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Monday, April 7, 2008
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  Iran: America's next war  

British fear Petraeus is beating the drum for Iran strikes
 
Excerpt: A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.

Iran, Syria, Lebanon on military alert over US Gulf movements and Israel’s home defense drill
 
Excerpt: Saturday, US defense secretary Robert Gates turned up in Oman, the site of big American air bases, for talks with Sultan Qaboos. He then flew straight back to Washington. While Gates insisted to correspondents aboard his plane that the US is committed to a diplomatic solution for Iran’s covert nuclear program, the surprise visit struck sparks in the already fraught regional atmosphere, particularly as it followed on the heels of US Vice President Dick Cheney’s talks in Oman two weeks ago.

Lieberman creates new imaginary foe: al Qaeda in Iran


Rove denies involvement in Siegelman railroading
 
Excerpt: Karl Rove says a one-time Republican campaign worker who has accused him of dirty tricks against a former Alabama governor is a "complete lunatic," and he calls CBS a "shoddy operation" for airing her allegations.

Comment: If Rove admitted it I'd have my doubts, but if he denies it that’s basically a confirmation that it's true.   Sheeva    PERMANENT LINK 

Railroaded ex-Governor Siegelman challenges Rove to testify under oath

  Election 2008  

Clintons wrote off $5-million in donations to un-heard of family-run charity
 
Excerpt: The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including nonprofit foundations. Hillary Clinton has served her family foundation as treasurer and secretary since it was established in December 2001, but none of her ethics reports since then have disclosed that fact.

The foundation has enabled the Clintons to write off more than $5 million from their taxable personal income since 2001, while dispensing $1.25 million in charitable contributions over that period.

McCain’s elusive medical records
 
Excerpt: In 1999, during John McCain’s first presidential campaign, the senator, then 63, couldn’t have been any more forthcoming when it came to his medical history. Months before a single vote was cast, McCain instructed his campaign to release 1,500 pages of medical and psychiatric records. What’s more, journalists with additional questions were given direct access to McCain’s personal physician.

That was then; this is now. ... This time around, Mr. McCain has yet to make his full medical records or his physicians available to reporters. At least three times since March 2007, campaign officials have told the New York Times that they would provide the detailed information about his current state of health, but they have not done so. The campaign now says it expects to release the information in April.

Colombia fires PR firm run by top Clinton strategist
 
Excerpt: Mark Penn apologizes for meeting with South American officials promoting trade deal with US, even though Clinton and Barack Obama, her Democratic rival, oppose the deal.

Penn's political consulting firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland, has been paid $10.8 million so far by Clinton's campaign.

According to Justice Department filings, Colombia agreed last year to pay Burson-Marsteller $300,000 to help "educate members of the US Congress and other audiences" about the trade deal and secure continued US funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia.

Comment: What a seedy mess, Clinton's top strategist is playing both sides of the fence, and getting big bucks from each side.   Marshall S.    PERMANENT LINK 

Clinton pretends to drop shady lobbyist as chief strategist

Excerpt: This announcement aims to reduce Penn's visibility, but obviously he will continue his high-paying job providing "polling and advice" to Sen. Clinton. Tweaking titles does nothing to address the serious questions about Penn's potential conflicts of interest, which The Nation's Ari Berman began reporting as far back as last May.

McCain financial advisors include leading corporate criminals
 
Excerpt: One of them helped deregulate the financial services industries in the 1990s, and now sits in the corporate suites of Swiss banking giant UBS, which Tuesday announced $19 billion in investment losses tied to the crumbling U.S. real estate market.

