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Senate OK's immunity for telecom giants that spied on you| |
Excerpt: About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws. Telecom immunity must still be approved by the House; its version of the surveillance bill does not provide immunity.
Comment: Democratic Senators voting for this abomination include most of the usual Republicanesque Democrats: Evan Bayh (IA), Tom Carper (DE), Kent Conrad (ND), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Daniel Inouye (HI), Tim Johnson (SD), Herb Kohl (WI), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Claire McCaskill (MO), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), Mark Pryor (AR), Jay Rockefeller (WV), Ken Salazar (CO), Debbie Stabenow (MI), and Jim Webb (VA). Senator Hillary Clinton decided that her Presidential campaign was more important; she wasn't present. Sen Barack Obama returned to Washington DC, and voted against immunity. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
US demands data from laptops, cameras, cellphones at border crossings| |
Excerpt: Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.
The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling. |
FBI's "InfraGard" program trains corporate executives as quasi-cops| |
Excerpt: One of the advantages of InfraGard, according to its leading members, is that the FBI gives them a heads-up on a secure portal about any threatening information related to infrastructure disruption or terrorism.
The InfraGard website advertises this. In its list of benefits of joining InfraGard, it states: “Gain access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards, and much more.” ...
One business owner ... says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out. But that’s not all.
“Then they said when -- not if -- martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
Comment: Fascism is the commingling of corporate concerns with the power of the state, and this is it, by crystal-clear definition. Floyd PERMANENT LINK |
Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq
Iraq doesn't let its own laws get in the way of inviting foreigners to come take all the oil| |
Excerpt: The Iraqi government is inviting major oil multinationals to participate for the first time in the development of the oil industry, without waiting for the passage of crucial legislation determining how the revenues will be shared between its regions.
In a sign that the oil law - legislation the US considers key to Iraq's future stability - is unlikely to be agreed by parliament soon, Hussain Shahristani, oil minister, said Iraq was determined to push ahead with plans to raise production from a current 2.5m barrels per day to 6m bpd in five years.
Comment: The reason Iraq's parliament "can't agree" on an oil law is not just because they can't agree on how to split the profits among themselves. It's because they all agree that the profits should mostly stay in Iraq instead of going to Western oil companies -- and the oil law we've been trying to force on them at gunpoint for years now says exactly the opposite. The only "stability" that the US is pursuing here is the stability of American oil companies' record profits. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Exxon Mobil gets in line to start taking Iraqi oil |
The bloody disaster is "working" in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Iraq to scrap food program by June to comply with World Bank, Iraq braced for more cholera outbreaks; Baghdad is drowning in sewage; Row over killing of Iraqi family; Parliament walkout freezes bill on Iraqi local elections; Orphans face uncertain future; US admits killing Iraqi civilians; Iraqi VP supports forming new government; No improvement in electricity output; Members of Sadr movement in Iraqi Parliament urge cleric not to renew cease-fire with US; Radical Shiite group raises new security concerns; Kurds say they'll leave government if demands not met ... |
Leaked memo blasts State Dept. incompetence in Iraq| |
Excerpt: In a confidential memo, a long-time Republican operative who has served in the US Embassy in Baghdad for the past year says the State Department's efforts in Iraq are so poorly managed they "would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal" if done in the private sector.
"We have brought to Iraq the worst of America -- our bureaucrats," writes Manuel Miranda in the memo, which was addressed to US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and cc'd to "ALCON" or "all concerned" at the State Department. |
More bombing in Iraq creates more enemies there
Gates considers halting phony troop cuts in Iraq
Army sniper convicted of killing Iraqi
Troops "struggle" with marijuana forests in Afghanistan
US occupation cedes town to 'Al Qaeda in Iraq'
9 Iraqi civilians die in US attack
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America's rigged elections
Federal investigators say nothing went wrong in stolen 2006 Congressional election| |
Excerpt: Democrat Christine Jennings lost the election by 369 votes to Republican Vern Buchanan. She called for the congressional investigation after finding out the machines failed to record more than 18,000 votes in the election in 13th Congressional District election.
