Writing

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else."
--Ivern Ball

Stop Obstructionist Democrats

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out one of its ridiculous fundraising emails, ghostwritten for Pelosi, asking for money to "Stop Obstructionist Republicans".

My reply, titled "Stop Obstructionist Democrats":


You know them, those who are too cowardly to stand up to the Fourth Reich, Bu$h, Cheney and the rest of the criminal element that has stolen the presidency twice, emaciated the Bill Of Rights, that has invaded another nation and refuses to withdraw troops until that nation surrenders its key natural resource, i.e. oil.

Where is restoration of Habeas in the Top 10 priorities? Ending Total Information Awareness? Investigating the Halliburton Concentration Camps and exposing the truth about the current regime? Where is the nation I was born in?

TLC

Abundance

"Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present -- love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure -- the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth."
--Sarah Ban Breathnach

Votescam: Stealing 2008

Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes—votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.

Source, and full article: New Yorker, Issue of August 6, 2007

CEO Salaries, Then & Now

1970: 28 times the salary of the average worker

2005: 465 times the salary of the average worker

Source: Portfolio.com

Thanks to Tim at Rolling Stone for the tip.

The Execution Of Pat Tillman

See my earlier Post, New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed.

Someone questioned how such a crime could be covered up, where Bill O'Reilly was, and motive.

My reply:


Uh, FauxNews is just an arm of the Bu$h Regime. Or visa versa.

Who's going to admit to murder among the eyewitnesses?

Look what happened to Tillman who just *threatened* to talk. Are those who actually talk likely to get treated with kid gloves or an M16? I think the message is loud & clear.

Communications with Chomsky when we have Total Information Awareness (TIA). And no doubt it's even more thorough with the military. Do you *really* think a poster boy for war is going to be allowed to become a poster boy for peace?

3 shots at 10 yards. Wasn't any question from the beginning.

Any regime that will create bogus "facts", kill more than 650,000 Iraqis, spread depleted uranium throughout Iraq, is going to have *no* hesitancy about taking out Pat Tillman.

Don't forget to Google, if you haven't already: halliburton concentration camps

"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees".

TLC

Important

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
--Albert Einstein

New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed

Army medical examiners concluded Tillman was shot three times in the head from just 10 yards away, no evidence of "friendly fire" damage at scene, Army attorneys congratulated each other on cover-up, Wesley Clark concludes "orders came from the very top" to murder pro-football star because he was about to become an anti-war political icon

Full article, Prison Planet, July 27, 2007

Asks

"Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular,... but one must take it simply because it is right."
--Martin Luther King, Jr

Thought Crimes: Prosecutors say they don't have to link Padilla to a specific terror plan

Without a plot, is Padilla guilty?
Prosecutors say they don't have to link the US citizen to a specific terror plan.

A surprising question is emerging as a central issue in the high stakes terror trial of Jose Padilla and two other men.

The three are facing charges that they plotted to spread violent jihad through a murderous campaign around the world. But federal prosecutors say it is unnecessary to link the terror suspects to an actual plan of terror.

Instead, government lawyers argue that a series of shady phone calls and a few documents are enough to establish the existence of a terror conspiracy and send all three defendants to prison potentially for the rest of their lives.

The issue is significant in the Bush administration's war on terror because if upheld in the courts the government's approach would permit proactive prosecutions of individuals long before they take any affirmative step toward carrying out a specific act of terror against a particular target.

Individuals who are perceived to be sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or a version of Islam viewed as too militant could be prosecuted if the government believes they are on the road to carrying out "violent jihad."

Full article, Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 2007

_________________________________

They tortured the poor bastard for 5 years, trashed the Bill Of Rights and the rest of the US Constitution, and *this* is the best they could come up with???

TLC

Mistake

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did NOTHING because he could only do a little." --Edmund Burke

Avandia, Actos: Scientists link diabetes drugs to heart failure

[R]esearchers today call on Nice to think again, revealing that as many as one in every 50 patients taking the drugs Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) over a period of 26 months will have to be hospitalised for heart failure.

The class of drugs, they say in the journal Diabetes Care, doubles the risk of heart failure, and even those with no history of heart problems are affected.

"Most patients in the studies did not have heart failure prior to starting on treatment with these drugs," said Dr Loke. "There doesn't seem to be a group of patients who are safe from these side-effects."

Alastair Benbow, European medical director for GlaxoSmithKline, said of the study: "It is well recognised that the class of drug can cause fluid retention. It is wholly different from the issue raised previously about heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths."

Source, and full story: Guardian UK, July 27, 2007

___________________________________

Fluid retention may be "well recognised", but at least in the US, it's something that's rarely communicated to the patients. "Fluid retention" = Extra Weight. One of the critical components to gaining control over diabetes is, as far as possible, to be at an optimal weight. Extra weight = Greater dependence on drugs. Gee, can you figure out why pharmaceutical sales representatives masquerading as doctors don't warn their victims, er, "patients", that the drugs supposedly given to "help" are actually harming + creating an increased dependence.

And heart problems? Hey, just another excuse to foist more pharmaceuticals on the victim.

TLC

6 Million Die Each Year. Here's One Who Didn't

Yes, every year in the US, 6 million--maybe more--innocent cats and dogs are murdered because they are "inconvenient". Below is the story of a proverbial dime-a-dozen black labrador retriever, abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip, who almost certainly would have been murdered by the government by virtually any "shelter" in this country.

Fortunately, that was not Jake's fate...

TLC
__________________________________

Dog Who Searched for WTC Survivors Dies

A black Labrador who became a national canine hero after burrowing through white-hot, smoking debris in search of survivors at the World Trade Center site died Wednesday after a battle with cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. He was in too much pain at the end, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

Flood had adopted Jake as a 10-month-old disabled puppy - abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

Full Story, SF Examinder, July 26, 2007

The generals should end the war

The generals should end the war: A statement from Veterans for Peace (Chapter 69, San Francisco) and Asian Pacific Islanders Resist

All American military officers and commanders take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Their oath is a solemn obligation to the American people, and especially to their own troops, to abide by the law. Our men and women in uniform place great trust in their superiors. They risk their lives in the belief that they will not be used falsely or illegally or for ill gain.

There is no group of Americans with greater interest in the enforcement of international law than American troops themselves. Our youths pay a heavy price when their rulers plunge them into operations beyond international law. Immediately after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the infamous retaliatory beheadings began.

The legal status of the occupation of Iraq is not a mystery. The generals who command the US troops know very well that the occupation is based on lies, carried out in defiance of US treaties. The Nuremberg Conventions explicitly repudiate the doctrine of preemptive war. The United Nations Charter, for which many of our parents and grandparents gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe, outlaws war as "an instrument of policy."

Every general knows that the occupation is a war of choice. The commanders also know that, except for special UN-sanctioned interventions, defensive necessity is the sole legal basis for war. US Army Field Manual no. 27-10 states without equivocation, "Treaties relating to the law of war have a force equal to that of laws enacted by Congress."

