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Monday, February 18, 2008
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Democratic Party seeks disclosure of Bush e-mails from Republican Party domains
 
Excerpt: The Democratic National Committee is suing the Justice Department over the firing of US attorneys, seeking electronic messages by White House staffers who performed political duties on e-mail accounts of the Republican National Committee.

Comment: The Bush-Cheney administration used Republican email accounts specifically to sidestep public disclosure -- but they can't plausibly claim "executive privilege" or "national security" or "state secrets" any of their other standard-issue lies to cover Republican Party communications. If these emails are ever made public, they'll reveal inarguably criminal conduct on the part of high-ranking Republicans, including the President and Vice President, in the ongoing politicization of the Justice Department, and quite probably in matters even larger and more criminal.

So this court case is everything. If the Democrats win this and the emails become public, horrid scandals will be revealed and democracy in America will be saved. If the court rules in the Republicans' favor, the scandals will be silenced, an all-criminal administration will get away with everything, and fascism will be America's future.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

Bush-appointed judge orders wikileaks.org domain off-line
 
Excerpt: Wikileaks has six pro-bono attorneys in San Francisco on roster to deal with a legal assault, however Wikileaks was given only hours notice "by email" prior to the hearing. Wikileaks was NOT represented. Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but was then asked to leave the courtroom. ...

The order is clearly unconstitutional and exceeds its jurisdiction. Wikileaks will keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices. ...

In order to deal with Chinese censorship, Wikileaks has many backup sites such as wikileaks.be (Belgium) and wikileaks.de (Germany) which remain active. Wikileaks never expected to be using the alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks, from, of all places, the United States.

House stands up to Bush, lets warrantless wiretapping act expire
 
Excerpt: This is victory, folks. Perhaps, after the Protect America Act [Warrantless Wiretapping Act] expires, legislators will realize their world does not end without the protection of this "crucial" law. Perhaps they'll realize the people really don't want to give amnesty to telecom companies that spied on them. Perhaps they'll realize the expanded powers given to Bush by the Protect America Act [Warrantless Wiretapping Act] don't actually prevent terrorist attacks, and that Bush is full of shit when he says we face terrorism that would "pale by comparison" to 9/11 if we don't pass this god awful bill.

White House "fact sheet" on Protect America Act
[Warrantless Wiretapping Act] is all lies and irrelevancies


Excerpt: Remember, these aren’t just off-the-cuff comments from an uninformed press secretary, winging it during a briefing. This is an official statement from the White House.

Democrat Reyes says he won't back down on warrantless wiretaps

Excerpt: "If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don't have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations -- including al Qaeda -- that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough linguists to translate the reams of information we currently collect. We do not have enough intelligence officers who can penetrate the hardest targets, such as al Qaeda. We have surged so many intelligence resources into Iraq that we have taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, you have allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself on your watch."

Comment: You might want to say thanks to Rep Reyes, like we did. When anyone in the opposition party actually opposes things that should be opposed, he deserves a word of encouragement.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

Bush continues lying and fearmongering about terror and spying
 
Excerpt: "At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison."

  America's rigged elections  

Obama supposedly gets no votes in Harlem, and dozens of other New York neighborhoods
 
Excerpt: Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by the New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

Judge blocks Republicans' vote suppression law in Ohio
 
Excerpt: US District Judge Kathleen O'Malley had issued a preliminary injunction in 2006 against the rules, which the Ohio legislature passed earlier that year. They required registration drive workers to register and to undergo training, to list detailed information on each registration form they help with and for every gatherer to turn in forms in person, not through an organizer.

On Monday, O'Malley blocked those rules permanently, agreeing with several voters rights groups that they go against the country's desire to let as many people vote as possible.

Republican official convicted in vote-block charge again appeals sentence
 
Comment: Republicans don't just hate America, they hate the "accountability" they're always prattling about.   Angry Annie    PERMANENT LINK 


FEMA might finally move 100,000 Katrina survivors out of their poison trailers
 
Excerpt: FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison and CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said at a news conference they hope to get people out of the trailers before the warm summer months, when heat and a lack of ventilation in the trailers could make formaldehyde accumulations worse. ...

