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46 comments:
The very BEST news!
Thank all that is good and right in this world!
Raise your glass (coffee cups too!) in a toast!
Welcome home - some prayers are answered.
capt
Great news, Hajji! They can't call him back, can they???
Welcome home, Spanky!
Action Alert: Witness to war crimes
Yesterday I posted a video showing the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. occupation forces HERE in Iraq.
It is apparent that the actions of these soldiers is a war crime and should not go unpunished. I ask readers to view the video and to pass it to others in the hope that mainstream media will do it's job and bring it to the attention of a larger audience.
Please contact your government representatives and demand that they call for an investigation in to this brutal murder.
Peace & Joy - Tom
===
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. Franklin D.
Roosevelt : Message to Congress proposing the monopoly investigation, 1938
HERE
=
"It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion."- Aristotle in Politics, J. Sinclair translation, pg. 226, 1962
=
"...it is a government by the corporations, for the corporations."--Rutherford B. Hayes 19th President of the USA
=
Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives. Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference: US Congressman Ron Paul, in his "Texas Straight Talk" column, August 2004
===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!
HI Spanky, and welcome home. It's great to have you back.
Hajji has kept us informed on your "trip" abroad. I don't know whether you miss all the action over there, but I'm glad you're back with your family again.
Good luck in all you do!
Pat
Hurrah, he's home! :)
I wish we could find a way to bring the rest of them home, too, and then impeach the soulless sons of bitches who sent them to risk death for a pack of lies, convict 'em and extradite them to the Hague, convict them THERE of war crimes, put 'em in suspended animation, and launch them into deep space in a DY-100!
Or to invoke a different mythos, if only we had a Phantom Zone projector...
From the swamps of Arkansas, IBW
Disapproval on Iraq Hits Record
More Than Half Favor a Deadline for Withdrawal, Bush Suffers Longest Streak Without Majority Support Since Truman
A record number of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq, and a clear majority now favors the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces, even if civil order has not been restored there — potentially a tipping point in public attitudes on the war.
While solutions remain vexing, for the first time ABC News/Washington Post polls show a narrow majority of Americans support setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Two-thirds oppose George W. Bush's troop surge; most oppose it strongly.
It all makes for a continued hard slog for the president: Just 36 percent approve of his job performance overall, very near his career low of 33 percent last month. Bush hasn't seen majority approval in more than two years — the longest run without majority support for any president since Harry Truman from 1950-53.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
And Bunnypants is no Harry Truman.
capt
Betrayed!
How the Democratic Congress betrayed American voters, the troops in Iraq and extended the occupation for at least another 18 months.
THE DEMOCRATS ARE FUNDING IRAQ ESCALATION: The Democratic leadership has proposed $100 billion of supplemental funding for an increased troop presence in Iraq. The leadership opted for the "slow bleed" policy over a month ago. This extends the occupation for at least another 18 months, and allows permanent placement of troops thereafter for "training" or "combating terrorism". It also will permit the Bush Administration to initiate a war with Iran without Congressional oversight. The surge of 20,000 troops recently increased to 30,000 and will likely increase to 100,000 by year-end. Will the hapless Democrats then claim, "If only I knew then what I know now" as they have for the past year?
The "slow bleed" policy has some toothless requirements for presidential assertions of progress like those we’ve heard for the past four years from the Administration; these reporting requirements allow "slow bleed" proponents to make the preposterous claim they are "ending the war" by funding it. Amendments that would require withdrawal of US forces this year, the policy overwhelming favored by Americans, and the troops themselves, are not even being allowed for a vote by the leadership! The shameless short-term purpose of the Democratic policy is to embarrass Republicans with a Senate filibuster of the supplemental, or a presidential veto, and the longer-term aim is to help Democrats in the 2008 election by saddling the Republicans with intervention in an untenable civil war.
In 2002 the Democrats authorized Bush to invade Iraq (or any other country he deemed to support terrorism, for example Iran) in hope he would become involved in an unpopular war which would produce a Democratic White House. The Democrats 2007 policy is equally political, and may have the paradoxical effect of producing Republican victories in 2008. The prolongation of the occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of all Americans; we want our troops safely home by this Christmas, not political chicanery. As a consequence Americans now think even more poorly of Congress than ever; the failure to withdraw from Iraq dropped Democratic support of Congress from 44% to 33% according to the latest Gallup poll. The Democrats failure to stem what has become a Democrats war will be a factor in the 2008 elections.
A year ago 72% of the troops in Iraq said all troops should come home in 2006 but politicians did not heed their message. How much better we would be if our support included listening to them. Not another drop of blood should be spilled to protect cowardice by both political parties.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Cindy has a clear take on the abject failure of the Democratic leadership[sic].
capt
Betrayed!
How the Democratic Congress betrayed American voters, the troops in Iraq and extended the occupation for at least another 18 months.
THE DEMOCRATS ARE FUNDING IRAQ ESCALATION: The Democratic leadership has proposed $100 billion of supplemental funding for an increased troop presence in Iraq. The leadership opted for the "slow bleed" policy over a month ago. This extends the occupation for at least another 18 months, and allows permanent placement of troops thereafter for "training" or "combating terrorism". It also will permit the Bush Administration to initiate a war with Iran without Congressional oversight. The surge of 20,000 troops recently increased to 30,000 and will likely increase to 100,000 by year-end. Will the hapless Democrats then claim, "If only I knew then what I know now" as they have for the past year?
The "slow bleed" policy has some toothless requirements for presidential assertions of progress like those we’ve heard for the past four years from the Administration; these reporting requirements allow "slow bleed" proponents to make the preposterous claim they are "ending the war" by funding it. Amendments that would require withdrawal of US forces this year, the policy overwhelming favored by Americans, and the troops themselves, are not even being allowed for a vote by the leadership! The shameless short-term purpose of the Democratic policy is to embarrass Republicans with a Senate filibuster of the supplemental, or a presidential veto, and the longer-term aim is to help Democrats in the 2008 election by saddling the Republicans with intervention in an untenable civil war.
In 2002 the Democrats authorized Bush to invade Iraq (or any other country he deemed to support terrorism, for example Iran) in hope he would become involved in an unpopular war which would produce a Democratic White House. The Democrats 2007 policy is equally political, and may have the paradoxical effect of producing Republican victories in 2008. The prolongation of the occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of all Americans; we want our troops safely home by this Christmas, not political chicanery. As a consequence Americans now think even more poorly of Congress than ever; the failure to withdraw from Iraq dropped Democratic support of Congress from 44% to 33% according to the latest Gallup poll. The Democrats failure to stem what has become a Democrats war will be a factor in the 2008 elections.
