May 29, 2008
Bush mounted dishonest campaign to sell Iraq invasion, says ex-White House spokesman
A former senior aide to President Bush claims that the White House deliberately mounted a dishonest propaganda campaign to sell the Iraq invasion to the US public, in the most damning insider account of the presidency so far.
(No, REALLY! Tell me it isn't TRUE!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/29/georgebush.iraq
Posted by doctormatt at 05:40 PM
May 21, 2008
Behind the Rise in Prices: A Plan to Torpedo the Dollar
“The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America’s debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/19/9047/
Continue reading "Behind the Rise in Prices: A Plan to Torpedo the Dollar"
Posted by doctormatt at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2008
Economic costs of war
The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.
On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
Matt Yglesias notes, “Few people seem to appreciate it, but it’s quite literally true that al-Qaeda’s strategy is to cripple the U.S. economy by dragging us into quagmires abroad.” Arianna Huffington writes, “The thing about $3,000,000,000,000 is that, at a certain point, it becomes hard to ignore.”
Posted by Admin at 01:23 AM | Comments (0)
Marijuana Regulation vs. Prohibition
Criminalizing marijuana results in the arrest and prosecution of more than half a million Americans every year for possessing even small amounts of herb.
http://www.progress.org/2008/cannabis.htm
Continue reading "Marijuana Regulation vs. Prohibition"
Posted by Admin at 01:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2008
God Bless Ralph Nader
Running for president...
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3494/81/
Posted by Admin at 06:09 PM
Industrial Hemp Background
Industrial Hemp Background
Continue reading "Industrial Hemp Background"
Posted by doctormatt at 12:36 PM
February 24, 2008
When Change Is Not Enough: Seven Steps to Revolution
By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future
http://www.alternet.org/story/77498/
Posted by Admin at 06:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
Senators Corker and Alexander try to subvert Rule of Law.
The Rule of Law is what distinguishes our government from
tyrannical dictatorships and monarchies. Actions that undermine
this principal erode the foundation of our great republic. The
recent votes of Senators Corker and Alexander should be viewed
in this context.
Continue reading "Senators Corker and Alexander try to subvert Rule of Law."
Posted by doctormatt at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
Video - FISA satire cartoon - The Spies Who Love You
Great flash video courtesy of Mark Fiore:
http://www.markfiore.com/spies_who_love_you_0
Posted by Admin at 06:16 AM
February 15, 2008
Video - Olbermann on FISA
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on today’s Countdown was a scathing rebuke of President Bush for continuing to play the fear card, trying to scare the hell out of the American people and vowing to veto any FISA legislation that does not contain telecom amnesty.
You are a liar, Mr. Bush, and after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/77138/
Continue reading "Video - Olbermann on FISA"
Posted by Admin at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Smoking Mirrors blog
Opinionated blogger - some good rants at:
http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/
Posted by doctormatt at 01:04 PM
Political reasons for Conyers to start impeachment hearings of Cheney
http://www.democrats.com/conyers-start-impeachment-hearings
Posted by doctormatt at 12:08 AM
February 11, 2008
Iranian Oil Bourse - Commentary
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation.
http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html
Continue reading "Iranian Oil Bourse - Commentary"
Posted by Admin at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2008
G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad
Watching Attorney General Michael Mukasey evade the obvious fact that waterboarding is torture – and the reluctance of Democrats to press him – I was reminded of how the first President Bush got away with an earlier batch of national security crimes.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2008/013108.html
Continue reading "G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad"
Posted by Admin at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)
Iranian Oil Bourse set to open - Fasten your seat belts
If tiny bubbles floating up from the ocean floor could tell tales, we might learn a thing or two on the surface. On the heels of Iran announcing the grand opening of its new "Oil Bourse," not many US financial institutions are cutting colorful ribbons or breaking Champaign bottles in celebration over this announcement. In fact, Wall Street is painfully developing acid reflex because this could very well be the beginning of the end for monopolizing "Texas Tea" exclusively being sold using only American dollars. In truth, this could very well plummet the American dollar deeper into the abyss of nothingness. Having said that, strange things are surreptitiously happening on the ocean floor with scant reporting in the US corporate mainstream news media...sneaky little devils.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_vincent__080209_could_iran_s_new__22oi.htm
Continue reading "Iranian Oil Bourse set to open - Fasten your seat belts"
Posted by Admin at 02:03 AM | Comments (0)
Video - Iraq war costs $720M per day. How would you rather spend it?
Posted by doctormatt at 01:55 AM
The Emails that Dick Cheney Deleted
Late last month, right after official White House spokesmen made a series of either evasive or completely false statements about the mysterious case of the vanishing, then reappearing, then perhaps no really vanished White House emails, Henry Waxman and his Oversight Committee announced some of the conclusions they had reached.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002219
Continue reading "The Emails that Dick Cheney Deleted"
Posted by Admin at 12:49 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2008
Video - Olbermann on Telecom immunity
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22811475#22831421
Posted by Admin at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
Jay Rockefeller’s Unintentionally Revealing Comments
As the Senate takes up “debate” today over granting the President new warrantless eavesdropping powers and granting immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, the individual who joined forces with Dick Cheney to get this ball rolling, AT&T’s personal Senator Jay Rockefeller, made some comments yesterday to The Politico that illustrate just how twisted and dishonest is the thinking of telecom immunity advocates.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/24/6594/print/
Continue reading "Jay Rockefeller’s Unintentionally Revealing Comments"
Posted by Admin at 09:10 PM
Telecom Immunity: Covering Up Illegality by Secrecy and Fear
Dick Cheney was at his best shilling for immunity for telecom companies today before the Heritage Foundation. His speech came one day before the Republican rubber stamp machine in the Senate attempts another push to give blanket immunity to the telecommunication companies suspected of engaging in illegal eavesdropping and surveillance of Americans. Although wiretapping is usually justified as a necessary tool in the “War on Terror”, there is good reason to doubt the official story and question the legality of the Bush administration’s practices.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/24/6595/print/
Continue reading "Telecom Immunity: Covering Up Illegality by Secrecy and Fear"
Posted by Admin at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)
The End of Privacy
Amid the controversy brewing in the Senate over Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, the Bush administration appears to have changed its strategy and is devising a bold new plan that would strip away FISA protections in favor of a system of wholesale government monitoring of every American’s Internet activities.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/25/6625/print/
Continue reading "The End of Privacy"
Posted by Admin at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2008
Comments of Wamp, Corker and TN Rep Lincoln Davis on 1-22-09
Wamp and Corker comment on Fred Thompson's dropping out of presidential race.
Wamp says:
"I still think frankly that on the issues Fred Thompson was the best candidate."
Lincoln Davis calls for prudence regarding the Fed's huge rate cut.
