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Bush orders NSA to snoop on US agencies| |
Excerpt: Not content with spying on other countries, the NSA (National Security Agency) will now turn on the US's own government agencies thanks to a fresh directive from president George Bush.
Under the new guidelines, the NSA and other intelligence agencies can bore into the internet networks of all their peers. The Bush administration pulled off this spy expansion by pointing to an increase in the number of cyber attacks directed against the US, possibly from foreign nations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will spearhead the effort around identifying the source of these attacks, while the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon will concentrate on retaliation.
Comment: I think everyone's missing a very important element to this: namely, that the US government will be able to more effectively catch WHISTLEBLOWERS in its midst. JR Mooneyham PERMANENT LINK |
Spying and telecom immunity showdown pushed to hours before State of Union Address
Kucinich says he'll introduce articles of impeachment
against Bush before Monday's State of the Union Address| |
Excerpt:
"The President and Vice President lied and 4,000 of our soldiers died. The President and Vice President lied and a million innocent Iraqis died in a war that'll cost us two trillion dollars while people here in the states are losing their jobs, their health care, their homes, their dignity. Lies are weapons of mass destruction. Lies are also an impeachable offence. Monday, January 28th is the State of the Union. We already know the State of the Union, it's a lie." |
Judge asks Bush administration to explain destruction of evidence| |
Excerpt: A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to his court case, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed. |
New criminal running Justice Dept says: No special prosecutor for destruction of torture tapes| |
Excerpt: Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday he doesn't plan for a special prosecutor to investigate whether the CIA broke the law when it destroyed videotapes of terror interrogations, defying some in Congress who want an independent look at the politically charged case.
Mukasey, in a 41-minute briefing with reporters, also ducked repeated questions about whether he considers waterboarding an illegal form of torture -- an issue expected to be at the top of the agenda when he appears next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. |
Bush names pro-torture lawyer for high-level DoJ post| |
Excerpt: Steven G. Bradbury is, as reported by yesterday's New York Times, "the author of classified memorandums that gave approval to harsh interrogation techniques, including head slapping, exposure to cold and simulated drowning, even when used in combination."
It's only natural that the Bush administration would want to promote such a man to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council. But in this case, he pretty much already has the job. In fact, he's been running the office for two years -- Senate confirmation be damned. |
The melting economy
Democrats, Bush tout stimulus bipartisanship| |
Excerpt: President Bush and congressional Democrats on Saturday used their weekly radio addresses to laud the wave of bipartisanship that is pushing forward a stimulus package, but both also challenged the other side to do more.
Bush touted the deal on the legislation, which was struck this week in the House.
Comment: As soon as I saw the headline that Bush and the Dems had "agreed" on a stimulus package, I knew we were in trouble. When is the last time that the Democrats agreed to anything that wasn't exactly what the White House wanted to begin with?
Anyone who would actually be helped by a lousy $600 tax rebate aren't going to be eligible to get one, since the working poor's tax bill (and yes, they do have one) is made up mostly of social security and sales taxes. In exchange for this useless token, the Dems agreed to not expand unemployment. Or Medicaid. Or food stamps. Or low-income heating assistance. And the biggest economic issues facing the shrinking middle class, namely housing costs, stagnant wages and health care, weren't even on the table.
So what this package mostly stimulates is the journalist/stenographers in the mainstream media, who will pretend that this is useful policy and stop asking the White House to actually do something to help the millions of hard-working Americans who are just barely getting by. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Who gets the Bush-Democrat tax rebates?| |
Comment: The top 40% of earners will be receiving 57.1% of the free money! And the lowest 20% receive only 6.5%.
According to [Paul] Krugman the upper-income earners are less likely to spend the money, but will simply put it in the bank. Therefore the goal of the plan will not be achieved and the money wasted. Not to mention the millions of Americans living in abject poverty who will get nothing.
It is very clear that in spite of being the most famous "Christian", George Bush is a textbook sociopath. This plan doesn't just miss the mark it ignores both practical reality and compassion.
