horseman.
Olmert calls outgoing British PM Tony Blair 'a true friend of Israel'
Excerpt: Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair was "a true friend of the State of Israel", Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert said in a telephone call to the British politician on the eve of his leaving 10 Downing Street after ten years in office.
An Israeli government statement released overnight said Olmert congratulated Blair on the occasion, and said that if he was appointed envoy of the Middle East Quartet (the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations), Israel would "cooperate with him to the fullest." |
Cover-up alleged in 1988 Lockerbie Pan Am bombing| |
Excerpt: ALLEGATIONS that police plotted to mislead the original inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing, resulting in a wrongful conviction, have been passed to official investigators, it is understood.
The file being considered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission claims evidence gathered at the scene of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people, was lost or destroyed. |
Number of Americans who believe Saddam-9/11 tie rises to 41 percent| |
Excerpt: A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events.
Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"
That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004.
Comment: Bush and Cheney tell lies. And the media helps them lie, by echoing the lies ad nauseum, unchallenged, on TV and radio clips and in 'news' articles. Ipso facto pepto bismo, huge swaths of the public believe the lies, as seen on TV, as read in their newspapers, and CNN and the Los Angeles Times and every media outlet that enables the liars is complicit in the treason. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
U.S. killing more Afghan civilians than Taliban| |
Excerpt: While militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, Western forces killed 203, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and international officials. The U.S.-led coalition suggested that many civilians reportedly killed by international troops may in fact have been killed by insurgents. |
Republican Senators call for Iraq withdrawal| |
Excerpt: Ohio's George Voinovich ... may have the reputation of a maverick on some foreign policy issues, but he has voted with the president on Iraq. His Tuesday letter to President Bush, calling for withdrawal planning, and an accompanying policy paper, stress something that has been lacking: a longer-term view of the costs of the war and the peril of drift.
This is exactly what the American people had in mind last November, when they gave control of the Senate and House to the Democrats. But the breakthrough moments are coming instead from centrist Republicans ... |
Trashing (or saving?) the planet
House committee votes against raising fuel standards for cars| |
Excerpt: House committee on Thursday approved legislation that would increase the energy efficiency of home appliances and promote plug-in hybrid vehicles, but the measure fell short of a related Senate bill that seeks to increase the fuel economy of cars and trucks.
Speaking at a press briefing to tout the "Energy Independence Day" that the House measure aims to provide to the United States, Pelosi said she backed the Senate's 35 mpg vehicle fuel efficiency requirement.
However, Pelosi would not say whether the stronger CAFE standards would be added to the energy bill next month, when the measure is brought to the House floor for debate.
Comment: In other words, the Dems will pay lip service to doing the right thing ... but when push comes to shove, they will screw over the American people just as much as any Republican would. Not sure if that technically qualifies as "news" anymore. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Mysterious clouds creeping out of the Arctic| |
Excerpt: "It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," said atmospheric scientists James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed." |
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U.S. military makes little effort to find deserters| |
Excerpt: There is no crack team of bounty hunters, no elite military unit whose job is to track them down and bring them in. Despite a rise in desertions from the Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the U.S. military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on. |
Massachusetts begins its odd universal health care| |
Excerpt: Making insurance mandatory -- and more affordable -- for Massachusetts's 6.5 million residents is the centerpiece of a law approved by the legislature last year that civic and business leaders hope will dramatically reduce the ranks of the state's 400,000 uninsured and the number of people who seek costly "uncompensated" care in hospital emergency rooms. |
Wisconsin moves toward universal health care| |
Excerpt: A sweeping universal health care plan that would make Wisconsin's system look more like Canada's than anything in the United States has cleared a major hurdle but its prognosis remains murky. |
FTC says net neutrality isn't needed| |
Excerpt: The report, entitled "Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy," was drafted in response to growing concerns about broadband competitiveness and network neutrality. The FTC intends the report to be consulted as a guideline by policy makers and legislators, but it has no binding force. Nevertheless, the report's findings are yet another sign that US government agencies are not particularly interested in the network neutrality problem right now. In fact, the FTC is essentially saying that they can find no evidence of a problem to begin with. |
American citizen was tortured under Rumsfeld's orders| |
Excerpt: "We know [John Walker Lindh] was tortured," says human-rights attorney Scott Horton. "There's no beating around the bush. This is clarifying that the authority was given at the highest levels for torture to occur. The strong suggestion here is that it's Haynes doing that, and the strong suspicion is that the authority for him to do so comes from the secretary of defense." The further suspicion, according to the Post piece, is that the authority for Rumsfeld's attorney to have authorized the abuse of an American citizen came from Vice President Cheney. |
CIA & Mafia worked together to try to kill Fidel Castro| |
Excerpt: It was certainly a marriage of convenience. After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro -- the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos.
