Conspiracy Theorists for Barack Obama

Dr. Howard Dean for Cabinet Health Post

Itzamirakul — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:51:39 EST

Dear President Obama:

I am writing to urge you to please select Dr. Dean to head the Cabinet post for which Mr. Daschle was previously considered.

I understand that there is some reason that you dislike Dr. Dean, but I cannot see how you can overlook the fine work he did in heading up the DNC. At least he moved it pretty much out of the hands of the DLC which had been selecting our candidates and then shoving them down our throats.

I cannot believe that YOU do not like Dr. Dean. I am sure that it is Rahm Emmanuel whe dislikes the Dr. because Rahm was furious when Dean took over the DLC and prevented their heavy-handed measures, since Rahm was very involved with the DLC (along with Nancy Pelosi). Rahm wants to be considered the Kingmaker. He is obnoxisous and I hope that you will soon fire him or find some other way to get him out of your way.

If you can select a conservative pay-or-player like that last Republican you just selected for the third cabinet post, then you can certainly select a loyal Democrat like Dr. Dean for such an important post.

BTW, how is it any different for this Republican Gregg to barter for who gets his seat in the Senate when it is against the law for Blagoevich to try to make the same deal? There is so much hypocridsy going on in government no wonder any of us believe in you guys anymore.

Confirm Account?

Itzamirakul — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:23:14 EST

I can only wonder if everyone else has been required to confirm their account following their first post on their personal blog? I posted a blog entry which expressed my disgust with the behavior of Rahm Emmanuel and when I went to make a second post several days later, I was required to get a confirmation number from my mailbox and hurridly type it into a box before being admitted to my blog again. Fotunately, I was able to do so.

Is this required of everyone or just anyone who criticizes certain members of the administration?

Tell Mukasey: Don't suppress Ohio voters.

Eric in San Diego — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:38:08 EDT

Dear Friend,

This year, there are over 600,000 newly registered Ohio voters, but President Bush has asked Attorney General Mukasey to investigate as many as 200,000 of them. Why? Because Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has refused to use an "exact match" standard before adding these voters to the rolls.

What is this "exact match" standard? Basically, it works like this: After you fill out your voter registration card, a local or state employee has to type in your information to add you to the voter rolls, and check to see that you really exist, usually by verifying your driver's license number or Social Security number. And as you can imagine, sometimes there are typos or other disparities when the information gets entered and matched - for example, if your last name is "De la Rosa" and it got entered as "Delarosa", you would fail to meet the exact match standard, and your registration form would be invalid.

Secretary Brunner has refused to use this standard on the grounds that it would erroneously deprive tens or even hundreds of thousands of Ohioans of their right to vote. The Ohio GOP sued her a month ago to try and get the courts to compel her to use the exact match standard, but the Supreme Court ruled that they had no standing to make that case.

Now, President Bush is trying to run around the Supreme Court by getting the Department of Justice to intervene. On Friday, October 24th, Bush reportedly asked Attorney General Mukasey to investigate whether as many as 200,000 voters need to reconfirm their registrations before November 4th - which would almost certainly result in forcing them to vote provisionally.

I just signed a petition urging Attorney General Mukasey not to act on President Bush's sickening request. I hope you will, too.

Please have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/doj_oh_suppression/?r_by=-1895004-IItfUVx&rc=paste

Thanks!

PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO IMPEACH GEORGE W BUSH

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:29:10 EDT

Articles of Impeachment for President George W Bush by Dennis Kucinich

Introduced in Congress June 9, 2008. More details here.

Also see a similar list plus links to source material and comments at "www.afterdowningstreet.org/busharticles".

Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power.

Article I - Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II - Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III - Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV - Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.
Article V - Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
Article VI - Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.
Article VII - Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII - Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
Article IX - Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor
Article X - Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes
Article XI - Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq
Article XII - Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources
Article XIII - Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries
Article XIV - Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
Article XV - Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq
Article XVI - Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors
Article XVII - Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives
Article XVIII - Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy
Article XIX - Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to 'Black Sites' Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture
Article XX - Imprisoning Children
Article XXI - Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
Article XXII - Creating Secret Laws
Article XXIII - Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
Article XXIV - Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment
Article XXV - Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens
Article XXVI - Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements
Article XXVII - Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
Article XXVIII - Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
Article XXIX - Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Article XXX - Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare
Article XXXI - Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency
Article XXXII - Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change
Article XXXIII - Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.
Article XXXIV - Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001
Article XXXV - Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD, AND PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO OBAMA

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:19:06 EDT

Bush Condoned Torturing Prisoners

On 6/22/04 Bush said "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Is that true?

The evidence below shows that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales are guilty of violating "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C, the UN Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention by ordering and condoning the use of torture. Many prisoners have died as a result. Also, false information provided under torture was used to help justify the Iraq War with disastrous consequences.

1/25/02 - White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo advising the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute, for torturing prisoners. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality --declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions --which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales was later promoted to US Attorney General. [Nation]
January 2002 - Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was secretly handed to Egypt and tortured. Al-Libi told his interrogators that Iraq was training Al Qaeda how to use explosives and chemical weapons. Bush used this "intelligence" as part of his justification to invade Iraq. In 2004 Al-Libi said he had fabricated these claims to escape the pain of torture. Or in the sanitized language of the Defense Intelligence Agency "Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may describing [sic] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." [NYTimes] [Wikipedia]
2/7/02 - Bush took Gonzales' advice and signed an order declaring that members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not covered by the Geneva Convention. The memo requires that "detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva." While seeming to call for humane treatment, it is carefully worded to allow for violations of the Geneva Convention when necessary.
Bush moves prisoners to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and holds them for years without charges, trials, or access to lawyers. This is ruled illegal by a Federal Judge on Jan 31, 2005.
Bush sets up secret prisons run by the CIA in foreign countries to escape US laws against torture. Rice claims European countries supported this plan. [WashingtonPost] [CNN] [FindLaw]
9/26/02 - Canadian Maher Arar was arrested at JFK airport and sent to secret prison in Syria for torture under "extraordinary rendition" program. He was released a year later without charges. He sued the US government but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge David Trager on 2/17/06 citing the need for secrecy. He wrote, "One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria." Thus the reason for the secrecy is not for national security but simply to avoid embarassing guilty parties in government. This sets a dangerous precedent that may allow Bush to kidnap and torture anyone he pleases. On 1/26/07 the Canadian government apologized and awarded Arar compensation. [Wikipedia]
Dec '02 - Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy, tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. His 2004 memo details his unsuccessful struggle with the White House to stop the torture. [NewYorker]
12/30/04 - Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Lavin released a memo that called into question the administration's use of torture. Lavin had submitted to waterboarding while doing research for the memo and concluded that waterboarding was torture. Lavin was fired when Alberto Gonzales becvame Attorney General. [ABC]
12/31/03 - German national Khalid El-Masri says he was abducted by the CIA arrested in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. He was then allegedly tortured for five months and released. CIA has admitted making a mistake by detaining the wrong person. They confused him with Khalid al-Masri who is a member of al-Qaeda. This illustrates the importance of allowing prisoners access to courts where mistakes such as these can be resolved.
April 2004, photos of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison make headlines around the world. Low ranking soldiers are convicted of torture charges, falling on their swords for the White House. [Wikipedia] [NewYorker]
5/24/04 - Seymour Hersh releases article detailing how Rumsfeld's program encouraged torture. "President Bush was informed of the existence of the program, the former intelligence official said." [NewYorker]
February 2005 - Newly appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a secret Justice Department opinion that "provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures". Its existence was revealed in October 2007. [NYTimes]
October 2005, Senator McCain adds an amendment to a defense bill that would outlaw torture by the United States. Bush and Cheney fight tooth and nail to block this amendment but eventually give in after the McCain amendment is weakened by the Graham-Levin amendment. When Bush signs the bill he adds a signing statement that basically says he can ignore the prohibition against torture under his powers as "unitary executive" and "Commander in Chief ".
6/29/06 - Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners at Guantanamo.
10/26/07 - Rumsfeld charged with torture in French courts by a coallition of human rights groups. [RawStory] [CCR]
5/6/08 - Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild and Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee. She said torture laws are jus cogens. This means that "no country can ever pass a law that allows torture." She testified that Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, Ashcroft and Bush are lible for War Crimes and violation of the Torture Act. The Torture Act penalties include life in prison or death. [testimony]

blackboxvoting.org

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:51:52 EDT

another update from BBV.org, (rather late, i've been working for the O); read it here!

USA - Diebold/Premier says it's too late to fix a new voting machine 2-minute warning and "time-out" feature, which can kick voters off the machine, forcing them to accept a provisional ballot. At least 15 voters were booted off the machine in Johnson County, Kansas recently, and Diebold/Premier says this is due to a software upgrade which sets a timer on voter inactivity. According to the company, the machines receiving the upgrade are used in 34 states and 1,700 jurisdictions.*

*This seems inflated, though. Unless the optical scan machines are also outfitted with a 2-minute warning, which doesn't make sense, it would seem that this should only apply to the DRE states and locations.

JOINING THIS PROBLEM TO MAKE IT BIGGER:

A study on DRE allocation from Ohio indicates that it takes an average of four to nine minutes per voter to cast an average-length ballot, and ballots in many locations will be longer than average this fall. Each additional ballot question can add 30 seconds to the time a voter must monopolize the DRE.

Diebold's 2-minute timeout kicks in when the voter does not make a selection quickly enough. (Welcome to 21st Century literacy tests.)

According to a Sept. 10 Kansas City Star Article, Johnson County upgraded touchscreen voting machines with a new software release from Diebold subsidiary Premier Election Solutions Inc. Buried in the release notes was a mention of a new "time out" feature that makes the voting machine eject a voter card if there has been no activity for 150 seconds. The machine emits a warning sound at 120 seconds.

You can read the full article here:
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/14307

THOMAS JEFFERSON BANKERS

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:47:10 EDT

IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
President, Thomas Jefferson

WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY FOR IRAQ, THE WORLD WILL NEVER TRUST AMERICA AGAIN

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:43:55 EDT

Federal laws state that '...whoever commits a war crime' resulting in death to its victim can be put to death. It does not make an exception for whomever occupies the office of President. This is serious stuff but so too are the deaths of some 4000 US personnel as well as the total number of Iraqi deaths as a result of this war of aggression, a figure estimated at some 1.3 million people.

The vast majority of those deaths were of innocent civilians, family members, tradespeople, store keepers --not men well-armed against a high tech invader/aggressor! This is serious enough to require that those responsible be tried for war crimes, and, when found guilty, punished to the extent and the letter of the law.

This is not a case that would baffle Sherlock Holmes. Among many complicit co-conspirators, one name stands out, the name of the person whose name is on the order to commence battle. It was George W. Bush who ordered the commencement of war. This act has already proven to be among the most horrific war crimes since those of Adolph Hitler or Pol Pot.

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
--TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441 § 2441. War crimes

I have called for the prosecution of George Bush for 'war crimes' since it became clear that the US attack and invasion of Afghanistan was all about natural gas and pipelines. Before creating this blog, I had long posted those view on NPR's now defunct "How's Bush Doing" discussion forum as well as the likewise defunct "The Opinion". Recently, our lonely voices are joined by distinguished experts, jurists, attorneys and specialists in international law. Adding considerable weight in this area are the opinions of a Nuremberg chief prosecutor who states that there is a case for trying Bush for the 'supreme crime against humanity, an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.'

The extent to which American exceptionalism is embedded in the national psyche is awesome to behold.
While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime.
From the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Philippines to the first nuclear attack ever at Hiroshima to the unprovoked invasion of Baghdad, US-sponsored violence doesn't feel as wrong and worthy of prosecution in internationally sanctioned criminal courts as the gory, blood-soaked atrocities of Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, and most certainly not the Nazis -- most certainly not. Howard Zinn recently described this as our "inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior."
--Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?

Bush's war against Iraq was begun upon a series of deliberate frauds. Earlier, Bush had targeted Afghanistan where the US would defend --not freedom --but the interests of US oil barons, primarily a consortium of US oil companies which had planned to build the Centgas Trans-Afghan linking Turkmenistan's abundant gas reserves with markets in Pakistan. The Group was led by Unocal of California and Delta Oil Company of Saudi Arabia. Members of the Taliban actually met with Unocal officials at offices in Sugarland, TX, a Houston suburb, famously primarily as the home district of Tom DeLay who had introduced measure that would absolve Bush of the very war crimes that he most certainly had already planned to commit. [See: How Bush Helped Establish a Corporate 'New World Order'; US 'planned attack on Taliban' [Before 911]; Dick Cheney Made Millions with Saddam Hussein]

Not only is the war against Iraq a war crime prosecutable in US Courts for the violations it represents under the above cited US Codes, Title 18 [op cit], but also in US Federal Courts for the 'mass murder' of some 4,000 US armed forces personnel that have died upon this evil fraud. According to Bugliosi, the penalty is death!

The measure exempting US troops from 'war crimes' was introduced by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as an amendment to H.R. 1646, The Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2001, on May 8, 2001. It passed the House 282-137 on May 10 and introduced as S. 857 in the Senate on May 9 by Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC), Zell Miller (D-GA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Warner (R-VA), Trent Lott (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Frank Murkowski (R-AK) --the usual suspects!

The bill authorized Bush "...to use all means (including the provision of legal assistance) necessary to bring about the release of covered US persons and covered allied persons held captive by or on behalf of the Court [International Criminal Court, ICC, in the Hague]. Some highlights:

• The President is authorized to invade The Hague. Specifically, the bill empowers Bush to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release from captivity of US or Allied personnel detained or imprisoned against their will by or on behalf of the Court.
• No US governmental entity --including State or local governments and court of any US jurisdiction --may cooperate with the ICC in arrests, extraditions, searches and seizures, taking of evidence, seizure of assets, or similar matters.
• No ICC agent may conduct any investigation in the US.
• No classified national security information can be transferred directly or indirectly to the ICC or to countries Party to the Rome Statute.
• These provisions are in addition to existing US law (the 2000-2001 Foreign Relations Authorization Act) which prohibits any US funds going to the ICC once it has been established unless the Senate has given its advice and consent to the Rome Treaty.

This measure was introduced before 911 in anticipation of a 'War on Terrorism' that only those with guilty foreknowledge could have anticipated, a 'war' that would include US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. Certainly no one but Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, the Project for the New American Century and high level members of the Bush administration could have anticipated the improbable series of events leading to the American quagmire in Iraq. Certainly, they are not 'psychic' despite a mantra repeated ad nauseam post 911: "No one could have foreseen...."! In fact, only the Bush administration 'foresaw' 911 in such detail, that they planned in advance to make legal the very laws they have in fact violated in the post-911 world. What incredible coincidences!

What war crimes were Bush and his junta planning even then that would require they be immunized from the prosecution of their intended crimes?

How does a man of no charisma, little talent and less intelligence get himself into a position in which he rules the world? Typically it is always done the Adolph Hitler way --a phony terrorist attack, a homegrown version of the Reichstag Fire. In Bush's case 911! [See: Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks note: if all you have to refute this is a stupid label that you picked up somewhere, spare me! I will delete it! This blog deals in verifiable facts and/or meaningful statements. Labels --the staple of right wing, pro-Bush propaganda gets trashed where it belongs! ]

Well...hold on to your sorry ass, Mr. Bush! The people have the power to restore the Constitution, an essential outcome which begins with the removal of George W. Bush as 'President'! The second step is the subject of this article: the several prosecutions of George W. Bush in federal courts for mass murder and in world courts for war crimes, crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity.

Principle I Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle Vl The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law:
a. Crimes against peace:
i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
ii. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
b. War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
c. Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law.
--Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal

An October 2006 poll by New York Times and CBS News indicated that some 84 percent of Americans don't believe George W. Bush is telling the truth about what he knew prior to the attacks of 911. In the same year, Zogby reported that 45 percent of Americans support an investigation of George W. Bush by an International Tribunal. Such a tribunal should re-investigate whether officials of the US government allowed or consciously and deliberately helped or facilitated the attacks.

In the same year, 911truth.org commissioned Zogby which found that about half the population of New York believes that members of the Bush administration 'knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." 911 was, therefore, a deliberate act of mass murder perpetrated upon the American people by the man who presumes the office of 'dictator'. Since that is the title he prefers to 'president', then I suggest we stoo calling him "President Bush'. He is merely Bush or, more properly, Mass Murderer Bush, if you must attach a title.

ASK OBAMA, WHY IS GEORGE BUSH ABOVE THE LAW ?

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:33:20 EDT

Is The Bush Family Above The Law?

Excerpt from an interview with Greg Palast - Part 1

Lappé: Speaking of which, let’s jump to the present and to another bombshell you recently reported: that Bush has hindered the FBI’s investigation into various terrorist organizations. What did you find?

Palast: We obtained documents from inside the FBI showing that investigations had been shut down on the bin Laden family, the royal family of Saudi Arabia - and that is big because there are 20,000 princes in the royal family - and their connections to the financing of terrorism.

Now there is one exception. The FBI, the CIA and all the rest of the agencies are allowed to investigate Osama, the so-called black sheep of the family. But what we were finding was that there was an awful lot of gray sheeps in this family – which is a family of billionaires which is tied in with the Saudi royal household which appears to be involved in the funding of terrorist organizations or organizations linked to terrorism. If you go the BBC site you will see me holding up documents from the FBI talking about Abdullah bin Laden, Omar bin Laden and an organization called the World Assembly of Muslim Youth which may or may not be a conduit for funds to terrorists. Now the problem was the investigations were shut down. There were problems that go back to Father Bush - when he was head of the CIA, he tried to stop investigations of the Saudis, continued on under Reagan, Daddy Bush’s president, and it continued under Clinton too, but not as severely. What I was told by agents was that under Clinton agents were constrained but not prohibited from taking on these investigations into the Saudis.

Lappé: Now what would be behind all of this?

Palast: Let me get to this one final point. While we did say FBI [in the article], I have to add it was also CIA and all the other international agencies. You should know we were attacked by friends of Bush for just mentioning the FBI. I have been trying to protect my sources. But I can say that the sources are not just FBI trying to get even with the other agencies, but in fact other agencies. The information was that they were absolutely prohibited, until Sept. 11, at looking at the Saudi funding of the Al-Qaeda network and other terrorist organizations.

There is no question we had what looked like the biggest failure of the intelligence community since Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasn’t a failure, it was a directive. Now I am not part of the conspiracy nut crowd that believes George Bush came up with a plan for an attack on the United States to save his popularity. There is no evidence of that. That is completely outside of any evidence I have seen. But what we find is something that, in a way, where the effect is just the same – and it’s chilling. Which is that they blinded the intelligence agencies and said you cannot look at the Saudis. Now the question is why . . .

Now the answer kept coming back with two words: One is Arbusto. The other was Carlyle. Now Arbusto is Arbusto Oil. Arbusto means shrub in Spanish. Arbusto was the company that made young George W. his first million. Now he had millions inherited from daddy and grandpa, but this was his first million. He had established this basically worthless company that kept digging dry holes in Texas and suddenly it got financing from the Gulf region and Saudi Arabian-connected financiers and it was taken over by a company called Harken Oil, which then received a very surprise contract to drill in the Gulf. Suddenly, Arbusto Oil shares became worth quite a bit.

The second company is Carlyle. While people know companies like Boeing Aircraft and Lockheed, Carlyle is just about the biggest defense contractor in the U.S. because behind a lot of these companies like United Technology is the Carlyle investment group. Carlyle is headed by Frank Carlucci who was Secretary of Defense under Daddy Bush and it includes on its payroll James Baker, the Secretary of State under Daddy Bush, who was very pro-Arab and pro-Saudi when he was in power. They have on their payroll Daddy Bush, who is an advisor to their Asian panel, and he also represented the company to the Saudi royal household in a couple of trips he made there. In addition, our president George W. was collecting money from the company by being on the Board of Directors of one of its subsidiaries, where I am sure he added a lot of his business acumen to their operations. He picked up $15,000-plus a year for showing up to a couple of board meetings. What is also interesting in this company is that you have investment in the company by the bin Laden family.

Now, let’s be careful I am not a conspiracy nutter. I don’t think completely ill of the Bush family, and I don’t think what happened here is that the bin Laden family and the Saudis bought themselves two presidents of the United States, a simple purchase: “We give you money and you call off the dogs and don’t let the CIA look at us.”

That is not what is going on . . . (cont.)

Palast (cont.): What is going on is the Bush family is an oil family. They have a natural business and political inclination to support the royal household and their retainers like the bin Laden family. These relationships are cemented by joint business ventures, by the Saudis making your son, who becomes president, rich. It is not a pay-off. But let’s put it this way: would you think that the people who just made your family wealthier than it already is, made you a couple of a million bucks, would you immediately think these people also happen to be funding people who are blowing up buildings in New York? You tend to say to your agencies which you control: “Those are really good guys, leave them alone” – especially because if we annoy them they will cut off our oil.

There seems to be this great fear that the Saudi royal family will, I don’t know, fold their tents, get in their Leer jets and go off to Monaco and let the fanatics take over Saudi Arabia . . .

Lappé: Or if this comes out this will weaken the rest of the American government’s resolve to support them which will further weaken their ability to control the more radical forces within the country . . .

Palast: Yeah, one of the problems is exactly what is their relationship to the terror networks. One thing you should know is that the Saudis say that they have removed Osama bin Laden’s citizenship in Saudi Arabia. Of course, there are no citizens of Saudi Arabia, there are only subjects. So he is not allowed to be a subject of the king of Saudi Arabia. What a loss. And they have frozen his assets, supposedly. But the information I am getting from other sources is that they have given tens of millions of dollars to his networks. This is being done as much as a protection racket as anything else.

Lappé: Some of this was reported, or at least alluded to, in the recent Frontline report.

Palast: There was a little bit of whispering in the Frontline by my buddy Lowell Bergman. He could go further. At least you got a little bit of it on PBS. What is interesting is Bergman, who is also a reporter for The New York Times, did not have this in The New York Times.

Lappé: That is interesting, I actually noticed that myself.

Palast: Now here is a guy who has an agreement that whatever he puts on Frontline by contract can be put in The New York Times exclusively. And here The New York Times skips the report. Now we went further on BBC Newsnight, we had some of the same sources, and we have been digging further. We are allowed to dig further.

We also had another source explaining a meeting that was held, and I can’t give the details because I would be scooping myself. But I got particulars of a meeting in which Saudi billionaires up who would be responsible to paying what to Osama. And apparently around the time of the meeting is when Osama blew up the Kohbar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 American servicemen. It was seen by the group as not so much a political or emotional point, but as a reminder “to make your darn payment.”

Osama is often compared to Hitler but he should be seen as John Gotti times one hundred. He is running a massive international protection racket: Pay me or I will blow you up. The fact these payments are made is one of the things the Bush administration is trying very hard to cover-up.

Now whether these payments were paid because they want to or it is coercion the Bush administration does not want to make a point of it. I have to tell you the Clinton administration was not exactly wonderful on this either. One of the points I made on the BBC was there was a Saudi diplomat who defected. He had 14,000 documents in his possession showing Saudi royal involvement in everything from assassinations to terror funding. He offered the 14,000 documents to the FBI but they would not accept them. The low-level agents wanted this stuff because they were tremendous leads. But the upper-level people would not permit this, did not want to touch this material. That is quite extraordinary. We don’t even want to look. We don’t want to know. Because obviously going through 14,000 documents from the Saudi government files would anger the Saudis. And it seems to be policy number one is we don’t get these boys angry. Unfortunately, we see the results. We are blowing up Afghanistan when 15 of the 19 bombers were from Saudi Arabia.

Not that I am friends of the Taliban, who are vicious, brutal maniacs, but 15 of the 19 were Saudis and we seem to be giving these guys a full and complete pass.

Lappé: Now let’s take these two stories, the Florida election theft and the Saudi cover-up, together as a backdrop. Paint me a picture of the Bush crew and how they operate. Are they above the law?

Palast: Well, they are our law. Remember they are two presidents of the United States, they go back generations to the Mayflower. The Bush family is the one of the true royal families of America. They have a long-term idea of what is good for us. Other countries think it is quite spooky that we have a guy who came out of the CIA to head of the nation. Just like Americans have a lot of doubts about Putin because he was the head of the KGB. These people are used to secrecy and not letting America know what would be frightening and troubling to us in our sweet innocence

ASK OBAMA, WHY IS GEORGE W BUSH ABOVE THE LAW ?

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:29:08 EDT

Why Is George W. Bush
Above the Law?
No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it. Theodore Roosevelt

THE BRAVADO

Once again, a massive failure of leaderships has been displayed in Washington. And, once again, George Bush has escaped an independent inquiry into his irresponsible actions. For the fourth time in less than five years, the President of the United States and his cohorts been placed above the law. That, in itself, is a major American disaster.

When, if ever, could this have happened before? When else could one administration have pulled off four major scandals; four devastating, potentially impeachable screw-ups, and never have to answer for them? When else, in the United States of America, could so many crimes of an elected president and his cadre remain unexplained, unchallenged, and unpunished? When? Probably never. When in history have the media sat silent through criminal scandal at highest levels of government?

We’re not talking mistakes, here. We’re not talking poor judgment or failed policies. We’re not talking politics as usual, with its underhanded array of pork and perks. But we are talking about very serious violations of the public trust, and very possibly the law, perpetrated by the elected leader of this nation and his handlers.

Even more amazingly, we are talking about the shameful reality that not a single one of these offenses has been investigated by a truly independent, non-political, neutral commission, armed with subpoena powers and adequate funding, and answerable ONLY to the people of the United States of America. Not a single one.

In every one of the scandals in question, calls for a nonpartisan, independent commission were thwarted by the very people accused of misdeeds and crimes. Something is really wrong when an American president who is accused of misconduct can determine who will delve into the facts behind his own actions? Something also is really wrong when incriminating evidence can be redacted and withheld from the public by the very people incriminated by that evidence.

Something is even more seriously wrong when cover up after cover up goes unreported and unchallenged by the same corporate media that spent eight years in relentless pursuit of scandals related to Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Paula Jones and that awful threat to national security, Monica Lewinsky.

Of course, the targets of the media, and ultimately a Special Prosecutor, were Bill and Hillary Clinton, not George W. Bush, and accountability was not yet a dirty word. And of course, in that far more innocent time, challenging the president was not considered to be an act of treason. Tragically, today, it is.

THE SCANDALS

Below are capsulated descriptions of the four most egregious events that took place under the watch of President George W. Bush. Serious questions have been raised about the role of the administration in each of these incidents. The public has a right to hear the answers to these questions and to know the extent to which the president may have been involved.

