OUT THE LIARS

Thank you and congratulations! You told the Senate not to confirm David H. Laufman...he has withdrawn

2006-12-20T00:25:00.000-05:00

President Bush's nominee to be Pentagon inspector general has withdrawn from consideration, meaning the Defense Department likely will start a second year without its chief watchdog even as the military spends billions a month in Iraq.

David Laufman, a decorated federal prosecutor, sent Bush a letter last week withdrawing from consideration after the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to hold a vote on his nomination before Congress recessed this year.

Putin reported 'furious' over US payment for Lebanon war, CIA Egypt terror ring

2006-12-20T00:22:00.000-05:00

Reports from the Kremlin today are portraying President Putin as being 'furious' with the American War Leader Bush over his breaking of a promise to the Russian President to not provide US funding to the Israelis for their Lebanese War. Less than 3 weeks after making this promise the United States used a little known provision in their security agreements with Israel to fully pay for the war, and as we can read as reported by Israel's Ynet News Service in their article titled "US to double emergency equipment stored in Israel."

In an even greater affront to Russia, and its supposed Middle Eastern ally Egypt, these reports also accuse the United States of operating a CIA/French Intelligence backed terror ring on Egyptian territory for the recruitment of foreign fighters to be deployed in the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars, but which Egyptian authorities had infiltrated and arrested the American and French Ringleaders, and as we can read as reported by the Forbes News Service in their article titled "Egypt Releases Details on American Man."

Aside from the tragedy of the American and French Governments having to recruit combatants to fight against their own soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is with noted irony that the CIA finds one of its own operatives in the custody of the Egyptian secret police forces at the same time that Italian authorities are preparing to indict 26 CIA agents for the kidnapping and turning over to those same Egyptian secret police an Egyptian Cleric, and as we can read as reported by the AP News Service in their article titled "Italian Court Moves Closer To Indicting CIA Agents."

MI5 chief quits as full story of July 7 is about to emerge

2006-12-20T00:21:00.000-05:00

The head of MI5 has resigned weeks before full details of the role of her agents in a surveillance operation involving two of the July 7 bombers are due to be revealed.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, whose organisation has been at the forefront of the war on terror, is leaving after more than four years as director general.

[See liquid bomber plot story below]

McVeigh Video Destroys OKC Bombing Official Story

2006-12-20T00:18:00.000-05:00

Video shows McVeigh was in military receiving instruction in "explosives and demolition" over a year after official story says he was discharged, whistleblower harassed for years while unknowingly in possession of bombshell tape.

A video that shows Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh at a U.S. military base that specializes in explosives and demolition training over a year after he supposedly left the army puts the official story of the April 19 1995 federal building bombing under serious doubt and mandates a re-opening of an investigation into the terror attack that killed 168 people.

The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006 from the Financial Times

2006-12-20T00:14:00.000-05:00

10. Hackable Passports
09. What’s Worse Than Bird Flu? The Cure.
08. Petro Powers Drop the Dollar
07. The Gender Gap Gets Smaller
06. Iran and Israel Hold Secret Talks
05. United States Funds the Taliban
04. Russia Fuels Latin American Arms Race
03. Bush’s Post-Katrina Power Grab
02. China Runs up African Debt
01. India Helps Iran Build the Bomb, While the White House Looks the Other Way

UK 'plot' terror charge dropped

2006-12-20T00:10:00.000-05:00

A Pakistani judge has ruled there is not enough evidence to try a key suspect in an alleged airline bomb plot on terrorism charges.

He has moved the case of Rashid Rauf, a Briton, from an anti-terrorism court to a regular court, where he faces lesser charges such as forgery.

Pakistan has presented Mr Rauf as one of the ringleaders behind the alleged plan to blow up flights out of London.

[This was the liquid bomber...glad to know that your 3oz limit was put in place for good reason...]

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

2006-12-20T00:07:00.000-05:00

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

TEEN GOES NUCLEAR: He creates fusion in his Oakland Township home

2006-12-20T00:02:00.000-05:00

On the surface, Thiago Olson is like any typical teenager.

He's on the cross country and track teams at Stoney Creek High School in Rochester Hills. He's a good-looking, clean-cut 17-year-old with a 3.75 grade point average, and he has his eyes fixed on the next big step: college.

But to his friends, Thiago is known as "the mad scientist."

In the basement of his parents' Oakland Township home, tucked away in an area most aren't privy to see, Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on a project that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and build -- a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear fusion.

Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?

2006-12-19T23:55:00.000-05:00

In 1968, Robert Kennedy seemed likely to follow his brother, John, into the White House. Then, on June 6, he was assassinated - apparently by a lone gunman. But Shane O'Sullivan says he has evidence implicating three CIA agents in the murder.

Video from the BBC program

BBC Footage 9/11:The Twin Towers Shows Positive Proof of Explosives

2006-12-19T23:52:00.000-05:00

On September 7, 2006 the BBC showed a special anniversary program for the anniversary of 911 events. The show was called "911: The TwinTowers". The video is of great significance as you can see and hear the Tower being demolished and hear the sequence of charges.

The sound allegedly has not been enhanced in any way and is even distorted by the Google encoding yet sets itself in accord with the testimony of most eyewitness testimony. That includes testimony from the FDNY firefighters.

Michael Meiring, possible CIA asset, responsible for boming in Asia, back safely in USA

2006-12-19T23:41:00.000-05:00

Michael Meiring is a man at the center of a mystery, a fugitive from justice, a man who may be closer than you think. And it began in 2002 in Spring and half a world a way in the Philippines where Davao City was fighting its own war with terrorism and losing.

At the Evergreen Hotel a bomb went off damaging the building and leaving a victim, Michael Meiring, a South African-born American citizen and self-proclaimed treasure hunter.

He was rushed to the hospital where doctors soon realized he would lose his legs.

Soon after Michael Meiring was gone, vanished and eventually removed from the Philippines- allegedly with the help of officials from the United States Embassy which issued a denial of any involvement in Meiring's departure.

Police bomb experts determined the center of the blast came from a metal box, now destroyed, that Meiring had been keeping in his room.

And affidavits from hotel employees state Meiring told them for weeks not to touch the box when cleaning the room and to not to use any chemicals either.

So what was inside?

First, a lab report showed the explosive was ammonium nitrate.

Then a bomb officer said they found the remains of two 6-volt batteries, an electric blasting cap, and other items including a circuit board.

Davao City prosecutor Raul Bendigo says the explosion was caused by an improvised bomb Meiring was keeping in his room.

"They had evidence to prove that the bomb was already assembled," he said.

And he added that, "If blowing up a building qualifies one as a terrorist, and I suppose that should qualify one as a terrorist, then Mr. Meiring would be a terrorist."

Excellent article with links on the topic of Meiring

Transcription from the Phillipine Senate where Meiring is discussed as a spy suspect...one of a long list. [see document page 247]

We're All Prisoners, Now: US Citizens to be Required ''Clearance'' to Leave USA

2006-12-19T23:16:00.000-05:00

Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14, 2007, we'll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (HSA) has proposed that all airlines, cruise lines-even fishing boats-be required to obtain clearance for each passenger they propose taking into or out of the United States.

It doesn't matter if you have a U.S. Passport - a "travel document" that now, absent a court order to the contrary, gives you a virtually unqualified right to enter or leave the United States, any time you want. When the DHS system comes into effect next January, if the agency says "no" to a clearance request, or doesn't answer the request at all, you won't be permitted to enter-or leave-the United States.

Why might the HSA deny you permission to leave-or enter-the United States? No one knows, because the entire clearance procedure would be an administrative determination made secretly, with no right of appeal. Naturally, the decision would be made without a warrant, without probable cause and without even any particular degree of
suspicion.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history that didn't allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission. If these regulations go into effect, you can add the United States to this list.

For more information on this proposed regulation click here.

USDA Approves Genetically Engineered Rice Contaminating Food Supply

2006-12-19T23:12:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today (11/26/06) granted marketing approval of a genetically-engineered (GE) rice variety following its illegal contamination of the food supply and rice exports, first announced three months ago. The controversial decision was taken despite the insistence of its developer, Bayer CropScience, that it dropped plans to commercialize the variety, known as LibertyLink601 (LL601), five years ago.

"With this decision, USDA is telling agricultural biotechnology companies that it doesn't matter if you're negligent, if you break the rules, if you contaminate the food supply with untested genetically engineered crops, we'll bail you out," said Joseph Mendelson, Legal Director of the Center for Food Safety. "In effect, USDA is sanctioning an 'approval-by-contamination' policy that can only increase the likelihood of untested genetically engineered crops entering the food supply in the future, and further erode trust in the wholesomeness of U.S. food overseas," he added.

Bush changes requirements for Executive reporting to the Congress regarding Arms Exports

2006-12-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

From the October 24th Federal Register:

Pursuant to section 654(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, notice is hereby given that:

(1) On August 18, 2006, the President made a determination pursuant to section 36 of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended; and (2) The President has concluded that publication of such determination would be harmful to the national security of the United States.

Seems harmless enough, right? Well, consider this: Section 36 of the Arms Export Control Act mandates that the Presiden transmit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate detailed accounts relating to the sale, proposed sale, or agreement to sell defense articles to a foreign country and/or international organization. Within these transmittals the President is required to be very specific as to the purchaser, the United States Government department or agency responsible for implementing the sale, type, quantity, and dollar value of any listed transactions.

This is just one small facet of this section of this law. There are many other provisions such as applications for export licensing that require Congressional notification. Essentially, this section allows the Congress to monitor what the President is doing with US defense technology and weaponry.

What exactly did the President determine regarding this law? Why couldn't it be disclosed publically when the section deals only with reporting to the Congress? What is he trying to hide? My guess is that he determined to ignore it. We shall see what, if any, transmittals come across the pages of the Federal Register in the future.

So Now Iraq Is For Oil, Bush Admits

2006-12-19T22:32:00.000-05:00

For years, there was one word that would not pass the President’s lips in regards to Iraq, and that word is oil.

No, we couldn’t possibly be in Iraq for that, Bush and his flunkies told us. The U.S. motives were so much more noble than that.

Never mind that Iraq sits upon the second largest oil reserves in the world, and that Bush and Cheney are oil guys, and that Cheney himself had maps of Iraq’s oil fields prior to the invasion, and that our invading forces took over the oil fields first, and once our troops got to Baghdad they protected only the oil ministry.

Throughout the lead-up to the war and well past the fall of Baghdad, oil was the great unmentionable.

But now Bush himself is mentioning it.

At his press conference on Wednesday (10/11/06), he brought up the dirty little word three times as a reason for the United States now to stay in Iraq.

“We can’t tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West,” he said the first time.

“Extreme elements” in Iraq “want to control oil resources,” he said at second reference.

“They’ve got the capacity to use oil as an economic weapon,” he said the third time.

This is beyond cynical.

George W. Bush, Barbara Bush, and Aleister Crowley

2006-12-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

Very interesting...

Few people understand that one of the most notorious individuals in British history may have contributed to the lineage of our current president. Aleister Crowley, a.k.a., "The Great Beast 666" -- the infamous practitioner of "sex magick" whose motto was "Do What Thou Wilt" -- came to know a great many remarkable people, including the maternal grandmother of George W. Bush. "Know," in this case, may be taken in the Biblical sense. Evidence points to the disturbing possibility that he was the true father of Barbara Bush, the former First Lady and mother to George W. Bush.

The story may seem difficult to believe at first, until one learns more about the social inter-relations that tied together these unlikely parties. Specifically, we must focus on a fascinating woman named Pauline Pierce, born Pauline Robinson -- whose third child was named Barbara.

North Korea Sets Off Nuke

2006-10-09T01:55:00.000-04:00

North Korea announced Monday (Oct. 9) that it successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, ignoring repeated warnings from the international community.

The self-proclaimed test, the first by the communist state, dealt a serious blow to international efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis through dialogue, as well as spark an arms race in the region.

In a report by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the communist regime said the test earlier Monday was carried out safely and successfully.

South Korea's presidential office Chong Wa Dae said the country's state geology research center detected a 3.58-3.7 magnitude tremor in the North's remote area of North Hamgyong Province at around 10:36 a.m (local).

The U.N. Security Council is expected to deal sternly with the North's nuclear test, if it is confirmed to have taken place.

Last week, the council issued a chairman's statement in response to Pyongyang's public threat on Oct. 3 that it would push for a nuclear test due to Washington's hostile policy.

Termination set for Iraq monitor

2006-10-09T01:06:00.000-04:00

Congress has set a 2007 termination date for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction at the behest of the Bush administration, removing the source of a series of audit reports that have emboldened critics of the president's war polices.

The just-completed Pentagon authorization bill ends Special Inspector General of Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), as the post is called, on Oct. 1, 2007. The bill, which has yet to be signed by President Bush, calls for the work to be transferred to inspectors general for the Pentagon, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department. State runs reconstruction in Iraq.

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a former Bush aide whom the president appointed as special inspector general in January 2004, has issued a series of reports and audits on a reconstruction effort dogged by incessant insurgent attacks and mismanagement.
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Who, you may ask, will be responsible for oversight? None other than former CIA official David H. Laufman, should his appointment by Bush for the IG spot at DoD get approved. Say goodbye to even more of your money.

Laufman was one of the "cleaners" who as part of the House Task Force investigating the 1980 October Surprise, where American hostages in Iran were witheld until Reagan's swearing-in, ignored pertinent information that Republicans (George H.W. Bush was an involved participant) held illegal, back door meetings with the Iranians in Paris to secure Reagan's victory in the presidential election by keeping the Americans away from an early (read: Carter) release.

SIGIR's website

British Find No Evidence Of Arms Traffic From Iran

2006-10-09T01:02:00.000-04:00

ON THE IRAQ-IRAN BORDER -- Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the desert in the start of what British officers said would be months of patrols aimed at finding the illicit weapons trafficking from Iran, or any sign of it.