A year ago 72% of the troops in Iraq said all troops should come home in 2006 but politicians did not heed their message. How much better we would be if our support included listening to them. Not another drop of blood should be spilled to protect cowardice by both political parties.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Cindy has a clear take on the abject failure of the Democratic leadership[sic].
capt
In Executive Privilege Fight, More Talk Than Action
The bluster and bluffing may be a smoke screen. In fact, both sides have reasons to seek a compromise.
By T.R. Goldman
Legal Times
March 26, 2007
The Pelosi-crats and the War
Caught like a deer in the headlights
The idea that the Democrats are any kind of "peace party" is belied by the latest action of the Speaker in regard to this bill, who excised a provision that would have required the President to come to Congress for permission to attack Iran. And, gee, what a coincidence, but that this was done right after the recent conference of the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee, where Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared:
"I know that… all of you who are concerned about the security and the future of the State of Israel understand the importance of strong American leadership addressing the Iranian threat, and I am sure you will not hamper or restrain that strong leadership unnecessarily."
He forgot to add: or else. Not that he had to: Nancy skeedaddled back to her office so fast that she must have broken the sound barrier – and the offending passage was cut from the bill.
Yes, the times, they are a changin' – but not in a good way. Nancy and the Democrats just gave Bush the green light to start bombing Tehran at Olmert's earliest convenience – so get ready for the Second Great Middle East War, brought to you by the leadership of both "major" parties.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Maybe they will resist funding the NEXT surge.
capt
Is Your Fetus A Republican?
Soon, DNA testing will tell if your baby is gay. Or smart. Or the next George Bush. Ready?
Oh right, like you don't want to play God.
Maybe it's time to blow it all out of the water. Maybe it's time to say, You know what? All this chatter and yammering and cute brow-furrowed quasi-religious faux-ethical squirming about DNA and gene pools and all the horribly fraught issues surrounding the notion that you soon will be able to select the various traits you want in your baby, maybe it's all just so much childish screaming into the Void. Which is to say, utter, adorable, self-reflexive bull--.
Here's the big hot-button gumdrops: Science is now on the verge of being able to test for gayness in a fetus. It's true. It's the most recent genetic development and it comes hot on the heels of the fact that doctors are essentially this close to being able to let you choose anything you want about your kid, from gender to eye color to height to intelligence to parallel parking acumen to really superlative taste in stemware and designer watches.
This is the message: Get over yourself and your hollow moral indignation concerning baby customization, and do it quickly, because science is about to slap the entire universe of genetics and babydom upside the head, and it won't be pretty. Or rather, maybe it will be. Maybe it will be beautiful and interesting and messy and fun and dangerous and stupid and random and sad and absolutely insane. You know, just like life.
More HERE
Riches Await As Earth's Icy North Melts
Barren and uninhabited, Hans Island is very hard to find on a map. Yet these days the Frisbee-shaped rock in the Arctic is much in demand -- so much so that Canada and Denmark have both staked their claim to it with flags and warships.
The reason: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes, accelerated by the impact of global warming on Earth's frozen north.
The latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is receding, partly due to greenhouse gases. It's a catastrophic scenario for the Arctic ecosystem, for polar bears and other wildlife, and for Inuit populations whose ancient cultures depend on frozen waters.
But some see a lucrative silver lining of riches waiting to be snatched from the deep, and the prospect of timesaving sea lanes that could transform the shipping industry the way the Suez Canal did in the 19th century.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Russia reportedly sees the potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion.
All this has pushed governments and businesses into a scramble for sovereignty over these suddenly priceless seas.
Regardless of climate change, oil and gas exploration in the Arctic is moving full speed ahead. State-controlled Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA plans to start tapping gas from its offshore Snoehvit field in December, the first in the Barents Sea. It uses advanced equipment on the ocean floor, remote-controlled from the Norwegian oil boom town of Hammerfest through a 90-mile undersea cable.
More HERE
** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit the Dahr Jamail website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
** Website by http://jeffpflueger.com **
March, 2007 - Dahr Jamail on Free Speech TV Show "SourceCode"
In this 10 minute piece, Dahr Jamail gives an Iraq update with exclusive video from Iraq. He describes some of the origins of the "sectarianism" that the US corporate media is so apt to point to when discussing the violence in Iraq, and shows how the US has been involved in fueling the sectarian tensions.
See the streaming WMV file (30 megs)
Download the high-res file (100 megs mpeg)
View the Streaming Flash file (30 megs)
Woo Hoo!
Here's a toast and three times three, Hurrah!
FRONTLINE/World
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/
- This Week: War of Ideas (60 minutes)
Tuesday, March 27 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
- Live Discussion: Chat with producer Greg Barker Wed., March 28, at 11 am ET
This week we turn our newsletter over to Stephen Talbot, series editor of FRONTLINE/World, our international news magazine, for a preview of this Tuesday's program, "War of Ideas." It is the concluding episode in FRONTLINE's special series, "News War."
---
Before dawn each day, in an office deep inside the U.S. State Department, a new "rapid response" team is surveying 150 Arab news channels to see what they're saying about the United States, the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has a war room atmosphere and appropriately so, since this operation is command central of a new U.S. effort to win hearts and minds in the Middle East.
In "War of Ideas" (view a preview at http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/newswar/ ) reporter Greg Barker examines the media revolution sweeping the Arab world since the advent of Al Jazeera, and how the State Department and Pentagon are scrambling to keep up with all the Arab-language news channels. Not long ago, Arab viewers had to content themselves with staid, state-run TV stations. Now they have satellite access to a wide range of news networks competing for market share and political influence -- everything from Al Jazeera to its Saudi-sponsored rival Al Arabiya to the station known as Al Manar which is run by Hezbollah, still regarded as a terrorist group by Washington. Into this mix, the U.S. has added its own outlet, Al Hurra - "the free one."