If our country plans to just blow out the treasury giving out $150 billion in free money, but plans to give nothing to help the poorest among us, then we are damned.
This is actually worse than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib because it demonstrates soulless disregard of our very own citizens. And it convicts not just George Bush but Congress itself, especially the Democrats, who couldn't vote YES fast enough.
The most forgiving thing that could be said of this plan is that it is a thinly disguised attempt to purchase votes for incumbents using the people's money. Lee C. PERMANENT LINK |
Banks 'may need' another $143-billion| |
Excerpt: They say the banks will need extra money if bond insurers, who insure the products at the center of the sub-prime crisis, lose their top credit ratings.
If their credit ratings are cut, it could make it harder for it them to pay out, leading to banks reporting bigger losses on sub-prime debt.
Fears about bond insurers helped spark off this week's stock market falls.
Comment: Oh that's easy... we'll just print some more up.
What's that you say ?? The money some have something to back it up?? To give it some REAL value?? Picky... picky... picky. You just don't understand modern global economics, I guess. Chris M. PERMANENT LINK |
How Bush destroyed the American economy| |
Excerpt: Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could have kept this country out of recession: You can't fight an expensive war AND cut taxes simultaneously without sending the US economy into the tank. |
Secret, complex, and virtually unregulated economic factors spin beyond our control| |
Excerpt: That something is the immense shadow economy of novel and poorly understood financial instruments created by hedge funds and investment banks over the past decade -- a web of extraordinarily complex securities and wagers that has made the world's financial system so opaque and entangled that even many experts confess that they no longer understand how it works.
Unlike the building blocks of the conventional economy -- factories and firms, widgets and workers, stocks and bonds -- these new financial arrangements are difficult to value, much less analyze. The money caught up in this web is now many times larger than the world's gross domestic product, and much of it exists outside the purview of regulators.
Some of these new-generation investments have been in the news, such as the securities implicated in the mortgage crisis that is still shaking the housing market. Others, involving auto loans, credit card debt, and corporate debt, are lurking in the shadows. |
Forget oil -- food is the new global crisis
Foreign boycotts over Iraq war a factor in US economic downturn
Poor still suffering from last recession
Billionaire Soros predicts worst recession in 50 years
How the mega-rich treat our treasury like a buffet (and stick you with the bill)
Memo to Obama: Reaganomics failed miserably
Fed slashes interest rates after deep plunge in Hong Kong and London markets
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Cheney emails "disappeared" on
crucial days of Plame scandal| |
Excerpt: Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney's office is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.
That morning, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered the president and the vice president's staff to "preserve all materials that might be relevant" to an inchoate Justice Department probe.
Cheney's office is missing emails from the very day President Bush told reporters he'd "take care of" whatever staff member had actually leaked the CIA agent's name.
Cheney's office also is missing e-mails from Oct. 4, 2003, when the Justice Department demanded that the White House turn over "all documents that relate in any way" to the leak of Plame's identity. |
US immigration officials detain, deport American citizens| |
Excerpt: The number of US citizens who are swept up in the immigration system is a small fraction of the number of illegal immigrants who are deported, but in the last several years immigration lawyers report seeing more detainees who turn out to be US citizens.
The attorneys said the chances of mistakes are growing as immigration agents step up sweeps in the country and state and local prisons with less experience in immigration matters screen more criminals on behalf of ICE. |
José Padilla gets 17 years for ... for what?| |
Excerpt: Prosecutors, who long ago dropped the "dirty bomb" claim that made Padilla infamous, had sought life sentences for Padilla and two co-defendants, but a federal judge said authorities never even proved Padilla was a terrorist.
"There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere," US District Judge Marcia Cooke said. "There was never a plot to overthrow the United States government."
Comment: After following this travesty for several years, I'm still nowhere near convinced that José Padilla was anything more than an addle-brained patsy. And his punishment, for not being a terrorist and not plotting an overthrow of the US government, was having his brain wiped clean, followed by 17 years in prison, a sentence you and I know he'll never survive. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Padilla's sentence should
shock and disgust all Americans
Excerpt: The news that US citizen José Padilla has received a prison sentence of 17 years and four months should provoke outrage in the United States, although it is unlikely that there will be much more than a whimper of dissent.