The Government Accountability Office says it's more likely that voters skipped the race on the ballot, either intentionally or by mistake.
Comment: This defies common sense so, of course, it's perfectly in keeping with the Bush-Cheney administration. The election was close, garnered lots of local attention, and it was the highest-profile contest on the ballot -- there's simply no way in hell that 18,000 voters made their way to their voting places not to vote. Angry Annie PERMANENT LINK |
LA votes not counted thanks to confusing ballots| |
Excerpt: In California, the acting Los Angeles County Registrar has announced his office will examine more than 94,000 ballots cast on Tuesday following an uproar from voters who fear their votes will not count.
In California, independent voters are allowed to take part in the Democratic or the American Independent Party primaries. In Los Angeles County these nonpartisan voters are given a special ballot where they must pick a candidate and mark an additional bubble denoting which party primary they were voting in.
If the second bubble is not marked, officials say the vote does not count. It is unclear how many votes for presidential candidates may have gone uncounted. |
Ohio officials go to court to block use of paper ballots| |
Excerpt: A Union County judge has issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from enforcing the change. The case challenges the secretary of state’s authority to dictate which voting systems are used. It was moved Friday to Franklin County, where Ms. Brunner’s office is located. |
Diebold voting machine key copied from picture on Diebold site| |
Excerpt: In another stunning blow to the security and integrity of Diebold's electronic voting machines, someone has made a copy of the key which opens ALL Diebold e-voting machines from a picture on the company's own website. The working keys were confirmed by Princeton scientists, the same people who discovered that a simple virus hack on the Diebold machines could steal an election. Absolutely incredible and another example of how Diebold's e-voting machines pose a great threat to the electoral process. |
Republicans shut down caucus count in Washington| |
Excerpt: In terms of consequence, Bush v. Gore it ain't. This is a relatively small contest in a nomination campaign that appears to be over. But this is something you'd expect either from Soviet history or a farcical passage in a Faulkner novel. And let's not forget the context. Huckabee starts the day with a blowout win in Kansas. That evening he gets the largest number of votes in Louisiana. Then in the third contest he's neck and neck with John McCain and looks like he may win all three contests of the day -- a shut-out for the all-but-declared nominee. Then as it's going down to the wire, the head of the state party decides he's seen enough and calls it for McCain. |
Voters say Diebold e-pollbooks crashed during primary; official says they didn't
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Judge allows CREW to delve
into operations of White House unit| |
Excerpt: The judge said she will allow Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to gather a "very limited" amount of information from the White House Office of Administration, which is in charge of preserving e-mail.
The issue for [Judge Colleen] Kollar-Kotelly is whether the Office of Administration operates with substantial independent authority. If the judge finds that it does, the private group can pursue data about what went wrong with the White House e-mail system.
If the judge decides that the office's functions are limited to serving the president, she likely will dismiss the suit. |
Every Homeland-Security terror alert
has turned out to be bogus| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has never shied from playing the fear card to distract the American public from scandal or goad them into supporting a deeply flawed foreign policy. Here a history of the administration's most-dubious terror alerts -- including three consecutive Memorial Day scare-a-thons -- all of which proved far less terrifying than the screamer headlines they inspired.
FBI has more than 100 task forces
devoted exclusively to fighting terrorism
... and they've found nothing
Excerpt: The expenditure of such massive resources to find would-be terrorists inevitably requires results. Plots must be uncovered. Sleeper cells must be infiltrated. Another attack must be prevented -- or, at least, be seen to be prevented. But in backwaters like Rockford, the JTTFs don't have much to do. To find threats to thwart, the task forces have increasingly taken to using paid informants to cajole and inveigle targets like Shareef into pursuing their harebrained schemes. In the affidavit sworn by an FBI special agent in support of Shareef's indictment, the co-conspirator who called himself Jameel is known only as "CS" (Cooperating Source). In fact, CS was William Chrisman, a former crack dealer with a conviction for attempted robbery who was paid $8,500 by the JTTF and dispatched specifically to set up Shareef. Like other informants in terrorism cases, Chrisman had been "tasked" by federal agents to indulge and escalate Shareef's fantasies -- while carefully ensuring that Shareef incriminated himself.