There's just one thing.

"I suspect there's nothing out there," the commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."

Other senior British military leaders spoke as explicitly in interviews over the previous two months. Britain, whose forces have had responsibility for security in southeastern Iraq since the war began, has found nothing to support the Americans' contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq, several senior military officials said.

"I have not myself seen any evidence -- and I don't think any evidence exists -- of government-supported or instigated" armed support on Iran's part in Iraq, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in an interview in Baghdad in late August.

Rove aide quits -- she took gifts, gave Abramoff inside information

2006-10-09T00:07:00.000-04:00

A top aide to White House strategist Karl Rove resigned yesterday after disclosures that she accepted gifts from and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the influence-peddling scandal.

Susan Ralston submitted her resignation to avoid causing political damage for President Bush a month before the midterm elections, officials said.

"She did not want to be a distraction to the White House at this important time," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

As right hand to Rove, the president's most important adviser, Ralston was closer to the center of the Bush operation. She was a key organizer of presidential events, coordinating with White House political, scheduling, advance and public liaison offices.

The Bush administration insider, who is in her 30s, had been Abramoff's administrative assistant and, after Bush took office, assumed the same post with Rove.
______________________

The 'secret world' of Jack Abramoff being probed by investigators today has definite connections and unmistakable links to the one inhabited during their final year in the U.S by Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers.

One of the most amazing things about this scandal is that some of the same names in the Abramoff scandal also surface in connection with Mohamed Atta’s.

Less than a week before the 9.11 attack, for example, Atta and several other hijackers made a still-unexplained visit onboard one of Abramoff’s casino boats.

What were they doing there? No one knows.

Abramoff-Atta connection
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So, with these items laid out we can connect, by four or less degrees of separation, George W. Bush and Mohammed Atta.

Even more troubling is that considering Bush personally squashed an investigation of Abramoff back in 2002, it would appear Bush had reason to want to protect Abramoff, or, at least, his relationship to him.

Doesn't look good, does it? How connected to the 9/11 attacks is Bush II, really?

More on Bush's use of signing statements

2006-10-08T23:38:00.000-04:00

Boston Globe: Bush signings called effort to expand power

President Bush's frequent use of signing statements to assert that he has the power to disobey newly enacted laws is ``an integral part" of his ``comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" at the expense of the legislative branch, according to a report by the non partisan Congressional Research Service.

In a 27-page report written for lawmakers, the research service said the Bush administration is using signing statements as a means to slowly condition Congress into accepting the White House's broad conception of presidential power, which includes a presidential right to ignore laws he believes are unconstitutional.

Under most interpretations of the Constitution, the report said, some of the legal assertions in Bush's signing statements are dubious. For example, it said, the administration has suggested repeatedly that the president has exclusive authority over foreign affairs and has an absolute right to withhold information from Congress. Such assertions are ``generally unsupported by established legal principles," the report said.

Bush has used signing statements to challenge more than 800 laws that place limits or requirements on the executive branch, saying they intrude on his constitutional powers. By contrast, all previous presidents challenged a combined total of about 600 laws.

Extensive article on the topic from the Boston Globe

Examples of some of Bush's signing statements
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NY Daily News: W sez he can tinker with privacy reports

President Bush, again defying Congress, insisted he has the power to alter the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watch lists.

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on agency activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
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Bush Asserts Constitutional Right To Hire Incompetent People At FEMA

On Wednesday, the President signed “The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007.” In response to FEMA’s disastrous response to Katrina — led by the former Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, Michael Brown (a.k.a. Brownie) — Congress included some minimum professional requirements for FEMA’s director. From the bill:

2. QUALIFICATIONS.- The Administrator shall be appointed from among individuals who have-
A. a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security; and
B. not less than 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector.

President Bush, however, released a “signing statement” at the time he signed the bill. In it, he asserted his constitutional right to continue to install incompetent FEMA administrators. From the statement released by the President:

Section 503(c)(2) vests in the President authority to appoint the Administrator, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the President may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office. The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(2) in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

It’s unclear how requiring someone to have five years of management experience and some knowledge of emergency management “rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified.” Georgetown Law School professor Marty Lederman noted, “It’s hard to imagine a more modest and reasonable congressional response to the Michael Brown fiasco,” he said.
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From the recent Congressional Research Service report on Presidential Signing Statements:

"The large bulk of the signing statements the Bush II Administration has issued to date do not apply particularized constitutional rationales to specific scenarios, nor do they contain explicit, measurable refusals to enforce a law. Instead, the statements make broad and largely hortatory assertions of executive authority that make it effectively impossible to ascertain what factors, if any, might lead to substantive constitutional or interpretive conflict in the implementation of an act. The often vague nature of these constitutional challenges, coupled with the pervasive manner in which they have been raised in numerous signing statements could thus be interpreted as an attempt by the Administration to systematically object to any perceived congressional encroachment, however slight, with the aim of inuring the other branches of government and the public to the validity of such objections and the attendant conception of presidential authority that will presumably follow from sustained exposure and acquiescence to such claims of power."

Earlier posts on signing statements

US Paying Pakistan $70-80 Million a Month

2006-10-08T23:33:00.000-04:00

A British analyst has stirred a hornet's nest by revealing that the United States is bankrolling Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf to the extent of $70-80 million a month, adding fuel to the dictator's incendiary visit to the West this month.

The unnamed analyst has made the disclosure in a British ministry of defence think-tank paper that has subsequently been disowned by London as "not representing the views of the MoD or the government."

While much attention has been drawn to the analyst's contention that Pakistan's spy agency ISI is supporting terrorism, the portion about the payola for Musharraf, as reported by BBC, has embarrassed Washington, which is already chafing from Musharraf's own disclosure that the US paid bounty money to the Pakistan government for handing over wanted Al Qaida terrorists.

"Musharraf knows that time is running out for him...at some point the US is likely to withdraw funding (and possibly even protection) of him estimated at $70-80 million a month," the analyst wrote, adding, "Without US funding his position will become increasingly tenuous."

While it is possible the analyst might have meant US funding Pakistan (and not Musharraf individually), the latest flap comes on top of Musharraf's own claim that the CIA has paid the Government of Pakistan undisclosed sum of reward money.

He later retracted the claim when faced with questioning arising from the fact that it is illegal for the US to pay governments. He then indicated the payments may have gone to individuals but did not identify the individuals. The Bush administration has refused to comment on the matter.

Time Warner Gives Bush-Bashing Comic the Hook

2006-10-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

Is Time Warner getting into the censorship business? A host of Showtime at the Apollo claims he got the hook for angering top brass at the media megaconglomerate with jokes about President George W. Bush.

Comic Paul Mooney (most recently of Chappelle's Show) was midway through a taping of the famed Harlem theater's weekly variety show when the plug was abruptly pulled. Mooney claims the show's producer, Suzanne de Passe, told him material in his monologue had offended unnamed officials from Time Warner, whose chairman, Richard Parsons, heads the Apollo Theater Foundation's board of directors and is among the country's most prominent black Republicans. De Passe was traveling and unreachable for comment, but a Time Warner spokeswoman called the story "ridiculous." "It's absolutely untrue" that the company had anything to do with the incident, she says, noting that Parsons was out of the country at the time.

Mooney, however, seems certain who shut him down. "They wanted me out of there, the Republicans, the Time Warner people," he says. "They said I was Bush bashing, and it was hatred. I felt like I was in Iran or Cuba or somewhere."

After everything that's been said about Bush at this point, how did Mooney manage to provoke such a harsh response? "I talked about his little drunk daughters, Gin and Juice," he says, referring to Jenna and Barbara Bush. "I talked about his mother, who looks like the man on the oatmeal box." Mooney also did a bit on how the letters in Bush's name can be manipulated to produce the number 666, proving Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's recent claim that Bush is the devil.

Bush decides to continue harboring a terrorist

2006-10-08T20:27:00.000-04:00

Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is to remain in a U.S. immigration detention center for now, and authorities say the criminal should continue searching for a third country that will take him in, despite an extradition application submitted by Venezuela.

The day before the 30th anniversary of the criminal attack on a Cubana airliner, representatives of the George W. Bush government insisted that Posada Carriles should be held until shelter is found for him outside the United States, but are ignoring the fact that his terrorist crimes remain unpunished.

Posada was also told that the Department of Homeland Security is considering, in consultation with the State Department, whether or not to continue his detention because "his release may have serious adverse foreign policy consequences in the United States," Zamarripa said. [This should be understood to mean that if he is released everything that Bush and Co. have been saying about their obligations to detain terrorists, and harboring them equates to being one is bull.]

The decision comes after U.S. Magistrate Norbert Garney ruled on September 11 that Posada should be released while the government finds a country to deport him to.
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The National Security Archive has documents that show that the CIA (George H.W. Bush was the director at this time) had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner.
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Luis Posada Carriles is a former CIA operative who was trained by the U.S. Army at Fort Benning in Georgia.

So he is "our" terrorist...which makes everything OK.
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From the BBC: US accused of 'terror hypocrisy'

Venezuela has said the US will be guilty of double standards on terrorism if it does not extradite a Cuban exile wanted over the bombing of a plane.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the man, Luis Posada Carriles, was "a self-confessed terrorist".

He said the US had no choice but to send him back to Venezuela, where he escaped from jail two decades ago.

Venezuela wants the man to stand trial over the bombing of the Cuban plane in 1976 that killed 73 people.
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Posada’s future lies in the court’s hands, and any intervention by the White House on behalf of his case would be considered offensive.

However, such political maneuvering is not unprecedented; in 1990 President George H. W. Bush overruled his own Department of Justice and had Orlando Bosch - a known international terrorist and Posada’s former partner-in-crime in the airline bombing- released from a Florida prison and granted asylum.

Bosch now enjoys his mysteriously granted freedom in Miami.

In today’s post-9/11 milieu, a similar move by the current administration would seriously undermine the credibility of the Bush doctrine.

Arrest over Cheney barb triggers lawsuit

2006-10-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

A Denver-area man filed a lawsuit October 3, 2006, against a member of the Secret Service for causing him to be arrested after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney in Beaver Creek this summer and criticized him for his policies concerning Iraq.

Attorney David Lane said that on June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

Here's why Chávez is so mad

2006-10-08T20:20:00.000-04:00

While politicians from across the political spectrum and editorial pages throughout the United States have been taking their shots at Venezuela's Hugo Chávez since his now infamous ''devil'' comment at the United Nations, no one is asking what made him so mad. Seats are getting crowded on the anti-Chávez bandwagon as retailer 7-Eleven announced it will drop Venezuelan-owned Citgo gasoline from its 2,100 service stations in the United States in protest and Florida lawmaker Rep. Adam Hasner has called for Citgo to be kicked off of the state's turnpike.

A quick glance at recent U.S. policy and posture toward Venezuela gives us some clues as to why people in Venezuela are getting set to reelect a president who calls the United States an empire.

A good place to start is the short-lived 2002 coup in Venezuela. While the United States publicly denies any role in the coup, numerous published reports show that at the very least the United States had a cozy relationship with many of the opposition figures who allegedly planned the coup and immediately welcomed the overthrow of the democratically elected president.

Do you think President Bush and Karl Rove would be upset if the tables were turned and Chávez were funding a 527 group supporting the Democrats in the mid-term elections?

At the same time, the United States is stepping up its spying efforts in Venezuela. In August the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, announced the creation of a new ''mission manager'' position for Venezuela and Cuba. According to the State Department, the only other countries in the world with ''mission managers'' based out of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are Iran and North Korea. Unconfirmed reports among security analysts suggest a recent 50 percent increase in CIA agents operating in Venezuela.

The century of drought

2006-10-08T20:13:00.000-04:00

One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100, say climate experts in the most dire warning yet of the effects of global warming

Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century because of global warming, according to a new study from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

The research shows that extreme drought could affect 30 percent of the world's land surface, up from the current span of 3 percent. Severe drought will affect 40 percent of the earth's land, up from eight percent, and moderate drought, which currently affects about 25 percent of the world's surface, will rise to 50 percent.

Keith Olbermann on the difference between terrorists and critics

2006-10-08T20:09:00.000-04:00

While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool ...

While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ...

The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.’”

The hell they did.

One hundred seventy-seven Democrats opposed the president’s seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said, “Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we’re attacked again before we respond.”

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind reader.

“If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party,” the president said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, “it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is — wait until we’re attacked again.”

The president doesn’t just hear what he wants.

He hears things that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Yet they do.

It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies of treason.

But it is the context that truly makes the head spin.

Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, “We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us.”

Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.

If your commitment to “put aside differences and work together” is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they’ve said, then the questions your critics need to be asking are no longer about your policies.

They are, instead, solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office.

No Democrat, sir, has ever said anything approaching the suggestion that the best means of self-defense is to “wait until we’re attacked again.”

No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday ... nor whatever is next.

You have dishonored your party, sir; you have dishonored your supporters; you have dishonored yourself.

But tonight the stark question we must face is — why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?

In less than one month you have gone from a flawed call to unity to this clarion call to hatred of Americans, by Americans.

If this is not simply the most shameless example of the rhetoric of political hackery, then it would have to be the cry of a leader crumbling under the weight of his own lies.

We have, of course, survived all manner of political hackery, of every shape, size and party. We will have to suffer it, for as long as the Republic stands.

But the premise of a president who comes across as a compulsive liar is nothing less than terrifying.

A president who since 9/11 will not listen, is not listening — and thanks to Bob Woodward’s most recent account — evidently has never listened.

A president who since 9/11 so hates or fears other Americans that he accuses them of advocating deliberate inaction in the face of the enemy.

A president who since 9/11 has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack — attack by terrorists, or by Democrats, or by both — it is now impossible to find a consistent thread of logic as to who Mr. Bush believes the enemy is.