George W. Bush was the man at the helm when each of the following occurred. For that reason alone he is fully accountable to the people of the United States for a clear and rational explanation of the role of his administration in each of the outrages below:

The devastating attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.
The WMD hoax designed to gain public support for an unprovoked, illegal and ineptly planned invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The criminal outing of a CIA operative Valerie Plame by a person or persons in the Bush White House.
The profound failure of the US government, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Every one of these actions resulted in real or potential death and other harm to uncalculated numbers of people. Each action, therefore, raises valid questions of criminal culpability and/or negligence by the President himself or people closely connected to the White House.

As a result, the moves by the administration to thwart, postpone, or control investigations into these travesties are highly suspect to say the least. And yet, the moves to do so were successfully maneuvered at each and every turn.

THE STING

The Karl Rove strategy to cover up the crimes of this administration has been put into play with the skill that only years of practice can hone. And yet, the plan was so simple that even George Bush has had no difficulty in carrying it out. To this day, these two men and their cabal have been able to avert a single authentic investigation into their nefarious activities. They have managed to put themselves above the law by following a game plan that goes something like this:

First, claim to be concerned with uncovering the truth. Repeat that claim over and over whenever anyone asks, but do nothing at all for as long as possible. Arrange for the media to corroborate your abject dedication to a full and open investigation of the facts. Make certain there is no independent inquiry by any overambitious journalist.

Next, attack the integrity and character of anyone who raises legitimate questions about anyone in the White House. Have the media echo widely distributed talking points that discredit anyone and everyone who attempt to uncover the truth about the events in question. Subtly suggest that the real responsibility for any of the scandals belongs to Bill Clinton.

Third, agree to an inquiry by a committee or commission whose members are appointed by the President, and then limit its ability to investigate. Refuse to surrender revealing documents to any investigation and discredit any members of who ask pertinent questions. Stonewall the investigation by refusing adequate funding or any extension of time to continue a probe. Refuse to allow WH aides to testify before any group of inquiry. Have key members of the administration refuse to testify under oath and insist that Dick Cheney accompany the President to all hearings.

Fourth, delay the disclosure of any damaging findings until after any important election. In addition, declare all incriminating results in a final report to be classified and have all harmful information blackened out

And finally, when all else fails, pass the buck. Find someone willing to fall on his sword and take the full blame for whatever went wrong so that George Bush and his cabal appears to be totally innocent of any wrongdoing. Rest assured that many Americans will be comforted to hear that the President of the United States did not know, was not told, or had no possible knowledge of anything that was going on around him. He is, after all, above the law.

THE FACTS

Once again, for the sake of brevity, the evasive actions taken by George Bush and his cohorts will be given in outline. Each response to the scandals in this article can easily be validated by any Google search. Each response is also a frightening acclamation of a government in decay, and a nation in disarray.

The Attacks of 9/11:

George Bush refused for FOURTEEN MONTHS to allow any inquiry into the events leading up to 9/11, the worst attack on American soil in history.
More than a year later, in November of 2002, under pressure from victims’ families, he relented and allowed the formation of a 9/11 Commission, naming Pentagon advisor Henry Kissinger as co-chair. After one month, Kissinger resigned after strong objections from the families of 9/11 victims.
The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission only 3 million dollars to do its work. In contrast, $50 million had been given to the commission that investigated the Columbia space shuttle crash.
George Bush stonewalled the investigation at every turn. For a detailed summary of the obstacles the Commission was forced to overcome, check out the information at http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=124722 . In the end, the Kean Commission left a wide range of vital questions unexplored and unanswered. Requests to reopen the hearings to address the many discrepancies and fallacies in the report have gone unheeded.
At the end of the day, none of the outstanding questions about what the President knew and when he knew it has been answered. To this day, George Bush openly blames the FBI for the failures that led to 9/11. He continues to deny the evidence that has been uncovered and insists that no one in the WH had any prior knowledge of warnings about possible attacks. He is above the law.

The WMD claims against Iraq:

In January of 2004, former chief weapons inspector David Kay called for an independent inquiry into Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
In response, the White House immediately turned aside the calls from Kay and many Democrats, and refused to allow an immediate outside investigation.
In February of that year, President Bush relented and personally appointed people to serve on the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the US Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The Commission was to issue two reports: the first would reveal the role of the intelligence community in the WMD claims. The second, to be issued AFTER THE 2004 ELECTION, would look into whether Bush and his aides overstated and misrepresented the flawed intelligence they received from the intelligence agencies.
The second part of the investigation was never even attempted. After the 2004 elections, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts concluded that such an inquiry would be pointless. The matter was dropped and no one in the Bush administration has had to explain the repeated claims that Iraq’s WMD’s were a sure thing, and that they posed a serious threat to both Iraq’s neighbors and to the US. They are all above the law.

The Plame leak:

Bob Novak’s article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA operative appeared in July of 2003. Novak claimed that his sources for this information were two senior Bush administration officials.
Despite knowing that a serious crime had originated from inside the White House, George Bush did NOTHING at all to investigate the leak.
At the end of September, 2003, CIA Director George J. Tenet called on the Justice Department to investigate the leak of one of his operatives.
Days later, the Justice Department, led by John Ashcroft, a man close to the WH, opened an investigation into the leak. At that time, President Bush made the following statement to reporters: "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of..."
On December 30, 2003, five months after the Novak article appeared, Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the leak investigation and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald took over the probe. As honorable as Fitzgerald may be, he is NOT an independent prosecutor. Rather, he is an employee who reports only to the Justice Department of this administration.
In July of 2005, TWO YEARS after the original leak, Karl Rove was named as a source of Valerie Plame’s identity by Time reporter Matthew Cooper.
To date, George Bush has done absolutely nothing at about removing the criminals in his own WH. The Fitzgerald investigation is winding down, and in a few weeks we will see what we will see. Don’t hold your breath that justice will be done. George Bush, Karl Rove, and all the rest are above the law. On the other hand, without word one from the media, Bush as continued to appoint criminals to sensitive government positions. Do a web search for the felons that Bush has appointed to his government. Criminals are welcomed in the Bush White House.

The Aftermath of Katrina:

Everyone knows what happened, so it is unnecessary to recap the events of the hurricane and its aftermath. Suffice it to say that the Katrina fiasco was a disastrous failure by people who were entrusted with the job of planning and carrying out major emergency relief efforts wherever they occur.
It was a disastrous failure by a president who talked incessantly about security, but who appointed totally inadequate and unqualified cronies to head the agencies that failed the nation in crucial emergency.
Almost immediately, George Bush said that he wanted to get to the bottom of what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina. Therefore, he planned to personally oversee an investigation. Did you get that? He planned to investigate himself!
So, in case that didn’t go over too well, on September 17th the Republican leadership in the Senate stepped to protect George Bush from anyone who would question his shameful response to the hurricane. Only days after the storm, and in true lemming style, the GOP killed a proposal for an independent investigation of what had happened in New Orleans.
Instead, GOP members of Congress organized an inquiry committee without consulting a single Democrat. This “impartial group” is composed of senior members of Congress, with Republicans in the majority. How comforting to know that GOP loyalists plan to conduct a full and unbiased investigation of George Bush, Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff and their collective failures after Katrina.. How comforting, indeed, to know that - once again – there are those who remain above the law.

THE LAST WORD

What’s left to be said? Not very much. George Bush has had a free pass to do as he pleased for nearly five years now. He and his henchmen have not been held accountable for any crime against the people of this country or the world. He is above the law.

George Bush and his entire band of brigands have perfected their sting. They use it because it works. They use it because they can. They use it because we allow them to. George Bush walks freely while so many of his victims no longer can. After all he has done, George Bush still can laugh up his sleeve at a nation that is utterly powerless to stop him.

And that’s because George W. Bush is a man above the law.

THE BURNED BILL OF RIGHTS

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:16:43 EDT

America's allies and enemies alike are baffled. What is going on in the United States? Who is making foreign policy? And what are they trying to achieve? Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and contractors will accept the spoils of the kill in Iraq. But the oil business, with its Arabist bias, did not push for this war any more than it supports the Bush administration's close alliance with Ariel Sharon. Further, President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not genuine "Texas oil men" but career politicians who, in between stints in public life, would have used their connections to enrich themselves as figureheads in the wheat business, if they had been residents of Kansas, or in tech companies, had they been Californians.

Equally wrong is the theory that the American and European civilizations are evolving in opposite directions. The thesis of Robert Kagan, the neoconservative propagandist, that Americans are martial and Europeans pacifist, is complete nonsense. A majority of Americans voted for either Al Gore or Ralph Nader in 2000. Were it not for the overrepresentation of sparsely populated, right-wing states in both the presidential electoral college and the Senate, the White House and the Senate today would be controlled by Democrats, whose views and values, on everything from war to the welfare state, are very close to those of western Europeans.

Both the economic-determinist theory and the clash-of-cultures theory are reassuring: They assume that the recent revolution in U.S. foreign policy is the result of obscure but understandable forces in an orderly world. The truth is more alarming. As a result of several bizarre and unforeseeable contingencies – such as the selection rather than election of George W. Bush, and Sept. 11 – the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S. population or the mainstream foreign policy establishment.

The core group now in charge consists of neoconservative defense intellectuals. (They are called "neoconservatives" because many of them started off as anti-Stalinist leftists or liberals before moving to the far right.) Inside the government, the chief defense intellectuals include Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. He is the defense mastermind of the Bush administration; Donald Rumsfeld is an elderly figurehead who holds the position of defense secretary only because Wolfowitz himself is too controversial. Others include Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff; John R. Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell in check; and Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy at the National Security Council. On the outside are James Woolsey, the former CIA director, who has tried repeatedly to link both 9/11 and the anthrax letters in the U.S. to Saddam Hussein, and Richard Perle, who has just resigned his unpaid chairmanship of a defense department advisory body after a lobbying scandal. Most of these "experts" never served in the military. But their headquarters is now the civilian defense secretary's office, where these Republican political appointees are despised and distrusted by the largely Republican career soldiers.

Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for "democracy." They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.

The neocon defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical "pentagon" of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and media empires. Think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) provide homes for neocon "in-and-outers" when they are out of government (Perle is a fellow at AEI). The money comes not so much from corporations as from decades-old conservative foundations, such as the Bradley and Olin foundations, which spend down the estates of long-dead tycoons. Neoconservative foreign policy does not reflect business interests in any direct way. The neocons are ideologues, not opportunists.

The major link between the conservative think tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa), which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired general Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq. In October 2000, he cosigned a Jinsa letter that began: "We ... believe that during the current upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of [the] Palestinian Authority."

The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings. Wolfowitz and Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby. Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush administration's liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America, citing him as a "pro-Israel activist." While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith collaborated with Perle to coauthor a policy paper for Likud that advised the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the territories, and crush Yasser Arafat's government.

Such experts are not typical of Jewish-Americans, who mostly voted for Gore in 2000. The most fervent supporters of Likud in the Republican electorate are Southern Protestant fundamentalists. The religious right believes that God gave all of Palestine to the Jews, and fundamentalist congregations spend millions to subsidize Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The final corner of the neoconservative pentagon is occupied by several right-wing media empires, with roots – odd as it seems – in the British Commonwealth and South Korea. Rupert Murdoch disseminates propaganda through his Fox television network. His magazine, the Weekly Standard – edited by William Kristol, the former chief of staff of Dan Quayle (vice president, 1989-1993) – acts as a mouthpiece for defense intellectuals such as Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and Woolsey as well as for Sharon's government. The National Interest (of which I was executive editor, 1991-1994) is now funded by Conrad Black, who owns the Jerusalem Post and the Hollinger empire in Britain and Canada.

Strangest of all is the media network centered on the Washington Times – owned by the South Korean messiah (and ex-convict) the Rev. Sun Myung Moon – which owns the newswire UPI. UPI is now run by John O'Sullivan, the ghostwriter for Margaret Thatcher who once worked as an editor for Conrad Black in Canada. Through such channels, the "gotcha!" style of right-wing British journalism, and its Europhobic substance, have contaminated the US conservative movement.

The corners of the neoconservative pentagon were linked together in the 1990s by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), run by Kristol out of the Weekly Standard offices. Using a P.R. technique pioneered by their Trotskyist predecessors, the neocons published a series of public letters whose signatories often included Wolfowitz and other future members of the Bush foreign policy team. They called for the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq and to support Israel's campaigns against the Palestinians (dire warnings about China were another favorite). During Clinton's two terms, these fulminations were ignored by the foreign policy establishment and the mainstream media. Now they are frantically being studied.

How did the neocon defense intellectuals – a small group at odds with most of the U.S. foreign policy elite, Republican as well as Democratic – manage to capture the Bush administration? Few supported Bush during the presidential primaries. They feared that the second Bush would be like the first – a wimp who had failed to occupy Baghdad in the first Gulf War and who had pressured Israel into the Oslo peace process – and that his administration, again like his father's, would be dominated by moderate Republican realists such as Powell, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. They supported the maverick senator John McCain until it became clear that Bush would get the nomination.

Then they had a stroke of luck – Cheney was put in charge of the presidential transition (the period between the election in November and the accession to office in January). Cheney used this opportunity to stack the administration with his hard-line allies. Instead of becoming the de facto president in foreign policy, as many had expected, Secretary of State Powell found himself boxed in by Cheney's right-wing network, including Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Bolton and Libby.

The neocons took advantage of Bush's ignorance and inexperience. Unlike his father, a Second World War veteran who had been ambassador to China, director of the CIA, and vice president, George W was a thinly educated playboy who had failed repeatedly in business before becoming the governor of Texas, a largely ceremonial position (the state's lieutenant governor has more power). His father is essentially a northeastern moderate Republican; George W, raised in west Texas, absorbed the Texan cultural combination of machismo, anti-intellectualism and overt religiosity. The son of upper-class Episcopalian parents, he converted to Southern fundamentalism in a midlife crisis. Fervent Christian Zionism, along with an admiration for macho Israeli soldiers that sometimes coexists with hostility to liberal Jewish-American intellectuals, is a feature of the Southern culture.

The younger Bush was tilting away from Powell and toward Wolfowitz ("Wolfie," as he calls him) even before 9/11 gave him something he had lacked: a mission in life other than following in his dad's footsteps. There are signs of estrangement between the cautious father and the crusading son: Last year, veterans of the first Bush administration, including Baker, Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, warned publicly against an invasion of Iraq without authorization from Congress and the U.N.

It is not clear that George W fully understands the grand strategy that Wolfowitz and other aides are unfolding. He seems genuinely to believe that there was an imminent threat to the U.S. from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," something the leading neocons say in public but are far too intelligent to believe themselves. The Project for the New American Century urged an invasion of Iraq throughout the Clinton years, for reasons that had nothing to do with possible links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. Public letters signed by Wolfowitz and others called on the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq, to bomb Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, and to threaten states such as Syria and Iran with U.S. attacks if they continued to sponsor terrorism. Claims that the purpose is not to protect the American people but to make the Middle East safe for Israel are dismissed by the neocons as vicious anti-Semitism. Yet Syria, Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies, with their weapons pointed at each other, and the terrorists they sponsor target Israel rather than the U.S. The neocons urge war with Iran next, though by any rational measurement North Korea's new nuclear arsenal is, for the U.S., a far greater problem.

So that is the bizarre story of how neoconservatives took over Washington and steered the U.S. into a Middle Eastern war unrelated to any plausible threat to the U.S. and opposed by the public of every country in the world except Israel. The frightening thing is the role of happenstance and personality. After the al-Qaida attacks, any U.S. president would likely have gone to war to topple bin Laden's Taliban protectors in Afghanistan. But everything that the U.S. has done since then would have been different had America's 18th century electoral rules not given Bush the presidency and had Cheney not used the transition period to turn the foreign policy executive into a PNAC reunion.

For a British equivalent, one would have to imagine a Tory government, with Downing Street and Whitehall controlled by followers of the Rev. Ian Paisley, extreme Euroskeptics, empire loyalists and Blimpish military types – all determined, for a variety of strategic or religious reasons, to invade Egypt. Their aim would be to regain the Suez Canal as the first step in a campaign to restore the British empire. Yes, it really is that weird.

AMERICAN STATE SPONSERED TERRORISM

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:49:15 EDT

. World Order Under U.S./Western Hegemony

Despite the extensive documentation of this consistent record of U.S. imperialism, terrorism and anti-humanitarianism, members of the academic community often continue to espouse inaccurate and benign interpretations of these interventions in contradiction to the wealth of objective evidence. It is therefore interesting to observe the degree to which the relevant facts are rarely examined by those who hold fast to the dogma of Western benevolence in understanding Western policy - and when examined, their logical consequences ignored. Most often the very question of whether Western policies are justified is incomprehensible; analysis is framed on the basis of assuming the righteousness of Western intentions, and this assumption constitutes the fundamental foundation of political discourse.

The attempt to dismiss “the more familiar and more sinister motives” of Western neo-liberal imperialism, in which policies are determined by a variety of factors related ultimately to the protection of profit and its unlimited pursuit, actually results in ignoring masses of empirical data. Richard Barnet, for instance, argues that all industrial states seek to project power and influence in the cause of security. As Michael Parenti remarks:

“In fact, the case studies in Barnet’s book Intervention and Revolution point to business, rather than the national security bureaucracies, as the primary motive of US intervention. Anti-communism and the Soviet threat seem less a source for policy than a propaganda ploy to frighten the American public and rally support for overseas commitments. The very motives Barnet dismisses seem to be operative in his case studies of Greece, Iran, Lebanon, and the Dominican Republic, specifically the desire to secure access to markets and raw materials and the need, explicitly stated by various policymakers, to protect free enterprise throughout the world.”

Essentially, the theories of Barnet and analysts like him, rely for their plausibility on simply ignoring historical and empirical facts in which the anti-humanitarian/economic agenda behind Western policy is evidenced not only by the reality of the very policy itself, but by the documented statements of policy-makers. For instance, in his historical study The Ambiguities of Power, British scholar Mark Curtis shows that the Cold War was not motivated primarily by security concerns - but that the primary motive was hegemonic economic domination resulting in a clash of interests; the imminent security concern barely existed in reality, but was exaggerated to justify the pursuit of neo-imperialistic economic interests. Professor of Politics & International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton University, Richard Falk, points out in this respect that: “Despite a strong pretense of defensiveness, the actual course of American foreign policy has been much more contradictory in practice, seeking above all else as much space as possible for capitalist expansion.” However, as Falk also notes: “The main challenges to capitalist control in recent decades, have been the largely indigenous pressures of revolutionary nationalism.” For this reason, “the consistent, bipartisan pattern of U.S. anti-nationalist intervention in the Third World... certainly has as its primary character a quality of ‘aggression’... This pattern of aggression has translated into massive human suffering for many non-western societies, often prolonged over a span of many years.”

A particular example of ignoring rather obvious facts can be seen when liberal writers point out that empires are actually more costly to maintain than they are profitable. This is true in the sense that empires can cost more than they bring in. For example, from 1950 to 1970, the U.S. government spent several billions of dollars to support a corrupt dictatorship in the Philippines, with the objective of protecting only about $1 billion in U.S. investments in that country. It is thus concluded that therefore, the maintenance of such a global empire is to the detriment of U.S. interests. However, as Michael Parenti observes, this conclusion is based on ignoring another critical fact - that although the government of an imperial nation may spend more than it takes in, the people who foot the bill constitute the masses of the domestic population; whereas the people who absorb the gains consist of an elite minority. This point was eloquently noted by Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Business Enterprise (1904), where he observed that the profits of empire are siphoned into the hands of the privileged business elite. Meanwhile, the often massive costs which may far surpass the gains, are extracted from what Veblen aptly termed “the industry of the rest of the people.” In other words, transnational corporations reap the private returns of empire, but they carry little or nothing of the public cost.

“The expenditures needed in the way of armaments and aid to make the world safe for General Motors, General Dynamics, General Electric, and all the other generals are paid by the US government, that is, by the taxpayers... In sum, there is nothing irrational about spending three dollars of public money to protect one dollar of private investment - at least not from the perspective of the investors. To protect one dollar of their money they will spend three, four, and five dollars of our money. In fact, when it comes to protecting their money, our money is no object.”

The usual argument employed to discredit an analysis in which neo-imperialistic economic imperatives are found to be the overriding driving force of policy, does not even attempt to deal with the wealth of empirical data provided in its support, but rather complains about the alleged “simplicity” of the conclusion, since it apparently ignores other variables such as geopolitics, culture, ethnicity, nationalism, ideology, and morality. In fact, this argument does not expose any logical deficiency in the conclusion. All it shows is that the West’s hegemonic-economic agenda - the existence of which is already proven - is not insulated from these other variables, but indeed must be buttressed by them. This only points to further areas of research in which the analyst can discover the exact way in which Western culture, ideology and morality provide internal justification and motivation for the already proven hegemonic-economic agenda of Western policies, and their interplay with the phenomena of geopolitics and nationalism. To disprove the conclusion one has to show that the evidence galvanised for it is false - yet this is never done.

As Dr. Parenti points out:

“The existence of other variables such as nationalism, militarism, the search for national security, and the pursuit of power and hegemonic dominance, neither compels us to dismiss economic realities, nor to treat these other variables as insulated from class interests. Thus, the desire to extend US strategic power into a particular region is impelled at least in part by a desire to stabilize the area along lines that are favorable to politico-economic elite interests - which is why the region becomes a focus of concern in the first place. In other words, various considerations work with circular effect upon each other. The growth in overseas investments invites a need for military protection. This, in turn, creates a need to secure bases and establish alliances with other nations. The alliances now expand the ‘defense’ perimeter that must be maintained. So a particular country becomes not only an ‘essential’ asset for our defense but must itself be defended, like any other asset.”

Naturally this has broad implications for the nature of the current crisis unfolding since the acts of terrorism against America which brought the World Trade Center down, killing and injuring thousands of innocent civilians in the process. There can be no justification for such a disgusting atrocity. Yet what occurred on that tragic day, unfortunately, is lesser in scale than the acts of terrorism inflicted by the United States on other countries around the world to secure its own interests. It is obfuscatory and ridiculous to claim that the terrorists behind this month’s attacks on America were simply attempting to wage war on the concepts of freedom and democracy. There is, indeed, no substantial evidence at all for that assertion. It is, on the other hand, reasonable to deduce that what happened is the very opposite.

For America is clearly not the bastion of freedom or democracy. The documentary record illustrates unequivocally that the United States, leading the Western powers, opposes genuine freedom and democracy throughout the world to impose its own hegemony and thereby secure its own elite interests. The terrorists behind the September attacks most probably saw themselves as waging war on the concept of America as the leading supporter of terrorism and dictatorship worldwide. In truth, these terrorists, whoever they were and are, fell into the same trap by unconscionably murdering innocent civilians to achieve this objective. And this is wrong. Yet it is also wrong to assume that America is innocent. It is also wrong to assume that America’s own policies had nothing to do with the tragedy of the 11th.

George Bush has told us that a new war has begun, a war against international terrorism. The reality is rather different. The West has been waging war on the weaker countries of the Third World for decades. And that war, war which extinguishes hope, which slaughters by the hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions, which impoverishes ruthlessly, which denies basic civil rights, which represses basic social and economic rights, is a war so brutal that it creates individuals who feel that the only way to resist is to fight back with the same tactics of terror taught to them by the policies of the West. Now this war has come home.

We must condemn the acts of terror of the 11th September with all our hearts, minds and souls. But we must also condemn the acts of terror carried out by the Western powers under U.S. leadership throughout the 20th – and into the 21st – centuries. And we must condemn the acts of terrorism which the West is preparing to commit in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond, by exploiting the current crisis to secure long-standing interests in these regions.

A Tree Gave Its Life for Obama Last Week

Susan in Spokane — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:40:24 EDT

Sad news for tree-lovers. I had put two Obama yard signs in our yard, along with a yard sign for the WA State Democratic Governor, Christine Gregoire, who is running again for governor this year. Sometime during the night of Oct. 14th, not only were our yard signs taken, but our young tree in front of one of them was hacked and fatally wounded.

The Gregoire for Governor sign had been discarded along the side of the street not far from our home. No sign of the Obama ones. By the way, Gov. Gregoire has been an outspoken Obama supporter, and just held a rally here in Spokane about 10 days ago with Gov. Bill Richardson of NM and a couple of our State senators as well as one of our US Senators -- not only to rally her campaign, but Obama's, too.

I was prepared for stolen yard signs, but not for harm to an innocent tree. The tree wasn’t voting for Obama – and even if it were, that doesn’t mean its life had to be taken. I am very saddened by this cruel act. I had decided to make a donation to Obama in memory of the tree. Today I realized that there may be other tree-lovers and Obama supporters out there who would also want to commemorate our sapling with a donation to Obama’s campaign.

Therefore, the fundraiser on my Obama profile page. I have matched the first $200 donated. This gave me the opportunity to make the donation I had planned to, as well as use this act by “those ones” to help our candidate even more!

My sincere thanks to those of you who join this cause. If you are in the Spokane area and are available on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 19th), I will hold a drum circle in memory of the tree at the Inner Journeys Center, 334 South Grant St. in the downtown Spokane area (NOT Grand Blvd.! Grant St. is a couple blocks past the Goodwill store on 3rd Avenue on the right side. The Center is the last house on the right.) from 4 PM to 5:30 PM. All are welcome. There is parking in the rear of the building – just follow the narrow driveway.

YES.WE.CAN move beyond hate and ignorance!

Susan in Spokane

5 questions for Mr Obama ?

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:56:29 EDT

1) WILL MR OBAMA FUNDERMENTALLY CHANGE INSTITUTIONS THAT PREY ON THE POOR...WORLD BANK? FEDERAL RESERVE, AND THE I.M.F ? 2) WILL MR OBAMA SUPPORT AN OPEN INDEPENDANT INQUIRY TO 911 ? 3) DOES MR OBAMA UNDERSTAND THE REASONS OF WHY TERRORIST HATE AMERICA ? 4) WHAT WILL MR OBAMA DO ABOUT THE INDUSTRIAL MILLITARY COMPLEX ? 5) WILL MR OBAMA BRING ACCOUNTABILLITY FOR THE MONSTEROUS LAST 8 YEARS OF THIS ADMINISTRATION ? THE REAL CHANGE THAT PEOPLE NEED ARE IN THESE QUESTIONS ?

LIES

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:13:46 EDT

The lying game

Like George W. Bush, McCain and Palin have to lie. Because if they told the truth about their policies, they'd lose the election.

