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May 30, 2007
Economist: US, Iran Low on Peace Index
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and Iran finished in a virtual dead heat, and way down the list, in a magazine's assessment of the peacefulness of 121 countries.
The United States placed 96th and Iran came in 97th on the global index released Wednesday by researchers at the Economist magazine.
Continue reading "Economist: US, Iran Low on Peace Index"
Posted by Admin at 04:15 PM
May 29, 2007
US deal over illegal immigrants
The White House and the US Senate have reached a deal on an immigration bill that could give legal status to many of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the US.
The proposal needs to be passed by both houses of Congress and formally signed by Bush to become law.
It comes after months of bitterly fought debate over the issue.
Continue reading "US deal over illegal immigrants"
Posted by Admin at 12:13 AM
Al Gore - A drive for global domination has put us in greater danger
Moral authority, which is our greatest source of strength, has been recklessly put at risk by this wilful president
The pursuit of "dominance" in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders. Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the US and recruits for al-Qaida, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of "dominance", we should be seeking pre-eminence in a world whre nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values.
Continue reading "Al Gore - A drive for global domination has put us in greater danger"
Posted by Admin at 12:05 AM
May 28, 2007
CBC video - The lies that led to the Iraq war
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/video_player.html?lies
Posted by Admin at 10:59 PM
PBS NOW video - False intelligence on going to war in Iraq
http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/index_020306.html
Posted by doctormatt at 10:52 PM
PBS NOW video - No End in Sight
Iraq war documentary
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/316/index.html
Posted by doctormatt at 10:46 PM
Jon Stewart Comment 2 on Attorney General Scandel
Testimony of Monica Goodling
Posted by doctormatt at 10:37 PM
Jon Stewart Comment 1 on Attorney General Scandal
Posted by doctormatt at 10:34 PM
Dawkins - On Atheists
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. Richard Dawkins
Posted by doctormatt at 10:26 PM
General Batiste: Protect America, Not George Bush
Former Army General Batiste speaks out against the Bush Iraq policy.
URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMPIi03wSfY
Posted by doctormatt at 10:22 PM
Fetal Consent Abortion Bill Introduced
Satire from the Onion.
New Abortion Bill To Require Fetal Consent
Posted by doctormatt at 10:15 PM
Al Gore on Letterman - Assault on Reason
URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NH2VKhS86w
Posted by Admin at 09:50 PM
May 27, 2007
A Sampling of Prominent Figures With Consensual Non-exclusive Relationships
http://www.lovethatworks.org/famous.html
Posted by doctormatt at 10:04 AM
We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check
by David Sirota
It is a dark day in our nation’s history. That sounds melodramatic - but it is true. Today America watched a Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth - all in order to continue the most unpopular war in a generation at the request of the most unpopular president in a generation at a time polls show a larger percentage of the public thinks America is going in the wrong direction than ever recorded in polling history.
The numbers are not pretty. First, 216 House Democrats cast the key vote to send a blank check Iraq War funding bill over to the Senate. As I reported at the beginning of the day and as the Associated Press now confirms, the vote on the rule was the vote that made it happen. As the AP said: “In a highly unusual maneuver, House Democratic leaders crafted a procedure that allowed their rank and file to oppose money for the war, then step aside so Republicans could advance it.” Nauseating.
Continue reading "We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check"
Posted by Admin at 08:48 AM
Taming the Giant Corporation
Ralph Nader-Sponsored Conference to Tackle Corporate Power
WASHINGTON - MAY 25 - Corporations were originally chartered by the states in the early nineteenth century to be our servants not our masters. Now the servant has become master.
From June 8-10, hundreds of leading scholars, advocates and activists will convene in Washington, D.C. to discuss how to subordinate raw corporate power to the will of the people. "Taming the Giant Corporation: A National Conference on Corporate Accountability," sponsored by Ralph Nader and the Center for Study of Responsive Law, will be held at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1530 P Street NW.
Continue reading "Taming the Giant Corporation"
Posted by Admin at 08:45 AM
Is Bush Addressing the Root Causes of Terrorism - or Aggravating Them?
"Bush claimed in his news conference today, as he often does, that he is addressing the root causes of terrorism through the war in Iraq. In fact, much of what he has done is the exact opposite -- it is aggravating the root causes of Al-Qaeda terrorism. He did this first and foremost by treating 9/11 as a war instead of an emergency action. ... We helped spawn Al-Qaeda with the largest single clandestine operation, our backing the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The three factors which Bin Ladin himself cites as causes of 9/11 were U.S. troops on the Arabian peninsula, the sanctions against Iraq which caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and our backing of Zionist colonization. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that, but we need to look at the actual root causes if we're going to solve this problem."
Continue reading "Is Bush Addressing the Root Causes of Terrorism - or Aggravating Them?"
Posted by Admin at 08:39 AM
Globalization and Democracy: Some Basics
by Michael Parenti
The goal of the transnational corporation is to become truly transnational, poised above the sovereign power of any particular nation, while being served by the sovereign powers of all nations. Cyril Siewert, chief financial officer of Colgate Palmolive Company, could have been speaking for all transnationals when he remarked, “The United States doesn’t have an automatic call on our [corporation’s] resources. There is no mindset that puts this country first.”[i]
Continue reading "Globalization and Democracy: Some Basics"
Posted by Admin at 08:32 AM
May 26, 2007
Human, All Too Human : Nietzsche
1999 Video Documentary
"If you want to have your moral foundations knocked out from under you, read this book - and then build upon the ruins - Nietzsche's, in my opinion, most accessible work, as his aphoristic style floats over many different topics."
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55919
Posted by doctormatt at 09:27 AM
Not Your Father's Pay: Why Wages Today Are Weaker.
American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.
The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.
Continue reading "Not Your Father's Pay: Why Wages Today Are Weaker."
Posted by Admin at 09:21 AM
The Fifth Estate : Conspiracy Theories
Excellent CBC documentary about the various conspiracy theories around 9/11. Asks though questions without falling into paranoid delusions.
The Bush, the Saudi Royals and the Bin Laden, all part of the same gang?
Watch and judge for yourself.
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55939
Posted by Admin at 09:11 AM
The Great Dollar Crash of ‘07
Original article, and excellent commentary may be found at:
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/405/2/
The massive equity bubbles which arose from artificially low interest rates and the deliberate destruction of the dollar by reckless increases in the money supply have shifted trillions of dollars from working class Americans to the predatory aristocrats at the top of the economic food chain. The gulf between rich and poor has grown so wide that it now poses a direct threat to our increasingly fragile democracy.
“Whatever future developments may prove to be, my best guess is that the US will continue to maintain a façade of Constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it.” Chalmers Johnson, “Empire V. Democracy: Why Nemesis is at our Door”
Continue reading "The Great Dollar Crash of ‘07"
Posted by Admin at 09:01 AM
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich: "Privatizing Iraq's Oil is Theft!"
7 Minute Video
Rep. Kucinich explained how the proposed Bill, now pending before the U.S. Congress, via its benchmarks, will provide for the privatization of Iraqi oil. It requires the regime in Iraq to pass a law called, "The Hydrocarbon Act."
If they refuse to do so over a billion dollars in reconstruction funds will be blocked by the Bush-Cheney administration, he claimed. This measure, which Rep. Kucinich characterized as "blackmail," would permit multinational oil corporations---many based in the U.S.--to exercise control over the Iraqi oil.
The Democratic leadership in the Congress is giving its explicit support to this legislative device. Unless the scheme is stopped, Rep. Kucinich predicted, we will be looking at an Iraqi War "going on forever!"
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55952
Posted by Admin at 08:46 AM
May 25, 2007
Bush Prepares To Impose Martial Law
Originally posted November 2, 2006
The Republican re-writing of the Insurrection Act gives Bush the authority to declare martial law. For the first time since 1878, the president has the power to deploy troops within the United States. Bush and future presidents now have a power that, in other countries, is reserved to the dictator.
Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this new law, there has been no outcry in the American media and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress.
Continue reading "Bush Prepares To Impose Martial Law"
Posted by doctormatt at 12:30 PM
ATHEISTS ENDORSE "RALLY FOR REASON" PROTEST AT OPENING OF CREATIONIST MUSEUM
AMERICAN ATHEISTS today announced its full support for the "Rally for Reason" protest slated for Monday, May 28, 2007 (Memorial Day) at the grand opening of a creationist "museum" operated by an evangelical religious group in Boone County, KY.
WHEN: Monday, May 28, 2007 (Memorial Day) beginning at 9:00 AM
MORE INFO: "Rally for Reason" web site at http://rallyforreason.arkonuts.com
http://rallyforreason.arkonuts.com
Continue reading "ATHEISTS ENDORSE "RALLY FOR REASON" PROTEST AT OPENING OF CREATIONIST MUSEUM"
Posted by doctormatt at 07:38 AM
May 24, 2007
Setting up the apparatus for martial law in the U.S.
Whelp folks, I hate to be the pallbearer at our country's funeral, but I am here to inform you, in case you missed it on Fox News, that the apparatus for martial law is being quietly, but steadily, implemented. If one has been paying attention to the laws that are getting passed over the last few years we can see the telltale signs that we are getting closer and closer to such a scenario. Not only is this government setting up the legal framework for martial law, but they are also setting up the policing apparatus and infrastructure to carry it out. I will get into the latter two issues in this three part series, but first, let's look at the legal framework for setting up martial law in this country.
Part 1: Law for Tyrants
Even Adolph Hitler needed the imprimatur of law to carry out the Nazi agenda, and the similarities of Hitler's Enabling Act of 1933 to the laws and decrees that are being passed in today's America are almost identical. To see what I mean, let's get a little background on the Nazi's Enabling Act of 1933:
Continue reading "Setting up the apparatus for martial law in the U.S."
Posted by Admin at 04:58 PM
Text of National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
Source:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0705/S00414.htm
Homeland Security Presidential Directive
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 2:50 pm
Press Release: US State Department
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51
Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20
Subject: National Continuity Policy
Purpose
(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
Continue reading "Text of National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive"
Posted by Admin at 10:32 AM
Bush makes power grab
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.
That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
Continue reading "Bush makes power grab"
Posted by Admin at 10:21 AM
May 23, 2007
Still Playing With Fire -- Gov't May Have Been Complicit in Terror Plot
During the 1980s, the U.S. supported Osama bin Laden and the Afghan rebels in their jihad against the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan.
During the early and mid-1990s, the U.S. supported the al-Qaeda-linked Bosnian militants in their jihad against the Serbs.
In the late 1990s, the U.S. supported the al-Qaeda-linked Kosovo Liberation Army in their jihad in Kosovo.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend…or so the saying goes.
Continue reading "Still Playing With Fire -- Gov't May Have Been Complicit in Terror Plot"
Posted by Admin at 12:40 PM
Commander's veto sank Gulf buildup
WASHINGTON - Admiral William Fallon, then US President George W Bush's nominee to head Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of aircraft-carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately that there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.
Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.
Continue reading "Commander's veto sank Gulf buildup"
Posted by Admin at 12:38 PM
Amnesty International Blasts U.S. War on Terrorism
The United States is treating the globe like one giant battlefield for its war on terror, eroding rights worldwide, a leading human rights group said Wednesday.
Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan said the United States and its allies' behavior was setting a destructive example for other nations, and that countries across the world were using the war on terror as an excuse to violate human rights and stifle dissent.
"One of the biggest blows to human rights has been the attempt of Western democratic states to roll back some fundamental principles of human rights - like the prohibition of torture," Khan told The Associated Press, speaking before the launch of her organization's annual report on the global state of human rights.
Continue reading "Amnesty International Blasts U.S. War on Terrorism"
Posted by Admin at 12:24 PM
May 22, 2007
Lybrel - New birth control pill stops periods forever
From Mayo Clinic:
Birth control pill FAQ: Benefits, risks and choices -
If you use the birth control pill — that is, an oral contraceptive — you're probably happy with its convenience and reliability. Still, you may have many questions about the potential effects of birth control pills on your overall health. Here's what Mayo Clinic specialists have to say about women's health and oral contraceptive use.
How do pills that eliminate some or all your periods differ from other birth control pills?
Continue reading "Lybrel - New birth control pill stops periods forever"
Posted by Admin at 10:28 AM
May 21, 2007
Massachusetts Democrats call for investigation, possible Impeachment
The Massachusetts resolution called on the state’s delegation in Congress to investigate Bush/Cheney for misleading our nation into war, torture and warrantless wiretapping -- and “if the investigation supports the charges, vote to impeach” both Bush and Cheney “as provided in the Constitution.”
Continue reading "Massachusetts Democrats call for investigation, possible Impeachment"
Posted by Admin at 06:45 PM
Gays in British military - no big deal.
"Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears -- about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness --- have come to pass. ... The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.
The debate in the United States was rekindled in March when Gen. Peter Pace, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the country’s top-ranking military official, told The Chicago Tribune that he believed that homosexuality was immoral.
Continue reading "Gays in British military - no big deal."
Posted by doctormatt at 04:42 PM
More on Gingrich's address at Liberty U.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/21/gingrich-convert-america/
Posted by doctormatt at 01:30 PM
Gingrich's War on 'Secularism'
All 43 American presidents – even those who doubted religion – associated themselves with the Christian faith. Today, it is still far easier for a politician from a fringe religious sect, such as Mormonism, to be a serious national candidate than it would be for an atheist or an agnostic.
Yet, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is basing his political comeback, in part, on an assertion that the real bias in America is against those who believe in religion and that “radical secularism” is oppressing them.
“This anti-religious bias must end,” Gingrich told an enthusiastic audience of graduates from the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Continue reading "Gingrich's War on 'Secularism'"
Posted by Admin at 01:23 PM
May 20, 2007
Links to audio shows about Atheism
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/radio.html
Posted by doctormatt at 01:53 PM
You think we're gonna leave? Not with this President.
Here's a newsflash, 83 members of the Iraqi Parliament (about 1/3rd) asked for a timetable for our troops to withdraw - almost two years ago. And just this month, that 1/3 has grown to a Majority of the members of Iraqi Parliament who've now signed a petition ASKING US TO LEAVE.
Posted by Admin at 01:31 PM
Recent Developments in the Scandal over the Attorney General's Performance
Alberto Gonzales Displays Contempt for Congress, And Perhaps the Department of Justice As Well
By JOHN W. DEAN
Lately, a week seldom passes when we are not reminded of the conspicuous contempt that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales holds for Congress, and the damage he is doing to the Department of Justice.
This week, Gonzales was again shown to have lied to Congress; his ineptitude as Attorney General has resurfaced in litigation that is going to damage the government; and after ignoring a subpoena from the Senate, he made a belated but insufficient response following an angry letter from the Senate.
Click here to find out more!
It's been clear for a while - and is becoming ever clearer - that the Attorney General ought to resign, or to be fired. Now, it seems that Congress is determined to force Gonzales from office or send him to jail, whichever they can do first.
Continue reading "Recent Developments in the Scandal over the Attorney General's Performance"
Posted by Admin at 01:16 PM
"Commander 'N Thief", a must-see documentary by Tom O'Brien
Election Fraud (Not "Voter Fraud") is the topic:
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." – Joseph Stalin
Since art does not exist in a vacuum, I would like to place my review of Commander 'N Thief within the context of recent newsworthy events. Unfortunately, you'll have to dig hard to find coverage of them in the mainstream press.
Almost two weeks ago, the House Administration Committee unanimously decided to throw out numerous 2006 election challenges, including that of Clint Curtis. He collected hundreds of voters' sworn affidavits that point to a different reality from that indicated by the election results in Florida. Alas, none of the candidates were invited to testify and Curtis's evidence was neither examined nor evaluated.