The other pushed one of the most aggressive and controversial mergers of the technology boom, then was sacked by the disenchanted board of Hewlett-Packard.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, with his aw-shucks Texas drawl, may at first blush have little in common with Carly Fiorina, the telegenic former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. But they share a bond: Both are leading economic advisers of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Powerful lobbyist joining McCain's campaign full-time
says McCain's campaign is above lobbyists' influence


McCain's web of lobbyist connections, presented graphically

McCain: Obama is 'absolutely' qualified to be President

"Obama didn't want my money"

Obama finally shifts gears, begins running against McCain, not Clinton

McCain’s tribute to King ignores his opposition to MLK Day, support of Confederate flag

Republicans try twisting Obama's comments on sex ed, parenthood

McCain: ‘No one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have'

Right-wing smear campaign against Barack Obama has begun

McCain is clueless on the cease-fire in Basra
 
McCain repeats false claim 'Sadr declared the cease-fire'

McCain’s misstatements on Iraq keep piling up

Another McCain "we're winning in Iraq" speech
is interrupted by coverage of bloodshed there

Despite his votes to cut veterans funding, McCain says we owe vets ‘a debt we can never repay

Elizabeth Edwards notes that she and McCain wouldn't
be covered under McCain's "health plan"


McCain's top advisors lobbied for shady mortgage firm

Murdoch's daughter hosts fundraiser for Obama


Pakistan's new leaders tell US:
We are no longer your killing field
 
Excerpt: The body language between Negroponte and Sharif during their meeting on Tuesday spoke volumes: the Pakistani greeted the American with a starched handshake, and sat at a distance..

In blunt remarks afterwards, Sharif said he told Negroponte that Pakistan was no longer a one-man show. "Since 9/11, all decisions were taken by one man," he said. "Now we have a sovereign parliament and everything will be debated in the parliament."

Texas Attorney General
prosecutes Democrats who
help seniors vote by mail,
ignores documented
Republican ballot box stuffing
 
Excerpt: Texas Attorney General prosecutes Democrats who help seniors vote by mail, ignores documented Republican ballot box stuffing

Today, Ray and Johnson have criminal records for breaking Texas election law and faced travel restrictions during a six-month probation. Their crime: not signing their name, address and signature on the back of the ballots they mailed for their senior neighbors, and carrying envelopes containing those ballots to the mailbox.

Texas Democrats say Abbott's goal is not merely to prosecute little old ladies. Rather, it was to send a message to Texas' minority communities, which lean Democratic, by sowing fears among the elderly about voting by mail.

EPA sued for not regulating greenhouse gasses after supreme court told them to
 
Excerpt: Eighteen states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks, one year after the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had the power to do so.

In addition to the states, officials from three cities and at 11 environmental groups signed the suit, which seeks action within 60 days. Environmental lawyers acknowledged a response is unlikely before President George W. Bush leaves office.

  The melting economy  

Senate mortgage bill helps builders, not homeowners
 
Excerpt: A measure billed as boosting the slumping housing market showers money-losing businesses with $25 billion in tax relief in the next few years but offers just $3 billion to homeowners.

The estimates released Thursday by congressional scorekeepers lend credence to accusations that the measure helps businesses like home builders while doing little to help millions of families threatened with foreclosure.

The only direct help in the measure to homeowners threatened with foreclosure is $100 million to provide counseling to people threatened with foreclosure and help them in negotiating with their lenders.

Food prices sky-
rocketing worldwide
 
Excerpt: Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans -- but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.

There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers -- and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.

Treasury plan: concentrate
power at top, cut
regulations, help zero
average Americans
 
Excerpt: In Washington, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled a sweeping new plan to overhaul how US financial markets are regulated. Paulson’s plan was quickly criticized by many economists, lobbyists and lawmakers.

The 218-page plan would drastically expand the authority of the Federal Reserve to oversee financial markets, while reducing the enforcement power of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Parts of the plan call for further deregulation.

The Consumer Federation of America issued a statement saying, “Rolling out this plan in the middle of the current crisis is like telling Hurricane Katrina victims stranded on their rooftops in New Orleans, ’Don’t worry, if you can hold for a few years, we’ve got a really great plan to restructure the federal emergency response system.’”

