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Please call Nancy Pelosi and tell her to
impeach Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, et al: (202) 225-4965.
José Padilla found guilty of watered-down charges| |
Excerpt: Padilla was first detained in 2002 because of much more sensational accusations. The Bush administration portrayed Padilla, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert, as a committed terrorist who was part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the U.S. The administration called his detention an important victory in the war against terrorism, not long after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The charges brought in civilian court in Miami, however, were a pale shadow of those initial claims in part because Padilla, 36, was interrogated about the plot when he was held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years in military custody with no lawyer present and was not read his Miranda rights.
Comment: I always try to give courts the benefit of the doubt, since, after all, I wasn't in the courtroom and didn't hear all the evidence. From what's known of the current management at the Justice Department, however, it's impossible to have any confidence that this was a fair trial.
And from we've read about this case and about José Padilla, there's simply no room for doubt about his mental competence -- he has none. His brain was completely wiped clean by so many months of clearly unConstitutional isolation, interrogation, and (by any reasonable definition) torture.
So the verdict means nothing to me, and I simply don't know whether Padilla is guilty or innocent. And almost certainly, neither does he. I'm certain of just one thing: The monsters who destroyed this American's mind -- and the officials who ordered it -- must be prosecuted. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
How the federal gov't drove an American out of his mind
Excerpt: Padilla was delivered to the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where he was held not only in solitary confinement but as the sole detainee in a high-security wing of the prison. Fifteen other cells sat empty around him.
The purpose of the extraordinary privacy, according to experts familiar with the technique, was to eliminate the possibility of human contact. No voices in the hallway. No conversations with other prisoners. No tapping out messages on the walls. No ability to maintain a sense of human connection, a sense of place or time.
In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone.
Comment: Even if Jose Padilla was guilty of everything Bush and Ashcroft claimed -- and he wasn't -- people who would do this to another human being are a thousand times more dangerous to America than Jose Padilla.
And a government that allows this, encourages this, accepts this, orders this is a tyranny. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Judge orders reporters to stop covering
for Justice Department in anthrax case| |
Excerpt: Five journalists must identify the government officials who leaked them details about a scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks, a federal judge said Monday.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the reporters to cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill, who accused the Justice Department and FBI of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him.
Hatfill's attorneys want the reporters to reveal the identities of law enforcement officials who were cited anonymously in stories about the investigation.
Creating such a [journalistic] privilege in this case would have the "perverse effect" of handicapping a plaintiff whose good name was destroyed by government leaks, Walton said.
Comment: Yes, theoretically, it is really really bad that a court would force a journalist to give up their sources, and there will surely be some hand-wringing over this case by media critics.
But none of the mainstream discussions I've seen about this seem to make what seems to me to be an obvious distinction -- the distinction between a reporter protecting a source because that source is a whistleblower who could face reprisals, and a reporter protecting a source because that source is a powerful person in the government who wants to anonymously spread damaging, even untrue, information.
There is a fundamental difference between protecting the powerless from the powerful, and protecting the powerful's ability to squash the powerless. The laws protecting journalists were never meant to help them collude with the government to go after innocent people.
Once a reporter crosses that line from adversary to accomplice, they should lose the right to keep their sources confidential. At that point, is what they're doing even really journalism anymore? Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Iran -- Run-up to the next war:
White House designates Iranian military a terrorist group| |
Excerpt: The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.
Comment: Because why would a country that's been threatened militarily for years by the most belligerent, out-of-control regime on the planet need to do something as evil and nefarious as have an army? These madmen must be stopped ... from defending themselves from our bombs of righteousness and bullets of freedom! Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Comment: This is among the craziest moves Bush-Cheney have yet tried. The label "terrorist," if it has any meaning at all, is used to distinguish free-lance bomb-tossers from military forces. If Iran's uniformed military forces can be dubbed terrorists, well, so can the U.S. Marines. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush-Cheney actions increase risk of war against Iran| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has been engaging Iran in a increasingly strident war of words since the spring, when the Bush administration demanded tougher U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear energy program. The White House says that Bush remains committed to diplomatic and financial actions to persuade Iran to stop enriching nuclear fuel, which the U.S. says can be made into a bomb but that Iran insists is intended only for electricity generation.
Recently, the administration has stepped up the rhetoric, accusing Iran of providing Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq with particularly deadly roadside bombs that have killed dozens of U.S. service members. |
Former CIA Director Woolsey lies that Iran
could have nuclear weapons in "a few months"
Western media follow a depressingly familiar formula
when it comes to the preparation of a nation for conflict
| |
Excerpt: The crudest approach is to suggest that the leader is insane. Saddam Hussein was "a deranged psychopath", Milosevic was mad, and the Spectator recently headlined an article on Osama bin Laden: "Inside the mind of the maniac". Those who publicly question any of this can expect an even stronger burst of abuse. In the Gulf war they were labeled "friends of terrorists, ranters, nutty, hypocrites, animals, barbarians, mad, traitors, unhinged, appeasers and apologists". The Mirror called peace demonstrators "misguided, twisted individuals always eager to comfort and support any country but their own. They are a danger to all us -- the enemy within." Columnist Christopher Hitchens, in last week's Spectator article, Damn the doves, says that intellectuals who seek to understand the new enemy are no friends of peace, democracy or human life.
Comment: It's from October of 2001, but the first half of this article seems like awfully recent news, and the second half, trust me, is coming soon. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
US is creating a climate of war against Iran
| |
Excerpt: The official word in Washington and London is that military attack on Iran is "not inevitable". "We are not preparing to invade Iran," Tony Snow, Bush's press secretary, said. "I cannot understand why some people act as if they are blowing on the embers when there is no fire," his deputy Dana Perino added.