Barker takes a tour through some of these major media hubs in the Middle East to look inside the competing ideas and images being broadcast. Along the way he encounters a fascinating pair of U.S. military officers whose mission is to make sure a U.S. voice is heard on these Arab news outlets. "Al Jazeera is catering to their audience just like Fox News," says one of the officers. Although the State Department and the Pentagon are carefully monitoring Al Jazeera's new English broadcast, so far it's not available to U.S. viewers because no cable provider has agreed to carry it.
Tuesday's broadcast also includes "Requiem," a moving essay by investigative journalist Sheila Coronel, who is a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists. She pays tribute to journalists around the world who have been threatened, beaten, imprisoned, exiled or killed as they try to investigate and tell their stories. "What makes us humans is because we can express ourselves," says Coronel. " If we are unable to speak out, we cannot be fully human, and these journalists remind us of that."
If you miss Tuesday's broadcast, visit our Web site where "War of Ideas" and "Requiem" will be video streamed. Also, check out our latest "Rough Cut" video, "Everyone's a Journalist." Vanessa Hua, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, travels to South Korea to look at "OhmyNews," the world's largest "citizen journalist" online newspaper, and why it has become so popular and politically influential. And, as always, please let us know what you think of these reports.
Sincerely,
Stephen Talbot
Series Editor
FRONTLINE/World
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/
Hagel: Some See Impeachment As Option
WASHINGTON (AP) - With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush's own party said Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Senate's No. 2 Republican leader harshly criticized House Democrats for setting an "artificial date" for withdrawing troops from Iraq and said he believes Republicans have enough votes to prevent passage of a similar bill in the Senate.
"We need to put that kind of decision in the hands of our commanders who are there on the ground with the men and women," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. "For Congress to impose an artificial date of any kind is totally irresponsible."
GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush's impeachment. But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.
"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed—if a president really believes that, then there are—what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
What are the Democratic party members waiting for?
capt
GOP Support for Attorney General Erodes
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness and a Democrat joined the list of lawmakers who want him to resign over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.
"We have to have an attorney general who is candid and truthful. And if we find out he's not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on," said Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department.
Specter, R-Pa., said he would wait until Gonzales' scheduled April 17 testimony to the committee on the dismissals before deciding whether he could continue to support the attorney general. He called it a "make or break" appearance.
To Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Gonzales "does have a credibility problem. ... We govern with one currency, and that's trust. And that trust is all important. And when you lose or debase that currency, then you can't govern. And I think he's going to have some difficulties."
Hagel cited changing stories from the Justice Department about the circumstances for firing the eight U.S. attorneys. "I don't know if he got bad advice or if he was not involved in the day-to-day management. I don't know what the problem is, but he's got a problem. You cannot have the nation's chief law enforcement officer with a cloud hanging over his credibility," Hagel said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Gonzales has been "wounded" by the firings. `He has said some things that just don't add up," said Graham, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
This piece kind of dovetails with the last one, what is the Democratic leadership waiting for?
capt
Bush too dismissive of Congress on Iraq: Hagel
[…]
When the Senate considers its version of the war-spending bill this week, Hagel said he planned to propose a measure with Sen. James Webb, a Virginia Democrat, that would have the "force of law in the future involvement of our military" in Iraq, focused on deployment, redeployment, training, and equipment.
Bush's decision to send 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq was not the solution, Hagel, who is weighing a bid for the White House in the 2008 elections, said.
"I am opposed to the president's further escalation of American military involvement. We are undermining our interests in the Middle East, we are undermining our military, we're undermining the confidence of people around the world in what we're doing," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week" program.
"We have clearly a situation where the president has lost the confidence of the American people in his war effort," he said. "It is now time, going into the fifth year of that effort, for the Congress to step forward and be part of setting some boundaries and some conditions as to our involvement."
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
I would never vote for Hagel - but watch his poll numbers soar as he shows the type of spine the D's are lacking. I hope they take a hint.
capt
Iraq Supplemental Vote: Profiles in Cowardice, Stupidity and War Mongering
The fact that so many progressives are celebrating the passage of this bill is mind boggling. Playing the game, getting something rather than nothing now substitutes for substance. Although that is not fair because in reality the Democratic leadership does not want the war over and in fact are helping to pave the way forward to war on Iran. Bush is right for once when he called this political theater. They have set the bill up to make maximum political advantage as the 2008 elections approach without sacrificing the war.
Bush has his money to carry on the war as he sees fit. What happens if Bush simply does not withdraw the troops? That will place the Democrats in the position of not supporting the troops. But what the Democrats want is to use Bush’s actions combined with dissatisfaction with the war to gain the presidency in 2008. But the war will continue.
It’s like Kabuki theater, only with performers wearing more makeup in an attempt to cover their motives. The upcoming war on Iran is following the same buildup as that before Iraq. Note that the Democrats removed language requiring Bush to fulfill his constitutional duty and get Congressional approval for an attack on Iran. This, in essence, gives Bush the green light. It simply says you don’t have to check with us. Go ahead and attack Iran. Now I’m sure that the Democrats will exhibit faux outrage at not being consulted. All the Democratic presidential candidates are falling all over themselves trying to convince the Israeli money machine that they support Israel more than anyone else and will stand up to the great Iranian threat. This, despite the fact that Israel has enough nukes to destroy much of the world.
More HERE
Profile: Omar Saeed Sheikh
Tuesday, 16 July, 2002
British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh has been sentenced to death for abducting and murdering US journalist Daniel Pearl.
Omar Sheikh, 27, was born in London, attended the London School of Economics and was a close associate of Maulana Azhar Masood - founder of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) group, which India blames for an attack on its parliament in December 2001.
His father, Saeed Ahmed, was a Pakistani clothes merchant from Wanstead in east London.
Omar Sheikh was reportedly a contemporary of England cricket captain Nasser Hussain at the private Forest School, in Snaresbrook.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Whoop's! KSM must be mistaken. Maybe KSM meant he killed a different Daniel Pearl?
I am certain our government wouldn't lie and KSM wouldn't just make something up to keep his kids from being tortured (held by our government ages 7 and 9) so what gives?
capt
Green race car with a difference
Researchers based at a university have created an environmentally-friendly race car with tyres made from potatoes and brake pads from cashew nut shells.
Eco One is the idea of WMG, a provider of innovative solutions to industry based at the University of Warwick.
The car was designed originally with a top speed of 125mph (201km/h).
It will be at the Sexy Green Car Show alongside green offerings from major names in the motor industry at the Eden Project in Cornwall from Friday.
