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King George cancels law that says US won't build permanent bases in Iraq| |
Excerpt: President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill.
Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued late Monday after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008. In the signing statement, Bush asserted that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them.
Comment: For determined, willful neglect of duty, Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party are essentially co-conspirators in the ongoing dismantling of the US Constitution by the increasingly tyrannical Bush administration. This is what happens when criminals are given absolute impunity, when people charged with oversight instead turn their backs. Angry Annie PERMANENT LINK |
There are more than three stooges
(and one of them will be America's next President)
Lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners endorse Obama| |
Excerpt: More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid.
The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to "restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community." The attorneys are representing the detainees in habeas corpus lawsuits, which are efforts to get individual hearings before federal judges in order to challenge the basis for their indefinite imprisonment without trial. |
Clinton applauds phony "surge" claims in State of Union Address| |
Scroll down: When Bush proclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt," Clinton sprang to her feet in applause but Obama remained firmly seated. The president's line divided most of the Democratic audience, with nearly half standing to applaud and the other half sitting in stony silence.
Comment: I'm beginning to see a few things that seem to distinguish Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton, and this shows a pretty clear distinction. The "success" of the so-called surge is, I believe, every bit as phony as the lies the Bush administration told to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Hillary Clinton swallowed those lies just like she's swallowing these lies.
I'd say America's best hope would be compiling a list of which Democrats stood up and applauded that line, and channeling every nickel anyone can afford to having them un-elected. And I'd like to have a President with the minimal common sense it takes to not give Bush's lies a standing ovation. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Clinton's "35 years of change" omits most of her career| |
Excerpt: Clinton spent the bulk of her career -- 15 of those 35 years -- at one of Arkansas' most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.
Neither she nor her surrogates, however, ever mention that on the campaign trail. Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: "She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm." |
Obama's record fundraising comes mostly from small donors| |
Excerpt: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised $32 million in the single month of January. The amount was the most raised in one month by a presidential candidate who still faced a primary challenge.
In an e-mail to supporters Wednesday evening, the campaign said it had attracted 224,000 new donors in January for a total of more than 700,000 overall. |
In fourth debate sponsored by coal industry group, still not one question about global warming| |
Comment: Way back when, when Presidential debates were run by the League of Women Voters, the questions were real questions and the debates weren't obvious shams. And of course, that's why the debates were snatched from the League of Women Voters, to be turned into blathery fluff-fests... Angry Annie PERMANENT LINK |
Clinton says her "health plan" could garnish poor workers' wages| |
Excerpt: Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.
Comment: There's a word for politicians who have no comprehension of poverty, and that word is Republican. That's what Hillary Clinton has always been. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Giuliani drops out of race, 9-11 9-11 9-11| |
Comment: Okay, this isn't news by the time you're reading this. It wasn't even exactly news earlier this week when Giuliani made the announcement. But let's all take a moment to enjoy the fact that a corrupt multimillionaire who spent the last six years professionally exploiting the deaths of thousands of Americans in an incident his own negligence helped make possible, will not be our nation's next president. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
John Edwards bows out of Presidential race| |
Comment: This strikes me as sad news, but good timing: Among Democrats, there's a strong contingency who are actually Democrats and thus abhor Hillary Clinton. Edwards' quitting will allow the full force of anti-Clinton Democrats to side with Obama -- who's nowhere near as good as John Edwards, but clearly also seems pretty plainly better than Hillary Clinton. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Right wing in a dither over McCain success
McCain opposes his own legislation
MoveOn endorses Obama
Clinton, on Wal-Mart board, remained silent as retail giant fought unions
McCain jokes about waterboarding after criticizing Giuliani for joking about waterboarding
A clue about Obama's character:
He whispered help to another candidate in debate
Buchanan says McCain win would mean war with Iran
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Key "facts" of 9/11 investigation
were obtained through torture| |
Excerpt: The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaida operatives. Each had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques." Some were even subjected to waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, which simulates drowning.