Of course, similar noises were made in March 2003 when American and British officials strove to brush aside any suggestions of an approaching military strike on Iraq. Time and time again the Pentagon and Whitehall repeated that war was neither inevitable, nor imminent. Then we had war.
That a military strike against Iran is imminent is not a matter of speculation, but of concrete facts on the ground. What might at first sight seem like a set of unrelated incidents turn upon closer inspection to be part of the same unfolding picture. |
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White House is writing magic "Petraeus Report"
High-risk mortgage mess may get worse| |
Excerpt: ... hundreds of thousands of borrowers [have been] saddled with "option" adjustable rate mortgages, risky loans that dangled bargain-basement introductory payments and also let borrowers defer a portion of interest payments until later years.
Millions of other borrowers are wrestling with another type of adjustable rate mortgage, or ARM, called "interest-only." These loans allowed borrowers to pay just enough each month to cover the interest owed on the loan, leaving the balance of the outstanding debt unchanged.
While most of the mortgage market worries so far have focused on the huge losses flowing from the subprime home loans made to people with bad credit, the option and interest-only ARMs held by more creditworthy borrowers loom as another calamity in the making.
Comment: As long as only those evil wicked poor people with their bad credit were being screwed over by the mortgage companies, it was no big deal to the mainstream media. But now, hundreds of thousands of middle-class people are going to find themselves just as homeless.
What you never hear in these stories about is that at the time all these “risky” mortgages were being signed, home prices shot up 80% in five years as wages remained stagnant. For many, even those in the middle class, these high-risk mortgages suddenly became the only way they could ever own their own home.
Years later, these people are tens of thousands of dollars poorer and kicked into the street, while the mortgage companies, coming off years of record profits, are suddenly declaring bankruptcy to cover themselves during the bust they knew would eventually have to come. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
In BushCheneyWorld, no search or seizure is unreasonable
Judges skeptical of Bush's "state-secrets" claim| |
Excerpt: "The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that's the end of it. No cases. ... The king can do no wrong," said Judge Harry Pregerson, one of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit who grilled administration lawyers at length over whether a pair of lawsuits against the government should go forward. |
New law allows physical searches,
seizure of records, with wiretapping| |
Excerpt: Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include -- without court approval -- certain types of physical searches of U.S. citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently and that there is a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said Democrats are simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.
They also emphasized that there will be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans will be caught up in the surveillance.
Comment: "Strict rules in place" don't mean half a pellet from a rat's ass to the Bush-Cheney administration. And remember, while any law can be changed, this law, this gift-wrapped treason, includes a grandfather clause -- so any spying begun now, while this unAmerican law makes it "legal", remains "legal" even if the law is changed.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid allowed this abomination, and along with every Congresscritter and Senator who voted for this law, they whole lot of 'em ought the tarred and feathered on live television. And not on a cable channel, I want everyone to be able to watch. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bush administration says warrantless
eavesdropping cannot be questioned| |
Excerpt: The government is taking that position in seeking the dismissal of federal court lawsuits against the government and AT&T over its alleged involvement in the once-secret surveillance program adopted after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The strategy was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era lawsuit. It has been increasingly invoked in a bid to shield the government from legal scrutiny. |
American spy satellites will start snooping on Americans| |
Excerpt: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Department of Homeland Security has approved a measure to allow federal civilian agencies and law enforcement to turn American spy satellites on their own citizens for the first time.
Until now, the highly sensitive satellites were aimed mostly at other countries, usually ones we didn't really trust. Occasionally, geologists and NASA scientists got to use them to make things like topographical maps. Letting domestic security folks use them to spy is, the Journal says, "uncharted territory."
Local cops can use satellites, too, to spy on Americans
Excerpt: For years, a handful of civilian agencies have used limited images from the nation's constellation of spy satellites to track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps.
But a new plan to allow emergency-response, border-control and, eventually, law enforcement agencies greater access to sophisticated satellites and other sensors that monitor American territory has drawn sharp criticism from civil-liberties advocates who say the government is overstepping the use of military technology for domestic surveillance.
"It potentially marks a transformation of American political culture toward a surveillance state in which the entire public domain is subject to official monitoring," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.
At issue is a newly disclosed plan that Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, approved in May in a memorandum to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which puts some of the nation's most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials as early as this fall. |
FISA Court orders White House to respond to ACLU lawsuit| |
Excerpt: In an unprecedented order, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has required the U.S. government to respond to a request it received last week by the American Civil Liberties Union for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the FISC's order, the ACLU's request "warrants further briefing," and the government must respond to it by August 31 |
New airport agents are scrutinizing your facial expressions| |
Excerpt: Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.
They're called Behavior Detection Officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as "a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint." |
Police agencies push for drone sky patrols| |
Excerpt: Police and public safety agencies across the country are beginning to plot a future in which they can freely launch aerial drones that beam down footage of the scenes below.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted more than 100 certifications for use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by various federal, state and local government agencies last year, and is on pace to approve about 70 applications this year. But some officials are complaining that existing federal regulations are inconsistent and confusing, potentially stymieing their plans for takeoff.
Comment: OK so maybe the FAA is dragging its feet, but is anyone talking about how high and far these drones will fly? They mention a few too many times teenagers and model airplanes and nothing about what would be required by police operators to keep their drones off airport flight paths. Am I nitpicking here? Useless Eater PERMANENT LINK
Comment: You're not nitpicking, and you're not useless -- those are valid concerns. But I'm concerned that the whole article is about the air safety questions surrounding surveillance aircraft, with no mention of what seem to me much bigger questions like ... do these bastards have a search warrant? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
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Ethics officer's “suicide” came after
blowing whistle on missing weapons in Iraq| |
Excerpt: On June 5, 2005, Westhusing was found dead in his temporary quarters at Camp Dublin near Baghdad airport, apparently having shot himself with his own pistol. "I cannot support a [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuses and liars," he wrote in a note found near his body. "Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential -- I don't know who to trust anymore."