Continue reading "Comments of Wamp, Corker and TN Rep Lincoln Davis on 1-22-09"
Posted by doctormatt at 04:46 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2008
Video - Lapdogs of the Corporate Press
Satire - Thanks to National Lampoon!
http://blimptv.blogspot.com/2007/11/lapdogs-of-corporate-press_21.html
Posted by doctormatt at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
Video - Satire - New Bush Coins
Thanks to National Lampoon!
http://blimptv.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-bush-coins.html
Posted by doctormatt at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Why the Claim that Progressive Secular Values and Policies Are Bad For Societies is a Great Big Lie
Why the Claim that Progressive Secular Values and Policies Are Bad For Societies is a Great Big Lie The propaganda industry that is the social and religious right never ceases in its campaign to perpetuate a myth. It is the all critical cutting edge of a long standing wedge strategy that cannot fail if anti-progressive traditionalism is to retain its legitimacy. The myth is that societies that adopt progressive secular values are doomed to societal collapse and chaos.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_gregory__080118_why_the_claim_that_p.htm
Posted by Admin at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
The Financial Cost of the Bush Administration
What we as American taxpayers have suffered financially since Bush assumed office is 165% of what the debt was for the previous 200 years of the United States. When Bush took office the debt was $20 Trillion. It is now $53 Trillion.
This debt currently amounts to about $175,000 for every person alive in the United States. So, that means your long term debt has increased about $109,000 since Bush came into office.
Continue reading "The Financial Cost of the Bush Administration"
Posted by Admin at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2008
Let’s Toast to Ten Good Things About 2007
As we close this year on the low of Congress giving Bush more billions for war, and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, let’s remember some of the year’s gains that can revive our spirits for the New Year. Here are just ten.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/26/6083/
Continue reading "Let’s Toast to Ten Good Things About 2007"
Posted by Admin at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
December 31, 2007
Assault on free speech
The Pope had his Index of Forbidden Books. Japan had its Thought Police against subversive or dangerous ideologies. And the United States Congress and President Bush have learned nothing from those examples.
Congress is perched to enact the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007 (Act)," probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Continue reading "Assault on free speech"
Posted by Admin at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2007
Understanding American Capitalism
This is an important book about a vast and important subject - economics - which, except for hermits and recluses living in the wilderness, affects just about everyone, every single day, in more ways than most people realize. Understanding economics - or rather, to be more precise, the political economy, a term I amplify later - is critical to any person wishing to make sense of the world, and essential to choosing rationally how to position oneself on the political map.
Continue reading "Understanding American Capitalism"
Posted by Admin at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
The voting system is broken, and so are political parties.
Last Friday Ohio's top election official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a report concluding that the voting systems that decided the 2004 election in Ohio were rife with "critical security failures". The perpetrators were so cocksure they could pull it off that the servers for the computation of the Ohio vote count were in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee that houses servers for the Republican National Committee. The programmers who (worked) for Ken Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State, were Republicans who did websites for the Bush administration.
So why do we keep throwing billions of dollars down a black hole just to maintain this pathetic charade that fools no one? This year every one of the leading candidates is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Every one of them is a "dual loyalist" with a globalist agenda. Every one of them accepts the new regime of curtailed civil liberties, endless war, and free trade. They're all part of the same corporate effluent that washed into Washington on a wave of special interest payola.
Continue reading "The voting system is broken, and so are political parties."
Posted by Admin at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2007
Video - Shock Doctrine
http://bodo.gnn.tv/blogs/25233/The_Shock_Doctrine_by_Alfonso_Cuar_n_and_Naomi_Klein_VIDEO
Posted by doctormatt at 06:24 PM
December 15, 2007
The American Dream Is Alive and Well ... in Finland!
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/70103
Fewer than 1 percent of Americans are millionaires, but almost one in three believe they'll end up among that group at some point.
The belief that our chance of moving up the economic ladder is limited only by our innate abilities and our appetite for hard work is almost universal in the United States. When you define the "American Dream" as the ability of working-class families to afford a decent life -- to put their kids through school, have access to quality healthcare and a secure retirement -- most will tell you it simply doesn't exist anymore. In stark contrast...
Continue reading "The American Dream Is Alive and Well ... in Finland!"
Posted by Admin at 05:01 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2007
Chomsky on Iran
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18772.htm
Posted by doctormatt at 11:40 PM
November 25, 2007
War-making is a socialist government program, hobgoblin of the right
I’m amused when far right ideologues denounce equitable health care, affordable housing and other safety net features of liberal democracies as “socialized medicine” or other derisive labels. Such offenders of language are insulted when I fire back: “There’s nothing more socialized than the U.S. military.” It’s true. Every soldier gets government housing, price-fixed salaries, government education (indoctrination into killing), health care, clothing and much more. And with an annual budget that threatens decades or centuries more of national debt to finance war in the name of “spreading democracy,” children not yet born will pay for our socialized army should civilization last long enough. These payments could come at the expense of other, more constructive programs, such as bridges, highways, fuel-efficient cars, basic research, schools, disaster relief, Social Security, the campaign to stop global warming and much else. Meanwhile the effects of this military / industrial complex–financed by your tax dollars–will be disastrous, even murderous, for millions or billions of innocents, as we spread nuclear technology, depleted uranium, ethnic cleansing (face it, we put the Shiites now busy murdering Sunnis–who respond in kind–in charge of Iraq) and worse around the globe.
Posted by Admin at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2007
Video - Apathy Kills
The Art of Mental Warfare:
Posted by doctormatt at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
You believe the official story about 9-11 because...?
They lied about Iraq having biological and chemical weapons. They lied about former NFL star Pat Tilman's murder in Afghanistan. They lied about Saddam Hussein refusing to allow U.N. WMD inspectors into Iraq. They lied about the level of care our wounded veterans were receiving. So, why in the hell should anyone believe ANYTHING this pack of professional liars has to say about the events that took place on September 11, 2001?
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4752
Continue reading "You believe the official story about 9-11 because...?"
Posted by Admin at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2007
Missing Nukes - Treason of the highest order
According to a wide range of reports, several nuclear bombs were "lost" for 36 hours after taking off August 29/30, 2007 on a "cross-country journey" across the U.S., from U.S.A.F Base Minot in North Dakota to U.S.A.F. Base Barksdale, near New Orleans, in Louisiana. [1] Reportedly, in total there were six W80-1 nuclear warheads armed on AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs) that were "lost." [2] The story was first reported by the Military Times, after military servicemen leaked the story.
It is also worth noting that on August 27, 2007, just days before, three B-52 Bombers were performing special missions under the direct authorization of General Moseley, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. [3]
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=24168
Continue reading "Missing Nukes - Treason of the highest order"
Posted by Admin at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2007
The Exact Opposite series
How can you tell when a "Conservative" is lying?
http://www.romm.org/exactopposite_1.html
Posted by Admin at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2007
Mad Cow Nation: America's Willing Surrender
Michael Massing has written a very important story about at very important truth: the main reason that the American people are so deeply uninformed about the reality of the war of aggression being waged in their names in Iraq is that they do not want to know.
