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March 29, 2007
Easter Surprise: Attack on Iran, New 9/11… or Worse
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” – George W. Bush, September 2002
“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous… Having said that, all options are on the table.” – George W. Bush, February 2005
The Bush administration continues moving closer to a nuclear attack on Iran, and we ignore the obvious buildup at our peril.
Continue reading "Easter Surprise: Attack on Iran, New 9/11… or Worse"
Posted by Admin at 11:02 PM
Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by attorneys prosecuting former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.
Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.
Continue reading "Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair"
Posted by Admin at 10:58 PM
End-game of a tormented presidency has begun
Not since the latter days of Richard M. Nixon have we had so clear a spectacle of arrogant politicians bumbling into fatal mistakes and poorly planned and executed cover-ups as George W. Bush administration is now providing, day by day.
How strange that an administration that took such pride in putting up a seamless wall around the White House and marching in lock-step, all reading from the same script and spinning in one direction, has come to this.
Continue reading "End-game of a tormented presidency has begun"
Posted by Admin at 03:05 PM
March 28, 2007
Call your Senators weekly - 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803.
Barbara Lee, the sponsor of a TRUE "end the war" amendment was
pragmatic afterwards, recognizing that she might have only gotten 100 votes for her measure, even if that vote had been allowed by Pelosi. Why? The answer is self-evident. They need to hear from MORE of us.
Continue reading "Call your Senators weekly - 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803."
Posted by doctormatt at 07:58 AM
March 27, 2007
After the House Vote, What’s To Be Done?
The House Democratic leadership (which includes people who opposed the Iraq war from the start) decided that it was crucial to pass an Iraq supplemental with a timeline for withdrawal – even a slow one with loopholes – to get Bush and the
Republicans isolated and on the defensive in support of an unpopular, unending,
unwinnable occupation. It is a good thing that, for the first time, something
approaching a deadline has been imposed on Iraq by a House of Congress.
The bill narrowly passed on Friday – because of the votes of progressive
Out-of-Iraq Congress members who disliked many aspects of the bill. It may get weakened through Senate action; if not, Bush has pledged to veto it.
The bad news is that the House bill funds Bush’s troop surge and won’t bring our troops home until a Sept 1, 2008 “deadline” – with provisions allowing troops to stay in Iraq beyond that on vaguely-defined “training” or “anti-terrorism” missions. (That’s why a group of progressive Congress
members – including Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, John Lewis and Dennis Kucinich – felt the need to stand firm and vote no.)
Continue reading "After the House Vote, What’s To Be Done?"
Posted by Admin at 08:16 AM
March 25, 2007
It is way past the time that we should face reality and take action!
The Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hastert, Foley, Rice crowd, and others have committed high crimes against the USA Constitution, humanity, and the planet. And in doing so, they have misused the powers that the USA citizenry faithfully gave to them. All of them should be arrested; impeachment is not a strong enough punishment, particularly in light of all the senseless loss of life that has occurred while on their watch.
Here's part of what I have gathered to date from reputable sources that justifies this action...although there is much more!
Continue reading "It is way past the time that we should face reality and take action!"
Posted by Admin at 10:51 PM
KUCINICH: SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PLAN
"When people tell me that national health insurance is the right answer but is not politically feasible, I tell them that the opposite is true," Kucinich wrote in a statement on healthcare-now.org. "Passage is inevitable - it is only a matter of time."
Kucinich is also for the second year now a co-sponsor of HR 676 in Congress, a bill sponsored by US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), to enact single-payer universal health care nationwide. The bill number is the same in the 110th Session as it was in the 109th.
Continue reading "KUCINICH: SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PLAN"
Posted by Admin at 10:30 PM
United States v. George W. Bush et al.
What if there were a fraud worse than Enron and no one did anything about it?
In United States v. George W. Bush et. al., former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega brings her twenty years of experience and her passion for justice to the most important case of her career. The defendants are George W Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war, or, in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Ms. de la Vega has reviewed the evidence, researched the law, drafted an indictment, and in this lively, accessible book, presented it to a grand jury. If the indictment and grand jury are both hypothetical, the facts are tragically real: Over half of all Americans believe the President misled the country into a war that has left 2,500 hundred American soldiers and countless Iraqis dead. The cost is $350 billion -- and counting.
The legal question is: Did the president and his team use the same techniques as those used by Enron’s Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and fraudsters everywhere -- false pretenses, half-truths, deliberate omissions -- in order to deceive Congress and the American public?
Take advantage of this rare opportunity to “sit” with the grand jurors as de la Vega presents a case of prewar fraud that should persuade any fair-minded person who loves this country as much as she so obviously does. Faced with an ongoing crime of such magnitude, she argues, we can not simply shrug our shoulders and walk away.
Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor, was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis as well as a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Branch Chief in San Jose, California. Since her retirement in 2004, she has been a regular contributor to Tomdispatch. Her articles have also appeared in the Nation, the LA Times, Salon and Mother Jones. She is not in the Witness Protection Program.
Tomdispatch.com, “a regular antidote to the mainstream media” and a project of the Nation Institute, is the creation of Tom Engelhardt. In its mission to connect some of the global dots regularly left unconnected by the mainstream media, it offers his regular commentaries and the original work of many well-known authors, including de la Vega.
Continue reading "United States v. George W. Bush et al."
Posted by Admin at 10:23 PM
March 24, 2007
Kucinich - Interest Group Ratings of Voting Record
Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (OH)
ISSUES -
Continue reading "Kucinich - Interest Group Ratings of Voting Record"
Posted by doctormatt at 11:48 PM
Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again.
In addition to borrowing from the world's poorest countries, Bush & Co. are secretly confiscating your hard-earned dollars to support their out-of-control spending habits.
Sometime in the next year, Congress will start going through their periodic rituals and related public relations charades in an effort to absolve themselves of any blame for raising of the federal government's debt ceiling.
With Bush and cronies having added over $3 trillion dollars to the national debt, the country's credit card tab now stands at $8.8 trillion. This represents an astounding increase of over 45 percent since Bush came into office in January of 2001. And all this fiscal profligacy took place during the years when the CBO originally forecasted record surpluses of approximately $2.5 trillion. And there is no end in sight to the deficits.
Continue reading "Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again."
Posted by Admin at 11:28 PM
A Time for Anger, a Call to Action
By Bill Moyers:
The following is a transcript of a speech given on February 7, 2007 at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Continue reading "A Time for Anger, a Call to Action"
Posted by Admin at 11:25 PM
Kucinich Blasts Democrats
Not everyone was celebrating the passage of the Iraq spending bill on Friday. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, told Truthdig it’s “a disaster for the American people.”
The presidential candidate went on to explain his dissatisfaction with his party: “It’s the same kind of thinking that led us into Iraq— that we didn’t have any alternatives.”
Continue reading "Kucinich Blasts Democrats"
Posted by Admin at 11:16 PM
No Taxation Without Representation
By Cindy Sheehan
I have about had it!
The Bush Criminal Mob is asking Congress for $123 billion more dollars to fund their total demolition of Iraq and their future crime sprees in such places as Iran and perhaps, Syria.
Continue reading "No Taxation Without Representation"
Posted by Admin at 11:12 PM
The War on Drugs’ War on Minorities
Democratic presidential candidates crave the Latino and black vote, but ignore the Drug War’s unfair toll on people of color.
Continue reading "The War on Drugs’ War on Minorities"
Posted by Admin at 11:07 PM
Summary of Health Care Summit
LAS VEGAS -- Because you did not want to spend your Saturday sitting in a room for three hours listening to Democratic presidential candidates tell you how they are going to provide universal health care for America, Politico did it for you.
The candidates appeared in a forum sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It was moderated by Karen Tumulty of Time magazine.
Here are the highlights in the order that the candidates appeared:
Continue reading "Summary of Health Care Summit"
Posted by Admin at 11:04 PM
Stephen Colbert Dares Democrats to Impeach Bush
Download the video at
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/15539/1/Colbert-Democrats-Impeachment.wmv
Posted by Admin at 06:11 PM
The Dominionist domination of the US
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
By Chris Hedges
Free Press (2006)
Review by Robert Hill
- Excuse me, may I ask you a few questions?
Do dominionists have that old time religion? Are they gonna have the whole world in their hands? Fascism, anyone? Can it (fascism) happen here? Do any of the topics in these questions interest you? If so, you definitely want to the read American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges.
Continue reading "The Dominionist domination of the US"
Posted by Admin at 05:51 PM
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
The Bush administration's greatest success is its ability to escape accountability for its numerous impeachable offenses.
The administration's offenses against US law, the US Constitution, civil liberties, human rights and the Geneva Conventions, its lies to Congress and the American people, its vote-rigging scandals, its sweetheart no-bid contracts to favored firms, its political firing of Republican US attorneys, its practice of kidnapping and torturing people in foreign hellholes and its persecution of whistle blowers are altogether so vast that it is a major undertaking just to list them all.