Many soldiers of conscience who dared to speak openly about the immorality and illegality of the war have been court-martialed and imprisoned. Their cases, dating back to 2004, raise serious doubts about the capacity of our soldiers to receive justice in our military courts. Five months prior to the Abu Ghraib scandal, a soft-spoken Army soldier named Camilo Mejía was visibly upset by the atrocities he observed during his tour of duty in Iraq. Repulsed by the slaughter of civilians and the needless deaths of American GIs — all reported in his riveting combat memoir, Road from Ar Ramadi (New Press, 2007) — Mejía gathered his courage and made formal complaints to his superiors. Commanders refused to listen and questioned his patriotism.
Eventually Mejía was sentenced to a year in prison for speaking out, for telling the truth.

His trial, like subsequent trials of war resisters, was a travesty of justice. The judge, Col. Gary Smith, ruled that evidence of the illegality of the war was inadmissible in court, that international law is irrelevant, and that a soldier's only duty is to follow orders, regardless of their legality. In essence, Mejía spent months in prison for upholding the rule of law in wartime. Had commanders listened to Mejía, had judges respected due process and the rule of law, the Abu Ghraib scandal that humiliated our troops might never have occurred.

Our military system is passing through a profound moral and legal crisis. A commander who knowingly orders troops to participate in crimes against peace betrays himself or herself and those who serve under him or her.

The time has come, long overdue, for American generals of conscience to break their silence. *


Veterans for Peace (Chapter 69, San Francisco) and Asian Pacific Islanders Resist

The above statement was issued by these two antiwar groups and is endorsed by the national Veterans for Peace group, which will launch a campaign next week calling on American generals to refuse to continue the war.

Published: SF Bay Guardian, July 26, 2007

Does Windows Vista Send Information to the Government?

A forum user switched to Windows Vista a month ago and actually had some good luck with it. He began noticing latency on his home network connection. He used port sniffing software and networking tools to see what was going on. What he found he referred to as "foundation shaking." There are some graphical images of a peerguardian 2 log with some very interesting information. The computer was in an idle state.

It shows the computer connected to the following (in his own words):

DoD Network Information Center (Department of Defense)

United Nations Development Program (Seems to correlate to the parent branch of the U.N. Informatics Division)

Halliburton Company (We all know these guys)

Ministry of Defense Data Return Agent

DOHS-Recon


Source, and full story: Infopackets, July 26, 2007

General Electric: U.S.: More than 50 Taliban killed in battle

U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan troops clashed with militants in southern Afghanistan overnight, leaving more than 50 suspected Taliban killed, the coalition said Thursday. The 12-hour-long battle that ended early Thursday targeted 16 compounds from where militants were attacking the troops in Helmand province, and also included coalition airstrikes, the coalition said in a statement. A coalition soldier broke his hand during the engagement, it said.
Source of the above press release: MSNBC, July 26, 2007

___________________________

How do you tell if they're Taliban or locals? Check for a Taliban Membership Card? The secret decoder ring? Were they videotaped beforehand giving the secret handshake? Had these 50 been on an earlier "killed list", or are they "new kill"?

TLC

Fräuleins For Hillary

“Hillary Clinton, I believe, has the experience, the heart and the strength to be a great American president. There has been no election for president where change is as defined and necessary as this one. The question is who is best equipped to lead that change. I believe it is Hillary.”
--California Republicrat Senator Feinstein
Source, and full story: The Hill, July 25, 2007
________________________
More evidence it's time to print up some "Nader '08" t-shirts and bumper stickers.
Fräulein Feinstein...where do I begin? A sampling...

$enate, 97-0, Endorses War On Iran
Check out Metroactive's great article on Feinstein's war profiteering--will Feinstein Family Profits increase under Hillary?
Memo To Warmonger Fräulein Feinstein
Fräulein Feinstein: Further Documentation Of Her Hand In The Cookie Jar
Throw those animal lovers in Halliburton Concentration Camps...AETA--The Mindset Of Fräulein Feinstein
The Disintegrating Facade Of Democracy
FeinsteinSpeak
The Hayden Vote: Flushing What's Left Of The Constitution
TLC

Doc Won't Face Charges in Katrina Deaths

Dr. Anna Pou thought the horror that followed Hurricane Katrina ended when rescue workers plucked her from the flooded hospital where she rode out the storm and its aftermath.

For almost a week, she dealt with no electricity, 110-degree temperatures and death inside Memorial Medical Center. Looters roamed the streets outside. At least 30 people died at the hospital, many from dehydration while waiting for rescuers.

But for Pou, the horrors of the August 2005 storm did not end until Tuesday, when a grand jury refused to indict her on murder and conspiracy charges.

Pou (pronounced "Poe") and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti concluded they gave "lethal cocktails" to four patients after the storm. Pou acknowledged administering medication to the patients but insisted she did so only to relieve their pain.

Charges against the nurses, Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, were dropped after they were compelled to testify last month before the grand jury under legal guidelines that kept their testimony from being used against them.

Full A.P. wire service article, SF Chronicle, July 25, 2007

____________________________________

See my earlier Posting from when the Charges were first Filed and the Chonicle's coverage of the story, Chronic(le) Disconnect.

The people that *should* have been Charged with those deaths are George Dubya Bu$h, Dickless Cheney, and other officials of the Bu$h Regime not limited to F.E.M.A..

TLC

Foundations

"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
-- Adolf Hitler(1889-1945) German Nazi Dictator
Source: My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933

Where It All Went Wrong

In government, history shows us that power always fills a void. In American government, that void was created when the American people became self-obsessed with endless toys. It started with television and radio brainwashing which began back in the 1950's, then the proliferation of drugs in the 1960's, and after that moved into electronics with cable television, video games, VCRs, cell phones ("I'm in the store in aisle two now",) DVDs and other toys.
When America began this self-obsession with instant personal gratification about forty years ago, the move was an effective strategy for government. Everyone quickly forgot all about watching what our government was doing, something which our founding fathers told us to do.

It was once said that those who cannot learn from history's mistakes are condemned to repeat them. History shows us that when any country's citizens fail to watch and control their government's actions, that mistake is always measured in the loss of life for countless millions of innocent people. And among the first to die will be those who stood by and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And on that day, they can thank themselves for their self-centeredness.

Source, and full article by Ted Tweitmeier: Rense.com. July 23, 2007

When Democracy Is Restored

Tim at Rolling Stone, July 24, 2007, has a love letter to Hillary. In the course of drooling, he makes the following comment about Obama's willingness to negotiate with the heads of other nations:

"It made Obama look callow, and reinforced her [Clinton's] talking point of the evening about being the best candidate to “hit the ground running” in November 2009."


My Post at Rolling Stone in the "Comments" section:

Oh Tim...

"reinforced her talking point of the evening about being the best candidate to “hit the ground running” in November 2009"???

Do you really think the US military will throw Bu$h out of office only 10 months after his term expires in JANUARY 2009?

TLC

Let The Purges Of Academia Begin: Regents fire Ward Churchill

Shut your mouth, or the Thought Police will come for you next...

TLC
___________________________________________
Regents fire Ward Churchill

BOULDER — The University of Colorado's Board of Regents today fired professor Ward Churchill, 2 1/2 years after his comments about the victims of the 9/11 attacks sparked a firestorm.