The former gang member and convert to Islam -- whose arrest in May 2002 was trumpeted by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft as that of a "known terrorist " who was "exploring a plan" to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city -- was once regarded as one of the most dangerous terrorists ever apprehended on American soil. Almost six years later, as he received his sentence, he was not actually accused of lifting a finger to harm even a single US citizen.
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White House is trying to eliminate FOIA office| |
Excerpt: The Justice Department's efforts to protect government secrecy are notorious. In fact, in the 109th Congress, the Department "squelched efforts to pass the OPEN Government Act." But even initially "putting it [funding] in DOJ would essentially obviate what Leahy and Cornyn did with the legislation," said Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org. Bush's noncompliance with the legislation makes clear his effort to return to his old ways of egregious government secrecy. |
Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq
US quietly demands Iraq give US military and mercenaries immunity from prosecution| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration insists that Baghdad give the US "broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials," a front page story in Friday's New York Times reports. |
Bush seeks to sidestep treaty process for what
looks like a treaty with puppet gov't of Iraq| |
Excerpt: But it also includes a provision that promises to maintain the stability of Iraq's government from "internal and external threats." This sentence is raising alarms for some US lawmakers.
Any such agreement would be considered a treaty by many legal experts. And under the US Constitution, treaties have to be ratified by Congress.
Comment: I'll admit to Bush-lie fatigue, but I hesitated to link here 'cuz I just don't get it. If it's not a treaty, not approved by the Senate, it's nothin', ain't it? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Anti-war group says war crimes are "encouraged"| |
Excerpt: "The killing of innocent civilians is policy," veteran Mike Blake said. "It's unit policy and it's Army policy. It's not official policy, but it's what's happens on the ground everyday. It's what unit commanders individually encourage." |
Iraqi sovereignty remains a farce| |
Excerpt: High-profile media events have been held to mark the transfer of responsibility for security in various provinces from the US to the Iraqis. But in every case the Americans or the British remain as a back-up to provide air support, logistical assistance and, on occasion, their own troops. It is exactly the same system as "Vietnamization" during the Vietnam war. |
Senate caves, gives Bush another $696-billion
for Iraq slaughter, and blocks Iraqis
from suing over Saddam-era abuse| |
Excerpt: The Senate voted Tuesday to approve a revised defense bill authorizing a 3.5 percent pay raise for troops while sidestepping a veto showdown with President Bush. The 91-3 vote sends the $696 billion measure to Bush for his expected signature. |
One year into so-called 'surge' in Iraq, 15 of 18 announced benchmarks remain un-met
US holds 600 Iraqi juvenile prisoners
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Iran -- Run-up to the next war
Mentally unstable ex-US-Ambassador
says Israel may "have to" attack Iran| |
Excerpt: Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Monday that Israel may have to take military action to prevent its archfoe Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb. |
Iran says if attacked, it'll respond
with attacks on US bases in Middle East| |
Excerpt: "We realize that there is worry among neighboring countries -- Muslim countries whose lands host US military stations," [said Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guards]. He spoke in Farsi, which the network dubbed over in Arabic.
"However, if the US launches a war against us, and if it uses these stations to attack Iran with missiles, then through the strength and precision of our own missiles, we are capable of targeting only the US military forces who attack us," he told the station. |
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Study counts 935 lies from Bush-Cheney
administration in lead-up to Iraq attack
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Lightning round news |
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Excerpt: The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."
Comment: And Nancy Pelosi and virtually all of the Democratic Party are AOK with this. Impeachment is off the table, always and no matter what. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Wolfowitrz -- Iraq warmonger and unqualified, incompetent
World Bank chief -- is appointed to chair State Dept arms control efforts| |
Excerpt: Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at the [arch-rightwing] American Enterprise Institute in Washington, will head Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's International Security Advisory Board, the State Department said yesterday in a statement.