Gerberding said that although formaldehyde levels were low in some trailers, others were high enough to cause breathing problems for children, the elderly or people who already have respiratory problems.

About 5 percent had levels high enough to cause breathing problems even in people who do not ordinarily have respiratory trouble, Gerberding said.

Buried in AP's "FAQ": FEMA has been covering-up trailer fiasco for years

Excerpt: - When did occupants first report health problems?      In 2006.

Why did it take so long to act?      Documents released last July after being subpoenaed by a congressional committee indicated FEMA lawyers discouraged officials from pursuing reports the trailers had dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

FEMA continues handing out toxic trailers to recent tornado victims

  Election 2008  

Senate approves water torture ban ... while McCain votes for torture
 
Excerpt: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding.

Comment: McCain's vote is bigger than just this one piece of legislation, and gives the lie to the notion that he is somehow "not as bad" as the Republicans currently in office. If he would vote in favor of torture, given his history, why should we believe that he would ever make a principled decision? It underscores both his callous cruelty, and his willingness to do or say anything that will help him get more power. Ummm, isn't that combination exactly what's wrong with the people running this country right now?   Madeline Zane    PERMANENT LINK 

What it means to vote "present", as Obama often did, in Illinois legislature
 
Excerpt: Unlike Congress and the legislatures of most other states, each chamber of the Illinois Legislature requires a “constitutional majority” to pass a bill. The state Senate has 59 members, so it takes 30 affirmative votes. This makes a “present” vote the same as a no. If a bill receives 29 votes, but the rest of the senators vote “present,” it fails. ...

In the Illinois Senate, there can be strategic reasons for voting “present” rather than simply no. A member might approve the intent of legislation, but not its scope or the way it has been drafted. A “present” vote can send a signal to a bill’s sponsors that the legislator might support an amended version. Voting “present” can also be a way to exercise fiscal restraint, without opposing the subject of the bill. ...

Comment: This explanation makes sense to me, and makes it pretty obvious that Hillary Clinton's complaints about Barack Obama's "present" votes are simply dishonest.   Blaine N.    PERMANENT LINK 

Republican hate machine revs up in Arizona
 
Excerpt: Arizona Republican legislators are so worried about depressed turnout among their base in November if their senator, John McCain, is the GOP nominee that they have introduced a bill that would put yet another anti-gay marriage before voters on the general election ballot this fall.

Even after latest massacre, Obama supports gun rights
 
Excerpt: The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.

"I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation" like background checks, he said during a news conference.

McCain offers doubletalk on taxes

Huckabee says "Running for office is sort of like being waterboarded"

Clinton and Obama give $890,000 to superdelegates

Chafee -- still popular ex-Republican Senator -- will register as Democrat to vote for Obama

McCain: Step up drug war

Clinton campaign rents donor list to marketers

Ex-Pres Clinton incorrectly assumes Mrs Sen Clinton owns Bill Richardson's endorsement

Clinton campaign responds to Obama "Yes We Can" video

Spoof of Obama video mocks McCain’s pro-war views

Saudi Prince Bandar threatened
terror attacks on Britain
 
Excerpt: Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

Comment: Prince Bandar, of course, is George W Bush's long-time business partner, and despite frequent evidence that Saudi Arabian dictatorship supports terrorism, Bandar's Saudi Arabia is always touted by the Bush administration as "an ally in the war on terror."   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

  Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq  

US "surge" likely to end with
more troops in Iraq than "pre-surge"
 
Excerpt: The US "surge" is likely to end in July with more troops in Iraq than the 132,000 that were there before five extra combat brigades were sent in more than a year ago, a senior Pentagon official said.

"It's likely that the number will be a little bit larger than the 132,000 or so that was the number of personnel on the ground pre-surge," said [Lieutenant General Carter Ham], who is the operations director of the Joint Staff.

Up to 80 killed in Afghan bombing

Life in Iraq, the Pentagon boasts, is returning
to normal, but the truth is a very different story



California packer makes largest US beef recall
 
Excerpt: Some 37 million pounds were bought for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs ...