A wee bit of the story, Rocky Mountain News, July 24, 2007

Fear

"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life."
--Bertolt Brecht, The Mother, 1932

Britain: Law failing animals used in medical research, says scientist who advised on guidelines

The Home Office figures revealed the number of procedures carried out on animals rose 4% to a 15-year high of 3.1m last year, making Britain the most active country in Europe for animal experiments.
In particular, there have been continuing rises in the creation of genetically-altered mice to study gene function, he said.

The majority of procedures involved mice, rats and other rodents, which accounted for 83% of experiments, while 9% were tests on fish and 4% on birds. Experiments on cats, dogs, horses and non-human primates were less than 1% of all procedures. Tests on monkeys and other non-human primates, were down 10% to 4,200.

Prof Balls said he was dismayed that progress in science had not produced more alternatives to using animals in research. "As a scientist I'm entitled to believe in modern technology to deal with these problems, but I'm disappointed that more effort hasn't been put into bringing the numbers down," he said.

Source, and full story, Guardian UK, July 24, 2007


Similar story, Independent UK, July 24, 2007
GM mice raise animal tests to highest level for 15 years

The Dow’s Record High: What the Media Conceals from the Public

Announcements trumpeting the “Dow’s Record Surge” and that “Stocks Reach New Highs” were all over the media last week, creating the impression of a booming United States economy. But as the leading economic writer for the New York Times pointed out in a little-notice column ("Some Rain On the Parade on Wall St." by David Leonhart, 07/18/07), the assumptions regarding these excited claims are “fundamentally wrong.” Not simply “wrong” in the sense that rising stock prices primarily benefit the wealthy---though this fact, and that stocks rise when workers are laid off, is rarely discussed. The media is engaged in a more fundamental misrepresentation about the “Dow Industrial Average,” one that should cause media outlets to divulge their motives for promoting an index that misleads the public regarding economic facts.

And added to this misinformation is the rarely disclosed fact that the Dow eliminates stocks that under perform over time. So when the media talks about the Dow index rising by a certain percentage, this comparison does not even include the same stocks.

Source, and full story, Beyond Chron, July 23, 2007

Job One

"Job number one is to protect the American people and there are no options that are off the table."
--Fran Townsend, "Homeland Security" adviser, July 22, 2007
Faux News Sunday With Chris Wallace

____________________________

No options, that is, except the one that would work the best in protecting the American people (and the rest of the planet): Impeach The Ba$tard$!

TLC

Coming Next From CONgress: Holding Their Breath

Sen. Feingold to Introduce Two Censure Resolutions

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is preparing to introduce two censure resolutions condemning the President. Senator Feingold made the announcement on NBC's Meet the Press.

Sen. Feingold: "I think we need to do something serious in terms of accountability. And that's why I will be shortly introducing a censure resolution of the president and the administration. One on their getting us into the war in Iraq and their failure to adequately prepare our military and the misleading statements that have continued throughout the war in Iraq and the second on this administration's outrageous attack on the rule of law. All the way from the illegal terrorist surveillance program, their attitude about torture, which we've heard a little bit today on this show. This administration has assaulted the constitution."

Senator Feingold said a historical record of some kind is needed to indicate what has happened in the country under President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Source: Democracy Now, July 23, 2007

_________________________________

The worst part is, DN plays this as if it will make any difference, as if such a resolution would have any meaning, and ignoring the ramifications of the fact that it hasn't a snowball's chance of passing.

TLC

Privatizing & Destroying The USPS

I received an inquiry as to whether I had received a CD that had been mailed some time back. My reply:


The "postal service" in Northern California, as with much of America, is atrocious. Anyone familiar with the PO nationally realizes that the Bu$h Regime is creating so much anger with the PO by cutting its personnel, putting incompetents in positions of authority, and so on, that 1) People will move to FedEx, UPS, etc; and 2) The public will not meaningfully protest when the PO is privatized or so ravaged that it exists in name only. Remember this the next time you renew a magazine subscription, and wonder why the cost has increased so much, and wonder how many of the issues you'll actually receive--and of those received, how many will be in a non-mangled condition.

TLC

Bush's Martial Law Plan Is So Shocking, Even Congress Can't See it

President Bush's post-terror attack martial law plan is so shocking that even sitting members of Congress and Homeland Security officials are barred from viewing it, another example of executive über alles and a chilling portent of what is to come as constant reminders of the inevitability of terror attacks reverberate.
Congressman Peter DeFazio (D - OR) was asked by his constituents to see what was contained within the classified portion of the White House's plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

Since DeFazio also sits on the Homeland Security Committee and has clearance to view classified material, the request would have appeared to be routine, but the Congressman was unceremoniously denied all access to view the documents, and the White House wouldn't even give an excuse as to why he was barred.

The only plausible reason DeFazio was barred access to the documents is that the plans for a post-terror attack continuity of government scenario are so abhorrent that to reveal their true nature would cause a public outcry and lead to a major repeal of what is contained in the documents.

Last year we also exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation.

The documents that Congressman DeFazio was blocked from seeing likely interlock with both these programs and detail the overarching agenda to effectively nullify what's left of the U.S. Constitution and firmly ensconce George W. Bush as a supreme dictator.

Source, and full story: Prison Planet, July 23, 2007

"Superiority"

"Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he's the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot."
--Mark Twain, American Novelist

Purchasing Local Political Offices In Kalifornia

Humboldt County voters had the audacity to enact "Measure T", an initiative designed to prevent large corporations like Maxxam from purchasing local political offices.

The hacks in the Kalifornia legislature apparently find that notion completely repugnant. Local control of local elections? The corporations won't stand for that!

TLC
_________________________________

Dangerous bill

AB 1430, by Assemblymember Martin Garrick (R–San Diego), was introduced in response to complaints by the Republican Party that the San Diego Ethics Commission was interfering with its ability to bankroll candidates. The GOP was collecting unlimited donations made directly to the party with the understanding that they would be spent on an individual candidate's campaign. That ran afoul of local laws capping donations to candidates and requiring detailed disclosure.

And although Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and the ethics panels in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco all oppose it, both major political parties back the bill, and it won approval in the assembly, 77–0.

The only opponent so far in the senate is Carole Migden (D–San Francisco)...

Full story, SF Bay Guardian, July 17, 2007

Today & Tomorrow

"The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow."
--Dian Fossey

CONgre$$: No Democracy For You

Wired's Kim Zetter picked up hints of this Wednesday, and Christopher Drew of the New York Times got the full story Friday: Congress is punting on voting-machine reform.
Only in 2012 would states be required to switch to more secure optical-scan balloting systems.

Full story, Salon, July 20, 2007

___________________________

Of course by 2012, what will be left? Jeb will be running for re-coronation by then.

TLC

The Cage Goes Up And The Walls Close In

Chertoff: Border Wall Construction to Begin This Year

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has announced the government is set to begin building of a controversial Texas border wall later this year. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Chertoff said he won’t rule out using powers of eminent domain to seize land for the wall along Mexico’s border. The wall plans have drawn heavy local opposition. Officials say they hope to have at least one-hundred fifty miles of wall in place by the end of next year.