"The ISAB provides the Department of State with a source of independent insight, advice, and innovation on all aspects of arms control, disarmament, nonproliferation, political-military issues, and international security and related aspects of public diplomacy," the State Department said. |
US mercenaries: Above and beyond the law
Gov't says it can't oversee Iraq contractors| |
Excerpt: With even more US contractors now in Iraq and Afghanistan than US military personnel, government officials told Congress yesterday that the Bush administration is not prepared to manage the contractors' critical involvement in the American war effort.
At the end of last September, there were "over 196,000 contractor personnel working for the Defense Department in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Jack Bell, deputy undersecretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness.
"Frankly," he continued, "we were not adequately prepared to address" what he termed "this unprecedented scale of our dependence on contractors."
Comment: This story is coming out the same week that the U.S. is demanding that the contractors be granted immunity from criminal prosecution by the Iraq government. In other words, they are demanding that U.S. agents who they themselves admit are uncontrolled and uncontrollable continue to operate beyond any system of laws. So how’s that sovereignty thing going, again? Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
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Blackwater protesters appeal closed-door trial| |
Excerpt: Seven protesters arrested at Blackwater's Moyock headquarters in October lost their court appeals Wednesday. But they won what they had been denied last month: a public trial.
The seven had been convicted in District Court in December, all but one of them in trials that were closed to the media and the public.
District Judge Edgar Barnes, who closed his courtroom in the protesters' original trials, is the subject of a complaint to the state Judicial Standards Commission by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. By not allowing a public trial, the ACLU contends, Barnes violated the constitutional rights of the defendants, the media and the public. |
New York Times profiles Blackwater's alleged mass murderer
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Under Democratic Congress, there's no penalty for ignoring Congressional subpoenas| |
Excerpt: By allowing their subpoenas to be ignored with impunity, Congressional Democrats are completely abdicating the long-standing linchpin of how our government was designed to function ... |
Isn't treason newsworthy?
State Dept official tipped off Turks, blew Plame's anti-nuclear proliferation investigation| |
Excerpt: Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: "It's pretty clear [Valerie] Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman's company was affiliated to the CIA. I don't know if that's treason legally but many people would consider it to be." |
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' charges of nuclear treason -- quickly explained, in context| |
Excerpt: It appears the White House has been spooked by Edmonds and hopes to absolve the US officials allegedly involved in the illegal sale of nuclear technology to private Turkish "entities". One of those officials is likely Marc Grossman, the former ambassador to Turkey during the Clinton Administration who also served in the State Department from 2001-2005.
Grossman has been named by Edmonds who claims he was directly involved in the nuclear smuggling ring that she says has allowed the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Israel and Turkey to operate in the US with impunity.
Totally complicit in the nuke trade, the US government, according to Edmonds, has known of the vast criminal activities of these foreign nations' presence in the States, which has included all sorts of illegal activities like drug trafficking, espionage and money laundering. |
Edmonds' charges of treason finally get US media
attention ... in The American Conservative magazine| |
Excerpt: Sibel Edmonds makes a number of accusations about specific criminal behavior that appear to be extraordinary but are credible enough to warrant official investigation. Her allegations are documentable: an existing FBI file should determine whether they are accurate.
It's true that she probably knows only part of the story, but if that part is correct, Congress and the Justice Department should have no higher priority. Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials. |
Covering up the non-coverage of Sibel Edmonds| |
Daniel Ellsberg: For the second time in two weeks, the entire US press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch's London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt US officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the US Congress and the courts.
For the last two weeks -- one could say, for years -- the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network. It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end. |
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Bush names terrorist sympathizer as new ambassador to Nicaragua| |
Excerpt: The story, in case you missed it because you don't read the European press, is that US president George W. Bush has just appointed Robert Callahan as the United State's Ambassador to Nicaragua. Callahan was John Negroponte's (the former Ambassador to Honduras) right hand man, spokesman and speechwriter while the two were coordinating the operations of the Contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s. |
Tom Ridge, ex-head of Homeland Security, acknowledges
that waterboarding is torture and America shouldn't be doing it| |
Excerpt: "There's just no doubt in my mind -- under any set of rules -- waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.