'Recyclable materials'
The car also runs entirely on bio-fuels and bio-lubricants.
Project manager Ben Wood said he has tweaked the original engine and claims he can achieve up to 150mph (241km/h) given a long straight and a tailwind.
He said: "Almost everything on the car can be made out of biodegradable or recyclable materials.
"All the plastic components can be made from plants and, although the chassis has to be made from steel for strength, steel is a very recyclable material.
"We already have the shell, brake pads, fuel and tyres sorted.
"My aim is to end up with a race car that's 95 per cent biodegradable or recyclable.
"If we can build a high-performance car that can virtually be grown from seed, just imagine what's possible for the average family car."
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
How nice would it be to free ourselves from the clutches of fossil fuels? How many wars would end, how many lives saved if we could take oil out of the picture?
capt
Bob Geiger Saturday Cartoons!
A little humor to lighten the load.
capt
Tiger by the Tail
Quite a petulant display our president just put on. Chris Matthews may admire the "fighting tiger" spirit that Bush uncaged once he finished stammering and stumbling through his prepared text, but the very ferocity of Bush's defiance and vocabulary ("show trials," "klieg lights"--as if Pat Leahy were some Stalinist grand inquisitor) suggest that there may be something more to this story, something bigger buried deeper in the weeds. This mini-press conference was the most Nixonian performance of Bush's presidency, and his robotic repetition of the word "reasonable" to characterize his proposal to let Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and others be interviewed in a shady lagoon (not under oath, no transcripts made) could only remind Watergate buffs of the phrase "modified limited hangout". That's what's so strange about this percolatiing scandal. Instead of defusing it, dousing it, sedating it, Bush & co. have amped it up to a mini-Watergate decibel level of confrontation and document spew, complete with a former Watergate cast member. When Dick Cheney famously told Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, he and the rest of the administration clearly never anticipated the day when Leahy would return to powerful chairmanship; I think they internalized Karl Rove's visionary scheme of a permanent Republican majority and thought the future was in the bag. Now they're holding the bag and it's leaking all over their laps.
More HERE
Frost Bite
A recently discovered poem by Robert Frost has brought fame—and controversy—to an English student
When Robert Stilling, a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Virginia, began a research project last summer on poet Robert Frost, he expected, perhaps, to squeeze out a term paper or two from his research—not to be tossed under a media spotlight brighter than most scholars see in a lifetime.
While poring over the University of Virginia's recently acquired Robert Frost collection—a collection so new that most of it had not yet been catalogued—Stilling noticed an inscription in the front of a copy of North of Boston that Frost had sent to his friend, the publisher Frederic Melcher, in 1918. Stilling determined that the inscribed poem, "War Thoughts at Home," had never been published.
After some consideration, Stilling decided to publish the poem, along with a short essay, in the Virginia Quarterly Review. VQR is available at most national bookstores chains, and Stilling felt it would gain more attention there than in a more narrowly focused academic journal.
He was right, it turns out. Too right. Frost's celebrity, combined with the political timeliness of the unearthed war poem and Stilling's role as a grad student sleuth, created the makings of "a good story," says Stilling. "It was sort of a perfect storm."
Instead of focusing on the poem, the media turned its attention on Stilling. Within weeks after the university announced the discovery in September, Stilling was fielding phone calls and interview requests from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NPR and countless other news organizations—an unexpected burden that he believes would not have been the case had he come across, say, a Wallace Stevens poem, or even a Frost poem on a subject less resonant with America's current political situation.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Amazing, how cool!
capt
Spain judge says Bush and Iraq war allies should face war crimes charges
[JURIST] Baltasar Garzon [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], an investigating judge for Spain's National Court [official website, in Spanish], said Tuesday that President George W. Bush and his allies eventually should face war crimes charges for their actions in Iraq. In an opinion piece [text, in Spanish] for El Pais, Garzon called the war in Iraq "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history." Garzon also criticized those who joined the US president in the war against Iraq as having equally responsible for joining the war effort despite their doubts. In 1999, Garzon tried to extradite former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archive] from Britain and try him for crimes against humanity. Reuters has more.
On Sunday, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile; BBC profile] said President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair may one day face war crimes charges [JURIST report] before the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website; JURIST news archive] at The Hague. Moreno-Ocampo said that the ICC could investigate allegations of war crimes stemming from the conduct of coalition forces in Iraq [JURIST news archive], so long as Iraq agrees to ratify the Rome Statute [text, PDF] and accede to ICC jurisdiction.
More HERE
An Open Letter to the President...Four and a Half Years Later
Four and a half years ago, I addressed the issue of war in an open letter to our President. Today I would like to again speak to him and his, directly. Mr. President, Mr. Cheney, Ms. Rice et al: Indeed America has a rich history of greatness -indeed, America is still today a devastating military.
And because, in the absence of a competent or brave Congress, of a mobilized citizenry, that level of power lies in your hands, it is you who have misused it to become our country's and our constitution's most devastating enemy. You have broken our country and our hearts. The needless blood on your hands, and therefore, on our own, is drowning the freedom, the security, and the dream that America might have been, once healed of and awakened by, the tragedy of September 11, 2001.
But now, we are encouraged to self-censor any words that might be perceived as inflammatory - if our belief is that this war should stop today. We cower as you point fingers telling us to "support our troops." Well, you and the smarmy pundits in your pocket, those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and bloodstained underwear, can take that noise and shove it. We will be snowed no more. Let's make this crystal clear. We do support our troops in our stand, while you exploit them and their families. The verdict is in. You lied, connived, and exploited your own countrymen and most of all, our troops.
You Misters Bush and Cheney; you Ms. Rice are villainously and criminally obscene people, obscene human beings, incompetent even to fulfill your own self-serving agenda, while tragically neglectful and destructive of ours and our country's. And I got a question for your daughters Mr. Bush. They're not children anymore. Do they support your policy in Iraq? If they do, how dare they not be in uniform, while the children of the poor; black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and all the other American working men and women are slaughtered, maimed and flown back into this country under cover of darkness.
More HERE
Let America Be America Again
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
By Langston Hughes: Click this link to read entire item.
Four minutes of good and funny: HERE
capt
Kissinger's extradition to Uruguay sought over Operation Condor
MONTEVIDEO (AFP) - An attorney for a victim of Uruguay's 1973-1985 dictatorship has asked his government to request the extradition of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger over his alleged role in the notorious Operation Condor.