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

How often do we find priceless truth in the unlikeliest of places?

I tonight quote not Jefferson nor Voltaire, but Cigar Aficionado Magazine.

On Sept. 11th, 2003, the editor of that publication interviewed General Tommy Franks, at that point, just retired from his post as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command — of Cent-Com.

And amid his quaint defenses of the then-nagging absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or the continuing freedom of Osama bin Laden, General Franks said some of the most profound words of this generation.

He spoke of “the worst thing that can happen” to this country:

First, quoting, a “massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western World — it may be in the United States of America.”

Then, the general continued, “the Western World, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years, in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”

It was this super-patriotic warrior’s fear that we would lose that most cherished liberty, because of another attack, one — again quoting General Franks — “that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution.”

And here we are, the fabric of our Constitution being unraveled, anyway.

Habeus corpus neutered; the rights of self-defense now as malleable and impermanent as clay; a president stifling all critics by every means available and, when he runs out of those, by simply lying about what they said or felt.

And all this, even without the dreaded attack.

General Franks, like all of us, loves this country, and believes not just in its values, but in its continuity.

He has been trained to look for threats to that continuity from without.

He has, perhaps been as naïve as the rest of us, in failing to keep close enough vigil on the threats to that continuity from within.

Secretary of State Rice first cannot remember urgent cautionary meetings with counterterrorism officials before 9/11. Then within hours of this lie, her spokesman confirms the meetings in question. Then she dismisses those meetings as nothing new — yet insists she wanted the same cautions expressed to Secretaries Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld, meantime, has been unable to accept the most logical and simple influence of the most noble and neutral of advisers. He and his employer insist they rely on the “generals in the field.” But dozens of those generals have now come forward to say how their words, their experiences, have been ignored.

And, of course, inherent in the Pentagon’s war-making functions is the regulation of presidential war lust.

Enacting that regulation should include everything up to symbolically wrestling the Chief Executive to the floor.

Yet—and it is Pentagon transcripts that now tell us this—evidently Mr. Rumsfeld’s strongest check on Mr. Bush’s ambitions, was to get somebody to excise the phrase “Mission Accomplished” out of the infamous Air Force Carrier speech of May 1st, 2003, even while the same empty words hung on a banner over the President’s shoulder.

And the vice president is a chilling figure, still unable, it seems, to accept the conclusions of his own party’s leaders in the Senate, that the foundations of his public position, are made out of sand.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But he still says so.

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida.

But he still says so.

And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads—around him and before him—darkness, like some contagion of fear.

They are never wrong, and they never regret -- admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

Thus, the sickening attempt to blame the Foley scandal on the negligence of others or “the Clinton era”—even though the Foley scandal began before the Lewinsky scandal.

Thus, last month’s enraged attacks on this administration’s predecessors, about Osama bin Laden—a projection of their own negligence in the immediate months before 9/11.

Thus, the terrifying attempt to hamstring the fundament of our freedom—the Constitution—a triumph for al Qaida, for which the terrorists could not hope to achieve with a hundred 9/11’s.

And thus, worst of all perhaps, these newest lies by President Bush about Democrats choosing to await another attack and not listen to the conversations of terrorists.

It is the terror and the guilt within your own heart, Mr. Bush, that you redirect at others who simply wish for you to temper your certainty with counsel.

It is the failure and the incompetence within your own memory, Mr. Bush, that leads you to demonize those who might merely quote to you the pleadings of Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

It is not the Democrats whose inaction in the face of the enemy you fear, Sir.

It is your own—before 9/11 - and (and you alone know this), perhaps afterwards.

Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.

It is not our freedom, nor our country—your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.

You want to preserve a political party’s power. And obviously you’ll sell this country out, to do it.

These are lies about the Democrats -- piled atop lies about Iraq -- which were piled atop lies about your preparations for al Qaida.

To you, perhaps, they feel like the weight of a million centuries -- as crushing, as immovable.

They are not.

If you add more lies to them, you cannot free yourself, and us, from them.

But if you stop -- if you stop fabricating quotes, and building straw-men, and inspiring those around you to do the same -- you may yet liberate yourself and this nation.

Please, sir, do not throw this country’s principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006

2006-10-01T17:45:00.000-04:00

Torture Bill States Non-Allegiance To Bush Is Terrorism

Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the torture bill contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.

Further actions that result in the classification of an individual as a terrorist include the following.

- Destruction of any property, which is deemed punishable by any means of the military tribunal's choosing.

- Any violent activity whatsoever if it takes place near a designated protected building, such as a charity building.

- A change of the definition of "pillaging" which turns all illegal occupation of property and all theft into terrorism. This makes squatters and petty thieves enemy combatants.

Subsection 4(b) (26) of section 950v. of HR 6166 - Crimes triable by military commissions - includes the following definition.

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."
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Report says detainee plan would pardon U.S. officials

A video report from CNN's Jack Cafferty says that buried deep within the pending plan to create military tribunals for those suspected of terrorism is amnesty for present U.S. officials.

He said that President Bush "is trying to pardon himself" with the plan, which is in the last stage of congressional endorsement and next will go to the president's desk.

"Here's the deal:" Cafferty said. "Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies, in some cases punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Convention applied to al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble.

"They've been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution they're trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week before Congress adjourns," he said.

"The reason there's such a rush to do this? If the Democrats get control of the House in November this kind of legislation probably wouldn't pass," he said.

Cafferty said the "real disgrace" was that Sen. Bill Frist and U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert "and their Republican stooges apparently don't see anything wrong with this. I really do wonder sometimes what we're becoming in this country."

The Chicago Tribune summarized the bill as shielding U.S. officials from prosecution under the War Crimes Act retroactively to 1997. That's when the original law was passed criminalizing violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
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George Bush's vast new powers of detention and interrogation

It is fair to say, given how lopsided this vote was (both in the House and the Senate), that the Republicans are the party of torture, indefinite and unreviewable detention powers, and limitless presidential power, even over U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. By contrast, Democrats have opposed these tyrannical, un-American and truly dangerous measures. Even if Democrats didn't oppose them as vociferously as they could have and should have, this is still a meaningful and, at this point, critically important contrast.
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Congress gives Bush the right to torture and detain people forever

Following in the footsteps of the House, the Senate this afternoon approved the bill which vests in the President the power of indefinite, unreviewable detention (even of U.S. citizens) and which also legalizes various torture techniques. It is not hyperbole to say that this is one of the most tyrannical and dangerous bills to be enacted in our nation’s history.
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The White House Warden

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.

What is worse, if the federal courts support the president's initial detention decision, ordinary Americans would be required to defend themselves before a military tribunal without the constitutional guarantees provided in criminal trials.

Legal residents who aren't citizens are treated even more harshly. The bill entirely cuts off their access to federal habeas corpus, leaving them at the mercy of the president's suspicions.

We are not dealing with hypothetical abuses. The president has already subjected a citizen to military confinement. Consider the case of Jose Padilla. A few months after 9/11, he was seized by the Bush administration as an "enemy combatant" upon his arrival at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. He was wearing civilian clothes and had no weapons. Despite his American citizenship, he was held for more than three years in a military brig, without any chance to challenge his detention before a military or civilian tribunal. After a federal appellate court upheld the president's extraordinary action, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, handing the administration's lawyers a terrible precedent.

The new bill, if passed [NOTE: it has passed both the House and Senate], would further entrench presidential power. At the very least, it would encourage the Supreme Court to draw an invidious distinction between citizens and legal residents. There are tens of millions of legal immigrants living among us, and the bill encourages the justices to uphold mass detentions without the semblance of judicial review.
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In Case I Disappear By William Rivers Pitt

I have been told a thousand times at least, in the years I have spent reporting on the astonishing and repugnant abuses, lies and failures of the Bush administration, to watch my back. "Be careful," people always tell me. "These people are capable of anything. Stay off small planes, make sure you aren't being followed." A running joke between my mother and me is that she has a "safe room" set up for me in her cabin in the woods, in the event I have to flee because of something I wrote or said.

I always laughed and shook my head whenever I heard this stuff. Extreme paranoia wrapped in the tinfoil of conspiracy, I thought. This is still America, and these Bush fools will soon pass into history, I thought. I am a citizen, and the First Amendment hasn't yet been red-lined, I thought.

Matters are different now.

It seems, perhaps, that the people who warned me were not so paranoid. It seems, perhaps, that I was not paranoid enough. Legislation passed by the Republican House and Senate, legislation now marching up to the Republican White House for signature, has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else George W. Bush deems to be an enemy.

So much of this legislation is wretched on the surface. Habeas corpus has been suspended for detainees suspected of terrorism or of aiding terrorism, so the Magna Carta-era rule that a person can face his accusers is now gone. Once a suspect has been thrown into prison, he does not have the right to a trial by his peers. Suspects cannot even stand in representation of themselves, another ancient protection, but must accept a military lawyer as their defender.

Illegally-obtained evidence can be used against suspects, whether that illegal evidence was gathered abroad or right here at home. To my way of thinking, this pretty much eradicates our security in persons, houses, papers, and effects, as stated in the Fourth Amendment, against illegal searches and seizures.

Speaking of collecting evidence, the torture of suspects and detainees has been broadly protected by this new legislation. While it tries to delineate what is and is not acceptable treatment of detainees, in the end, it gives George W. Bush the final word on what constitutes torture. US officials who use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment to extract information from detainees are now shielded from prosecution.

It was two Supreme Court decisions, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that compelled the creation of this legislation. The Hamdi decision held that a prisoner has the right of habeas corpus, and can challenge his detention before an impartial judge. The Hamdan decision held that the military commissions set up to try detainees violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

In short, the Supreme Court wiped out virtually every legal argument the Bush administration put forth to defend its extraordinary and dangerous behavior. The passage of this legislation came after a scramble by Republicans to paper over the torture and murder of a number of detainees. As columnist Molly Ivins wrote on Wednesday, "Of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place."

It seems almost certain that, at some point, the Supreme Court will hear a case to challenge the legality of this legislation, but even this is questionable. If a detainee is not allowed access to a fair trial or to the evidence against him, how can he bring a legal challenge to a court? The legislation, in anticipation of court challenges like Hamdi and Hamdan, even includes severe restrictions on judicial review over the legislation itself.

The Republicans in Congress have managed, at the behest of Mr. Bush, to draft a bill that all but erases the judicial branch of the government. Time will tell whether this aspect, along with all the others, will withstand legal challenges. If such a challenge comes, it will take time, and meanwhile there is this bill. All of the above is deplorable on its face, indefensible in a nation that prides itself on Constitutional rights, protections and the rule of law.

Underneath all this, however, is where the paranoia sets in.

Underneath all this is the definition of "enemy combatant" that has been established by this legislation. An "enemy combatant" is now no longer just someone captured "during an armed conflict" against our forces. Thanks to this legislation, George W. Bush is now able to designate as an "enemy combatant" anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."

Consider that language a moment. "Purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" is in the eye of the beholder, and this administration has proven itself to be astonishingly impatient with criticism of any kind. The broad powers given to Bush by this legislation allow him to capture, indefinitely detain, and refuse a hearing to any American citizen who speaks out against Iraq or any other part of the so-called "War on Terror."

If you write a letter to the editor attacking Bush, you could be deemed as purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States. If you organize or join a public demonstration against Iraq, or against the administration, the same designation could befall you. One dark-comedy aspect of the legislation is that senators or House members who publicly disagree with Bush, criticize him, or organize investigations into his dealings could be placed under the same designation. In effect, Congress just gave Bush the power to lock them up.

By writing this essay, I could be deemed an "enemy combatant." It's that simple, and very soon, it will be the law. I always laughed when people told me to be careful. I'm not laughing anymore.

In case I disappear, remember this. America is an idea, a dream, and that is all. We have borders and armies and citizens and commerce and industry, but all this merely makes us like every other nation on this Earth. What separates us is the idea, the simple idea, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our organizing principles. We can think as we please, speak as we please, write as we please, worship as we please, go where we please. We are protected from the kinds of tyranny that inspired our creation as a nation in the first place.

That was the idea. That was the dream. It may all be over now, but once upon a time, it existed. No good idea ever truly dies. The dream was here, and so was I, and so were you.
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Amnesty International review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006
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Senate roll call vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Link to S. 3930 [Senate Version of the Military Commissions Act of 2006] on THOMAS
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House roll call vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Link to H.R. 6166 [House Version of the Military Commissions Act of 2006] on THOMAS
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May god bless you and keep you and shine his countenance upon you. You will need it.

Legislating Violations of the Constitution

2006-10-01T17:41:00.000-04:00

With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion.

A federal statute, 42 United States Code section 1988, provides that attorneys are entitled to recover compensation for their fees if they successfully represent a plaintiff asserting a violation of his or her constitutional or civil rights. For example, a lawyer who successfully sues on behalf of a victim of racial discrimination or police abuse is entitled to recover attorney's fees from the defendant who acted wrongfully. Any plaintiff who successfully sues to remedy a violation of the Constitution or a federal civil rights statute is entitled to have his or her attorney's fees paid.

Despite the effectiveness of this statute, conservatives in the House of Representatives have now passed an insidious bill to try and limit enforcement of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, by denying attorneys fees to lawyers who successfully challenge government actions as violating this key constitutional provision. For instance, a lawyer who successfully challenged unconstitutional prayers in schools or unconstitutional symbols on religious property or impermissible aid to religious groups would -- under the bill -- not be entitled to recover attorneys' fees. The bill, if enacted, would treat suits to enforce the Establishment Clause different from litigation to enforce all of the other provisions of the Constitution and federal civil rights statutes.

Such a bill could have only one motive: to protect unconstitutional government actions advancing religion. The religious right, which has been trying for years to use government to advance their religious views, wants to reduce the likelihood that their efforts will be declared unconstitutional. Since they cannot change the law of the Establishment Clause by statute, they have turned their attention to trying to prevent its enforcement by eliminating the possibility for recovery of attorneys' fees.