Continue reading "The Last Days of Constitutional Rule"
Posted by Admin at 05:45 PM
A TIMELINE OF THE IRAQ WAR
MARCH 19, 2003: Bush launches invasion of Iraq
MARCH 30, 2003: Donald Rumsfeld: We know where the WMD are
We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. [ABC This Week, 3/30/03]
Continue reading "A TIMELINE OF THE IRAQ WAR"
Posted by Admin at 05:40 PM
March 23, 2007
Presidential Forum on Health Care tomorrow
On Saturday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Service Employees International Union will co-host the New Leadership on Health Care presidential forum, featuring Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-ND), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), and Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM). (All the presidential candidates were invited to attend.) The "first of its kind" forum is intended to begin a national conversation about the pressing need for universal health care coverage. Eighty-two percent of primary voters agree that "everyone has a right to quality, affordable health care coverage."
Continue reading "Presidential Forum on Health Care tomorrow"
Posted by Admin at 03:07 PM
Why the Progressive Caucus Should Vote No on the War Money
The Supplemental spending bill proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi funds the war. It gives Cheney and Bush roughly another $100 billion. And you can be quite sure they will spend it as they choose, which may include attacking Iran.
Continue reading "Why the Progressive Caucus Should Vote No on the War Money"
Posted by Admin at 09:16 AM
March 22, 2007
Kucinich: 'Impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran'
During a speech on the House floor on Thursday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) declared that "impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran." The 2004 presidential candidate, who is running again in 2008, said that his House floor statement "speaks for itself."
Posted by Admin at 03:37 PM
The Decider is Delusional
Is George Bush delusional?
No, that question is not an attack on his intelligence.
Nor is it a criticism of some bizarre new position he has taken with regard to the affairs of state – although, as it happens, he has.
Rather, it is a serious question about whether the president understands what is going on around him.
After he announced Tuesday that the White House would not make a serious effort to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys who would not politicize their prosecutions, the president was asked about several of the attorneys who had been removed.
Continue reading "The Decider is Delusional"
Posted by Admin at 08:49 AM
March 21, 2007
Support Honest Reporting - Asheville Global Report
Despite being mired in two increasingly costly and bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration appears to be on a collision course with another official foe: Iran. Beyond the usual pronouncements that shy away from suggestions of war, the Pentagon has continued its military build-up in and around the Persian Gulf with the deployment of a second aircraft carrier battle group and a battery of Patriot missiles.
Continue reading "Support Honest Reporting - Asheville Global Report"
Posted by Admin at 06:03 PM
When nothing changes
Sick of Iraq, "war on terror," torture, civilian deaths, political lies, corruption in high places, loss of civil liberties, stolen elections, media manipulation and conversation after conversation about all of the above. Over the past four years I have evolved from a contented mother to a raging activist granny. This is not something I chose to be; I want to get a cottage, grow organic vegetables and write poetry that speaks of love and passion whilst I relax safe in the knowledge that my offspring and hers will live to a decent age, in a peaceful world with air they can breathe, clean water and freedom to choose whatever path they want to follow. Sadly, the cottage image is a shattered mess along with all the other hopes as the screen before me fills with images of other mothers whose children are slaughtered by armies that claim to represent me and make me an accessory by using my taxes to fund the killing.
Continue reading "When nothing changes"
Posted by Admin at 05:59 PM
The president's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege"
There are several important facts to note about the President's vow at this afternoon's Press Conference to resist attempts to compel Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify to Congress, under oath, with regard to the firing of the U.S. attorneys. The President intends to invoke "executive privilege," the same doctrine used by Presidents Nixon and Clinton in their respective (unsuccessful) attempts to resist subpoenas:
Continue reading "The president's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege""
Posted by Admin at 12:44 PM
American imperial hubris - Shall we be an empire, or a democracy?
Rarely has the imperial hubris that lies at the basis of U.S. foreign policy – the unspoken, unquestioned assumption of America's right to global domination by force – been so nakedly revealed than in the recent Washington Post story decrying the degraded state of the Pentagon's military preparedness. ("Military is Ill-Prepared for Other Conflicts.") What makes the story so remarkable, and so valuable as a diagnostic tool for the health of the Republic (which could perhaps be most accurately described as "the sickness unto death") is that none of the generals or politicians quoted in the story – nor the writer herself – betray the slightest awareness of the moral obscenity upon which all their earnest concerns and diligent fact-finding are based.
Continue reading "American imperial hubris - Shall we be an empire, or a democracy?"
Posted by Admin at 10:43 AM
March 17, 2007
TELL CONGRESS TO DO THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY AND IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY NOW
Call your members of Congress now toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or
800-614-2803.
ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/impeachment_now3.php
Continue reading "TELL CONGRESS TO DO THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY AND IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY NOW"
Posted by Admin at 08:36 AM
March 15, 2007
The Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Is Already Here
When President George W. Bush presented his budget proposals recently for the fiscal year 2008, he emphasized that the nation’s security is his highest priority, and he backed up that declaration by proposing that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by more than 6 percent beyond its estimated outlays for fiscal 2007, to a total of more than $583 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, hardly anyone appreciates that the total amount of all defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amount budgeted for the Department of Defense. Indeed, it is roughly almost twice as large.