Condor was a secret plan hatched by South American dictators in the 1970s to eliminate leftist political opponents in the region. Details of the plan have emerged over the past years in documents and court testimony.
The Latin American dictatorships of the time "were mere executors" of a "plan of extermination" hatched in the United States by a group led by Kissinger, said attorney Gustavo Salle, who represents the family of Bernardo Arnone.
Uruguayan prosecutor Mirtha Guianze has received the request and is studying the case, according to news reports.
A leftist activist, Arnone was arrested in October 1976 and flown to Argentina with a group of political prisoners that vanished and were presumably executed.
Kissinger played a dominant role in US foreign policy between 1969 and 1977, and was a strong supporter of right-wing regimes across Latin America.
The extradition request comes as the topic of rights violations during Uruguay's dictatorship is making headlines again, with Salle citing evidence from declassified US State Department documents.
Witnesses are set to testify in April in a case that began in September against eight retired regime officials over rights violations.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
This is the same guy that turned down an offer to run the 9/11 commission? How could anybody mistake that for an effort to expose the truth?
capt
Once again nothing will change until the pain hits home, until the comfortable life known by most here will change for good, then maybe the citizens of this country will move to throw these bums out, but I doubt it will be in time. Big things are coming our way, not just financial, but global climatic change among other forces that will change your lives forever. Going to be a show, for sure, so get ready folks change is coming in your direction. 24 months out and it should be obvious to the most dedicated neo con. Of course, we won't see any news of this we will just experience it. Happy talk all the time. No news, we don't need stinking news.
Hajji, that is the best news I've heard in a long time! I'm so happy for all of you. Please give him my greetings.
Capt, you mean the dems are behaving just the way we knew they would? Putting Israel ahead of all else, even the lives of our troops? Well, I NEVER! I would sure like to know what kind of leverage they've got on our reps. It must be truly stupendous.
This Joke's on Us
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
By DAVE LINDORFF
Counterpunch
Despite polls showing that 6 in 10 Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq asap, the best that this crew can come up with is a call-not binding, or course-for the president to pull out the troops by next spring or even summer. That would be over a year from now, and more than five years (!) into this criminal and incredibly stupid war.
At the rate things have been going, it would also be perhaps 1000 more dead Americans, 14,000 more gravely wounded Americans, and 100-150,000 more dead Iraqis later.
And in offering this limp request, Congress is in the process of approving the appropriation of another $122 million in spending on the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan.
This is action? They could be blocking that funding altogether, and shutting the damned war down. Why can't Democrats, who were put in their position of power in Congress by the voters, at least show the courage and principle of Republican Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex), who is opposing the funding and says, "It's amazing to me that this Congress is more intimidated by political propagandists and special interests than the American electorate, who sent a loud, clear message about the war in November."
And those subpoenas. Congress is boldly demanding the appearance of Bush's Rasputin Karl Rove and his ousted legal adviser Harriet Meirs. Fine as far as it goes, but what about the clear evidence at the Libby trial that his regent, Dick Cheney, orchestrated a smear campaign against administration critic Joe Wilson and his CIA wife Valerie Plame, obstructed the Justice Department investigation into that effort, and lied about what he had done? Shouldn't there be subpoenas issued to the Veep himself and all of his staff?
What about the evidence at that same trial that the president himself was in on the cover-up and obstruction of justice conspiracy. Shouldn't there be subpoenas of staff to pin that down, and a letter of interrogatories to the president himself?
While they're at it, shouldn't this 110th Congress that the people elected last fall in an effort to clean out the Augean stables of the Bush White House and to end the war be initiating an impeachment of the president, at least on his admitted felonious violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law? After all, a federal judge already tried that case and determined that the president is a felon. That's an easy case to impeach on.
They could also be revoking the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. That's the resolution Congress passed on September 18, 2001, which the president has ever since been claiming makes him a dictator-that is commander in chief in a borderless, endless "war" on terror-not beholden to the Constitution, and free to ignore or invalidate acts of Congress at will. It's an astonishing abuse of power, exactly what the Founding Fathers feared could happen, and yet Congress is doing exactly nothing about it.
There's no need for the 2001 AUMF. We're not at war in Afghanistan anymore, after all. There is a new, elected government there, and it has invited in NATO to help it fight a resurgent Taliban. We're just there as part of NATO, and so hardly need a special AUMF-especially one that can be falsely construed as an authorization to be a dictator. So why isn't Congress revoking the damned thing?
The could revoke the 2002 AUMF too. Bush misued that one as an authorization to go to war against Iraq, since it actually required him to go to the UN for authorization-something he never bothered to do. In any event, we're not at war in Iraq either, as much as it might look like we are. The war in Iraq is over folks. We're not even occupiers there any more. Remember, we handed sovereignty over to the Iraqis in 2004! There's an elected government in Iraq-an independent government-and we're there at their invitation to help them with an insurrection problem. That's not a war, any more than it's a war in Columbia, where we've also sent troops at the Columbian government's request. So why doesn't Congress revoke the AUMF? It would be a good idea, because Bush is liable to misuse it further and claim it gives him the right to attack Iran at will. He's said as much.
Again, listen to Republican Ron Paul, who says, "Congress should admit its mistake and repeal the authority wrongfully given to the executive branch in 2002. Repeal the congressional sanction and disavow presidential discretion in starting wars. Then start bringing our troops home. If anyone charges that this approach does not support the troops, take a poll. Find out how reservists, guardsmen, and their families--many on their second or third tour in Iraq--feel about it. The constant refrain that bringing our troops home would demonstrate a lack of support for them must be one of the most amazing distortions ever foisted on the American public." (Of course, Rep. Paul has his own issues when it comes to guts. He has publicly stated that the president has committed impeachable crimes, and yet he has shied away from doing the obvious, and appropriate, thing: submitting a bill of impeachment. If he does do it, it would be the ultimate shaming of Democrats in the House.)
I'm fed up with the gutless mini-politics of this Congress. Who gives a damn whether they've passed a minimum wage bill? It'll never get past Bush anyhow. Neither will anything else of consequence that this Congress passes.
Unless they don't start challenging the Bush administration directly and forcefully, Congressional Democrats aren't going to do bupkis in two years and people are going to start wondering why they were voted in in the first place. People might even start to think seriously about letting the Democratic Party just wither away.
Wouldn't make much of a difference without it, really, and we might even come up with something better. It wouldn't be too hard to do.