Source: The frequently oblivious and/or context-less Democracy Now, July 20, 2007

_____________________________

Fences and cages serve two purposes: To keep something in, or to keep something out. Here, the creation of the Prison Nation serves both goals.

TLC

Bu$h's Final Solution

I emailed my earlier Post, FEMA's Intentional Poisoning Of Katrina Refugees, to dozens of people, and only one person responded in such a way as to indicate they truly comprehended the ramifications.


This isn't a matter of bureaucracy, this is a matter of premeditation.


Ok, let me draw you a picture:

Third Reich

Fourth Reich

America was founded on the belief that:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

______________________

The United States was NOT created for the purpose of killing those that the government deems "undesirable".

And yet, that's exactly what is happening under the Bu$h Regime, the Katrina aftermath

leaving no reasonable doubt as to its intentions.

Your choice: Freedom Or Fascism. But there's not much time left--decide, or the decision will be made for you.

TLC

1--& Only 1--House Republican Declares: No More Funding for War

House Caucus to Bush: No More Funding for War

Meanwhile in the House the anti-war Out of Iraq caucus has announced it will no longer vote for any war funding unless the money is spent exclusively on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. In a letter delivered to President Bush on Thursday, seventy Congressmembers write: “We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.” Texas Congressmember Ron Paul was the lone Republican to sign on.

Source: Democracy Now, July 20, 2007

FEMA's Intentional Poisoning Of Katrina Refugees

At 10:00 a.m. the Oversight Committee will hold a hearing, “FEMA’s Response to Reports of Toxic Trailers.” The Committee will hold a hearing investigating formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers provided for victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes and FEMA’s response to these reports. The Committee will hear from current residents occupying FEMA trailers, experts who are familiar with the health impact of formaldehyde, and from FEMA Administrator Paulison. Formaldehyde is a chemical used in paint and adhesives, and is classified as a “known carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Reports of high formaldehyde levels found in FEMA issued trailers and FEMA’s response raise serious public health concerns.

Chairman Waxman:“Another FEMA official wrote, the office of general counsel has advised ‘We do not do testing, because it would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue.’ Early in the process, due to the perseverance of a pregnant mother with a four month old child, FEMA did test one occupied trailer. The results showed that their trailer had formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum workplace exposure levels recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The mother evacuated the trailer. FEMA then stopped testing other trailers.”

Video, documentation, much more

Good

"'For your own good' is a persuasive argument
that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction."
--Janet FrameSource: Faces In The Water, 1982

Bu$h: No Affordable Healthcare

Bush Threatens Child Health Insurance Veto

President Bush has renewed a threat to veto a bill that would extend health insurance to more than three million low-income children. Last week Senators reached a bipartisan agreement to add thirty five billion dollars to the Children’s Health Insurance Program over the next five years by increasing federal taxes on cigarettes. Senators say the extra funding would help cover some of the nation’s eight million uninsured children as well as some adults with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but not high enough to afford private insurance. President Bush wants Congress to limit the increase to just five billion dollars.

Bush: “I Believe Gov. Can’t Provide Affordable Health Care” On Wednesday, he repeated his threat to veto the bill on ideological grounds.

President Bush: “I believe government cannot provide affordable health care. I believe it would cause -- it would cause the quality of care to diminish. I believe there would be lines and rationing over time. If Congress continues to insist upon expanding health care through the S-CHIP program -- which, by the way, would entail a huge tax increase for the American people -- I'll veto the bill.”

Many consider renewal of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program the most important health legislation taken up by Congress this year.


Source: Democracy Now, July 19, 2007

_______________________________________

Basically, then, American healthcare is unaffordable, and the government won't do anything about it. Because Americans can't afford medical treatment, they will suffer and die.

Too bad the corporate media, which includes much of the pseudo-alternative media like Democracy Now. lacks even elementary analytical skills--and lacks the will to properly utilize whatever abilities to analyze they do possess. Regurgitating press releases without providing any context or background is not much of a public service.

The Bu$h Regime probably supports organizations like Democracy Now, for the basic message of DN is that we are helpless against overwhelming odds. How often does DN encourage its viewership to do *anything*? When DN does actually suggest something, just how often is the proposed action something likely to actually produce any results beyond therapeutic but ineffective venting?

TLC

A Wake-Up Call

A Wake-up Call
By Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review

07/19/07 "ICH" -- -- This is a wake-up call that we are about to have another 9/11-WMD experience.

The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally seventy-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.

Intelligent observers are puzzled that President Bush is persisting in a futile and unpopular war at the obvious expense of his party’s electoral chances in 2008.

In the July 18 Los Angeles Times (“Bush the Albatross”), Ronald Brownstein reminds us that Bush’s behavior is disastrous for his political party. Unpopular presidents “have consistently undercut their party in the next election.” Brownstein reports that “88% of voters who disapproved of the retiring president’s job performance voted against his party’s nominee in past elections. . . . On average, 80% of voters who disapproved of a president’s performance have voted against his party’s candidates even in House races since 1986.”

Brownstein notes that with Bush’s dismal approval rating, this implies a total wipeout of the Republicans in 2008.

A number of pundits have concluded that the reason the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush’s follies is that they expect Bush’s unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory next year.

There is a problem with this reasoning. It assumes that Cheney, Rove,and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts or are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his warmonger-police state fling. “After me, the deluge.”

Isn’t it more likely that Cheney and Rove have in mind events that will, once again, rally the people behind President Bush and the Republican Party that is fighting the “war on terror” that the Democrats “want to lose”?

Such events could take a number of forms. As even diehard Republican Patrick J. Buchanan observed on July 17, with three US aircraft carrier battle groups in congested waters off Iran, another Tonkin Gulf incident could easily be engineered to set us at war with Iran. If Bush’s intentions were merely to bomb a nuclear reactor, he would not need three carrier strike forces.

Lately, the administration has switched to blaming Iran for the war in Iraq. The US Senate has already lined up behind the latest lie with a 97-0 vote to condemn Iran.

Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.

Many Americans dismiss suspicion of their government as treasonous, and most believe conspiracy to be impossible “because someone would talk.”

There is no basis in any known fact for this opinion.

According to polls, 36% of the American people disbelieve the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite this lack of confidence, and despite the numerous omissions and errors in the report, it has proven impossible to have an independent investigation of 9/11 or to examine the official explanation in public debate. Even experts and people with a lifetime of distinguished public service are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” “kooks,” and “traitors” if they question the official explanation of 9/11. This despite the fact that war in the Middle East, a long-planned goal of Bush’s neoconservative administration, could not have been initiated without a “new Pearl Harbor.”

That powerfully constructed steel buildings could suddenly turn to dust because they were struck by two flimsy aluminum airliners and experienced small fires on a few floors that burned for a short time appears unexceptionable to a majority of Americans.

Moreover, people have talked. Hundreds of them. Firefighters, police, janitors, and others report hearing and experiencing a series of explosions in upper floors and massive explosions in the underground basements. This eyewitness testimony was kept under wraps for three or more years until the official explanation had taken root. The oral histories were finally forced loose by freedom of information act suits. The eyewitness reports of explosion after explosion had no effect.