By Alan Wolfe

Sept. 18, 2008 | Eight years after the travesty of the 2000 election, in which the media were prone to emphasize Al Gore's exaggerations while letting George W. Bush off the hook, Republican politicians finally are being called out on their dishonesty. "The biggest liar in modern political history," writes Michael Tomasky, the editor of the Guardian America, about John McCain. There are indeed so many lies associated with the Republican campaign that one can pick and choose at random. My favorites are the efforts by the McCain campaign to portray Obama as being in favor of teaching sex education to 5-year-olds and the Spanish language ad accusing him of opposing immigration reform. Your favorites might include McCain's claim that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class or his statement to the women of "The View" that Sarah Palin never requested earmarks.

McCain's propensity to lie has become what political junkies call a meme, an idea or behavior that runs, seemingly unstoppably, from one media outlet to another. Some bloggers offer daily counts of how many falsehoods McCain tells while others wonder why the Democrats do not respond in turn. Even the mainstream press has gotten into the act. One of the pleasures of the 2008 campaign -- I admit they have been few and far between -- is watching all those who once admired John McCain for his truthfulness realize the true depths of his moral depravity. When McCain is linked to Palin, moreover, as he so frequently wants to be, lying experiences something of a multiplier effect. These candidates lie so much that they have taken to lying about their own lies.

Before we get carried away with enthusiasm about all this, though, we should keep two things in mind. One is that we are so quick to label McCain a liar that we tend to forget how much, and with what horrendous consequences, George W. Bush possessed the same character flaw. The other is that Republicans lie so frequently, not because the party just happened to settle upon one serial liar after another to run for high office, but because the form of conservatism to which they all adhere demands that if they are to win they have no choice but to lie

In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush, then something of a political unknown, claimed to be a compassionate conservative and promised the country a "humble" foreign policy. Lies both. Compassionate conservatism was a brilliant campaign slogan, an attempt by Bush to persuade independent voters that he was not a raving madman like Newt Gingrich, who had urged, in true Dickensian fashion, the building of orphanages to solve the welfare problem. Long before the public had ever heard of Rick Warren, Karl Rove understood that the evangelical base of the Republican Party wanted language more uplifting than traditional Republican red meat, and the idea that conservatives were in fact more compassionate than bureaucratic liberals provided it. In actuality, as we now know, Bush wanted to privatize Social Security, the most compassionate program ever adopted in this country, and was simply waiting for the right opportunity to do so.

Bush spoke in 2000 of a humble foreign policy for much the same reason. We now also know that the Bush-Cheney administration was intent on adopting the most aggressive American foreign stance possible, and that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, offered them the public justification for actions they had been secretly planning since taking office. We tend to forget that before Sept. 11, aggressive foreign policy moves were not all that popular. Americans wanted a peace dividend in the aftermath of communism's collapse and seemed hell-bent on turning inward to their private pursuits. In that context, offering them a humble approach while planning a militant one constituted as dramatic a lie as one can imagine.

I would never challenge the argument that John McCain's lies in 2008 are over the top. But if McCain is more serial a liar than George W. Bush, it is a matter of degree rather than kind. Bush's lies, after all, led to thousands of needless deaths, and none of John McCain's lies, at least to this point, have done that. Were he to find himself elected, McCain would no doubt lie about many things, such as whether the United States has engaged in torture or whether Iran is a genuine military threat to the United States. But the bar has been set way too high; given the mendacity of the Bush administration, I am at something of a loss to imagine that a McCain administration could lie more.

Why do Republicans lie so much? Why is McCain following the Bush script? Why, at the very moment when he wanted a "maverick" by his side, did McCain pick a congenital liar to be his running mate? Republicans engage in what I can only call "structural lies." To understand what this means consider this: Just about every significant lie uttered by Republican politicians is designed to make them seem less conservative than they really are

The current lie du jour of the McCain campaign is that their man will aggressively take on the greed that is causing the collapse on Wall Street. Given McCain's lack of interest in the economy, wealthy campaign contributors, and ideological hostility toward government regulation, this stance is laughable. But McCain's lie unconsciously reveals an important truth, which is that when the economy goes into a tailspin, the public prefers a solution long identified with liberalism. McCain could tell the truth, which is that he is all for the free market and can barely wait until the crisis passes so the rich can go about the business of becoming ever richer. But if he does that, he will lose. McCain wants to win. Therefore he lies.

It is not just the economy that features this structural dynamic. If you were just tuning into the election now -- no doubt there are many Americans who have not quite tuned in yet -- you would think that the Republican Party loves workers, hopes to redistribute income to the lower middle class, embraces immigrants, favors environmental protection, and hates war. Some of the Republican lies, to be sure have nothing to do with policy, such as false estimates of the size of the crowds attending Republican rallies or Sarah Palin's announcement that she had sold the Alaska governor's plane on eBay, but of those that do, the overwhelming majority are designed to make the Republican ticket more humane and moderate than it actually is. Only on foreign policy, where McCain shows no interest in hiding his hawkish instincts, can the ticket claim to be taking an honest position even if the face of public skepticism.

Conservatism is an honorable political philosophy whose most eloquent spokesmen, such as John Adams and Edmund Burke, proclaimed the truth as they saw it. This is a tradition that continues among all those contemporary conservatives who have been appalled at the direction the McCain camp has taken and have been willing to say so publicly. In contrast, the conservative populism that has swallowed up the contemporary Republican Party lies because conservative populism is itself a lie. It claims to be guided by faith when it is run by corruption. It speaks of diversity but remains overwhelmingly white. It uses women to push an agenda that would expose women to harm. It speaks of reform tomorrow to slash the reforms of today. It seeks popular support to enact policies that, if revealed for what they were, would be wildly unpopular.

Like so many of John McCain's critics, I find myself astonished at the sheer brazenness of the lies he tells. But this is not because McCain is more dishonorable than Bush. It is because the conditions under which a truthful Republican could be elected in 2008 are much more difficult than they were in 2000. Through sheer incompetence and cronyism, George W. Bush showed Americans just how dangerous conservatism can be. Because he did, those conservatives who would succeed him face even more difficult obstacles placed in their path to power. In the past, they might have gotten away with lying occasionally. This will no longer do. Expect, therefore, as the country turns to the debates ahead, that John McCain, when addressing issues of foreign policy around which he has been remarkably honest, will begin to lie in that area as well.

US CAPITALISM IS BEING EXPOSED

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:08:37 EDT

Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being ExposedBretton Woods was the system of global financial management set up at the end of the second World War to ensure the interests of capital did not smother wider social concerns in post-war democracies. It was hated by the US neoliberals - the very people who created the banking crisis writes Noam Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

THE SIMULTANEOUS unfolding of the US presidential campaign and unraveling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature.

Passion about the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and healthcare at risk.

The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of totalitarianism that they were quickly modified. Under intense lobbyist pressure, they were reshaped as "a clear win for the largest institutions in the system . . . a way of dumping assets without having to fail or close", as described by James Rickards, who negotiated the federal bailout for the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, reminding us that we are treading familiar turf. The immediate origins of the current meltdown lie in the collapse of the housing bubble supervised by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, which sustained the struggling economy through the Bush years by debt-based consumer spending along with borrowing from abroad. But the roots are deeper. In part they lie in the triumph of financial liberalisation in the past 30 years - that is, freeing the markets as much as possible from government regulation.

These steps predictably increased the frequency and depth of severe reversals, which now threaten to bring about the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

Also predictably, the narrow sectors that reaped enormous profits from liberalisation are calling for massive state intervention to rescue collapsing financial institutions.

Such interventionism is a regular feature of state capitalism, though the scale today is unusual. A study by international economists Winfried Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder 15 years ago found that at least 20 companies in the Fortune 100 would not have survived if they had not been saved by their respective governments, and that many of the rest gained substantially by demanding that governments "socialise their losses," as in today's taxpayer-financed bailout. Such government intervention "has been the rule rather than the exception over the past two centuries", they conclude.

In a functioning democratic society, a political campaign would address such fundamental issues, looking into root causes and cures, and proposing the means by which people suffering the consequences can take effective control.

The financial market "underprices risk" and is "systematically inefficient", as economists John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago, warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalisation and reviewing the substantial costs already incurred - and proposing solutions, which have been ignored. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not participate in transactions. These "externalities" can be huge. Ignoring systemic risk leads to more risk-taking than would take place in an efficient economy, even by the narrowest measures.

The task of financial institutions is to take risks and, if well-managed, to ensure that potential losses to themselves will be covered. The emphasis is on "to themselves". Under state capitalist rules, it is not their business to consider the cost to others - the "externalities" of decent survival - if their practices lead to financial crisis, as they regularly do.

Financial liberalisation has effects well beyond the economy. It has long been understood that it is a powerful weapon against democracy. Free capital movement creates what some have called a "virtual parliament" of investors and lenders, who closely monitor government programmes and "vote" against them if they are considered irrational: for the benefit of people, rather than concentrated private power.

Investors and lenders can "vote" by capital flight, attacks on currencies and other devices offered by financial liberalisation. That is one reason why the Bretton Woods system established by the United States and Britain after the second World War instituted capital controls and regulated currencies.*

The Great Depression and the war had aroused powerful radical democratic currents, ranging from the anti-fascist resistance to working class organisation. These pressures made it necessary to permit social democratic policies. The Bretton Woods system was designed in part to create a space for government action responding to public will - for some measure of democracy.

John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator, considered the most important achievement of Bretton Woods to be the establishment of the right of governments to restrict capital movement.

In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free capital mobility as a "fundamental right", unlike such alleged "rights" as those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have dismissed as "letters to Santa Claus", "preposterous", mere "myths".

In earlier years, the public had not been much of a problem. The reasons are reviewed by Barry Eichengreen in his standard scholarly history of the international monetary system. He explains that in the 19th century, governments had not yet been "politicised by universal male suffrage and the rise of trade unionism and parliamentary labour parties". Therefore, the severe costs imposed by the virtual parliament could be transferred to the general population.

But with the radicalisation of the general public during the Great Depression and the anti-fascist war, that luxury was no longer available to private power and wealth. Hence in the Bretton Woods system, "limits on capital mobility substituted for limits on democracy as a source of insulation from market pressures".

The obvious corollary is that after the dismantling of the postwar system, democracy is restricted. It has therefore become necessary to control and marginalise the public in some fashion, processes particularly evident in the more business-run societies like the United States. The management of electoral extravaganzas by the public relations industry is one illustration.

"Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," concluded America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as long as power resides in "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda".

The United States effectively has a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats. There are differences between them. In his study Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels shows that during the past six decades "real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working-poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans".

Differences can be detected in the current election as well. Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistently over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above.

Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace.

* The Bretton Woods system of global financial management was created by 730 delegates from all 44 Allied second World War nations who attended a UN-hosted Monetary and Financial Conference at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in 1944.

Bretton Woods, which collapsed in 1971, was the system of rules, institutions, and procedures that regulated the international monetary system, under which were set up the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) (now one of five institutions in the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which came into effect in 1945.

The chief feature of Bretton Woods was an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value.

The system collapsed when the US suspended convertibility from dollars to gold. This created the unique situation whereby the US dollar became the "reserve currency" for the other countries within Bretton Woods.

THE TRAIL OF TORTURE

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:05:15 EDT

The Trail of TortureThat the White House authorised 'waterboarding' is disturbing. But that no one in mainstream US politics seems to care is worse

by Andy Worthington

The revelation, in yesterday's Washington Post, that the Bush administration "issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects" will increase calls for the administration to be held to account for its actions.

It is unlikely, though, that this revelation will lead to significant activity, beyond adding more voices to grassroots impeachment campaigns in the United States - although it may lead to a strengthening of plans in various European countries to indict senior officials for war crimes. As law professor Scott Horton explained in June, the best that opponents of the regime can hope for is that the "Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans."

The problem for all parties concerned is that the administration itself still refuses to concede that it has engaged in torture, and is being allowed to get away with it in the two places where opposition could really count: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Rather than pursuing senior officials, house Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi declared that impeachment was "off the table" after the Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives two years ago. A month earlier, politicians had endorsed the executive's attempts to shield itself and its employees from any liability for their actions by passing the Military Commissions Act, parts of which were clearly intended to exempt US officials from being prosecuted for war crimes.

Freed from direct challenges, the administration has, instead, attempted to stifle all mention of torture in its dealings with prisoners seized in the "war on terror".

A case in point is the British resident Binyam Mohamed. According to his lawyers at the legal action charity Reprieve, Mr Mohamed, who was seized in Pakistan in April 2002, was sent to Morocco by the CIA (before the agency brought torture "in-house"), where proxy torturers extracted a number of false confessions from him. As a result, he was accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city, and was put forward for trial by military commission at Guantánamo.

However, just last week, when a judge in Washington, DC finally had the opportunity to review his case, the US justice department chose to drop the charges relating to the "bomb plot" rather than pursue them, presumably because senior officials were aware that the entire trail of decision-making as to why Mr Mohamed was rendered to Morocco led to the highest levels of government, and to the kinds of discussions between the CIA and senior officials - including Vice President Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld - that were discussed in yesterday's article in the Washington Post.

Even so, Mr Mohamed may still face the same charges in a trial by military commission, because the defence department, safe from judicial scrutiny, still believes that it can pursue prosecutions in a system that is so rigged that, when one of the prosecutors, Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, resigned two weeks ago, he expressed his profound doubts that the system was "capable of delivering justice".

The fact that some of these cases - like that of Mr Mohamed - involve the alleged use of extraordinary rendition and torture by or on behalf of the CIA only serves to confirm that even confirmed critics and opponents of the administration's detention and interrogation policies in the "war on terror" are a long way from holding senior officials to account. Perhaps the greatest shame, however, is that out on the campaign trail, where these issues ought to count for something, they are not being mentioned at all.

Bush lies

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:01:52 EDT

The LiesBush team lied about intentions for war from the start

The greatest lie of the Bush administration is a lie of omission. During George Bush's 2000 presidential campaign he stated that he was against "nation-building", and he never gave any indication that he had any plans for military action involving the Middle East. Bush made several statements about national-building, including:

"Let me tell you what else I'm worried about: I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place."
"And so I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building."

The issue here is that the Bush "team", the future Bush administration, was already put together. It was a team of some of America's largest proponents of preemptive warfare and proponents of an invasion of Iraq in order to oust Saddam Hussein and impose US influence in the Persian Gulf. This is not just a case of saying one thing at election time and doing another once in office, this is a case of premeditated action. The Bush administration is a war cabinet that was put together with all of the most prominent advocates of war with Iraq. It is certainly not chance that George Bush just happened to select these people for his cabinet, and then we were attacked and evidence just "came to light" that Saddam was now a threat that had to be dealt with, however this is exactly how it was portrayed to the American people, and the world.

In 1992, shortly after Desert Storm, Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense, began drafting a foreign policy plan that was geared towards American military global preeminence and American control of the Middle East.

In 1998 the Project for a New American Century wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton urging the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. That letter was signed by Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, and Robert B. Zoellick.

10 of these 18 signers hold positions in the Bush cabinet today.

In 2000 The Project for a New American Century completed a draft, which they started in 1998, of their vision for the future of American foreign policy for the Bush administration.

This plan for the Bush administration is a, “blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.”

This plan calls for American dominance in the Gulf region whether or not Saddam is in power, but admits that Saddam is a good excuse to take power, by stating:

The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein...
From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.

This plan sets fourth a clear goal for America to take control over all global resources possible and to maintain that control through military means and through the manipulation of local political forces. This plans states that purely American interests should be the primary consideration in all American foreign policy.

Today, that same security can only be acquired at the ‘retail’ level, by deterring or, when needed, by compelling regional foes to act in ways that protect American interests and principles...
America’s strategic goal used to be containment of the Soviet Union; today the task is to preserve an international security environment conducive to American interests and ideals...
American containment strategy did not proceed from the assumption that the Cold War would be a purely military struggle, in which the U.S. Army matched the Red Army tank for tank; rather, the United States would seek to deter the Soviets militarily while defeating them economically and ideologically over time...
...while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate.

The plan clearly recognizes that weapons of mass destruction are strategic tools used by the countries now called the “Axis of Evil” to protect their own local interests from American intervention. What is important to note about this is that this is not how the situation is portrayed to the American public. Again, its not a matter of whether or not you agree with the policy in question, the issue is that this is the policy that is in use yet it is not the policy that the Bush cabinet claims is in use. The motivation for war that was given to the public by the Bush administration centered on protecting Americans from direct harm. What this policy states is that military intervention in Iraq is needed not to protect the lives of American from direct harm, but to prevent regional powers from developing military means that allow them to control the economic and political climates in their own regions.

This plan, which was developed for the Bush administration, claims that today, while America has possibly the most powerful military advantage of any country in the history of the world over its “adversaries” and that while America currently spends more money on its military than the next top 20 military spenders in the world combined (most of which are our allies), the American military is still woefully under funded.

This plan goes on to state that the goal of the American military should be to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars." This means that the goal of the American military should be that of being able to wage global war all by itself.

Wolfowitz and Libby, two members of the Bush cabinet, have drafted plans that state that the US must, “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”

It cannot be any more plain that their vision of US strategy for the 21st century should be global domination, not that of a global partner, but that of a global dictator.

In addition, the Statement of Principles for the PNAC is endorsed by Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Read those names carefully, you will be seeing them again.

Even if you agree with the plans of the PNAC what you do have to recognize is that the current Bush administration is a war cabinet. The Bush administration was put together prior to 9/11/2001. At the very least what can be said is that George W. Bush Jr. had the intentions of going to war with Iraq during his presidential campaign. Given this fact it is important to note that he did not campaign on this fact, and in fact he campaigned against nation building.

This is where the lie comes in. He committed a lie to the American people of the gravest magnitude. It was a tremendous lie of omission. The American people that did vote for Bush (and that is another topic of debate of course) didn’t vote for him on the premise that he was going to jump into office and wage war on Iraq and work to further global American military and economic dominance. If he had told America the truth about this plan to wage war on Iraq from the beginning it is doubtful that he would have even been close to being elected. Instead he and his affiliates lied and kept the plan quite until after he was in office.

Not only that, but even since the issue of war with Iraq has come up the administration has still never publicly discussed this agenda, they simply make claims about weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, patriotism, God, and the liberation of Iraq. These comments were never satisfactorily supported prior to entering into war with Iraq.

These facts make it clear that there was a plan to go to war with Iraq regardless of what happened on September 11th 2001. George Bush and Dick Cheney were dishonest from the very start about the most serious subject in the world, war. Whether you agree with the war or not there is no way to deny that fact.

Something Smells: Plumber Joe a McCain (Sewage) Plant

Eric in San Diego — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:00:14 EDT

Joe the Plumber didn't just appear from nowhere. The McCain campaign orchestrated a big lie and another example of their smear and slime campaign rooted in lies because they don't have anything else to run on. McCain planted Plummer Joe, made sure he was captured on film with Obama, and was prepared to bring him up in the debate. This was a debate gimmick, a lie, and spotlights the dark, negative character of McCain and his campaign.

This morning, Plummer Joe spouted off a litany of radical right wing talking points. A person such as this would not be found at an Obama Campaign rally. He would be found at the "cocky wacko" Sarah Palin rally. I believe the American people are smart enough to see right through this ploy and the human waste that runs through Joe the Plumber's plumbing.

CROOKS and BANKERS

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:11:33 EDT

The Illuminati Controlled
Federal Reserve 'Terrorists'
By Michael Shore
Tel Aviv
11-24-4 The biggest "terrorist" threat to the People in the U.S.A. is not Ossama bin Laden or any other so-called "terrorist" leader or group. While Americans are preoccupied with a rigged phony election and "wars for PROFIT" in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Illuminati controlled Federal Reserve "terrorists" are orchestrating a financial collapse in the U.S.A. that could destroy the U.S.A. and other countries in the world much more than the Great Depression of 1929-32. The biggest threat to America are the "terrorists" that are conducting "FINANCIAL WARFARE" in America and other countries of the world, possibly leading to s Global Financial Meltdown. These "terrorists" are a small covert, clandestine, London, European and American based organization operating in the U.S.A. as a supposed "U.S. government agency". They're called the Federal Reserve, which is controlled by the most EVIL "terrorists" in the world, the "Elite terrorist" group of criminals, crooks and killers, known as the Illuminati. By the President and Vice president of the U.S.A. and every Senator and Congressman making it appear that the Federal Reserve is a Government Agency, when it's an independent PRIVATE company, should show the American citizens the extent to which this most dangerous "terrorist" organization CONTROLS the U.S. government! If the citizens of the U.S.A. do not recognize and root out this small but deadly group of "terrorists", they will lose not only their country, but also their homes, property, jobs and wealth and suffer hardships never before experienced on American soil. The Illuminati and Federal Reserve are currently the biggest threats to the lives of Americans.The patsy for the bankrupting of the U.S.A. has already been set up in one so-called "terrorist" named Ossama Bin Laden, who along with other supposed 'terrorists" will be the ones blamed for the financial collapse in America and the world. The Illuminati are the ones behind the scenes manipulating world events, including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. George Bush, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon and just about every other leader of a Nation are their "front men", their "puppets", who do what they are told to do. These leaders of Nations have little or no real total understanding of the corrupted economic systems and paper money scam set up by the Illuminati to insure their global control of Nations. The leaders of Nations make none of the really important decisions that affect the Nation they lead and the world. They are merely "speech readers", reading the scripted speeches and carrying out the actions that have been planned by the Illuminati years in advance. War is the major way for the EVIL, sinister, insane Illuminati to control humanity. War or the threat of war, or so-called staged "terrorist" mass casualty producing events, cause FEAR in the People and diverts their attention from what is really going on behind the scenes, as the "hidden" Illuminati LOOT the government treasuries of the world for their personal financial gain. They LEND MONEY TO BOTH SIDES in every war and funnel money through their global web to the few so called "terrorist" groups in the world. Remember it was just recently disclosed that Yasser Arafat {another Illuminati "puppet"}was a billionaire, if you can imagine that. Meanwhile the naive poor Palestinian and Israeli populations are killing each other and being mis-used by the Illuminati to cause more never-ending "war for profits". So called "terrorist" groups enables the Illuminati to create a "cheap enemy" that they can use as the reason to increase defense spending in a Nation. They then collect interest on the hundreds of billions of dollars that need to be borrowed by the government of their "puppet" leader of a Nation, who gets his "puppet"government to approve the billions of dollars to be used for war. The Illuminati also control the few huge major war corporations receiving the multi-billion dollar government war contracts.The Illuminati generated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars so far and these and other planned Illuminati "wars for profits" will probably cost them hundreds of billions more in the future. WAR WAR WAR MONEY MONEY MONEY SICK SICK SICK!!! Anyone with a brain, who can think for themselves could figure out that you don't "liberate" people and get them to LOVE you by dropping bombs on them or by shooting them and killing their families, relatives and friends. This unfortunately is what America is doing to the people in Iraq. But every bomb that's dropped from planes and every bullet that is shot from guns is more and more profit for the Illuminati war corporations. Every multi-million dollar helicopter, tank and plane that is destroyed is more profit for the war corporations, who get contracts to build NEW ones. Every uniform, pair of shoes and all the equipment that a soldier needs is more profit for war corporations. All the military contracts for the food and drink that soldiers need and even the toilet paper that they use is more profit for war corporations. All the contracts for the body bags and coffins that are needed for dead soldiers is more profit for war corporations. Have you ever wondered why there never seems to be enough billions of taxpayer dollars available for FREE health care and important social programs, but somehow there's ALWAYS multi-billions of dollars available to make WAR??? Now you know the answer>>> the Illuminati war business is very very sick, don't you think? Other major "weapons" that the Illuminati use in their silent arsenal of "FINANCIAL WARFARE" on the People of the world is DEBT,CREDIT and INTEREST. By keeping governments, individuals and businesses in constant debt that accumulates extraordinary amounts of interest, the Illuminati bankers make untold billions of dollars.and this enables them to control the "slaves" and their governments and businesses. If the bankers do not loan money to the governments, businesses or individual "slaves" who may need to borrow, they can destroy the government, business or "slave". Debt is the Illuminati's "silent" Weapon of Mass Destruction. The super wealthy members of the Illuminati, with their TRILLIONS of dollars behind them, control the Federal Reserve "terrorist" group and the President, Vice President, and both the Democratic and Republican parties, including just about every Senator and Congressman, Governor and Mayor in the U.S.A. In essence they control the U.S. government and military. Mainly the Federal Reserve controls all the MONEY in the U.S.A. In the links below, you can read how the Federal Reserve, a private company, un-constitutionally prints the money in the U.S.A. and "LOANS" the money to the U.S. government and collects interest on this money. This is called the National Debt and over 40% of every one of your hard earned tax dollars goes to these bankers to pay just the yearly interest on this debt! But neither the American President, Vice President or any Congressman or Senator currently tells the American people this horrible TRUTH! Can you imagine the implications of this yet??? If you control the MONEY you control the country! They manipulate the stock, bond and commodity markets for their own financial gain.They can create booms and busts at will by expanding or contracting the supply of money and raising or lowering interest rates in the U.S.A. and other countries.The current goal of the Federal Reserve "terrorists" is to cause a Greater Than Great Depression and bankrupt the U.S.A., which will wreak financial havoc across the globe thereby causing a Global Financial Crisis never before seen on Planet Earth. This could allow the Illuminati "terrorists" who control the Federal Reserve to accomplish their goal of totally controlling the world by implementing a One World Government,organized as a global fascist police state, ruled by an "elite" Illuminati dictatorship. Since the Illuminati control all of the major newspapers, T.V. and radio stations, magazines, book publishers, movie and music companies, it is a major challenge to get the TRUTH of their existence known to the citizens of the world community. The only chance is s grass roots movement that "shines a spotlight" on the Illuminati "terrorist" group and gets the attention on them and exposes them for who they are. It is imperative that YOU spread the word to all your relatives, friends and acquaintances about the existence of this most EVIL perverted, insane satanic group of criminals, killers and thieves. If the Illuminati manage to stay "hidden" and continue to get away with their world wide crimes, unfortunately most of humanity and the world as we know it may be doomed. FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE ILLUMINATI put "ILLUMINATI" in www.google.com and also go to www.davidicke.com WAKE UP AND DO WHAT YOU CAN TO STOP THE ILLUMINATI AND THEIR FEDERAL RESERVE "TERRORISTS". YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS DEPENDS ON IT. The simplest thing we the People can do is to call for the U.S. government and every other government to issue it's own "interest free" currency. Who ever heard of a Nation having to "borrow" it's own currency and pay interest on it? But this is exactly what is going on in the U.S.A. and other countries. The second thing WE can do is take these criminal "bankers" to a court of law and get a verdict of GUILTY of fraud etc etc etc. If this is done then the American People and the Nations of the world could legally declare all the TRILLIONS of dollars of debt owed to these corrupted criminal bankers to be NULL AND VOID, and no one would owe them a penny. We and our governments can be LEGALLY DEBT FREE! Then we can set up a new interest-free economic system as described in one of the links below. HALLELUJAH!!! If the Illuminati and their associates in crime are no longer around making more and more "wars for profit", than it can be possible for ALL OF US to make PEACE in this world. STOP THE ILLUMINATI NOW!