Military investigators concluded that Westhusing's death was a suicide and that the various complaints he leveled against commanders and contractors were "unfounded." ...
But his older brother doesn't believe he killed himself, especially not, as it happened, on his mother's birthday. "Everything he talked about and reported up his chain of command is coming out now: contract fraud, stolen guns and equipment, issues with killings," says Tim Westhusing, who works for IBM in Oklahoma.
From our files:
Army ethics inspector's death in Iraq ruled suicide
Excerpt: In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military. |
Why are the New York Times and so much of the traditional
media neglecting a vital part of the Utah mine collapse story?| |
Excerpt: [The New York Times's] report was filled with details about the progress rescuers had made through the collapsed mine (650 ft), and the capabilities of the hi-res camera being lowered into the mine (can pick up images from 100 ft away) -- but not one word about what led to the collapse, including the role retreat mining might have played in it, or the 324 safety violations federal inspectors have issued for the mine since 2004.
From our files:
Bush administration is reducing safety penalties for mine flaws
Excerpt: In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by the New York Times.
Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days. |
Fired 'Big Dig' chief is in charge of rebuilding Minneapolis bridge| |
Excerpt: The federal highway official responsible for the rebuilding of the collapsed Interstate 35W bridge was dismissed in 2002 as chief executive of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority after his leadership of Boston's controversial "Big Dig" tunnel project came under fire.
J. Richard Capka, the nation's federal highway administrator and a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, arrived in the Twin Cities on Monday night in preparation for the first public meeting today on the design and construction of the new bridge. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and state transportation officials say they are determined to complete the project by the end of 2008.
Comment: We've seen this so many times, and so many times it's led to disaster -- every position anywhere in the Bush-Cheney hierarchy has been filled with incompetent boobs whose primary qualification is that they're loyal, conservative Republicans. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Rumsfeld actually resigned the day before the 2006 election| |
Excerpt: Donald H. Rumsfeld, who came to symbolize the Bush administration's problems in the war in Iraq, resigned as secretary of defense one day before last fall's elections, although President Bush did not announce the move until the day after the elections.
Bush said that the decision to oust Rumsfeld had come after a series of conversations with the then-defense secretary. That revelation angered many Republicans who thought GOP electoral losses would have been reduced if Rumsfeld had been removed earlier.
Comment: Which means, Bush and his alleged brain, Karl Rove, are even stupider and stubborner (or both) than everyone's already noticed.
And as an addendum, here's some old news that's worth remembering: Donald Rumsfeld may have quit as Secretary of Defense, but he still works at the Defense Department, and for all anyone really knows, he's still in charge. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq
Iraq prisoners at record high; still no system for releasing the innocent| |
Excerpt: U.S. military operations associated with the troop increase in Baghdad have boosted the number of detainees held in American facilities in Iraq to about 23,000, up 5,000 from four months ago, according to Army Col. Mark Martins, the top military lawyer in Iraq. That number represents an all-time high since the U.S. occupation began in 2003.
The disclosures of a burgeoning prison population came amid continuing criticism of the detention system's fairness. Anthony H. Cordesman, a specialist in Middle East military matters at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who recently returned from an eight-day trip to Iraq, wrote last week that although the United States has made major improvements in its handling of detainees, "the process of review and release is still ineffective."
He said he found that Shiite detainees "are often freed, while Sunnis are warehoused." The United States is still "developing a coherent non-sectarian release program that contributes to the perception and reality of fairness," Cordesman said. |
U.S. military opening prison for Iraqi juveniles| |
Excerpt: The U.S. military on Tuesday will open its first detention facility in Iraq meant specifically to hold juveniles.
According to the American command in Baghdad, the Dar al-Hikmah facility will house some 600 detainees between the ages of 11 and 17. An opening ceremony for the facility will be held Tuesday in Baghdad, officials said and will be presided over by Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, commander of detainee operations in Iraq.
Comment: Not to belabor the obvious, but in sovereign nations, nations not occupied by foreign powers, juvenile prisons are not operated by foreign countries. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Medical crisis in Iraq as doctors and nurses flee| |
Excerpt: The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse.
The research revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching staff. The dossier says Iraq is suffering from an appalling and largely hidden humanitarian crisis, away from the daily bombings, with millions of people in desperate need of help. |
Defense Dept stops plan to send
armageddon video game to troops in Iraq| |
Excerpt: "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" was inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' best-selling book series about the battle of Armageddon, in which believers of Jesus Christ fight the Antichrist.
The game has inspired controversy among freedom of religion advocates since it was released last year. "It's a horrible game," said the Rev. Timothy Simpson of the Christians Alliance for Progress. "You either kill or covert the other side. This is exactly what the Osama bin Ladens of the world have portrayed us." |
Iraqi lawmakers frustrated at occupation conundrums| |
Excerpt: Iraqi politicians complain that they are not able to replace [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki] until the Americans signal strong opposition and identify a replacement. For many in the Iraqi political class, the meetings between Maliki and the other leaders, which are scheduled to continue, represent the government's last chance to prove itself to a patron that might soon waver.
Everyone, said Qasim Dawood, a Shiite lawmaker, is waiting on the Americans. "From one side, they interfere in everything they want," he said. "Then on the other side, they say, 'Sorry, you are a sovereign country, you have to do it yourself.' " |
Seven U.S. soldiers speak from Iraq
by Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora,
Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray, Jeremy A. Murphy, U.S. Army| |
Excerpt: In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are -- an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal. |
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Washington Post offers an overview of Karl Rove's White House crimes ... after Rove quits| |
Excerpt: Rove, who announced last week that he is resigning from the White House at the end of August, pursued [political goals] far more systematically than his predecessors, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance.