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2794/81/
Posted by Admin at 02:32 AM
Kill the messenger, On with the war
Great piece by Chris Floyd
http://www.chris-floyd.com/8/8/
Posted by Admin at 01:51 AM
Video - George Carlin - You have no choices
They own you.
Warning - George uses some "dirty words".
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18690.htm
Posted by Admin at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2007
Voting As Political Narcotic
Voting became a political narcotic when it stopped working to improve government and became used to legitimize a corrupt, two-party failed government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18650.htm
Continue reading "Voting As Political Narcotic"
Posted by Admin at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2007
Music Video - The Oil Factor
Go here. Enter site. Then, in left column, click on "Music Video" for an In Your Face music commentary.
The 4th Branch.
Caution - Lyrics and images suitable for adults able to cope with harsh truth.
Posted by doctormatt at 02:49 PM
Depleted Uranium and Depleted Democracy
Remarks by David Swanson October 27, 2007 at a rally in Jonesborough, Tenn., preceding the march to Aerojet Ordnance, manufacturers of Depleted Uranium weapons.
Continue reading "Depleted Uranium and Depleted Democracy"
Posted by Admin at 11:43 AM
October 27, 2007
Naomi Wolf - Video - The End of America
VERY IMPORTANT VIEWING
Posted by doctormatt at 12:02 AM
October 24, 2007
The Imperial Presidency - by Ralph Nader
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/23/4758/
Posted by doctormatt at 11:26 AM
October 23, 2007
On the Eve of Destruction - by Scott Ritter
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/22/4736/print/
Posted by Admin at 03:03 PM
Sen. Chris Dodd's Make or Break Moment
By Dave Lindorff
President Bush is no chump. He has figured out how to emasculate the Democrats (those that aren't already eunuchs). Instead of making a decent estimate of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and asking for it up front for the 2008 fiscal year, he is asking for it piecemeal, giving Democrats opportunity after opportunity to turn him down and end it all, knowing all the while that they'll cave and give him his war money.
Continue reading "Sen. Chris Dodd's Make or Break Moment"
Posted by doctormatt at 12:06 PM
Video - "We're all in this together" by Paul Waldman
Courtesy of
http://www.TennesseeAllianceForProgress.org
Posted by doctormatt at 05:15 AM
October 20, 2007
How Progressives are different than Conservatives
The following is courtesy of Paul Waldman's excellent work, entitled
"Being Right Is Not Enough - What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success".
1) Progressives are working people, and conservatives are the elite. Standing for working people is not a statement of an agenda. It is a value from which agenda items flow. It’s not only about appealing to people’s self interest, it’s about appealing to what people believe government should do, and about the kind of public servants they’ll trust to do the right thing. Call conservatives “elite” and their ideas “elitist”. Make a case not only about what conservatives do, but about who they are.
Continue reading "How Progressives are different than Conservatives"
Posted by doctormatt at 02:52 PM
October 14, 2007
It Saves Money and Makes Kids Healthy — What’s the Problem?
by Jesse Jackson
Nine million children go without health insurance in this country. A broad bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress, including such rock-ribbed conservatives as Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, voted to expand the children’s health-care program to cover about half of those. Last week, President Bush vetoed the bill. In the Senate, enough Republicans will join Democrats to override that veto. The question is whether two-thirds support can be found in the House of Representatives. In partisan fervor, the Republican leadership has vowed to stand with the president.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/09/4423/print/
Continue reading "It Saves Money and Makes Kids Healthy — What’s the Problem?"
Posted by Admin at 07:51 PM
Why Isn't Campaign Finance THE Major Issue In 2008 Election?
If you look at the current presidential campaigns, all of the candidates, both parties, their campaigns/associates, the debates, moderators, pundits, talking heads, TV shows, blogs... and all of their associations, you will see that campaign-financing is easily the most important issue facing America in the next election.....or it should be.
Virtually every controversy, from haircuts to millions of dollars, facing the candidates and campaigns concern campaign finance and those involved in it. "The money" questions follow them everywhere, through the campaign and beyond.
Continue reading "Why Isn't Campaign Finance THE Major Issue In 2008 Election?"
Posted by Admin at 11:08 AM
Congress Needs A Shot In The Arm
Among the most important public health advances of the past century has been the development of potent vaccines against dangerous and life-threatening illnesses. Polio, tuberculosis, and measles quickly come to mind. Through a process of inoculation, a small dose of the pathogen is intentionally administered to the patient which induces immunity against the full-blown disease.
In a similar way, social scientists have demonstrated that attitude inoculation can be used to prevent the transmission of hazardous beliefs and behaviors from one person to another. For example, research reveals that adolescents can more effectively resist pressure from cigarette-smoking peers if they are given role-playing opportunities in which they rehearse their responses to students pressuring them to smoke.
But today we are in urgent need of an inoculation campaign against an entirely different threat to our nation's health--namely, the Bush administration's exploitation of its "global war on terror" to eviscerate the rule of law and our constitutional checks and balances; to prolong the disastrous occupation of Iraq; and to lay the groundwork for military strikes against Iran. Ever since the tragic events of 9/11 six years ago, the White House has promoted this agenda by working non-stop to spread a simple yet infectious idea: All actions taken by this president and his representatives are necessary to protect the United States from future catastrophic terrorist attacks.
More:
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/10/6/84458/5126
Posted by Admin at 10:32 AM
Ralph Nader - Things are a lot worse than we thought - Video
Why won't the Democrats impeach?
Posted by doctormatt at 08:11 AM
October 07, 2007
George W. Bush v. The U.S. Constitution
From misleading the nation on its reasons for war to fighing an unending war on terror, the Bush administration threatens our Constitution and our freedom.
By Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)
George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying
In July 2005, 122 members of Congress, along with more than 500,000 Americans, sent a letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to verify whether the assertions set forth in the so-called “Downing Street Minutes” were accurate. The president never responded.