===========
I will support Ron Paul based on this one issue, NO MORE EMPIRE BUILDING WARS!!! Shut down foreign bases and bring the troops home where they belong to defend OUR country, not the interests of fascist corporations and Israel! I hope both the traitorous dems and the faux republicans wither away and are consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong. They have bankrupted this country both economically and morally and we will be paying for it for the next 5 generations. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Don't ask
Mark Fiore - Animation!
Tee Hee - titter titter!
capt
The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th
Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out
on 9/11, NORAD and what should have happened on 9/11.
By Jeremy Baker
Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon
Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.
“There had to be something huge to explain why those aircraft weren’t shot down out of the sky. We have fighters on the ready to handle these situations twenty-four-seven. We have NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) monitors monitoring our skies twenty-four-seven. We have a lot of human beings, civilian and military, who care about doing their jobs.”
I spoke to Mr. Hordon one afternoon at a coffee shop in Bremerton, Washington.
“You have to understand the emotions, the duty, the job of an ATC. We are paid to watch aircraft go across the country.”
It’s clear that Hordon is passionate about the subject. A lot of people are. The dark questions that the attacks have left lingering in the national psyche have been recorded. 49% of New Yorkers believe that the government had something to do with 9/11. Following an interview with Charlie Sheen, a CNN poll revealed that 82% of respondents believed that there was “a government cover-up of 9/11.” Jay Leno asked Bill Maher on The Tonight Show about the fact that 37% of Americans (according to Scribbs-Howard) believe that the government was involved in some way with the attacks (Maher was definitely not one of them).
As far as the “emotions, the duty, the job” of an ATC is concerned, Hordon puts it this way:
“Imagine yourself at a circus, a fair, a crowded sports event. You have in your hand your little child of five or six, you’re amongst hundreds of people and you turn around and see that your child is gone. How do you feel at that moment? You feel panicked. You feel that this is the worst thing possible, so what you do is you engage. When ATCs lose an aircraft, all hell breaks loose. They flip right into motion. We take action and do not wait for other things to happen.”
As a former member of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization), Hordon’s years as an ATC are particularly relevent to 9/11 researchers.
“I was a certified ATC in Boston west-bound departures, the routing that AA11 and UA175 followed on 9/11. I know it like the back of my hand.”
He even received a letter of commendation for his role in dealing with an actual hijacking. When it became clear that there hadn’t been a systems failure of any kind on the morning of September 11th, Hordon was certain that something had gone terribly wrong within the upper echelons of authority. A pilot (third level air carrier) as well as an ATC, he is well versed on in-flight emergency protocol. He is also adamant that if these procedures had been followed on 9/11 not one of the hijacked planes would have reached their targets.
“I’m sorry but American 11 should have been intercepted over southwest Connecticut—bang, done deal.”
According to Hordon, air emergencies requiring scrambles, or “flushes,” from fighter jets occur 50 to 150 times a year.
“It’s routine. At Otis AFB we would have practice exercises two or three times a year. We’d flush aircraft, get the B-52’s up, get the tankers up, get the fighters up. Just out of Otis there’d be twenty, thirty fighter jets. And on 9/11 there were plenty of fighters as well. They were just diverted over the ocean, tied up in drills, etc.”
The vast majority of air incidents are simple communications or routing failures, common mishaps that are easily remedied. Nonetheless, when a problem does arise, it is treated as an emergency and interceptors are scrambled.
“This is exactly what’s written in our manuals. We alert our immediate supervisors, we get another set of eyes on the scope. We have, two feet away from us, a little button that says ADC, Air Defense Command [nowadays NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector)]. Bing, hit the button. ‘Hey, this is me at the Boston Center air space. I just lost a target or I have an erratic target. He is twenty-five miles west of Keene, last reported at such-and-such location.’”
Pilots use similar checklists when responding to problems with their airplanes:
“If I lose an engine in a multi-engine aircraft I know exactly what to do. I start to control the aircraft to fly with one engine, I’ll shut the ailing engine down, I’ll get the aircraft trimmed up. It’s check, check, check.”
Hordon is not persuaded by those who make excuses for the lack of military response on 9/11. U.S. air defenses have been on hair-trigger alert to defend the nation from attack since the early sixties. The idea that, on the morning of 9/11, there was an inexplicable wave of incompetence on the part of his former FAA “brothers in arms” offends him deeply.
“The pilots are in their ready rooms, the planes are in open-ended hangars. You have frontline players, pilots and controllers. I’m there, I’m watching. The pilot is there, he’s flying. We have direct air defense command communications. That’s the way it’s been for fifty years.”
The unfathomable delays seen in military action on 9/11 are inconceivable to those who have painstakingly investigated the matter—and for a man who worked for years keeping air travel over the U.S. safe.
“Military pilots would have their asses off the ground faster than you could imagine. I know how quickly our systems can respond. Why would you design a system that responds slowly to an emergency?”
Claims by authorities that, once a hijacked aircraft’s transponders have been turned off, the plane becomes virtually invisible to radar, is another sore point for Hordon.
“Bottom line, these aircraft were always radar monitored, we were always in communication with them, even if they were hijacked. The only way you can lose an aircraft these days is for the plane to flat out blow up.”
Since any genuine air attack would not likely announce itself as such, NORAD radar has to be able to detect anything. But there’s nothing stealthy about an enormous Boeing passenger liner, whether its transponder is operating properly or not.
“That aircraft is represented on their radar scope from the time it takes off to the time it lands. Even little puddle-jumpers out of our local airports. NORAD tracks all these aircraft. They have the world’s most sophisticated radar.”
After eleven eventful years as an ATC, Hordon naturally reacted with shock when he first heard that fifty years of tried and true in-flight emergency protocol was abruptly altered in June of 2001, just two months before the attacks.
“Rumsfeld put a third party in between the ATC and the Air Defense Controller responsible for scrambling interceptors —the Pentagon.”
He speculates that
“the phone calls went from the FAA to the Pentagon and were not answered. Therefore the Pentagon never reached down to the ADC base to release the aircraft. The Boston Center’s ATCs got so frustrated with the non-answer from the military that they finally said, ‘get these guys going anyways.’ That’s the way it’s been for fifty years. We scramble aircraft. We don’t wait for OK’s from third or fourth parties.”