Link to info on the bill from THOMAS

Senior intel official: Pentagon moves to second-stage planning for Iran strike option

2006-10-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

The Pentagon's top brass has moved into second-stage contingency planning for a potential military strike on Iran, one senior intelligence official familiar with the plans tells RAW STORY.

The official, who is close to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking officials of each branch of the US military, says the Chiefs have started what is called "branches and sequels" contingency planning.

"The JCS has accepted the inevitable," the intelligence official said, "and is engaged in serious contingency planning to deal with the worst case scenarios that the intelligence community has been painting."

A second military official, although unfamiliar with these latest scenarios, said there is a difference between contingency planning -- which he described as "what if, then what" planning -- and "branches and sequels," which takes place after an initial plan has been decided upon.

Adding to the concern of both military and intelligence officials alike is the nuclear option, the possibility of pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons targeting alleged WMD facilities in Iran.
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Retired Colonel: ‘We Are Conducting Military Operations Inside Iran Right Now. The Evidence Is Overwhelming.’ [The link has video for you to watch] For the full transcript, click here

Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) said, “We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is overwhelming.”

Gardiner, who taught at the U.S. Army’s National War College, has previously suggested that U.S. forces were already on the ground in Iran. Today he added several additional new points:

1) The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.

2) “We have learned from Time magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step.”

3) “The plan has gone to the White House. That’s not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state.”
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War Signals?

As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.

As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?," evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until now largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."
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Military Orders Suggest Iran Attack

Two recent orders by the American military have led some observers to conclude that the U.S. is preparing for an attack on Iran.

One order was a "Prepare to Deploy" command sent to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters, telling the ships’ commanders to be ready to move by Oct. 1.

The other was a request from the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) for a fresh look at long-standing U.S. plans to blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf.

The orders created a buzz within the military because there are few places in the world where minesweepers could be significant – chief among them, the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where about 40 percent of the world’s oil passes each day.
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Iran could cut West's oil supplies in event of war, warns American chief in Gulf

Iran could trigger a global terrorist campaign and choke the West's oil supplies in the event of war with America, the top US commander in the region has warned.

In a rare public discussion of how a war with Iran might unfold, Gen John Abizaid, the chief of the US Central Command, gave a sobering assessment of Iran's military potential.

He warned that in a war Iran would rely on unconventional means to challenge America's superiority.

"Number one, they have naval capacity to temporarily block the Straits of Hormuz [the entrance into the Gulf] and interfere with global commerce if they should choose to do so," he said.

"Number two, they've got a substantial missile force that can do a lot of damage to our friends and partners in the region.

"Number three, they've got a pretty robust terrorist surrogate arm that could in the event of hostilities cause problems not only in the Middle East but globally.

And number four, they have a very substantial land army that, while it's not offensively worrying, is certainly capable of conducting asymmetric warfare."
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The "Iraq Scenario" in Iran

Is Iran secretly building an atomic bomb? The International Atomic Energy Agency wants to shed light on the core issue behind Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West. While the United States doubts the IAEA's efficacy, the UN inspectors fear hawks are trying to make them irrelevant -- just like before the Iraq war.

The worst case scenario making the rounds at the IAEA these days is that the UN Security Council does what the United States is pushing for and slaps sanctions on Iran. That then causes Tehran to retaliate by carrying out its threat to bar ElBaradei's inspectors from the country. Or, Iran could follow the example of North Korea and even ditch the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entirely.

Then the IAEA would essentially be blind. And each week without inspections would increase the uncertainty about what was truly going on in Iran's nuclear facilities. Theory, analysis and a flood of so-called experts would suddenly hold sway instead of actual facts.

Inside the IAEA this is known as the "Iraq Scenario." Saddam Hussein tossed inspectors out of the country in 1998, which ended up making it easier for the Bush administration's hawks to use exaggeration and outright lies to try to convince world opinion of the need to invade Iraq.

There are already the first attempts to shape the debate surrounding the dispute with Iran. In recent weeks, an IAEA letter has surfaced that harshly criticized a report by a US Congressional intelligence committee. The 29-page document supposedly grossly exaggerated the state of Iran's nuclear research and claimed ElBaradei had caved to Iranian pressure to remove a particularly critical IAEA expert from the list of inspectors. The report even went so far as to infer that Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei was more interested in having good ties with Tehran than finding out the truth.

The IAEA called the report "upsetting and misleading" and Heinonen and his experts found at least five fundamental mistakes in it. The worst was the claim that Iran had enriched uranium to 90 percent -- that is, weapons grade. But the IAEA had only found uranium enriched to 3.5 percent in Natanz.

Such hyperbole can't be explained as simple sloppiness. One of the authors of the report is the former CIA official Frederick Fleitz, a hawk who's previously worked for John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations. "It's just like before the Iraq war," says David Albright, a respected US nuclear expert. "They blow up the threat with windy information and attack the IAEA."
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Iran's KOLCHUGA antenna device passively detects stealth planes 800 Km away [The original article is no longer available online. "Page not found." Here is the originating URL: http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/103246]

In the event the US and/or Israel stage an air attack on Iran they would be wise to remember that the Iranians have an unknown number of KOLCHUGA passive electronic warfare systems. Below you will find an explanation of what these systems can do.

Iran's KOCHULGA antenna device passively detects stealth planes 800 Km away, making the billions of Dollars spent on stealth technology and the AWACS planes (600km detection range) utterly useless. In addition, being passive, it cannot be detected, so the targeted plane(s) are unaware of detection and have nothing to home in to destroy the equipment.

It should be noted that the Kolchuga’s undeniable advantages are not accidental or temporary. The Ukrainian product [which is the one Iran has purchased] is head and shoulders above all American, Russian, French, Czech, or Brazilian developments in this field. But those who developed and made this unique product aren’t resting on their laurels. They continue to work.

Doomed to repeat: Germany, 1933

2006-10-01T15:09:00.000-04:00

From Daily Kos:

I know how dangerous it is to argue by comparing present events to the Nazi nightmare. But I did a little research, and the comparison between the torture bill that Congress is about to pass and the Enabling Act of 1933 -- the law that gave Hitler his power -- seems inescapable to me.

Hitler was elected Chancellor (a point conveniently forgotten by many) in January 1933 on a platform of anti-communist propaganda. In February, the Reichstag, the equivalent of our Capitol, was destroyed by arsonists, who may or may not have been affiliated with the Nazis. Appropriately cowed by these and other intimidations, the German parliament passed the Enabling Act that March.

The Enabling Act, officially known as the "Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and Realm," was short and simple. Its operative provisions were as follows:

Article 1

In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich...

Article 2

Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain undisturbed.

Article 3

Laws enacted by the Reich government shall be issued by the Chancellor and announced in the Reich Gazette...

That, seasoned with only a soupçon of legalistic detail, was it. What it meant was that the executive was empowered by the legislature to decide what the law was. He was empowered to ignore the constitution. Neither the courts nor the legislature would have means to check executive power.

When the world saw the logical conclusion of that social experiment, it promised, "never again."

Never again.

That promise has usually been understood to refer to the Holocaust. To that extent, the tragedies of Darfur and Bosnia and Rwanda stand as silent refutation, differing in scale but not culpability. But there was another implicit promise of lessons learned: Never again would the people of a powerful Western democracy descend into the madness of unrestrained dictatorship.
That second promise was largely implicit, because it seemed superfluous. After the obscenity of WWII, the idea that it could be broken by the United States or its allies was unthinkable. And that promise, at least, was largely kept.

Until now.

Forget, for the moment, that the proposed "compromise" torture legislation effectively abrogates the Geneva Conventions. Forget that it effectively licenses torture in the name of every American. Focus instead on the fact that it "vests in the administration the singularly most tyrannical power that exists - namely, the power unilaterally to decree someone guilty of a crime and to condemn the accused to eternal imprisonment without having even to charge him with a crime, let alone defend the validity of those accusations." Focus on this language from the proposed law:

...(N)o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever, ... including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions under this chapter.
...

No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

The language of the new Enabling Act is a bit more baroque than that used seventy years ago. And, to be sure, it is not as far-reaching as that of its predecessor. But make no mistake: Just as the 1933 Enabling Act created the context for dictatorship, so does this one. The German legislature told the executive that it had the power to make law and ignore the constitution. If Congress passes this bill, the American legislature will second the motion.
_____________________________________

Congress has passed this bill respectively in the House and Senate. It will find its way to Bush's desk very soon. Do you think he'll sign it?

Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy? A SFGate.com article from 2004

Goodbye to our sweet dream,
night has fallen.

Pakistan 'behind Mumbai bombings'

2006-10-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

A deadly bombing on Mumbai's railway system was masterminded by Pakistan's spy agency and carried out by the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, Indian police said.

"We have solved the July 11 bombings case. The whole attack was planned by Pakistan's ISI [Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence] and carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and their operatives in India," A.N. Roy, Mumbai's police commissioner said.

Roy said the ISI had begun planning the attacks in March and later provided training to those who carried out the bombings.

During a news conference, Roy gave a detailed description of how the explosives were transported into India and by whom. He also described how the bombs were packed into pressure cookers and placed on the trains.
____________________________________

The Pakistani ISI is the same organization that the Bush administration says is cooperating so helpfully in the "War on Terror." It also happens to be the organization that wired $100,000 directly to alleged 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta.

It is also, according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency, accused of having a close working relationship with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Full 9/11 timeline with a focus on how the Pakistani ISI factors into the event.

Settling Personnel and General Claims at the Department of Defense

2006-10-01T14:36:00.000-04:00

Published recently in the Federal Register the final rule assigning responsibility and policy for the Settling of Personnel and General Claims and Processing Advance Decision Requests designates the General Counsel of the DoD the ultimate "judge" on whether or not a claim will be paid. The majority of claims dealth with in this final rule surround the death of a member of the military or a civilian employee of the DoD.

Who, you may ask, is the current General Counsel of DoD? It is William J. Haynes II. He has most recently been lauded for the following:

During his tenure as General Counsel, Haynes was responsible for the development, implementation and promotion of three controversial Bush Administration policies:

-The refusal to treat any of the hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and conversely, the refusal to apply Contsitutionally mandated due process to these Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who are detained with a status of Non-POW by the United States Government without being convicted of any illegal act.

-Haynes appointed a working group led by John C. Yoo and Air Force general counsel Mary Walker that produced a report proposing ways in which existing international treaties banning torture could be circumvented, either through legal technicalities or by invoking the President's ultimate authority to wage war as he sees fit.

-The Defense Department's military tribunal plan for trying suspected war criminals.

-The indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the Executive Branch without legal counsel or judicial review.

Bush nominated him to a judgeship on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003, but his involvement with the creation of "Legal Arguments for Avoiding the Jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq" has caused Senate Democrats to engage in a filibuster to prevent his nomination from receiving a full Senate vote.

Ted Kennedy has this to say about the nomination:

"Nominations do not get much worse than this. Haynes does not come anywhere close to the commitment to fundamental rights and the principle of separation of powers that we all expect from the federal courts. He would be a poster boy on the 4th Circuit for denying the rule of law, and he should not be confirmed."

Given the above, who is to say that Mr. Haynes would treat our uniformed and civilian employees of the DoD with respect and honor when their families file a claim against the DoD in the event of their loved ones death or mistreatment? This is just further evidence of the Bush administration's lack of concern for anyone but their corporate overlords and their personal greed.

CNN Fact Checks Inhofe’s Diatribe Against Global Warming Science

2006-10-01T00:40:00.000-04:00

From thinkprogress.org on 9/28/06:

On Monday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) took to the Senate floor and launched into a 45-minute diatribe on global warming science. Repeating his claim that global warming is a hoax, Inhofe said, “The American people know…when they are being used and when they are being duped by the hysterical left.”

In particular, he attacked the news media. According to Inhofe, “During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry.”

This morning, CNN hit back with a segment documenting that virtually everything Inhofe said was flatly contradicted by the facts. Click the "thinkprogress" link above to watch the segment.

More gems from Inhofe

Beijing secretly fires lasers to disable US satellites

2006-10-01T00:35:00.000-04:00

China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by "blinding" their sensitive surveillance devices, it was reported 9/25/06.

The hitherto unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration for fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran.
Sources told the military affairs publication Defense News that there had been a fierce internal battle within Washington over whether to make the attacks public. In the end, the Pentagon's annual assessment of the growing Chinese military build-up barely mentioned the threat.

"After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line," Defense News said.

The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent spy photography as they pass over China.

According to senior American officials: "China not only has the capability, but has exercised it." American satellites like the giant Keyhole craft have come under attack "several times" in recent years.

Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.

The American military has been so alarmed by the Chinese activity that it has begun test attacks against its own satellites to determine the severity of the threat.

Defense News article

Secret Banff Meeting of CEOs and the Defense Establishment : Militarization and the Deconstruction of North America

2006-10-01T00:11:00.000-04:00

Cabinet ministers, top military brass together with North America's top corporate executives mingle in the plush surroundings of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. [This link has a full list of attendees and an agenda for the retreat]

This secret venue on "Continental Prosperity in the New Security Environment" focused on "Deep Integration," which largely consists in flushing national sovereignty in favor of "Fortress North America".

According to the draft program (see below), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Banff, Alberta to deliver the keynote address on "military to military cooperation". Canada's Minister of Public Security Stockwell Day focused his address on issues of North American public security.

Top brass from the US and Canada were in attendance. Canada's Minister of Defense Gordon O'Connor was present together with Chief of Defense Staff, General Rick Hellier.

There was, however, no confirmation that Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the meetings.

On the US side, several of Rumsfeld's top policy advisers were present alongside a handful of researchers and consultants.