The plot, described in detail in CIA documents released yesterday, involved six poison pills, a bungled wiretapping and CIA operatives working with two mob bosses on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
Comment: Is there any fundamental difference between the CIA and the Mafia? Rebecca PERMANENT LINK
CIA's Strangeloves altered mind of 4-year-old girl
Excerpt: Of all the heinous acts committed by the CIA in the name of national security, these experiments, done on the agency's behalf by prominent psychiatrists on innocent victims -- including children as young as four -- may be the darkest.
"We have no answer to the moral issue," former director Richard Helms infamously said when asked about the nature of the projects. |
Twenty-two Democratic Senators support restoring habeas corpus -- where's the rest?| |
Excerpt: For some reason, standing up for our country's creed can be tough for some politicians, and it will be instructive to see who in the Senate will move to reverse the Bush administration's trampling of our Constitution and who will stand idly by as we lose more of our national identity and witness further erosion of our global reputation.
Comment: There are no words that can do justice to this, but I'll try. Habeas corpus is a basic of human rights, a fact of any civilized society. Politicians who can't find it in their hearts to stand up for habeas corpus aren't playing politics, they're just committing treason. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
News from America's very bestest ally, Israel:
Crossings used to bring aid into Gaza closed due to terror alerts| |
Excerpt: The reason for the closure are attempts by militants to carry out attacks against the facilities at the crossing, including shootings and mortar attacks. Israel said it hoped goods could be transferred via other crossings.
Comment:
And so quietly, without media scrutiny, Israel has closed a crossing used for humanitarian aid to Gaza. We are all supposed to believe that Hamas is doing whatever it can to starve its own people... and all the other lies Israel dishes out..... "Warnings of terror alerts" -- the operative words that give governments all the rights they want these days, no explanation needed... Israel closed one crossing on this totally p.c. basis, and if all remains quiet on the media front, will soon close the other. The media? Hey, "don't ask, don't tell"... E13 PERMANENT LINK |
This is what U.S. aid to Israel looks like| |
Excerpt: Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, on Wednesday in their biggest raid in the Gaza Strip since Hamas Islamists took over the territory two weeks ago, medical workers and residents said |
U.S. Marines to train at new Israeli combat center| |
Excerpt: Here, at Israel's new National Urban Training Center, the Israeli Defense Force's Ground Forces Command is preparing forces to fight in four theaters: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Syria.
Built by the Army Corps of Engineers and funded largely from U.S. military aid, the 7.4-square-mile generic city ... consists of 1,100 basic modules that can be reconfigured by mission planners to represent specific towns. |
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Vote dashes Bush immigration plan| |
Excerpt: President George W Bush's attempts to overhaul the US's immigration laws have collapsed in the Senate, derailing one of his central policy planks.
Senators voted against keeping the bill alive, effectively delaying action on the emotive immigration issue until after the 2008 presidential election. |
Senator says immigration calls crashed Capitol phone system| |
Excerpt: During a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., just said the phone system on Capitol Hill crashed because of all the calls they're receiving about the immigration bill. ...
We're having trouble confirming this report because we keep getting a busy signal when we call the switchboard and other offices at the Capitol. ...
Update at 11:40 a.m. ET: The bill died in the Senate.
Comment: Could it be this easy? Let's start crashing things. :) Sherri B. PERMANENT LINK |
U.S. can't find African nation willing to host military base| |
Excerpt: The Pentagon's plan to create a US military command based in Africa have hit a wall of hostility from governments in the region reluctant to associate themselves with the Bush administration's "war on terror" and fearful of American intervention. Even Morocco, considered Washington's closest north African ally, indicated it did not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.
"We've got a big image problem down there," a state department official admitted. "Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."