Larry Silverstein, who received billions of dollars in insurance payments for the destroyed buildings, talked. He said on public television that the order was given “to pull” building 7. His stunning admission had no effect.

The Bush administration is preparing us for more terrorist attacks. The latest intelligence report says that Al Qaeda has regrouped, rebuilt, and has the ability to come after us again. “Al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here,” says the report.

Security operatives, such as Michael Chertoff, and various instruments of administration propaganda have warned that we will be attacked before next year’s election. Chertoff is not a person who wants to be known as Chicken Little for telling us that the sky is falling.

Bush has the Republican Party in such a mess that it cannot survive without another 9/11. Whether authentic or orchestrated, an attack will activate Bush’s new executive orders, which create a dictatorial police state in event of “national emergency.” [See Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?]

The UK government is hand-in-glove with the Bush administration and will provide cover or verification for whatever claim the Bush administration advances. So will the right-wing governments in Canada and Australia. That takes care of the English-speaking world from which contrary explanations might reach the American people.

It is possible that Bush is now too weak, that suspicion is too great, and that there is too much internal resistance in the federal bureaucracy and military for any such scenario. If so, then my prediction prior to the invasion that the US invasion of Iraq will destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement will be proven true. The Democrats’ strategy of doing nothing except making sure Bush gets his way will produce the landslide that they expect.

However, this assumes that Cheney, Rove, and their neoconservative allies have lost their cunning and their manipulative skills. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous assumption for Democrats and the American people to make.

Once the US experiences new attacks, Bush will be vindicated. His voice will be confident as he speaks to the nation: “My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats’ determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.” And so on. Anyone should be able to write the script.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com


Source: Information Clearing House

Fix

"Fix the problem, not the blame."
--Japanese proverb

Newspaper Lapdogs At The Gate

The British press, e.g. the Guardian, is going ga-ga over an alleged plot by Russia to send an assassin to Britain to murder billionaire opponent Boris Berezovsky.

My letter to the Guardian UK, Independent UK, Telegraph UK, and London Times:


Dear Editor:

According to the England branch of the Bu$h Regime, an agent of the government of Russia was sent to Britain to assassinate Boris Berezovsky.

Instead of being prosecuted, with witnesses and evidence and a public Trial, the alleged gunman was simply deported.

Thus Her Majesty's Lapdogs can engage in another propaganda campaign without having to prove a single fact.

How long will the British people put up with a press that increasingly serves whatever pablum the Bush/Blair/Brown government directs be published?

Terry L. Clark

Courage III

"Courage must come from the soul within; the man must furnish the will to win. So figure it out for yourself, my lad. You were born with all that the great have had."
--Edgar Guest, poet

Stop ALL Of The New Stalins

The Telegraph UK, July 18, 2007, has an utterly ridiculous article, "The new Stalins must be kept in check", which prattles on about the evil Ruskies.

My letter to the Telegraph UK:


Dear Editor:

Alex Goldfarb goes on about stopping "new Stalins", yet utters not a word about how to stop George Dubya Bu$h from establishing the Fourth Reich, not a whisper about how to have stopped Britain's domestic terrorist and Bu$h lapdog, Tony Blair.

Apparently, some fascist dictatorships are acceptable while others are not.

Perhaps Mr. Goldfarb could write a followup article on how to tell the difference between "good" and "bad" totalitarians.

Terry L. Clark

Screwing The Data: Vegetables and Fruits Double Breast Cancer Survival Rates

See my earlier Post, Vegetables and Fruits Double Breast Cancer Survival Rates, on how the AMA and the corporate press report only the "facts" that support their financial interests.

But let's not stop there. The AMA won't let you read their "report" without forking over fifteen bucks plus tax. So let's take a look at a summary of the AMA pseudoreport.

What word is completely absent from the summaries?

That's right boys and girls: ORGANIC.

What happens when you load someone up on pesticide-infested Genetically Mutated Frankenfoods?

That's right: You weaken their bodies, shoot their immune systems to hell, mutate their cells...in short, create the ideal conditions for cancer.

Think you'll find the AMA bankrolling a study using organic fruits and vegetables?

Don't hold your breath, unless you're into facial blue and rigor mortis.

TLC

Vegetables and Fruits Double Breast Cancer Survival Rates

SUPPLEMENTAL POST:
Screwing The Data: Vegetables and Fruits Double Breast Cancer Survival Rates


Two new reports from the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) study show that diets including at least five fruit and vegetable servings a day reduce mortality by nearly 50 percent in women previously diagnosed with breast cancer.
Full article, Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine, July 17, 2007

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But you wouldn't know that from reading the corporate press, hawking the propaganda of the AMA (American Medication Association, right?). One of the main enforcement arms of the pharmaceutical drug cartel (along with the Federal Drug Advocates, a/k/a the FDA). Check out the article from the Hearst, er, "SF" Chronicle, cheerleading BigPharma...

TLC
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Study: More fruits and veggies don't prevent breast cancer recurrence

A low-fat diet loaded with extra servings of fruits and vegetables doesn't prevent recurrences of breast cancer any better than simply following the federal nutrition guidelines, say Bay Area researchers who studied the diets of more than 3,000 women for seven years.

Cancer doctors and nutritionists said they were disappointed over results of the study, which are published today in a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Full AP/AMA claptrap, SF Chronicle, July 17, 2007

Runup To The Concentration Camps

U.S. Detained 283,000 Immigrants in 2006

New government statistics show the number of immigrants detained in the United States has nearly tripled since 2001. Last year Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 283,000 people or about 775 a day.

Source: Democracy Now, July 17, 2007

___________________________________

My email to Democracy Now:

Of course, the source of the information is the Bu$h Regime. "That depends on what your definition of 'immigrant' is"? So maybe a few loudmouth patriotic bloggers--you know, those rabble rousers who actually bought the story of America--got hauled off in the middle of the night and sent to dark places unknown...who'd know the difference? It's not like we have much of a mainstream investigative news force living up to the ideals of the First Amendment to check out the facts, just DN swallowing drivel from the Fourth Reich...

TLC

Sedition

"The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In everyclause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority...It is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people."
--Frank I. Cobb (1869-1923) American Journalist
Source: LaFollette’s Magazine, January 1920

$enate, 97-0, Endorses War On Iran

The three $enators not voting on the Amendment were:

Brownback (R-KS)--Running for president
Johnson (D-SD)--Is he out of the hospital yet?
Vitter (R-LA)--Probably frequenting new hookers while using a new phone that's in someone else's name
______________________________

The amendment sounds reasonable enough on its face. (Text is here.) It asks for bimonthly reports from the military regarding "external support or direction provided to anti-coalition forces by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran or its agents ... the strategy and ambitions in Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and .... any counter-strategy or efforts by the United States Government to counter the activities of agents of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraq."

It was a shrewdly worded document. Any Democrat who voted against it would have opened him- or herself up to accusations that of being afraid to face the facts about Iranian involvement in Iraq. And we know that Iran is involved in Iraq in certain ways. After all, it's been invited there - by the very government our troops are sacrificing themselves to defend. In fact, the Iraqi government is so close to its Shi'ite neighbor that it quickly invited it to open an embassy in Baghdad.