US truckers protest
ridonculous fuel prices


Student loans endangered
by credit collapse


As jobs vanish and
prices rise, food stamp
use nears record


Destructive rise of big
finance has left economy
that can't help but crash


Foreclosures are
forcing renters out
 
Comment: I hate to always be sounding like a Marxist rabble rouser, buy why is it the littlest person who always gets the biggest shaft?   Marshall S.    PERMANENT LINK 

Subprime crisis is
expected to claim
200,000 US bank jobs


Bernanke -- smart cookie -- says "recession is possible"

Fed actions reward the criminals, screw the victims, and fuel dark suspicions


Mukasey's lie exposes
either his own vast
ignorance of the law
... or something much
darker about 9/11
 
Excerpt: [Mukasey said that officials] "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went." ...

Mukasey did not specify the call to which he referred. He also did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn't sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveill-
 
Lightning round news
Vitter’s prostitution headache about to get worse

Hundreds complain of ill effects, but
US Ag Dept plans to continue aerial spraying


Feith, architect of Iraq attack, continues blaming others

Judge orders liens on church,
other property of wacko minister


Mugabe 'prepares for war' over Zimbabwe results

Sonny Bono's death was no accident, says former fed

Pentagon employee erases mention of
homosexuality on dead soldier’s Wikipedia page


San Francisco initiative would
re-name sewage facility for Bush


Many members of Congress are war profiteers

McHenry (R-NC) calls US soldier
in Iraq a ‘two-bit security guard
 
Comment: And what do you think the media response would have been, if a Democrat had said such a thing?   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

New Hampshire initiative would relax
marijuana laws, so White House Drug Czar's
office immediately begins lying about it


Richardson's classy response to sliming from Clinton camp

Researcher questions whether
Greenspan actually earned a PhD


Fired Republican official is accused of diverting more funds

Scientist: CDC bosses ignored warning
about post-Katrina FEMA trailers


Army didn't test body armor

20,000 Vietnamese workers go on strike at Nike factory

Bush administration uses "Intelligence
Czar" as a glorified lobbyist
 
Intelligence Czar McConnell is lying again

Pelosi intervenes to get lesbian Congress-
woman’s domestic partner on military flight


Bush administration 'bypasses' more
than 30 laws to build border fence


US military ponders ‘clandestinely’
putting bloggers on payroll


Judge sentences four Latino thugs
to learn English or be jailed


Report rips mine regulators for disaster

Corrupt HUD Chief Jackson quits

Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor praises Fox News

Mukasey lies that piracy funds terror

  Cops you won't see on TV's COPS  

SWAT officers won't be disciplined
for bringing their kids on drug raid


Cop caught on video kicking teenager is
ordered to get "supplemental training"


Police won't release 911 tapes involving
officer who shot woman and child
 
Comment: In a non-police state, this would be grounds for a few instant dismissals, and the investigation would already be yanked from the Oceanside Police Department, due to their obvious conflict of interest.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

Sheriff accused of stun gun threat
over handicapped parking space



  Corporate citizenship  

GM recalls flammable Buicks, Pontiacs

Menu Foods (maker of pet food that
killed pets) settles class action lawsuit


Harry and David recall espresso beans

Volkswagen recalls 410,000 Passats

Microsoft intensifies takeover showdown with Yahoo

Congressman who no doubt hates America questions
$18-billion federal subsidy for oil conglomerates


Coal-mining millionaire threatens to shoot reporter

Oil chiefs say high prices are not their fault

Wal-Mart caves, says it won't seize
money from disabled ex-worker
 
Comment: I liked Wal-Mart better when it was only cold and heartless. Now it's cold, heartless, and savvy enough to respond to bad publicity. Boy, that's evil!   SirJ    PERMANENT LINK 

AT&T sends bills to collections
ten days after they're mailed out


IBM temporarily barred from
seeking US government contracts
 
Comment: This is phony news, a press release for propaganda purposes, and certainly not worth serious consideration. You'd have to be living in a fairy tale world to believe IBM is going to lose any of its government contracts.   Angry Annie    PERMANENT LINK 

DOJ sues Wal-Mart for not rehiring Air Force veteran


  Big Brother Bush is watching you  
       (and the Democrats approve)  