"The hope is that they will nab an actual terrorist or prevent a putative jihadi from becoming one," says David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Less Safe, Less Free, a new book detailing the ways 9/11 has transformed domestic law enforcement. "It makes sense in general -- but when you're pressing people to undertake conduct they would have never undertaken without an informant pushing them along, there is a real question if you're creating crime, not preventing crime." |
"State secret" privilege is used to block
lawsuit on behalf of torture victims| |
Excerpt: The "state secrets" privilege has historically been used to exclude discrete pieces of evidence from lawsuits in order to protect national security, not to throw out entire cases. But the Bush administration has begun to misuse the privilege by routinely waving the "state secrets" flag in an effort to quash lawsuits that might expose its illegal conduct. In addition to this case, the "state secrets" claim has been raised in an effort to throw out other torture and illegal wiretapping suits.
Far from being a "secret," the rendition program is infamous around the world and has been spoken about repeatedly by government officials. |
Occasional signs of sanity
Australia's new Prime Minister
apologizes to indigenous Australians| |
Excerpt: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd rose to deliver the historic apology after receiving a standing ovation when he walked into the chamber with Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin.
Before his speech, Mr Rudd formally moved that the House of Representatives apologize to Australia's indigenous peoples. |
Mayor kicks Marines "urban
warfare training" out of Toledo| |
Excerpt: Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit was supposed to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.
The mayor’s spokesperson, Brian Schwartz said, “The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area." |
Nebraska court bans electrocution as torture| |
Excerpt: The decision erased Nebraska's distinction as the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution. State courts are left with the ability to sentence people to death but no way to carry out the penalty.
"[Plaintiff Raymond Mata]’s sentence of death is affirmed. But under our system of government, while the Legislature may vote to have the death penalty, it must not create one that offends constitutional rights. We recognize the temptation to make the prisoner suffer, just as the prisoner made an innocent victim suffer. But it is the hallmark of a civilized society that we punish cruelty without practicing it. Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes.
"And the evidence clearly proves that unconsciousness and death are not instantaneous for many condemned prisoners. These prisoners will, when electrocuted, consciously suffer the torture that high voltage electric current inflicts on the human body. The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts intense pain and agonizing suffering. Therefore, electrocution as a method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Nebraska Constitution, article I, § 9. And, without a constitutionally acceptable method of execution, Mata’s sentence of death is stayed." |
Staples cancels contract with paper-
maker over environmental policies
Bush administration's "relaxed
emissions rule" struck down
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Bush budget: Record deficits, cuts in taxes
for the rich and programs for the poor,
and a big boost for the "defense" industry
Iran: America's next war
US indirectly subsidizing Iran's nuclear program| |
Excerpt: A US program to keep Russian scientists from providing nuclear expertise to terrorists has funded research facilities that have helped Iran build its new nuclear power reactor, a congressional committee says, citing Russian sources.
The Bush administration expressed confidence that no projects under the program support nuclear work in Iran. |
Bush authorized "cross-border
chases" into Iran and Syria| |
Excerpt: American military forces in Iraq were authorized to pursue former members of Saddam Hussein's government and terrorists across Iraq's borders into Iran and Syria, according to a classified 2005 document that has been posted on an independent Web site. The document, which was made public by the organization Wikileaks and which American officials said appeared authentic, outlined the rules of engagement for the American division that was based in Baghdad and central Iraq that year. |
Iran launches rocket, says it has space program| |
Excerpt: Iran launched a research rocket today and unveiled its first major space center, which will be used to launch research satellites, state-run television reported.
Some Western experts also have raised the possibility that Iran's space program may be a cover to more fully develop its military ballistic missiles, a prospect many find troubling at a time when the US and others worry Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. |
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Massive money laundering
alleged at Oral Roberts University| |
Excerpt: A former senior accountant at Oral Roberts University alleges that more than $1 billion annually was inappropriately funneled through the school.