That lack of response prompted Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, to commission his staff to write a report examining the administration’s manipulation and deception during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. When the New York Times reported in December 2005 that President Bush had approved widespread warrantless domestic surveillance of innocent Americans, (later corroborated in May 2006 by USA Today), Conyers asked his staff to document those abuses as well. The final report, “The Constitution In Crisis,” released in August with little attention from the mainstream media, is a compelling indictment of the Bush administration.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2868/george_w_bush_v_the_us_constitution/
Continue reading "George W. Bush v. The U.S. Constitution"
Posted by Admin at 10:03 PM
October 04, 2007
John McCain and our Christian Nation
John McCain is at it again. This time out he’s arguing, in an interview with Beliefnet, that the Constitution established the US as a “Christian nation” and he comes dangerously close to suggesting that only a Christian would be fit to be president (in fact, he seems to say just that before waffling and backpedaling into an answer designed to draw a bit less fire).
http://scholarsandrogues.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/john-mccain-christian-nation/
Continue reading "John McCain and our Christian Nation"
Posted by Admin at 12:21 PM
October 03, 2007
Seymour M. Hersh: "Shifting Targets" - RE: Attacking Iran
Seymour Hersh is a well respected journalist whose articles in the New Yorker have led that part of the media whose mental agility has not been hobbled by corporate perspectives. He has correctly diagnosed the Iraq War, the Iraq Occupation and even the ultimate aim of CheneyBush to attack Iran. It is all the more interesting, therefore, that Mr. Hersh has chosen to hold back the obvious conclusion in his latest article on the switch being pulled by the CheneyBush administration on developing a casus belli—a cause for war—against Iran.
http://www.americanliberalism.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=1575
Continue reading "Seymour M. Hersh: "Shifting Targets" - RE: Attacking Iran"
Posted by Admin at 12:14 PM
October 02, 2007
Bush to World: Up Is Down
Sep. 25- George W. Bush – who asserts his unlimited personal authority to kill, kidnap, torture and spy on anyone of his choosing anywhere in the world – opened his annual speech to the United Nations by hailing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The US President pushed the envelope of the world's credulity even further by citing the UN's Universal Declaration of 1948 as justification for his "war on terror" and his draconian policies for eliminating "terrorists" or other threats to world order with little or no due process.
Continue reading "Bush to World: Up Is Down"
Posted by doctormatt at 03:04 AM
Is Marriage Worth It?
Let’s get a grip on this marriage hype. Regardless of what the church says about its sanctity or what the court mandates in the recent Vermont Supreme Court decision extending its "privileges and benefits" to heretofore-free same-sex couples, marriage isn’t a wholly beneficial institution. Rather, wedlock is a contract, often blessed by the church and always enforced by the state. And both formidable authorities have a compelling interest in this particular bargain, since it regulates the sexual activities of adults - mainly women.
http://towardfreedom.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=0
Continue reading "Is Marriage Worth It?"
Posted by doctormatt at 02:39 AM
September 30, 2007
The Greater Depression
Let me cover the big picture. I do think we're approaching the end of the world as we know it…I think there is such thing as the business cycle. It exists. And we've had the longest expansion - and the strongest expansion - in the world history. But we're at the end of a 25-year boom. It's gone on more than a full generation now. And I'll tell you how it's going to end: It's going to end with a depression, and not just a depression; not just another Great Depression; it's going to be the Greater Depression
What's a depression, incidentally? It's a period of time when distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated; that's called a depression. Over the last 25 years, distortions and misallocations of capital have produced an artificial boom. But when these distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated, we'll get a depression.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18466.htm
Continue reading "The Greater Depression"
Posted by Admin at 12:59 AM
September 26, 2007
Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is she triangulating—or living her faith?
It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?
Continue reading "Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics"
Posted by Admin at 11:55 PM
What world war III might look like
Neoconservatives are great observers of war and warriors, though they are sometimes not in complete agreement about the numbering of the conflicts that they send other people's sons and daughters to fight. Norman Podhoretz, the patriarch of the neocons, believes that the Cold War was World War III and that the U.S. is now fighting World War IV against "Islamofascism." He intends to expand World War IV by slating Iran as the next domino to fall to America's military might. Podhoretz undoubtedly sees the current global conflict as something that is good and necessary, both containable and winnable, but as his judgment on Iraq was fallible, his prediction of Iran's rapid destruction is also unreliable. It might be useful to imagine just how war with Iran could play out if the Iranians don't roll over and surrender at the first whiff of grapeshot.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11666
Continue reading "What world war III might look like"
Posted by Admin at 11:44 PM
September 25, 2007
Israel using Sexual blackmail on closet gay politicians? Yes
http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?p=60282#60282
Continue reading "Israel using Sexual blackmail on closet gay politicians? Yes"
Posted by Admin at 11:21 PM
September 23, 2007
American Economy: R.I.P.
Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment.
By Paul Craig Roberts
The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes, but economists, policymakers, and most of the public are blind to the tottering fabled land of opportunity.
In August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders, and the government sector lost 28,000 jobs.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18350.htm
Continue reading "American Economy: R.I.P."
Posted by Admin at 05:17 PM
Dick Cheney - His role
Washington Post special analysis of the most powerful vice president ever...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/
Posted by doctormatt at 04:47 PM
Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
By Chris Hedges
In his book “Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia,” John Gray warns that as the era of liberal intervention in international affairs wanes, it is being replaced with “primitive versions of religion” that will be used to fuel apocalyptic violence. His is a world where faith-based violence will become the norm, where societies will plunge headlong into self-immolation and where desperate groups of people will soon battle in a Hobbesian struggle for dwindling natural resources.
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/print/20070916_book_review_hedges_black_mass/
Continue reading "Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia"
Posted by Admin at 04:04 PM
You Have No Rights
Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive and author of “You Have No Rights,” explains how our president became a “medieval king,” and why your civil liberties are in greater danger than ever.
James Harris: Here again on Truthdig this is James Harris with Josh Scheer. On the phone is Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive and the author of the new book “You Have No Rights.” I feel like I have some rights left, and so do other Americans. So why did you choose this title for your book?
http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070814_rothschild_transcript/
Continue reading "You Have No Rights"
Posted by Admin at 03:55 PM
The Great Iraq Swindle
Great analysis from Rolling Stone
How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle/print
Posted by Admin at 03:47 PM
Class Matters More than Medicine
By Maggie Mahar
When compared to other developed countries, the U.S. ranks near the bottom on most standard measures of health. Many people assume that this is because the U.S. is more ethnically heterogeneous than the nations at the top of the rankings, such as Japan, Switzerland, and Iceland. But while it is true that within the U.S. there are enormous disparities by race and ethnic group, even when comparisons are limited to white Americans, our performance is “dismal” observes Dr. Steven Schroeder in a lecture published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday.
Why? It’s not the lack of universal access to healthcare, says Schroeder, though that’s important. And it’s not just that we don’t exercise enough and eat too much—though that is a major cause. But there is one factor undermining the nation’s health that we just don’t like to talk about in polite society: Class. When it comes to health, as in so many other areas of American life, class matters. In fact, it matters more than whether or not you have access to medical care.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/21/class_matters_more_than_medicine
Continue reading "Class Matters More than Medicine"
Posted by Admin at 03:28 PM
There's One Thing the US Presidential Contenders All Have in Common: God
Note: In this article, Timothy Garton Ash, a British commentator and author, gives his perspective on the 2008 presidential race from the other side of the Atlantic.