Pentagon is expected to (pretend to)
close domestic spying unit


ACLU: Military skirting law to spy on Americans

Bush is suddenly eager to make a deal on FISA spying bill

Dozens of state "fusion centers" have access
to millions of Americans' private data


Ecuador says CIA controls part of its intelligence


  Destroying civil liberties is like  
        letting the terrorists win  

Police raid Zimbabe opposition offices

Representative tries to put the fear of God in atheist

Petagon limits reporters' access
to Guantanamo kangaroo court
 
Guantanamo trials "rife with conflicts of interest"

Court hears appeal in strip search of 13-year-old for Motrin

Justice Dept targeted rumored lesbian
lawyer for harassment, firing


Anti-abortion initiative returns to South Dakota ballot


  Liars in mainstream media  

Radio hate-maven Savage says "I would
round up every member of the ACLU
and of the National Lawyers Guild
and I'd put them in a prison in Guantanamo
and I'd throw the key away"


Syndicated hatemonger Savage
again lies that Obama is Muslim


McCain-loving CNN describes high school's polite
and perfectly reasonable question as "heckling"


CBS News says "McCain doesn't need to exaggerate his
biography; it's a spectacular biography", when of course
McCain has repeatedly misrepresented his record


Fox News welcomes Coulter, so she
can compare Obama to Hitler


Fox's Snow tells lots of lies about last week's battles in Iraq

CNN's Beck rants against endangered
polar bears: ‘They Eat people!


Fox News lies about Howard Dean

Fox News lets McCain lie, unchallenged, about Obama

CNN's Crowley repeats accusation that Obama
"distorted" McCain's "100 years" remark,
but doesn't report what McCain actually said


Despite having to correct Ross' false claim that
McCain has released tax returns, ABC still ignored
McCain in report musing about Clinton tax returns


Following pattern in the media, CNN's King uncritically
repeats McCain campaign's false attacks on Democrats


CNN's Beck says Wal-Mart made a ‘deal with terrorists’
in ending its lawsuit against brain-damaged employee


Former Bush flack Tony Snow falsely claims
Obama voted ‘present’ 160 times as US Senator


Rove, wearing no flag lapel pin, attacks
Obama for not wearing flag lapel pins


2000 campaign video shows McCain highlighting
his time in Vietnam, despite his -- and media's
false claims that he didn't


Scarborough, Brzezinski advance myth that
McCain "stayed with" his immigration position


On Fox News, Rove falsely claims Obama was not a professor

Charlie Rose falsely asserts McCain
"called for the firing of Secretary Rumsfeld"


Ignoring his last presidential campaign, CBS' Higgins claims McCain "didn't speak about" time as Vietnam POW until now

Wall Street Journal re-writes history for lying editorial

Limbaugh calls Clinton a bitch

CNN scrubs Dobbs’ racially charged comment from transcript

 ance, or hadn't monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for more information.

Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?

White House cancels 30 environmental laws to put up Mexican border wall
 
Excerpt: On Thursday, April 3, the Bush administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, waived 36 laws, including those that ensure safe drinking water and clean air, protect wildlife and pristine borderlands, and conserve areas of cultural and archeological significance, to hasten construction of sections of border wall along the entire U.S./Mexico border.

  Olympic shame 2008  

Chinese police open fire on Tibetan protesters; at least eight dead
 
Excerpt: A new series of violent clashes in China threatened last night to aggravate the protest which will greet the London leg of the Olympic torch relay as it passes through the capital this weekend.

As many as eight Tibetans may have been killed when paramilitary police opened fire during protests in Sichuan province, according to Tibetan support groups. They say the protesters were gunned down in the Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture when police used automatic weapons on the crowds on Thursday evening.

China to step up 're-education' of Tibetans
 
Excerpt: China has warned it will step up a controversial "re-education" campaign for Tibetans after a fresh protest showed a huge security crackdown had failed to extinguish nearly one month of unrest.

The statement in the state-run Tibet Daily newspaper called for Buddhist monks to become Chinese patriots, but activist groups said the heavy-handed techniques already employed in the campaign were inflaming tensions.