"One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture," Ridge said in the interview. Ridge was secretary of the Homeland Security Department between 2003 and 2005. "And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is -- and will always be -- torture. That's a simple statement." |
Democrats ask Mukasey: Now can you tell us if waterboarding is torture?| |
Comment: The question is grandstanding and nothing but. Anyone who's morally awake knows that waterboarding is torture. Mukasey knows it, and the Democrats who OK'd him as Attorney General know it. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Trashing the planet
Honeybees may be wiped out in 10 years| |
Excerpt: The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said that if the crisis continued, honeybees would disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing "calamitous" economic and environmental problems.
Comment: I'm no expert, but from my understanding of Biology 101 if the honeybees are gone it shatters the food chain and leads to mass starvation across human civilizations. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
EPA endorsed California's more stringent greenhouse
gas standards, before Bush-appointed hacks overruled experts| |
Excerpt: EPA officials told the agency's administrator that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" to justify a federal waiver allowing the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, according to excerpts of documents released Wednesday.
Yet when Administrator Stephen Johnson denied the state's request for a waiver in December, he said the California standards were not needed to meet "compelling and extraordinary conditions," one of the criteria in the federal law. |
Defunct US spy satellite falling from orbit| |
Excerpt: The satellite, which no longer be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. |
Politicians censor report on dangers of arctic drilling
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Arab League offers Israel peace| |
Excerpt: A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world and people-to-people contacts if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories. ...
"The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."
Comment: Nice try, but Israel wants Arab territories a lot more than it wants Arab cooperation. Mark E. PERMANENT LINK |
Book alleges that Brits and US naval forces mimicked Soviets
in 1980s and '90s to heighten Cold War tensions| |
Excerpt: This weekend Sir Keith Speed, navy minister from 1979 to 1981, was asked if the missions had happened. He replied, "Yes," but added: "I cannot say any more as I am bound by the Official Secrets Act until the day I die." |
Judge says New York City can't use secret arguments
in lawsuit over 2004 Republican Convention crackdown| |
Excerpt: The city must disclose its arguments about why documents on police surveillance of protesters before the 2004 Republican National Convention should be kept confidential, a judge ruled Tuesday.
US Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV in Manhattan said the court won't consider a sealed affidavit by David Cohen, the New York Police Department's commissioner for intelligence. |
Chicago Tribune calls President a liar ... but it's President Clinton| |
Comment: Certainly, the Clintons are lying about what Barack Obama said, but it's an utterly ordinary political lie. And for this, a Chicago Trib writer is willing to call the Clintons liars -- in the headline, yet. We appreciate the Tribune's honesty...
And yet I wonder, as we enter the eighth year of an administration that has lied so often about so many issues that I challenge any fair observer to find any matter of policy on which Bush and Cheney haven't lied -- when will the Chicago Tribune call Bush, Cheney, or any of their high-level liars liars? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Thousands cross border for shopping sprees after Gaza freedom fighters blast holes in wall| |
Excerpt: As waves of people swarmed through the destroyed barrier -- some estimated the crowd in the hundreds of thousands -- Egyptian security forces lined up on one side of the border and Hamas forces lined up on the other side. None of them interfered in any way, and it appeared Hamas militants actively participated in the border breach. |
Canada goes after publisher of Islam-mocking comic| |
Excerpt: What a strange place Canada is in 2008, where the police care more about human rights than the human rights commissions do, where fundamentalist Muslims use hate-speech laws drafted by secular Jews, and where a government bureaucrat can interrogate a publisher for 90 minutes, and be shocked when he won't shake her hand in greeting. |
Overdose rescue kit is affordable, saves lives ... so of course, Bush administration is opposed| |
Excerpt: The nasal spray is a drug called naloxone, or Narcan. It blocks the brain receptors that heroin activates, instantly reversing an overdose.