The no-show status of the U.S. military on the morning of September 11th, 2001, has understandably become the single most compelling point that 9/11 researchers, writers and activists use to support their claims of complicity on the part of the U.S government (and its military and intelligence apparatus) in the attacks. When even those who condemn “conspiracy theory” in regard to 9/11 have questioned the military’s conduct that morning, it’s clear that this anomaly is worthy of intense concern and diligent investigation. Whatever the case may be, there are no doubts that history’s largest and most technologically advanced military was apparently caught completely off guard by four huge hijacked passenger jets that were in the air for almost two hours on the crystal clear morning of 9/11.
==========
I think the truth is worming it's way out slowly but surely. Anyone who still actually believes that poppycock 9/11 BS simply hasn't been paying attention.
9/11 remains possibly used on roads: court papers
By Edith Honan Fri Mar 23, 7:59 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Debris that may have contained bits of bone from victims of the World Trade Center attacks was used to fill potholes and pave city roads, according to court papers filed on Friday.
The charge was made in an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court in an ongoing case filed in 2005 by family members of those killed in the attacks against the city. They say the city did not do enough to search for remains, denying victims a proper burial.
Eric Beck, a construction worker employed at the Fresh Kills landfill in the borough of Staten Island, where the rubble was taken after the Twin Towers fell, said in his affidavit that the process of sifting through the debris was rushed.
Beck said he saw sanitation workers removing small pieces of debris containing possible bone fragments and loading them "onto tractors, and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts."
Kimberly Miu, a spokeswoman for the city's legal office, declined to comment on the latest filing, saying it would be inappropriate to talk about a pending motion.
The WTC Families for Proper Burial, the group that filed the suit, has also battled the city over how to honor the 2,749 people who died in the attacks on the Twin Towers.
Some relatives of victims have opposed any effort to rebuild on Ground Zero, calling it sacred ground and saying it would disrespect those who perished there.
Construction of the planned memorial and skyscraper has repeatedly been delayed, in part due to concerns expressed by victims' families.
The remains of about 40 percent of the victims were never recovered, and hundreds of bone fragments have been discovered in and around Ground Zero in the last six months, the lawsuit says.
============
God only knows how many human remains ended up in the landfill in their big ass hurry to remove the evidence. They have so much to answer for.
This piece kind of dovetails with the last one, what is the Democratic leadership waiting for? - Capt.
FDR is reported to have once said, "I'm convinced, now make me do it."
As I've tried to argue, participation does not end at the ballot box, and while the Democratic majority is in some regards marginally better than their Republican foes, they still must be brought, kicking and screaming in all instances, into a position which represents the will of the populous over the will of the dollar.
Are We Politicians or Citizens?
By Howard Zinn
May 2007 Issue
As I write this, Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration’s “surge” of troops, and the Republicans’ refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.
That was suggested in a recent message from MoveOn, which polled its members on the Democrat proposal, saying that progressives in Congress, “like many of us, don’t think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war.”
Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It’s as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.
When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.
We who protest the war are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress.
Timetables for withdrawal are not only morally reprehensible in the case of a brutal occupation (would you give a thug who invaded your house, smashed everything in sight, and terrorized your children a timetable for withdrawal?) but logically nonsensical. If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite—provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence—they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home.
More.
When Ron Paul leads the House on drawing up Articles of Impeachment, I'll believe he's serious.
Until then, he's all talk and no action.
He'll prove he's a leader-- and not a hack -- when he becomes a leader on the very issues on which he claims the moral high ground but does nothing to remedy.
Ron Paul should stop talking, and take action.
The Revolutionary Candidate
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Lew Rockwell.com
Monday, March 26, 2007
No one quite knows what to do about Congressman Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president.
He refuses to play by the rules. He’s a bigger supporter of the free market than anyone in Congress, but he’s also the most consistent opponent of war. (That the conjunction of these positions – which amount to classical liberalism in a nutshell – should actually seem surprising or odd goes to show how perverse our political system has become.)
Other than Dennis Kucinich, he is the only authentic antiwar candidate in either party. He has won so many awards from the National Taxpayers Union that he’s probably lost count. CNET rated him the best out of all 435 congressmen in the House of Representatives on issues relating to the Internet. There is no more reliable civil libertarian in Congress than Ron Paul.
His conduct, moreover, is beyond reproach. Lobbyists don’t even bother going to his office. If their scheme doesn’t fall among the federal government’s enumerated powers under the Constitution, they know perfectly well that there is no chance Ron Paul will support it.
Paul’s new book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom, calls for the abandonment of hyper-interventionism and the restoration of a foreign policy of commerce and peace. Although more and more Americans polled agree that their government should mind its own business and try to scale back its impossible commitments – Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes of Columbia and Harvard, respectively, now say that their initial estimate of $2 trillion as the long-term cost of the Iraq war is too low – no one in politics other than Ron Paul will actually say such a thing, much less write a book about it. At last we have a choice, not an echo, as Phyllis Schlafly used to put it.
Dr. Paul, an Ob/Gyn who has delivered 4,000 babies in his career, utterly defies the view of the world shared by right-wing blogs and talk radio, in which America is divided into "liberals" who oppose the Iraq war and conservatives who support it. (As I’ve shown in the past, "liberals" don’t have a particularly stellar antiwar record over the past hundred years, and the "liberal media," including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the cable news networks, overwhelmingly supported the Iraq war.) Ron Paul’s candidacy is having the useful effect of showing people that their ideological choices are not limited to Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh. You can in fact be antiwar without being a leftist.
At the same time, some on the left are giving Paul a respectful hearing, sensing that this is no ordinary politician. A writer for The Nation argued that "this Constitution-wielding contender, who voted against authorizing Bush to invade and occupy Iraq and has steadily opposed that war since its launch four years ago, would certainly make the GOP debates worth watching – and perhaps applauding."
A writer for the Keene Free Press, who admits he doesn’t "normally give Republicans much of a hearing," found himself in for a "pleasant surprise" at one of Paul’s New Hampshire speeches. "His speech, like his candidacy, is refreshing. Paul seems to be genuinely authentic. He doesn't have the feel of a politician. His arguments are substantive, and his demeanor warm."
For my part, I hope Paul decides to run. In a weak field, Paul is a true champion. America is at a critical crossroads. Our liberties have been trampled. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are in shambles. Our reputation has been tarnished internationally by decades of provocative foreign policy. Paul is the only candidate thus far who seems interested in reversing that trend. And for that, if he runs, he has my vote.