We all know Christmas begins earlier every year, but imagine if it were to begin in May. And that's May the year before. This is what's happening with the presidential elections in the US. There are another 17 months until the actual vote next November, but the campaign is well under way. On Tuesday, I watched a television debate between 10 Republican contenders, following a similar one between the Democratic hopefuls last Sunday. At this rate, election fatigue will set in before we've even reached election year. Candidates are not merely nailing their colours to the mast; under media interrogation, they are compelled to take up detailed positions that they'll then find difficult to shift. This is not good for US policy.
http://www.alternet.org/story/53591
Continue reading "There's One Thing the US Presidential Contenders All Have in Common: God"
Posted by Admin at 12:08 PM
Debt Is Not An Asset
By John Hoefle
"I don't know how the financial system is going to survive through October," Lyndon LaRouche commented on Aug. 31, after reviewing recent developments on the global financial front. We need to get the firewalls up fast to protect the population, he added.
The growth of the global financial system is premised upon a very simple fraud, namely the treatment of unpayable accumulated debts as assets. Those "assets" are then leveraged many times over, turning thousands into millions into billions into trillions of dollars of financial bets. With each passing year, the financial system gets further divorced from reality, further past the edge of the cliff.
Continue reading "Debt Is Not An Asset"
Posted by Admin at 09:29 AM
Commentary: Bush fulfills H.L. Mencken's prophecy
It took just eight decades but H.L. Mencken's astute prediction on the future course of American presidential politics and the electorate's taste in candidates came true:
On July 26, 1920, the acerbic and cranky scribe wrote in The Baltimore Sun: " . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Continue reading "Commentary: Bush fulfills H.L. Mencken's prophecy"
Posted by Admin at 09:10 AM
"I Cannot Be Bought or Bossed"
By Kevin Gosztola
There’s something relieving about hearing a candidate speak those words. It’s a super relief if those words are sincere and genuine. When one looks at candidates who have raised money, one expects that candidate to have not raised money that would make it seem he or she has been “bought” or “bossed” already. However, not being “bought” or “bossed” has its consequences. By not agreeing to accept contributions from corporate powers and by trying to shift the way campaigns are run in America, a candidate not only must deal with getting the American people on his or her side during the election but also must deal with trying to keep the corporate powers that be from interfering with his or her desire to get the message of his or her campaign to the American people.
Continue reading ""I Cannot Be Bought or Bossed""
Posted by Admin at 09:06 AM
Why Vegetarianism Is the Best Way to Help the Environment
In 1987, I read Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé and—primarily for human rights and environmental reasons—went vegan. Two decades later, I still believe that—even leaving aside all the animal welfare issues—a vegan diet is the only reasonable diet for people who care about the environment or global poverty.
This past November, the environmental problems associated with eating chickens, pigs, and other animals were the subject of a 408-page United Nations (U.N.) scientific report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow.
Continue reading "Why Vegetarianism Is the Best Way to Help the Environment"
Posted by Admin at 08:57 AM
September 22, 2007
A Time to Speak: Why Progressive Religious Leaders Must Find Their Voice on Sexual Justice
There's a growing recognition of an organized progressive religious voice in this country. Collaborative efforts by mainstream and progressive religious leaders to address such issues as the budget, poverty, the war in Iraq, and immigration are now recognized and featured in prominent publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Newsweek.
We are beginning to counter the perception that the religious right speaks for religion in America. Many of us are also working to address what I have labeled the "religiophobia" of secular progressive organizations, or a fear of religion that keeps organizations from reaching out to faith communities and from articulating a moral vision.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/06/b1754617.html/print.html
Posted by Admin at 10:28 PM
Beyond Abstinence-Only
Speaking Out on Adolescent Sexuality
By Rev. Debra W. Haffner
The United States may be raising some of the most sexually confused adolescents in the world. Movies, advertising, web sites, music, and television shows give teens the message that “everyone is doing it,” while the official policy of the federal government and 46 states is abstinence-only until marriage. And most parents, schools, and religious institutions say little to nothing to adolescents about their sexual behaviors, sexual orientation, and sexual health, even though one recent report revealed that the vast majority of Americans have been having sex before marriage for decades.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/02/beyond_abstinence_only.html/print.html
Continue reading "Beyond Abstinence-Only"
Posted by Admin at 10:23 PM
What is a Progressive?
A progressive is someone who is idealistic enough to believe that things can be better and pragmatic enough to get it done.
http://genius.americanprogress.org/
Posted by doctormatt at 10:18 PM
September 09, 2007
The Great Iraqi Swindle
How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.
You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle/print
Continue reading "The Great Iraqi Swindle"
Posted by Admin at 01:17 AM
September 06, 2007
How is America like a Fascist State?
Posted by doctormatt at 03:04 AM
September 03, 2007
The Predicted Financial Storm Has Arrived
Contradictions now wrack the world's financial system, and a growing consensus exists between those who endorse it and those who argue the status quo is both crisis-prone as well as immoral. If we are to believe the institutions and personalities who have been in the forefront of the defense of capitalism, we are on the verge of a serious crisis-if not now, then in the near future.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements, the British Financial Services Authority, the Financial Times, and innumerable mainstream commentators were increasingly worried and publicly warned against many of the financial innovations that have now imploded. Warren Buffett, whom Forbes ranks the second richest man in the world, last year called credit derivatives-only one of the many new banking inventions-"financial weapons of mass destruction." Very conservative institutions and people predicted the upheaval in global finances we are today experiencing.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18296.htm
Continue reading "The Predicted Financial Storm Has Arrived"
Posted by Admin at 09:05 PM
The twenty buck solution
We would live in a completely different world, a world without an Iraq war, a world without hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed, a world without almost 4000 soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded, a world without hundreds of billions spent for nothing, and most importantly, a world without George Bush as president, but for one thing. We would live in that world if only George Bush had gotten a blowjob.
That's all it would take. We came that close to getting rid of George Bush and ending our national nightmare. Such a small thing that would have made such a big difference.
Continue reading "The twenty buck solution"
Posted by Admin at 05:37 PM
August 31, 2007
Swing - reverse send out to double turn
Posted by doctormatt at 11:46 PM
August 30, 2007
Bush puts Iran in crosshairs
Not another warning about war with Iran! Well, suck it up. President George W. Bush's speech Tuesday makes clear his plan to attack Iran, and how the intelligence, as was the case before the attack on Iraq, is being "fixed around the policy."
It's not about putative Iranian "weapons of mass destruction" — not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for US reverses in Iraq, and the felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to "justify" armed retaliation — perhaps extending to an attempt to destroy its nuclear-related facilities.