Doctors and emergency medical technicians have used Narcan for years in hospitals and ambulances. But it doesn't require much training because it's impossible to overdose on Narcan. ...
But Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, opposes the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs. ...
"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says.
Comment: Is there some surgery, a consciencectomy, Republicans undergo, or are they simply born incapable of feeling compassion? Mark E. PERMANENT LINK |
Anonymous goes after Scientology| |
Comment: The well-publicized web war of Anonymous v. Scientology is amusing but insignificant. Anonymous v. Something That Matters would be much more appealing to me and millions of others... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
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This week's commentary
Bush-Democrat tax rebates: Worse than Guantanamo
by Lee C., Unknown News
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Excerpt: This is actually worse than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib because it demonstrates soulless disregard of our very own citizens. And it convicts not just George Bush but Congress itself, especially the Democrats, who couldn't vote YES fast enough. |
To obey, or not to obey
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: To obey, or not to obey: that is the question / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The neo-cons, Cheney, and Bush / Or to take arms against a sea of problems / And, by opposing, end them? |
The Devil's Political Dictionary
by Chris M., Unknown News
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Excerpt: Liberal: An upper middle class white person who exhibits a conscience when it is not personally inconvenient. Likes Blacks, Asians, Latinos and other minorities son long as they think, act, talk, dress and behave like upper middle class white people. |
It begins in your heart
by Hazel Burke, Unknown News
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Excerpt: It is all OK, whether you live for an eon or a day, because it is always just one day -- each day. And when you find or re-find your True Heart, when you remember your true desires again, you will also find true allies, of good and true heart to join you. That is the way to win... everything: It begins in your Heart. |
Connecting the dots and finding bad cops
by Lon Garm, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Just for grins I decided to run a Google News search for officer arrested OR sentenced OR indicted OR jailed (bearing in mind that the diligent researcher would repeat the search, substituting various synonyms such as "cop", "sheriff", "deputy", "agent", etc.). Only 30,000 hits came up for the most recent 30 day period, and of those, at most 30% involved officers being arrested etc. instead of doing the arresting. |
Threatening national suicide
by Chris M., Unknown News
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Excerpt: This is the very thing the powers that be are afraid of, to their bones. This is why they will go to any lengths to prop it up -- even threatening national suicide. Not an attack on our country per se, but an attack on our financial and business sectors. |
It's time to hold Democratic
House leaders in contempt
by Naomi Wolf, The Huffington Post| |
Excerpt: Remember this: each and every member of Congress took an oath -- and the oath was not to some abstract government, it was an oath TO YOU -- to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." Unlike many good people across the political spectrum who are appalled at this dismantling of the three-part system the founders put in place and the besmirching of the rule of law, Congressional Republicans have clearly decided to place their allegiance to the president and their party over their allegiance to the Constitution. This is bad enough; this is, in fact, treason. But the Democrats do not even have that party allegiance as an excuse for their treachery. They would be standing up for their party, the institution of Congress, and the Constitution by passing the contempt resolutions. What more will it take to get them to act?