Comment: Now we know why the 9/11 Commission report is so -- ah -- tortured. SirJ PERMANENT LINK
Key 9/11 Commission staffer held secret meetings with Rove, scaled back criticisms of White House
Excerpt: According to the book, [9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow] failed to inform the commission at the time he was hired that he was instrumental in helping Condoleezza Rice set up Bush's National Security Council in 2001. Some panel staffers believe Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice's performance prior to 9/11 as "amount[ing] to incompetence." |
Bush will seek $70-billion more for wars| |
Comment: With this allegedly "Democratic-controlled Congress", asking for war funds means getting war funds... Mark E. PERMANENT LINK |
Court again orders Bush administration
to come clean about Guantanamo prisoners| |
Excerpt: A federal appeals court ruled against the Bush administration Friday in a central case on Guantánamo detainees, declining to reconsider an order that the government has to turn over virtually all its information on many detainees.
Unless the Justice Department obtains a stay, the decision, from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will clear the way for detainees' lawyers to press 180 appeals cases of inmates at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their detentions. The cases contest decisions by military panels that the men are properly held as unlawful enemy combatants. |
VA Hospital kills 19 US soldiers| |
Excerpt: Substandard care at a southern Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital may have contributed to 19 deaths over the past two years, a VA official said as he apologized to affected families and pledged reform.
The hospital undertook many surgeries that its staffing or lack of proper surgical expertise made it ill-equipped to handle, and hospital administrators were too slow to respond once problems surfaced, Dr. Michael Kussman, US veterans affairs undersecretary for health, said Monday. |
Office of Special Counsel says DoJ
impedes investigation into DoJ corruption| |
Excerpt: Scott J. Bloch, head of the US Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times. |
Bush orders NSA to spy on Internet traffic| |
Excerpt: Earlier this month President Bush signed a directive that gives the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies to monitor Internet traffic to protect all government computer systems. As the Washington Post reports, this is causing particular concern because the NSA's focus has traditionally been on overseas activity, not domestic. |
Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq
Five GIs killed in northern Iraq| |
Comment: This doesn't smell like success to me ... Bush/Cheney LIED to get into Iraq. They're now LYING to stay there. Wig PERMANENT LINK |
Army investigating deaths of
'several' detainees in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Asked how many deaths the investigation involved, [Paul Boyce, the Army's spokesman at the Pentagon] said, "it appears to be more than one individual." The news release said several people died.
The Army is not disclosing the age and sex of the Iraqis whose deaths are under investigation, Boyce said ...
Comment: A lot is being swept under the rug ... Again and again, no-one knows what is going on. Asking the Pentagon is like asking the tree in the meadow. Wig PERMANENT LINK |
Media's report on 'mentally disabled"
Iraqi suicide bombers now questioned| |
Comment: If your b.s. detector didn't go off at the unanimous news accounts that Friday's suicide bombers were "mentally disabled", then your b.s. detector needs new batteries. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Poll finds one million Iraqis killed in war| |
Excerpt: More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain's leading polling groups.
The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes. |
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1 per cent of American households face foreclosure| |
Excerpt: The number of home foreclosures in the United States surged 75 per cent in 2007 amid the melt down in the subprime mortgage market, a report by a firm that tracks foreclosures said Tuesday.
There were 2.2 million foreclosure filings in 2007, amounting to nearly 1 per cent of all US households ... |
Moulitsas of Daily Kos poo-poos
questions of election integrity| |
Excerpt: Also, it shouldn't be necessary to note, but it is, since Kos continues to spread disinformation concerning issues of Election Integrity (and is even banning those who question him or his other front-pagers if they dare to question them, or god forbid, post actual facts), but no serious Election Integrity person that we know of has charged either "fraud" or "dark conspiracies" in New Hampshire.
Rather, it is charged that 80% of the ballots were never counted or verified by anyone after they were tabulated on the very same error-prone, hackable Diebold op-scan systems seen flipping an election undetectably, save for actually counting the paper ballots, in HBO's Hacking Democracy. |
Bush deal with Iraq is (surprise) unconstitutional| |
Excerpt: President Bush's plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.