Continue reading ""Commander 'N Thief", a must-see documentary by Tom O'Brien"
Posted by Admin at 01:09 PM
Consequences of the "War on Terror" - Video, UC Berkeley
Presented at UC Berkeley, September 19, 2006
Introduced by Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau
URL
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6629981583996106229&q=Truth+Or+Consequences
Continue reading "Consequences of the "War on Terror" - Video, UC Berkeley"
Posted by doctormatt at 10:19 AM
May 19, 2007
The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins video
The video first presents creationist ideas, articulated by Texans who support the theory of special creationism, and then provides vivid contradictory data through observation, computer simulations, robotics, experiments and close examination of designs in nature.
Its central argument is that the diversity and variety we see in such complex adaptations as the eye and insect mimicry can best be explained by cumulative natural selection over long periods of time.
With its vivid blend of argument and scientific detail, The Blind Watchmaker will enrich even the most advanced student's view of evolution.
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55701
Posted by doctormatt at 12:56 PM
Richard Dawkins interview
Dawkins talks about The God Illusion
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55638
Posted by doctormatt at 12:51 PM
Video - History of Atheism
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DISBELIEF
A superb history of atheism, by Jonathan Miller: Part 3 of 3
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55718
Posted by doctormatt at 12:47 PM
The Oil Factor - Behind the "war on terror"
Video narrated by Ed Asner
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=470
Posted by doctormatt at 12:43 PM
Imperial Democracy: Buy One Get One Free
By Arundhati Roy
Lecture given by author Arundhati Roy about Empire, Iraq, War, Role of Money, USS Vincenz, Manufactured Consent, Disenfranchisement, Production Democracy, Affirmative Action, and the Patriot Act
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55891
Posted by doctormatt at 12:35 PM
Noam Chomsky takes on the World (Bank)
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4236
Posted by doctormatt at 12:30 PM
Jerry Falwell leaves
More comments on Falwell's departure
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17716.htm
Posted by Admin at 12:26 PM
Embracing Humanity - Truth in a time of war
Video of lecture by Howard Zinn
URL
http://www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=55792
Posted by doctormatt at 12:14 PM
SPIN video - The Art of Selling War
Every war has been sold to Americans, based on deception.
URL
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2843473757753189276&q=spin+the+art+of+selling+war
Posted by doctormatt at 12:08 PM
Information Clearing House
Great alternative news web site:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Posted by doctormatt at 12:02 PM
US, allies seen as losing drug war
The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators that show cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and US users were getting more bang for their buck.
Despite billions of dollars in US antidrug spending and record seizures, statistics recently released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy suggest that cocaine is as available as ever.
Continue reading "US, allies seen as losing drug war"
Posted by Admin at 11:44 AM
Bush Admin. pulls back on domestic surveillance agreement
Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on May 1 that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.
Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.
Continue reading "Bush Admin. pulls back on domestic surveillance agreement"
Posted by Admin at 11:39 AM
9/11 Cover Stories?
URL:
Posted by Admin at 11:18 AM
Domestic Spying - High Crimes
From Hardball
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7N6A6E9ECQ
Posted by Admin at 11:04 AM
‘When The President Does It, That Means That It Is Not Illegal’
Thirty years ago today, President Richard Nixon spoke these infamous words to David Frost:
Q: So what in a sense you’re saying is that there are certain situations…where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
Q: By definition.
NIXON: Exactly, exactly.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/19/nixon-bush-illegal/
Continue reading "‘When The President Does It, That Means That It Is Not Illegal’"
Posted by Admin at 10:56 AM
Daily Show catches Gonzales hypocrisy on McNulty.
Daily Show Clip
URL:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/18/the-daily-show-catches-gonzales-hypocrisy-on-mcnulty/
Posted by Admin at 10:49 AM
ExxonMobil Lied, Continues to Lavishly Fund Prominent Global Warming Deniers
In January, oil giant ExxonMobil tried to “soften” its stance on climate change, asserting that it was “misunderstood” and now acknowledges the contribution of humans to global warming. Subsequently, the company promised that it would “not be providing any further funding” to groups that distort global warming science, such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
But a new report from GreenPeace reveals what the company “didn’t mention” to the public. According to its IRS reports, Exxon is still actively funding at least 14 organizations “for their climate change work.”
These groups include organizations like Frontiers for Freedom, which recently released a report “dedicated entirely to questioning global warming science, policy and attacking Al Gore.”
Continue reading "ExxonMobil Lied, Continues to Lavishly Fund Prominent Global Warming Deniers"
Posted by Admin at 10:42 AM
Evolution Opponent Running Unopposed For National School Board Association
In 2005, the Kansas Board of Education received national ridicule when it rewrote public school standards to cast doubt on the mainstream evolution theories of Charles Darwin.
One of the board members who voted to teach intelligent design was Kenneth Willard, a conservative who is now the only member running as president-elect for the National Association of State Boards of Education. NASBE is a nonprofit organization of state school boards that “works to strengthen state leadership in educational policymaking.”
Willard was one of the Kansas board’s most vocal proponents of intelligent design:
Continue reading "Evolution Opponent Running Unopposed For National School Board Association"
Posted by Admin at 10:35 AM
2 Ideologies and a Funeral
Social scientists aren’t generally blessed with the ability that those in the physical sciences have to manufacture artificial conditions allowing hypothesis testing.
In a worst case scenario, a physicist could be required to scrounge up tens of millions of dollars to build a particle accelerator, or a Hubble telescope. A social scientist, on the other hand, might need to launch a war to measure its properties, or starve people to study the psychology of famine. Oops – er, no can do. Try getting a grant for that!
Sometimes, though, you just get lucky. And when it comes to judging the central political debate of our time, we are lucky (as social scientists, that is, which means that we’ve been very unlucky, of late, as citizens).
America has conducted a natural experiment in ideology over the previous century, and we are now in a position to evaluate its results. From the 1930s through the 1970s, this country adopted essentially liberal policies (American liberal, to be sure, but still liberal). From the 1980s to the present, America charted a largely conservative course. There were huge exceptions to both tendencies, of course, but the overall trajectory of national politics during these eras cannot seriously be denied.
Now we are in a position to ask the simple empirical question: Which was better?
Continue reading "2 Ideologies and a Funeral"
Posted by Admin at 10:27 AM
Farewell to Falwell
Well, we can't help but remember our good friend Jerry Falwell this week, the man who did so much to improve the quality of politics and life in America. Jerry made so many fine contributions to our public discourse, it's really hard to know where to start in memorializing him. I guess it's only natural to go with his most famous passage, which he shared with us as our nation agonized over the attacks of 9/11:
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'.
Continue reading "Farewell to Falwell"
Posted by Admin at 10:22 AM
James Comey's riveting testimony revealed the following impeachable offenses:
1. George Bush authorized a massively criminal program of spying on thousands of Americans without a warrant in direct violation of FISA
2. When that program needed re-authorization, George Bush sent his Chief of Staff and his White House Counsel to "persuade" a semi-conscious hospital patient to re-authorize an illegal program this patient had no legal authority to authorize because he was not the Attorney General at that time, a fact that was well known to everyone involved
3. When that semi-conscious hospital patient explicitly refused to authorize the illegal program on the grounds that it was illegal, George Bush authorized it anyway, thus knowingly committing another crime
It's no wonder George Bush refused to deny that he sent Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's hospital bed.
Continue reading "James Comey's riveting testimony revealed the following impeachable offenses:"
Posted by Admin at 12:58 AM
Senators Want CIA to Release 9 / 11 Report
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that would force the CIA to release an inspector general's report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The CIA has spent more than 20 months weighing requests under the Freedom of Information Act for its internal investigation of the attacks but has yet to release any portion of it.