Efforts by authorities to "re-educate" monks at a monastery in Sichuan province in south-west China led to protests there on Thursday in which at least eight Tibetans were killed, the activist groups said.

Olympic torch route becomes one giant pro-Tibet rally
 
Excerpt: Passing through Paris under armed guard, the torch was extinguished several times, and police officers moved it aboard a bus to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. Chinese Olympic organizers abruptly canceled the last leg, as well as a stop at City Hall, where a banner proclaimed, "Paris Defends Human Rights Everywhere in the World."

In San Francisco, where the torch is to arrive on Wednesday, several protesters scaled the vertical suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled two large banners reading, "One World, One Dream," and "Free Tibet 08." At least seven people were arrested. At the same time, the city's mayor, Gavin Newsom, was huddling with the police to consider last-minute changes to the torch's route and new security measures.

Paris torch-run cancelled amidst massive protests

Clinton suggests boycotting ... the opening ceremony
 
Excerpt: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday called on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games in Beijing.

Comment: Oooo, not the opening ceremony. Way to almost have some principles there, Senator. More of that proven leadership that's ready to cave on day one.   Madeline Zane    PERMANENT LINK 


  Torture is the American way  

Bush administration secretly suspended Fourth Amendment
 
Excerpt: For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on US soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism. That view was expressed in a Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.

Comment: And what's changed, between 2001, when the Bush administration specifically asked DoJ's John Yoo to write this memo, and now, when the same administration "stresses" that "now" disavows the memo it asked Yoo to write? The only thing that's changed, of course, is that in 2001 you didn't know what they'd done, and now you do.

Can someone explain to me again, why these bastards haven't been impeached, arrested, tried, and imprisoned?   Angry Annie    PERMANENT LINK 

Controversy in Portugal over that nation's cooperation with CIA torture program

Iraq war architect Feith says only "assh*les" are concerned about torture


  Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq  

British troops go back into Basra
 
Excerpt: One senior officer said: "Two weeks ago, it was unthinkable that British troops would be back on the streets of Basra. That was always the nightmare scenario -- once you go back in, how do you get back out?"

Comment: Perhaps Petraeus will divulge this next week. But I'll wager a vague longwinded non-answer will be given.   Marshall S.    PERMANENT LINK 

The war's expiration date is Jan. 1, 2009
 
Excerpt: Instead, US military intervention is authorized under the second prong of the 2002 resolution. This authorizes the president to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." This has allowed the Bush administration to satisfy American law by obtaining a series of resolutions authorizing the United States to serve as the head of the multinational force in Iraq.

But here's the rub. The most recent U.N. resolution expires on Dec. 31, and the administration has announced that it will not seek one for 2009. Instead, it is now negotiating a bilateral agreement with the Iraqi government to replace the U.N. mandate.

Comment: This is sort of a waste of time item, included here only because so many people sent us the link. Of course, the invasion of Iraq was illegal as it happened, and the occupation of Iraq has been conducted illegally ever since. Legality has nothing to do with it.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

US-made circuitry helps kill US troops in Iraq

Iraqi casualties at highest level since August

Army worried by rising stress of return tours to Iraq

Blackwater's Iraq contract renewed despite investigations
 
Iraqis angered by renewal of Blackwater contract

US just got schooled by a 'rag-tag' neighborhood army in Iraq
 
Officials confirm Iran's role in Iraqi truce

Comment: The so-called "terrorists" from Iran brokered the peace in Iraq. Bush's head would explode if he found out, but of course he'll never know.   Rebecca    PERMANENT LINK 


Air America suspends Randi Rhodes for calling Clinton and Ferraro "f**king whores"
 
Excerpt: In a statement, Charlie Kireker, the chair of Air America, said the radio network "encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our hosts."

Comment: Well, I hope this is a publicity stunt, hope it's done with Ms Rhodes' cooperation, because if it isn't, it's a pretty stupid move by the stupidly-run Air America network.