Another African worry was that any US facilities could become targets for terrorists, the official said. Economic incentives, including the prospect of hundreds of local jobs, had not proved persuasive. |
Nutrasweet might give you cancer ... and that's fine with the FDA| |
Excerpt: ... The Food and Drug Administration is rejecting calls for a review of the sweetener aspartame despite a new study suggesting links to cancer. The study found that rats eating high doses of aspartame over their lifetime developed a higher likelihood of leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer. Aspartame is widely used in products including diet soft drinks. It was approved in the early 1980s after intense lobbying efforts by Donald Rumsfeld when he worked as CEO for the pharmaceutical company GD Searle. Rumsfeld is said to have engineered the firing of the FDA commissioner who had held up aspartame's release following studies showing possible links to brain cancer. |
11% of Americans "strongly approve" of President Bush's performance| |
Excerpt: On the last day of June, 35% of Americans approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Sixty-three percent (63%) disapprove. Prior to the past six weeks, the President's Job Approval had never dipped below the 35% level in a Rasmussen Reports poll. However, since that time, the President's ratings have fallen as low as 33% and only occasionally blipped above the 35% level (just 6 times in the past 23 days). ...
Today, just 11% strongly approve of the President's performance, the lowest level ever recorded.
Comment: The number of severely deluded (or mentally impaired) Americans is becoming clearer. JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
'Shadow government' of private contractors explodes under Bush| |
Excerpt: A new report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform concludes that, under the Bush administration, the "shadow government of private companies working under federal contract has exploded in size. Between 2000 and 2005, procurement spending increased by over $175 billion dollars, making federal contracts the fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending." |
Wall Street Journal reporters walk out over possible Murdoch takeover| |
Comment: I know, the Wall Street Journal, who cares? So what if a right-wing nut-job wants to take over the right-wing financial paper? But despite an editorial page completely disconnected from reality, the Wall Street Journal also occasionally does some of the best reporting on corporate misdeeds -- they're the ones who uncovered the Enron scandal. If Murdoch does take over the paper, Americans will get even less news about corporations and the economy than we already do. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Russia lays claim to the North Pole -- and all its gas, oil, and diamonds| |
Excerpt: Russian leader Vladimir Putin has made an astonishing bid to grab a vast chunk of the Arctic, giving himself claim to its vast potential oil, gas and mineral wealth. His audacious argument that an underwater Russian ridge is linked to the North Pole is likely to lead to an international outcry.
Comment: Is this really any more outrageous than Bush's edict that America controls all of outer space? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Rove whistleblower's house 'burned down'| |
Excerpt: The response to [Dana] Simpson's affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements -- all of them un-sworn -- from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter. She's been smeared as "crazy" and as a "disgruntled contract bidder." And something nastier: after her intention to speak became known, Simpson's house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled. Clearly, there are some very powerful people in Alabama who feel threatened. Her case starts to sound like a chapter out of John Grisham's book The Pelican Brief. |
House quintuples cashmere and chocolate budget for Cuban dissidents| |
Excerpt: The U.S. Government Accountability Office last year cited lax controls and poor oversight of some of the $73 million provided to U.S. organizations to support Cuban dissidents. Some funding went for coloring books and literature, Godiva chocolates, cashmere sweaters and Nintendo Game Boys.
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11th Congresscritter signs on to Cheney impeachment| |
Excerpt: Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) told Vice President Dick Cheney to "resign or face impeachment" Thursday night as three more House Democrats lent their support to a plan to impeach the vice president. ...
McDermott was one of three House Democrats to come out in favor of impeachment Thursday, along with Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.) and Hank Johnson (Ga.). Including the three lawmakers, seven members in June have shown new support for impeaching Cheney. |
House will probe Cheney involvement in massive fish kill| |
Excerpt: The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago. |
Elizabeth Edwards calls Ann Coulter on Hardball over hate language| |
Excerpt: During an appearance by columnist Ann Coulter on Chris Matthews' MSNBC program "Hardball" today, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Sen. John Edwards, phoned in to ask Coulter to turn away from attacking individuals and using the language of "hate."
Coulter laughed it off and told Edwards that she was just trying to silence her, or even stop writing books. She then attacked her husband for making doing "shyster Las Vegas routine" in front of juries when he was a attorney that won huge damage claims against doctors, "bankrupting" them which meant they could "no longer deliver babies.... Don't talk to me about how to use language."
Comment: If you eliminate all the better Democrats running for President who have no chance at the nomination -- Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel -- and the handful of excellent potential Presidents who aren't running -- Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Al Gore, probably others -- John Edwards might be the best candidate remaining. But his wife would be a better president. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
U.S. hospital, doctor visits, and prescriptions for anti-depressants on the rise| |
Excerpt: Hospital and doctor visits in the United States have surged by 20 percent in the past five years and the most commonly prescribed medications are anti-depressants... |
Republican Doolittle's ex-chief of staff cooperates in influence peddling investigation| |
Excerpt: California Republican Rep. John Doolittle's former chief of staff is providing documents to federal prosecutors investigating Doolittle and his wife in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, the aide's attorney told The Associated Press.