The agency is the only federal office involved in counterterrorism operations that has not made at least a version of its internal 9/11 investigation public.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and two other intelligence committee leaders -- chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and senior Republican Kit Bond of Missouri -- are pushing legislation that would require the agency to declassify the executive summary of the review within one month and submit a report to Congress explaining why any material was withheld.
Continue reading "Senators Want CIA to Release 9 / 11 Report"
Posted by Admin at 12:37 AM
Who Would Jesus Kill?
Religion, not patriotism, truly is the last refuge of the scoundrel. While most believers want to worship God and serve their fellow human beings, a few people twist the sacred for personal and political profit. Indeed, claiming that "God is on my side" plays the ultimate trump in any dispute.
Yet ambitious fraudsters are usually found out. More dangerous are those who genuinely believe that they are commanded to do ill. When bad policy is perceived as divine dogma, innocent people inevitably suffer.
So it has been with the Iraq war. Some self-professed Christians have so fervently backed the conflict that they might as well be sporting wristbands emblazoned with the slogan, "Who Would Jesus Kill?"
Continue reading "Who Would Jesus Kill?"
Posted by Admin at 12:13 AM
"The Common Theme Is Hypocrisy"
By Senator Carl Levin
The following is the opening statement delivered on April 27th to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
America's standing in the world has taken a nosedive since the world embraced us after 9/11. According to a recent poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 67% of the people surveyed across 25 countries disapprove of the U.S. handling of Guantanamo detainees. The Program Director explained: "The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq. The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be - You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules."
The Secretary of Defense recognized this problem last month when he acknowledged that he had recommended closing Guantanamo because "there is a taint about it."
Continue reading " "The Common Theme Is Hypocrisy""
Posted by Admin at 12:09 AM
What Did Bush Know, and When?
The Washington Post | Editorial - Friday 18 May 2007
It's not whether the president called. It's what he did.
It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.
Continue reading "What Did Bush Know, and When?"
Posted by Admin at 12:03 AM
May 18, 2007
The Assault on Reason excerpt by Al Gore
Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: “This chamber is, for the most part, silent—ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate.”
Why was the Senate silent?
In describing the empty chamber the way he did, Byrd invited a specific version of the same general question millions of us have been asking: “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?” The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.
Continue reading "The Assault on Reason excerpt by Al Gore"
Posted by Admin at 11:46 PM
Watergate Without the Break-In
It is time to stop referring to the “fired U.S attorneys scandal” by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.
This is no botched personnel switch. It is not even a political spat between the fired U.S. attorneys and Bush administration officials who deemed some of them insufficiently zealous in promoting the department’s law enforcement priorities. Connect the dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It’s Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.
Continue reading "Watergate Without the Break-In"
Posted by Admin at 11:42 PM
Why Democrats Defend War Crimes
The Democrats and the “Human Shields” Myth
by Stephen Zunes
Israelis from across the political spectrum, emboldened by the interim report from the government’s Winograd Commission, which investigated Israel’s ill-fated assault on Lebanon, are expressing regrets over last summer’s conflict with their northern neighbor. Uproar over the way a relatively minor border incident managed to escalate into a full-scale war is leading to demands for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation and other top government officials are under pressure or stepping down.
Meanwhile, in the United States Congress, leaders of both parties are not only still defending Israel’s decision to go to war, but its conduct of the war as well.
Continue reading "Why Democrats Defend War Crimes"
Posted by Admin at 11:39 PM
Don't Blame Bush by Paul Krugman
I’ve been looking at the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and I’ve come to a disturbing conclusion: maybe we’ve all been too hard on President Bush.
No, I haven’t lost my mind. Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined the rule of law; he has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor.
But the leading contenders for the Republican nomination have given us little reason to believe they would behave differently. Why should they? The principles Mr. Bush has betrayed are principles today’s G.O.P., dominated by movement conservatives, no longer honors. In fact, rank-and-file Republicans continue to approve strongly of Mr. Bush’s policies — and the more un-American the policy, the more they support it.
Continue reading "Don't Blame Bush by Paul Krugman"
Posted by Admin at 11:35 PM
Impeach Gonzales!
Frank Bowman, law professor, says Congress should impeach Atty Gen Alberto Gonzales, and it has power to do so under Article II of Constitution; says Gonzales, having elected to testify before Congress to discuss firing of US attorneys, has no right to lie, either by misrepresenting facts or falsely claiming not to remember events; holds that instances of phony forgetfulness seem to abound thoughout his testimony; says administration should not be allowed to send its attorney general to Capitol Hill to commit amnesia on its behalf.
Posted by Admin at 02:35 PM
Triangulating on the Truth
In the absence of straight answers from this administration, journalists must resort to triangulation to determine the truth.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified in gripping detail Tuesday about the 2004 revolt by top Justice Department officials against President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. In February 2006, however, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified that "there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed."
If both officials were testifying honestly -- and the Justice Department yesterday stood by Gonzales's testimony -- there's only one way to reconcile their statements: Prior to Comey's protest, there was much more to the program than the president has thus far confirmed.
Continue reading "Triangulating on the Truth"
Posted by Admin at 12:11 PM
Former Official's Account of Intensive Care Showdown Over Gov Spying Raises Six Issues
Former Assistant Attorney General James Comey, a dogged prosecutor and Bush appointee unleashed a firestorm Tuesday, when, as part of his testimony in a hearing about the Justice Department's firing of U.S. Attorney's for political purposes, he told a made for Hollywood story about a showdown between senior Justice Department officials and top White House officials over the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
Posted by Admin at 11:56 AM
COMEY’S EVIDENCE OF A CRIME
Bush, Gonzales, Card Clearly Implicated
Tuesday was a remarkable day at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. The exchange between Sen. Charles Schumer, R, NY and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey provides clear evidence pointing to criminal activity by the president, U.S Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former presidential advisor, Andrew Card. If Comey’s testimony is supported by other reliable witnesses, the Bush, Gonzales, and Card crew have some serious questions to answer.
Continue reading "COMEY’S EVIDENCE OF A CRIME"
Posted by Admin at 11:49 AM
Was Gonzales' Emergency Visit Illegal?
When then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went to John Ashcroft's hospital room on the evening of March 10, 2004 to ask the ailing Attorney General to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program, he was acting inappropriately, Ashcroft's deputy at the time, James Comey, testified before Congress earlier this week.
But the question some lawyers, national security experts and congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally?
Continue reading "Was Gonzales' Emergency Visit Illegal?"
Posted by Admin at 11:16 AM
May 16, 2007
This Week in God - Video
Quicktime mov
http://www.s197873094.onlinehome.us/TWIG.mov
Posted by doctormatt at 08:00 PM
Wiccans Keep the Faith With a Religion Under Wraps
Above the woman’s fireplace hangs her wedding picture, taken in a Lutheran church years ago. Below it, on the mantelpiece, is a small Wiccan altar: two candles, a tiny cauldron, four stones to represent the elements of nature and a small amethyst representing her spirit.
The wedding portrait is always there. But whenever someone comes to visit, the woman sweeps the altar away. Raised Southern Baptist in Virginia and now a stay-at-home mother of two in this Washington suburb, she has told almost no one — not her relatives, her friends or the other mothers in her children’s playgroups — that she is Wiccan.
Among the most popular religions to have flowered since the 1960s, Wicca — a form of paganism — still faces a struggle for acceptance, experts on the religion and Wiccans themselves said. In April, Wiccans won an important victory when the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a lawsuit and agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.
Continue reading "Wiccans Keep the Faith With a Religion Under Wraps"
Posted by Admin at 05:48 PM
May 15, 2007
MParent7777
Scroll down to read:
Powell's Chief of Staff puts impeachment on the table
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007_05_15_archive.html
Posted by Admin at 11:40 PM
Bush met with Dobson and conservative Christian leaders to rally support for Iran policy
President George W. Bush met privately with Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman James Dobson and approximately a dozen Christian right leaders last week to rally support for his policies on Iraq, Iran and the so-called "war on terror."