The commander of US NorthCom Admiral Tim Keating was also in attendance with several of his senior staff members. Keating is also Commander of NORAD, which is slated to be merged with US NorthCom.
_________________________________________

Documents disclose 'shadow government', Indicate U.S. far advanced in constructing
bureaucracy united with Mexico, Canada

Government documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal the Bush administration is running a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which the U.S. is crafting a broad range of policy in conjunction with its neighbors to the north and south, asserts WND columnist and author Jerome R. Corsi.

The documents, a total of about 1,000 pages, are among the first to be released to Corsi through his FOIA request to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, which describes itself as an initiative "to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation."

"The documents clearly reveal that SPP, working within the U.S. Department of Commerce, is far advanced in putting together a new regional infrastructure, creating a 'shadow' trilateral bureaucracy with Mexico and Canada that is aggressively rewriting a wide range of U.S. administrative law, all without congressional oversight or public disclosure," Corsi said.

PDF of a portion of the docs obtained from the FOIA request, including an organizational chart
________________________________________

N. American students trained for 'merger'; 10 universities participate in 'model Parliament' in Mexico to simulate 'integration' of 3 nations

In another example of the way the three nations of North America are being drawn into a federation, or "merger," students from 10 universities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada are participating annually in a simulated "model Parliament."

Under the sponsorship of the Canadian based North American Forum on Integration, students met in the Mexican Senate for five days in May in an event dubbed "Triumvirate," with organizers declaring "A North American Parliament is born."

A similar event took place in the Canadian Senate in 2005.

The North American Forum on Integration

2006 Triumvirate North American Forum on Integration Conference Overview [with photos]

Vermont Congress candidate calls on Pentagon to arrest Bush, Cheney

2006-09-30T23:24:00.000-04:00

Former U.S. Army Lieutenant and candidate for Congress in Vermont, Dennis Morrisseau, today called for the arrest of President Bush and Vice President Cheney by the American military "if necessary" to prevent an unauthorized attack upon the nation of Iran.

The antiwar Vietnam vet is a Republican, but he has won approval from the State of Vermont to run on the ballot line “Impeach Bush Now,” rather than Democrat or Republican.

"American forces are apparently already active inside Iran, and Naval forces have received orders to deploy to that country," Morrisseau said. "The President has NO AUTHORITY to attack the nation of Iran whatsoever, in the absence of a full, formal Declaration of War on Iran by the sitting Congress."

Morrisseau said any order for an attack upon Iran or to deploy naval forces to its coastal waters is illegal, and called upon officers of the American military to "First, refuse to obey such an order. If the president persists and insists on ordering our forces into combat in or over Iran without a formal Declaration of War, then I call upon you, General Pace, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and upon such other military officers as clearly see their duty in these circumstances to detain both the President and Vice President, until such time as the Congress shall act."

Morrisseau's website

Modern-Day Secessionists Will Hold a Conference on Leaving the Union

2006-09-30T23:19:00.000-04:00

Here come the new Green Mountain Boys. The Middlebury Institute, a think tank devoted to the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination, is planning the First North American Secessionist Convention in Burlington, Vt.

More than a dozen secessionist organizations are likely to send representatives to the gathering on November 3 and 4, the director of the institute, Kirkpatrick Sale, said. The room at the Wyndham Burlington hotel can hold about 50 people, he said. The organizers have picked the right state for this radical gathering: Vermont was an independent republic between 1777 and 1791.

Middlebury Institute website

Abramoff and Able Danger: Confirmed: US Intel told "hands off money laundering"

2006-09-30T18:03:00.000-04:00

Excellent collection from Daily Kos that continues following the rabbit hole that will most likely lead to evidence directly linking Abramoff, Bush, drug money laundering, Al Qaeda and the attacks of 9/11

Letter to Thomas Kean from Sibel Edmonds

...To this date the public has not been told of intentional blocking of intelligence..This was the case prior to 9/11, and remains in effect after 9/11. If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences

CENTCOM Sergeant Details Traitorous Stand Down Orders On 9/11

2006-09-30T17:58:00.000-04:00

In a letter that first appeared on the 9/11 Veterans For Truth Website, Sergeant Lauro "LJ" Chavez responds to a Cincinnati Post hit piece article by outlining his own doubts about the official version of 9/11 and his personal experiences of the strange prelude to the events of that morning.

Despite early (and healthy) reactions claiming this may be a hoax designed to poison the well of the 9/11 truth movement, Sergeant Chavez has now provided us with evidence of his credentials, his honorable discharge documents showing the military installations he was located inside. The last station he held was inside United States Central Command in Tampa - the pdf can be viewed here.

Mr Chavez worked within CENTCOM, one of the five American regional unified commands consisting of Marines, Navy and air force officers. CENTCOM's area of jurisdiction is in the Middle East, East Africa and Central Asia. CENTCOM has been the main American presence in many military operations, including the Persian Gulf War, the United States war in Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Chavez was stationed at CENTCOM's headquarters at MacDill AFB, in Tampa, Florida. His commanding officer was Four Star General Tommy Franks.

On the morning before 9/11 Chavez was in the Secure Compartmented Information Facility, the secure bunker at the base of CENTCOM HQ which is populated by high ranking military intelligence personnel. This is a facility that requires a top secret gamma clearance. Inside are systems that can monitor weather systems and flight paths of all aircraft within the country.

That day he was involved with supporting computer equipment being used in the Vigilant Guardian exercise and another exercise based in Egypt. On this day Chavez got to see information that he wasn't supposed to see.

"I was working on psyops commander's computer and next to his PC was a top secret document that was open, his neglect was my ally, I was sitting there working on his computer and was waiting for some patches to download and I look over and I'm reading the document, and it's the off order for the exercise that they are participating in."

This raises major questions because normally wargames or exercises are not classified as top secret as it is a requirement to let some information be public, especially if the exercise is taking place in a populated area.

Chavez continued:

"So I'm reading this document and it's giving proposed situations for scenarios for this wargame the scenarios include a hijacked plane, most of them were hijacked planes, I saw one that was like a car bomb trying to blow up something, but one of them was a hijacked plane crashing into a nuclear power plant in California, the Sears Tower, the World Trade Center, The Pentagon obviously, the White House, our building was one of the targets as well."

Chavez went on to describe how CENTCOM HQ was being heavily fortified the day before 9/11 and access to the base was restricted to top secret personnel only. This ties in with a declaration of Martial Law by Jeb Bush two days previously throughout the entirety of Florida.

Chavez also described how during the exercises the aerospace grid with "enemy" blips on it has to be piped in to the air traffic controllers of all the airports in the affected area so they know there is a military exercise going on. This ties in with the released NORAD/NEADS and FAA tapes and accounts that are riddled with references to the drills and exercises taking place on 9/11.

Chavez described the plot as "genius" and stated:

"If you want to crash planes into a building, and you've got the aerospace grid at your beckoning call, so you put a bunch of blips on it so no one knows which ones are real and which ones are fake... All you have to do is have someone in charge of the computer systems to put the blips on the screen and then you can do whatever you want."

Chavez proceeded to detail the key discussions that he heard inside the bunker on the day of 9/11:

"I didn't get to see tower one hit, I was in there talking with individuals and i was tired, I'd been there since four in the morning. Then all of a sudden everybody started hustling and bustling. it was like NASA when Apollo 13 was about to crash, everybody running around, and then they put it on the big screen, CNN with the tower on fire.

Then we see the other plane come in and hit it and at that point everybody is standing up. The air force had commanders in contact with NORAD. The plane, or whatever, hit the Pentagon and then we were like 'Why aren't they scrambling jets?' We were asking, there was eight or nine people... Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels asking the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the air force 'why isn't NORAD scrambling jets? and he said 'we received an order to stand down''. And that just perplexed everybody."

9/11 Fireman: Bomb in the building

Foreign central banks net sellers of US debt in wk

2006-09-30T17:57:00.000-04:00

Foreign central banks were net sellers of Treasury bonds last week, leading to a reduction in their overall holdings of U.S. securities, Federal Reserve data showed.

The Fed said its holdings of Treasury and agency debt kept for overseas central banks fell by $13.04 billion in the week ended Sept. 20, to stand at a total of $1.67 trillion.

The breakdown of custody holdings showed overseas central banks sold $16.13 billion in Treasury debt to stand at a total $1.13 trillion.

'Just a comma'

2006-09-30T17:54:00.000-04:00

George W. Bush appeared on "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" on the 24th of September and said the following:

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there's a strong will for democracy. (emphasis added)

White House Said to Bar Hurricane Report

2006-09-30T17:53:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - part of the Commerce Department - in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

Newsweek helps to blindly lead Americans

2006-09-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

Newsweek Cover from September 25th:

Carlyle poised to bid for Libyan oil giant, says son of Gaddafi

2006-09-30T17:38:00.000-04:00

US private equity group with links to leading Republicans in talks to buy state-controlled Tamoil, valued at €3bn

US private equity giant Carlyle is in talks to acquire Libya's state-controlled oil refining and marketing operation, Tamoil.

Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the country's long-time leader, said Carlyle was one of four or five groups involved in an international tender to buy 100 per cent of Tamoil. It is thought the business will fetch close to €3bn (£2bn).

U.S. drops Libya from list of terrorist countries

The above makes much more sense in light of the Carlyle acquisistion...doesn't it?~!

UPDATE 9/30/06: Carlyle Group triumphs in $3bn Tamoil auction

U.S. gets ‘Sovietized’ by Eric Margolis

2006-09-30T17:35:00.000-04:00

In the late 1980s, I was the first western journalist allowed into the world’s most dreaded prison, Moscow’s sinister Lubyanka. Muscovites dared not even utter the name of KGB’s headquarters, calling it instead after a nearby toy store, “Detsky Mir.”

I still shudder recalling Lubyanka’s underground cells, grim interrogation rooms, and execution cellars where tens of thousands were tortured and shot. I sat at the desk from which the monsters who ran Cheka (Soviet secret police) — Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria — ordered 30 million victims to their deaths.

Prisoners taken in the dead of night to Lubyanka were systematically beaten for days with rubber hoses and clubs. There were special cold rooms where prisoners could be frozen to near death. Sleep deprivation was a favourite and most effective Cheka technique. So was near-drowning in water fouled with urine and feces.

I recall these past horrors because of what this column has long called the gradual “Sovietization” of the United States. This shameful week, it became clear Canada is also afflicted.

We have seen America’s president and vice president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, advocating some of the same interrogation techniques the KGB used at the Lubyanka. They apparently believe beating, freezing, sleep deprivation and near-drowning are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. So did Stalin.

The White House insisted that anyone — including Americans — could be kidnapped and tried in camera using “evidence” obtained by torturing other suspects. Bush & Co. deny the U.S. uses torture but reject the basic law of habeaus corpus and U.S. laws against the evil practice. The UN says Bush’s plans violate international law and the Geneva Conventions.

Will The Next Election Be Hacked? by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

2006-09-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

Fresh disasters at the polls -- and new evidence from an industry insider -- prove that electronic voting machines can't be trusted

The debacle of the 2000 presidential election made it all too apparent to most Americans that our electoral system is broken. And private-sector entrepreneurs were quick to offer a fix: Touch-screen voting machines, promised the industry and its lobbyists, would make voting as easy and reliable as withdrawing cash from an ATM. Congress, always ready with funds for needy industries, swiftly authorized $3.9 billion to upgrade the nation's election systems - with much of the money devoted to installing electronic voting machines in each of America's 180,000 precincts. But as midterm elections approach this November, electronic voting machines are making things worse instead of better. Studies have demonstrated that hackers can easily rig the technology to fix an election - and across the country this year, faulty equipment and lax security have repeatedly undermined election primaries. In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised "sleepovers" before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County.

Even worse, many electronic machines don't produce a paper record that can be recounted when equipment malfunctions - an omission that practically invites malicious tampering. "Every board of election has staff members with the technological ability to fix an election," Ion Sancho, an election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, told me. "Even one corrupt staffer can throw an election. Without paper records, it could happen under my nose and there is no way I'd ever find out about it. With a few key people in the right places, it would be possible to throw a presidential election."

Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease

2006-09-30T17:30:00.000-04:00

It turns out that the damage done to DNA due to the process of creating a genetically modified organism is far more extensive than previously thought. GM crops routinely create unintended proteins, alter existing protein levels or even change the components and shape of the protein that is created by the inserted gene. Kirk’s concerns about a GM crop producing a harmful misfolded protein remain well-founded, and have been echoed by scientists as one of the many possible dangers that are not being evaluated by the biotech industry’s superficial safety assessments.

Bush Shields Dad on Chile Terrorism

2006-09-30T16:49:00.000-04:00

Chilean investigators say the Bush administration is undercutting their case against former dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in the terrorist assassination of a political rival on the streets of Washington three decades ago, a crime that then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush appears to have tolerated and then helped cover-up.

Full background on CIA/Bush involvement from the National Security Archives

In his September 21, 2001 address to Congress Bush promised to "pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

Even though all the evidence in the terrorist bombing of Letelier and Moffitt points directly to Pinochet, Bush has not demanded that Chile extradite him to the United States. Nor did previous Administrations put the bite on Chile. Indeed, Bush has harbored anti-Castro terrorists like Luis Posada Carrilles and Orlando Bosch, both implicated in the sabotage of a Cuban commercial airliner three weeks after the Letelier bombing. Seventy-three people died in that terrorist act.

Cynthia McKinney statement on the issue

'American Inquisition' Fulfills Ike's Prophetic 1961 Warning

2006-09-30T16:47:00.000-04:00

Over the course of history, the word inquisition has been restricted to refer to Spain in the Middle Ages. But if one seeks to explain the dangerous mix of religious prejudice, Christian holy war, Islamic jihad, ethnic profiling, racism, mock trials and eavesdropping by secret police, no other term comes to mind.