Bush's Aug. 28 speech to the American Legion came five years after a very similar presentation by Vice President Dick Cheney. Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney set the meretricious terms of reference for war on Iraq.
http://www.agrnews.org/print.php?news_id=2753
Continue reading "Bush puts Iran in crosshairs"
Posted by Admin at 10:27 PM
Public Financing Would Mean Cheaper Elections
Unless you ask the right question, you’ll never get an answer that’s worth a damn.
Failure to use such common sense is on prominent display in the debate over the pros and cons of publicly financed elections. We’re always asked whether the public should pay for election campaigns.
Wrong question.
The only relevant question is how the public should pay. Because we always will pay one way or the other. There’s no way for us to skip out on the bill.
We can either pay for election campaigns directly — as citizens in places like Arizona and Maine and Portland, Ore., do — or we will pay for them indirectly, as we do here in Wisconsin every time we all have to pick up the tab for another favor our elected officials do for their biggest campaign donors.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/26/3418/
Continue reading "Public Financing Would Mean Cheaper Elections"
Posted by Admin at 10:20 PM
How the Bush Administration Is Turning the USA into a Subprime Borrower
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W Bush
Much in the same way that US investors were “steered” into rip-off mortgage loans, the entire country has been “steered” into an economic crisis. The question is how to get out of it.
In the subprime loan scandal, unscrupulous brokers conned home buyers with poor credit histories into deals designed to profit lenders and bleed borrowers. Contract “teasers” hid ballooning monthly payments while a lack of regulation allowed the scam to continue unabated. Millions more Americans now face losing their homes.
The Bush administration similarly used promises of cakewalks and increased security to con the US public into wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. US taxpayers have spent over $450 billion on Iraq alone, while Bush/Cheney cronies continue making a killing from military contracts. Meanwhile, global security has degenerated and over 4,100 US service members have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with an untold number of coalition troops, contractors and civilians.
Bush’s military adventurism, not to mention his administration’s exorbitant tax cuts for the wealthy, gutted the surplus of $128 billion Clinton handed him in 2001 into a deficit of well over $200 billion today. And Bush has simultaneously increased the national debt by over $3 trillion (to roughly $9 trillion), effectively nailing each and every US citizen with a bill for almost $30,000.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/27/3433/
Posted by Admin at 10:17 PM
May The Best Fund-Raiser Win?
In recent news reports, US Representative Don Young of Alaska has been accused of securing $10 million to help build a highway offramp in Florida — a project that would increase the value of several thousand acres of land owned by a Michigan builder who in turn raised $40,000 for Mr. Young. But this is just one point on a continuum. A number of congressmen have been indicted, and governors have served time in prison, for abusing their public trust.
Clearly, the way we finance elections is undermining our democracy.
Continue reading "May The Best Fund-Raiser Win?"
Posted by Admin at 10:13 PM
Kucinich Is Right On Healthcare
Dennis Kucinich rarely gets much airtime in Democratic presidential debates. That was underscored recently when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos called on him in an Iowa forum to talk about God. Kucinich said, “George, I’ve been standing here for the last 45 minutes praying to God you were going to call on me.”
With poll numbers at 1 or 2 percent, the Ohio congressman is the nudge kicking at the knees of the Democratic Party to offer more than incremental change. He deserves more attention than he gets. On healthcare, he says what Americans believe, even as his rivals rake in contributions from the industry.
Continue reading "Kucinich Is Right On Healthcare"
Posted by Admin at 10:08 PM
Catherine Austin Fitts Explains The American Tapeworm
http://www.solari.com/articles/MoneyChangersInterview.htm
Posted by Admin at 09:58 PM
A Hegemonic Hubris
More War on the Horizon
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
No pullout from Iraq while I'm president, declares George W. Bush.
On to Iran, declares Vice President Cheney.
Israel is a "peace-seeking state" that needs $30 billion of US taxpayers' money for war, declares State Department official Nicholas Burns.
The Democratic Congress, if not fully behind the Iraqi war, at least no longer is in the way of it.
Nor are the Democrats in the way of the Bush regime's build up for initiating war with Iran.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08242007.html
Continue reading "A Hegemonic Hubris"
Posted by Admin at 09:32 PM
Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?
Bush, al-Maliki and the Press
When I look at the Bush administration's actions in Iraq, I can't help but be reminded of a scene from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Consider the parallels, for example, in the classic scene between Graham Chapman and Michael Palin, where King Arthur (Chapman) argues with an English peasant (Palin) about the legitimacy of divine rule under feudal aristocracy. The possibility of such a discourse over enlightenment and anarcho-syndicalist principles (taking place between a King and his subject over a thousand years before the introduction of modern conceptions of democracy and self-government) is part of what makes the Monty Python scene funny. But it's the American elite's contempt for those same enlightenment principles that qualifies the situation in Iraq as a modern day tragedy. President Bush's behavior in Iraq is more akin to that of King Arthur than to that of a political leader committed to democracy and self-determination.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio08272007.html
Continue reading "Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?"
Posted by Admin at 09:25 PM
Empire or Freedom?
The 9/11 attacks brought to the surface a dilemma that everyone, especially libertarians, must now confront: whether to choose a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy or a free society.
No one can deny that we now live in a country in which the president, on his own initiative, has the omnipotent power to send the nation into war against any country on earth, especially given that the war on terror extends all over the globe. The president and the military have the power to take any suspected terrorist — foreigner or American — into custody and torture, abuse, and execute him without due process of law and trial by jury.
The president and the NSA have the power to wiretap telephones and monitor emails without a judicially issued warrant. The president, the CIA, and the military have the power to send missiles into cars and drop bombs into buildings anywhere in the world, including right here in the United States, in their attempt to win the war on terror. Indeed, the president may now ignore any constitutional or legislative restraints on his power as a “wartime” commander in chief.
How can such powers be reconciled with the principles of a free society, especially from a libertarian standpoint?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18276.htm
Continue reading "Empire or Freedom?"
Posted by Admin at 08:51 PM
August 06, 2007
Why Are the Pacifists So Passive?
BEFORE the November elections, many Democratic candidates and legal academics insisted that the Iraq war was illegal and that only Congress, not the president, had the power to manage it under the Constitution. Interestingly, now that Democrats control Capitol Hill, they are fretting that if Congress tried to cut back on funds or troop levels, it might be, well, unconstitutional. Democrats are suddenly acknowledging that the commander in chief and executive branch may be better off without their micromanagement, after all.
Continue reading "Why Are the Pacifists So Passive?"
Posted by Admin at 09:05 PM
The Boot is Descending
This weekend something of tremendous consequence happened. The attitude of the Bush Administration and of the Democratic Leadership is likely to be just about the same: this is nothing, tend to your own work, just move along. The media will dish up some more Paris Hilton to us. Let’s call it by its proper, Orwellian name: “prolefeed.” But indeed, what happened was very important. Another massive sledgehammer blow was taken to the foundations of our democratic institutions. And it was a thoroughly bi-partisan effort.