Comment: This is a pretty good article, but -- wouldn't it have been a bit more useful, more journalism, if it had been written and published while Rove was on the government payroll at the White House, instead of after he quit? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Commerce and Treasury Departments spent millions of dollars
to sway 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections to Republicans| |
Excerpt: Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.
Comment: You might not know it from the Bush White House, but there’s a law called the Hatch Act that actually makes this, you know, illegal. Trashing the Hatch Act is one of Karl Rove’s major achievements -- as the mainstream media predictably neglected to point out during their long sloppy tongue kiss following his alleged “resignation.” Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Military brass, not bloggers, breach security| |
Excerpt: For years, the military has been warning that soldiers' blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information. But a series of online audits, conducted by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post material far more potentially harmful than anything found on an individual's blog.
The audits, performed by the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell between January 2006 and January 2007, found at least 1,813 violations of operational security policy on 878 official military websites. In contrast, the 10-man, Manassas, Virginia, unit discovered 28 breaches, at most, on 594 individual blogs during the same period. |
Medicare stops paying for "medical mistakes"| |
Excerpt: Among the conditions that will be affected are bedsores, or pressure ulcers; injuries caused by falls; and infections resulting from the prolonged use of catheters in blood vessels or the bladder.
In addition, Medicare says it will not pay for the treatment of "serious preventable events" like leaving a sponge or other object in a patient during surgery and providing a patient with incompatible blood or blood products.
Comment: The article says there's a technicality in a law somewhere that protects Medicare beneficiaries from being charged for what Medicare refuses to pay in regards to mistakes -- the hospital is supposed to pay (I wonder how many lawsuits it'll take to make that actually work in practice?).
But what about the rest of us? Private insurers will almost certainly leap onto this new loophole to avoid paying bills (that's been their top priority for years now: avoiding paying bills) -- and there is NO law protecting the rest of us from the hospitals demanding consumers take up the slack there. JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
Republicans use Justice Department to subvert justice
FBI Chief's notes show Gonzales lied
about Ashcroft hospital showdown| |
Excerpt: "Saw AG," [FBI chief Robert] Mueller wrote in his timed log of the events on the evening of March 10, 2004. "Janet Ashcroft in the room. AG is feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed." Ashcroft was in the hospital with pancreatitis.
Before seeing Ashcroft, Mueller met with then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey at the hospital about 7:40 p.m., the notes indicate. Comey said Ashcroft told Card and Gonzales that he would not approve the classified terrorist surveillance program, which was set to expire the next day. |
Republican Party seeks shelter of executive privilege| |
Excerpt: The Republican National Committee said it will not abide by a subpoena and turn over documents to a Congressional committee investigating the firings of at least eight US attorneys last year because the RNC is waiting to see if the White House will assert executive privilege over RNC documents at the center of the controversy, according to an outside law firm retained by the RNC.
Comment: Sweet jeebers, the criminality is so blatant it's breathtaking, ain't it? Cheney must be channeling the spirit of Al Capone... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Slipped into the PATRIOT Act reauthorization:
Alberto Gonzales gets the power to limit death penalty appeals| |
Excerpt: The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.
Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and Gonzales agreed, prosecutors could use "fast track" procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.
Comment: Remember, these new rules are being overseen by the man who used to summarize death penalty cases for George W. Bush in Texas by entirely skipping any evidence that the defendant was innocent or arguments for clemency.
Also, these "fast-track" executions were snuck into the PATRIOT Act exactly the same way as Bush's permission to fire those attorneys. Should a bunch of us be collectively reading through that PATRIOT Act renewal to see what other moral outrages we've authorized the Justice Department to carry out? Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Feds accuse gay Iowa Democrat of extortion -- he says it's another political prosecution| |
Excerpt: [State Sen Matt] McCoy, D-Des Moines, who was outed on the Senate floor in 2003 by ultraconservative Republican Sen. Ken Veenstra, was first elected to the state House in 1992. Veenstra lost his bid for reelection in 2004, as did several other antigay Iowa officials.
McCoy intimated the charges were politically inspired.
"Since coming out as an openly gay man," McCoy said, "I have been a continuous target of groups targeting gays to advance their own agendas of intolerance and hate. Clearly, there is significant speculation about what has motivated federal officials to take this action against me."
Comment: Who knows what to think at news like this? Like any other defendant, Matt McCoy is innocent until proven guilty, but with the Bush-Cheney maladministration, the innocent are sometimes "proven guilty". Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
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Sequoia Voting Systems responsible for 2000 Presidential debacle?| |
Excerpt: It's been seven years since pregnant and dangling chads in Florida caused one of the biggest political rifts in U.S. history. Those faulty Florida ballots also directly led to the passage of federal legislation in 2002 that outlawed punch-card voting machines and allocated billions of dollars in federal funds for states to purchase expensive new electronic voting machines.
Now new questions are being raised about who was responsible for the faulty punch cards in that election. And according to last night's Dan Rather Reports episode, the fingers point to Sequoia Voting Systems, which not only makes e-voting machines that replaced punch cards but also created the punch cards that failed in Florida. |
Diebold, maker of vote-stealing machines, changes corporate name| |
Excerpt: The company said that after failing to find a buyer for its voting machine business, it was changing the name of the division to Premier Election Solutions Inc (or PESI) and was giving it more "independence" by establishing a separate board of directors to run it. |
Army suicides at 26-year high| |
Excerpt: Ninety-nine U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year, the highest rate of suicide in the Army in 26 years of record-keeping.
[The Pentagon report] also found a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the number of days deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops were participating in the war effort.