Not only that, like the export of the Spanish Inquisition, the American Inquisition too has been taken to the far flung corners of the earth. The torturing of victims in secret dungeons remains the same. Missing are burnings at the stake, but given the hideous wonders that white phosphorous can perform on human flesh, and in far less time, who requires such an inefficient procedure?

Although it's common knowledge, one never tires of quoting the prophetic words of President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, spoke by him during his farewell address to his nation on January 17, 1961:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or our democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Bush Appoints Former ‘Big Dig’ Manager As Special Envoy To Darfur

2006-09-30T16:32:00.000-04:00

The Bush Administration’s efforts to end the genocide in Darfur has been plagued by serious errors. Now, the President Bush is appointing Andrew Natsios as special envoy to Darfur to get things back on track.

Who is Andrew Natsios?

– As director of U.S. Agency for Intenational Development Natsios promised that the U.S. contribution to reconstruction of Iraq would be no more that $1.6 billion. Congress has already appropriated nearly $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. The CBO estimates the total cost of reconstruction will be between $50 and $100 billion.

– Natsios was the manager of Boston’s “Big Dig,” widely considered one of the most mismanaged public works projects in history.

Sounds like just the guy to help solve the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

It should also be noted that Natsios, as chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has said that those with AIDS in Africa should not get antiretroviral treatment as the wouldn't know when to take the pills (i.e. They can't read a clock).

Physicists seek to put one thing in two places

2006-09-30T16:31:00.000-04:00

Physicists say they have made an object move just by watching it. This is inspiring them to a still bolder project: putting a small, ordinary thing into two places at once.

It may be a “fantasy,” admits Keith Schwab of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., one of the researchers. Then again, the first effect seemed that way not long ago, and the second is related.

The research comes from the edge of quantum mechanics, the submicroscopic realm of fundamental particles. There, things behave with total disregard for our common sense.

IMF's fears must be heeded

2006-09-30T16:26:00.000-04:00

You can't expect the International Monetary Fund to come out and say the world is headed for a global financial crash. And it isn't saying that.

But what it is saying, in its own careful way, is that the risk of such a calamity is increasing.

This may sound quite strange, given the fact that its latest World Economic Outlook is forecasting for 2007 the fourth consecutive year of strong global growth.

But it is why Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's chief economist, told a press briefing in advance of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings that got underway in Singapore this weekend that he was feeling "a little schizophrenic."

As he put it, we are in a world with strong growth projections, but also one in which the downside risks are growing. And those risks have increased since the previous IMF economic outlook in April.

The most difficult risk is that of a "disorderly adjustment" of what finance officials call the global imbalances. This is a way of saying the global economy is skewed and it cannot keep on this way.

On one side is the huge and growing build-up of U.S. borrowings from the rest of the world to finance its unsustainable trade and budget deficits, and on the other, countries such as China and Japan ringing up huge trade surpluses with the United States and lending their surplus funds back to the U.S. to finance its deficits.

This cannot go on forever because the cost of servicing that debt would become too high, and well before that, the foreign investors in U.S. securities would become extremely nervous about continuing to add to their already high holdings of U.S. dollar assets.

The big question is whether these global imbalances can be corrected in an orderly way or whether there will be a disorderly adjustment instead. (If there is a disorderly adjustment, the IMF warns, there could be "a substantial further appreciation of the Canadian dollar.")

Kenneth Rogoff, the former chief economist of the IMF, warns that the U.S. "is now soaking up roughly two-thirds of all global net saving, a situation without historical precedent." This year, the U.S. is expected to borrow $800 billion (U.S.), or about $2.2 billion a day.

As he argues, though, "this borrowing binge might end smoothly," but world financial leaders are right to be worried about "a more precipitous realignment that would likely set off a massive dollar depreciation and possibly much worse. Indeed, if policymakers continue to sit on their hands, it is not hard to imagine a sharp global slowdown, or even a devastating financial crisis."
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The General Accounting Office of the US government generally agrees with the above conclusion. Just read their recent report titled: The Nation’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook, September 2006 Update, The Bottom Line: Today’s Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable

PBS set to reveal 'stealth campaign' to cut healthcare, education

2006-09-30T16:18:00.001-04:00

In the voting booth this fall, voters in states across the country will find ballot initiatives with titles like "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" and "SOS - Stop Over Spending."

The aim is to slash state spending, with the potential for deep cuts in health care, education, and other social services. But are these local initiatives really "home" grown? This week, NOW investigates how organizations associated with one wealthy New Yorker, Howard Rich, are secretly providing major funding for ballot measures. In some states, those contributions have been matched by ones from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group headed by the politically well-connected Grover Norquist. Since 2001, Norquist visited the White House nearly 100 times, including six meetings with President Bush.

NOW also takes a look at the questionable tactics used to put these issues on your ballot. Is someone manipulating your state's laws, your vote, and you?

State by State: Ballot Issues and Campaign Finance

Scientists shocked as Arctic polar route emerges

2006-09-30T16:18:00.000-04:00

European scientists voiced shock as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.

The satellite images were acquired from August 23 to 25 by instruments aboard Envisat and EOS Aqua, two satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Perennial sea ice -- thick ice that is normally present year-round and is not affected by the Arctic summer -- had disappeared over an area bigger than the British Isles, ESA said.

Subaru Finds the Most Distant Galaxy

2006-09-30T16:13:00.000-04:00

The powerful Subaru telescope in Hawaii has found the most distant galaxy ever seen, located 12.88 billion light-years away - this is only 780 million years after the Big Bang.

Next Stop: Conscription

2006-09-27T16:26:00.000-04:00

In early August, about 300 Alaska-based soldiers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade, shortly after returning from Iraq, were ordered to return to Iraq immediately. Because of a bureaucratic bungle, the unit was not informed while in Iraq that its tour of duty had been extended. As a result, the soldiers and their families, relieved and grateful for their safe return, were torn apart once again without adequate time to prepare.

Shortly thereafter the Bush administration announced that at least 2,500 discharged Marines would be involuntarily reactivated for combat duty through the Marine Corps’ Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) program. Both of these developments illustrate just how over-extended the military has become as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how desperate it has become in seeking personnel to fill current needs — let alone those that will come if, as expected, military action is taken against Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or North Korea.

Meanwhile, “centrist” Republicans and Democrats alike are promoting a “Universal Service” program in which all 18-year-olds of both sexes would be required to give a year or two of federally approved “service” as a condition of college admission. This would likely include a military reserve commitment and the option of active-duty service in the military.

In their new campaign manifesto The Plan, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, call for “a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing, for the first time, an ethic of universal citizen service.... All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service.... Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.” One function of that proposal would be to expand the military by at least 100,000 men — a target that belies Emanuel and Reed’s assurance that they don’t endorse a return to conscription.

Link to a post from June regarding the Universal Service bill introduced by Charles Rangel

Media ownership study ordered destroyed

2006-09-27T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. received a copy of the report "indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public," according to Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that "every last piece" of the report be destroyed. "The whole project was just stopped - end of discussion," he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC's Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.

In a letter sent to Martin Wednesday, Boxer said she was "dismayed that this report, which was done at taxpayer expense more than two years ago, and which concluded that localism is beneficial to the public, was shoved in a drawer."
______________________________

This is one of two (possibly five) reports that were "deep sixed."

Link to the Radio Ownership study

Israeli Diplomat Carrying Large Quantity Of Explosives Arrested In Argentina

2006-09-27T16:12:00.000-04:00

Note: This has yet to be corroborated.

Last week, (mid August 2006) a very serious event transpired at the Buenos Aires international airport which the local mainstream press did not however bring to the attention of the public. Today, Red Kalki, relying on reliable sources, brings this matter into the open.

On Wednesday 9th August 2006, Ezeiza airport police arrested an important Israeli diplomat carrying a considerable quantity of explosives. The Zionist representative was en route to Chile and was detained minutes before boarding a plane. Despite his protests, airport police arrested him and informed the Argentine interior ministry of the situation which ordered that the situation be contained.

Firstly, it should be noted that the airport police, all ex aeronautical military police, were previously under the control of the Defence ministry and military command. Since the 'Four winds' (drugs) scandal however, control of this unit has passed to political funcionaries of the Kirchner (Argentine President) government. For various reasons, the unit is experiencing serious problems, among which is the precarious nature of their job security caused by the many failures of their new bosses in the interior ministry of the Krichner government and the many conflicts between the two.

According to various airport sources, including the members of the airport security unit, a verbal argument erupted between members of the unit and and members of the Krichner government who wanted to free the Israeli diplomat because there was no precedent for this type of arrest, which included the implication that if anything were happen as a result of the release of the bomb-laden Israeli diplomat, the blame would fall on the airport security unit.

Bush blocks campaign to put pressure on Sudan over Darfur

2006-09-27T15:45:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration and big business interests have been accused of undermining efforts to exert financial pressure on the Sudanese government to stop the killing in Darfur.

A bill that passed the US Congress endorsing state legislation to force publicly owned entities to sell off holdings in companies that do substantial business with Sudan, or sell Khartoum weapons, has now been blocked in the Senate, with campaigners blaming the White House. They say the long-delayed draft put forward last week by the Foreign Relations Committee had removed a clause known as Section 11 that would have thrown its weight behind a celebrity-backed campaign requiring publicly owned entities to dump stock.

Info on the conflict

Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children are completely reliant on international aid for survival. Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

The Bush Administration has recognized these atrocities – carried out against civilians primarily by the government of Sudan and its allied Janjaweed militias – as genocide...yet take a look at the title of this post again...

The ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport

2006-09-27T15:35:00.000-04:00

If you have a passport, now is the time to renew it -- even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. If you don't have a passport and think you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don't want one of these chips in your passport.

RFID stands for "radio-frequency identification." Passports with RFID chips store an electronic copy of the passport information: your name, a digitized picture, etc. And in the future, the chip might store fingerprints or digital visas from various countries.

The Colorado passport office is already issuing RFID passports, and the State Department expects all U.S. passport offices to be doing so by the end of the year. Many other countries are in the process of changing over. So get a passport before it's too late. With your new passport you can wait another 10 years for an RFID passport, when the technology will be more mature, when we will have a better understanding of the security risks and when there will be other technologies we can use to cut the risks. You don't want to be a guinea pig on this one.

Unknown Writing System Uncovered On Ancient Olmec Tablet

2006-09-16T18:06:00.000-04:00

Science magazine this week details the discovery of a stone block in Veracruz, Mexico, that contains a previously unknown system of writing; believed by archeologists to be the earliest in the Americas.

The slab - named the Cascajal block - dates to the early first millennium BCE and has features that indicate it comes from the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. One of the archaeologists behind the discovery, Brown University's Stephen D. Houston, said that the block and its ancient script "link the Olmec civilization to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system, and reveal a new complexity to this civilization."

"It's a tantalizing discovery. I think it could be the beginning of a new era of focus on Olmec civilization," explained Houston. "It's telling us that these records probably exist and that many remain to be found. If we can decode their content, these earliest voices of Mesoamerican civilization will speak to us today."

Construction workers discovered the Cascajal block in a pile of debris in the community of Lomas de Tacamichapa in the late 1990s. Surrounding the piece were ceramic shards, clay figurine fragments, and broken artifacts of ground stone, which have helped the team date the block and its text to the San Lorenzo phase, ending about 900 BCE; approximately 400 years before writing was thought to have first appeared in the Western hemisphere.

9/11 Toxic Dust Whistleblower Raided By SWAT Team

2006-09-16T17:59:00.000-04:00

Ground zero hero Major Mike McCormack says he was deliberately targeted for helping release documents on EPA government cover-up, says 75% of police, firemen believe 9/11 cover-up

Major Mike McCormack is a hospital technician and civil air patrol pilot who worked the ground zero site for eight days after the collapse of the twin towers. He is one of the real heroes of 9/11 and was the man who found the American flag that was later displayed as a token of unity atop the rubble.

McCormack was part of the anniversary ceremonies on September 11 2006 and provided many hand-shaking photo-ops for numerous politicians, before returning to his family home in Pennsylvania that night. McCormack returned to his New York home the next morning in preparation to visit ground zero once again.

On the morning of September 12, McCormack's tenant opened the door to see half a dozen detectives outside who began asking questions and demanding to search the building. The detectives didn't have a warrant and needed McCormack's signature to conduct the search.

Having nothing to hide and wanting to assist the police, McCormack signed the paper and the detectives entered the house.

"Three minutes later as I'm walking out of my office with one of the detectives, I have a federal SWAT team that comes in....men in black and all of a sudden they have 9 millimeter handguns and MP5 machine guns aimed at my head," McCormack told the Alex Jones Show.

McCormack said the government had "abandoned" the heroes of 9/11 and that "when Alex tells you this is Nazi Germany, you best believe it," describing the events as "part of the new world order."

Bush Hails ‘Fiscal Responsibility’ As GAO Warns of ‘Ever-Larger’ ‘Out of Control’ Deficits

2006-09-16T17:55:00.000-04:00

A follow-up to a report published by the GAO.

President Bush on our country’s fiscal health, 9/15/06:

If the American people would take a step back and realize how effective our policies have been, given the circumstances. … I’ve strongly believed the reason it is because we cut taxes, and at the same time, showed fiscal responsibility here in Washington with the people’s money. That’s why the deficit could be cut in half by 2009, or before.

Government Accountability Office on our country’s fiscal health, 9/15/06:

GAO’s current long-term simulations continue to show ever-larger deficits resulting in a federal debt burden that ultimately spirals out of control. … [U]nder either optimistic (”Baseline extended”) or more realistic assumptions, current fiscal policy is unsustainable. … The question is how our current imprudent and unsustainable path will end. At some point, action will be taken to change the Nation’s fiscal course.