Predictably, the Lieberman measure passed 97-0. But it's not the reporting requirements themselves that are dangerous - it's the amendment's language. It lists a hodgepodge of undocumented and inflammatory accusations before stating that "the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in question." (See "Update," below.) These are words that invite an act of war against Iran, even in the absence of clear evidence of involvement.

Full article, R.J. Eskow, Huffington Post, July 13, 2007

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Dover Bitch brings the reader up to speed on the background of LIEberman's Amendment, leaving no doubt that the $enators knew exactly what they were voting for: War.

Remember this, O Supporters of Hillary & Obama, not to mention nostalgic admirers of Kennedy & Kerry, and those delusional as to think Barbara Boxer is anything other than a philosophical compatriot of Fraulein Feinstein.

TLC

For A Moment There Was Hope

A man carrying a gun and declaring "I am the emperor" was shot and killed Monday outside the offices of Gov. Bill Ritter by a state patrolman, a spokesman said. Ritter was in his office but was not injured.

Full A.P. wire service article, SF Chronicle, July 16, 2007

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I thought for a second that Bu$h had decided to take over Colorado and that he got nailed...

TLC

Is the Print Version Of The San Francisco Chronicle Coming to An End?

An analysis in the current issue of BusinessWeek reaches a dramatic, yet logical conclusion: the San Francisco Chronicle will likely end its print edition and rely entirely on its www.sfgate.com website. With the paper losing over $50 million a year, and with its planned cutbacks of 25% of its staff---one of its very best, Neva Chonin, wrote her last column yesterday---the end could come sooner than we think. But before anyone tries to beat us to the punch by purchasing BeyondGate.org, let’s assess the paper’s efforts to stem the red ink and its prospects of pulling out of its economic free-fall.

Full article, BeyondChron, July 16, 2007

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A good article, tho I wish it had covered the "greed factor", and how publishing newspapers is increasingly just seen as the equivalent of printing money rather than a Higher Calling.

TLC

The Church: Paying For Sex

LA Archdiocese to Pay $660 Million In Sexual Abuse Trial

Here in this country, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay at least 660 million dollars to 500 victims of sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s. The settlement is the largest in any Roman Catholic diocese. Attorney Ray Boucher said the final payout could be even larger.

Ray Boucher: "At this time we're still working on trying to get the cases resolved. If we are able to get them resolved it will be... the 600 million dollar figure that has been talked about is not an accurate number, it should be significantly above that number if we're able to complete a settlement."

Overall the Catholic Church in the United States has so far paid more than two billion dollars in settlements and legal judgments to victims of sexual abuse and their families. Cardinal Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese issued an apology on Sunday.

Source: Democracy Now, July 16, 2007

________________________________________

Note the complete absence of the church turning over for prosecution the higher-ups that knew what was going on, or those who participated in the cover-up. And note the failure of the government to prosecute the church under RICO.

But looking at Hookergate, Mark Foley, and so many other such undertakings, is anyone really surprised? Fellow perverts do not prosecute fellow perverts...

TLC

"The Same Folks" Indeed

As noted in an earlier Post:

"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."--George Dubya Bu$h, Press Conference, July 12, 2007
_________________________

And sure enough, the truth of Bu$h's declaration is further confirmed:


U.S. Intensifies Air War in Iraq

This comes as the U.S. continues to intensify its air war in Iraq. The Associated Press reports the Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in the first six months of this year as it did in the same period in 2006. The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons of attack planes to its fleet in Iraq. Meanwhile the Air Force is preparing to start using a new robotic fighter jet in Iraq known as the Reaper. The AP describes the Reaper as a hunter killer drone that can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away.

Source: Democracy Now, July 16, 2007

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Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined

Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

Source, and full story, LA Times, July 15, 2007

"The Same Folks"

A moment of clarity and truth from the Commander-In-Thief:

"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."

--George Dubya Bu$h, Press Conference, July 12, 2007

________________________________

Of course, DerBu$hler fails to identify the memebers of his regime that are responsible for all of those deaths. Still, it's a start...

TLC

U.S. to merge with Mexico and Canada?

In his new book, "The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada," [Jerome] Corsi weaves a sprawling theory in which multinational companies, the Bush administration, the Council on Foreign Relations, Democratic-leaning college professors and the governments of Mexico and Canada, among others, are all working -- not necessarily together, but in harmony -- to create a "North American Union." This NAU, Corsi says, will be similar to the European Union, breaking down national boundaries, establishing a single North American currency and potentially even leading to a rewriting of the Bill of Rights.

Full interview, Salon, July 16, 2007

___________________________________

Set aside the inclination to attack Corsi as the messenger, and consider whether what he says makes sense.

TLC

Ron Paul Warns Of Staged Terror Attack

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, said the country is in "great danger" of the U.S. government staging a terrorist attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation, as the war in Iraq continues to deteriorate.

"We're in danger in many ways," Paul said on the Alex Jones radio show. "The attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that's in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense."

Source, and full story: The Politico, July 13, 2007

Rep. Ellison: Remember The Reichstag

America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

Vice-President Dick Cheney's stance of refusing to answer some questions from Congress was "the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship", he added.

Source, and full story, Telegraph UK, July 15, 2007

Separation

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
--George Carlin

DEA sends warning letters to medical marijuana landlords

Managers of medical marijuana dispensaries feared they might be shut down this week after at least 30 landlords in Los Angeles County received warning letters from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The letters said the landlords' property and assets could be seized if they were used in the distribution of marijuana or other controlled substances.

It added that federal laws "take precedence" over state laws, such as Proposition 215 and SB 420, which allow for medical marijuana use.

Full A.P. wire service article, SF Chronicle, July 14, 2007

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The pharmaceutical drug cartel is NOT going to permit widespread use of anything that the consumer can create at low cost on their own.

TLC

Majority

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority,
it is time to pause and reflect."
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)
Source: Autobiography

Hillary & Edwards: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Debate

Clinton, Edwards Plot Excluding Candidates From Debates

In campaign news, Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards have been caught discussing an apparent plan to exclude other Democratic candidates from future debates. On Thursday, Edwards and Clinton were speaking privately after an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit. Unaware their microphones were still on, Edwards is overheard saying: “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.” Clinton agreed, responding: “We’ve got to cut the number...They’re not serious.” Clinton also indicated the two had discussed the plan before, telling Edwards “we’ve got to get back to it.” In response, Ohio congressmember and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said: “No matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, [candidates] do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not. Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President.”

Source: Democracy Now, July 13, 2007

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Well, that would certainly keep the joint press conference, er, "debate", focused on the Corporate $tates Of America. Clinton & Edwards are more than happy to have Blue Cross and its ilk decide whether you live or die, or whether you're too expensive to keep around.

TLC

Preparing For The US Domestic Police State

U.S. Fingerprinting, Scanning Thousands of Iraqis

Privacy concerns are being raised over a U.S. military program that is taking fingerprints and eye scans from thousands of Iraqi men and inputting them into a Pentagon database. USA Today reports Iraqis have been stopped at checkpoints, workplaces and sites of attacks and scanned by U.S. troops. Between five to ten thousand Baghdad residents have been scanned since March. Iraqis face being barred from their neighborhoods if they refuse the biometric scans.