There is growing alarm about the Constitutional issues raised by Bush's plan. Legal specialists and lawmakers of both parties are raising questions about whether it would be unconstitutional for Bush to complete such a sweeping deal on behalf of the United States without the consent of the legislative branch. |
Sibel Edmonds says, 'Buckle up,
there's much more coming'| |
Excerpt: "With the US media, it appears as though if there is no clear partisan angle, then there's no story. As you know, this case is spread over two administrations, and that appears to make it difficult for the reporters to cover the story. Even within one news organization you might have one journalist who wants to use the story to indict Clinton, and another who wants to use the story to bash Bush, and in the end neither of them write about the story because it doesn't fit their partisanship, their 'narrative', so they just drop it altogether." |
Chavez seeks Latin American defense pact| |
Excerpt: Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is seeking a defense pact with other Latin American states against "aggression" from the United States.
The outspoken leader wants a military alliance to be created between his country and Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. |
MySpace kills site for atheists and agnostics| |
Excerpt: MySpace deleted the 35,000-member "Atheist and Agnostic Group" on Jan. 1, a little more than a month after hackers broke in and renamed the group's site "Jesus Is Love," Bryan Pesta said Wednesday.
MySpace has ignored repeated requests to restore the group's site, including an online petition with more than 500 signatures, said Pesta, who was the group's moderator.
"These actions send a clear message to the 30 million godless people in America that we are not welcome on MySpace," Pesta said.
A MySpace spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
Comment: The moral of the story is: When your free speech is in the hands of a giant corporation, you can be silenced at any moment. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Update: Website appears to be back on-line, for now |
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Lightning round news |
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Five years ago: A prescient E&P interview about administration lies, with Daniel Ellsberg| |
Excerpt: One question the press is not asking: Is there a single high military man who believes this war should happen now, that it is appropriate and [the] risks worthwhile? Every indication leaking out is that most feel that it is far from certain, even unlikely, that the war will be as short and successful as the civilian bosses say. What are we gaining that is worth the chance of a disastrous outcome? The military chiefs do not agree with civilians in the Pentagon as far as we can tell. And does anyone in State or the CIA strongly favor war? Another question, about how the oil reserves play out in this -- has that issue been fully explored for the American public, and have they weighed it adequately? |
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This week's commentary
State of the Union vs. Sermon on the Mount
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Torture is what the executive says it is and even admitted torture can be used when the executive wants, meaning that executive power supersedes and can ignore any common understanding of decency ... |
An open letter to His Majesty,
King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein,
the 43rd generation direct descendant
of the Prophet Muhammad
(Peace Be Upon Him)
by Don Nash, Unknown News
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Excerpt: Your Kingliness, I'm not trying to be insulting here. I'm trying hard to understand how it is that Israelis can kill Palestinians with impunity and the world does ABSOLUTELY nothing to stop the massacre. |
Fairy tales: The dreams of the oppressed
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
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Excerpt: To the extent that we remain asleep and dreaming, disconnected from the reality of consequences of our dreaming, then we are indeed lost. To the extent that we are willing to wake up and look upon our dreams with compassion and a degree of self-deprecating humor, we can choose those to dream those dreams that actually serve the interests of ourselves in the broader context of the rest of humanity, and the rest of life on earth, and achieve a sustainable life that is full of the vividness of both joy and sorrow. |
Curiouser and curiouser
by Marie K., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: I've checked -- the cables that reach Iran are NOT any of the severed ones. The cables to Iran DO come from the affected Gulf states, though, so they could be experiencing problems. |
Dept of Justice needs a new name
by Scott Horton, Harper's| |
Excerpt: Bush may very well say that "we do not torture." He said it in the teeth of the photographs from Abu Ghraib, the gruesome scenes of Guantánamo, the deaths in Bagram and the scandalous reports from the system of CIA black sites. It is one of Bush's most practiced, most artfully delivered and least believed lies. But we know he is wedded to torture. It is, for the Bush years, the surest evidence of the morally corrosive wielding of power for the sake of power, of power untamed by accountability, of power placed beyond the hold of Law.
The firmest proof of Bush's commitment to the idol torture can be found in his defacing of the Department of Justice. At length, of course, this agency has not the remotest relationship to justice. So let's call it by a name that better reflects the purpose to which its has been converted. Now it's the Ministry for Torture. |
Previous 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. |
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