“I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement," Dobson disclosed on his radio program Monday. “And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. And we were together for 90 minutes and it was very enlightening and in some ways disturbing too."
Details of the meeting were disclosed by Dobson during Monday's edition of his Focus on the Family radio program.
Posted by Admin at 11:32 PM
U.S. healthcare expensive, inefficient: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Germany, Britain, Australia and Canada all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth Fund report found.
"The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," the non-profit group which studies health care issues said in a statement.
Canada rates second worst out of the five overall. Germany scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
Continue reading "U.S. healthcare expensive, inefficient: report"
Posted by Admin at 11:27 PM
Rosie talks about 9/11 on the View
Video: Rosie on the View May 14, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0vJVhRocFQ
Posted by doctormatt at 11:22 PM
May 12, 2007
Truth or Consequnces video on Google
The video of the play Truth or Consequences is now playing on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7404558442054130391&hl=en
Posted by doctormatt at 11:24 PM
May 11, 2007
Disturbing questions about the Bush administration’s possible involvement in September 11, 2001.
The American Empire and 9/11.
By David Ray Griffin
...............................................
After the attacks of 9/11, I accepted the blowback thesis, according to which the attacks were revenge for U.S. foreign policy. This view led me to undertake an extensive study of the American empire, the very reality of which had been an embattled issue.
The American Empire
In his 2002 book American Empire, Andrew Bacevich pointed out that it had long been a “cherished American tradition [that] the United States is not and cannot be an empire.” The words “American empire” were “fighting words,” so that uttering them was an almost sure sign that the speaker was a left-wing critic of America’s foreign policy.[1]
As Bacevich also pointed out, however, this had all recently changed, so that even right-wing commentators were freely acknowledging the existence of the American empire. As columnist Charles Krauthammer put it in 2002: “People are coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire.’”[2]
Given this consensus about the reality of the American empire, the only remaining issue concerned its nature. This empire was generally portrayed, especially by neoconservatives, as benign. Robert Kagan spoke of “The Benevolent Empire.”[3] Dinesh D’Souza, after writing that “America has become an empire,” added that happily it is “the most magnanimous imperial power ever.”[4]
Commentators from the left, however, presented a radically different view. A 2003 book by Noam Chomsky was subtitled America’s Quest for Global Dominance.[5] Richard Falk wrote of the Bush administration’s “global domination project,” which posed the threat of “global fascism.”[6] Chalmers Johnson, once a conservative who believed American foreign policy aimed at promoting freedom and democracy, described the United States as “a military juggernaut intent on world domination.”[7]
Bacevich, although still a conservative, had come to accept the left’s assessment of this empire. He ridiculed the claim “that the promotion of peace, democracy, and human rights and the punishment of evil-doers--not the pursuit of self-interest--[has] defined the essence of American diplomacy.”[8] Pointing out that the aim of the US military has been “to achieve something approaching omnipotence,” Bacevich mocked the idea that such power in America’s hands “is by definition benign.”[9]
The historical evidence clearly supports this non-benign view of the American empire. Part of this evidence is the fact that U.S. political and military leaders have arranged “false-flag operations” as pretexts for war. We did this to begin the wars with Mexico and the Philippines and to begin the full-out attack on Vietnam.[10]
Also important is Operation Northwoods, a plan submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy containing “pretexts which would provide justification for U.S. military intervention in Cuba.” Some of the ideas, such as the proposal to “blow up a U.S. ship in Guantánamo Bay and blame Cuba,”[11] would have required killing Americans.
This history shows that U.S. military and political leaders have not been averse to using the same tricks as military and political leaders in other countries with imperial ambitions, such as Japan, which in 1931 manufactured the Mukden incident as a pretext for taking control of Manchuria,[12] and Nazi leaders, who in 1933 set the Reichstag Fire as a pretext for rounding up leftists and annulling civil rights,[13] then in 1939 had German troops dressed as Poles stage attacks on German posts at the Polish border, allowing Hitler to present his attack on Poland the next day as a “defensive necessity.”[14] In each case, evidence was planted to implicate the people these governments wanted to attack.
9/11: A False-Flag Operation?
Given this background information, I might have immediately concluded that the 9/11 attacks were false-flag attacks orchestrated by the Bush administration to enlarge the U.S. empire under the cover of the “war on terror.” But when I first heard this allegation, about a year after 9/11, I replied that I did not think even the Bush administration would do such a heinous thing. I checked out some proffered websites but found the evidence unconvincing. (I tell this story because of the widespread allegation that those who call 9/11 an inside job do so because of antagonism to Bush and Cheney and/or their policies.)
Posted by Admin at 01:41 AM
The Illogical War on Cocaine
The United States has been engaged in a “War on Drugs” since the Nixon era. Some wags quip “Yes, and drugs are winning!” Indeed, drugs will always win if the “drug war” is conducted in an unreasonable way.
The highest-profile program in the anti-drug effort is now in Colombia, in an attempt to “eliminate drugs at the source.” Fields of coca are sprayed with glyphosate herbicide from cropduster-type aircraft, killing coca plants and any other crops in the area.
The professed goal of “Plan Colombia” is to eliminate a large percentage of the cocaine that currently comes to the U.S. market, thus, according to the economic law of supply and demand, driving up the retail cost. If cocaine becomes more expensive, it is assumed that many users will opt out.*
Therein lies the over-arching logical failure in the program.
Continue reading "The Illogical War on Cocaine"
Posted by Admin at 01:32 AM
Hard to Deny: Iraq Is All About the Oil
The following is a story by Michael Schwartz with an introduction by Tom Engelhardt.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003, oil was seldom mentioned. Yes, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did describe the country as afloat "on a sea of oil" (which might fund any American war and reconstruction program there); and, yes, on rare occasions, the President did speak reverentially of preserving "the patrimony of the people of Iraq" -- by which he meant not cuneiform tablets or ancient statues in the National Museum in Baghdad, but the country's vast oil reserves, known and suspected. And yes, oil did make it prominently onto the signs of war protestors at home and abroad.
Everybody who was anybody in Washington and the media, not to speak of the punditocracy and think-tank-ocracy of our nation knew, however, that those bobbing signs among the millions of antiwar demonstrators that said "No Blood for Oil" were just so simplistic, if not utterly simpleminded. Oil news, as was only proper, was generally relegated to the business pages of our papers, or even more properly -- since it was at best but one modest factor among so very many in Bush administration calculations -- roundly ignored.
Admittedly, the first "reconstruction" contract the administration issued was to Halliburton to rescue that country's "patrimony," its oil fields, from potential self-destruction during the invasion, and the key instructions -- possibly just about the only instructions -- issued to U.S. troops after taking Baghdad were to guard the Oil Ministry. Then again, everyone knew this crew had their idiosyncrasies.
Ever since, oil has played a remarkably small part in the consideration of, coverage of, or retrospective assessments of the invasion, occupation, and war in Iraq (unless you lived on the Internet). To give but a single example, the index to Thomas E. Ricks' almost 500-page bestseller, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, has but a single relevant entry: "oil exports and postwar reconstruction, Wolfowitz on, 98."
Yet today, every leading politician of either party is strangely convinced that the key "benchmark" the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must pass to prove its mettle is the onerous oil law, now stalled in Parliament, that has been forced upon it by the Bush administration. In the piece below, Tomdispatch regular Michael Schwartz follows the oil slicks deep into the Gulf of Catastrophe in Iraq. He offers a sweeping view of the role oil, the prize of prizes in Iraq, has played in Bush administration considerations and what role the new oil law is likely to play in that country's future. -- Tom Engelhardt
Continue reading "Hard to Deny: Iraq Is All About the Oil"
Posted by Admin at 12:55 AM
The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq
The following is Robert Greenwald's testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering.
Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you what I have learned in the course of making the documentary film, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers." Along with my colleagues at Brave New Films, I spent a year researching the experiences of soldiers, truck drivers and families affected by the presence of private military contractors in Iraq. They shared with us their harrowing experiences of how military privatization and war profiteering have affected their lives, and in some cases taken the life of a loved one.