Continue reading "The Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Is Already Here"
Posted by Admin at 11:09 PM
DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE - Internal Affairs
Aborted DOJ Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales
Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.
Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.
It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general. Had it not been quashed, a Justice Department inquiry into the domestic eavesdropping program would likely have examined the actions of Alberto Gonzales.
Continue reading "DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE - Internal Affairs"
Posted by Admin at 11:03 PM
March 11, 2007
Dennis Kucinich on Iraq and Accountability
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6o50JVjtE#
Posted by Admin at 09:04 PM
The Real War on Democracy
In the midst of news of foreign wars, Americans are beginning to wake up to the real war being waged here at home. It is, however, a confused awakening.
For example, Americans wonder why the Bush administration seems so intent on crippling local, state, and federal governments by starving them of funds and creating huge federal debt that our children will have to repay.
Many think it's just to fund tax cuts and subsidies for the rich, that the multimillionaire CEOs who've taken over virtually all senior posts in the Bush administration are just pigs at the trough, and this is a spectacular but ordinary form of self-serving corruption. It all seems so plausible, and there's even a grain of truth to it.
But juicy deals for Bush administration insiders are just a by-product of the real and deeper war against democracy. The neoconservatives are perfectly happy for us to think they're just opportunists skirting the edges of legality and morality, but this is far more dangerous than simple government corruption.
Continue reading "The Real War on Democracy"
Posted by Admin at 08:53 PM
March 07, 2007
Milk Gone Wild
This is too funny, and sad. A feminist and animal rights statement.
Courtesy of PETA.
http://www.MilkGoneWild.com
Posted by doctormatt at 06:52 PM
An Accountability Moment
Yesterday, a federal grand jury found Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, guilty of lying about his role in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official -- a person who worked in the office of the Vice President -- obstructed justice and lied under oath," commented special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald after the verdict was announced. Plame's husband Amb. Joseph Wilson, the target of the Bush administration's smear campaign, said, "I take no satisfaction in this. I think that the idea of a senior White House official being convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury is something that ought to sadden everybody who believes in public service."
Continue reading "An Accountability Moment"
Posted by Admin at 06:35 PM
March 04, 2007
Universal National Service Act of 2007
* Section 103(b) "Limitation on Induction for Military Service- Persons described in section 102(a) may be inducted to perform military service only if--"
* Section 103(b)(1) a declaration of war is in effect;
* Section 103(b)(2) "the President declares a national emergency, which the President determines necessitates the induction of persons to perform military service, and immediately informs Congress of the reasons for the declaration and the need to induct persons for military service; or"
---OR---
* Section 103(b)(3) "members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps are engaged in a contingency operation pursuant to a congressional authorization for the use of military force."
Is this not what we have been involved in since the start of the Iraq war and subsequent occupation?!
Continue reading "Universal National Service Act of 2007"
Posted by Admin at 11:04 PM
Bush impeachment calls gather momentum
Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, has called for the impeachment of George W. Bush before the Washington State Senate Governmental Operations Committee.
"I am honored to address you today and am pleased that you, unlike so many members of Congress and most state legislatures, have recognized your solemn responsibility to examine whether proceedings should be commenced for the impeachment of the President of the United States," the Mayor said.
Continue reading "Bush impeachment calls gather momentum"
Posted by Admin at 10:26 PM
The Air Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erense%2Ecom%2F
Posted by Admin at 10:20 PM
Rescinding the Bush Doctrine
RATHER THAN vainly sniping at President Bush over his management of the Iraq war, the Democratic-controlled Congress ought to focus on averting any recurrence of this misadventure. Decrying the so-called "surge" or curbing the president's authority to conduct ongoing operations will contribute little to that end. Legislative action to foreswear preventive war might contribute quite a lot.
Continue reading "Rescinding the Bush Doctrine"
Posted by Admin at 10:05 PM
March 03, 2007
Pentagon pushed faulty Iraq War intelligence
Feb. 14- A special unit run by former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld's top policy aide produced "alternative" intelligence reports that wrongly concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime had cooperated with al-Qaida, a Pentagon inspector general's investigation has determined.
Continue reading "Pentagon pushed faulty Iraq War intelligence"
Posted by Admin at 10:37 PM
America on its Knees Before Tyranny
"The Star-Spangled Banner" painted the United States in 1814 as "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." These words, though still mumbled by apathetic consumers at sporting events, amount to a cruel satire of the American people in 2007.
Continue reading "America on its Knees Before Tyranny"
Posted by Admin at 10:34 PM