Source: Democracy Now, July 13, 2007

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Gotta get the bugs worked out of the system before it's imposed in the United $tates...

TLC

Iran demands oil pay in yen not dollars

The dollar was driven down against the Japanese yen this afternoon, hit by the news that Iran had asked Japan to pay for its oil purchases in the Japanese currency and not in dollars.

Iran has been deliberately moving its exposure to the dollar and dollar-based assets, faced with the threat that the US could freeze its US-based dollar accounts in response to its nuclear plans.

Three big oil producing nations — Iran, Venezuela and Russia — have all been moving much of their foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros in recent months.

Full article, London Times, July 13, 2007

________________________________

Just the tip of the iceberg, but more than most of the corporate media is reporting. The US is hemmoraging debt to bankroll the war for oil and empire, with China and Japan holding huge amounts. The trick for China and Japan, and others, is to ease out of holding so much in T-Bills and other US Government debt, and moving to assets that are stable and not built on a stack of cards. Were China to suddenly dump all its US Government debt holdings, it would almost certainly crash the US economy.

Andrew Leonard at Salon is one of the few columnists to cover these issues in detail, and in a digestable and understandable form.

TLC

The Republicrat$ Sham "Pullout"

House Iraq Pullout Bill Leaves Thousands of Troops Behind

The House has approved a measure that would begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within the next three months. The final vote was two hundred twenty-three to two-hundred and one, mostly along party lines. Before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged lawmakers to vote “yes.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “Let us pass this bill and those that will follow in the coming weeks and provide the new direction on Iraq that the American people demand and that is so urgently needed. I urge a ‘yes’ vote on the Skelton bill.”

Ohio Congressmember Dennis Kucinich was the lone anti-war Democrat to vote against the bill. The measure would remove most combat troops by April of next year but still leave tens of thousands soldiers behind.

Source: Democracy Now, July 13, 2007

Bu$h's Latest Stiff One

A Firm Bush Tells Congress Not to Dictate War Policy

President Bush struck an aggressive new tone on Thursday in his clash with Congress over Iraq, telling lawmakers they had no business trying to manage the war, portraying the conflict as a showdown with Al Qaeda and warning that moving toward withdrawal now would risk “mass killings on a horrific scale.”

Full article, July 13, 2007, in that propaganda machine the Bu$h League Times.

_______________________________

Of course he's "Firm". He's getting ready to screw the American people, particularly American soldiers, as well as Iraqi civilians, even more.

"Firm" also suggests "decisive". Yes, we Americans like "decisive". Better that than an accurate headline stating, "Bush To Congress: Sit Down & Shut Up".

And we're supposed to eat up that DerBu$hler is "agressive". Yes, we Americans have been conditioned to be passive, to take whatever manure the strongman shovels us. Too bad the NYT lacks the honesty to point out that Bu$h not merely "aggressive", but rather is engaged in aggression on an outrageous scale, on the people of Iraqi as well as on the U.S. Constitution.

TLC

Think III

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you."
--Don Marquis

Lady Bird Johnson: A Southern, and liberal, Lady

Lady Bird belonged to the other South, the liberal South that confronted the harsh realities of segregation and the monolithic system of power that enforced it. She came to her beliefs gradually and, like many other Southerners, engaged in an internal struggle to remake herself and her legacy.

When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, striking down Jim Crow in July 1964, he famously remarked to his young press secretary, Bill Moyers, "We have lost the South for a generation." But he did not intend to give it up so easily. Months later, he sent Lady Bird on a 1,682-mile, eight-state, 47-stop campaign train tour of the South. Her speeches consisted of honeyed and steely words. "I am proud that I am part of the South. I'm fond of the old customs," she said. Then she quoted Robert E. Lee's injunction after Appomattox, "Abandon all these local animosities and raise your sons to be Americans!" And she urged acceptance of the Civil Rights Act. "There is, in this Southland, more love than hate."

Full article, by Sidney Blumenthal, July 13, 2007

Someday

"Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car."
--Evan Davis

Four Jailed, One To Go

The British papers, e.g. the Guardian, are filled with stories about the 40+ years given to the July 21st terrorists.

My letter to the Guardian UK, London Times, Independent UK, and Telegraph UK:


Dear Editor:

Congratulations for jailing the four "July 21st Plotters", who didn't actually succeed in killing anyone.

When will Britain throw Tony "Poodle" Blair in a deep dungeon for the 650,000 plus he has helped slaughter in Iraq so far, not to mention the millions that will die horrible deaths in the decades to come thanks to the widespread use of depleted uranium?

While the July 21st plotters had some ostensible principled purpose for their terror, all Lapdog Blair has to offer is his worship of and obedience to the international oil cartel.

Surely Britain can spare one more jail cell for its spectacularly successful war criminal.

Terry L. Clark

Dems Call for Combat To Continue Into 2008

Dems Call for Combat to End by 2008

A senior Democrat said Tuesday it was obvious the Iraqi government has made no progress and the only way to propel it was to begin pulling out U.S. troops.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, proposed legislation with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., that would order President Bush to begin pulling out troops in 120 days and end combat by April 30, 2008.

The measure would allow for some troops to remain to conduct counterterrorism, train the Iraqi security forces and protect U.S. infrastructure.

"There is much too little pressure on Iraqi leaders to do what they have to do," Levin, D-Mich., told reporters.


Full A.P. wire service story, SF Chronicle, July 10, 2007

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This is what passes for "reporting"? Reporting the drivel, reporting the propaganda.

If the Dems were really wanting an end to combat, pull the US troops now, don't continue the slaughter for another 9 months.

Troops remaining for "counterterrorism"? The biggest terrorist power in Iraq is the colonial power that invaded it. That's sheer terror. Are the Dems saying the US is going to throw itself out? Or at least escort Halliburton and Blackwater out of Iraq at gunpoint? Nada.

Train "Iraqi security forces"? Uh, no, that would be the local imperial puppets.

"Protect US infrastructure"? Uh, like OIL???

Not enought pressure on Iraqi leaders? What, you mean murdering more than 650,000 isn't enough?

"To do what they have to do"? That would be to surrender their oil at gunpoint.

TLC

Unsafe

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Protestants: No God For You

Dismay and anger as Pope declares Protestants cannot have churches

Protestant churches yesterday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere "ecclesial communities" and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion.

"It is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant communities], given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church."

Full article, Guardian UK, July 11, 2007

_________________________________

Fortunately we still have the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. As long as The Pope doesn't condemn it, we still have something to believe in.

TLC

His Stethoscope Is Loaded

It may seem craven to say so, but a person really had to wonder at the inability of trained medical personnel to hook wire A to battery B to alarm clock C and detonate a car loaded with gasoline and nails in London. And then having to resort to the rather amateurish alternative of crashing a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport terminal -- the suicide bomb alumni association must be shaking their heads.
Full article, by Garrison Keillor, July 11, 2007

Lessons

"She began the first of what we later called 'my lessons in living.' She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy."
--Maya Angelou (from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - 1970)

"Incompleteness"

"We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." -- Henry Beston, circa 1925

Half

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper.
Half never voted for President.
One hopes it is the same half.