Comment: Bush policies: only the worst for American kids.   JR Mooneyham    PERMANENT LINK 

All interrogations at Guantanamo were videotaped
 
Excerpt: Seton Hall Law has discovered records indicating that the more than 24,000 interrogations conducted at Guantánamo were videotaped. However, despite evidence of their existence from its own generals, DOD has yet to admit that these records exist.

Cuba moves to evict US from Guantanamo
 
Excerpt: "We demand again the closure of the indecent Guantanamo prison, the return of the territory illegally occupied to our fatherland,'' Perez Roque said.

The United States, which has occupied Guantanamo for more than 100 years, signed in 1934 a lease agreement with the Cuban government that could not be altered without agreement by both countries.

Since 1960, a year after it came to power, Fidel Castro's communist government has refused the annual lease payment of 5000 dollars from the United States.

Top scientists want research free from politics
 
Excerpt: Leading US scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research.

Seven months after no-shows, House finally
holds Josh Bolten, Harriet Miers in contempt
 
Excerpt: The administration has said the information being sought is off-limits under executive privilege, and argues that Bolten and Miers are immune from prosecution. Still, the resolution would allow the House to bring its own lawsuit on the matter.

If Congress doesn't act to enforce the subpoenas, said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, it would "be giving its tacit consent to the dangerous idea of an imperial presidency, above the law and beyond the reach of checks and balances."

Republicans walk out of Congress

Excerpt: Republican leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is giving a press conference on the Capitol steps right now, saying that the decision of the House to debate a contempt resolution involving former White House officials instead of taking up the Protect America Act [Warrantless Wiretapping Act] jeopardizes national security.

Comment: Maybe the Democrats have finally figured out that they have the majority in the House.   Melba T.    PERMANENT LINK 

  The melting economy  

Predatory lending crisis: Bush administration
knew it was coming and helped it happen

by Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York
 
Excerpt: Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets. ...

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus
brings microloan concept to America
 
Excerpt: The Financial Times said that [Grameen Bank] had already lent $50,000 in the last month to groups of immigrant women in the New York borough of Queens. It plans to offer $176 million of loans within New York City over the next five years and then expand across the United States.

Citigroup bars withdrawals from hedge fund

In some American cities, homeless are
outnumbered by empty, foreclosed houses


Bush administration hides more data, closes
website that tracked US economic indicators


GAO accountant who compared
US to Roman Empire quits


Budget for Presidential helicopters slashed
... from $11-billion to merely $7-billion



Sibel Edmonds' charges of high-level treason
finally appear in an American newspaper (in an
edited reprint from American Conservative magazine
 
Excerpt: The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels -- sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds' account is full of dates, places and names.

And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.

Guard and Reserve make up half of veteran suicides
 
Excerpt: National Guard and Reserve troops who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan make up more than half of veterans who committed suicide after returning home from those wars, according to new government data obtained by The Associated Press.

Overseas work omitted from contract fraud bill
 
Excerpt: A Bush administration plan to crack down on contract fraud has a multibillion-dollar loophole: The proposal to force companies to report abuse of taxpayer money won't apply to work overseas, including projects to secure and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

Comment: Big surprise. Overseas work is a prime embezzlement method.   Marshall S.    PERMANENT LINK 

Kosovo declares independence from Serbia
 
Excerpt: "Kosovo is a republic - an independent, democratic and sovereign state," parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi said as the chamber burst into applause. ...

Serbian President Boris Tadic reacted by saying his country will never accept Kosovo's "unilateral and illegal" declaration.

US, European powers instantly recognize Kosovo

Excerpt: Kosovo's leaders sent letters to 192 countries seeking formal recognition and Britain, France, Germany and U.S. were among the countries that backed the request. But other European Union nations were opposed, including Spain which has battled a violent Basque separatist movement for decades.

Writers win as 100-day strike ends
 
Excerpt: This was the moment of our maximum leverage. The rest of the television season for this year was in total peril. The pilot season and the creation of programming for the new fall season was almost in peril. And then you have the sort of iconic nature of the Oscars. People really wanted the Oscars to be on February 24th.