There was "limited evidence" to back the suspicion that repeated deployments are putting more people at risk for suicide, the report said. |
Lawsuit allowed to proceed against Chevron for killing Nigerians| |
Excerpt: Nigerian villagers can go to trial in San Francisco in a lawsuit that seeks to hold Chevron Corp. responsible for military attacks that killed and wounded protesters at oil company facilities in 1998 and 1999, a federal judge has ruled.
In a series of decisions Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston narrowed the lawsuit against Chevron but said a jury could consider the gist of the villagers' claims -- that the oil giant summoned troops to the protests, directed their actions and should be held accountable for the injuries and deaths of peaceful demonstrators.
Chevron's Nigerian subsidiary and the government troops "had a much closer relationship than the traditional relationship between private parties and law enforcement officials in this country," Illston said. "The [security forces] were on the [Chevron] payroll, and engaged in extensive security work. ... [Chevron] did not simply 'dial 911.'" |
Politicians preach calm as fear, panic sweep markets| |
Excerpt: Shares plummeted worldwide on Thursday, although U.S. stocks staged a late-session comeback, while politicians weighed in to calm financial markets swept by fears that years of runaway credit growth will end with a big blowout.
Comment: It might take more than a few days of preaching calm to overcome the years of general fear-mongering politicians have subjected us to since 9/11.2001 -- and continue to do today, in election campaigns and other times when it suits their purposes. ... MORE ... JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
Bush and Putin increasingly successful in re-starting Cold War| |
Excerpt: ...the restart of global patrolling by long-range bombers marks a major shift in Russia's strategic posturing. For the first time since the end of the Cold War Russian bombers will fly missions over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from where their nuclear-capable cruise missiles will be able to strike targets deep inside the U.S. at a moment's notice.
The Russian move appeared to be part of Moscow's response to the relocation of NATO forces closer to Russia's borders and U.S. plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile defenses in Eastern Europe.
Russia boots BBC World Service off the air
Excerpt: The fallout from the diplomatic row between Britain and Russia spread to the BBC yesterday when Russia announced it was closing down the World Service's main Russian-language broadcasts.
The BBC World Service said it had been told it could no longer broadcast on the FM frequency in Russia. All broadcasts ceased at 5pm local time yesterday. On Thursday the Russian licensing authorities ordered the BBC World Service's Russian partner, Bolshoye Radio, to drop the BBC from its programming or lose its license. |
News from America's very bestest ally, Israel
U.S. gives Israel another $30-billion for "defense"| |
Excerpt: Israel and the United States signed Thursday a Memorandum of Understanding on the new American defense package for Israel. Under the new aid agreement, the U.S. will transfer $30 billion to Israel over 10 years, compared with $24 billion over the past decade.
The aid deal signed at represents a 25 percent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel.
Israel is slated to receive the first pay out in October 2008, amounting to $2.55 billion. That sum will grow each year by $150 million, until it reaches $3.1 billion in 2011. ...
The aid agreement with the U.S. is an important and significant component for Israel, and proves once again the depth of the relationship between the two countries and the United States' commitment to Israel's security, and to preserving its qualitative advantage over other countries in the Middle East," Olmert said.
Comment: I ain't no expert on the Middle East, but based on my understanding of human nature, I'd think Israel's "defense budget" could be reduced substantially if Israel started treating Palestinians like human beings.
And I would also think, there's enough money in Israel that Israelis can pay for their own damned defense. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Refugees should not be locked up, say rights groups| |
Excerpt: After an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers illegally crossing the border from Egypt, the Israeli government in June ordered the establishment of a "refugee camp" for the new arrivals. Recently, the first residents were brought in. Israeli Interior Security Minister Avi Dichter called the compound "accommodation prior to deportation", a reference to recent policy to deport to Egypt nearly all who cross the porous border. |
Parts of Gaza dark as Israelis cut electricity for "security"| |
Excerpt: A Palestinian company cut off power to parts of the central Gaza Strip Friday after Israel closed a crossing through which fuel is brought into the Palestinian area. |
Six Palestinians killed in Israeli raids| |
Excerpt: Four fighters and two civilians died in the clashes and 26 people were wounded, including at least five civilians, Palestinian medical officials and militant factions said. Israel's army said its soldiers arrested some 100 militants before withdrawing. |
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Three die in brutal immigration jails in the last month| |
Excerpt: Three detainees died within weeks of one another while in federal immigration custody, adding to a toll of more than 60 who perished in recent years and fueling complaints of medical maltreatment from civil rights advocates.
The dead were a pregnant Mexican woman who lost consciousness at a facility in El Paso, a Mexican AIDS patient whose condition steadily deteriorated in a San Pedro, Calif., prison and a Brazilian whose family implored authorities to give him medicine for his epileptic seizures in Rhode Island, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and published reports.
A December report by the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security noted that four of the five facilities it studied had "instances of non-compliance" regarding health care, "including timely initial and responsive medical care." |
"Error" by FTC reveals Whole Foods' trade secrets| |
Excerpt: Federal regulators inadvertently released dozens of trade secrets in public court documents yesterday as they tried to block Whole Foods Market's $565 million purchase of Wild Oats Markets.
The Federal Trade Commission documents revealed that Whole Foods plans to close 30 or more Wild Oats stores in competitive markets, a move that the company thinks would nearly double revenue for some Whole Foods stores.
Among other details not meant to be released, the FTC revealed how Whole Foods negotiates with suppliers to drive up costs for Wal-Mart stores. Regulators also discussed the company's closely held marketing strategies.
Comment: In case anyone doesn't know, Whole Foods sucks. Their grand accomplishment has been bringing the worst of corporate ethics to the organics business.