McCain Could Rebound (Don't Watch Polls)

joelle — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:18:04 EDT

I know it's tempting, but we can't afford to watch the polls. This is still a 50:50 country, and a 50:50 state. If Barack wins on November 4th, it's not going to be because we "hope" or "are confident." It's going to be because we work our butts off, calling, canvassing and Getting Out The Vote. Democrats have been prettty casual about turnout. I, for one, don't want to be sitting around watching McCain innaugerated and knowing I could have done more, but it is too late.

We are really gearing up. Please call your local office to volunteer.

McCain Can Rebound, GOP Strategist Says

(CBS) Political Players is a continuing conversation with the leaders, consultants and activists who shape American politics. This week, CBS News’ Brian Goldsmith talked with Republican political strategist Alex Castellanos about his party’s outlook in November.

CBSNews.com: We see tracking polls that show this race anywhere from a one point Obama lead to a 12 point Obama lead. What's your view of where the campaign stands today?

Alex Castellanos: I think this campaign was tightening up until a couple of weeks ago. And I think at that point it kind of knocked the Republican brand back quite a bit. You can see that it's not only affected the McCain campaign, but you're seeing Senate races, congressional races all around the country where Republicans have dropped four or five points. So my guess today is that McCain is probably four or five points behind.

CBSNews.com: Do you get the sense that there may be some tightening over the last couple of days? Or do you think that's just a natural fluctuation?

Alex Castellanos: I think that’s a little bit of a fluctuation. I think a lot of America voted last week. And I don't mean that physically, but a lot of people I think reached a decision point last week. We've seen some hardening of the vote. You look at the Republican vote and nearly 90 percent say that they're for McCain and not moving, and likewise for the Democratic vote.

I think there's a sense now, for those voters who have decided to go for Obama, the election is over. And I think we're actually going to go through a little period of buyer's remorse where people take one more look at Obama and ask, is this what I really want to do?

So I would expect it to tighten again a little bit. But Obama has a lead. And I think McCain needs a comeback strategy.

CBSNews.com: Many Republicans, as you know, are alarmed that this campaign is now being played out almost entirely on President Bush's turf from 2000 and 2004. The Kerry and Gore states seem mostly locked for Obama. So what do you think a McCain comeback strategy should look like?

Alex Castellanos: I think it's got several steps. The first thing is you start the race at the line, not the finish line. Tell voters where you are. Hey look, we've had an economic crisis. And it's happened on the Republicans' watch. And that's affected everyone with an R next to their name, certainly affected this campaign. And we're in a tough spot.

Step two is embrace the challenge and say, look we've got a tough economic situation. And if you'll think in the life of our country and your own life, these are the moments that have made us who we are. These are the moments that have brought out our best. And, you know, I know what it's like being tested. And so does this country. And this will bring out our best. And here's where we go from there.

And then step three is leading, offering a long-term solution. I think Americans want somebody to lift their eyes from their shoes, look over the horizon a little bit, and say, "Look, there's a new global economy out there, a new global economic frontier, tremendously competitive and frightening but also tremendously promising."

And America can succeed there. We can compete and win. That's the answer, that's going to lift us. And that's what I had hoped McCain would do [at the debate] and I think he has yet to do.

CBSNews.com: We heard earlier this week some pretty surprising on-the-record quotes from McCain operatives essentially saying, if we're talking about the economic crisis, we lose. We need to shift the debate to Barack Obama's vulnerabilities. Do you think that’s a mistake?

Alex Castellanos: Well, I think there's very little in politics that's secret. And one of the least secret things is strategy because you communicate it by what you do. But nevertheless, I don't think you are quite that obvious with it.

The problem is, this is shoveling back the tide. There's a limit to the ability of a political campaign to make people think, when the house is burning down, that a cold meal is the problem. When a wave is this big, you either ride the wave or you get swamped by the wave.

CBSNews.com: So--to be clear about the metaphor--it's not even possible, in your view, to change the subject from the economy.

Alex Castellanos: I think, on occasion, politics reflects real life. Who knew? And this is one of those moments. I think it's incumbent on Republicans not to display a lack of confidence in our ability to deal with the real challenges that confront the country and especially economic challenges.

I mean, McCain's actually got a great story to tell there. Raise taxes now, you can pull the economy over a precipice. Put a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President in there to spend, to regulate and tax, you know, you're gonna have a car with two accelerators and no brake pedal when the country is on the edge of an economic crisis.

CBSNews.com: Are you surprised McCain hasn't made the divided government argument?

Alex Castellanos: Well, I think as we get closer to the finish line, I would expect that that'll become a bigger concern.

CBSNews.com: A lot of the commentary about the debate this week shared the view that McCain lost by not decisively winning, that he had to shake things up and he didn’t. Do you agree with that?

Alex Castellanos: I think when the other team is ahead and nothing changes, that's probably a good thing for the team that's ahead. The third quarter's now over. We're going into the fourth quarter. And I think Obama has an advantage. So, yeah, I think the next debate it's going to be important to gain some ground.

CBSNews.com: Can you explain what you think the strategy of the McCain campaign is to win this election?

Alex Castellanos: Well, I think the McCain strategy has been, we have to disqualify Obama to win. And that's true. They do.

He is the alternative to a Republican brand that has taken a beaten lately. But saying that that's something you have to do does not mean that's the only thing you have to do.

And when the Obama people certainly have more than enough resources and political talent to disqualify McCain, you're back to parity in a year where the Democratic brand has an advantage. The generic ballot tilts their way.

So why vote for John McCain? And I think they had that message for a couple of weeks. And the McCain/Palin brand was, we're outsider populists. We're going to change Washington and strengthen the country. And all of a sudden, it wasn't that Washington's on the wrong track, it's that the economy's on the wrong track. And their brand -- that kind of campaign -- got shoved to the sidelines.

CBSNews.com: Now obviously, they've gotten no shortage of suggestions for how to improve their strategy. Newt Gingrich wrote that John McCain is facing the crisis of his career, that he risks losing unless he breaks more dramatically from he called Bush/Paulson economics. Do you think that's a wise move?

Alex Castellanos: I don't think it's as important that he break from Bush/Paulson as it is that he lay out his own economic vision to take the country forward. And, by design, I think that would offer sufficient contrast with the Bush administration which hasn't really focused on that.

CBSNews.com: I know that there's disagreement even within McCain's team about this, but do you think that John McCain should use Jeremiah Wright in the campaign?

Alex Castellanos: Well, I'll tell you, that was kind of litigated in front of the entire nation on every news media outlet for weeks. America knows about that. When you paint the wall the same color, America doesn't really notice a big change.

CBSNews.com: Now, you famously worked for Jesse Helms when he ran against Harvey Gantt, an African-American Democrat, in 1990. How do you think McCain deals with Obama's race? Does he ignore it? Does he have to attack him more carefully as a result of it? How does it change what the McCain campaign has to think about?

Alex Castellanos: If they're thinking about that, then they're not thinking about what they need to be to win. In politics, I have a thing called the law of the fireman. When your house is on fire, you don't care whether your fireman is male or female, tall, short, one faith or color, or what his last name is. You want him to put the fire out. And right now, I think, looking at the small insignificant divisions that aren't central to putting out the fire, and moving the country forward, trivialize the campaign.

CBSNews.com: Do you think Sarah Palin was a smart choice as McCain’s running mate?

Alex Castellanos: I think Sarah Palin did something for the McCain campaign that most running mates don't do -- she gave the McCain campaign about three good weeks of lift. But more than that, she gave them a message. Until Sarah Palin came along, most Republicans, most Americans didn't know what the McCain campaign was about, what it was going to do. And with her choice, McCain sent a signal that this campaign is about changing Washington because sometimes, you know, Washington's not going to change itself.

By Brian Goldsmith
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/10/politics/politicalplayers/main4513343.shtml

House of Credit Cards

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:56:31 EDT

The Great Depression and subsequent boom of new industries changed the economic realities of many people. Some lost their once secure fortunes in the collapse and lost out to new entrepreneurs who prospered in new industries. Some of the wealthy were lucky and their fortunes survived. But if they had been scared of ever having to face economic reorganization in the future, they might have conceived a way to preserve their wealth through any circumstances.

If the banking industry wanted to make itself indispensible and ensure that its’ institutions would survive and never be replaced, they could do this by manipulating the way our financial system uses currency and credit. They could encourage a shift in our economy from a currency based system to a credit based system. They could make capital less available in general by moving funds offshore. They could get everyone used to operating on credit rather than currency. They could funnel money out of circulation by putting it into commodities, real estate, or foreign markets. They could influence the government to loosen regulations so they could do all of this easier and without oversight. They could make sure that our entire economy was so dependent on credit just to function day to day, that if they were ever in trouble, the government would have to keep them alive or risk having the economy grind to a halt. I’m not saying they did this, I’m just saying if they wanted to create such an insurance policy, this would be a way to do it.

Whether the banking industry intended to make us dependent on credit or it was a side effect, we are beginning to see the enormous price we will have to pay. The mortgage crisis has shown light on the underlying and more serious issue of our continued reliance on future resources to pay for what we use today.   The house of cards is built on a house of credit cards. I didn’t realize how much our economy was dependent on credit until the bailout was proposed to restore solvency to the financial sector. I knew that credit cards were a problem for many Americans who were racking up more revolving debt than they could get out of. I knew that loans were necessary for businesses to start or expand, for students to go to school and pay their living expenses, and for people to purchase a car or home, but I had no idea that so many businesses use credit to cover expenses and payroll on a regular basis. I was under the assumption that businesses operated with cash on hand and only used credit for expansion. If my business couldn’t make payroll and cover day to day expenses without credit, I’d be concerned about the stability of my enterprise! The credit system, in fact, operates throughout the world now in the global economy and all the markets are dependent on this credit and banking system. The House of Credit Cards is really a high rise.   Continued revolving debt can’t just be handed off forever without eventually crashing down under its’ own weight.

It baffles me that so many supposed experts thought this credit dependent economy was a stable situation. It seems obvious that this would be a recipe for disaster. You’d think this was common sense, but you’d be wrong.

There is a correlation between credit and money in circulation. Less money available will inevitably lead to increased reliance on credit. Over time, the population increases and prices go up, so we have to add money to the system somehow to continue to have enough to go around. We do this is by getting loans from China and the Federal Reserve but this method of increasing monetary supply is to issue credit, not capital, essentially. If wealthy people keep their money in holdings, or move it into offshore accounts, foreign markets, commodities, or other investments, instead of spending it in America and keeping it circulating, then there’s less money available and credit spending goes up. How do we compensate for the losses and increased demand? Looking at the issue from a global perspective does not help. Prices still go up, population still goes up, and demand goes up as more countries seek to improve their economic standing.   If stock markets and commodities continue to rise in value and investments continue to return interest, those increases must come from somewhere, either from other countries losing wealth or it must be increased artificially.

Our financial system is no longer based on sound economic principles for these and many other reasons including oil dependence, trade policies, spending habits, health care, social security, and so on. It doesn’t take a financial genius to see that we need more than just bailouts, regulations, or stimulus packages, we need complete restructuring. We must fundamentally change the way we think about money and exchange. We must find a way to achieve sustainability in our economy and our use of resources, both natural and manufactured.   Until we do this, we will not have stable financial systems here or anywhere in the world.

WHO ARE WE ?

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:33:00 EDT

Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the rest of the world regards the U.S. and Israel as the two greatest threats to peace.

This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber:

"The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for."

Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question: "why do you support" these horrors?

His question goes to the heart of the matter. Do we Americans have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have a moral conscience?

How can a moral conscience be reconciled with our continuing to tolerate our government which has invaded two countries on the basis of lies and deception, destroyed their civilian infrastructures and murdered hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children?

The killing and occupation continue even though we now know that the invasions were based on lies and fabricated "evidence." The entire world knows this. Yet Americans continue to act as if the gratuitous invasions, the gratuitous killing, and the gratuitous destruction are justified. There is no end of it in sight.

If Americans have any honor, how can they betray their Founding Fathers, who gave them liberty, by tolerating a government that claims immunity to law and the Constitution and is erecting a police state in their midst?

Answers to these questions vary. Some reply that a fearful and deceived American public seeks safety from terrorists in government power.

Others answer that a majority of Americans finally understand the evil that Bush has set loose and tried to stop him by voting out the Republicans in November 2006 and putting the Democrats in control of Congress – all to no effect – and are now demoralized as neither party gives a hoot for public opinion or has a moral conscience.

The people ask over and over, "What can we do?"

Very little when the institutions put in place to protect the people from tyranny fail. In the U.S., the institutions have failed across the board.

The freedom and independence of the watchdog press was destroyed by the media concentration that was permitted by the Clinton administration and Congress. Americans who rely on traditional print and TV media simply have no idea what is afoot.

Political competition failed when the opposition party became a "me-too" party. The Democrats even confirmed as attorney general Michael Mukasey, an authoritarian who refuses to condemn torture and whose rulings as a federal judge undermined habeas corpus. Such a person is now the highest law enforcement officer in the United States.

The judicial system failed when federal judges ruled that "state secrets" and "national security" are more important than government accountability and the rule of law.

The separation of powers failed when Congress acquiesced to the executive branch's claims of primary power and independence from statutory law and the Constitution.

It failed again when the Democrats refused to impeach Bush and Cheney, the two greatest criminals in American political history.

Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know.

Silber reminds us that America once had leaders, such as Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed and Sen. Robert M. LaFollette Sr., who valued the principles upon which America was based more than they valued their political careers. Perhaps Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are of this ilk, but America has fallen so low that people who stand on principle today are marginalized. They cannot become speaker of the House or a leader in the Senate.

Today Congress is almost as superfluous as the Roman Senate under the caesars. On Feb. 13 the U.S. Senate barely passed a bill banning torture, and the White House promptly announced that President Bush would veto it. Torture is now the American way. The U.S. Senate was only able to muster 51 votes against torture, an indication that almost a majority of U.S. senators support torture.

Bush says that his administration does not torture. So why veto a bill prohibiting torture? Bush seems proud to present America to the world as a torturer.

After years of lying to Americans and the rest of the world that Guantanamo prison contained 774 of "the world's most dangerous terrorists," the Bush regime is bringing six of its victims to trial. The vast majority of the 774 detainees have been quietly released. The U.S. government stole years of life from hundreds of ordinary people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were captured by warlords and sold to the stupid Americans as "terrorists." Needing terrorists to keep the farce going, the U.S. government dropped leaflets in Afghanistan offering $25,000 a head for "terrorists." Kidnappings ensued until the U.S. government had purchased enough "terrorists" to validate the "terrorist threat."

The six that the U.S. is bringing to "trial" include two child soldiers for the Taliban and a car-pool driver who allegedly drove bin Laden.

The Taliban did not attack the U.S. The child soldiers were fighting in an Afghan civil war. The U.S. attacked the Taliban. How does that make Taliban soldiers terrorists who should be locked up and abused in Gitmo and brought before a kangaroo military tribunal? If a terrorist hires a driver or a taxi, does that make the driver a terrorist? What about the pilots of the airliners who brought the alleged 9/11 terrorists to the U.S.? Are they guilty, too?

The Gitmo trials are show trials. Their only purpose is to create the precedent that the executive branch can ignore the U.S. court system and try people in the same manner that innocent people were tried in Stalinist Russia and Gestapo Germany. If the Bush regime had any real evidence against the Gitmo detainees, it would have no need for its kangaroo military tribunal.

If any more proof is needed that Bush has no case against any of the Gitmo detainees, the following AP report, Feb. 14, 2008, should suffice: "The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to limit judges' authority to scrutinize evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay."

The reason Bush doesn't want judges to see the evidence is that there is no evidence except a few confessions obtained by torture. In the American system of justice, confession obtained by torture is self-incrimination and is impermissible evidence under the U.S. Constitution.

Andy Worthington's book, The Guantanamo Files, and his online articles make it perfectly clear that the "dangerous terrorists" claim of the Bush administration is just another hoax perpetrated on the inattentive American public.

Recently the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity issued a report that documents the fact that Bush administration officials made 935 false statements about Iraq to the American people in order to deceive them into going along with Bush's invasion. In recent testimony before Congress, Bush's secretary of state and former national security adviser, Condi Rice, was asked by Rep. Robert Wexler about the 56 false statements she made.

Rice replied: "[I] take my integrity very seriously, and I did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false." Rice blamed "the intelligence assessments" which "were wrong."

Another Rice lie, like those mushroom clouds that were going to go up over American cities if we didn't invade Iraq. The weapon inspectors told the Bush administration that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as Scott Ritter has reminded us over and over. Every knowledgeable person in the country knew there were no weapons. As the leaked Downing Street memo confirms, the head of British intelligence told the UK cabinet that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq and was making up the intelligence to justify the invasion.

But let's assume that Rice was fooled by faulty intelligence. If she had any integrity she would have resigned. In the days when American government officials had integrity, they would have resigned in shame from such a disastrous war and terrible destruction based on their mistake. But Condi Rice, like all the Bush (and Clinton) operatives, is too full of American self-righteousness and ambition to have any remorse about her mistake. Condi can still look herself in the mirror despite one million Iraqis dying from her mistake and several million more being homeless refugees, just as Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, can still look herself in the mirror despite sharing responsibility for 500,000 dead Iraqi children.

There is no one in the Bush administration with enough integrity to resign. It is a government devoid of truth, morality, decency, and honor. The Bush administration is a blight upon America and upon the world.

NEO-CON PROPAGANDA

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:30:23 EDT

This Time, the World Is Not Buying It

The success of the Bush Regime's propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.

As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.

It certainly worked with Americans.

The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.

Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships.

We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.

We don't know what the death toll would be in Iran if Darth Cheney and the neocons succeed in their plot with Israel to bomb Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons.

What we do know is that all this murder and destruction has no justification and is evil. It is the work of evil men who have no qualms about lying and deceiving in order to kill innocent people to achieve their undeclared agenda.

That such evil people have control over the United States government and media damns the American public for eternity.

America will never recover from the shame and dishonor heaped upon her by the neoconned Bush Regime.

The success of the neocon propaganda has been so great that the opposition party has not lifted a finger to rein in the Bush Regime's criminal actions. Even Obama, who promises "change" is too intimidated by the neocon's success in brainwashing the American population to do what his supporters hoped he would do and lead us out of the shame in which the neoconned Bush Regime has imprisoned us.

This about sums up the pessimistic state in which I existed prior to the go-ahead given by the Bush Regime to its puppet in Georgia to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of Russians in order to defuse the separatist movement. The American media, aka, the Ministry of Lies and Deceit, again accommodated the criminal Bush Regime and proclaimed "Russian invasion" to cover up the ethnic cleansing of Russians in South Ossetia by the Georgian military assault.

Only this time, the rest of the world didn't buy it. The many years of lies – 9/11, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, yellowcake, anthrax attack, Iranian nukes, "the United States doesn't torture," the bombings of weddings, funerals, and children's soccer games, Abu Ghraib, renditions, Guantanamo, various fabricated "terrorist plots," the determined assault on civil liberties – have taken their toll on American credibility. No one outside America any longer believes the US media or the US government.

The rest of the world reported the facts – an assault on Russian civilians by American- and Israeli-trained and -equipped Georgian troops.

The Bush Regime, overcome by hubris, expected Russia to accept this act of American hegemony. But the Russians did not, and the Georgian military was sent fleeing for its life.

The neoconned Republican response to the Russian failure to follow the script and to be intimidated by the "unipower" was so imbecilic that it shattered the brainwashing to which Americans had succumbed.

McCain declared: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations." Imagine the laughs Jon Stewart will get out of this on the Daily Show. In the early years of the 21st century the United States has already invaded two countries and has been beating the drums for attacking a third. President Bush, the chief invader of the 21st century, echoed McCain's claim that nations don't invade other nations.

This dissonant claim shocked even brainwashed Americans, as readers' emails reveal. If in the 21st century countries don't invade other countries, what is Bush doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what are the naval armadas and propaganda arrayed against Iran about?

Have two of the worst warmongers of modern times – Bush and McCain – called off the US/Israeli attack on Iran? If McCain is elected president, is he going to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan as "nations don't invade other nations," or is President Bush going to beat him to it?

We all know the answer.

The two stooges are astonished that the Americans have taught hegemony to Russians, who were previously operating, naively perhaps, on the basis of good will.

Suddenly the Western Europeans have realized that being allied with the United States is like holding a tiger by the tail. No European country wants to be hurled into war with Russia. Germany, France, and Italy must be thanking God they blocked Georgia's membership in NATO.

The Ukraine, where a sick nationalism has taken hold funded by the neocon National Endowment for Democracy, will be the next conflict between American pretensions and Russia. Russia is being taught by the neocons that freeing the constituent parts of its empire has not resulted in their independence but in their absorption into the American Empire.

Unless enough Americans can overcome their brainwashed state and the rigged Diebold voting machines, turn out the imbecilic Republicans and hold the neoconservatives accountable for their crimes against humanity, a crazed neocon US government will provoke nuclear war with Russia.

The neoconservatives represent the greatest danger ever faced by the United States and the world. Humanity has no greater enemy.

Sarah Palin and the Neo-Cons

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:20:33 EDT

Project Palin: Neoconservatives Seize Upon Palin’s Cluelessness To Shape Her Foreign Policy Agenda»

In her first interview with ABC News , Sarah Palin made several bellicose statements — openly musing about war with Russia and refusing to “second guess” Israel if it were to attack Iran. She has ditched her previous talk of an “exit plan” for Iraq, and now supports John McCain’s endless war. At a troop deployment ceremony last week, Palin even linked Iraq to 9/11.

Palin’s hawkish turn is likely due to the influence of neoconservatives who have made Palin their new pet project. A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, proudly declared Palin to be “a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.” Asked if he sees her as a “project”, the former official said: “Your word, not mine, but I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment.”

The London Telegraph reports that neoconservatives long been trying to make Palin a messenger for their cause:

Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin. […]
A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of Washington neoconservatism, admitted: “She’s bright and she’s a blank page. She’s going places and it’s worth going there with her.” Asked if he sees her as a “project”, the former official said: “Your word, not mine, but I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment.”

Said Pat Buchanan: “Palin has become, overnight, the most priceless political asset the movement has. Look for the neocons to move with all deliberate speed to take her into their camp…and steering her into the AEI-Weekly Standard-War Party orbit.”

As the Wonk Room has documented, neoconservatives like Randy Scheunemann run the McCain’s foreign policy team. Scheunemann briefed Palin on international affairs prior to the ABC interview; the Telegraph reported that he “quickly made Steve Biegun, a former number three on the National Security Council, her chief foreign policy adviser.” Steve Clemons said Biegun “will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney’s view of national-security issues.”

Indeed, it should come as no surprise that prominent neoconservative Bill Kristol was the earliest advocate of Palin for VP. “In 1988, Mr. Kristol became a leading adviser of another inexperienced Republican vice presidential pick, Dan Quayle, tutoring him in foreign affairs,” the Telegraph observes.

stop the industrial millitary complex

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:47:16 EDT

There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.)

The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.

This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security" -- meaning the defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the budgets for the departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the CIA, and numerous other places in the executive branch -- already exceeds a trillion dollars, an amount larger than that of all other national defense budgets combined. Not only was there no significant media coverage of this latest appropriation, there have been no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the relationship between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial catastrophe on Wall Street.

The only Congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay was the usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense authorization bill would betray our troops. The aged Senator John Warner (R-Va), former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored his Republican colleagues to vote for the bill "out of respect for military personnel." He seems to be unaware that these troops are actually volunteers, not draftees, and that they joined the armed forces as a matter of career choice, rather than because the nation demanded such a sacrifice from them.

We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and misbegotten wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of peace and order has returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's belated reinforcement of our expeditionary army there (the so-called surge), but thanks to shifting internal dynamics within Iraq and in the Middle East region generally. Such shifts include a growing awareness among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to restore law and order, a growing confidence among Iraqi Shiites of their nearly unassailable position of political influence in the country, and a growing awareness among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression the Bush administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of Shiism and Iran in the region.

The continued presence of American troops and their heavily reinforced bases in Iraq threaten this return to relative stability. The refusal of the Shia government of Iraq to agree to an American Status of Forces Agreement -- much desired by the Bush administration -- that would exempt off-duty American troops from Iraqi law is actually a good sign for the future of Iraq.

In Afghanistan, our historically deaf generals and civilian strategists do not seem to understand that our defeat by the Afghan insurgents is inevitable. Since the time of Alexander the Great, no foreign intruder has ever prevailed over Afghan guerrillas defending their home turf. The first Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) marked a particularly humiliating defeat of British imperialism at the very height of English military power in the Victorian era. The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) resulted in a Russian defeat so demoralizing that it contributed significantly to the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. We are now on track to repeat virtually all the errors committed by previous invaders of Afghanistan over the centuries.

In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan war into Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power that has long cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling brutality along the Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the Pashtuns in both countries and advance the interests of radical Islam throughout the region. The United States is now identified in each country mainly with Hellfire missiles, unmanned drones, special operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing of innocent bystanders.

The brutal bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on September 20, 2008, was a powerful indicator of the spreading strength of virulent anti-American sentiment in the area. The hotel was a well-known watering hole for American Marines, Special Forces troops, and CIA agents. Our military activities in Pakistan have been as misguided as the Nixon-Kissinger invasion of Cambodia in 1970. The end result will almost surely be the same.

We should begin our disengagement from Afghanistan at once. We dislike the Taliban's fundamentalist religious values, but the Afghan public, with its desperate desire for a return of law and order and the curbing of corruption, knows that the Taliban is the only political force in the country that has ever brought the opium trade under control. The Pakistanis and their effective army can defend their country from Taliban domination so long as we abandon the activities that are causing both Afghans and Pakistanis to see the Taliban as a lesser evil.