So it was really a maximum moment for both sides,
 
Lightning round news
Tape catches Pakistani Attorney
General saying vote will be rigged
 
Pakistanis vote amid fears of violence

California routinely holds prisoners months past release dates

Bush administration rationale
for shooting satellite down
smells like another lie


Only 18 lawmakers
shunned pet projects in 2008


Doctors group urges easing
medical marijuana ban


To protect White House,
Republican disrupts memorial
service for Rep Tom Lantos


Maryland Republican lawmaker
caught with kiddie porn


Another political enemy
of Putin dies mysteriously


Genocide in Darfur still doesn't
interest anyone who matters


Congress protects integrity
of baseball
and football
as Constitution rots


  Cops you won't see  
        on TV's COPS  

Police arrest and strip
search assault victim


Policeman fined for arresting
firefighter on emergency duty


Judges condemn police lies
after false 9/11 charges
that ruined pilot's life


Ohio cop convicted in lover's death

California bill would allow police misconduct to be kept secret

Cop charged with
faking divorce papers



  Corporate citizenship  

Monsanto U: Agribusiness's
takeover of public schools


The use of sneaky fees by
service companies is growing


Chinese-made digital picture
frame carried manufactured virus


General Motors recalls
181,000 vehicles that don't
meet federal safety standards


Metal pieces discovered in
Pokemon candy made in China


Doctor says 22,000 died amid
delayed Bayer drug recall
 
Comment: This is the reason to build and staff prisons. Unlock the cells holding non-violent "drug criminals" to make way for these murderous drug criminals: the executives at Bayer (and no doubt all the other pharma giants), the comfy cozy regulators who let them get away with murder, and of course, the Bush administration hierarchy and compliant Congress that lets unqualified cronies into life-and-death regulatory positions.   Cathy M.    PERMANENT LINK 

Yahoo rejects Microsoft takeover bid

GM chairman says global
warming is a "total crock of sh*t"


World Trade Organization prohibits
Mali from subsidizing its farmers,
so that heavily subsidized American farmers can wipe them out


See's chocolate chips, possibly contaminated, are recalled


  Destroying civil liberties  
        is like letting  
             the terrorists win  

Bush’s IRS wants to make
your tax returns public


School requires background
checks on visiting parents


More than 10% of pharmacies in
Washington refuse to stock Plan B
emergency contraceptive


US spy satellites monitor US citizens


  Iran: America's next war  

US intelligence loudly and falsely
reiterates that Iran wants to kill
millions with nuclear bombs


Bush does everything he can
to piss off Syria, too



  Liars in media  

Overlooking his own role in smearing Obama's religion, Hannity says only the Clintons have done it

CNN repeats smear
of Obama supporters
as "creepy" and "cult-like"


Fox's Chris Wallace lies that Democratic Congress denied government tools to fight terrorists

NBC News' Williams lies that
House Democrats refused to extend expiring FISA amendments


CNN's Beck says "ugly
women" are progressives


All time great lunacy from Bill
Kristol, New York Times columnist


Kristol's latest New York Times
column is a classic of nonsense


MSNBC again welcomes Coulter,
who says Obama "wouldn't be
running ... if he weren't half-black"


Limbaugh returns to "testicle
lockbox"; claims Hillary Clinton
"reminds men of the worst
characteristics of women"


O'Reilly falsely suggests Obama has
not outlined plans for confronting
terrorism in Pakistan or paying
for his health-care proposal


Fox's Sullivan airs "side-
by-side comparison" of
speeches by Hitler and Obama
 
Fox's Sullivan denies that what
he called "a little side-by-side
comparison" of Hitler and
Obama drew comparisons
between Hitler and Obama

Immunity for illegal spying by
telecommunications companies isn't
newsworthy on any TV network


Fox News lies that Presidential
ability to order surveillance
expires on February 15


Ignoring pattern of politically
expedient reversals, NBC's
Gregory claims McCain "is not
going to pander to the right"


Radio hate host Laura Ingraham
on Al Sharpton's visit to the
White House: "I hope they
nailed down all the valuables"


Fox's Banderas calls
Obama a "Halfrican"


On Fox News, Ralph Reed repeats
Bush lie that "Obama has said that
he will embrace Ahmadinejad"


Politico's Simon falsely claims
Gore was first to raise the
issue of Willie Horton


Investor's Business Daily
runs two lies about Obama


San Antonio Express-News
and Baltimore Sun forgetand
about McCain flip-floppery


CNN's Situation Room says
Osama supports Obama bin Laden


 and we were able to come together and make a deal. And they made deals that were basically what we were asking for from the get-go.