Here's video of the "incident" , which didn't happen on the radio -- she was doing stand-up comedy, off the air. As comedy goes, it's not particularly funny, but it wasn't on her show, so I don't see how it's any of the network's business. Seems to me, this is no different than if my boss suspended me for something I said after hours about certain politicians (and of course, I've said a lot worse than calling them f**king whores). The suspension seems downright un-American to me, and I won't be surprised if it pisses a lot of people off ... including Randi Rhodes.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

Rhodes says Air America breached her contract

Excerpt: Understandably, Rhodes is stunned and angry. About her employers she told me: "They are in breach of my contract and have damaged my hard won excellent reputation in the broadcast industry..." Rhodes added she received thank you letters from representatives of Air America, the San Francisco affiliate and sponsors praising her for the performance that now has her in hot water.

Immigration backlog means half a million new Americans won't be able to vote
 
Excerpt: Democratic senators blasted the nation's top homeland-security official Wednesday for a backlog in citizenship applications that could keep hundreds of thousands from voting in the 2008 election.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he was "outraged" at the backlog, which is 13 to 15 months long.

Kennedy said that 580,000 people who applied for citizenship in time to vote will be denied that chance because of the delays.

Sixty percent of doctors now support single-payer health care
 
Excerpt: Most U.S. doctors now support the idea of national health insurance, a shift from a half-decade ago, when less than half favored a national system, a new survey has found. According to a study published in the Mar. 31 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, 59% of the nation's physicians support federal legislation to establish national health insurance, often referred to as a single-payer system.

The findings signal a sea change in the attitude of the medical establishment toward universal care. Throughout the 20th century, US doctors have been among the fiercest and most influential opponents of national insurance. Lobbying by the AMA and other professional groups scuttled efforts to introduce universal coverage by several Presidents, continuing through Bill Clinton.

Kansas passes bill that would let families try to stop abortions
 
Excerpt: The bill includes a provision that would allow family members or a woman's husband to try to stop her from having a late-term abortion if they believe the law is being broken. It would also allow any county or district attorney to obtain a woman's medical records if there's probable cause to believe an abortion is performed illegally.

The bill expands the information physicians must provide the state when they perform late-term abortions. It also requires that more information be made public and that abortion clinic employees report suspected abuse of underage girls.

Comment: Fortunately, the Governor of Kansas is a real Democrat, Kathleen Sebelius, but pay attention anyway, and remember: This is what Republicans are trying to do to women in America.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

US government-backed health search engine blocks the word "abortion"

Convicted by psychobabble, innocent man spends 21 years in prison
 
Excerpt: Almost 21 years passed before DNA evidence proved what [Timothy Masters] had been saying all along: He was just a teenage boy with a hobby of drawing gruesome pictures.

1960s peace activist Tom Lewis rests in peace
 
Excerpt: "We knew we were taking a risk, because draft resisters were being sent to prison, and people were being sent to prison for two years. We knew that there was a serious risk involved. We did not consider the risk as much as the importance of the witness, the importance of making a statement against the war in Vietnam. And we used a weapon of the army, in fact, to destroy the records. We used homemade napalm made from a special forces handbook to really illustrate the outrageousness of the use of napalm. Instead of using it on people, we used it on death certificates."

Republican Congressman says 9/11 was just some plane crashes
 
Excerpt: California congressman [Darrell Issa], who called the Sept. 11 attacks "simply" a plane crash, ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims' families.

Comment: Can you imagine the firestorm if a Democrat had said such a thing?   Rebecca    PERMANENT LINK 




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 This week's commentary 

We are all insurgents at heart
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: The truth is that if you want to fight a whole people, the only possible avenue to "Victory" is total, or near total, genocide, such as was pursued in the American Indian Wars. It is a mark of social progress that such openly genocidal campaigns of conquest have become unacceptable to the conscience of the world. Now, aims of conquest must be pursued covertly under the cover of "bringing democracy" or "fighting terrorism."

Torturing politicians
by Don Nash, Unknown News

Congress has a new deal ... for corporations
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: The more we spend on the military and police state the less secure the country is, and the sooner the police state will collapse. I believe China is more free now than America. They are certainly more capitalistic than we are.