Trent Huddleston claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that he discovered an "unrestricted" account used to funnel "unusually large" sums of money through the university each month -- which would exceed $1 billion on an annual basis -- that wasn't used for any legitimate university purpose.
Comment: Oh Lord in Heaven, I pray that it's true. Schadenfreude for the charlatans... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Veterans are not entitled to mental health
care, Bush administration argues in court| |
Excerpt: Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The arguments, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, strike at the heart of a lawsuit filed on behalf of veterans that claims the health care system for returning troops provides little recourse when the government rejects their medical claims. |
Homeland Security proudly presents "flashblindness"| |
Excerpt: ... the device flashes LED lights at several specific frequencies. Before your brain has time to adjust to one frequency, the Incapacitator flashes another. Add multiple colors and random pulses and the brain just can't keep up. ...
The only ways to escape the effects? "Close your eyes, put your hand up, turn your head away, all of which will give the user the advantage they need," said [manufacturer spokesman Bob] Lieberman. |
Waterboarding is legal, White House says| |
Excerpt: The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years -- as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees -- were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA's use of the extreme interrogation method.
But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again "under certain circumstances."
UN says waterboarding has always been torture
and it should be prosecuted as torture
Excerpt: The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and used by the United States qualifies as torture, the U.N. human rights chief said on Friday. "I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City.
CIA's Hayden says it takes a pro to waterboard
Excerpt: CIA Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday publicly confirmed for the first time the names of three suspected al-Qaida terrorists who were subjected to a particularly harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, and why ...
Congress is considering a bill that would restrict the CIA to only those methods authorized by the Army's field manual for interrogation. Hayden said that would make no sense. The Army's interrogators are young people with limited training, while the CIA's interrogators are highly trained, he said.
Comment: You can't be "highly trained" if you used waterboarding on only 3 people more than five years ago. It takes practice. Lots of practice! SirJ PERMANENT LINK
US Intel Czar backpedals from semi-acknowledgement of waterboarding as torture |
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Lightning round news |
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Attorney General Mukasey tells Congress he won't enforce laws| |
Excerpt: In what can’t possibly be over-reported (but, alas, will be noticed by very few -- it is not on the front page of the New York Times, for instance, and their short story about the hearing, buried deep inside, only mentions the AG’s face off with Congress over cocaine sentencing guidelines), Mukasey made several startling declarations:
• No, the Justice Department will not be investigating whether the now-admitted-to waterboarding of US prisoners was against the law.
• And, no, the DoJ will not be investigating whether the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance was illegal. Nor will the AG appoint a special prosecutor to investigate.
• And, no, the Department of Justice will not enforce any contempt citations that Congress might bring against administration officials that have failed to honor subpoenas for testimony. |
Bush asks for dismissal of rendition lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary| |
Excerpt: CIA Director Michael Hayden invoked the "state secrets privilege," which would let him bar evidence sensitive to national security from being used in court. The judge appeared sympathetic to Hayden's position Tuesday, but declined to rule immediately. Ware said he would issue a written opinion soon. |
CIA destroyed tapes as judge sought interrogation data| |
Excerpt: At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.
The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.
Comment: I'll just point out that in addition to the prosecutorial misconduct here, the New York Times is basically lying when it says that the court documents "appear to contradict" the CIA's Hayden. Them's cowardly, weasel words, akin to saying that it appears to have snowed while shoveling the sidewalk. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
US Admiral confirms secret prison within Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded -- a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.
For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.
Comment: And I'll wager the Red Cross inspectors have never been allowed to see these secret facilities, for obvious and sickening reasons. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Accused 9/11 plotters will finally have their day in kangaroo court| |
Excerpt: The United States military announced yesterday that it was bringing death penalty charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other men suspected of orchestrating the September 11 attacks, and intended to try them under the Bush administration's much-criticized military tribunal system, which is subject only to partial oversight by the civilian appeals system.