Earlier post on the GAO report

ORIANA FALLACI: BURIAL SUNDAY AT FLORENCE EVANGELICAL CEMETERY

2006-09-16T17:21:00.000-04:00

Oriana Fallaci, who passed away at the Santa Chiara clinic in Florence on the night of September 14th, will be buried tomorrow in the Evangelical Cemetery of Laurels at Galluzzo. There will be no formal funeral, at her request, just a few old friends to say good-bye and then the burial.

Recent New Yorker article on Fallaci

Wikipedia entry on Fallaci

Reporter Palast Slips Clutches of Homeland Security

2006-09-16T17:20:00.000-04:00

Forget the orange suit. Exxon Mobil Corporation, which admits it was behind the criminal complaint brought by Homeland Security against me and television producer Matt Pascarella, has informed me that the oil company will no longer push charges that Pascarella and I threatened “critical infrastructure.”

Original post on Palast's run-in

Test nonlethal weapons on U.S. citizens, official says

2006-09-16T17:19:00.000-04:00

Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne.

"(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Rep. Ney Admits Selling Influence

2006-09-16T16:59:00.000-04:00

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) agreed yesterday to plead guilty to corruption charges after admitting to performing a variety of official acts for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel, sports tickets and thousands of dollars in gambling chips. He is the first elected official to face prison time in the ongoing influence-peddling investigation of former GOP lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff.

After fiercely proclaiming his innocence for more than a year, Ney signed a two-count plea agreement Wednesday that the Justice Department filed in federal court yesterday. The charges of conspiracy and making a false statement could carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years, but prosecutors plan to seek a term of 27 months. He faces up to $500,000 in fines.

The six-term Republican said in a statement yesterday that he was seeking treatment for alcoholism and was sorry for "serious mistakes" that have brought pain to his family and constituents. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Washington on Oct. 13 to formally enter his plea.

Previous posts that include references to Ney

The Nation’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook: September 2006 Update

2006-09-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

The Bottom Line: Today’s Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable

GAO’s current long-term simulations continue to show ever-larger deficits resulting in a federal debt burden that ultimately spirals out of control. The timing of deficits and the resulting debt build up varies depending on the assumptions used, but under either optimistic (“Baseline extended”) or more realistic assumptions, current fiscal policy is unsustainable.

Simulations are not forecasts or predictions. They are designed to ask the question “what if?” GAO’s “what ifs” are that discretionary spending may grow faster or slower, and tax cuts may be renewed or allowed to expire – but in both cases, the Nation’s long-term fiscal future is “at risk.” Under any reasonable set of expectations about future spending and revenues, the risks posed to the Nation’s future financial condition are too high to be acceptable.
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Another one of the Bush lies exposed.

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

2006-09-15T19:56:00.000-04:00

The DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Health Resources and Services Administration, National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is designed to compensate individuals in the event an "unforseen consequence" of taking a vaccine occurs.

The most recent list of petitioners is listed here.

Sadly, since 1988, there have been a total of 11,830 claims filed within this program. Of those claims, 4,340 of them were dismissed outright. 1,985 claims were compensated, and 945 claims were filed due to the death of the person vaccinated.

This should put it in better perspective:

36.9% of claims filed were dismissed by the Department

16.8% of claims filed were compensated by the Department

8.0% of claims filed were the result of a death
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CRS Report: Mandatory Vaccinations: Precedent and Current Laws

CRS Report: Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority

Bush should remember Poppy

2006-09-15T19:25:00.000-04:00

Presidential Determination No. 2006–23 of September 13, 2006: Continuation of the Exercise of Certain Authorities under the Trading with the Enemy Act

This determination extends for one year the authorities to control certain foreign assets, transactions, and, of course, Cuban assets and transactions.

Oddly, or ironically, in October of 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act, the U.S. government halted operations at New York's Union Banking Corporation. A bank official was charged with "Running Nazi front groups in the United States."

His name: Prescott Bush.

Prescott Bush, father of future U.S President George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush, had been hard at work on behalf of his Nazi partners. In flagrant violation of U.S. law, Prescott Bush had worked tirelessly to launder money, procure raw materials, arrange transportation and provide guidance for the Nazi war effort and the German army he had helped to build.

For you skeptics, here is a link to an article from the British paper The Guardian about this topic

IAEA: US report on Iran 'outrageous'

2006-09-15T19:22:00.000-04:00

United Nations nuclear inspectors have attacked as "outrageous and dishonest" parts of a US congressional committee intelligence report on Iran's nuclear work.

A senior aide to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN's nuclear watchdog - sent a letter to Peter Hoekstra, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, complaining that the report included serious distortions of IAEA findings.

The letter said the errors suggested that Iran's nuclear fuel programme was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments had determined.

It also said the agency secretariat took "strong exception to the incorrect and misleading assertion" that the IAEA decided to remove a senior safeguards inspector for supposedly concluding that Iran intended to build nuclear weapons.

The congressional report contained "an outrageous and dishonest suggestion" the inspector was removed for having not stuck to an alleged IAEA policy barring its "officials from telling the whole truth" about Iran, said the letter.

Polar Ice is Melting Fast

2006-09-15T19:20:00.000-04:00

New data gathered by NASA’s QuikScat satellite has found that ice at the Arctic polar ice cap is disappearing rapidly. Just between 2004 and 2005, the spacecraft measured a loss of 14% of the perennial sea ice; ice that normally lasts all year round. This is an amount of ice measuring 720,000 square kilometers (280,000 square miles), an area the size of Texas. Scientists expect that the coverage of perennial sea ice will continue to decrease this year as well.

The photo shows the difference between the polar ice cap from 2004 to 2005.

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards dies

2006-09-15T19:16:00.000-04:00

Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others — especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.

Her single term as governor had ended in a 1994 defeat to George W. Bush, who went from besting his father's silver-haired critic to the governor's office to the presidency.

She once said about Bush I: “Poor George, he can’t help it… he was born with a silver foot in his mouth!”

RIP Gov. Richards

Book: Bush told reporter Jews are 'all going to hell'

2006-09-15T19:13:00.000-04:00

In The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power, Austin-based journalist James Moore and Wayne Slater, senior political reporter for the Dallas Morning News, will allege that Bush once made anti-semitic comments to a reporter.

"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."

Bush's thoughts on the fate of non-Christian souls became a minor source of controversy after he told the Houston Post in 1993 that only those who "accept Jesus Christ" go to Heaven. However, the future president was also earlier briefly engaged to a half-Jewish woman.
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Germany gets first rabbis since WW2

Tank low and running on fumes

2006-09-15T19:10:00.001-04:00

From the Austrailan paper The Age:

A CONTROVERSIAL theory that global oil production will peak within 25 years has been embraced by a Senate committee with the warning: be worried now.

The committee says that, like Sweden, which plans to be oil-free by 2020, Australia should be preparing for an irreversible decline in world oil supplies.

A report released last week by the Senate's rural and regional affairs and transport committee is the first official recognition at a national level of the "peak oil" theory. This suggests that global oil production will peak before 2030, then start declining, with terrible social and economic consequences.

Palast Charged with Journalism in the First Degree

2006-09-15T19:10:00.000-04:00

It’s true. It’s weird. It’s nuts. The Department of Homeland Security, after a five-year hunt for Osama, has finally brought charges against… Greg Palast. I kid you not. Send your cakes with files to the Air America wing at Guantanamo.

Though not just yet. Fatherland Security has informed me that television producer Matt Pascarella and I have been charged with unauthorized filming of a “critical national security structure” in Louisiana.

Click here to Read the full story. Click here for the first part and here for the second part of the Democracy Now! report.

Everyone's First Reaction Was "Controlled Demolition"

2006-09-15T19:03:00.000-04:00

Rarely highlighted footage of an NBC news anchor commenting that the collapse of the twin towers was by no means accidental and that it was a "planned" event, emphasizes the point that before the official mind control script was introduced and parroted forevermore, everybody's first reaction was "controlled demolition."

The NBC anchor featured in this clip is simply reacting to the events he is witnessing with common sense in stating that the collapse of the trade towers was obviously a planned event and by no means an accident or a simple consequence of jets hitting the buildings.

"This was clearly -- the way the structure is collapsing -- this was the result of something that was planned."

"This is not, it's not accidental that the first tower just happened to collapse and then the second tower just happened to collapse in exactly the same way."

"How they accomplished this, we don't know. But clearly this is what happened."

Duke scientists set sights on cloak of invisibility

2006-09-15T19:00:00.000-04:00

After years of work, David Schurig and David R. Smith at Duke University will finish their research and have absolutely nothing to show for it: They're making a cloak of invisibility.

Really.

So unusual is this undertaking for a serious academic electrical engineering team that Smith has created an elaborate Web site discussing the dream of invisibility as viewed in science fiction--Harry Potter and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft are mentioned--and relating such ideas to scientific fact.

In theory, Smith said, it's possible to make light follow curved lines that skirt an object rather than illuminate it. Light "circulates around the void--like water flowing past a rock in a stream," Smith explained.

This would create a void in space--a place that is invisible.

Bush to hold talks on Ali G creator after diplomatic row

2006-09-15T18:50:00.000-04:00

US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter.

And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.

The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week.

But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted a swift reaction from the Kazakhstan government, which is launching a PR blitz in the States.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.
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Becasue of the important position Kazakhstan holds in the realm of oil politics, I'm sure that Bush will have Cohen arrested for "terrorizing" the population of Kazakhstan in a sign of solidarity with the repressive government of that country.

Big Government Solutions Don't Work/ The Law of Opposites

2006-09-15T18:45:00.000-04:00

By HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS:

...

Our support for dictatorial Arab leaders is a thorn in the side of the large Muslim population in the Middle East, and one of the main reasons Osama bin Laden declared war against us. We talk of democracy and self-determination, but the masses of people in the Middle East see through our hypocrisy when we support the Sunni secular dictators in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan and at one time, Saddam Hussein.

In the late 1970s and the 1980s the CIA spent over $4 billion on a program called “Operation Cyclone.” This was our contribution to setting up training schools in Pakistan and elsewhere, including the U.S. itself, to teach “sabotage skills.” The purpose was to use these individuals in fighting our enemies in the Middle East, including the Soviets. But as one could predict, this effort has come back to haunt us, as our radical ally Osama bin Laden turned his fury against us after routing the Soviets. It is estimated that over 12,000 fighters were trained in the camps we set up in Afghanistan. They were taught how to make bombs, carry out sabotage, and use guerilla war tactics. And now we’re on the receiving end of this U.S. financed program-- hardly a good investment.

It’s difficult to understand why our policy makers aren’t more cautious in their efforts to police the world, once it’s realized how unsuccessful we have been. It seems they always hope that next time our efforts won’t come flying back in our face.

...

9/11 Kean Commission Report Exposed as 'Fraud of Historic Proportions' on 9/11 Fifth Anniversary by Former 'Star Wars' Program Director

2006-09-15T18:27:00.000-04:00

On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, three hours before the Kean-Hamilton luncheon address at the National Press Club, the former Air Force officer and director of the 'Star Wars' program who just won Florida's 15th District Democratic primary with 54 percent of the vote on an explicit platform to expose the fraud of the Kean Commission Report, and top 9/11 researchers, authors and activists will present hard proof that the official narrative of the Kean-Hamilton Commission and Bush- Cheney Administration is a fraud of world historic proportions.

Proposed legislation for a new and genuinely independent expert investigation, the first reality-based 9/11 feature film, and the International Grand Jury on the Crimes of 9/11 will be announced.

Comments on the state of the US by Dr. Robert Bowman, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.), one of the nation's foremost authorities on national security, directed all 'Star Wars' programs under Presidents Ford and Carter, flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam, has a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from Caltech, and has chaired eight international conferences. Dr. Bowman is the recipient of the Eisenhower Medal, the George F. Kennan Peace Prize, and the Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters, among many others.

More info on this meeting as it becomes available...

Bush Aims to Kill War Crimes Act

2006-09-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. The Washington Post recently reported that the Bush administration is quietly circulating draft legislation to eliminate crucial parts of the War Crimes Act. Observers on The Hill say the Administration plans to slip it through Congress this fall while there still is a guaranteed Republican majority--perhaps as part of the military appropriations bill, the proposals for Guantánamo tribunals or a new catch-all "anti-terrorism" package. Why are they doing it, and how can they be stopped?

American prohibitions on abuse of prisoners go back to the Lieber Code promulgated by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The first international Geneva Convention dates from the following year.

After World War II, international law protecting prisoners of war and all noncombatants was codified in the Geneva Conventions. They were ratified by the US Senate and, under Article II of the Constitution, they thereby became the law of the land.

Noting that the statute "prohibits the commission of a 'war crime' by or against a US person, including US officials," he warned that "it is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges." The President's determination that the Geneva Conventions did not apply "would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution."

Unfortunately for top Bush officials, that "solid defense" was demolished this summer when the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruled that the Geneva Conventions were indeed the law of the land.

The Court singled out Geneva's Common Article 3, which provides a minimum standard for the treatment of all noncombatants under all circumstances. They must be "treated humanely" and must not be subjected to "cruel treatment," "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment," or "the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

As David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center pointed out in the August 10 issue of The New York Review of Books, the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rusmfeld "suggests that President Bush has already committed a war crime, simply by establishing the [Guantánamo] military tribunals and subjecting detainees to them" because "the Court found that the tribunals violate Common Article 3--and under the War Crimes Act, any violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime." A similar argument would indicate that top US officials have also committed war crimes by justifying interrogation methods that, according to the testimony of US military lawyers, also violate Common Article 3.

Lo and behold, the legislation the Administration has circulated on Capitol Hill would decriminalize such acts retroactively. Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, told the Associated Press on August 10, "I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous." Human rights attorney Scott Horton told Democracy Now! on August 16 that one of the purposes of the proposed legislation is "to grant immunity or impunity to certain individuals. And these are mostly decision-makers within the government."