  Torture is the American way  

Bush's Office of Legal Counsel nominee explains that US torture policies
are not like the Spanish Inquisition, they're more like the Khmer Rouge
 
Excerpt: Bradbury [said] that the CIA's waterboarding was not as bad as press reports would have it -- that our variant of the technique is materially distinct from the sort of water torture used by (i) the Spanish Inquisition; (ii) US forces in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th Century; and (iii) the Japanese in World War II.

London bombs justify 'torture', says Bush
 
Excerpt: President George Bush cited the London July 7 bombings in an interview broadcast last night to justify his support for waterboarding, an interrogation technique widely regarded as torture.

Court dismisses suit against Boeing for running torture flights
 
Excerpt: "In sum, at the core of plaintiffs' case against Defendant Jeppesen are 'allegations' of covert US military or CIA operations in foreign countries against foreign nationals -- clearly a subject matter which is a state secret," Judge James Ware wrote in a ruling.

Justice Dept official: Waterboarding is not legal

Bush says he'll veto legislation that could curb US torture

Concentration camp victims fear government will "lose" evidence of torture

Lieberman backs torture because "we're at war"


White House says there are no permanent US bases anywhere in the world
 
Excerpt: [White House spokesidiot Dana] Perino's comments signaled that Washington does not consider any of its overseas bases to be permanent -- including the half-century presence in South Korea, or the forces stationed in Japan since World War Two.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Robert Gates sought to ease concerns over Iraq by insisting that Washington and the government in Baghdad do not want permanent US military bases there.

Comment: It doesn't matter what the issue is; the Bush administration is always at war with reality.   Jervis    PERMANENT LINK 

Coordinated by intel spooks, disinformation floods corporate media
 
Excerpt: This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of "strategic communications" which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and NATO who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda.

  Trashing the planet  

Leaked UN report says pollution from shipping is three times higher than previously thought
 
Excerpt: The report suggests that shipping emissions -- which are not taken into account by European targets for cutting global warming -- will become one of the largest single sources of manmade CO2after cars, housing, agriculture and industry. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650m tons of CO2emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.

Feds nip state efforts to reduce mercury
 
Excerpt: Internal Environmental Protection Agency documents and e-mails, obtained by the advocacy group Environmental Defense, show attempts over the past two years to blunt state efforts to make their plants drastically reduce mercury pollution instead of trading for credits that would let them continue it.

Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says

Unknown illness is killing bats

Study gives 50-50 odds Lake Mead (source of water
& electricity for seven western states) will dry up by 2021



Amid furor, Blue Cross halts letters asking doctors to "rat out patients"
 
Excerpt: Blue Cross sent physicians copies of insurance applications filled out by new patients, along with the letter advising them the company had a right to drop members who failed to disclose "material medical history." That could include "preexisting pregnancies."

The letter asked physicians to "immediately" report any discrepancies between their patients' medical condition and the information in the applications.

  Occasional signs of sanity  

Anti-war candidate defeats 8-term incumbent in Democratic Congressional primary
 
Excerpt: Antiwar Democrat Donna Edwards joins [Democracy Now's Amy Goodman] to talk about her defeat of eight-term Congress member Albert Wynn in Tuesday's primary vote. The Maryland race had been described as "a bellwether contest in the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party." If Edwards wins in November, she'll be the first African American woman elected to Congress from Maryland.

Court overturns Texas sex toys ban
 
Excerpt: A federal appeals court has overturned a Texas statute outlawing sex toy sales, leaving Alabama as the state with the strictest ban on such devices.

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by up to two years in jail, violated the Constitution's 14th Amendment on the right to privacy. ...