Rockefellers and Bushes, Nixons and Kissingers
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: The only real significant player in the drama is the sleeping giant of the mass of ordinary people. As long as they keep taking the soporific of material dependency on concentrations of power the story line is stuck. We are on the verge of the point in the story where the giant wakes. That is the drama.

Equivalence!
by Don Nash, Unknown News

Grass roots censorship
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: Freedom of speech is fundamental. It is like the musculature of a free society. If we don't use it, we lose it. As controversy becomes more frightening, and speaking your mind becomes more of a risk, it becomes more important for ordinary citizens to exercise the right of speaking our minds forthrightly and cogently. So what if arguments ensue? At least the right to argue has been defended.

Garbage in, garbage out
by JR Mooneyham, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: Previous Republican-dominated Congresses usually resisted or defied Republican Presidents on at least some matters of importance. But not the last bunch: instead, they marched in a Nazi-like lockstep on practically every issue with the President. The most difference they ever displayed was saying something in opposition in public -- but then turning around and doing exactly what Bush wanted in legislation.

Just the facts, ma'am
by Z, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: When you add these incredibly fraudulent rip-offs to the fact that the highest levels of the Bush Regime ordered torture against all international law -- laws which the US itself used to hang Germans and Japanese after WWII -- the conclusion must be that our government is run by a criminal syndicate, like the Mafia except they control the whole country, including the money and secret police.

Who benefits from US-style 'capitalism'?
by Rob L., Unknown News
 
Excerpt: The gap between rich and poor has grown bigger each year, and our unions are a pale shadow of their former selves. Who benefits? Not me.

Next President must
make Bush an unperson

by Ted Rall, syndicated columnist
 
Excerpt: When a ruler seizes office by extralegal means he rules the same way. Because he does not derive his power from the people -- indeed, his rule relies on their passivity -- he is not beholden to them. Selling the public on his policies is hard enough for a legitimately elected ruler; an illegal one has to resort to bullying, presented as a stern, autocratic triumph of the will. He is forced to order his lawyers to find legal loopholes using the most tortured reasoning imaginable. In the end, when citizens turn against him, the tyrant shrugs his shoulders. "So?" This is what the vice president replied when a reporter asked about polls showing that Americans have turned against the Iraq War. Cheney’s question was perfectly reasonable. Why should he care what we think? We didn’t elect him. He doesn’t owe us the slightest consideration. ...

Bush v. Gore gave us an illegitimate president. Bush presided over an outlaw government. If we sit on our asses, as we’ve done since that weird, soul-crushing day in late December of 2000, illegality will be hardwired into the US government. The country itself will become, like the Soviet Union and its wonderful freedom-guaranteeing constitution, a caricature of itself. "What is the difference between the Constitutions of the USA and USSR? Both guarantee freedom of speech," the old Russian joke went. "Yes, but the Constitution of the USA also guarantees freedom after the speech." A gangster regime presiding over the trappings of law and order is a vicious joke -- illegitimate and ultimately doomed.

Comment: In this article, Mr Rall eavesdrops on my dreams, and describes what the next President must do, if he or she wants to restore the rule of law to this nation. I don't expect it'll happen, but Rall's prescription makes sense, and I hope someone's paying attention, because it's the only way to save America.   Helen & Harry    PERMANENT LINK 

The very best thing about Barack Obama
by Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle
 
Excerpt: At long last, here was a top-tier politician who dared to speak to us like we were adults. It wasn't just refreshing; after seven-plus years of humiliating, monosyllabic dumb-guy Bushisms, it was downright jarring.

 Previous commentary 

The "news" is not news at all
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: Come the inevitable collapse of the world's economy, as it succumbs to the ravages of parasites, the only news that will matter is what is happening in your neighborhood as you struggle to survive. In many ways that will be a healthier cognitive environment. Nothing undermines health like a steady diet of lies.