But that said, ain't it odd how the rules change? The FTC says nothing as corporate octopuses eat each other, as Rupert Murdoch buys the The Wall Street Journal, etc., but when a couple of whole-grain all-natural macaroni retailers want to merge, suddenly anti-monopoly laws have teeth -- and damaging trade information is "accidentally" made public... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
FTC appeals ruling that would allow granola giants to merge |
Rep Don Young (R-Alaska) rewrote legislation after it
had passed Congress, but before President signed it| |
Excerpt: "To say it's unusual isn't enough," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It is an anomaly that we have never seen before."
Comment: Beyond unethical, this has to be illegal. So why is this criminal still in Congress, instead of in prison? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
U.S. near bottom of list for spending on social programs
Use our New York Times login unk.news and password unknown | |
Excerpt: Among the 30 industrialized countries grouped in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only four -- Turkey, Mexico, South Korea and Ireland -- spend less on social programs as a share of their economy. |
WikiScanner identifies editors on Wikipedia
Senator to block pro-torture nominee from CIA’s top lawyer job| |
Excerpt: A Democratic senator says he will block President Bush's nominee to become the CIA's top lawyer indefinitely over concerns that the agency's interrogation techniques may not be legal.
"I'm going to keep the hold until the detention and interrogation program is on firm footing, both in terms of effectiveness and legality," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Wednesday.
Wyden said he was troubled that John Rizzo -- who is serving as the CIA's interim general counsel -- did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of inflicting pain equal to that accompanying organ failure or even death. |
U.S. diplomat says "The only good Arab is a dead Arab," then retires| |
Excerpt: The diplomat, Patrick Syring, was accused of having made abusive, intimidating and racist comments in e-mails and voice mails to employees of the Arab American Institute, a Washington group that promotes Arab-American interests. ...
"The only good Lebanese is a dead Lebanese. The only good Arab is a dead Arab. Long live the IDF. Death to Lebanon and death to the Arabs," Syring said in a voice mail recorded at the institute on July 17, 2006. IDF stands for Israel Defense Forces -- the Israeli military.
"F*ck the Arabs and F*ck James Zogby and his wicked Hizbollah brothers. They will burn in hellfire on this earth and in the hereafter," he wrote in an e-mail to Zogby and another institute employee on the same day.
Comment: Surprisingly, Syring isn't a Bush crony. Some quick research tells me he's been a foreign service officer for twenty years -- which presumably means he's a Reagan crony. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Peculiar 9/11 photo emerges
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Comment: After the first news bulletin on Sept 11 2001, I spent several hours watching news telecasts for updates. I don't know anyone who didn't watch the TV coverage, and frankly can't imagine anyone who wouldn't -- except, I guess, President Bush, who sat down at a desk with his back to the television as the catastrophe unfolded... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Questions about Sept 11, 2001
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Feds pay $80k to settle lawsuit against
couple arrested for anti-Bush T-shirts| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has agreed to pay $80,000 to a husband and wife who were ejected from a presidential rally because of their anti-Bush T-shirts. ...
The settlement, in which the government admitted no wrongdoing, came after the disclosure of an allegedly "sensitive" Presidential Advance Manual, which laid out the White House's meticulous efforts to protect the president and his public image from dissent.
"As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event," the manual instructs. The government turned over a heavily redacted version of the manual to the ACLU in the course of the lawsuit.
Comment: This news will be buried and forgotten. It would have been far preferable to have it
go to court and set a precedent. SirJ PERMANENT LINK
Comment: I'm sure the court system and government attorneys did all they could to make this matter hellish and expensive for the victims, and I hope $80k (less lawyers' fees) covers their time, trouble, and turmoil. But like you said, no court case means no precedent.
With the White House spokesfart saying there was no admission of guilt or wrongdoing, that the settlement was just to save the costs of a court case, my take is that this news means nothing. The ACLU touts it as "a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment," but that claim seems indistinguishable from hogspit. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Marines commander gives war criminals the "Scooter Libby" treatment| |
Excerpt: In recent months, the senior Marine commander on the West Coast has dismissed charges against three troops implicated in the deaths of 24 Iraqis and reduced the sentences of three others in the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi man.
Mattis, who commands the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, decided who was charged, who got immunity, who will stand trial and, in the case of convictions, whether clemency should be granted.
Abu Ghraib interrogation chief faces court-martial
Excerpt: The trial of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan will be convened at Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington, the Army said. Jordan is charged with cruelty and maltreatment of detainees as well as making false statements and obstruction of justice, disobeying a superior officer and failure to obey orders. |
US military practices genetic discrimination in denying benefits| |
Excerpt: While genetic discrimination is banned in most cases throughout the country, it is alive and well in the U.S. military. For more than 20 years, the armed forces have held a policy that specifically denies disability benefits to servicemen and women with congenital or hereditary conditions. The practice would be illegal in almost any other workplace. |
Personal bankruptcy filings up 48 percent despite
2005 law that made filing much more difficult| |
Excerpt: In 2005, conservative lawmakers, encouraged by the financial industry, predicted that passage of a tougher bankruptcy law would tamp down rising bankruptcy rates by weeding out frivolous cases.
In fact, bankruptcy rates fell nearly 50 percent in the latter half of 2006. But experts say the decrease resulted in large part from consumers rushing to file in late 2005 before the tougher law went into effect.
Now, many experts say the current increase disputes the 2005 argument that many filings were frivolous or even fraudulent. They say most cases reflect real hardship by consumers that can't be erased by laws.
Comment: In fact, what experts were saying at the time the bankruptcy law passed is still true: most bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, divorce, or loss of a job. Of course, it’s easier for the GOP, not to mention the credit card companies, to deny how many Americans are facing real economic hardship and pretend that people falling on hard times are just wasteful and frivolous instead. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Amnesty International announces support for abortion access| |
Excerpt: Amnesty International has confirmed its controversial decision to back abortion in some circumstances, replacing its previous policy of neutrality.