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the US Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between gay couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

Wexler grills Rice over her seven-year record of lying

Other refs stand behind woman referee barred from working boy's basketball game


US Navy used weather modification as a weapon
 
Excerpt: A recently-unearthed US Navy research project calls for creating mad-made floods and droughts to "disrupt [the] economy" of an enemy state.

"Weather modification was used successfully in Viet Nam to (among other things) hinder and impede the movement of personnel and material from North Viet Nam to South Viet Nam," notes a Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division - China Lake research proposal, released last month through the Freedom of Information Act. But "since that time military research on Weather Modification has dwindled in the United States."



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 This week's commentary 

Criminal conduct, plain and simple
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: We know who is trying to kill us and our children, and their children. It is our job to stop them, not their responsibility to stop committing crimes.

Unbelievable sh*t is about to happen
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: Bernanke, Paulson and BushCo will trash the Treasury and economy before they leave office, so people want to get rid of their Ameribucks, which are a global joke currency now.

Mughniyeh's assassination bodes ill
by The Canadian, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: In my opinion this assassination is analogous to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo in 1914, which lit the fuse for the Great War or what later became known as WW1. Israel is on high alert all over the world and especially along the Lebanese border.

The hanging balls of Babylon
by Don Nash, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: 935 lies and still counting. The "surge" is a lie. Bush is a lie. It's all a lie and has been ever since 9/11/01 ... Did you know that for every one lie told by Bush to Congress, by Bush to the American people, and by Bush to the world, four American service boys and girls have been deemed privileged to be killed?

How the FBI appreciates black history
by Min. Paul Scott, No Warning Shots Fired
 
Excerpt: One of the things that we do not do in the Black community is connect the dots. We have not been effective in showing our children how the past is connected to the present in very real and substantive ways. So the young rappers of today don't understand how the drug dealin' and gang bangin' of today is tied to the COINTELPRO program of yesterday. They do not understand that the societal issues of the absence of Black leadership, drugs in the Black community and the high incarceration rates of Black males are not by accident but are part of a well designed program that was meant to produce the very conditions in which we find ourselves in 2008.

Hitler killed only one person.
Bush has killed none.
We citizens do their work

by Mark A. Goldman, Society without State
 
Excerpt: If I have my facts straight, Hitler killed only one person in his lifetime: himself. All the other atrocities that are attributed to him were carried out by people who were only following orders.

If it is true that the war in Iraq is illegal, as I and others believe it is -- including the Secretary General of the United Nations -- then all the deaths and atrocities that have occurred to date, inflicted by our coalition forces, are the acts of individuals who, knowingly or unknowingly, with good intentions or not, have been willing to break the law in order to follow the orders of superiors.

 Previous 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 generate different, more egalitarian, more ecological institutions designed by the people that participate in them.

It starts with you
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News

Excerpt: I pledge that, having become aware of the importance of community to my physical, emotional and spiritual health, I will seek to influence others to abandon the individualistic, self-seeking path to slavery and seek community for themselves and all others, so that we can all begin to live in peace, harmony and abundance without need to resort to aggression, selfishness, lying and deceit.

Why the current election "fever" is so disgusting
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News

Excerpt: The illusion of democratic government is so overwhelming that most people have a hard time coming to grips with the reality that our country is totally controlled by a small set of hugely wealth families and their foreign friends and that our national elections are just shams. Packaged as a sort of professional sport, our elections serve only to dull the mind and suspend real critical judgement.

Helpless and grieving
by Gina Dee, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: A thousand times I have searched myself for an answer I could understand. I cursed myself. I was angry with myself and then angry that I felt that I thought my self so important that I SHOULD have made this NOT happen. Who am I to think I have such power as that?

Hillary sings her way to genocide!
by Don Nash, Unknown News
 
St. John the Insane
by Don Nash, Unknown News

Support our troops?
by Jason Barr, An Absolution Revolution
 
Excerpt: They are not “our” troops, they are troops under the command of people in the thrall of the American political/business system which “make[s] unjust laws. . . deprive[s] the poor of their rights, withhold[s] justice from the oppressed. . . [makes] widows their prey, and [robs] the fatherless” (see Isaiah 10:1-2 in the NIV). They are being asked to die for a cause that, in the words of Alisdair McIntyre, is rather like being asked to die for the telephone company.