Link to the original The Nation article

Indications add up to government conspiracy

2006-09-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

An Aug. 8 Seattle P-I editorial asked, "Where are the facts? Where is the evidence?" about government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

The case for complicity begins with motive and benefit. In his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard," Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the key to global dominance in the 21st century lies in control of Central Asian oil and gas reserves. Establishing a U.S. presence there would require the kind of military deployment that only "a direct external threat" could justify.

And in a 2000 paper titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," Project for a New American Century, whose founding members were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, argued for vast increases in military spending to assure American global dominance. Such a process, PNAC said, would take time absent "a catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." Military deployment into Central Asia followed 9/11, as well as their desired increases in military spending.

The symmetry between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. policy goals is but the backdrop to the case for government complicity. The picture becomes clearer through considering the following:

Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, the head of the Pakistani intelligence service, was in Washington when the attacks occurred, conferring with government officials. The Indian press subsequently implicated him in wiring $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker. When the story broke, he was pressured into retirement at U.S. insistence. His link to the attacks was never pursued.

Two FBI agents approached attorney David Schippers with specific foreknowledge about the attacks. His repeated calls to Attorney General John Ashcroft were never returned. An article in New American on March 11, 2002, corroborated the agents' story. They claimed that knowledge of the plot was widespread within the FBI for months before 9/11.

The air defense system breakdown on the day of Sept. 11 was unprecedented. Well-practiced protocols for dealing with suspected hijackings failed to function for an astonishing 90 minutes. The little-known existence of "coincidental" military war games has since been exposed, which undoubtedly caused confusion. And now, the chairman and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission claim (in a new book, "Without Precedent") that the military was less than completely honest.

The collapse of steel-frame buildings -- such as the World Trade Center Towers -- due to fire is unprecedented. The collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, is especially inexplicable. Its collapse late in the afternoon of Sept. 11 exhibited 10 specific features of a controlled demolition, as did the collapse of the Twin Towers. More important, numerous eyewitnesses attest to hearing multiple explosions at the time. And, Steven Jones, a professor at Brigham Young University, discovered Thermate, an incendiary compound, in two molten steel samples taken from the site.

From the beginning, the Bush administration delayed and otherwise impeded the investigation, preferring to focus on the foreign invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq enabled by the attacks.

Those are but some of many indications that together add up to government complicity. In the words of David Ray Griffin, world-renowned theologian and truth advocate, the agenda and events surrounding 9/11 reveal a "deeply perverted value system" at odds with that of the American people. For the sake of the common welfare, the truth behind 9/11 must be exposed.
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White House Targets Conspiracy Theorists As Terrorist Recruiters

A document cited by President Bush in his recent speech at the Capital Hilton Hotel on how to 'win the war on terror' cites conspiracies as one of the wellsprings of terrorism and threatens to "address" and "diminish" the problems they are causing the government in fulfilling their agenda.

The document says that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."

This is an outright threat to the 9/11 truth movement and is meant to have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
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Federal agency releases 'rebuttal' to 9/11 theories on the destruction of WTC towers

In the face of polls which suggest that many Americans are skeptical about the government's official version of what happened on September 11, 2001, a federal agency has released a "rebuttal" to some prevalent "conspiracy theories" about the destruction of the World Trade Center towers.

A few days ago, as the five-year anniversary of the attacks approaches, the National Institute of Standards and Technology posted a FAQ sheet on it's website entitled "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions", based upon its three-year building and fire safety investigation.
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THE TOP 40
REASONS TO DOUBT THE OFFICIAL STORY OF SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001

The above is an absolute must read, and a great link to send anyone of your friends and family who still believe the official account.

Bush Declares Eco-Whistleblower Law Void for EPA Employees

2006-09-14T00:56:00.000-04:00

Stealth Repeal of Clean Water Act Protections by Invoking "Sovereign Immunity"

The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act, according to legal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures.

Citing an "unpublished opinion of the [Attorney General's] Office of Legal Counsel," the Secretary of Labor's Administrative Review Board has ruled federal employees may no longer pursue whistleblower claims under the Clean Water Act. The opinion invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity which is based on the old English legal maxim that "The King Can Do No Wrong." It is an absolute defense to any legal action unless the "sovereign" consents to be sued.

The opinion and the ruling reverse nearly two decades of precedent. Approximately 170,000 federal employees working within environmental agencies are affected by the loss of whistleblower rights.

EPA BEGINS CLOSING LIBRARIES BEFORE CONGRESS ACTS ON PLAN

2006-09-14T00:55:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving ahead this summer to shut down libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush’s proposed budget reductions, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA’s own scientists are stepping up protests against closures on the grounds that it will make their work more difficult by impeding research, enforcement and emergency response capabilities.

In an August 15, 2006 document entitled “EPA FY 2007 Library Plan,” agency management indicates that it will begin immediately implementing President Bush’s proposed budget cuts for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, without waiting for Congress to act. The memo describes what EPA terms “deaccessioning procedures” (defined as “the removal of library materials from the physical collection”) for its network of 26 technical libraries.

• Regional libraries, located in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, serving 15 Midwestern and Southern states will be closed by September 30. Other regional library hours and services will be gradually reduced;

• Public access to EPA libraries and collections will end as soon as possible;

• As many as 80,000 original documents which are not electronically available will be boxed up (“put their collections into stasis,” in the words of the EPA memo) and shipped for eventual “digitizing.”

EPA scientists represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, had previously sent a “Demand to Bargain” on the issue, but EPA managers dismissed that demand as premature. The August 15th EPA memo, however, shows that the union concern was far from premature. On August 16, the AFGE National Council of EPA Locals filed a formal grievance demanding that all library closures be put on hold until affected scientists can negotiate the matter as required in the collective bargaining agreement.

Links to earlier posts on the topic, going back to 3/2006

And there is no Republican war on science?!...

FDA APPROVES VIRAL ADULTERATION OF OUR FOOD SUPPLY

2006-09-14T00:43:00.000-04:00

On Friday, August 18, 2006, the FDA approved a viral cocktail to be sprayed on foods we eat. This is the first time viruses have been approved for use as food additives. The FDA wants you to believe it will be safe to consume these viruses every day for the rest of your life with no adverse health effects. This is a monumental announcement by the FDA, indicating they are throwing all caution to the wind regarding the safety of our food supply.

The stated goal of the new FDA-approved viruses is to kill a rare bacterium known as Listeria monocytogenes. This bacterium is killed by cooking; however, it poses a problem in meats that are cooked during processing and not cooked again prior to consumption, so it can readily infect foods such as deli meats.
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Of the approximate 5,000 food related deaths per year in the US, about 500 (or 10%) are caused by Listeria. This is something to watch...

US Department of State Final Rule on International Agreements

2006-09-14T00:40:00.000-04:00

This final rule regards the Publication, Coordination, and Reporting of International Agreements. As discussed in an earlier post, the rule will prevent State from disclosing certain international agreements and treaties to the Congress and the public at large.

Earlier post.

Rep. Jim Cooper: Bush is Hiding the True National Debt. It's Worse than You've Heard. Much Worse.

2006-09-14T00:36:00.001-04:00

Though the Bush Administration's official budget lists the national debt and deficit as being incredibly high, they are actually far worse than reported, according to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). But don’t just take his word for it, even if Cooper is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:

The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported.

What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses "cash" instead of "accrual" accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans' benefits and federal employee pensions.

President Tells Katie Couric That Connecting Iraq To War On Terror Is Hardest Part Of His Job

2006-09-14T00:36:00.000-04:00

I repeat: President Tells Katie Couric That Connecting Iraq To War On Terror Is Hardest Part Of His Job

President Tells Katie Couric That Connecting Iraq To War On Terror Is Hardest Part Of His Job

President Tells Katie Couric That Connecting Iraq To War On Terror Is Hardest Part Of His Job

Link to the statement made to Couric

At Bill library, Bush sounds sub-versive

2006-09-14T00:22:00.000-04:00

President Bush once daydreamed about blasting Bill Clinton's presidential library to smithereens, according to a new book.

In "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime," former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal recounts a November 2004 visit by Bush and his political guru Karl Rove to the William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., on the banks of the Arkansas River.

"Bush appeared distracted and glanced repeatedly at his watch," Blumenthal writes about a presidential tour during the library's dedication. "When he stopped to gaze at the river, where Secret Service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: 'Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there.' Bush replied: 'A submarine could take this place out.'"

Mexican leftist will never accept rival's win

2006-09-14T00:17:00.000-04:00

Mexico's leftist opposition leader said on September 3rd, he will never recognize his right-wing rival as president and vowed a "radical transformation" of the country by setting up a parallel government.

"We will never accept usurpation nor recognize a president-elect who is illegitimate," the former mayor of Mexico City told a rally of thousands of supporters in the capital's main square.

For more than a month, his leftist supporters have been protesting the election result by occupying the giant Zocalo square, the symbolic center of power in Mexico since Aztec times. They have also taken over a long section of the main Reforma boulevard, paralyzing the city center and causing traffic chaos.

Lopez Obrador did not say how he plans to set up a parallel government but in the past he said his supporters could continue the current street protests for years if necessary. He has also promised to avoid violence.

New doubts about Mexico's election Judges who determined the outcome are not releasing details about recount

9/9/2006: Top electoral officials and judges are feeding doubts about the outcome of Mexico's presidential vote by declining to release details about a recount of 4 million ballots and by moving quickly to destroy all 41 million ballots, legal experts said Friday.

The seven judges of the Federal Electoral Tribunal declared conservative candidate Felipe Calderon president-elect Tuesday. But the tribunal's 300-page ruling on the election left some experts shaking their heads.

John Ackerman, a professor of law at the National University of Mexico, said the judges had made no attempt to investigate improprieties in electoral financing and other charges made by losing leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The ruling also failed to cite a single legal precedent in its rejection of a Lopez Obrador bid to have the election annulled, Ackerman said.

The court opened ballot boxes and recounted 4 million votes, but did so only to determine whether there was evidence of outright fraud -- and declared that it had found none. The actual tallies from the recount were not released to the public.

Scientists Erase Memories in Rat Brains

2006-09-14T00:13:00.000-04:00

Scientists have for the first time erased long-term memories in rats and also directly seen how the brain is changed by learning.

The research points to potential human benefits.

These findings could prove key "to understanding how memories can be augmented, for example in diseases that affect memory, like Alzheimer's," said neuroscientist Mark Bear at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT.
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Remember the "flashy thing" from the Men in Black movie?

Iran says U.S., Israel ordered September 11 attacks

2006-09-14T00:10:00.000-04:00

The Supreme Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the Bush Administration and the Israeli security service Mossad of ordering the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC.

“The events of September 11 were ordered by U.S. [officials] and Mossad so that they could carry out their strategy of pre-emption and warmongering and unipolarisation in order to dominate the Middle East”, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi told military commanders on Tuesday. His comments were reported by the state-run news agency ISNA.

Gene-altered flies testify to global warming

2006-09-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

Populations of fruit flies on three separate continents have independently evolved identical gene changes within just two decades, apparently to cope with global warming.

“What we’re showing is that global warming is leaving its imprint on genes,” says Raymond Huey at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, who made the discovery with colleagues. “For this to happen in such a short time-frame in so many parts of the world is rather disturbing,” he says.

The researchers analysed DNA from Drosophila subobscura, a species of fruit fly originating in Europe, but which spread to the west coasts of South and North America in the late 1970s. They took samples in 26 locations in Europe, South America and North America where the fly species had been analysed before for chromosomal changes.

George W. Bush...better late than never when it comes to help

2006-09-11T00:21:00.000-04:00

In all his wonderful benevolence, George W. Bush (our "greatest" president) has deemed it time to mandate assistance to disaster victims. One year to the day after hurricane Katrina devastated the northern Gulf coast. It amazes me that he is able to declare victory, even a mission accomplished after only a few months, but waits 365 days to declare that the federal government is genuinely interested and behind every US citizen victimized by disaster. May he wish he never aspired to federal office.

From Executive Order 13411:

Policy. It is the policy of the Federal Government to ensure
that individuals who are victims of a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or
other incident that is the subject of an emergency or major disaster declaration
under the Stafford Act, and who are thereby eligible for financial or other
assistance delivered by any department or agency of the executive branch
(Federal disaster assistance), have prompt and efficient access to Federal
disaster assistance, as well as information regarding assistance available
from State and local government and private sector sources.

Meanwhile, where is the assistance for the victims? Oh, it is currently allocated for Iraq. Sorry, Charlie.

Unknown creature found in Russia

2006-09-11T00:18:00.000-04:00

This creature was found by Russian soldiers on Sakhalin shoreline. Sakhalin area is situated near to Japan, it’s the most eastern part of Russia, almost 5000 miles to East from Moscow. Click the link for more pics.

Bush 'Slush Fund,' Courtesy of Canada

2006-09-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

Softwood deal pours $450 million straight into White House, says U.S. lawyer.

On August 21 in Ottawa, the Standing Committee on International Trade heard a U.S. trade lawyer damn the proposed softwood lumber agreement as a terrible deal for Canadians. Elliot J. Feldman of Baker & Hostetler LLP argued that Canada caved at a moment of strength, given that international rulings continued to land firmly on our side. Instead, Feldman argued, this deal will kill the NAFTA process which has favoured Canada's position, and forfeit at least a billion dollars plus hundreds of millions of dollars more in interest that would have come our way had our negotiators hung tough.

Feldman, who is based in Washington, D.C., offered one more bit of startling analysis, excerpted below. The deal, he said, will funnel nearly half a billion dollars directly to George Bush's White House, creating a political "slush fund" available to the Republicans and the U.S. timber industry for waging future campaigns.

Originally reported here 6/28/06

Outline of how this affects Canadian workers, and what the Bush team has done