Continue reading "The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq"
Posted by Admin at 12:53 AM
FDA dubious over medical marijuana
Such a negative vibe is a real bummer.
The recognition that St. Pierre and other cannabis activists have been waiting for came on April 19, during a markup of a drug safety bill in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. An amendment by Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was adopted that required marijuana to undergo the same Food and Drug Administration approval process that other prescription drugs do.
Until this process is accomplished -- and it typically takes about five years -- those in the medical marijuana business apprehended by federal authorities could face penalties for violating FDA regulations as well as selling an illegal substance, even where state laws sanction the use. The activists say the conservative senator clearly intended to shut down medical marijuana cooperatives; California alone has about 450 of them, St. Pierre said.
Continue reading "FDA dubious over medical marijuana"
Posted by Admin at 12:47 AM
Rep. Doggett In Favor of Iraq Redeployment Act
Courtesy of YouTube
Posted by Admin at 12:39 AM
Impeachment Talk: Hold Bush and Cheney Accountable
Lately, I’ve been thinking about accountability. I wonder if anyone will ever be held accountable for a war that had nothing to do with terrorism and was based instead on lies, deceptions, misunderstanding of the task, and the narrow ideologies of a powerful few.
President Bush’s war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East, increased the terrorist threat, overextended our military, ruined America’s moral authority and credibility in world affairs, and cost the lives of thousands of people and trillions of dollars.
Continue reading "Impeachment Talk: Hold Bush and Cheney Accountable"
Posted by Admin at 12:29 AM
May 10, 2007
Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove’s, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove’s role in supporting Griffin.
Continue reading "Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove"
Posted by Admin at 11:33 PM
Cheney was escort client?
May 10, 2007 -- WMR has received a third well-placed confirmation that Vice President Dick Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, was a client of the escort service of DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. In addition, one of Cheney's closest military advisers and friends was also a client of the DC Madam's Pamela Martin & Associates escort service. Cheney used the escort service while he was a part time resident of the posh Ballantrae section of McLean, Virginia.
After intense pressure from the White House and Disney executives, ABC News killed the DC Madam client story after having been given exclusive access to Palfrey's ten years' of phone call records.
Cheney made an unscheduled visit to Iraq during his tour of the Middle East.
Source: WayneMadsenReport.com
Posted by Admin at 11:28 PM
A Nation in Silent Anger
In ominous times truth always finds a way out from darkness into light. Always.
Through truth knowledge grows into the power and strength to question the actions of governance. In times that try men's souls it is those who seek enlightenment who are truly free. Given the choice of possessing ignorance or knowledge, even when ignorance would lead to an easier life, I would choose knowledge,thus escaping the life of sheeple, escaping the bondage of not knowing, not caring and not understanding.
Reverberations
Can you hear that deep, silent anger inside you, pounding like a heavy iron fist on a wooden door, banging relentlessly every time you notice the America of your dreams vanish more each and every day, instead becoming a most unwelcome nightmare that you are impotent to wake up from? Can you feel the hollow pain in your bones, the restlessness running through your veins every time another freedom is gutted or another right is eviscerated, every time your government climbs one more step up the stairwell of corporatism?
Can you feel the reverberations of resentment echoing in your mind every time a politician votes to expand the power of the elitist and corporate world, once more ignoring the will of the constituency? Can you feel the frustration of being impotent to the machinations of a government once defined as of, by and for the People serving only the interests of money and becoming a government of, by and for the corporatist world?
Continue reading "A Nation in Silent Anger"
Posted by Admin at 11:12 PM
May 07, 2007
Who Won in Iraq? Iran Did -- Big Time
A funny thing happened on the floor of the Senate the other day. Somebody asked a serious question: "If the war in Iraq is lost, then who won?"
Of course Sen. Lindsay Graham, the guy who asked the question, didn't mean it to be serious. He was just scoring points off Majority Leader Harry Reid, the world's only Democratic Mormon. Reid had made a "gaffe" by saying in public what everybody already knows: "The war in Iraq is lost." When you say something obviously true in politics, it's called a "gaffe."
So Graham jumps in to embarrass Reid with his question.
But let's take the question seriously for a second here: who won in Iraq?
To answer it, you have to start with a close-up of the region, then change magnification to look at the world picture. At a regional level the big winner is obvious: Iran. In fact, Iran wins so big in this war I think that Dick Cheney's DNA should be checked out by a reputable lab, because he has to be a Persian mole.
Continue reading "Who Won in Iraq? Iran Did -- Big Time"
Posted by Admin at 08:02 PM
Record military budget ignores security 'big picture'
Although 57 percent of the public now believes that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake, the military budget request that President Bush submitted to Congress is the largest since World War II — and little money is earmarked for domestic security.
The budget requests $623 billion for military spending for fiscal year 2008, which begins on Oct. 1. Defense Department officials say budgets in future years might reflect considerable increases of that figure, based on the rationale that military spending currently represents only a small percentage of national gross domestic product (GDP).
"It seems odd that we're even talking about the size of the private economy [which GDP partly reflects] since the private economy isn't funding the military. We should be looking at the amount of public dollars available for investment," Miriam Pemberton, research fellow at Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the center-left think-tanks Institute for Policy Studies and International Relations Center, said in an interview. Military spending "is now over 50 percent of the discretionary budget," she said.
Continue reading "Record military budget ignores security 'big picture'"
Posted by Admin at 07:42 PM
Italian Pay-off From Niger Forgery?
Italian journalists and parliamentary investigators are hot on the trail of how pre-Iraq War Italian forged documents were delivered to the White House alleging that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium ore from Niger.
New links implicating Italian companies and individuals with then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi now raise the question of whether Berlusconi received a payback as part of the deal -- namely, a Pentagon contract to build the U.S. president's special fleet of helicopters.
The yellowcake story in the United States has long been linked to the ongoing investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Plame's diplomat husband Joe Wilson had probed the Niger connection and concluded that the Bush administration was twisting intelligence reports to fit its case for war.
Continue reading "Italian Pay-off From Niger Forgery?"
Posted by Admin at 07:38 PM
Exposed: The Carlyle Group : Video
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3995.htm
Flash Video
Posted by doctormatt at 12:03 AM
May 06, 2007
When Will American People Be Told The Truth About Iraq?
The president's promise to "complete the mission" is a triumph of a tired slogan over reality, just as the Dems' pledge to "end the war" is riddled with loopholes. It's time to cut the bull and be realistic about where we're going
05/06/07 "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel " -- -- Now that President Bush and the Democrats have taken turns grandstanding over his veto of their troop withdrawal bill, it's time for a bipartisan burst of honesty.
Continue reading "When Will American People Be Told The Truth About Iraq?"
Posted by Admin at 11:55 PM
War Pimp Alert - Countdown has begun
US, Israel prepare for Iran strike in wake of new intelligence information -
Washington: The intelligence information gathered by the Unites States regarding Iran's technological breakthrough that could lead Teheran to an atom bomb in less than three years bodes well with President George Bush's political desperation.
The new intelligence indicates that Iran is making accelerated progress in acquiring the required amount of enriched uranium for assembling its first nuclear bomb.
Until recently, American intelligence estimated that this would only happen in 2015. Now US intelligence is falling into line with its colleagues in Israel and is estimating that an Iranian bomb can be expected as early as 2010.
Continue reading "War Pimp Alert - Countdown has begun"
Posted by Admin at 11:49 PM
Impeachment Fever Rises
When Nancy Pelosi announced last fall that impeachment was "off the table," official Washington accepted that the primary avenue for holding lawless Presidents to account had been closed off by the new Speaker of the House. But the Republic's citizenry has not been so inclined.
And now, with the Administration's troubles mounting, they're preparing to tell Pelosi that America and the world cannot wait until January 20, 2009, to put an end to Bush's reign of error.