The human rights group will campaign for woman to have access to abortion in cases including rape and incest.
Most Americans would keep abortion legal
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CARE stops taking U.S. food aid, says U.S. rules hurt local farmers| |
Excerpt: One of the world's largest international charities has announced it will stop accepting millions of dollars in U.S. food aid over concerns American methods are doing more harm than good.
CARE International says aid efforts are hampered by U.S. requirements on 'monetized food aid." Instead of directly going to needy communities, U.S. grains are shipped on condition charities sell them on the local market and then use the proceeds for their activities.
CARE says the program is inefficient and results in food shipments to those who can afford them, not those in need. The U.S. program has also been faulted for shuttering local producers unable to compete with subsidized American prices.
Several CARE officials involved in the American program have criticized the practice. CARE employee George Odo said: "If someone wants to help you, they shouldn't do it by destroying the very thing that they're trying to promote." |
Learn from the fall of Rome, head of GAO warns| |
Excerpt: The US government is on a 'burning platform' of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country's top government inspector has warned.
David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country's future in a report that lays out what he called "chilling long-term simulations". |
Wives struggled for decades after FBI framed spouses| |
Excerpt: For three decades, Marie Salvati and Olympia Limone essentially lived as widows, struggling to make ends meet as they raised four children on their own. Their husbands grew old behind bars after being convicted of a murder the FBI knew they did not commit.
Now the women hope a judge's ruling awarding them and two other families nearly $102 million marks the end of their struggle in a long story of love, devotion and survival. |
Wolfowitz 'tried to censor World Bank on climate change'| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include global warming in its calculations when considering whether to approve major investments in industry and infrastructure, according to documents made public through a watchdog yesterday. |
Wisconsin's favorite corrupt moron drops out of presidential race| |
Excerpt: On Sunday, Tommy Thompson dropped out of the presidential primary race. The culprit? Money. The other guys had too much and he didn't have enough.
Tommy complained, in essence, that there is too much money in politics. The governor who perfected the game of "pick the pockets" of all who visited the east wing of the Capitol, or execs and lawyers who did business with the state, is not happy about his fate in Iowa.
In an outburst of truth, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week that when he was governor, "I could raise $100,000 a night but now I'm lucky to raise $5,000 a night."
It seems as if he almost figured it out. The lobbyists don 't give money to nice guys like Tommy making a quixotic presidential or gubernatorial bid. No, they give money to officials and likely winners who can help them with contracts now or later. |
Prosecutor will re-file charges for possessing
prescription drugs with prescription| |
Excerpt: An appeals court called the case against Mark O'Hara "absurd" and "ridiculous," but the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office is refusing to drop charges against the 45-year-old Dunedin man.
O'Hara appeared before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta Wednesday morning, his first time in court since his release from prison July 25.
During the brief hearing, prosecutor Darrell Dirks indicated his office plans to pursue a second trial for O'Hara, who was accused of drug trafficking after authorities found 58 Vicodin pills in his bread truck. He had legal prescriptions for the drugs. |
American Psychological Association won't
discipline shrinks involved in torture| |
Excerpt: The American Psychological Association's policy-making council voted against a proposal to ban psychologists from taking part in any interrogations at U.S. military prisons "in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights."
Instead, the group approved a resolution that reaffirmed the association's opposition to torture and restricted members from taking part in interrogations that involved any of more than a dozen specific practices, including sleep deprivation and forced nakedness.
Comment: Psychologists are working hand-in-hand with the torturers at Guantanamo and other American concentration camps. The APA knows it, and has made occasional noises like this to give the impression of ethics, but the psychologists involved in torture have not been censured or punished in any way. High-falutin' resolutions ring hollow, when the APA takes no action against psychologists known to be helping with torture. Silence is acquiescence: The APA is aiding and abetting in torture, and the organization knows it. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Ex-chief of Psychology Ass'n sits on
board of contract-torture company
Excerpt: The former president of the American Psychological Association is a partner in a Spokane-based firm linked to the CIA's reported use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists at secret detention centers around the world.
Joseph Dominic Matarazzo, an 81-year-old former psychology professor at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, said in a statement Friday that he serves on the board of Mitchell Jessen & Associates and owns 1 percent of the firm.
The ethics surrounding the issue of psychologists involved in torture interrogations will be a prime topic of debate next weekend when the 90,000-member American Psychological Association that Matarazzo once headed holds its national conference in San Francisco. |
Customs Agency incompetence leaves 17,000
stranded in idling planes at airport| |
Excerpt: As planes began to stack up on the tarmac Saturday afternoon and into the evening, airline and airport officials pressed customs to relax its inspection standards and process passengers based on information the passengers themselves provided.
But customs officials declined. "We can't risk our security for even one traveler," Fleming said. "What if one was a terrorist?"
Meanwhile, Los Angeles International Airport officials discussed defying the federal government and storming aircraft to rescue passengers if frustration led to violence aboard the idling jets.
"We would have gone out and rescued those folks. . . and dealt with the federal fine later," said Paul Haney, deputy executive director for airports and security for Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates LAX. |
White House calls Austin, TX newspaper to complain
about writer's comment about President's clothes| |
Excerpt: ... the article itself was entirely benign, noting that Bush has "opted to look more like 'Walker, Texas Ranger' than a sweaty, tough ranch hand." This mild remark in a brief article was enough for the spokesperson for the President of the United States to call a style reporter for a mid-size newspaper to convey the disappointment of the leader of the free world. |
Less than a million bucks settles lawsuit
over infamously cruel university study| |
Excerpt: The state has agreed to pay $925,000 to unwitting subjects of an infamous 1930s stuttering experiment -- orphans who were badgered and belittled as children by University of Iowa researchers trying to induce speech impediments. |
China bans negative reporting ahead of party congress
Tennessee nuclear reactor shut down because
cooling water from river is too hot| |
Excerpt: The nation's largest public utility shut down Unit 2 about 5:42 p.m. CDT because water drawn from the Tennessee River was exceeding a 90-degree average over 24 hours, amid a blistering heat wave across the Southeast.