An antiwar Republican who is also much sounder on other issues than they are – this is not exactly welcome news to neoconservatives. Not long ago, the neoconservative Pajamas Media featured a presidential poll on which Ron Paul kept winning. That wasn’t the outcome they wanted, naturally, so they finally removed him from contention in order to make things come out right.
Covering their tracks, Pajamas Media tried to claim that they wanted to feature only those candidates who registered at least one percent in national polls. When Ron Paul surpassed that figure, however, they still refused to include him, even though they have included people like Tommy Thompson who are at zero percent because they are not actually running for president.
Paul did manage to make his way onto the Fox News Channel thanks to the entreaties of hundreds of viewers who wrote to the station demanding to know why the "fair and balanced" network had totally neglected the Paul candidacy. It was a short appearance on Fox News Live’s "Because You Asked" feature, which features stories that viewers themselves have asked to be covered.
==========
Certainly not perfect, who is? But such an improvement over the "bidness" as usual candidates, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
Ron Paul has taken a lot more action than the so-called opposition who do nothing but enable those lunatics. Besides, I thought you were of the opinion that impeachment was a losing proposition? He is an army of one, and since the left has done nothing but whine about how they are helpless because they are the minority, how much more helpless is this one person who is equally despised by both sides? His voting record speaks for itself, those traitorous dems, for the most part, SUCK! They are the second head of the same serpent, and the fact that they both want Paul out of the picture and the MSM is doing it's damndest to completely ignore him is good enough for me
I do not think impeachment is a losing proposition. What I believe is that there is a time and place for just about anything -- and the impeachment option was not viable when people were screaming for it, in the past.
Impeachment is becoming more and more viable. Unfortunately, things don't always proceed on our own personal time schedules.
Such is life.
The Coming War With Iran
Is it inevitable?
The timing of the recent incident in which 15 British sailors were arrested by Iran at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway for purportedly entering Iranian waters couldn't have been more provocative if it had been planned that way. And perhaps it was. The question is, however, who did the planning?
It happened on the eve of a vote in the UN Security Council to impose stricter sanctions on Iran and in the wake of escalating rhetoric from U.S. government officials blaming Iran for anti-occupation activity in Iraq. On top of that, recent events include the kidnapping of Iranian consular officials in Irbil, Kurdistan, by U.S. forces, reports of covert U.S. support for terrorist attacks inside Iran, the "disappearance" of a major Iranian military figure in the elite Revolutionary Guards unit, and suspicions that the Mossad may have had a hand in killing a renowned Iranian nuclear scientist. Add it all up, and there seems little doubt as to who carried out what seems like a brazen provocation.
Go here for the semiofficial British version of the confrontation: according to this account, we are supposed to believe that the Iranians entered Iraqi waters to "ambush" the Brits, who were engaged in what is described as a "routine" patrol of the disputed waterway in search of suspected smugglers. Car smugglers were offloading their merchandise onto a barge when they were approached by the Brit patrol and fled into Iranian waters – but not before "irking" the British crew:
"The suspected smugglers complied with the British orders and the crew returned to its rigid hull inflatable boats (rhibs) to continue its patrol, only to turn around and see the traders laughing in its direction."
Laughing at Her Majesty's sailors, who were guarding the civilized world from the pernicious plots of car smugglers, was surely an act of war. After all, isn't a car a "weapon of mass destruction" in present-day Iraq? The Brits weren't going to let the Iranians off the hook quite so easily, and the next day they returned to the same waters to find the same smugglers plying their trade. The British patrol made a beeline for the smugglers, but this time the smugglers didn't run – and the poor naïve Brits walked right into the trap. No sooner had they boarded the vessel than they were surrounded on all sides by Iranian gunboats. Last anybody heard of their fate, they were in Tehran and the Iranians were talking about putting them on trial for espionage.
More HERE
Bush must be removed from office
[…]
Bush has made it clear he has no intention of honoring the will of the overwhelming majority of people who want America out of Iraq. He has no intention of obeying the law, upholding the Constitution or even displaying an ounce of simple human decency.
Bush is an out-of-control madman, a crazed zealot driven by a lust for power and an insane belief that he is serving the "will of God" as he leads a once-great nation into the abyss. He is more dangerous to the security of this nation than any Islam-spouting terrorist or Middle-Eastern dictator.
The President who talks of defeating the "axis of Evil" is himself the embodiment of evil. The Muslim extremists who call the United States "the Great Satan" aren't all that wrong. We are a nation currently led by a Political Satan, a devil with a drawl, a satanic cowboy who has taken this country into hell.
Non-binding resolutions won't stop a despot like Bush. Neither will withdrawal timetables that can pass the House but don't stand a chance in the Senate and, if by some miracle actually passed both houses of Congress, couldn't overturn the certain veto.
It's too late for political posturing and legislative remedies. Bush must be stopped and he must be stopped now. He must be removed from office by the swiftest legal means possible.
That means impeachment.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Of course it will take the spineless politicians from both parties to grow a spine before impeachment will ever happen.
The next excuse from our representatives in government will be - "we waited too long" - as we are down to a matter of months.
capt
Gonzalesgate: Timmeh Bats .500%
Senators Durbin and Specter were on Meet the Press yesterday to talk about the purge scandal and, to his credit, Tim Russert hammered home the newest revelations and put the big picture into context. Durbin was spot on as well.
Download (WMV)
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RUSSERT: If the attorney general is saying that these attorney—U.S. attorneys lost his confidence because of their performance-related reasons, then he obviously reviewed the cases, reviewed their situations, reviewed their work records and came out with this reason for their dismissal. That means he was intimately involved.
Specter's role in this scandal has flown under the radar and it's this area where Timmeh missed a crucial opportunity to put him in the hot seat. It was a staffer of Specter's that slipped the controversial provision into the Patriot Act that the White House was planning on taking advantage of. Senator Specter has a long history of being a gutless worm and should be exposed as such. His middle-of-the-road, "benefit of the doubt" attitude has abetted this administration's myriad crimes for far too long. I don't expect him to be a shrill partisan, but Gonzales and the White House have given us no reason to believe anything they say and should be treated with a great deal of skepticism.
More HERE
The Nation -- Al Gore, Global Statesman
Cue the anti-Gore brigade!
Ready, aim....
New Thread!
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