One of America's greatest authorities on the defense budget, Winslow Wheeler, worked for 31 years for Republican members of the Senate and for the General Accounting Office on military expenditures. His conclusion, when it comes to the fiscal sanity of our military spending, is devastating:

"America's defense budget is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period; our Navy has fewer combat ships; and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average than any point since 1946 -- or in some cases, in our entire history."

This in itself is a national disgrace. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our national security is simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that, by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs" for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure and other crucial spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions. If we cannot cut back our longstanding, ever increasing military spending in a major way, then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. As the current Wall Street meltdown has demonstrated, that is no longer an abstract possibility but a growing likelihood. We do not have much time left. charmers johnston

FEDERAL RESERVE CROOKS

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:10:00 EDT

FEDERAL RESERVE OWNERSHIP: JEKYLL ISLAND

In Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Eustace Mullins relates how this all came about at the Jekyll Island meeting when he quotes Bertie Charles Forbes…

It's not a war on terror, it's a war OF terror

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:40:03 EDT

This war on terrorism is bogus

The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.

We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz and Libby which said the US must "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role". It refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership". It describes peacekeeping missions as "demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN". It says "even should Saddam pass from the scene", US bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently... as "Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has". It spotlights China for "regime change", saying "it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia".

The document also calls for the creation of "US space forces" to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent "enemies" using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons "that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool".

Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a "worldwide command and control system". This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be seen in several ways.

First, it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested.

It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House".

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).

Instructive leads prior to 9/11 were not followed up. French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui (now thought to be the 20th hijacker) was arrested in August 2001 after an instructor reported he showed a suspicious interest in learning how to steer large airliners. When US agents learned from French intelligence he had radical Islamist ties, they sought a warrant to search his computer, which contained clues to the September 11 mission (Times, November 3 2001). But they were turned down by the FBI. One agent wrote, a month before 9/11, that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers (Newsweek, May 20 2002).

All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.

Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority? The former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence."

Nor is the US response after 9/11 any better. No serious attempt has ever been made to catch Bin Laden. In late September and early October 2001, leaders of Pakistan's two Islamist parties negotiated Bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for 9/11. However, a US official said, significantly, that "casting our objectives too narrowly" risked "a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr Bin Laden was captured". The US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Myers, went so far as to say that "the goal has never been to get Bin Laden" (AP, April 5 2002). The whistleblowing FBI agent Robert Wright told ABC News (December 19 2002) that FBI headquarters wanted no arrests. And in November 2001 the US airforce complained it had had al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in its sights as many as 10 times over the previous six weeks, but had been unable to attack because they did not receive permission quickly enough (Time Magazine, May 13 2002). None of this assembled evidence, all of which comes from sources already in the public domain, is compatible with the idea of a real, determined war on terrorism.

The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against the PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the Commons liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld was so determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).

In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for the US government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001 that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East". Submitted to Vice-President Cheney's energy task group, the report recommended that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military intervention" was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).

Similar evidence exists in regard to Afghanistan. The BBC reported (September 18 2001) that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October". Until July 2001 the US government saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, the US representatives told them "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" (Inter Press Service, November 15 2001).

Given this background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance. There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal that President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war. Similarly the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into "tomorrow's dominant force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.

The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010 the Muslim world will control as much as 60% of the world's oil production and, even more importantly, 95% of remaining global oil export capacity. As demand is increasing, so supply is decreasing, continually since the 1960s.

This is leading to increasing dependence on foreign oil supplies for both the US and the UK. The US, which in 1990 produced domestically 57% of its total energy demand, is predicted to produce only 39% of its needs by 2010. A DTI minister has admitted that the UK could be facing "severe" gas shortages by 2005. The UK government has confirmed that 70% of our electricity will come from gas by 2020, and 90% of that will be imported. In that context it should be noted that Iraq has 110 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to its oil.

A report from the commission on America's national interests in July 2000 noted that the most promising new source of world supplies was the Caspian region, and this would relieve US dependence on Saudi Arabia. To diversify supply routes from the Caspian, one pipeline would run westward via Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Another would extend eastwards through Afghanistan and Pakistan and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast, in which Enron had sunk $3bn investment and whose economic survival was dependent on access to cheap gas.

Nor has the UK been disinterested in this scramble for the remaining world supplies of hydrocarbons, and this may partly explain British participation in US military actions. Lord Browne, chief executive of BP, warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of war (Guardian, October 30 2002). And when a British foreign minister met Gadaffi in his desert tent in August 2002, it was said that "the UK does not want to lose out to other European nations already jostling for advantage when it comes to potentially lucrative oil contracts" with Libya (BBC Online, August 10 2002).

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical change of course.

American state terrorism

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:33:47 EDT

The UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
is the
World's Greatest
TERRORIST ORGANIZATION The greatest acts of terrorism are not committed by furtive gangs of masked desperados in foreign lands. The most horrific acts of terrorism in world history have always been committed by governments.

The government and military of the United States of America have committed massive acts of international terrorism and brutal genocide — throughout the 20th century.

Official FBI definition of terrorism:

"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

By its own definition the hypocrite U.S. government is guilty of terrorism — on a massive, international scale. And for over 100 years!

The U.S. government has broken international law and the Geneva Convention many times with its brutal use of force and horrific violence against persons and property, to intimidate and coerce governments, civilian populations, and many segments thereof, in furtherance of political, social and especially economic objectives.

This is the simple truth
of the U.S. government,
past and present:

American domestic and foreign policy is now, and has always been, dictated fundamentally by economics — not by moral and political values.

All the talk of "democracy" and "human rights" is just so much spin for popular consumption.
It has never been "We the People," but a ruling plutocracy of ultra-wealthy landowners and corporations that have been the ultimate power behind the U.S. government from the beginning.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."
— Abraham Lincoln
First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861

If you're intellectually honest, if you've got a social and political conscience — especially if you have the guts to ACT on it — you discover real fast that we in America are not living in a "democracy."
America is a Police State — NOW.

NEO-CON FASCISM

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:35:13 EDT

If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The next step in a fascist government is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other."

Bertrand Russell

"Without exhaustive debate, even heated debate, of ideas and programs, free government would weaken and wither. But if we allow ourselves to be persuaded that every individual or party that takes issue with our own convictions is necessarily wicked or treasonous then, indeed, we are approaching the end of freedom's road."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing... My own take is this: the Republican takeover of the presidency combined with an unrelenting state of war, has supplied all the levers necessary to convert a burgeoning libertarian movement into a statist one."

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"Today's Conservatives Are Fascists: Torture, dictatorship, phony `elections,' and endless war - it's fascism with a `democratic' face"

Justin Raimondo

AMERICAN FASCISM

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:20:49 EDT

- Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism -

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Sarah Palin vs. Dan Quayle & Mark Foley

Eric in San Diego — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:58:34 EDT

If Sarah Palin is qualified to be VP then Dan Quayle is:

- overqualified to by President.

- qualified to be Pope.

If Sarah Palin is qualified to be VP, then former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley is qualified to:

- baby sit teenage boys.

- be a Boy Scout leader.

Republicans Manufacture Fake Outrage over Gwen Ifill

Eric in San Diego — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:31:39 EDT

I am disgusted by all the fake, manufactured outrage about Gwen Ifill. So what if she is writing a book about Obama. Gwen Ifill must be allowed to moderate this debate. It would be a huge mistake for PBS to replace her. It is impossible to get a moderator that is not biased one way or the other. That is why personal ethics and professionalism is important. I believe Gwen Ifill is ethical and professional and will do an excellent job moderating the debate. Contact PBS and tell them to not let politically motivated fake outrage cow PBS into submission.

http://www.pbs.org/vote2008/2008/10/showdown-in-st-louis.html

@#$% The Bailout

joe ruwe — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:21:11 EDT

Let me begin by saying that I am no economist. I can't even balance my damn checkbook. But this bailout stinks. I mean, really stinks.

Now, since George W. Bush stole his way into power over 7 long and gruelling years ago, I have become something of a conspiracy theorist - don't ask me why.

Everything that originates or passes through the current White House reeks of foul play. Not a single word can be trusted. Clouds of suspicion and distrust waft from the White House like never before.

I do not trust our President or our Vice President. I do not and cannot trust our Secretary of State or Secretary of Treasury. The EPA is laughable. The National Security Advisor is a puppet. I do not trust Karl Rove. It might go without saying that I do not trust the Federal Reserve, nor it's chairman. I most certainly do not like or trust Mukasey. Robert Gates is actually growing on me though..... but you get the drift.

After the 2000 election, the 9/11 suspicious and still largely unexplained attacks, the subsequent 9/11 Coverup Commission, the Iraq War and WMD hoax, the Bin Laden hoax, Attorneygate, CIA ValeriePlamegate, secret torture, domestic spying and all the rest - how can we possibly trust anyone even loosely associated with the Bush White House on this one?

I cannot.

And thank God Congress cannot. Though I fear a pathetic caving-in within days...

Why would we bail out Wall Street? Why would we instantly feel compelled to throw $700 billion dollars that we do not have (thanks to the Iraq War) at a problem that we do not yet fully understand? Where is this money going to come from? China? Who will be getting this money? Why would we put this sort of extraordinary power and responsibility in the sole dirty hands of yet another Bush administration official? This stinks.

I say - let the economy collapse. Is the stock market really propping up our flimsy little economy? The mortage crisis? Can the greed of a handful of creepy executives, manipulators and risk-takers really sink the entire US economy? What happens if we don't buy all those toxic mortages? I know I don't want my hard-earned tax dollars going to that. What happened? What happened to our schools? What happened to our hospitals and our health care? We have borrowed nearly 800 billion dollars to ruin two foreign and faraway countries (the GWOT - Global War on Terror) and we need to borrow another $700 billion for this? What am I missing? Probably a lot, but I am pissed. Maybe the end of credit isn't such a bad thing. Maybe a "collapse" is actually a painful restructuring of our economy of credit. Who knows, but this stinks.

I have heard, in my conspiracy circles, that the Great Depression was caused much in this same way - the over-leveraging of stocks by the elite of the elite. Using someone else's money to buy things that don't really exist, speculate on the future of these financial "products" and sell these "illiquid" fantasy assets to someone else for a large profit. Or something like that... Some say that the market was intentionally crashed by the Federal Reserve, who were testing their new power. It all is over my head, but I find it hard to believe that this could not have been prevented, foreseen, prepared for, or somehow altered. Or if it is even true at all.

How could our President, John McCain, Ben Bernanke and others flatly tell the whole world that the American economy was "sound", "solid", on "sure-footing" and "not to be alarmed" - and then a matter of days later, the sky is literally falling. Our flimsy little economy, propped up by little more than a wing and a prayer - is now on the brink of collapse, which could somehow deflate the entire global economy? All because of a sub-prime meltdown hoax? Who was asleep at the wheel on that one? Yeah, right.

Let's say that I have 500 bucks in the bank. What will happen to my little pittance if the stock market crashes? I won't get it? Someone else will get it? Will my little community bank fail? Is that $400 even my money once I deposit it? Will the entire economy collapse? Will I get fired from my job? Will the cost of goods and services immediately shoot through the roof? (More than they have already this year?) I guess it's easier for me to say - I'm a renter. I don't have a stake in the Stock Market. Or do I? How will all this affect me? Someone needs to explain that A LOT better than they have so far. Why do I need to be ordered by my government to step in a and finance this greedy, corrupt little trick by the banking cartel that already dominates all of civilization? Beats me.

Well, I'm still not scared enough to support this bailout.

And what of the @#$%ing bastards that caused this mess? Or the evil @#$-&%%^$$#@- @##%$sons-of-s%$%##$#$ who were supposed to be watching over our economy, watching over our banking systems, protecting our national financial security? WHAT ABOUT THOSE SCOUNDRELS? I have yet to see a single head roll. Not one executive has been fired, much less indicted. Not one government regulator has been reprimanded.

Politicians want to limit the amount of compensation for these unpatriotic and greedy criminals? Oooooh, that will teach them. What the hell? What about oversight from Uncle Sam? Who will enforce that? How will we prevent former CEO's of Goldman Sacks from becoming Secretary of the damn Treasury? How will we stop the revolving door between government and the private sector? This bailout addresses few of my concerns. But it spends a lot of my money. And Paulson gets to decide how to spend it.

No thanks.

The Obama Presidency can't come soon enough.

President Bush said that this bailout package need to be passed by last Friday, or we could face a national panic. Well, it's Tuesday and I still have my job, I ate dinner tonight, and I still have my $400 in the bank. (more like $350..) I'm calling bullshit, George. I don't believe you and I don't believe anyone in your administration.

You have lied to me too many times. It is on YOUR watch that our great country was attacked by "terrorists" and it has been on your watch that the entire US economy has somehow been destroyed. It's up to you pal. I say: you fix it, jerk.

Get your Dad to bail you out again. He's made plenty of money from the Carlyle Group recently.

Get old Dick to cover you - we all know Halliburton has been raking it in in the Middle East.

But don't take my money. It's your problem, not ours.

Get on the phone and start talking to some CEO's. Pass the hat. I don't care.

You are a disgrace and this is the final straw.

The total collapse of the global economy certainly would be the final verdict of the Bush administration.

Just like Obama said.....

ABC News Suggests that Voters Think Twice Before They "Vote and Drive

Eric in San Diego — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:56:10 EDT

http://blogs.abcnews.com/health_insider/2008/09/think-twice-bef.html

Below is my comment on an ABC News article that appeared on the main web page today. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Oh, the horror. Well, I can't vote now. I can't believe you would publish this crap. What you have done is to associate terror with driving to the polls to vote. Where is your article about driving to the supermarket, jury duty or to the DMV? I guess driving to those places isn't quite as terrible or life threatening.

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/53/l_b92dd2097fdb4a28a122c8209cc394f9.jpg

Here is an editorial that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, needs to read.

Eric in San Diego — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:15:44 EDT

Here is an editorial that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, needs to read.
It summarizes my thoughts on Sarah Palin perfectly:

http://www. newsweek. com/id/160080/page/1

A quick quiz:

1. If you were starting an NBA basketball team, would you start with a.) LeBron James; or b.
) Your next door neighbor?

2. If you were in need of brain surgery, who would you rather have perform the operation?: a.) a Harvard Medical School brain surgeon; or b.) a mother of five that seems very friendly.

3. If you were going to choose someone to preside over the most powerful nation on earth, complete with keys to the most powerful military in the world and a vast nuclear arsenal, would you choose a.) A Harvard Law School graduate, former President of the Harvard Law Review and professor of Constitutional Law, and current U.S. Senator; or b.
) a former beauty pageant queen/TV news reporter/small town mayor and current governor of the 47th largest state (for 18 months)?

Over the past eight years, this country has seen what happens when we elect the guy that we could imagine sharing laughs with over a few beers.
Can we really afford to take this choice so lightly again!?

Tim, from CAS

Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified ...vote now Poll

Eric in San Diego — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:59:59 EDT

Take this PBS pole. It looks like wingnuts have been getting other wingnuts to take the poll, skewing the results.

According to this unscientific PBS poll, 50% say Palin is qualified to be president. 48% say Palin is not qualified to be president. We need to get as many people as we can to take this easy poll. Just click NO.

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

McCain - Hypocrite or Big Government lackey

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:41:02 EDT

For all of his talk about government being too big, John McCain sure does support the $85 billion bailout of AIG. Who else BUT big government could afford a bailout of this size?

McCain has said a number of times that he didn't know anything about the economy. However, since it has bitten him in the butt he has changed his tune. In fact, not only did he invent the Blackberry but he believes that the Commerce committee is responsible for all aspects of managing the economy in America. As it turns out, he doesn't even know what that committee does but it is fortunate for him that the Commerce committee does NOT oversee credit financial services. Otherwise he would be taking responsibility for the "Casino" like atmosphere of Wall Street. When the credit for that lies squarely in the lap of former senator Phil Gramm, John McCains financial advisor and possibly the next Secretary of the Treasury if McCain is elected. His bill to de-regulate trading is responsible for the Enron mess and yesterdays latest twin messes, Lehman and AIG. Yikes!

He's too old!

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:59:37 EDT

McCain is no hero

Dean H. — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:29:59 EDT

I want to preface what follows by making it clear that I'm speaking for myself. i know that the Obama campaign would never raise what follows. But the truth needs to be told. Public discourse gets hijacked and the stage is set for crimes to be repeated when we allow the myths of history to be spun from a fabric of lies.

In the wake of the aniversary of September 11, I've been wondering: What would I think of someone from a far away country who repeatedly bombed densely populated urban areas in the United States in a manner that clearly violated international law, killing hundreds if not thousands of civilian noncombatants? Initially, I would be enraged. I would think that person had committed a monstrous crime. I would hope that person would be stopped, and if I was in a position to try to stop him or her myself, I would. I would support international efforts to hold that person and the policymakers who sent him or her to account. I would not think that person should be tortured by the enraged victims of his bombing (okay, it's a he), I would try to stop that from happening if I could, and I would have compassion and empathy for him if he was. But I certainly would not consider him a hero, and would consider it insanity to support that person for a position with great authority to make decisions which impact the lives and deaths of milions of others around the world.

Would I think differently if the people that person bombed were in Vietnam? Why? Because the noncombatant victims were Asians? Because they didn't' speak English? Because they happened to live in an area controlled by Communists? All of those justifications for that kind of moral double standard are baseless, cetainly for anyone who professes to espouse the Judeo-Christian ethic of love for the stranger, or even simply acknowledges the reality of our intrinsic interconnectedness. Put morality aside if you wish. The Vietnam War gravely violated international law. The Vietnamese posed no threat to this country. The U.S. intervened in a colonial power struggle on the wrong side of history. Under the UN Charter (a binding treaty which the U.S. not only signed, it led the way in enacting after the devastation of WWII), armed intervention is legal under only two circumstances: when a country is under attack from an adversary, and when the UN Security Council has specifically authorized it. In the case of Vietnam (like Iraq), neither condition was present.

Of course, the soldiers who were deployed to Vietnam and Iraq went for a complex of reasons; some as a way out of desparate economic circumstances, others out of a misdirected sense of adventure or patriotism, some (in Vietnam) were drafted, and a host of other reasons. Few of those had anything to do with killing innocents or violating international law. But when they got there, they often found themselves in horrific circumstances they had probably never imagined. Those of us who have never lived through war should be slow to to judge the actions of those who have. But many soldiers returned from Vietnam and Iraq chastened by their experience of the horror of war. They spoke out against the crimes they witnessed and in some cases participated. They worked to end those wars, and to hold the policymakers who started and pursued them to account.

John McCain has never publicly acknowledged these realities. His campaign for President is premised on a reflexive (and unreflective) pride in two wars that together have cost over two million lives and over a trillion in treasure. One of the functions of the Geneva Conventions, the laws of war which were used to prosecute the perpetrators of the Holocaust after WWII (laws the Bush Administration refers to as "quaint"), is to make it clear that "I was just following orders" is not a defense to war crimes. Every human being has an obligation to try to honor the most basic, universally accepted precepts of human morality, even in war. Certainly it is extremely difficult to do so under conditions of war. But do we really want to put someone in charge of the most deadly military machine the world has ever known who, after all these years, refuses to acknowledge or reflect honestly on his role or the role of this country in the crime of the Vietnam War?

I don't think participating in a war in and of itself either qualifies or disqualifies a person from being President. Certainly if the President is going to be somebody who has participated in a war (think of John McCain and John Kerry), I do not want it to be somebody who seems to see every country headed by a political adversary as a country with which we should be at war. At various times, McCain has threatened war against Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. And that's on top of the wars we're fighting now! If the President is going to be somebody who has not participated in a war (compare George W. Bush and Barack Obama), I want it to be somebody who is deeply reflective, has traveled widely and is interested in other cultures, knows both law and history, consults others, and is forthcoming about his own limitations.

In short, I don't judge John McCain. I certainly have empathy for him and everyone else who had to experience the trauma of being a prisoner of war. But his actions in Vietnam do not make him a hero, and his response to that experience, among many other factors, convinces me that he does not have the character to be President.

Asleep at the wheel

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:39:48 EDT

Another rough day in the Senate for the Maverick.

On April 24th, 2008, Senator John McCain toured the city of New Orleans. To the press, Senator McCain declared that the government response to the Katrina disaster was "terrible and disgraceful." Senator McCain pledged it would never happen again. Senator proclaimed, "We are going to fix FEMA."

Fast forward to todays news:

According to an article written in Processor.com, a phone hacker broke into the FEMA phone system and made $12,000 worth of long-distance calls to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India, Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries. FEMA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security apparently did not get the memo warning its agencies about U.S. phone systems being compromised by unauthorized individuals.

Does this still count as disgraceful? And if so, doesn't this show that John McCain is full of promises that he simply has no desire to keep?

MCCAIN IS SUBVERTING THE VOTE RIGHT NOW

Eric in San Diego — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:58:35 EDT

I'm very concerned about what appears to be wide spread voter caging. The McCain campaign is sending unsolicited absentee ballots to Democrats to either get them dropped from the voter rolls or to point the finger at Democrats for voter fraud because they registered in another city, county or state. The return address is somewhere else than the voters city/county. This is being done aggressively in Wisconsin and Florida. What is the Obama Campaign going to do about this? This has to be illegal. Congressional Democrats need to raise hell about this now. Now!!!!! Don't fill out an absentee ballet if you did not request one. Check the address to make sure it is going to the correct location if you do. Contact the McCain campaign and telll them to stop subverting the vote. Contact your congressman or woman and demand that they raise hell obout this and demand an investigation now. NOW!!!!

Sen. Lincoln Chafee calls Sarah Palin a "cocky wacko"

Eric in San Diego — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:02:29 EDT

Former Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee calls Sarah Palin a "cocky wacko" and says her presence on the ticket energizes supporters of Democrat Barack Obama.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20080911/co_po/formergopsenatorcallspalinacockywacko

I can't agree more.

Number-crunching pollster sees decisive Obama win:

Eric in San Diego — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:49:04 EDT

Number-crunching pollster sees decisive Obama win:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080910/ts_afp/usvotepollemory

This guy has gotten every election right for the last 20 years. Let's hope he is right. I have hope. Yes we can.

John McCain must move really slow

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:11:21 EDT

He's been in the Senate for 30 years. If you can't make change in that much time, how much more do you need? Does it coincide with when you intend to get the troops out of Iraq?

I don't know if you have seen todays "big news". Obama made some comment about John McCanes economic policy is like a pig with lipstick. Now all the jerks out there are saying it was a sexist remark on Sarah Palin. Here are my talking points regarding this topic. First of all, John McCane said the exact thing about Hillary and the jerks didn't mind it so much then. Second, who cares if he did call Sarah Palin a pig. She has said far worse about him. Third, if Obama had said, "What I really want to do as president is ensure that every citizen is able to get a good paying job." the jerks would have said, "OMG, he's so fu**ing sexist! He wants everyone to have a good paying job...why does he hate women and God so much?!?" Dear Jerks, please go away until Dec 1st.

What is the definition of a strong military?

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:41:03 EDT

John McCain says he supports a strong military. I am not disputing what he says, I am disputing his definition of a strong military. Our troops live here in the United States. Contrary to President Bush's failed war policy that John McCain supports, someday our troops will actually come home. When you are serving in a hostile environment, all you can do is hope that your family back home is being taken care of. John McCain voted against increases in funding for military housing. When you are wounded in combat you hope you will have proper medical care. John McCain voted against increasing healthcare benefits for veterans. There is life outside of the military and when the time comes for you to move on to a new career, maybe you would like to get a college education so you can be competitive in the work place. John McCain voted against increasing the GI Bill. I say that a strong military is a military that is strong ALL of the time, not just when they are in combat. When our military is always strong, they are there and ready to be deployed when we need them. John McCain thinks that our soldiers are disposable. Here is an excerpt of John McCains voting record.

Will the real Maverick please stand up

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:21:59 EDT

Picking a candidate

NotEnoughTimeToBlog — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:17:08 EDT

John McCain is all about the love...the love of power.

As goes New Orleans, so goes the Country...

Lynda Woolard - New Orleans — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:25:14 EDT

We are looking at being hit by another hurricane. We are still rebuilding from Katrina... the 3rd anniversary of which was yesterday.

Please watch this video... and rate it! The more views it gets, the more likelihood it will end up on the youtube homepage. We are evacuating New Orleans this weekend, so this is something you can do for us while we are fleeing once again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln_iq5bc8k

... and YES, this is relevant to this election. Obama's plan to rebuild the Gulf Coast* is our only hope. If we cannot get New Orleans right, no city in America is safe....

With great thanks,
Lynda

* http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/additional/Obama_FactSheet_Katrina.pdf

Alert: Chicago Sun Times picks up smear article and puts on front page

Mary R. Il. — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:33:46 EDT

Well well, imagine my surprise as I saw the front page of the Sun Times today, being held up in the air by a women selling them in te middle of a busy street, me on my way to my Thursday nanny job.

For ever the Sun Times has been the voice of the Deocratic Party in Illinois, while the Tribune was the GOP voice. Gosh with headlines like these, who needs friends any longer.

Not a thoughtfu & sensitivel piece written about the extended Obama family in Kenya, but rather SENSATIONALISM at its worst.

But this is Chicago folks...

The paper is going under..anything to sell a few more. They cannot disappear quick enoough for my tastes.

http://www.suntimes.com/index.html

Unraveling part 2

joe ruwe — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:01:11 EDT

Already almost totally faded from headline or memory, the recent "conviction" of Salim Hamdan, the accused driver for Osama bin Laden, is further proof to many that the "war on terror" is a sham.

The US government created this entirely new system. It was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The lazy and corrupt Congress wrapped it up in new shiny wrapping and handed it back to the White House and the Pentagon and off they went.

The US government created it's own rules, allowing heresay evidence, evidence procured through torture, and other legal trickery that would never be allowed in civilian or military court.

The US government took 7 years to build it's flimsy case, that this man had anything to do with 9/11 or the "war on terror," which the independent panel of jurists quickly rebuffed.

The US government created all the rules, picked the venue, made things up as they went, sought 30 years, and Hamdan's sentence will be up in 6 months.

What happened? Why, after the worst attacks ever on US soil, an exhaustive, exspensive, and wide-sweeping assault on "terror," can we only prosecute bin Laden's driver? Where are the others? Where is our justice?

We've waited 7 horrendous years only to send one low-level criminal to 6 more months of prison?

Something, like many other things, doesn't smell right.

Is bin Laden's chef next?

We have not seen justice yet for the attacks of 9/11. We have made ourselves and the world much less safe. We have not even answered the numerous, mind-boggling mysteries of 9/11 itself!