Bizarro conservatism since 9/11
by Justin Raimondo, AntiWar
 
Excerpt: The impact of those planes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon tore a gaping hole in the space-time continuum and propelled us into an alternate universe known to avid readers of Superman comics as Bizarro World - a parallel plane of existence where up is down, right is wrong, and the Constitution is really a mandate for the president's unlimited authority.

The Republican Party, previously devoted to the principles of less government, decentralized authority, and economic liberty, immediately transformed itself into the champion of more government, including a significant increase in federal spending and, more ominously, the establishment of a rudimentary police state. Thus was born Bizarro Conservatism, an ideology that, in every conceivable aspect, inverts the core principles of pre-9/11 conservatism.

Accordingly, Bizarro Conservatives welcome a government that routinely spies on its own people and has the power to indefinitely detain anyone, including US citizens, without having to explain why to a judge or a jury. This "right" has been claimed by the administration, on behalf of the president, on the theory that the executive branch enjoys effectively unlimited power in wartime, and now they are moving to consolidate this aspiring presidential dictatorship in legislative form.

State of the Union vs. Sermon on the Mount
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
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
 
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
 
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.

Bush-Democrat tax rebates: Worse than Guantanamo
by Lee C., Unknown News
 
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
 
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
 
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
 
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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  Old news, but still unknown      PERMANENT LINK 

Vatican ordered bishops worldwide to cover up priests' sex abuses
 •   Benedict XVI: A Pope to be ashamed of
•   He's guilty as sin, but ...
Texas court dismisses child-rape conspiracy lawsuit against Pope

Company fined $6,000 for answering customer's question:
"Is any of this stuff made in Israel?"


Before 9/11, "threat assessment" keeps Ashcroft off commercial air flights
 •   San Francisco Mayor says he was warned not to fly on 9/11
•    US, Germany, Japan investigate unusual trading before attack
 •   Two years later, the other shoe drops:
Investigation shows no evidence of Sept. 11 profiteering
•    US rejects Taliban's requests for bin Laden evidence
•    Pentagon officials canceled travel plans on Sept. 10 due to "security concerns"
•    One of Osama bin Laden's many siblings
helped found Texas oil business with President

•    Bush administration says it will release evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11
•    Osama bin Laden denies involvement in 9/11 attacks
•    Bush was told of bin Laden plot to hijack airliners
•    Britain warned US to expect September 11 al-Qaeda hijackings
•    Plans for Iraq attack began on 9/11
•    Cheney instrumental in blocking independent Sept. 11 commission
•    9/11 investigation gets less than half the budget of JFK's Warren Commission
•    9/11 victim's wife asks uncomfortable questions
•    White House ordered 9/11 EPA lies
•    White House OK'd flight home for bin Laden family in Sept. 11 aftermath
•    Bush administration "withholding evidence" from Sept. 11 investigation
•    White House seizes notes from 9/11 Commission
•    Without taking oath, Bush & Cheney testify together for 9/11 investigation
•    FAA manager destroyed 9/11 tapes
•    9/11 panelists bewildered by what Bush
administration calls “classified information”

•    Ground Zero workers say they found 9/11 'black boxes'
•    FBI office in Saudi Arabia shredded 9/11 investigation documents
•    Judge Judy, George Bush, and nineteen nutballs with box-cutters
•    9/11 'investigators' knew they were being lied to, said nothing about it
•    Two months before 9/11, an urgent warning to Rice ... and 9/11 'investigation' wasn't told about it
•    France infiltrated terror network, told CIA
about plans to hijack planes prior to 9/11

•    Hijackers' lost luggage conveniently solves so many 9/11 mysteries
•    Much more about 9/11

Bush "abstinence only" program lies to kids about sex, HIV dangers

Mexican President will sign bill legalizing marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use
 •   Amid US pressure, Mexican president backs off drug decriminalization bill

Bin Laden expert skeptical about latest purported bin Laden tape
 •   Bin Laden tapes are as phony as Sept. 11's connection to Islam

US official said it was "patently fal