--Gore Vidal

China Public Restroom Has 1,000 Stalls

BEIJING -

They're flush with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently-opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 32,290 square feet.

Source, and full AP wire service article: SF Chronicle, July 6, 2007

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Meanwhile, Arcata, California, can't build even ONE downtown public restroom!

TLC

Coming Up Next: Book Burnings

Man jailed for keeping terror manuals

A man with links to Islamist terror groups was today jailed for nine years for possessing manuals on how to carry out car bomb attacks.

Omar Altimimi, whose substantial stock of terrorist material suggested nightclubs and airport as possible targets, was clearly "a sleeper for some sort of terrorist organisation", Judge David Maddison told Manchester crown court as he passed sentence.

"It is not known, when, if and how you might have been called upon to play your part," he said, describing the offences carried out by the 37-year-old as "the most serious of their kind likely to come before the court".

Source, and full story: Guardian UK, July 6, 2007

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In the future, criminals are caught before the crimes they commit, but one of the officers in the special unit is accused of one such crime and sets out to prove his innocence.

--Synopsis; follow this Link for the full review of the movie "Minority Report"--and rent a copy if you haven't seen it.

TLC

Confidence

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong."
--Peter T. Mcintyre

Dominici...What's The Diff?

Salon's War Room had an item on New Mexico Senator Pete Dominici supposedly changing his position on Iraq. Basically, Dominici now say if Iraq surrenders its oil, the US will sorta kinda go away...or at least cut the number of ocuupation troops.


My Post at Salon's War Room:

Domenici supported the attack on Iraq to steal Iraqi oil for the multinational oil cartel...and he supports the Iraq Study Group directive that Iraq surrender its oil for the multinational oil cartel.

So after cutting through all the smoke...what's the diff? Domenici supported killing for oil then, supports killing for oil now.

Not that he's any different than the rest of the Republicans, or the Republicrats.

TLC

Water: Stolen At Gunpoint

Salvadorian Police Fire on Anti-Water Privatization Protest

In El Salvador, government forces are being accused of a crackdown on a protest against privatizing water. On Monday, Salvadorian police opened fire and shot tear gas at a rally organized by the the Association of Rural Communities for the Development of El Salvador, or CRIPDES. Thirteen people were arrested including four CRIPDES leaders.

Source: Democracy Now, July 5, 2007

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Not covered adequately here is the worldwide problem of corporations moving to take control of drinking water. What a racket, first they poison the waters, then they demand control of those poisoned waters before they will let people have only partially-poisoned drinking water.

And now in El Salvador, they have enlisted their hired stooges, er, the "El Salvador government" to shoot those who get in the way of this effort to reduce human beings to mere generators of corporate profit.

TLC

Scooter: Democrats Threaten To Hold Faces Til Their Breath Turns Blue

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) sent out a mass email today stating:


On Tuesday, Sen. Schumer sent an urgent message about President Bush commuting Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's sentence for lying to investigators and obstructing justice.

The response to that message has been astounding - tens of thousands of supporters have already let President Bush know that no one man should be above the rule of law.

This Monday the DSCC will hand deliver each and every message to the White House. We want to let Bush know we're appalled by this blatant disregard for the rule of law.

Please join the thousands of Americans who have already let Bush know this outrageous action won't be tolerated.
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My email to the DSCC:

If it "won't be tolerated", then doesn't that mean it's time for the gutless Democrats to Impeach the bastard?

And if not, then that means it *will* be tolerated.

TLC

That Was Then...

"It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution".
--Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) US President

Convenience Store Victim Gawking

As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.
The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, [police spokesman Gordon] Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.

"This is just appalling," [Wichita Police Chief Norman] Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

Full A.P. wire service article, SF Chronicle, July 4, 2007

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Crazy? A surprise?

We kill over 10 billion living beings annualy because they taste good.

Over 650,000 killed between March 2003 and June 2006 because multinationa oil companies demand control of Iraqi oil? With how many million more to die due to US chemical warfare in the form of depleted uranium?

Nothing to be surprised about in this culture of death for short-term gratification.

TLC

Demonizing Homeland Defenders

Letter to the editor of various publications which, to my knowledge, has yet to see print. Sent to coincide with the 4th Of July festivities, in which the corporate media makes sure we're too busy stuffing our faces and watching cool light shows to think about what the [bleep] we're celebrating, where and how we started, or how we have become far worse than what we rebelled against 231 years ago.

TLC
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Dear Editor,

In recent weeks, mass-market newspapers have taken to a constant drumbeat asserting that attacks in Iraq are "linked" to al-Qaeda.

What these articles fail to mention is that the "linkage" is but the latest lie of the Bu$h Regime that has been swallowed whole by the same media that CONvinced a significant percentage of the American people that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.

The latest articles fail to point out that the people of Iraq are sick and tired of an occupying power that has killed over 650,000 of their fellow citizens, maiming millions more, in order to turn over Iraqi oil to the multinational oil cartel. Disgusted with the widespread use of depleted uranium that will continue to mutate, eventually and mercifully kill, millions of human beings in the years to come. As with Vichy France, those fighting for the liberation of Iraq take a dim view of collaborators. And as with America during its Revolutionary War, the people of Iraq are willing to form alliances with those they might otherwise have serious differences with in order to obtain freedom from an empire abroad.

The creation of the USA began with fighting a mentally disturbed King by the name of George who sought to subjugate a nation. Today we find ourselves ruled by a demented President who has asserted powers far beyond those of a mere King, also by the name of George, who likewise seeks to plunder far beyond his shores.

Terry L. Clark

Free

"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air -- that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."

--H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic

Absurdities

"People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization."
--Agnes Repplier (1858-1950) American writer

Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It

In a fascinating interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bloggers Mike Stark and Dave Johnson offer us a conversation in which Pelosi tells them she had decided “at least a year ago,” before Democrats had even taken control of the House and Senate, “that impeachment was something that we could not be successful with, and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and [Republican] short-comings.”

She adds, “The President isn’t worth it…he’s not worth impeaching. We’ve got important work to do.”
Stark, in marked contrast to the limp interview techniques of MSM "journalists," then says, “Respectfully, the question is whether or not the Constitution is worth it,” to which he says Pelosi responds, “Well, yeah, the Constitution is worth it if you can succeed.”
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Here's the audio file of the entire Pelosi interview


Full article, by Dave Lindorff, July 2, 2007

Spirits

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
--Albert Einstein, quoted in New York Times, March 19, 1940

Heck, Let's Just Abolish That Terrorist-Coddling Constitution Altogether

Lieberman: UK Incident Should Drop Spy Opposition

Meanwhile here in the United States, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said the bombing plots should encourage lawmakers to drop opposition to the Bush administration’s domestic spying on U.S. citizens. Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Lieberman said: “I hope these terrorist attacks in London wake us up here in America to stop the petty partisan fighting going on about…electronic surveillance.”

Source: Democracy Now, July 2, 2007

Fur

"Get a feel for fur: Slam your fingers in a car door. "
--Anonymous, on the use of steel traps to capture fur-bearing animals,
cited in Audubon, November 1990

Beats

"Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?"
--Jean Paul Richter