Yet the defense industry is booming. Warships, fighter jets, submarines, and all the accompanying missiles and guns are being constructed at record pace. How do we fight terrorism with these things? Seemingly random countries are being invaded and occupied indefinitely. People are being tortured, innocent people are being imprisoned indefinitely without charge, and many, many thousands of innocent people are being needlessly killed.

And our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren will be paying for it all.

Damn. Getting mad all over again. Here's some articles that explain it better than I can.

Salim Hamdan’s Sentence Signals the End of Guantanamo - CommonDreams.org

and

Analysis: Bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan trial a disaster for George Bush - Times Online

and

The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened? - CommonDreams.org

Andy Worthington: Folly and Injustice: Salim Hamdan's Guantanamo Trial
or

Senate Report's New Findings on Pre-War Deception | Newsweek Voices - Terror Watch | Newsweek.com

Educate yourself. Ask questions.

Yes we can.

America the War-Oil Salesman

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:11:13 EDT

From my blog http://blueeaglespeaks.blogspot.com/

For decades, America has been the self-proclaimed hero on the world stage. In some cases, we were heroes fighting the good fight, like in WWII. In other cases, we thought we were doing the right thing which resulted in unwanted or unforeseen consequences, like Afghanistan and Vietnam. The U.S. has played a significant role in almost every war either by direct or indirect involvement. America's military spending in 2006 accounted for 48% of all the military spending in the world, which is sure to rise as spending increases in Iraq. That means one country spends as much as all other countries combined on war. Also, we are historically the top seller of arms in the world, although the UK may surpass the U.S. in 2008.

There are several programs under which the U.S. supplies military aid to other countries. There are two basic types of assistance, aid and sales. The aid programs include the Foreign Military Funding program (FMF), Economic Support Fund (ESF), International Military Education and Training (IMET) and Counter Narcotics Assistance (CNA). Under the FMF the U.S. has spent $121 billion from 1950 to 2005 in the form of military aid to foreign nations.

The sales programs include the Foreign Military Sales program (FMS), Direct Commercial Sales (DCS), and the Excess Defense Articles (EDA). The US has been selling arms amounting to more than $200 billion since 1992. Taxpayers are subsidizing more than half the amount of these sales and the rest goes back into the Pentagon Defense Fund whose spending is not transparent or fully accounted for. At a rate of about $15 billion per year, arms sales would rank among the top U.S. exports.

Where is the money going? Most of our military aid and sales go to Israel, which thanks to us, has the third largest and well-equipped military in the world. Supposedly the U.S. has the most well-equipped military but if that's the case, then why didn't our soldiers in Iraq have well-shielded tanks and adequate body armor? Israel's army, by contrast has the most sophisticated indestructable tanks in the world. Even more disturbing is Israel is turning around and selling their own versions of our weapons and technology to hostile countries and to China who sells technology to Iran and other potential threats to the U.S. Taxpayers are subsidizing weapons transfer to Israel who is turning a profit on the arrangement at our expense. Why are we spending so much money on defense and military aid to other countries while shortchanging our own soldiers on body armor, shielding for humvees, second-rate medical facilities, low pay, cheating them out of proper post-war treatment and benefits, and shoddy electrical wiring which has killed soldiers while they were showering in Iraq? When Bush and Cheney say "Support the troops", they really mean support the business of war because that is what they care about more than the troops.

The defense budget is being spent very irresponsibly. Large sums are going to big-ticket items, such as nuclear subs, long-range missiles, costly fighter planes, and other items that have no use or relevance to the Iraq war. The Bush administration has been particularly irresponsible in giving aid to undemocratic nations with poor human rights records and $5.7 billion in arms deals to poorer developing countries in which the majority of citizens live in poverty or have significant national debt. Although sometimes necessary, supplying foreign nations has a track record of creating more problems than solutions. In the 80's weapons we sold to Iran ended up in the hands of our adversaries, Iraq and Panama. In the last seven major conflicts America has fought in, enemy combatants were using our own weapons against us that we had traded to other countries. We covertly provided Afghanistan with missiles to fight the Soviets and failed to follow up with significant humanitarian aid, which resulted in Afghanistan becoming overrun by extremists and breeding ground for terrorism. In the most recent example, Georgia, who we have supplied militarily used the help we gave them to attack Russian territory and provoke them into an all out offensive against Georgian civilians, oil supply, and infrastructure. And how much has our aid to Israel over the years contributed to Islamic Radicalist hatred of the U.S.? Israel is probably not going to go to war with us for not supporting them, but radical Islamists will go to war with us for supporting them. What are the benefits to funding military and war all over the world and do the benefits really outweigh the risks?

These policies only benefit a few people and companies, while creating hardship for most everyone else, including economic hardship for American companies outside of the military industry. Those benefitting from war have a strong financial interest in convincing everyone that war is necessary, even if that involves using politics, fear, propaganda, and hiding the truth in order to maintain public support. This is what we very clearly saw the Bush adminstration do to promote the Iraq War. Bush and Cheney are not the only politicians who are influenced by the military industrial complex. War is big business and the majority (62%) of Weapons Industry campaign contributions in 2004 went to Republican candidates, while 38% went to Democratic candidates. Pentagon contracts almost doubled to $80 billion in contracts in 2003. Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton had the highest increase in awarded contracts from $500 million to $8 billion in contracts in 2004, a whopping 1600% increase and rising. Halliburton contributed 86% of its campaign donations to Republican candidates in 2004. No wonder the Republicans want to keep us at war or at least keep war going somewhere in the world. They are in deep in the pockets of the military industrial complex and weapons industry, most of whom would lose money if terrorism and drug cartels did not exist or if there were no wars going on.

To make matters worse, Bush has appointed at least 32 executives from top Pentagon Contractors to top policymaking positions in the Pentagon. Not only did he sell us the war on behalf of the Contractors, he put them in charge of it! It is to their economic advantage to prolong a war, and to their disadvantage to win, or otherwise end a war. No doubt, the policies they help to implement are designed to reduce the possibility of peaceful solutions to conflict.

We have got to stop selling war to the world, stop funding conflict, and stop letting the military industrial complex with their politician puppets call the shots. If we continue on this path, we lose lives, respect, economic security, education, and trillions of dollars that could be spent on making America and the rest of the world better, instead of worse. Most importantly, we have to stop the selling out of our children's and grandchildren's futures for the economic benefit of a few people who care nothing about our well-being or security.

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

www.worldpolicy.org

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/21/armstrade.saudiarabia

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0509-07.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0525-04.htm

Paul Craig Roberts

joe ruwe — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:30:11 EDT

The man knows what he is talking about and isn't afraid to talk about it.

I consider this an important look at the other side of the "war on terror."

Marching Off Into Tyranny | BaltimoreChronicle.com

Unraveling

joe ruwe — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:53:53 EDT

The anthrax debacle is quite possibly the last straw for an increasingly skeptical and incredulous American public. The incredible story of a raving lunatic psychopath bioweapons engineer with a sorority-girl fetish and an alter ego who suspiciously "commits suicide" as the FBI is just now "closing in" on this almost 8yr old case is almost as creative as it is ludicrous. Have you guys heard the details of this story yet? Nothing short of amazing, and insulting if you ask me. Right or wrong, the government does not give much credit to the collective intellect of the American people.

Many of us have consistantly wondered what ever happened to the Anthrax case. Considered a minor detail in the overall 9/11 traumatic experience, this extraordinary domestic biological attack never received the public scrutiny it deserved. And now, the main "person of interest" has been cleared by the US government and paid millions of taxpayer money in a settlement for his ruined career and reputation, and the subsequent "suspect" has committed suicide. So, after years of silence, the FBI and Justice Dept. are closing the case, asking us to trust their judgement, investigative abilities and overall integrity and thoroughness of work and move along.

Funny, I remember for weeks and even months, our media proclaimed repeatedly that this was the work of radical Islamic terrorists. That all-capital handwritten PRAISE ALLAH and all the rest are practically seared into our memories from sheer repetition of viewing. When they "developed" their list of one person of interest, in early 2002, he was an American scientist! And the next suspect in line was.... an American scientist! I never heard this news in the media over and over again like I heard the first reports. Why didn't our government come out and clearly explain to us that the anthrax attacks had nothing to do with Muslims, al Qaeda or 9/11? (rhetorical)

There are also plenty of other huge holes in this case. The suspect, being dead, will have no opportunity to defend himself or discuss any of the evidence presented about him. Peer testimony has largely contradicted the "official story" that he was deranged and mentally unstable.

And if so, then how did this man enjoy a long, distinguished career in a sensitive, military bioweapons lab? No one caught this? After decades? This wasn't just some random office where everyone just does their own thing in some cubicle and punches out and goes home. These people have top-level security clearance and have been vetted. Thoroughly. It doesn't seem right.

And the FBI can't, after 7 years of intense, high-tech detective work place him at the scene of the crime - the post office in New Jersey where the letters originated.

The description of this man by the FBI does not correlate with the testimony from peers who worked with him, and in most cases contradicts it. At least, that's what many of us are reading and learning.

I say all this because I cannot in good conscience, simply take the Justice Dept. at it's word. Can you? I know it's probably a hard and stressful line of work, but this latest debacle is pure fallacy. This whole story is so suspicious and incredible, many of us are dumbstruck and practically speechless.

And what about ties to Islamic terrorists, links to al Qaeda, or any relationship to Iraq? I mean, the biggest single issue for invading and occupying that innocent country was the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Since our country had already seen a biological attack on our own soil, it was much easier to rush us off to war to prevent further biological or chemical chaos.

Even the mainstream media is suspicious of this whopper, and that's really saying something.

This story smells foul and does not hold up under the smallest modicum of scrutiny. Like much of the other stories we have been told by our White House, they grow increasingly difficult to believe. It is like the vast ice shelves rapidly melting in Antactica and Greenland and all over the Earth. Increasingly, the House that George and Dick built is starting to crumble. I believe this will be the story that finally snaps the country out of its trance and back into reality.

This story is likely the most ludicrous and unbelievable story out of the Bush/Cheney fortress yet, in itself a staggering statement, and only raises further questions and doubts about the US-manufactured "war on terror." Who are we fighting and what are we fighting for? That's what I want to know.

I miss the truth.... The raw old truth.

Ahhhh, maybe someday.

Here are some useful articles:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Ambiguous case of 'anthrax killer'

and

George Washington's Blog: The Anthrax Attack Was a Classic False Flag Operation Targeting Arabs

and

BBC NEWS | Americas | US anthrax 'suspect' found dead

and

Vital Unresolved Anthrax Questions and ABC News - CommonDreams.org

and

Marching Off Into Tyranny | BaltimoreChronicle.com

Nonsense, let's focus on vision, not fear.

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:36:13 EDT

Right wing and Christian radio talk shows are all over the "One" ad, talking about Obama being the anti-christ, especially Rush Limbaugh spewing forth all sorts of 'he's the messiah, the Europeans like him because he hates America', and all sorts of religious code words thrown in there to arouse everyone's fear. Viral emails are going around with the ad claiming things like "the Bible says that the anti-christ will be a man in his mid 40's, a muslim, ... (on and on)" The Bible does NOT say the anti-christ will be a muslim because Islam didn't even exist when this was written. This is smear and propaganda at it's worst and the fact that the wing-nuts are using this to attack Obama makes me think even worse about the Republicans than I did before and I didn't think that was possible. Sadly, many Christians are going to buy into this. The "Left Behind" series which talks about the end times are like the most read books of our time. That's just great, let's scare everyone into believing in some prophesy rather than give them the tools and knowledge to make an informed choice about their own destinies.There are a lot of end times prophesies, other than the Christian version. Many of them are based on the Mayan Calendar. I have personally studied the Mayan Calendar and there are problems with predictions based on Mayan Calendar dating. People incorrectly claim the Mayan Calendar "ends" in 2012. The fact is the
mayan calendar involves many overlapping cycles and does not actually end in
2012, or at any time for that matter. There is a convergence of several
cycles that end a period of thousands of years in 2012 but the mayan calendar is
cyclical, not linear and therefore begins a new cycle in 2012. There is no evidence the Maya believed the world would end at this point.
All this hoopla over the anti-christ and end times prophesy is nonsense and just more playing on people's fears. Their predictions have holes in them and are so vague and contradictory as to be applicable to many different people, places, and/or events. Logic applied to the situation tells us that further dependence on oil is going to cause the most disaster for America and the world in terms of environmental damage, economic havoc, and continued global conflict over resources. The argument that the apocalypse is pre-destined is just not true and takes the power away from the people to try to change anything. What will happen, however, is the downfall of our Nation if we stay on the course Bush set us on. It doesn't take a prophet or a psychic to predict the obvious outcome if people don't do anything to change that course.We need to emphasize healthcare solutions, energy advancement, education, rebuilding our infrastructure and all the other positive plans and visions for creating a better future and how to achieve that rather than focusing on fear and doing nothing.Pass it on.

Books that attempt character assassination

Lemount — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:32:40 EDT

I was watching fox news to see what the conservatives over there were spewing and I found them promoting these two books. thought it was worth mentioning...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9781596985667&ourl=The%2DCase%2DAgainst%2DBarack%2DObama%2FDavid%2DFreddoso

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Obama-Nation/Jerome-R-Corsi/e/9781416598060/

The Case Against Barack Obama
David Freddoso

SynopsisHe's the media's darling, the fresh face of the Democratic ticket. But what does Barack Obama really stand for-and will his extreme liberal agenda and complete inexperience in global affairs endanger the country? That's what David Freddoso, investigative reporter and National Review Online columnist, examines in The Case Against Barack Obama. In this shocking exposé, Freddoso explores the reality behind the rhetoric, the plans behind the promises, and the faults behind the façade, revealing: * Why Obama's inexperience and extreme left-wing voting record is more dangerous than any threat we face today
* Why the Rev. Wright debacle reveals Obama's poor judgment of character and deceitful nature
* Why it won't be politics of change with President Obama-it will be liberal politics as usualFreddoso exposes the real Barack Obama: a typical big-government politician, the #1 most liberal U.S. senator, and-if he were commander in chief-a serious threat to our national security.

Obama Nation
Jerome R. Corsi

SynopsisIn this thoroughly researched and documented book, the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry explains why the extreme leftism of an Obama presidency would leave the United States weakened, diminished and divided, why Obama must be defeated—and how he can be. THE OBAMA NATION Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality Barack Obama stepped onto the national political stage when the then-Illinois State senator addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Soon after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, author Jerome Corsi began researching Obama’s personal and political background. Scrupulously sourced with more than 600 footnotes, THE OBAMA NATION is the result of that research. By tracing Obama’s career and influences from his early years in Hawaii and Indonesia, the beginnings of his political career in Chicago, his voting record in the Illinois legislature, his religious training and his adoption of Chri stianity through to his recent involvement in Kenyan politics, his political advisors and fundraising associates and his meteoric campaign for president, Jerome Corsi shows that an Obama presidency would, in his words, be “a repeat of the failed extremist politics that have characterized and plagued Democratic Party politics since the late 1960s.” In this stunning and comprehensive new book, the reader will learn about: • Obama’s extensive connections with Islam and radical politics, from his father and step-father’s Islamic backgrounds, to his Communist and socialist mentors in Hawaii and Chicago, to his long-term and close associations withformer Weather Underground heroes William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn—associations much closer than heretofore revealed by the press • Barack and Michelle’s 20-year-long religious affiliation with the black-liberation theology of former Trinity United Church of Christ Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons have always been steeped in a rage first expressed by Franz Fanon , Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, a rage that Corsi shows has deep meaning for Obama • Obama’s continuing connections with Kenya, the homeland of his father, through his support for the candidacy of Raila Odinga, the radical socialist presidential contender who came to power amid Islamist violence and church burnings • Obama’s invo lvement in the slum-landlord empire of the Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko, who helped to bankroll Obama’s initial campaigns and to purchase of Barack and Michelle’s dream-home property. • the background and techniques of the Obama campaign’s cult of personality, including the derivation of the words “hope” and change” • Obama’s far-left domestic policy, his controversial votes on abortion, his history of opposition to the Second Amendment, his determination to raise capital-gains taxes, his impractical plan to achieve universal health care, and his radical plan to tax Americans to fund a global-poverty-reduction program • Obama’s naïve, anti-war, anti-nuclear foreign-policy, predicated on the reduction of the military, the eradication of nuclear weapons and an overconfidence in the power of his personality, as if belief in change alone could somehow transform international politics, achieve nuclear-weapons disarmament and withdrawal from Iraq without adverse consequences, for us, for the Iraqis or for Israel. Meticulously researched and documented, THE OBAMA NATION is the definitive source for information on why and how Barack Obama must be defeated—not by invective and general attacks, but by detailed arguments that are well-researched and fact-based.

Why I am voting AGAINST JOHN MCCAIN

lemonkid — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 13:13:12 EDT

Why I am voting AGAINST JOHN MCCAIN

Volume I: EDUCATION

Despite past statements supporting educational quality, teacher accountability, and school accessibility for our nation's children...

Q: How can we attract the best and the brightest teachers, given the current salaries? A: I don’t see why a good teacher should be paid less money than a bad senator. It’s important that we have merit pay for teachers, that we have teacher testing, that we do everything we can to motivate young men and women to enter this profession. There’s a whole generation that’s retiring. It is unconscionable that the average salary of a lawyer is $79,000 a year and the average salary of a teacher is $39,000 a year.
[Source: Republican Debate at Dartmouth College Oct 29, 1999]

...John McCain's RECORD shows he JUST DOESN'T CARE.

THE FACTS:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

--McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Funding No Child Left Behind...

2006: McCain Voted Against A Bipartisan Measure Restoring Bush's Cuts To Education. McCain voted against a bipartisan provision sponsored by Sens. Specter and Harkin that would advance $7 billion from FY2008 funding for health, education and labor appropriations into FY2007 in order to restore many of Bush's budget cuts to health care, education and job training programs. [ 2006 Senate Vote #58, 3/16/2006 ]

2006: McCain Voted Against Funding For Provision In No Child Left Behind Aimed At Increasing Achievement Among Disadvantages Students In Favor Of A Tax Break. McCain voted against an amendment to increase funding for No Child Left Behind by providing an additional $1 billion in Title I funding. The provision would have been fully offset by eliminating certain corporate tax breaks. [ 2006 Senate Vote #64, 3/16/2006 ]

--McCain Preferred Supporting Billion-Dollar Corporations Instead of America's Future...

2005: McCain Voted Against adopting an amendment to the Senate's 2006 Fiscal Year Budget Resolution that would adjust education funding while still reducing the deficit by $5.4 billion. A YES vote would:
a. Restore education program cuts slated for vocational education, adult education, GEAR UP, and TRIO.
b. Increase the maximum Pell Grant scholarship to $4,500 immediately.
c. Increases future math and science teacher student loan forgiveness to $23,000.
d. Pay for the education funding by closing $10.8 billion in corporate tax loopholes.
[Bill S AMDT 177 to S Con Res 18 ; vote number 2005-68 on Mar 17, 2005]

--McCain Voted Against Funding Local Education Programs...

2005: McCain voted Against providing an additional $5 billion for title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Voting YES would provide:
$2.5 billion for targeting grants to local educational agencies
$2.5 billion for education finance incentive grants
[Elementary and Secondary Education Amendment; Bill S Amdt 2275 to HR 3010 ; vote number 2005-269 on Oct 26, 2005]

--McCain Opposed More Funding For Teacher Training Programs...

2001: McCain Voted Against Funding For 100,000 New Teachers. McCain voted against an amendment authorizing $2.4 billion for FY 2002 for a Federal program to assist States and local educational agencies to recruit, hire, and train 100,000 new teachers in order to reduce class sizes in the early grades to a national average of 18 students per classroom; and authorizes such sums as necessary for each of FYs 2003-2008 for the program. [ 2001 Senate Vote #103, 5/15/2001 ]

2000: McCain Voted Against $2.2 Billion For Recruitment And Mentoring For Teachers. McCain voted against an amendment that would replace the language of the bill with the text of the Democratic substitute amendment, which would increase the general estate tax exemption for a couple to $4 million, as well as the family-owned business exemption to $8 million per couple by 2010 and uses projected savings to fund various education programs, including $1.3 billion in grants and loans for repairs for schools in high-needs areas, and $2.2 billion for the recruitment, mentoring and professional development of qualified teachers. (CQ) [ 2000 Senate Vote #184, 7/13/2000 ]

2000: McCain Voted Against Increasing Funding To Enable Colleges To Train More New Teachers By Over $200 Million. McCain voted against an amendment to increase funding for Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants from $98 million to $300 million in order to enable colleges to train more new teachers. [ 2000 Senate Vote #153, 6/28/2000 ]

2000: McCain Voted Against $2 Billion To Recruit And Train Teachers. McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $2 billion to help schools recruit and train teachers. It would provide $1.75 billion to fund President Clinton's proposal to hire 100,000 new teachers to reduce class size and authorize $1.3 billion in grants and loans for emergency school repairs and renovations. (CQ) The underlying bill used block grants. [ 2000 Senate Vote #90, 5/3/2000 ]

--McCain Voted Against Students From Working-Class Families...

1995, 1996, 1997: McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Breakfast And Lunch Programs For Low Income Students. McCain voted against several amendments authorizing as much as $5 million for outreach efforts and start-up grants for state school breakfast and lunch programs for low-income children. [ 1997 Senate Vote #200, 7/24/1997; 1997 Senate Vote #162, 7/9/1997; 1997 Senate Vote #8, 2/11/1997; 1996 Senate Vote #213, 7/23/1996; 1995 Senate Vote #613, 12/22/1995 ]

2003: McCain Voted Against $20 Million For Dropout Prevention. McCain voted against an amendment increasing funding for various education programs by $210 million including $20 million for dropout prevention.[ 2003 Senate Vote #322, 9/3/2003 ]

2001: McCain Voted Against 1,000 Technology Centers In Disadvantaged Communities. McCain voted against an amendment to the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization bill authorizing the Office of Education Technology to award competitive grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements in order to create 1,000 community technology centers for disadvantaged residents of distressed urban or rural communities, and authorizing $100.0 million for FY 2002 and such sums as necessary for each of following six FYs. [ 2001 Senate Vote #96, 5/9/2001 ]

1983: McCain Voted Against Funding For School Desegregation. In 1983, McCain voted against the Emergency School Aid Act, which authorized grants to local school districts to help them offset the costs of school desegregation. [ 1983 House Vote #162, 6/7/1983 ]

During the 105th Congress, McCain opposed forgiving student loans up to $8,000 for public-school teachers who work in underserved communities for a specified period and opposed expanding after-school programs.

--And McCain Repeatedly Denied Students Crucial Access To Federal College Aid...

McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Additional Funding For Pell Grants. [2005 Senate Vote #268, 10/25/2005; 2001 Senate Vote #153, 5/22/2001; 2001 Senate Vote #155, 5/22/2001]

2005: McCain Voted For The Final 2005 Budget Reconciliation With Largest Student Loan Cuts in History. Senate Republicans voted for the final version of the 2005 budget reconciliation bill, which passed 50-50 with the Vice President casting the tie-breaking vote. The package cut $12.7 million from college loans, the largest cuts to the student loan program in its history. [ 2005 Senate Vote #363, 12/21/2005; 12/21/2005; AP, 12/19/05; Washington Post, 12/19/05; Minnesota Budget Project, 1/17/06 ]

2000: McCain Voted Against A $12,000 Annual College Tuition Tax Credit. McCain voted against an amendment that would increase the general estate tax exemption for a couple to $4 million, as well as the family-owned business exemption to $8 million per couple by 2010, and provide that up to $12,000 per year for college tuition may be tax deductible for taxpayers with a top marginal rate of 28 percent. The college tuition provision would fully phase in by 2002. It also included a tax credit for teachers seeking board certification. [ 2000 Senate Vote #182, 7/13/2000 ]

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

John McCain: Won't let students get the education they need to compete.
John McCain: Holding back America.
John McCain: Will tell you one thing, and do another.
John McCain: Wrong for our children, wrong for our future.

Anthrax Mystery Dies Forever.....

joe ruwe — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:23:10 EDT

Well, what do you know? The main suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks has committed suicide - just when the FBI was closing in on him! Yeah right.

8 years later, the FBI was just getting ready to indict? Really.

In my opinion, the anthrax attacks were the true smoking guns of 9/11, (well, along with the demolition of the Twin Towers and WTC Building 7, the miltary's response, our President's behavior and all the rest) proving that someone other than radical jihadist hijackers were involved in that horrible event.

Do you guys remember that madness? Only WEEKS after 9/11, anthrax spores were sent to Tom Dashcle and Patrick Leahy - two of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration. Daschle was actually heading the Congressional investigation of the 9/11 attacks. He was even pressured by Bush and Cheney personally to limit his investigation. Hmmmmm.

Also, prominent journalists were sent the spores which overall resulted in 5 deaths and almost complete paralysis of an already traumatized capital and country. I was suspicious the second I heard about it.

The anthrax that was used, the Ames strain, is only produced in a small handful of laboratories and is under the close watch of the US military - the only known source for it in the world.You can't just pick this stuff up on a street corner.

The letters containing the spores were supposed to be from Islamic terrorists, remember? All capital letters with phrases like "PRAISE ALLAH" thrown in for extra scary effect. Yet, only one American scientist was ever even deemed a "person of suspicion", let alone indicted or arrested.

Why does the country choose to forget about this incredible story?

It was nothing compared to the events of 9/11, but in some ways was just as significant and possibly even more suspicious and alarming. WMD attacks on our own soil, using weapons that only our military is known to posess. Only a couple weeks after 9/11 itself, when people were starting to ask questions and Congress was ramping up its own investigation. The anthrax event threw everyone into panic, cast Washington DC into chaos, and delayed any investigation or serious inuiry into the abysmal failures of our government on 9/11 for many many months. This should have been a HUGE story, and the unsolved nature of this crime should have been on everyone's minds. Yet it served its purpose, and increased the chaos, and simply threw gas into the fire that was burning since 9/11/01, obscuring everything else.

This scientists suicide, while quite possibly true and as it appears, reminds me more of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. A known mobster, with ties to the CIA and the US government, walks into a police station and murders the only suspect in the assasination of JFK in cold blood, thus shutting the door forever an the truth about that day.

Convenient, don't you think?

Perhaps, like much of the circumstances and suspicion surrounding 9/11, the anthrax case will never be solved. But I think we owe it to ourselves not to forget about this very serious and incredible event.