When Pelosi arrives at the California Democratic Convention in San Diego on April 28--the same day that activists nationwide will rally for presidential accountability--she'll find on the agenda a resolution that declares that the actions of President Bush and Vice President Cheney "warrant impeachment and trial, and removal from office." Delegates are expected to endorse the measure.
Continue reading "Impeachment Fever Rises"
Posted by Admin at 11:06 PM
Stop Baroody
"I am the Appointmenter."
I appointed a former coal exec to oversee mine safety and a former Exxon CEO to solve our energy crisis.
Now I am nominating Michael Baroody, who has lobbied for 13 years against product safety laws, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
It's outrageous!
President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody - one of Corporate America's leading anti-consumer henchmen - to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) - our top government agency protecting millions of Americans from injury and death from unsafe products.
For the past 13 years, Michael Baroody has served as Executive Vice President at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) - a K Street lobbying behemoth devoted to helping big manufacturers evade accountability for their wrongdoing.
Continue reading "Stop Baroody"
Posted by Admin at 01:20 AM
May 05, 2007
Breakthrough Gay Advances in Past Three Weeks
When Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye's turn came to speak about the need for her legislature to approve gay marriage, she tearfully recalled her devout Catholic father's loving participation in her civil union ceremony, then described the pain of being excluded from actual marriage.
The freshman lawmaker recounted filling out a health-care form: Her choices were "married," "divorced," "widowed," "single" or "other."
"Forgive me if I'm not patient," Bye told Connecticut's joint House-Senate Judiciary Committee. "I don't want to be 'other' anymore. I want to be married."
Bye's touching plea helped create a wonderfully lopsided victory -- the 27-to-15 committee vote that endorsed opening marriage to gay couples. Gay marriage now goes to the full state House and Senate. (To watch Bye's moving testimonial, go to lmfct.org.)
Continue reading "Breakthrough Gay Advances in Past Three Weeks"
Posted by Admin at 01:45 AM
Is Stripping a Feminist Act?
A popular narrative about sex work, earnestly discussed in Women's Studies courses throughout the nation and represented in countless "I stripped my way through college!" memoirs, is that adult labor is automatically, and by definition, feminist.
The argument goes like this: By using sexual stereotypes professionally, by "owning" them (using them consciously), and by "subverting" them (choosing which stereotypes to exaggerate and which to discard), a sex-working woman is participating in a feminist reclamation of both personal and economic power. Her deliberate use of gender-drag turns wearing a g-string and gyrating on stage -- or behind glass -- from an act done merely to pay her rent into a strong, assured and transgressive statement more akin to political performance art. You can't objectify me -- I am objectifying myself, shrewdly and self-consciously, in order to obtain power through money, and control through being considered sexually desirable.
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Posted by Admin at 01:38 AM
Blasting American Infrastructure Away
CODE RED, AMERICANS! Screaming, flashing, neon-bright, God Almighty RED!!! Not just a single disaster, but multiple, biblical-level catastrophes are being plotted by a diabolical, heretofore unnamed network of terrorists who're out to destroy America with an unprecedented series of attacks.
They have their sights on our busiest airports. Also our dams, with the potential for horrific mass destruction. In addition, our municipal water systems and unified electric-power grids are on their list. Plus, we have proof that these ruthless cowards, in zealous pursuit of their own narrow ideology, have already spread into every area of our country with copycat plans to bring down countless numbers of America's schools, directly targeting our children.
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Posted by Admin at 01:33 AM
Speaker Pelosi is taking a tally for IMPEACHMENT:
From a Code Pink list:
"PLEASE CALL Nancy Pelosi's office right now. Here's the deal as forwarded to me:
House Speaker Pelosi's office is taking calls voting for Impeachment of Bush/Cheney at 202-225-0100. For toll free numbers to Congress: (800) 828 - 0498, (800) 459 - 1887, (800) 614 - 2803, (866) 340 - 9281, (866) 338 - 1015, (877) 851 - 6437
Folks, each of you who have been wanting impeachment need to commit right now to ask at least 10 others to call and ask each person to commit to asking 10 others to call and so on. It needs to happen fast and NOW.
Let's deluge the Speaker's office with demands for Impeachment of Bush AND Cheney. Congressman Kucinich (http://kucinich.us) has recently introduced legislation to impeach Dick Cheney (See Washington Post article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR200704...). Please mention Kucinich's House Resolution 333 when you call.
Posted by doctormatt at 01:14 AM
Dozens of Heads Were Bowed
Let us pray.
Let us pray that, on next year's National Day of Prayer, there is better attendance at the "Bible Reading Marathon" on the West Front of the Capitol.
Organizers put out 600 folding chairs on the lawn -- the spot where presidents are inaugurated -- and set up a huge stage with powerful amplifiers. But at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, not one of the 600 seats was occupied. By 11 a.m., as a woman read a passage from Revelations, attendance had grown -- to four people. Finally, at 1 p.m., 37 of the 600 seats were occupied, though many of those people were tourists eating lunch.
Where was everybody?
"This isn't that kind of event," explained Jeff Gannon, spokesman for the host, the International Bible Reading Association. Gannon, actually a pseudonym for James Guckert, had earned fame in 2005 representing a conservative Web site at White House briefings until it was revealed that he posted nude pictures of himself on the Web to offer his services as a $200-an-hour gay escort.
Continue reading "Dozens of Heads Were Bowed"
Posted by Admin at 12:10 AM
May 04, 2007
Cancelling Iraq Authorizaiton for Use of Force
Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) announced they will propose legislation that would set an expiration date for the original Iraq war authorization on Oct. 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the Iraq resolution vote.
Posted by doctormatt at 06:16 PM
THREE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SAY THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION
During last night's Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, a reader of Politico.com asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for a yes or no answer on whether he believed in evolution. McCain paused for a second before answering "Yes."
Politico's Jim VandeHei, one of three moderators for the night, then opened up the question to the other nine candidates. Three candidates -- Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AK) -- raised their hands to say that they do not believe in evolution.
Continue reading "THREE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SAY THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION"
Posted by doctormatt at 06:10 PM
May 03, 2007
Can Conservatives be trusted?
Neconservative Bill Kristol debated progressive Robert Kuttner during "The Big Con" Conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future and The American Prospect.
Recorded by PoliticsTV 48 minutes!
URL is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A98PubYANkQ
Posted by Admin at 11:12 PM
Bush's Illegal Use of Signing Statements is Impeachment Reason No. 1
In a Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the Boston Globe, Charlie Savage courageously published details of Bush's outrageous "signing statements" added to new legislation. As you can see from the examples quoted from Savage's story(Boston Globe, April 30, 2007) below, the intention of each statement is to allow an "executive loophole" whereby "the W" can essentially ignore the effect of the legislation. In other words, Bush has been assuming the powers of a dictator, ruling by decree, under our noses.
This is quoted directly from Savage's story:
"Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation of the Constitution. The federal government is instructed to follow the statements when it enforces the laws. Here are 10 examples and the dates Bush signed them:
March 9: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.
Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.
Continue reading "Bush's Illegal Use of Signing Statements is Impeachment Reason No. 1"
Posted by Admin at 08:29 PM
Spying on Americans
NY Times Editorial:
For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.
Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.
Continue reading "Spying on Americans"
Posted by Admin at 08:25 PM
The Hippies Were Right!
Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time To Give The Ol’ Tie-Dyers Some Respect.
Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that’s happening right now in the newly “greening” America and don’t say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?
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Posted by Admin at 08:20 PM
Weapons of Mass Deception
Bill Moyers lost me during the first few minutes of his excellent PBS special, “Buying the War.”
Not because it was painful to watch - blood boils at about the same temperature as water, and you could have made strong tea out of mine - but because my life became stranded at the very place where his story begins: “Four years ago this spring the Bush administration took leave of reality and plunged our country into a war so poorly planned it soon turned into a disaster.”