"We don't believe we've ever shut down a nuclear unit because of river temperature," said John Moulton, spokesman for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based utility. |
Group that proposed Bush be "President-for-Life"
linked to Bush Administration itself| |
Excerpt: "If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results...
"He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court." |
Peace activists set up camp at speaker's doorstep| |
Excerpt: Women for Peace, along with other peace groups, have been asking for a meeting with Congresswoman Pelosi about the war from the time she became Speaker in January 2007. They called, faxed, emailed, and visited her office in San Francisco.
With no response, they went to Washington. After a dozen unsuccessful visits to her DC office, they staged a sit-in. Instead of meeting, the Speaker had them arrested.
"I can't believe it. Pelosi has not has ONE public meeting this entire year," said CodePink hunger-striker Nancy Mancias. "Aren't representatives supposed to talk to their constituents? We are desperate to end this war and we have a right to hear what her strategy is." |
U.S. officials snicker at British occupation tactics| |
Excerpt: "It's insufferable for Christ's sake," said one senior figure closely involved in US military planning. "He comes on and he lectures everybody in the room about how to do a counter-insurgency. The guys were just rolling their eyeballs. The notorious Northern Ireland came up again. It's pretty frustrating. It would be okay if he was best in class, but now he's worst in class. Everybody else's area is getting better and his is getting worse." |
Cop who machine-gunned another cop gets three-day suspension| |
Excerpt: [Officer Charles] Storlie was put on standard leave for three days after the incident, and was then put back on the street. He was never criminally charged. He has since left the department to become a mercenary (sorry, "civilian security contractor") in Iraq, where he will get to "play" with automatic weapons to his heart's content. |
Following court ruling, Brazil provides free sex-change operations| |
Excerpt: Brazil's public health system will start providing free sex-change operations in compliance with a court order, the Health Ministry said Friday.
Ministry spokesman Edmilson Oliveira da Silva said the government would not appeal Wednesday's ruling by a panel of federal judges giving the government 30 days to offer the procedure or face fines of $5,000 a day.
Federal prosecutors from Rio Grande do Sul state had argued that sexual reassignment surgery is covered under a constitutional clause guaranteeing medical care as a basic right. |
Venezuela's Chavez proposes six-hour workday| |
Excerpt: President Hugo Chavez proposed a constitutional change on Wednesday to reduce Venezuela's maximum workday to six hours as part of broader legal changes to advance his self-styled socialist revolution.
Comment: I wonder how the war-on-everyone crowd will spin this, to make Chavez look like a monster? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
There are more than three stooges
(and one of them will be America's next President)
Giuliani: Don't ask about my marriage to my cousin, my marriage
to my mistress, my messy divorces, or why my kids can't stand me| |
Excerpt: Republican Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that people should "leave my family alone" when asked by a New Hampshire woman why the presidential candidate should expect loyalty from voters when he doesn't get it from his children.
Giuliani has a daughter who has indicated support for Democrat Barack Obama and a son who said he didn't speak to his father for some time. His ugly divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover, was waged publicly while Giuliani was mayor of New York. Giuliani has since remarried. |
McCain says he's been "the greatest critic" of Iraq occupation| |
Excerpt: "... I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, This is going to fail. We’ve got to change the strategy to the one we’re using now. But life isn’t fair." |
Over three months, Giuliani spent 29 hours at Ground Zero| |
Excerpt: The controversy over GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani claiming that he spent as much time at Ground Zero in New York during the cleanup "as anyone" has lasted for a week now, and finally someone [at the New York Times] decided to do a thorough fact-check. ...
A complete record of Mr. Giuliani's exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts. |
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Minnesota Dept of Transportation suspected bridge might collapse
Tribes offer membership to immigrants
Former Missouri legislator (R-Of Course) loses law license for felonies
Billions in U.S. aid wasted in Afghanistan
Short of Purple Hearts, Navy tells veteran to buy his own
Fruit disease has orange farmers worried
Christian camp counselors indicted on charges of dragging girl
Arctic ice shrinks to record low, melting faster than computers predicted
Sony announces free recycling of obsolete electronics
Daily Show goes on location to Iraq
German eggheads say they've topped the speed of light
Censored Pearl Jam concert provides a glimpse
of the future internet AT&T wants
Swanky hotel boots black Nobel laureate
Travelocity fined $182k for arranging Cuba trips
Man kills his wife because he can't afford her medical care
Pentagon paid $999,798 to ship two 19-cent washers to Texas
Jenna Bush is engaged to former assistant to Karl Rove
The memories you want to forget are the hardest ones to lose
Why is no one questioning the rise of new-age
nonsense in the name of science?
McKinney withdraws lawsuit against Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bullet pierces studio window of Pacifica's Houston station
Why conspiracy theories are sort of appealing
Water, air and soil pollution causes 40 percent of deaths worldwide
Prohibition is on the ballot in Alabama city
British police departments employ underage cops
What does the Army do with a private who
can't be persuaded to load his gun?
Radio hosts fired for debunking conspiracy theory
Katrina aid goes toward football condos
Eight people in hunger strike against continued war
Conspiracy nuts go after Google, claim
alternative media websites are being suppressed
Democrat Harry Reid makes "deal" with Bush on recess appointments
China toy boss kills self after recall
Smoking pot won't make you crazy,
but dealing with the lies about it will
L.A. Times religion reporter loses his faith
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