Question everything. Don't be complacent, and do not neccesarily take the media at its word. Certainly not the government.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the past 8 years. Some of us want some answers.

FISA vote ???

John K Berry — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:37:46 EDT

Holy F---K !

What is he thinking. This move to the center has made me sick to my stomach.

I feel totally betrayed. I just hope that move makes sense in the short run, but can be "fixed" later.

wink wink - if ya know what I mean...

Hear This Barack - NO Bush, NO Baker, No Corporate War Maker. We've Had Enough!

digitboy — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:45:18 EDT

Some men sacrificed their sons for their nation. George Herbert Walker Bush sacrificed his nation for his son.

see full text at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hear-This-Barack----NO-Bus-by-Linda-Milazzo-080725-512.html

I changed my mind about Bill Clinton on October 27, 2007. "An inside job? How dare you. How dare you. It was not an inside job." I wish I had the followup: "Mr. Clinton, how many times have you seen steel and concrete buildings VAPORIZE? Don't you think the American people deserve to know how this happened?" If Mr. Obama intends on perpetuating the fascists in power, he will not receive my vote.

Our Esteemed Vice President

joe ruwe — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:02:21 EDT

I sure haven't heard much about Dick Cheney in the news lately. I wonder what he's up to these days?

Makes me nervous. Scares the hell out of me.

(shudder)

tool kit 2008

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:41:14 EDT

from Blackbox voting (seriously, if you aren 't signed up, go there and get that way!!!)

Permission to reprint, excerpt, and distribute granted. Complete, Concise Tool Kit booklet: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.pdf

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Top 5 things you can do

1. Get involved………pg 5-8
2. Hook up with experienced groups………pg 9
Freedom of Information Tips………pg 10-11
3. Protect & defend – deceptive practices………pg 12-24
4. Protect & defend – voter lists………pg 25-37
5. VOTING MACHINES:
Protect & defend – vote counts………pg 38-71

(cont...)

Troubles in the McCain Campaign in Alabama...

David Caputo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:48:47 EDT

Alabama Attorney General Troy King (R-AL), the (apparently now "former") Chairman of John McCain's Alabama Campaign Team and notably famous for his anti-gay diatribes and vigorous campaigns against sex toys, was allegedly caught by his wife in their bed with a male aide and banished from their home.

Check this out...

McCain Scrubs Troy King from Web Site due to Gay Sex Scandal

Alabama Attorney General Troy King (R-AL), a member of John McCain's Alabama Campaign Team and notably famous for his anti-gay diatribes, was allegedly caught by his wife in their bed with a male aide and banished from their home.

Giving credence to these rumors is the fact that John McCain's campaign almost instantly scrubbed all mentions of Troy King from their web site.

He's expected to resign soon.

Troy King is also involved in the highly suspect prosecution of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.

The New Yorker

Bob Mann — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:35:41 EDT

I understand how tasteless this cover is and to me it is perfect. I hope it provokes the type of incidental teaching we need for those still twisted in smear madness...

love until it hurts

it has been a while Obama folks, hope to hear from some of you soon

WAR

joe ruwe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:32:24 EDT

With the initial signs of possible economic collapse in our country, and the price of oil and energy, the focus has shifted away from the wars that we are currently still fighting and still losing, as well as a possible third war against Iran. I believe it is all a distraction.

I believe, as I have stated here and elsewhere in the past, that this latest economic crisis is all a product of manipulation and engineering at the highest levels of our government and the corporate world. For, as we all well know by now - they are practically one and the same.

I recently read in the current Vanity Fair about Bear Stearns and the improbable collapse of that company. It sounds to me like a conspiracy, though I am no expert. A blatant and intentional collapsing of an important financial institution to help set off a wave of fear and nervousness within the stock market and the US economy in general. Short-sellers were most likely the culprit, ruthless players who bet on the stocks of companies to crumble. It reminds me of the short sells of airline stock immediately before 9/11 that went unanswered and underreported. Seriously shady business to a conspiracy theorist like myself.... I'm getting off the subject a bit, but I get the sense that a small handful of incredibly powerful people control and manipulate the entire US economy and a thus all of our lives.

This, factored in with the blatant price manipulation in the oil industry and the deep oil connections to our own shameful White House along with the absurd and probably criminal, unprecedented and mind-boggling oil profits in recent years only fuels my suspicious mind. What in the hell has happened here? Supply and demand, market forces, or government incompetence cannot explain away this serious perfect storm that is brewing. Only the deep, dark cloud of corruption could be behind this - worse than we probably imagine.

And all of this is a perfect way to get us to forget about the wars. We have been at war in Afghanistan for 7 years now. And that effort is in serious trouble. Iraq - since 2003 and certainly no good has come from that.

Our troops are still dying. 9 in Afghanistan today alone. Yet, the lives, blood and treasure wasted on this cowardly and criminally foolish endeavor is hardly a front-page story any more. I wish it was. The wars are still my number one issue and will continue to be. When I lose my job, my pension (yeah, right) and my healthcare - the wars will still be the number one issue to me.

These wars simply must end. The "war on terror" must end. I often say that we cannot destroy terror with terror. It will never work. I shudder at the thought of what we have done to the Middle East. All the bombs we have dropped and things we have blown up.... frightening. And I don't feel any safer, in fact - I feel drastically less safe in the world now. I don't feel like we have brought any justice to whoever was behind the 9/11 attacks, do you? Wasn't it a bunch of Saudis? I don't even really know who we are at war with. It's absurd and heartbreaking.

Read this and get mad all over again. And stay mad! Warmongers are the very worst kind of people on this planet and should never be tolerated.

INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE. NEWS, COMMENTARY & INSIGHT

NO MORE WARS!!!!!!!

Let's put our democracy to action! Slam some serious checks and balances against the swollen heads of the war-mongers and other frightening specimens who have been in charge and have inflicted this catastrophic damage to our country. Make the founding fathers proud, I say. No tyranny. No absolute power. No torture, no illegal spying, no blatant violations of international agreements and treaties, and no false and fraudulent wars of choice.

And then - a new direction........

...change we can believe in.

First They Came

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:48:11 EDT

some have wondered about the poem on standing up for those who we believe are being dealt an injustice, and i was discussing it with my coworker who remembered enough of it i could find it....

here it is along with the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

My Pal Marytnurse

joe ruwe — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:01:44 EDT

Mary was one of first people I met here at the Obama website. She took me in and showed me the True Way of the Blog. Believe it or not, I made my first impressions here as an extremely pissed off, suspicious, skeptical anti-Bush/Cheney crusader. I mean, I really took them to task in my writing, on my blog - anywhere I could. I have written letters to my local editor, research papers on the Bush administration, the "war on terror," the other two wars and all the other crazy, immoral BS that these guys have stumbled carelessly into. When I was first starting up on the O-train, I was practically frothing at the mouth.

Well, Mary kind of calmed me down a bit. Little by little in subtle ways, she encouraged me to project hope and optimism instead of anger and disrespect. She helped me, whether she knows it or not, channel my fierce and fiery anger at BushCo. and the myriad ways they have damaged our country, and steered me onto a more productive path. Those warnings from HQ helped, too.

Well Mary - here's looking at you.

You are one of the people on the blog that I respect the most. I look for you when I log on. You always listen to my rants, hear me out, and crack me up at how ridiculously and blatantly angry I can get. I know you're with me, you just convey it better than I do. You are a calming and uplifting presence here. Your blog is insightful, hopeful and inspiring. Judging from your points, I can tell that you have done as much as anyone here to help Obama win. Let me just say that I am completely impressed by you and your work on this campaign.

I've been here for almost 7 months now, and I have to say that you are top notch.

And I guess I should have known that you of all people, would be the one to make that donation through my page that would kick me over $10,000. I should have known. I know that you have already given so much money, time and effort to this campaign - on this website and on the ground in Iowa (I follow what you're doing)! When I discovered that it was you that put me past my goal, a goal that I thought was ridiculously way too high, I viewed it as symbolic and inspiring.

Thank you, my friend. In front of however many Obama supporters are on here reading this --- I SALUTE YOU!!! You are my 10K hero. And you are my hero for a lot of other reasons.

Keep up the good work - I think you are Obama's secret weapon. Keep me on the good path, don't let me wind up in Guantanamo, and keep doing what you've been doing on this website.

You are a hero to many of us here and many of us look to you as an elder stateswoman to this great and historic cause.

I hope I can meet you someday and thank you in person.

Until then, I think I'll rant a bit about that criminal Vice President of ours.......

Marytnurse - this post is for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

your friend,

Joe Ruwe

Public Financing; Which Candidate Won't Follow the Rules Again???

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:08:49 EDT

the following is taken directly from a newsletter by FAIR; Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting; a watchdog group of the 'watchdog group' called the mainstream media; or better known as the CORPORATE media.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama's June 19 announcement that he would not accept public financing in the presidential race prompted a media furor. Obama's "flip-flop" (Hardball, 6/20/08; USA Today, 6/25/08) was used by many corporate journalists as an opportunity to undermine Obama's reformist image.

"Obama's money move lifts expediency over principle," a USA Today (6/20/08) headline declared. The Associated Press's Liz Sidoti (6/19/08), in an article headlined "Barack Obama Chose Winning Over His Word," wrote that "the first-term Illinois senator tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician - one who means what he says and says what he means - while undercutting his call for a new kind of politics."

"It was a flip flop of epic proportions," proclaimed Mark Shields on PBS' Newshour (6/20/08). Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, charged (6/21/08): "Senator Obama's reversal raises fair questions about the sincerity of his campaign promises and even about the decency of spending so much money…at a time when thousands of Americans are losing their homes and the price of food is becoming difficult to afford." David Broder reiterated this sentiment, affirming (Washington Post, 6/26/08) that Obama "was rightly criticized for rigging the system in his favor."

Despite the media outrage over his "broken promise" (Washington Post, 6/20/08), Obama's stance on public financing has actually been much more qualified; he pledged in a 2007 questionnaire only to "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/18/08). Similarly, Obama stated at a February news conference (New York Times, 2/15/08): "If I am the nominee, I will make sure our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward."

As recently as April, Obama told Fox News that (4/27/08):

I have promised that I will sit down with John McCain and talk about can we preserve a public system as long as we are taking into account third-party independent expenditures, because what I don't intend to do ... is to allow huge amounts of money to be spent by the RNC, the Republican National Committee, or by organizations like the Swift Boat organization and just stand there.

Media have long gotten Obama's position on public financing wrong. "Obama has pledged to take public financing for the general election if he is the Democratic nominee and his Republican opponent will do the same," the Washington Post reported last year (8/22/07). Similar misapprehensions were expressed in the Toronto Star (3/4/07), New York Times (4/5/07), Orlando Sentinel (4/10/07) and Philadelphia Inquirer (4/17/07), among others.

Obama justified his decision in a video posted on his website, expressing concern about a system which "as it exists today is broken" and "opponents who have become masters at gaming this broken system." In particular, he referred to his belief that during the presidential race, John McCain will benefit from 527s - independent organizations that run negative ad campaigns, such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who launched a smear campaign against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004. It was a justification most mainstream media dismissed. A Washington Post (6/20/08) editorial (which did recognize that Obama's "earlier pledge" was "to 'aggressively pursue' an agreement with the Republican nominee to accept public financing") scorned Obama's "effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good."

How "aggressively" Obama pursued an agreement with the McCain camp is a legitimate question. Jake Tapper's blog on ABCNews.com (Political Punch, 6/19/08) reported:

Obama campaign counsel Bob Bauer met with McCain campaign counsel Trevor Potter and, according to Obama spox Bill Burton, Potter "immediately made it clear there was no basis for further discussion," that they weren't interested in any sort of agreement. "McCain and the RNC had spent months raising and spending money for the general election, and their basic attitude was 'You'll catch up,'" Burton says, suggesting that the Republicans were also turning a blind eye to the activities of 527s.

Tapper also reported the Republican contention that Obama did not "try to negotiate at all with the McCain campaign." The thrust of the piece appeared to take McCain's side, as it was headlined, "Obama to Break Promise, Opt Out of Public Financing for General Election."

While Obama has been thus disparaged for his "flip-flop," the media have largely ignored McCain's reversal on the same issue--a reversal which may have actually been illegal. Early in his campaign, McCain pledged to accept public financing for the primary elections, but on February 6 he reversed his decision. According to the Washington Post (2/16/08), in November McCain took out a $3 million loan, using his forthcoming public money as collateral.

Under Federal Elections Commission (FEC) regulations, the Post reported, a candidate who uses the promise of public funds as collateral is legally bound to stay within the public financing system. On February 25, the Democratic National Committee filed an FEC complaint against McCain, charging him with violating spending limits (Politico, 2/24/08; Media Matters, 6/26/08)--a move that attracted minimal media interest.

Media Matters (6/26/08) noted that outlets including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Fox News' Special Report and CNN have omitted mention of McCain's loan when quoting his criticism of Obama's "flip-flop":

This is a big deal. It's a big deal. He has completely reversed himself and gone back not on his word to me, but the commitment that he made to the American people. That's disturbing.

While most mainstream media have paid little attention to McCain's turn-around on public financing in the primaries, more coverage has been given to his "flip-flops" on offshore oil drilling and Bush's tax cuts. But while Obama's campaign finance decision was pronounced "emblematic of his uncanny ability to renege on promises, brush off transgressions as if they were unimportant, and prevaricate with an ease that inspires marvel" (USNews.com, 6/20/08), McCain's "flip-flops" are frequently explained away, or even viewed as evidence of his moral character. The Miami Herald (7/2/08) argued:

John McCain and Barack Obama have been accused of flip-flops recently. However, there is a significant difference: McCain changed his position on drilling off our coasts in order to make a difference in our dependence on foreign oil and as an extra safeguard for our nation. Obama changed his stance and rejected public funding for his presidential campaign to benefit himself.

Contrasting Obama on public finance with McCain on offshore drilling, ABC's Sam Donaldson declared (This Week, 6/22/08):

There's a difference there with John McCain. He can say, circumstances have changed. I mean, if hanging fixes the mind, try $5, $6, $7 a gallon gasoline to fix the mind. And he can say yes, but today we have to do something different. So he flip-flopped on energy but he can say that.

Never mind that offshore drilling will have at best a minimal effect on gas prices (Beat the Press, 6/19/08)--or that Obama can plausibly claim that "circumstances have changed" when his opponent reneged on a signed commitment to accept public financing.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen (6/24/08) claimed to see evidence of virtue in McCain's lengthy record of policy reversals:

Here is the difference between McCain and Obama -- and Obama had better pay attention. McCain is a known commodity. It's not just that he's been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It's also -- and more important -- that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This -- not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express -- is what commends him to so many journalists.

U.S. News & World Report's Gloria Borger (7/7/08), on the other hand, seemed to excuse McCain's shifts not based on a core consistency but on an essential inconsistency:

In a way, McCain may have less to lose because the public already sees him as unpredictable. So when he flips his positions to conform with GOP orthodoxy on tax cuts (he now supports) and immigration (build the fence first), it doesn't seem so odd that he then tacks to the middle on global warming or panders to frustrated motorists on offshore drilling. It's part of the "don't pigeonhole me" trademark, which has its appeal to independent voters. McCain's inconsistency fits the brand, so voters may forgive him.

Voters may or may not forgive him, but it's clear that McCain's cheering section in the corporate media already has.

See the most recent issue of Extra!: "The Press Corps' Unshakeable Crush on McCain: Some Straight Talk About the Media's Favorite 'Maverick'" by Peter Hart (5-6/08).

This article is available at: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3569

SCOTUS has been busy...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:30:58 EDT

real nice, eh? Greg Palast is one of the very few REAL truth-outers we have left in the media!!! you can subscribe at gregpalast.com (but be careful when you forward, because someone unsubscribed me and i had to actually contact them directly to get them to let me resubscribe; apparently one of my 'friends' didn't appreciate the information!) Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Spill by Greg Palast Chicago Tribune (revised) [Thursday, June 26, 2008] Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by 90% to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill. Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty. But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone. In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives. His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die. And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late. In today's ruling, Supreme Court Justice David Souter wrote that Exxon's recklessness was ''profitless'' - so the company shouldn't have to pay punitive damages. Profitless, Mr. Souter? Exxon and it's oil shipping partners saved billions - BILLIONS - by operating for sixteen years without the oil spill safety equipment they promised, in writing, under oath and by contract. The official story is, "Drunken Skipper Hits Reef." But don't believe it, Mr. Souter. Alaska's Native lands and coastline were destroyed by a systematic fraud motivated by profit-crazed penny-pinching. Here's the unreported story, the one you won't get tonight on the Petroleum Broadcast System: It begins in 1969 when big shots from Humble Oil and ARCO (now known as Exxon and British Petroleum) met with the Chugach Natives, owners of the most valuable parcel of l and on the planet: Valdez Port, the only conceivable terminus for a pipeline that would handle a trillion dollars in crude oil. These Alaskan natives ultimately agreed to sell the Exxon consortium this astronomically valuable patch of land -- for a single dollar. The Natives refused cash. Rather, in 1969, they asked only that the oil companies promise to protect their Prince William Sound fishing and seal hunting grounds from oil. In 1971, Exxon and partners agreed to place the Natives' specific list of safeguards into federal law. These commitment to safety reassured enough Congressmen for the oil group to win, by one vote, the right to ship oil from Valdez. The oil companies repeated their promises under oath to the US Congress. The spill disaster was the result of Exxon and partners breaking every one of those promises - cynically, systematically, disastrously, in the fifteen years leading up to the spill. Forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate. For the Chugach, this discovery was poignantly ironic. On their list of safety demands in return for Valdez was "state-of-the-art" on-ship radar. We discovered more, but because of the labyrinthine ways of litigation, little became public, especially about the reckless acts of the industry consortium, Alyeska, which controls the Alaska Pipeline.

Several smaller oil spills before the Exxon Valdez could have warned of a system breakdown. But a former Senior Lab Technician with Alyeska, Erlene Blake, told our investigators that management routinely ordered her to toss out test samples of water evidencing spilled oil. She was ordered to refill the test tubes with a bucket of clean sea water called, "The Miracle Barrel."

In a secret meeting in April 1988, Alyeska Vice-President T.L. Polasek confidentially warned the oil group executives that, because Alyeska had never purchased promised safety equipment, it was simply "not possible" to contain an oil spill past the Valdez Narrows -- exactly where the Exxon Valdez ran aground 10 months later.

The Natives demanded (and law requires) that the shippers maintain round- the-clock oil spill response teams. Alyeska hired the Natives, especiallly qualified by their generations-old knowledge of the Sound, for this emergency work. They trained to drop from helicopters into the water with special equipment to contain an oil slick at a moments notice. But in 1979, quietly, Alyeska fired them all. To deflect inquisitive state inspectors, the oil consortium created sham teams, listing names of oil terminal workers who had not the foggiest idea how to use spill equipment which, in any event, was missing, broken or existed only on paper.

In 1989, when the oil poured from the tanker, there was no Native response team, only chaos. Today, twenty years after the oil washed over the Chugach beaches, you can kick over a rock and it will smell like an old gas station. The cover story of the Drunken Captain serves the oil industry well. It falsely presents America's greatest environmental disaster as a tale of human frailty, a one-time accident. But broken radar, missing equipment, phantom spill teams, faked tests -- the profit-driven disregard of the law -- made the spill an inevitability, not an accident. Yet Big Oil tells us, as they plead to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, as Senator John McCain calls for drilling off the shores of the Lower 48, it can't happen again. They promise.

Urge Obama to Oppose FISA Telecom Immunity Bill

David Caputo — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:51:37 EDT

All Barack Obama supporters should urgently rally to prevent the passage and support the filibuster of the grotesque Telecom Immunity bill now before the Senate.

Barack has indicated that he would support the bill but seek to remove the immunity provisions.

THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE.

And a clear sellout of our democracy and democratic principles.

AMERICAN FASCISM

AFTERNOON TEA AND SCONES — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:07:31 EDT

- "Reality" -

"Reality? Well, according to George Bush's little brother and Florida governor Jeb Bush, some people just can't handle the truth. Jeb once told retired Naval Intelligence Officer Al Martin: "The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can't deposit the truth in a bank. You can't buy groceries with the truth. You can't pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross -- all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another think coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don't have any money."

Uri Dowbenko

"There are troubling signs: Republican operatives disrupting a Florida vote recount by force; trashing the Constitution (as well as traditional safeguards of military law of the Geneva Convention) to go after an open-ended category of "terrorists"; the adoption of a frank imperial mindset and pre-emptive war; sympathy in some conservative quarters for violence against abortion clinics and ATF agents; a switch to recount-less, receipt-less, Republican-provided electronic voting systems. But most of this-- as well as the quest to give big business everything it wants-- is pursued quietly, without fascist trumpeting."

Robert O. Paxton

What happened here (Germany) was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it."

Milton Mayer

"Why of course the people don't want war... That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Hermann Goering, Nazi officer

Hemp in Vermont

Rev. Nancy — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:50:54 EDT

Great things are happening in Vermont!
Hemp for Vermont Bill Becomes Law State Wants Federal Permission for Farmers to Grow Hemp

MONTPELIER, Vermont (May 30, 2008) — Vote Hemp, a grassroots advocacy organization working to give farmers the right to grow non-drug industrial hemp, is extremely pleased that Vermont Governor Jim Douglas allowed H.267, the Hemp for Vermont Bill, to become law without his signature yesterday afternoon. The bill overwhelmingly passed both the House (126 to 9) and the Senate (25 to 1). The new law sets up a state-regulated program for farmers to grow non-drug industrial hemp, which is used in a wide variety of products, including nutritious foods, cosmetics, body care, clothing, tree-free paper, auto parts, building materials and much more. Learn more about industrial hemp at the Vote Hemp Web site.

Smart and effective grassroots organizing by Vote Hemp and the Vermont-based advocacy group Rural Vermont mobilized farmers and local businesses, many of which pledged to buy their hemp raw materials in-state if they have the opportunity. Rural Vermont Director Amy Shollenberger says that "the Hemp for Vermont bill is another step toward legalizing this important crop for farmers. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't allow this crop to be grown. Looking at the Canadian experience, hemp provides a good return for the farmer. It's a high-yield crop and a great crop to mix in with corn."

Vermont grows an average of 90,000 acres of corn per year, a small amount compared to Midwest states; however, the need for a good rotation crop exists nationwide. From candle makers to dairymen to retailers, Vermont voters strongly support hemp farming. Admittedly a niche market now, hemp is becoming more common in stores and products across the country every day. Over the past ten years, farmers in Canada have grown an average of 16,500 acres of hemp per year, primarily for use in food products. In Vermont, the interest in hemp includes for use in food products, as well as in quality and affordable animal bedding for the state's estimated 140,000 cows.

"Vermont's federal delegation can now take this law to the U.S. Congress and call for a fix to this problem of farmers missing out on a very useful and profitable crop," comments Eric Steenstra, President of Vote Hemp. "North Dakota farmers who want to grow hemp per state law are currently appealing their lawsuit in the federal courts. The real question is whether these hemp-friendly state congressional delegations feel compelled to act," adds Steenstra.

Rural Vermont's Shollenberger states that "the Vermont law is significant for two reasons. First, no other state until now has followed North Dakota's lead by creating real-world regulations for farmers to grow industrial hemp. Second, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, as well as a member of the Committee on Agriculture — relevant committees that could consider legislation. We also have a friend at the USDA in new Secretary Ed Schaffer who signed North Dakota's hemp bill as Governor. I plan to visit Washington, DC and try to figure out what Congress and the Administration intend to do."

Support Vote Hemp

Vote Hemp depends on your support to do the work we do. You know we are effective and get things done. Your donation will go a long way. Help us bring Vermont and North Dakota farmers to Washington, DC to lobby their delegations. It's time to ratchet up the pressure! Please make a donation today.

About Vote Hemp

Vote Hemp is a national, single-issue, non-profit organization dedicated to the acceptance of and a free market for low-THC industrial hemp and to changes in current law to allow U.S. farmers to once again grow this agricultural crop. More information about hemp legislation and the crop's many uses may be found at www.VoteHemp.com and www.HempIndustries.org. BETA SP or DVD Video News Releases featuring footage of hemp farming in other countries are available upon request by contacting Adam Eidinger at 202-744-2671.

Vote Hemp, Inc. Adam Eidinger Communications Director email: adam@votehemp.com phone: 202-744-2671
Tom Murphy National Outreach Coordinator email: tom@votehemp.com phone: 207-542-4998

hillary, Iran, McCain, Fear, Hope, the collision...

Bob Mann — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:41:09 EDT

its quite interesting -- amazing -- actually that this Obama movement and momentum has kept us out of Iran. in my opinion of course. Since the candidates declared I first thought Giuliani to be the next arms salesman to the middle east... then I saw the constant yahoo / newsmax adds of Hillary everytime I checked my email and ding ding ding... remember what??, remember: she signed on, she VOTED for the liar war -- she liked the idea enough to sign on

good for her -- she is now completely exposed

what an insensitive bitch, I am sorry but we deserve a president with some ethics-- thank god for Obama

and whose face was posted together the last few weeks of fear politics as Clinton struggled to get a coup coalition together to

newsmax-- should hillary quit? whose was it??? oh yeah McCain.. the war parties last hope

now hope is good and Obama, and all you folks who have made this one of the most fun, challenging, inspirational primaries ever... remember hope and fear are about exact opposites and therefore I must ask???

when we hope aren't we bound to collide with fear, and when fear lets go does hope not renew us in its wave?

I believe we see

all bodies are meant to collide

love fearlessly

blackboxvoting.org

Thu, 22 May 2008 23:04:22 EDT

i received this yesterday from BBV, but didn't have time to post til now:

In this article you will find tools to help you analyze the numbers as they come in from Kentucky and Oregon's May 20 primary elections. New info: 2008 Tool Kit: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html. You can find more Oregon & Kentucky tools, and discuss here: http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/74040.html

Kentucky is a big problem, Oregon is just plain strange. I'll start with Oregon's all mail-in voting system before I tell you the news about Kentucky. In Oregon, 100 percent of votes are absentee, or mail-in, although citizens do have the option to take their mailed ballot to an elections office to drop it off.

OREGON'S SURPRISING ELECTION DATA*

*Source: http://www.eac.gov/files/Eds2006/eds2006/Copy%20of%20eacdata(3).xls (Excel spreadsheet, huge mamajama, allow time to download. And see end of this article for tips on how to use.)