Kangaroo court at Guantanamo allows instant censorship
Excerpt: Spectators watch from behind a window in the back, where an audio feed can be cut if someone tries to spill a state secret.
Comment: ... Of course, that's ludicrous, a military lie being passed along by a half-assed reporter. People captured in the deserts of the Middle East and stored in a hermetically sealed prison for five years don't have any American "state secrets", except the "state secret" that they've almost certainly been tortured and the "state secret" that they're probably innocent of any crime. Sarah J. PERMANENT LINK
Bush administration tries to "cleanse" evidence obtained through torture
Excerpt: ... the Pentagon has deployed a novel strategy to legitimize the process and make it respectable again: take defendants imprisoned in an endless legal limbo and whose confessions have been tortured out of them and interrogate them again, this time asking nicely and without violence, to obtain the same evidence. A few months later, voila: You have a clean trial.
US argues that no-one too young for Guantanamo kangaroo court |
Time and life runs out for an Afghan held years at Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: in 2003, [Abdul Razzaq Hekmati] was arrested by American forces in southern Afghanistan when, senior Afghan officials here contend, he was falsely accused by his enemies of being a Taliban commander himself. For the next five years he was held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he died of cancer on Dec. 30.
Comment: I'll state this not in anger, not as an insult, but as an informed observer of American politics: To Bush, Cheney, and the people they've put in charge up and down the hierarchy, this man's death means nothing, and the deaths of a million Iraqis mean nothing -- because to these all-American monsters, Iraqis are not people. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
The melting economy
Lame "economic stimulus" package passes Congress| |
Comment: News sources are getting this wrong when they claim that most taxpayers are getting $600 under this plan. Taxpayers on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, the people who $600 could help the most, pay most or all of their taxes in the form of social security, Medicare, and sales taxes. Despite paying about fifteen percent of every single dollar they scrape together in taxes, they are insultingly labeled as "non-taxpayers" Under this plan and get a measly $300 ... while a family of four making $150,000 a year gets $1,800. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Republicans (including McCain) block additions economic stimulus package
Excerpt: In news from Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans have blocked a bid by Democrats to add forty four billion dollars to the $161 billion economic stimulus plan. Senate Democrats attempted to add the additional money to help the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and businesses but supporters of the bill fell a single vote short of the 60 needed to move the measure forward.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted to expand the economic stimulus plan. John McCain missed the vote even though he was in Washington at the time. |
US mortgage crisis spreads past subprime loans| |
Excerpt: As US home prices fall and banks tighten lending standards, people with good, or prime, credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace, according to industry data and economists. |
Many in poll say get out of Iraq to help the economy| |
Excerpt: The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession -- and most people think we're in one -- is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Comment: This is good news. People are realizing that the Iraq war is mainly a means to suck money out of the US Treasury and into private hands by running up the national debt to a point where the country is being destroyed. Marshall S. PERMANENT LINK |
Gazillionaire Warren Buffett says US bank woes are "poetic justice"
"Euros Accepted" signs pop up in New York City
Bush-Pelosi "stimulus plan" is a scam to benefit the rich
Analyst says dozens of US banks will fail by 2010
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9/11 inquiry head 'tried to shield George Bush'| |
Excerpt: The head of the commission that investigated the Sept 11 terrorist attacks had closer ties to the White House than he admitted and tried to limit the Bush administration's responsibility for the incident, a book claims.
Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission's executive director, allegedly attempted to intimidate staff to avoid findings that would be damaging to President George W Bush, who was running for re-election, and Condoleezza Rice, his then National Security Adviser. |
What was on the tapes the 9/11 Commission wasn't allowed to see?| |
Excerpt: The only information the commission was permitted to have about what was learned from interrogations of alleged plot ringleaders, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, came from "third-hand" sources. The commission was not permitted to question the alleged plotters in custody or even to meet with those who interrogated the alleged plotters. Consequently, write [co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton], "We had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information" that was fed to them by third party hands. "How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was telling us the truth?"