Those who think -- as Pelosi apparently does -- that they may rock the boat through a contempt citation in a way that endangers a possible Democratic victory in September are badly misreading the public mood -- as well as severely misreading the historical record. If you don't punish those who break the law at this stage of a crackdown on liberty -- through contempt citations, through the use of Congress's jail cell for those who are found guilty of contempt, and/or through the investigations of a truly independent prosecutor -- you are not going to have a transparent, accountable election in November. You will have set a benchmark for impunity and you will get greater and greater crimes committed in the certainty of impunity. |
Previous commentary
Why people still waste their time is a mystery to me
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: In every election for the last thirty-five years, Americans have voted for candidates who promised to act in their behalf, but all that the American voter has gotten are empty promises, empty pockets, and a mountain of debt. |
On the dominance of the clever
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: This country began in an atmosphere of mistrust of authority, an unwillingness to bend the knee to one's "betters," and a collective commitment to preventing destructive concentrations of power. But now, our obedience to authority has gotten us to this spot. |
No-one forces you to buy junk
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Be a citizen first and then a cautious consumer second. You empower yourself when you hold on to your money and think before you spend. Bottom line? You! You send a message to the CHEAP LABOR CROWD when you refuse to buy unsafe products, and be a part of the corruption you say you're so opposed to. |
Going down
by Kathy & Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: No-one forced people into equity loans and second mortgages. They loved the idea that they could use their homes as credit cards for vacations and lavish home improvements and yes new cars... No-one forced people to sign on the dotted line on a RISKY subprime loan. People believed what they wanted to believe when they were not asked to put down how much money they made or told not to worry, alarms should have gone off in their heads warning them if it does not feel right or sound right, don't sign. |
On the comfort of blaming the victims
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: To whatever extent we are able to salvage something after this criminal carnival (that the home loan scam is just a small part of) burns itself out, our success will depend on our ability to separate the sheep from the goats in our perception of what happened, and a willingness to extend our sympathy and help to those in our society that have been victimized the most. |
This isn't torture, it's a walk
in the park on a sunny day
by Don Nash, Unknown News
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
by Michelle L., From Reason to Freedom| |
Excerpt: So while I feel very much like I'm pissing in the wind, I would feel even worse if I tried to suffer in silence; to do nothing or say nothing. Because the feeling of impotence is overwhelming -- I can be honest about myself enough to admit I'm not at the point of being able to shoot the bastards; I, like many of my fellow citizens, am too comfortable. I like my electricity, love my internet connection, love my air conditioning and my ability to shop at the local supermarket thus eliminating the need to kill my dinner. I am your ugly American; fat and complacent and what can only be called a soft target.
But what will happen when these amenities are taken away, by the very real and ever probable economic collapse or the war brought home to us? Suddenly these creature comforts would start to lose their importance; I for one would gladly trade my air conditioning (even in August in Texas!) for my Constitutional rights back. |
When America ceases to be good
by Daniel F., Opening Inner Space| |
Excerpt: I was born an American. I was born free. I loved the country I knew as a child. I will always be an American even though the country I loved will soon cease to exist. It is with great sadness that I announce my decision to leave my native land before it dies. |
We fight for freedom
by anonymous, Cathartic Relief| |
Excerpt: Initially, people seemed to accept the fact that we needed help getting rid of Bush's dictatorship. Lately, I think people have come to understand that the Chinese are really here for our natural resources. In the fusion driven, post-oil world, apparently American soil contains a lot of the minerals that drive the fusion process. I don't really understand it but apparently the largest supply of "whatever it is" (some sort of helium?) was found in Iowa. The Chinese have set up camp there and apparently haven't left. They can talk all they want about giving us our freedom but with 4,500,000 dead, 21,000,000 Americans who've fled and are now living as refugees elsewhere (12,000,000 in Canada alone) and another 1,100,000 fleeing each month, I gotta tell ya, it doesn't feel all that free. |
There's big money in poverty
by JS Magruder, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: We seem to be (as a nation) suffering a collective case of misplaced hostility. It isn't the poor taking your money. It isn't the immigrant family down the street taking your job. Your jobs were sent abroad by the people representing you in Washington. Your taxes are torturing and killing people the world over. Your hard-earned money is funding the building of more prisons to house petty criminals, and for the police helicopter looking for God only knows what. The people who are making you work longer hours for less pay aren't the poor asking for change on a street corner. The poor didn't jack up your credit card rates to what any other country in the world would consider usury. The guy sitting on the park bench with everything he owns in the world stuffed into a paper bag, with maggot-infested unhealed flesh wounds -- that guy didn't sell you the interest-only mortgage. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back for walking past him as though he didn't exist and make you feel better by mumbling about "services being available." |
Weird events in Wendover, Utah
by Don Nash, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Okay, so the scoop as explained to me is that the freaking spooks are training in populated urban areas and using civilians and civilian traffic as targets. The spookies are laser washing selected trucks, cars, civilians, and then they're calling in air strikes. On United States citizens! Holy freaking mother of god and Mary in the very early morning! The goddamned United States military is using us as their freaking subjects in their twisted and barbaric war gaming. |
I'm afraid of writing this
by Chris D., Unknown News
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Excerpt: Security will be tightened at US bases abroad in ways that disregard or even threaten local governments and international law, followed by the outright annexation of the countries that contain them. The UN at that point will have had enough and launch economic sanctions against the US for the first time. The US will respond militarily and open war will break out. A reign of unbridled and incomparable terror will encompass the globe not at the hands of Islamic extremists but at the hands of the one true rogue nation. (Sorry, I call 'em as I see 'em.) |
The ides of idolatry, or ... A song for Huckabee!