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/08/boot-is-descending.html
Posted by doctormatt at 09:00 PM
July 30, 2007
NYT calls for impeachement of Gonzales
President Bush often insists he has to be the decider — ignoring Congress and the public when it comes to the tough matters on war, terrorism and torture, even deciding whether an ordinary man in Florida should be allowed to let his wife die with dignity. Apparently that burden does not apply to the functioning of one of the most vital government agencies, the Justice Department.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Continue reading "NYT calls for impeachement of Gonzales"
Posted by Admin at 01:41 AM
July 29, 2007
You Are What You Eat: The politics of pet food
If you are a cat or dog owner, you almost certainly know about the pet food recall associated with numerous pet illnesses and deaths in recent months. But you probably don't know much about the details, or the politics and economics behind the pet food debacle, or how these relate to your family's food. If you thought the food safety problem was limited to pet foods, think again. The Bush administration has gutted the FDA, and all foods are now less safe.
What's in pet food anyway? Why is it "pet food", and not just regular food? Is it especially nutritious and wholesome for pets as most vets would have you believe? The answer is no, pet food is not especially wholesome or nutritious, and in fact it can contain things that should not be in food at all. There are two independent food streams in the United States, human food and pet/animal food. Neither is completely safe, but the animal food stream is particularly suspect.
Continue reading "You Are What You Eat: The politics of pet food"
Posted by Admin at 08:08 PM
Impeach Alberto First
From Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT.
Continue reading "Impeach Alberto First"
Posted by Admin at 11:23 AM
The leak designed to save Alberto Gonzales
Anonymous sources seeking to protect Alberto Gonzales have leaked to the NYT the claim that what triggered the 2004 DOJ dispute over the NSA program "involved computer searches through massive electronic databases" -- i.e, "data mining" of the "records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans." The Post has amplified the leak.
The claim, passed on by anonymous pro-Bush sources, is rather obviously intended to exonerate Alberto Gonzales by claiming that he told the truth when he said that the 2004 DOJ dispute did not involve the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program (because, instead, the dispute concerned "data mining"). Like the well-trained followers that they are, authoritarian Bush supporters are already seizing this leak to proclaim Alberto Gonzales vindicated.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Continue reading "The leak designed to save Alberto Gonzales"
Posted by Admin at 11:17 AM
Forget Third Parties – It Ain’t Gonna Happen: Hijack The Democrats Instead
by David Michael Green
Huge numbers of Americans are disgusted with both the Republican and the Democratic parties right now, and are hungrily clamoring for a third alternative.
I know, I know - imagine that! What’s not to like about one party that stands for greed, murder and destruction, and another that stands by for greed, murder and destruction?
Nevertheless, somehow things are not going so swimmingly in the world of American partisan politics. The arch-Republican in the White House has job approval ratings in the mid-20s and sinking. The former Republican Congress, equally regressive, was tossed out on their ears, losing control of both houses last year. Not to be outdone, the Democrats who gained control of Congress as the expression of an angry public demanding change have spent the last seven months responding to that mandate by doing … well, virtually nothing. Now their standing in public opinion is slightly lower than Bush’s.
So it comes as no surprise that tens of millions of Americans are fed up with both parties and anxious to find something else that they can not only vote for in good conscience, but can actually win. I, too, have shared that dream, have voted third party, and have even volunteered for one during a presidential election campaign. Remember Barry Commoner? Remember his candidacy for president as the leader of the Citizen’s Party in 1980?
Yeah, well, I rest my case. Third party alternatives to hopelessly nihilistic Republicans, hopelessly equivocal Democrats, and the hopelessly self-serving lot of them make total sense except for one small problem. They can’t win.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/27/2797/print/
Continue reading "Forget Third Parties – It Ain’t Gonna Happen: Hijack The Democrats Instead"
Posted by Admin at 11:09 AM
July 27, 2007
Bill Moyers on Impeachment
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/watch.html
Posted by Admin at 09:00 AM
July 25, 2007
Stacked Jurists - Cartoon
http://www.troubletown.com/cartoons/03.html
Posted by doctormatt at 06:34 PM
Breakfast with bin Laden
Sorry - I forgot to be scared....
Part 1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/24/terrorist_fry_up/
Part 2
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/25/up_the_tigris_without_a_paddle/
Continue reading "Breakfast with bin Laden"
Posted by Admin at 03:40 PM
July 24, 2007
Impeachment is Not about Getting Revenge
It is Reaffirming the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law
We are now seeing the same reaction that followed the Nixon era. As the evidence mounted about Nixon's high crimes and misdemeanors the call for impeachment grew from a murmur to a roar heard round the country. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President of the United States the power of "reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of Impeachment." Nixon knew that if he was impeached, he would be tried for his crimes with no possibility of pardon. A deal was cut, he resigned and was pardoned for his high crimes and misdemeanors and allowed to go his way. One of the arguments at the time was that the nation had gone through a time of great travail and it was time to move on. Some thought an impeachment and trial would denigrate the presidency.
Nothing could have denigrated the office of the President more than letting a liar; thief and crook walk away from his crimes, unpunished. That sent a signal that any well placed two-bit crook could gain the office of the President, do anything he wanted, then walk away with no consequences. Look at what has happened since.
http://www.populistamerica.com/impeachment_is_not_about_getting_revenge
Continue reading "Impeachment is Not about Getting Revenge"
Posted by Admin at 06:13 PM
Office Arrests: The Shame of John Conyers
By Dave Lindorff
If Rosa Parks had lived two years longer, what happened today in the halls of Congress might have killed her. It certainly would have broken her heart.
Rep. John Conyers, venerable member of Congress, finally chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a man who worked with Parks in Alabama and then hired her on his staff after he won election to Congress in Detroit, today had several dozen impeachment activists, including Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan, Iraq Veteran Against the War activist Lennox Yearwood and Intelligence Veterans for Sanity founder Ray McGovern arrested for conducting a sit-in in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Continue reading "Office Arrests: The Shame of John Conyers"
Posted by Admin at 11:30 AM
July 23, 2007
Fascism Anyone?
By Laurence W. Britt
The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2
Continue reading "Fascism Anyone?"
Posted by Admin at 08:33 PM
July 13, 2007
Satiric video "Feel Good, Inc."
Laugh or cry as Bush and Rove sing and dance.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid823433113/bctid1111464757
Posted by Admin at 07:36 PM
July 07, 2007
Politics without spirituality is trying to wipe off blood with blood
It's time to put to bed once and for all the foolishness of discounting spirituality in the name of political activism.