Comment: I suppose some people will applaud Kean and Hamilton for finally, years later, speaking out. I'd like to ask them face to face, why did they participate in what they clearly knew was a sham of an investigation? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
9/11 widows call for new investigation after revelations of White House, commission ties| |
Excerpt: The widows whose political activism was largely responsible for the establishment of a commission to investigate the September 11 attacks say a new book revealing the backstory of the 9/11 Commission proves that their initial concerns about its executive director were correct and demonstrate the need for another investigation. |
Election 2008
Obama says "The President is not above the law"| |
Excerpt: "First and foremost, I agree with the Supreme Court's several decisions rejecting the extreme arguments of the Bush Administration, most importantly in the Hamdi and Hamdan cases. I also reject the view, suggested in memoranda by the Department of Justice, that the President may do whatever he deems necessary to protect national security, and that he may torture people in defiance of congressional enactments. In my view, torture is unconstitutional, and certain enhanced interrogation techniques like “waterboarding” clearly constitute torture. And as noted, I reject the use of signing statements to make extreme and implausible claims of presidential authority.
"Some further points:
"The detention of American citizens, without access to counsel, fair procedure, or pursuant to judicial authorization, as enemy combatants is unconstitutional.
"Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional.
"The violation of international treaties that have been ratified by the Senate, specifically the Geneva Conventions, was illegal (as the Supreme Court held) and a bad idea.
"The creation of military commissions, without congressional authorization, was unlawful (as the Supreme Court held) and a bad idea.
"I believe the Administration’s use of executive authority to over-classify information is a bad idea. We need to restore the balance between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in our democracy -- which is why I have called for a National Declassification Center." |
Clinton's foreign policy advisors are much more hawkish than Obama's| |
Excerpt: Clinton advisor Sandy Berger, who served as her husband’s national security advisor, insisted that “even a contained Saddam” was “harmful to stability and to positive change in the region,” and therefore the United States had to engage in “regime change” in order to “fight terror, avert regional conflict, promote peace, and protect the security of our friends and allies.”
Meanwhile, other future Obama advisors, such as Larry Korb, raised concerns about the human and material costs of invading and occupying a heavily populated country in the Middle East and the risks of chaos and a lengthy counter-insurgency war. |
John McCain -- contrary to reports -- denounced US as prisoner of war| |
Excerpt: [Sen John] McCain has always been truthful about his behavior as a POW, but he has been more than willing to allow others to lie on his behalf. "A proven leader, and a man of integrity," The New York Post says, and he's happy to take it. "All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused..." Not really. He did denounce his country. But he didn't demand a retraction. |
Democrats shatter previous primary turnout records| |
Excerpt: Though the fate of the Democratic race to the nomination remains uncertain, one thing is for sure: voters are turning out for the Democratic primaries in number that absolutely shatter previous records - which may be a troubling sign for Republicans looking ahead to the general election. |
No-one, no-one unites and invigorates Republicans more than Hillary Clinton| |
Excerpt: Rush Limbaugh is ready to do his part for the GOP by putting on his own fundraiser. Even if that fundraiser is for the only politician that he believes can unite the party -- Hillary Clinton. ... Limbaugh said yesterday that "if Obama is the nominee, we are doomed, and you should get ready and prepared for it now," and previewed what he thinks will be the Democratic arguments against McCain: |
"Super delegates" will decide Democratic nomination| |
... but Democratic "super delegates" often change their minds,
and have always lined up behind primary winners
Excerpt: From 1984 to 2004, the overwhelming majority of super delegates have cast their convention votes for the candidate who won more votes during the primary and caucus season. This was just as true for Mondale in 1984 as it was for Kerry in 2004. On every single occasion, large numbers of super delegates switched their early, public support for a candidate in favor of the candidate who had the most popular support from voters in Democratic primaries and participants in Democratic caucuses. |
Clinton forced to loan herself $5 million as staff skips paychecks| |
Excerpt: On Wednesday, Clinton revealed she personally loaned her campaign five million dollars last month. According to Time Magazine, the campaign’s shortage of cash has forced some staff members of the Clinton campaign to forego pay this month including campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle. |