Burdened with a logical mind, I was never able to take leave of reality. As a result, just after Sept. 11, 2001, the country left me behind.
Continue reading "Weapons of Mass Deception"
Posted by Admin at 08:13 PM
The Crusaders
The Christian Taliban is Running the Department of Defense
Sixteen words may be all that stand right now between the apparatus of government and the Founding Fathers’ worst nightmare. And those words are starting to give.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
When George Bush, in the wake of 9/11, puffed himself into Richard the Lionheart and declared he would lead the country in a “crusade” against terrorism - you know, crusade, as in slaughter of Muslim infidels - turns out . . . oh, how awkward (if you’re on White House spin duty) . . . he may have been speaking literally.
Continue reading "The Crusaders"
Posted by Admin at 07:58 PM
What the Republican presidential candidates don't want you to see.
This joint effort by the DNC research, communications and Internet teams is the go-to place for up-to-date information on Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and all the other Republican presidential hopefuls.
http://www.democrats.org/republicans
Posted by Admin at 04:06 PM
Ex-CIA Heavy: "I've Got the Goods on Cheney"
If you haven't seen it yet, check out Ray McGovern telling Tucker Carlson that he's got evidence that none other than the dark emperor himself was behind the Niger yellowcake document forgeries used to substantially boost the (snicker) "administration's" case for occupying Iraq.
http://aliberaldose.blogspot.com/2007/05/ex-cia-heavy-ive-got-goods-on-cheney.html
Posted by doctormatt at 12:46 PM
It's All About Al-Qaeda Again
President Bush is at odds with the American public and a restive congressional majority over the Iraq war, and even some Republicans talk about imposing new requirements that could trigger a troop withdrawal.
It's time to play the Qaeda card.
In a speech about Iraq yesterday morning at the Willard Hotel, the president mentioned Osama bin Laden's group -- 27 times. "For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," Bush told a group of construction contractors.
Continue reading "It's All About Al-Qaeda Again"
Posted by Admin at 12:42 PM
2008 Presidential Candidates Information from NY Times
Links to, and stories about the candidates for U.S. President.
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/politics/2008candidates.html
Posted by doctormatt at 07:25 AM
After the Veto
By Senator Russ Feingold
The ink on the President's veto is barely dry, and already, a lot of Washington insiders - including some Democrats -- are saying Congress should just give in to the President. Never mind how hard people have pushed to bring Congress to this point, when we are finally standing up to the President's disastrous Iraq policy -- they want to give up on the binding language in the bill requiring the President to begin redeploying troops from Iraq.
But that's just letting the President have his way all over again. That's the kind of thinking that got us into this war in the first place, and it's not going to cut it anymore.
Continue reading "After the Veto"
Posted by Admin at 07:19 AM
The New Monogamy
Until death do us part—except every other Friday.
Claire is a pretty, 31-year-old Park Sloper who studies furniture design. Her husband, Alex, is a 32-year-old Web-design consultant with a fondness for floral shirts. He’s the center of attention at a party; she’s the one off to the side, seemingly aloof but really just shy. That’s why she was shocked when, more than a year into their relationship, she was the one who found herself attracted to someone else.
“I was totally confused, because I’d assumed that once I found ‘the one,’ I would be done with all that,” says Claire. “Going through all this was hard for us as a couple.” But when her husband subsequently got a crush of his own, she was more prepared. “Now that it was his turn, I was in a position to understand,” explains Claire. “So I told him, if he wanted to kiss her, that was okay—but I wanted to know about it, and I wanted that to be as far as things went without him talking to me first."
Continue reading "The New Monogamy"
Posted by Admin at 12:24 AM
Is the World Ready for Libido in a Nasal Spray?
Now entering Phase 3 clinical trials: the first real, honest-to-God, horny-making, body-shaking, equal-opportunity aphrodisiac.
Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.
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Posted by Admin at 12:21 AM
God Is in the Dendrites
Can "neurotheology" bridge the gap between religion and science?
Looking back, it was the intellectual high point of my summer: Ten science and religion reporters sitting inside the divinity building at Cambridge University, contemplating the essence of a raisin. As the hypnotic voice of the speaker, an expert on Buddhist meditation, lulled us from the here and now, I placed the wrinkly thing on my tongue, exploring its peaks and valleys until, all of a sudden, I broke through the linguistic cellophane. The raisin ceased to be a raisin or anything with a name. It had no history as a fruit grown on a vine and shipped to market; it evoked no memories of the little Sun-Maid boxes my mother packed in my lunch pail or of a particularly good glass of cabernet sauvignon.* It just was.
Continue reading "God Is in the Dendrites"
Posted by Admin at 12:15 AM
How to wire your brain for religious ecstasy.
Eight years ago, I flew to Laurentian University in Midwestern Canada to test a gadget that some journalists called the "God machine." The device consisted of computer-controlled solenoids that fit over the skull and stimulate the brain with electromagnetic pulses. Its inventor, neuroscientist Michael Persinger, claimed that it could induce mystical experiences, including, as Wired magazine put it, visions of "Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Mohammed, the Sky Spirit."
I sat in a ratty armchair in a soundproof chamber and pulled the God machine onto my head as, outside the chamber, a graduate student tapped a computer keyboard. As he bombarded my brain with electromagnetic bursts patterned after brain waves of epileptics in the throes of religious visions, I waited for God or even a minor deity or demon to appear—in vain. Persinger told me later that the device doesn't work on skeptics, implying that it "works" merely by exploiting subjects' suggestibility.
Continue reading "How to wire your brain for religious ecstasy."
Posted by Admin at 12:10 AM
May 01, 2007
“Truth or Consequences,” The Review And A Resource Guide
By Bambi Evans
Saturday was the final performance of the political play “Truth or Consequences” at the Barking Legs Theatre. Money raised from ticket sales go to the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.
The play was adapted by Matthew Hine - who also serves as director - from Craig S. Barnes original full-length play “A Nation Deceived” (www.ANationDeceived.org) and performed by the Chattanooga Progressive Players. In Hine’s adaptation, George W. Bush and Richard Cheney are on trial for committing fraud before Congress and the American people in the lead-up to, and in the continuing prosecution of, the Iraq War. Though the play is hypothetical, it is based on documented facts publicly available. The individual performances, though subtle, reflect the cast’s commitment to presenting the known details without bias or spin.
Continue reading "“Truth or Consequences,” The Review And A Resource Guide"
Posted by Admin at 06:04 PM
Incompetence at the Top
Tenet and His Masters
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Every American who voted Republican shares responsibility for the great evil America has brought to the Middle East.
The evil that America brought to Iraq transcends the tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and maimed in the conflict. The evil goes beyond the destruction of ancient historical artifacts and the civilian infrastructure of a secular state and the decimation of the lives, careers, and families of millions of Iraqis.
The violence and killing that Bush brought to Iraq has spread antagonism between Sunni and Shiite throughout the Middle East with potentially draconian consequences. Bush's war has turned Muslim hearts and minds against America and made terrorism an acceptable means to resist American hegemony. With his mindless war, Bush has created more terrorism than the world has ever seen.
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Posted by Admin at 05:45 PM
Checking and correcting Cheney
Vice president not only twisted my views but Democratic Party's, too
By GEORGE S. MCGOVERN
Vice President Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today's Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed "the Windy City." Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air.
Cheney said that today's Democrats have adopted my platform from the 1972 presidential race and that, in doing so, they will raise taxes. But my platform offered a balanced budget. I proposed nothing new without a carefully defined way of paying for it. By contrast, Cheney and his team have run the national debt to an all-time high.
Continue reading "Checking and correcting Cheney"
Posted by Admin at 05:40 PM
Lying as Art Form: The Rhetoric of Dick Cheney
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." So said Vice-president Dick Cheney on March 16, 2003 as U.S. soldiers marched toward Baghdad at the start of America's Iraqi disaster.
Continue reading "Lying as Art Form: The Rhetoric of Dick Cheney"
Posted by Admin at 05:33 PM