Political activism has its place. Yes, the petitions help (we hope!) and so do demonstrations and getting out the vote. 2006 was a "failure" not in the sense of explaining away the heroic efforts to support liberal/progressive candidates, but only in the sense that nearly all of the allegedly liberal/progressive candidates turned out to be closet Republicans.
In short, 2006 proved beyond of shadow of a doubt that we have a ONE party system, i.e., the Democratic/Republican Party. Diaper dems and Nazi pugs are two sides of the same coin and political activism turned out to be much ado about nothing.
Continue reading "Politics without spirituality is trying to wipe off blood with blood"
Posted by Admin at 02:03 PM
July 05, 2007
Libby cartoon commentary
http://www.sacbee.com/babin/image_media/255278.html
Posted by Admin at 04:47 PM
What was Bush thinking?
Washington Post OpEd on the Libby commutation (and possible pardon):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/05/BL2007070500940_pf.html
Posted by Admin at 04:34 PM
July 04, 2007
Joe Wilson: Springing Libby Shows Administration Is "Corrupt to the Core"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070307A.shtml
Posted by Admin at 06:26 PM
Bush, Cheney Should Resign - Special comment by Keith Olbermann
Olbermann on the commutation of Libby's sentence.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070407Y.shtml
Posted by Admin at 06:19 PM
July 03, 2007
The Misunderestimated Mr. Cheney
The Vice President's Record of Willfully Violating the Law, And Wrongly Claiming Authority to Do So
By JOHN W. DEAN
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070629.html
----
Friday, Jun. 29, 2007
Vice President Dick Cheney has regularly claimed that he is above the law, but until recently he has not offered any explanation of why.
In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a law that Cheney believes does apply to him, whether that law be major or minor. For example, he has claimed that most of the laws passed in the aftermath of Watergate were unconstitutional, and thus implicitly inapplicable. His office oversees signing statements claiming countless new laws will not be honored except insofar as the President's extremely narrow interpretation allows. He does not believe the War Powers Act should be honored by the President. Nor, in his view, should the President be bothered with laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In fact, it appears Cheney has actively encouraged defiance of such laws by the Bush Administration.
Continue reading "The Misunderestimated Mr. Cheney"
Posted by doctormatt at 06:29 AM
Unimpeachably Impeachable
By Ray McGovern
While President George W. Bush bears the ultimate responsibility, the nature of the evidence against Cheney and his closest associates is so specific and overwhelming that it makes sense to impeach and bring him to trial first.
Subpoenas from Capitol Hill are flying downtown into executive office buildings like paper airplanes, but the potential for obfuscation and delay is immense, and the danger to the Republic speaks for a more urgent, simpler approach.
Continue reading "Unimpeachably Impeachable"
Posted by Admin at 06:20 AM | TrackBack
June 14, 2007
The Mother Ship Lands in Iraq
U.S. "Embassy"
The Colossus of Baghdad - Wonder of the Imperial World
by Tom Engelhardt
Continue reading "The Mother Ship Lands in Iraq"
Posted by Admin at 03:36 PM
June 09, 2007
The Real Reason for Bush’s Invasion of Iraq is a National Security Secret
By Paul Craig Roberts
War without cause is murder, not war.
American soldiers have been fighting and dying in Iraq since 2003, and Americans do not know why.
All the reasons President Bush gave us for his war are false. Bush said he invaded Iraq “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.”
We now know that these were false claims. Disinformation about Iraq was produced by a special unit within the Pentagon run by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith. The unit operated outside the normal intelligence channels of the CIA and DIA. Its purpose was to create false intelligence to enable Bush to initiate war with Iraq.
Continue reading "The Real Reason for Bush’s Invasion of Iraq is a National Security Secret"
Posted by Admin at 11:27 PM
June 08, 2007
Bargaining with Russia to contain Iran
RELATIONS BETWEEN the United States and Russia have hit their lowest point since the Cold War. Just last week , Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of igniting a global arms race and blasted those "who want to dictate their will to all others regardless of international norms and law" -- a comment clearly aimed at the United States. That comes on top of Putin's remarks earlier this spring, in which he appeared to liken the United States to Germany's Third Reich. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Russia, at times, "seems to think and act in the zero-sum terms of another era."
This growing tension has real and dangerous implications for US security: Washington is struggling to get Russia's help in sanctioning Iran for its nuclear program -- one of the top American defense priorities. If we in the United States want that help, we need to offer something in return.
Continue reading "Bargaining with Russia to contain Iran"
Posted by Admin at 12:11 PM
June 07, 2007
Noam Chomsky - Interventions
Audio and transcript of interview regarding his new book.
http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=1566
Posted by doctormatt at 12:09 AM
The Price of Free Airwaves
As a member of the Federal Communications Commission, I often hear how fed up Americans are with the news media. Too much “if it bleeds it leads” on the evening news and not enough real coverage of local issues. Too little high-quality entertainment and too many people eating bugs.
It doesn’t have to be this way. America lets radio and TV broadcasters use public airwaves worth more than half a trillion dollars for free. In return, we require that broadcasters serve the public interest: devoting at least some airtime for worthy programs that inform voters, support local arts and culture and educate our children - in other words, that aspire to something beyond just minimizing costs and maximizing revenue.
Continue reading "The Price of Free Airwaves"
Posted by doctormatt at 12:00 AM
June 02, 2007
U.S. is a theocratic state, says former Canadian ambassador
OTTAWA - Frank McKenna, Canada's former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as "a theocratic state" in which Christian evangelicalism plays a big role in the Republican administration.
"Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government."
He referred to a current congressional investigation in Washington into whether partisan political and religious loyalties were used in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys and immigration judges. He also alluded to a report that 150 graduates of a Christian evangelical school have worked at the White House in recent years.
Continue reading "U.S. is a theocratic state, says former Canadian ambassador"
Posted by Admin at 07:47 PM
Welcome back, Dr. Jack!
While you were gone we here in Oregon passed the nation's first and most logical Physician-Assisted Suicide law, the Oregon Death With Dignity Act. Under it, after a process involving two doctors, and a lot of other screening, those who have a prognosis of six months to live or less, can get (usually) a fatal dose of liquid Nembutal and die peacefully, surrounded by family and friends (if they choose) or in solitude.
The religious fanatics who run things in Washington tried to knock out the law, Dr. Jack. It went to the U.S. Supreme Court. We won.
We're sorry you went to jail for the concept of controlling one's death the way one controls one's life.
Continue reading "Welcome back, Dr. Jack!"
Posted by doctormatt at 11:35 AM
June 01, 2007
Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?
As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media.
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.
Continue reading "Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?"
Posted by Admin at 11:29 AM
May 29, 2007
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
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
May 27, 2007
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
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
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 21, 2007
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
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
May 19, 2007
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
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
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
What Did Bush Know, and When?
The Washington Post | Editorial - Friday 18 May