Even progressives buy neocon lie that Clintons "played race card" against Obama
Bolton -- Bush's warmonger ambassador to the UN -- supports McCain because
he's more hawkish than Bush ... and because McCain covertly pushed Bolton's nomination
Bush: McCain will best carry out my agenda| |
Comment: Keep the videotape handy, and run it as an Obama campaign ad come November. Goldwater PERMANENT LINK |
Romney withdraws with speech revealing elite psychosis
Clinton wants delegates from uncontested Florida,
Michigan primaries she had agreed not to contest
Buchanan: McCain would make Cheney look like Gandhi
Bush says Obama, Clinton threaten "prosperity and peace"
Romney's economic claims clash with Massachusetts record
Clinton maneuvers cast her as pro-war and* anti-war
Obama signs anti-torture, pro-Constitution pledge; Clinton refuses
In 1993, while Hillary Clinton was strangling universal health care,
young Barack Obama was registering 150,000 new voters in Chicago
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Infant, headed for US for surgery but detained at airport, dies| |
Excerpt: A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy's family said. ...
Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said the child went into respiratory failure while in the customs office, which is located near the baggage claims area of the overseas terminal. Airport paramedics were called about 6:10 a.m., he said.
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Corporate media strangles American democratic discourse| |
Excerpt: The Corporate Media takes partisan stands (often in favor of the Republican Party, but always in defense of corporate interests) by sabotaging political candidacies, especially those of candidates who challenge corporate power. This year it blacklisted the populist candidacy of John Edwards, suffocating his ability to compete for the Democratic nomination.
Mainstream American opinion is no fan of George W. Bush and does not take him seriously as a credible leader. A very substantial percentage has long wanted him and Dick Cheney impeached and removed from office. The Corporate Media does not tolerate such a discussion, and utterly marginalizes Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the veteran Congressman who has dared to seriously raise the possibility.
Mainstream American opinion is committed to protecting what’s left of the natural environment. The Corporate Media makes an occasional show of sharing that concern, but stops where Corporate interests might be impinged. On the other hand, it promotes failed technologies, such as nuke power, where centralized, corporate profits are huge.
Never in our history has the control of the nation’s sources of information been more centralized, or more at odds with what the country as a whole believes. |
Pictures surface of racist costumes from Immigration's Halloween party| |
Excerpt: More than six weeks after Julie Myers was confirmed as the country's top immigration official, the Department of Homeland Security finally released pictures of her smiling and posing with a DHS employee outfitted in prison stripes, dreadlocks and [blackface]. |
Scotland Yard "conclusion" that Bhutto wasn't shot not based on evidence| |
Excerpt: Investigators from Scotland Yard have concluded that Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, died after hitting her head as she was tossed by the force of a suicide blast, not from an assassin’s bullet, officials who have been briefed on the inquiry said Thursday.
The findings support the Pakistani government’s explanation of Ms. Bhutto’s death in December, an account that had been greeted with disbelief by Ms. Bhutto’s supporters, other Pakistanis and medical experts.
It is unclear how the Scotland Yard investigators reached such conclusive findings absent autopsy results or other potentially important evidence that was washed away by cleanup crews in the immediate aftermath of the blast, which also killed more than 20 other people.
Bhutto book says she had names of assassins
Excerpt: After the first attempt on her life, Bhutto wrote that "a cover-up seemed to be under way from the very first moments of the attack" that she said was "clearly meant to appear to be an al Qaeda-style suicide attack."
"In Pakistan things are almost never as they seem. There are always circles within circles, rarely straight lines. This was meant to look like the work of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and I do not doubt they were involved," she said.
Comment: Something tragic happened, with ramifications that will tend to work against democracy and favor tyranny. Based on the historical pattern, it would be ludicrous not to suspect that the US government is involved. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Bolivian president claims US Embassy officer is spying| |
Excerpt: President Evo Morales declared a US Embassy security officer to be an "undesirable person" on Monday after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and 30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia.