by Don Nash, Unknown News
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Excerpt: "People of planet earth, you've got it all wrong! You're not supposed to hate one another. You're not supposed to kill one another. You're not supposed to spread lies as gospel and you're sure as hell not supposed to listen to anyone that would advise you otherwise. The political demagogues that would cloak themselves in religion are worse than the hypocrites that bomb and kill using the name of the Most High. Knock that crap off!" |
The US is being scuttled
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Unfortunately, in these sorts of situations there cannot be a happy ending. The best we can hope for, in the wake of decades of accepting a false understanding about the politics of our country, is a very painful transition from pride to punishment. |
Surviving the Great Depression of 2008
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Just think of it, the Great Depression of '08 deluxe refrigerator carton will not only keep you and yours dry, but will bring all your family members closer together, just like the old days. ... |
Deconstructing the "brand name" al-Qaeda®
by Marie K., Unknown News
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Excerpt: Has al-Qaeda® been a label that is useful for the US government and other governments that also use it? First, it aids countries interested in gaining greater control over their own citizens given those governments' claiming to be "protecting" them as they take away their rights. It has also been useful for governments that carry out false flag operations and arrest Muslims worldwide -- perhaps for more "bounty monies" or some other benefit. It could also come in handy if there is a second type of al-Qaeda® made up of CIA/other intelligence agencies' agents who serve as infiltrators and agents sent to entrap people. |
I needs to kill me some more peoples!
by Don Nash, Unknown News
The end of a nightmare of delusion
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: This episode of species insanity that is coming to an end has been based on the willingness of individuals to remain as children, to forego advancement to adult status, to arrest our intellectual and moral development for the sake of being part of an ever larger collective where only a few individuals are allowed to assume adult roles. What is not growth is death. We have chosen to see to the growth of our dominator cultures by virtue of piling heaps of our own corpses on a bonfire that keeps fewer and fewer of us warm. |
Know that you are being lied to
by Zebra, Unknown News
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Excerpt: By spreading the manure real thick "they" create the necessary uncertainty in enough peoples' minds to prevent mass action that would destabilize their next scams. |
American economy hijacked by corruption
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News
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Excerpt: The unwillingness of our elected representatives to act upon the coming economic disaster can only be defined as treason, pure and simple. This sellout of the American worker began in earnest with Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers during his term the White House, and it has continued under the subsequent administrations of GHW Bush and Bill Clinton. |
Got hope? Nope.
by Don Nash, Unknown News
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Excerpt: We've got about one more year of the Bush regime. Scary as the thought might be, the pending presidential election is even more scary. America is offered little choice for leadership. Clinton? McCain? Obama? Romney? Huckabee? Oh, mommy! |
Contemplating a catastrophic future with
a sense of confidence rather than despair
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: So, I would say cheer up, we have nothing to lose in the coming catastrophe but a set of bad habits that the species will have to shake off if it is to survive. |
My Marxist friends always make sense!
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Now they lie again and say they are fight TERRORISM. No, it's more conquest. More stealing other nations resources. It's capitalism with a big jackbooted helping of in your face Fascism. |
Satan himself is preferable to Hillary Clinton
by Pavel C., Unknown News
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Excerpt: The Democratic Party sought to trade off our liberties, our Constitution, our national wealth, and our good name in the world for political expediency. They really ought to be punished if they attempt to propel Sen Mrs Clinton into the Oval Office. |
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Thank you!
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