The aide, David Lopez, who was Doolittle's longtime chief of staff until 2005 and continued to work for him as a campaign consultant for about a year after that, has turned over several hundred pages of campaign finance records to the Justice Department under subpoena, his attorney, Bill Portanova, said Monday. |
Microsoft pays bloggers to promote Vista| |
Excerpt: Microsoft has enlisted (paid) a list of spokesbloggers in the technology field to promote their new operating system Vista. The best way to promote a system is to get the well known heads of technology websites to begin posting blogs for them. One of the more well known bloggers that is doing this is Michael Arrington out of TechCrunch that has declined all comments about this. |
Bush lies to high school students visiting White House| |
Excerpt: President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to "violations of the human rights" of terror suspects held by the United States.
The White House said Bush had not expected the letter but took a moment to read it and talk with a young woman who handed it to him. "The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. |
There are more than three stooges (and one of them will be America's next President)
Obama says we mustn't impeach Bush| |
Excerpt: "I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority," he said.
Comment: And we haven't seen any of that? Barack Obama is Joe Lieberman with a better tan -- a Republican to the core. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Mitt Romney drove 12 hours with dog tied to car roof| |
Excerpt: Romney strapped a dog carrier -- with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it -- to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest. |
Giuliani replaces coked-out campaign official with official's racist father| |
Excerpt: First, his state chairman, state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, was suspended from state government and forced to resign his position with the campaign last week after being indicted on federal cocaine charges. Now Giuliani's campaign is taking heat for announcing that Ravenel's father, former US Representative and state senator Arthur Ravenel Jr., would serve as one of his regional chairmen in South Carolina.
Arthur Ravenel has been an outspoken advocate of flying the Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina State House. At a rally for the flag in 2000, he called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the "National Association for Retarded People," local media reported at the time. He later said he misspoke but then apologized to the mentally disabled for comparing them to the NAACP. |
Thompson's ABC Radio commentaries riddled with misinformation| |
Summary: Numerous claims made by the crusty neoconservative actor are neatly debunked, one by one. |
Brownback says God helped him get past his hatred for Bill and Hillary Clinton| |
Excerpt: "I thought, I hate them for what they are doing to the country and I feel justified in hating them for it," he writes. But Brownback says he realized there is never justification for hating someone regardless of their actions. |
Iowa radio ads encourage Gore to run for president| |
Excerpt: The Draft Gore Committee launched its first radio ad today in Iowa. The 30-second ad, dubbed "You Who," will go national in July. It features a chorus of voices seeking Gore's attention and urging him to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
Gore faces public clamor to run for White House
Excerpt: ... But if Mr Gore were to seek the Democrat nomination, 29% of Mrs Clinton's backers would switch their support to him, the poll found. When defections from other candidates are factored in, the man who controversially lost to Mr Bush in the 2000 election takes command of the field, with 32% support.
Comment: We loudly pointed out Gore's shortcomings in 2000, and we haven't forgotten any of them, but there's nobody who has a reasonable shot at the White House who'd be better than Gore.
Run, Al, run. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Mormon church obtained Vietnam draft deferrals for Romney, other missionaries| |
Excerpt: As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960s, Mitt Romney received a deferment from the draft as a Mormon "minister of religion" for the duration of his missionary work in France, which lasted two and a half years. |
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Democrat Kansas Atty Gen files charges against abortion provider| |
Excerpt: A doctor who performs abortions was charged Thursday with violating Kansas law on late-term procedures, a surprise move from a Democratic attorney general who recently unseated a prominent anti-abortion Republican.
Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 misdemeanor counts alleging that Dr. George Tiller, one of the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortions, got second opinions from a doctor who was not financially and legally independent from him, as the law requires. Morrison's predecessor, Phill Kline, had unsuccessfully prosecuted the same doctor for different reasons.
Comment: I'm pro-abortion (not "pro-choice") but this prosecution seems reasonable to me. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
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Lightning round news
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New study shows how often juries get it wrong
U.S. Weekly drops Paris Hilton coverage
MSNBC anchor shreds the latest news of Paris Hilton
L.A. Times wants you to feel sorry for this schmuck
MPAA sues to shut down peer-to-peer sharing search engines
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