Moqtada al-Sadr, the fighting in Basra, & oil
by Marie K., Unknown News
 
Excerpt: This site called the Iraq Oil Report in its Mar. 28, 2008 report offers some interesting info that isn’t usually discussed -- in particular, one important explanation for the recent fighting by the al-Sadr Mahdi Army resistance group (Shiite Iraqi nationalists AGAINST the break up of Iraq, against Iranian involvement, and against the foreign takeover of their still nationalized oil) versus the "collaborator" Shiite Iraqi forces sent in by Prime Minister al-Maliki to Basra (Iraq’s second largest city & key oil hub). Al-Maliki is backed by the Badr organization (that includes former Iraqi exiles in Iran) and the Kurdish Coalition. US and British forces are providing backup planning and air strikes. Clearly, the emphasis in the report is on Iraq’s oil, but the details matter. ...

Making money the old fashioned way: Smart friends
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: If West Virginia were a rich state then houses would cost more, but it isn't so they don't. Even with the US dollar so cheap, how many Germans want to invest in Charleston fixer-uppers?

Warnings from an ancient past
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
 
Excerpt: The bad news is that the niche that humans occupy, that of the intelligent, tool-using terrestrial animal, will most likely be filled again by evolution, leading to a likely replay of our mistakes. The good news is that we can attempt to warn such a future intelligent species and perhaps end this cycle of intelligent self-destruction before it starts again.


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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 false," but US forces did use napalm in Iraq

US officials are still lying about suicide attempts at Guantanamo prison

Promise to investigate war bombing of Baghdad market was a lie

  US pays 70,000 "former insurgents"
in Iraq $10 per day to not be violent


Study claiming 151,000 Iraqi deaths
counts only "violent deaths"


Princeton scientists hack
Diebold voting machine demo


Bush poo-poos consensus of American intelligence agencies on Iran

US corporate elite fear candidate Edwards

Sibel Edmonds makes case for insider
treason on the front page (in the UK)


Bush signing statement instantly
undoes new Sudan divestment law


Huckabee would criminalize
abortion and punish doctors


As primaries begin, the FEC will shut down

Justice Dept impeded investigation of Republican vote blocking in New Hampshire

Harry Reid (D-MyAss) bends Senate
rules to protect criminal telecoms


CIA lied to Congress, 9/11 investigation,
about existence of torture tapes


Bush planned illegal domestic
spying months before 9/11


FCC votes to allow even more
corporate control of media


Conyers protects Cheney;
won't allow impeachment hearings


Bush seeks to politicize military JAG lawyers

US intel report: Iran stopped
nuclear weapons program in 2003


Bush, Cheney have long known
that Iran poses no threat


Bush-Maliki agreement for "long term US presence" defies US laws, Iraqi Parliament

Bush says feds can open mail without warrant

Nevada prison officials let inmate rot to death without medical care

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's prosecution and imprisonment appears to be purely political
 •   Rove implicated in Democrat's political imprisonment

Secret Justice Dept memos authorized specific, horrific forms of torture
 •   American citizen was tortured under Rumsfeld's orders

NeoCon-controlled US Supreme Court OK's battering-ram home invasions
 •   Supreme Court silences 9/11 whistleblower
•   No challenges to "faith-based" government allowed, says Supreme Court
•   Supreme Court strikes down free speech for students while upholding First Amendment rights for corporations
•   Supreme Court OKs warrantless searches of poor peoples' homes
•   Supreme Court broadens immunity for federal officers who lose or steal citizens' property

Dead soldier had warned family she might be murdered for uncovering fraud

FCC won't probe giant phone companies for giving phone records to NSA without warrants

Republicans plan change in electoral rules to steal California in 2008
 •   US Attorney was targeted for firing after standing up for minority voting rights
•   What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?

America spends record half-trillion on defense ... BEFORE you start counting the wars

Corrupt US Attorney General Gonzales visits Iraq to help shape its legal system

Justice Department lies, whitewashes administration's failure to comply with FOIA

Cover-up alleged in 1988 Lockerbie Pan Am bombing

CIA & Mafia worked together to try to kill Fidel Castro

"Mission accomplished" for FEMA in New Orleans