Comment: Tip of the iceberg. Marshall S. PERMANENT LINK
Peace Corps volunteers and American scholars in foreign nations are asked to spy for US
Excerpt: "I was shocked," Fulbright scholar Alex van Schaick told The Associated Press. "I mean, this man's asking me to spy for the US government." Van Schaick is one of six Fulbright scholars doing research in [Bolivia]. |
Bush to tornado victims: 'Life is unfair'| |
Pres. Bush: "We're sorry you're going through what you're going through. You know, life sometimes is, uh, you know, is unfair, and you don't get to play the hand that you wanted to play. But, the question is, when you get dealt the hand, how do you play it?" |
Bush holds up 80+ nominees over torture advocate| |
Excerpt: Having [Steven Bradbury] in the Office of Legal Counsel authorizing whatever atrocities BushCo dream up gives them immunity from federal prosecution for those atrocities; Attorney General Mukasey has made it clear that he will not investigate or prosecute anything that has OLC sanction. ...
George Bush would forgo all his other 84 appointments because he wants to remain safe from prosecution and probably would like the insurance of immunity for any of his actions going forward. Democrats need to make this clear -- Bradbury is about more than a personnel dispute, it’s about whether the President is above the law. |
Bush administration fights against fairness in cocaine sentencing| |
Excerpt: Under current law, possession of five grams of crack cocaine triggers the same mandatory minimum sentence as possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine. Because most crack cocaine offenders are black, and most powder cocaine offenders are white and Latino, civil rights activists, some lawmakers and scores of judges have said this disparity is discriminatory. |
DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine| |
Excerpt: A senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines.
"If you have a good ID ... you make it much harder for the meth labs to function in this country," DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker told an audience last month at the Heritage Foundation. Cold medicines like Sudafed have long been used in the production of methamphetamine. Over the past year or so, pharmacies have been required to track buyers of drugs that contain pseudoephedrine. |
US gov't proposes change in foreign farm worker pay -- lowering it| |
Excerpt: Foreign farm workers who come to the United States legally could be paid less under changes to government regulations aimed at getting companies to stop hiring illegal immigrants.
Comment: I think these nuts should see The Grapes of Wrath. They have only contempt for the working person. Making foreign workers "half humans" is no answer to anything. Marshall S. PERMANENT LINK |
HUD Secretary Jackson accused of threats and retaliation| |
Excerpt: Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a developer at a substantial discount, then retaliated against the housing authority when it refused to do so, a recent court filing alleges. |
Montel Williams loses TV gig after criticizing Fox News| |
Excerpt: Over the next three days, Fox affiliates that carried the "Montel Williams Show" all declined to sign renewal contracts for 2008-2009. The syndicators of the show then announced that the show was being cancelled. This means Montel was essentially fired for having the audacity to talk about troop deaths on Fox. The power of a monolithic Main Stream Media has reached a new obscene level. They have proven to be coconspirators with the warmongers of the Bush regime. Ignoring the death and destruction in Iraq has allowed almost 4,000 American military deaths and over 1 million civilian Iraqi deaths. This is head in the sand, what they don't know won't hurt them attitude, is a war crime in and of itself. |
VA report: Returning vets have trouble finding work| |
Excerpt: Strained by war, recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years due partly to employer concerns about their mental health and overall skills, a government study says.
The 2007 study by the consulting firm Abt Associates Inc. found that 18 percent of the veterans who sought jobs within one to three years of discharge were unemployed, while one out of four who did find jobs earned less than $21,840 a year. |
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This week's commentary
As the Empire folds in on itself
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Certainly I will shed no tears for the passing of the insane way of life that we have been forced to depend on, almost no matter what happens. And I do expect to see this in my lifetime.
Teetering on collapse
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Excerpt: In the vacuum that will result from the collapse of centralized authority, decentralization and reorganization around the basic needs of local communities and relying on local resources will likely ge |
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