1. EVER WONDER ABOUT SIGNATURE VERIFICATION? Here's a little pop quiz: Out of 1.4 million Oregon votes in 2006, and knowing how people's signatures change over the years, how many signatures would you expect to mismatch?

ANSWER: Out of 1.4 million, the state of Oregon claims that 29 counties had ZERO mismatched signatures, and in the 10 remaining counties that reported mismatches, the grand total was (drum roll please)..... 34 ballots.

(contn below)

Perhaps the funniest election video yet... Direct from BradBlog

David Caputo — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:24:09 EDT

Direct from BradBlog, get a load of this.

Hillarious, you might say...

indiana voters beware!

Mon, 05 May 2008 10:37:04 EDT

this has some CRITICAL information for Indiana voters, and in fact all voters; PLEASE READ!!!

various points are made in this, and each deserves attention. it's a very reputable and long standing group called blackboxvoting.org.

In April 2008 when Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced the
release of "record high" voter registration rolls, with 4.3 million
voters set to vote in the Tuesday May 6 primary, he didn't mention that a
whopping 1,134,427 voter registrations have been cancelled.

Now, the voter rolls are supposed to be tidied up prior to each
election. Indiana's last general election was in Nov. 2006, and they have had
a slew of special and general elections since then. So how have 1.1
million voters -- 26 percent of the current statewide list -- escaped the
voter registration cleanup squad? Who are these million voters and
where do they come from?

One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana
counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters and
neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters.

Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five
and a great old musical (The Music Man) and has been referred to as "the
second most liberal county in America." Lake County also has one of the
heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you'll find
anywhere in the USA.

Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went
solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It's also got a lot of college
students.

For whatever reason, these two counties had ... what ... massive data
entry problems? Exceptionally messy records? Lots of dead people who
climbed back into their graves? I truly hope we aren't going to see a lot
of disappointed voters on Tuesday, when they perhaps learn that they
were among the lucky million people who got purged.

HERE'S WHERE THE HEAVIEST INDIANA PURGES ARE:

Lake 137,164 48% (Gary)
Porter 124,958 115% (Valparaiso)
Marion 68,120 10% (Indianapolis)
Monroe 66,009 85% (Bloomington)
Tippecanoe 53,456 58%
Madison 42,952 47% (Anderson)
Hamilton 42,325 26%

Here's a picture map with the numbers and percentages for the whole
state:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/cancelled-from-indiana-voter-rolls.png

The percentage represents the ratio of the number of purges to the
current voter list. Example: If a location currently has 100,000 voters on
its rolls, and purged 53,000 along the way, we assign a ratio of 53% to
the purge vs. current list.

It would be nice to have the original quantities, it would make for a
cleaner number, but this is not available on the Secretary of State's
Web site, so I haven't got a tidier statistic for you, wish I did. I also
wish the time period for these purges was clearly indicated, but it is
not indicated -- nor can it be derived -- from available information
at Indiana's official election Web site.

TOOLS YOU CAN USE

It's always interesting to look for impossible numbers on election
night, like the "more votes than voters" situation that sometimes crops up.
It speeds things up to have a place to plug the information in. Here
is a spreadsheet -- quick and not too fancy, I'm sure you can improve on
it. It has every Indiana county, along with their official registered
voter statistics for the 2008 primary, and some historical data from
1992 to the present, along with links for the source documents from the
secretary of state:

http://www.bbvdocs.org/IN/state/quickrank-INDIANAreg.xls
(Excel file, 71 KB)

Here are links that may be very good to provide additional statistical
information which you can plug in:

http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/elections/index.html

And here is a link to the source document containing the cancelled
registration information used for this article:

http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/Statewide_Voter_Count_by_County5.1.08.pdf

Here's a quick spreadsheet with the Indiana voting machines by county
-- you can get that on the Sec. State's Web site too, but it's not in a
database format. You can cut and paste these into your analysis sheets
if you'd like to get comparisons of results by county.

AND NOW ABOUT THOSE VOTING MACHINES

Another press release on the Indiana Secretary of State's Web site
deals with the $360,000 penalty he's hitting Microvote with for failing to
follow the law. Oh yes, and the Microvote Infinity voting machine,
which will be very widely used in the Tuesday May 6 primary, has been
DECERTIFIED!

That's not going to stop anyone in Indiana from using it, however. The
decision was that anyone who already bought these things gets to use
them -- despite the fact that these machines have been embroiled in
lawsuits in at least three places, one in Pennsylvania for machines that
just didn't work, and two in Tennessee where candidates have asked to redo
elections due to bizarre anomalies -- like vote totals that wandered
away in the wee hours of the night.

Microvote's insurance company declined to cover the firm, according to
yet another lawsuit, because the insurance company alleged that
Microvote was selling defective products. The judge ruled against the
insurance company, saying the product wasn't defective, it just didn't work.

I haven't plugged this in yet, but those of you who are comfortable
with spreadsheets can quickly add the voting machines by county to your
voter registration spreadsheet, using that voting machine spreadsheet I
linked above, to see how many votes all together will be subjected to
Microvote.

Ah, but we aren't done with Indiana voting machines yet. Indiana is
also fond of the ES&S paperless iVotronic touch-screens, the ones that
lost 18,000 votes in Sarasota County Florida and were the subject of a
blistering report by Dan Rather. In Rather's report, he showed shocking
footage of the touch-screens being manufactured in a sweat shop in the
Philippines. Their quality control test was to shake the machine and if
it didn't rattle, it passed the test.

THINGS YOU CAN DO ABOUT INDIANA

1. Do some public records requests to either the state or the counties,
and ask for their VRG-5 form, which is the NVRA tracking form on which
the number of voters purged must be reported.

For tips on how to do the records requests, here's our tool kit, scroll
down to the section on public records:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html

Post the documents and ask for any advice you need here, and report
your front-lines information for both Indiana and North Carolina here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/73.html

I'm pushing hard right now to get TOOL KIT 2008 done -- it's a
stripped-down model with emergency measures for the fall election. Unless you
tell me not to, I'll let you know as soon as it's ready for download.

2. Another useful form you can request: The CEB-9 form, which is the
Indiana County Election Report that must be turned in after the election.
Here's one, take a look at the information it contains:

http://www.in.gov/sos/elections/pdfs/CEB-9.pdf

3. If you are a number-cruncher, grab the spreadsheets here and wail on
'em during Election night. You can get additional historical
information from this site:
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html
(Choose the drop-down menu "general by state" and select Indiana, then
choose the year you want. Confusion factor -- this site color-codes
Republican as blue and Democrat as Red. Has lots of good stuff).

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE: People usually catch things like "more votes
than voters" weeks after the election. The dang Indiana information
doesn't break voter registrations out by party which makes crunching the
primary numbers a little harder. But you may still get the jump on some
red flags if you track this stuff as it's coming in on spreadsheets that
tell you what the stats are going in.

A WORD ABOUT THE TV PROJECTIONS

You'll notice that those projections often change -- sometimes
dramatically -- just an hour or so later. That's because we have learned that
they are paying elections officials (through their associations or
otherwise) to call and fax them the results off the voting machine poll
tape.

In fact, the National Election Pool (used to be Voter News Service) is
getting this stuff BEFORE the election officials and way before the
secretary of state.

The first number they quote is the adjusted exit poll number, and it
comes from asking people about who they voted for. The point here is,
when what you thought was "exit polls" suddenly changes, that is the
impact of those called-in poll tape results. Yep. That's the voting machines
talking, and when they say something different than the people
answering the exit pollers' questions, we should be looking at the programming
on the machine, not the exit pollers, for answers.

I expect to see early projections altered significantly as soon as
those poll tape numbers are called in to NEP.

So to recap, good things to do Tuesday:
1. Public records
2. Number crunching
3. Pray

Good luck to us, all,

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting

Please help us protect 2008, muster up the "Dream Teams" for field
work, print the Tool Kits...
We are supported ENTIRELY through small citizen donations.

Hillary and her old enemies cuddle up for a kill

David Caputo — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:37:42 EDT

Interesting and informative article by Andrew Sullivan in the Times of London.

-----

Last week was officially the moment that the race for the Democratic nomination slipped through the looking glass into surrealism. Here is a brief list of those people who are now actively supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy: Pat Buchanan, a charming man slightly to the right of Genghis Khan; Rush Limbaugh, the most voluble and incendiary of right-wing talk-show hosts; Richard Mellon Scaife, the media mogul who financed the virulently antiClinton crusades of the 1990s; and, if you read between the lines, even Karl Rove, the “architect” of the past decade or so of Republican dominance in electoral politics.

Read the whole story here.

Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought

David Caputo — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:58:29 EDT

This was so good/important, I just had to share it. Obama supporters need to understand the reckless disregard for the law that our opponents seem to be exhibiting. Read for yourself and decide. - DC

--------

Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought

By John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, PR Watch. Posted April 25, 2008.

The Bush Administration has spent millions on deceptive PR to sell the war, as recently documented in the New York Times. Where's the fallout?

David Barstow of the New York Times has written the first installment in what is already a stunning exposé of the Bush Administration's most powerful propaganda weapon used to sell and manage the war on Iraq: the embedding of military propagandists directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators. We and others have long criticized the widespread TV network practice of hiring former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow has painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military industry consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed, coordinated and given their talking points by the Pentagon's ministers of propaganda.

Thanks to the two-year investigation by the New York Times, we today know that Victoria Clarke, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, launched the Pentagon military analyst program in early 2002. These supposedly independent military analysts were in fact a coordinated team of pro-war propagandists, personally recruited by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and acting under Clarke's tutelage and development.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the effort "psyops on steroids." As Barstow reports, "Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' … Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war."

larke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger, eventually signed up more than 75 retired military officers who penned newspaper op/ed columns and appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts. The Pentagon held weekly meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 20, 2008, when the New York Times ran Barstow's story. The program proved so successful that it was expanded to issues besides the Iraq War. "Other branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early acts was to meet with the analysts."

Barstow spent two years digging, using the Freedom of Information Act and attorneys to force the Bush Administration to release some 8,000 pages of documents now under lock and key at the New York Times. This treasure trove should result in additional stories, giving them a sort of "Pentagon Papers" of Iraq war propaganda.

In 1971, when the Times printed excerpts of the Pentagon Papers on its front page, it precipitated a constitutional showdown with the Nixon Administration over the deception and lies that sold the war in Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers issue dominated the news media back then. Today, however, Barstow's stunning report is being ignored by the most important news media in America -- TV news -- the source where most Americans, unfortunately, get most of their information.

Joseph Goebbels, eat your heart out. Goebbels is history's most notorious war propagandist, but even he could not have invented a smoother PR vehicle for selling and maintaining media and public support for a war: embed trusted "independent" military experts into the TV newsroom. As with most propaganda, the key to the success of this effort was the element of concealment, as these analysts and the Bush administration hid the fact that their talking points and marching orders were coming directly from the Pentagon.

The use of these analysts was a glaring violation of journalistic standards. As the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists explains, journalists are supposed to:

- Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

- Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

- Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.

- Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

- Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

- Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

- Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.

The networks using these analysts as journalists shamelessly failed to vet their experts and ignored the obvious conflicts of hiring a person with financial relationships to companies profiting from war to be an on-air analyst of war. They acted as if war was a football game and their military commentators were former coaches and players familiar with the rules and strategies. The TV networks even paid these "analysts" for their propaganda, enabling them to present themselves as "third party experts" while parroting White House talking points to sell the war.

ow that Barstow has blown their cover, the TV networks have generally refused to comment about this matter. Further compounding their violations of the public trust, they are blacking out coverage of the New York Times exposé, no doubt on advice of their own PR and crisis management advisors.

Since the 1920s there have been laws passed to stop the government from doing what Barstow has exposed. It is actually illegal in the United States for the government to propagandize its own citizens. As Barstow's report demonstrates, these laws have been repeatedly violated, are not enforced and are clearly inadequate. The U.S. Congress therefore needs to investigate this and the rest of the Bush propaganda campaign that sold the war in Iraq.

The attack and occupation of Iraq continues, with no end in sight. Estimates of the number of Iraqi dead range from the hundreds of thousands to more than a million. The cost to American taxpayers will eventually be in the trillions of dollars. More than 4,000 US soldiers have lost their lives, and this is just a part of the horrific toll of mental and physical disability that the war is taking on hundreds of thousands of troops and their families.

This war would never have been possible had the mainstream news media done its job. Instead, it has repeated the Big Lies that sold the war. This war would never have been possible without the millions of dollars spent by the Bush Administration on sophisticated and deceptive public relations techniques such as the Pentagon military analyst program that David Barstow has exposed. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Victoria Clarke, who designed and oversaw this Pentagon propaganda machine, now works as a commentator for TV network news. She may have changed jobs and employers since leaving the Pentagon, but her work remains the same.

John Stauber is the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Dick Cheney Interview in 1994

Mary R. Il. — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:13:24 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

This is a video clip of Cheney being interviewed in 1994 after Desert Storm and why they didn't go into Baghdad then. In his own worrds.

They (administration) are morally corrupt and should be tried for crimes against humanity. They always knew what would happen.

Anti-Responsibility the Wonder Drug!

daWizkid — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:50:59 EDT

Smear, Lie, Cheat!

Smear, Lie, Cheat!,

Smear, Lie, Cheat!

That's the Mantra of Clinton Inc. Barack Obama worked too hard to turn around now and I digging my heals in. I’ve always known that Hillary would attempt to hold on to power with a death grip. If she can not win it she will ensure that no one can.

Why I am running for delegate in the 53rd congressional district

Erika Hussein Schinler — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:37:25 EDT

I am running for delegate because of a promise I made to my daughter on July 27, 2004, a couple of months before she was born. I was living in Texas then and I had a bad case of the Red State Blues. I didn’t want my daughter to be born under the bad sign of the Bush Administration, but I felt powerless to stop it. What good could I possibly do in Texas? My Blue vote wasn’t even going to count. I felt hopeless.

But then I heard Obama’s keynote address. It was not his look or his oratory skills which yanked the scales from my eyes, it was what he said.

He knew what I was going through, he knew my red state pain. He knew that I wasn’t 100% liberal or blue, and he knew that the conservative pundits wanted to stomp the hope out of me. He knew that was an easy task because he knew that I wanted my vote to count, even in a red state, despite the fact that it was never going to, under the current system. He knew that I wanted desperately to feel hope. He knew that I wanted to love my country again.

I felt my daughter kick right then and swore to her that I would get Barack Obama elected, whenever he decided to run.

My daughter is three years old now and she claps and shrieks whenever Obama appears on the television. “It’s . . . OBAMA!” she says. He is one of only 11 people in the world who she knows on sight, including Elmo, and that means a lot to me. See, my daughter has autism, a neurological disorder that affects communication and social skills. She is an amazing kid, and Barack Obama knows this. My daughter matters to him.

On Americans with Disabilities Day, Barack Obama was the first Presidential candidate to release a comprehensive policy statement that included a mandatory screening for autism at the two-year well baby checkup. On Autism Awareness Day, he released a similarly detailed and thoughtful statement. I am aware of no other Presidential candidate who has demonstrated such levels of compassion for children with autism and other special needs.

My husband and I have hosted Obama meetings, canvasses, fundraisers, phone banks, and GOTV efforts at our home. Every single Obama supporter who has ever walked through my front door has become a friend, and some of the Obama supporters whom I met on Walk for Change day on June 9, 2007 have become my best friends in the world. All of these people are dedicated to serving their candidate and their country.

If elected to serve as an Obama pledged delegate for the 53rd Congressional District, I will work my tail off in Denver to ensure that:

(1) Barack Obama receives the nomination.

(2) Barack Obama emerges from the Convention as the strongest possible general election candidate.

(3) Barack Obama has a strong Democratic majority to pass his legacy legislation (e.g. health care) and end the war in Iraq.

Over the past 15 months, I have developed relationships with a network of Obama volunteers, fundrasiers, surrogates, advisors, and staffers accross the country. I promise to utilize these contacts to serve the best interests of the campaign, whether that means providing support to a downticket Democrat in a red state, or reaching out to a disappointed Clinton supporter. This is a long-winded way of saying that I want to do much more in Denver than listen to speeches. I know that we will be able to change the face of politics forever in Denver and I am eager to get started.

I also intend to use my legal training to memorize the procedural rules which govern the Convention and the related DNC committees. While I am confident that Obama has a team of remarkable lawyers to make brilliant arguments in the trenches of the Credentials Committee meetings, I will be prepared to help organize Obama’s delegates on the floor to take whatever actions are necessary (procedurally) to secure the nomination.

Specific credentials:

National Grassroots Finance Committee Leadership Circle

Precinct Captain - San Diego

GOTV organizer - San Diego

Volunteer Organizer - San Diego

Event coordinator for official election night parties, debate watch parties, and campaign rallies

Active MyBO blogger, Action Team member

Thank you for your consideration.

Best,
Erika

Clinton Supporter Escorted Out After Intolerant Remarks

David Caputo — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:47:36 EDT

And in the debate that ensued in the commentary following the story about the incident, I just had to add this comment...

Interesting discussion, but yes, ALL CAPS, is considered yelling online and is also difficult to read and evidence of a lack of knowledge about online behavior. It's amazing that people would call Barack a Muslim, which in some people's books is way better than being an Atheist. We gave billions to the radical Muslims when they were fighting the "godless Communists", no? Their leader was Osama Bin Laden, whose father is a close business associate of George H. W. Bush & Co. As a matter of fact, the CIA conceptualized, founded and funded Al Queda itself and used Osama as a puppet, dupe, and eventually fall-guy/patsy. So what's this about hating Muslims?? Aren't the atheists worse? I'm so confused....

kinda...

What's Worse?

Kevin — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:40:32 EDT

Being incredibly stupid or incredibly sinister and malevolent?

I would venture to guess that Shrub and Darth Cheney would want us to think the former. Let me also say that this admin will go down in history as the most "stupidest" (code word for evil).

No link between Saddam and Al Qaida.

The One With the Most Money Wins

joe ruwe — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:30:36 EDT

It's true. While I hate to see millions and millions of dollars spent on a divisive primary campaign, there is currently no alternative but to raise so much money that Hillary is forced to drop out.

This money could be spent on pressing issues like education, healthcare, the national debt, veteran health care, the economy and on and on. However, by donating to Obama's campaign, we are actually helping to solve some of these problems, or at least paying them some needed attention.

It is my sincere hope and belief that we can raise 100 million dollars in March, or somewhere very close to it. This would end this race once and for all. HRC would drop out the day those numbers were released.

We have to dig deep, friends. Most of us have already chipped in more than we can afford to, but the stakes are so huge, the consequences of this Presidential race so profound - that we must dig as deep as we possibly can and deeper to end this thing and put our guy in the White House.

We can do this. Ten dollars at a time. Twenty. A hundred. Dig deep and then deeper. Obama is counting on us.

Yes we can.

We're all Screwed...

Kevin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:59:18 EDT

Found this blog entry from Mr. Jack Cafferty.

Jack Cafferty's Blog on CNN.com

Seems as if Viceroy Darth Cheney is going to the Middle East to discuss increasing oil production with OPEC.

People, mark my words. before this admin leaves they will be sure to do everything they can to have oil at over $175/ barrel, which means we'll pay at least $6/gallon for gasoline.

As of 12 Mar 08, shrub and his evil henchmen are out of the White House in 7 months and 23 days according to the widget on Google. I started the countdown back in '05. It cannot come fast enough.

Changing the rules in the Third Quarter of the Super Bowl

Kevin — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:21:18 EST

Ok, can someone please enlighten me as to why Florida and Michigan Dem. officials did what they did. When they knew that this was the most important general election in a generation, they negated their delegates by moving up their primaries. Imagine how the voters in those states feel. Because someone they didn't know, and had no control over, silenced their voice. I don't know about you, but i'd be uber-pissed with those party officials.

Now in such a closely contested race, without those delegates it seems as if neither candidate will meet the required number of delegates. So instead of us uniting behind the strongest, most qualified candidate i have seen in my lifetime, the dems risk valuable campaigning time, squabbling over delegates.

So what do we do? Do we go back and allow the candidates to campaign in those states? Do we totally disregard them? Do the superdelegates decide to all vote for the candidate that has the most pledged delegates?

By the way, who came up with this idea of superdelegates anyway? Known as the party of the people, its odd that these elected officials could determine who the dems choose as the nominee and not... well..... the people!

All i can say is; what a mess. i certainly don't want to change the rules so deep into the game. i want all dems voices to be heard, the truly democratic thing to do (then again, after the fiasco in 2000, i bet the peeps down in the sunshine state are getting used to not having their voices heard). i don't want the punish Obama because he played by the rules and did not campaign down there.

i can only hope that the DNC comes up with a fair and equatable solution. Then again, there is over 250 days till the general election. (When puts it that way can you imagine the excitement for Obamania in Sept. and Oct? Man, i can't wait.) Seems as if there would be plenty of time between now and then to have a primary (or caucus) in those two states, to serve as a do-over.

I say that if HRC wins out because the superdelegates, we should use the event planner to create protests, marchs and demonstrations. i can see it now; Events near You: March to protest the DNC's Superdelegates. Bring comfortable shoes, signs loud voices and molotov cocktails. i'm just messing. 'bout the last part anyway...

in response to my friend vince's letter

Bob Mann — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:45:22 EST

He asked if the bridge was out- left some eloquence as well:

"with all this b.s. from Hillary.I thought more about all of this yesterday,you know all of this is like a piece of music.there are so many parts that make up the whole take away or change any of it,and the compisition changes."

- later I saw his post about fighting back and well he is right -- yes we can -- and we are -- do it with love -- and do it with fire -- we must fight using all the rules to survive and do so intelligently... and fearlessly

the way perception is being shaped by our technolgy is disturbing in the moment-- completely! the refs fell in love with Obama? Maybe, and for good reason-- but their own damn bruised little inner idiot egos turned them into daffodils for a while and even while Hillary looked to be embarassing herself by using her inner idiot to talk to our inner idiots she was shaping our inner idiot to believe it was stronger than our grown up selves

fuck that -- it is time to expose her inner idiot to ourselves- Vince has some damn important things to think about on his blog

is it easy to forget because we rely too much on the machinery and technolgy to do all the thinking for us?

tech-nill-logic

technology technology

maybe the bridge is out and we are crossing the river. Most likely a polluted one, but thats real. We can't always be camping in the redwoods-- it sure is nice to do so when we can. I question what is right about the technology we have which is odd since my profession is as an Assistive Technology Specialist. I know how it helps and I know how much it costs in dollars, production time and energy, and in the way we gather and produce the materials from tantulum and colton to plastic. I do know that the benefits are incredible, giving individuals independence and opportunity never before seen in their lives. I do honestly believe Obama has the potential to help us all understand the consequences of our behavior as well as the possibilities we may not even yet discovered. This is a combination of intellectual and intuitive understanding of my past experience with politics and this present experience. I fucking volunteered myself to speak for him and this movement on three different occasions! I will do it again, I honestly have enjoyed it. When I spoke with an individual in Rhode Island who happened to blind, he told me why he supported Obama and had inspirational reasons, and wanted to just chat about life in general like we are here, it was fun. He also told me that many people there honestly believed he was a Muslim and were afraid because of that. First of all-- this is America and my understanding that Muslim's are just Muslim's-- people who understand their relationship to spirit differently than Christians is more typical than is presented by the media. Second, if I believed that American's in general have that sort of understanding, I would be unrealistic and possibly delusional, especially in the context of the last 7 years. Still, it disappoints me. Stepping back clearly into the moment I say, one step at a time, relax and see what is. He is asking people to take responsibility for their own actions. That means me. Ok, I can do that, or at least try to do it with more naked honesty. Is that scary? yes. hmmm

love fearlessly

inner idiot in me -- you are a weak ass lying son of bitch

yes I can understand your fear, but wake up, we made it here...

I am Hussein

Erika Hussein Schinler — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:25:50 EST

I received an email last week from a fellow who had renamed himself Hussein. At first, I thought it was one of those posion email chains and so I angrily clicked on the fake Hussein's website to see what he was up to. I was floored by what I saw.

This amazing person had taken the time to reach out to people and encourage them to submit photos of themselves holding up signs that said, "I am Hussein." I realized that the creator of the website was making a valiant effort to de-stigmatize the word "Hussein." I Googled "Hussein" to remind myself of the literal translation: the name "Hussein" means "handsome one" in Arabic.

Indeed. Obama, and his family, and all of his supporters are handsome people. Well, I am of the age where I am fearful of being described as a "handsome woman" (which is a step away from being called a "cougar") and so I expanded the definition of "Hussein" to mean "beautiful" "hot" "physically attractive" or just plain "attractive." Because let's face it: We Obama supporters are damn attractive. Any of us who don't fit the traditional mold of beauty make up for it with personality. We are all beautiful on the inside which is why we have the unique abilitiy to embrace hope, and which is why all of us have longed for change.

Which is why many of us have added "Hussein" to our names. I noticed this in the comment boxes on the main HQ blog and was overwhelmed with pride and joy.

I am tired of ugliness. I am 36 years old and have never before experienced grace and beauty in politics. I do not remember President Nixon, but he shaped my early exposure to politics because he was a sneaky, vicious liar. He sullied the Oval Office and no one believed in the Presidency. At that same time, my family lived in Georgia. I remember that our next door neighbor was a violent racist, I remember that someone spit on my father for wearing an Army uniform in a cafe. I remember that the receptionist at my pediatrician's office encouraged a Black family to move into the "other" waiting room. I remember that President Jimmy Carter seemed like a decent and smart man, a really nice guy, but that a lot of people hated him. I remember Reagan and hubris and saber rattling and a vicious hate brewing against liberals and poor people. I remember associating our "Super Power" status with a general FU attitude.

I remember being inspired by Bill Clinton, but then immediately disempowered by the crusade against him by the Right. Their methods and their moral highground were both ridiculous and irksome, but Bill Clinton handled it terribly and even exacerbated the problem. His wife's health care project was shrouded in secrecy and clouded by arrogance: she would not support a decent health care bill that was sponsored by some intelligent and well-meaning conservative Democrats. The Clintons surrounded themselves with loyalists from Arkansas and refused to listen to anyone who wasn't in their inner circle, even when their inner circle was hauled off to jail, shamed into leaving office, or carried out of Washington in a body bag. Hillary's response to Vince Foster's suicide was to send her aides into his office to remove a bunch of files.

And of course there is Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky. That was ugly. I refused to pass judgment on Bill Clinton for having affairs or being a Lothario and even defiantly referred to him as a "pimp" which I meant as a compliment. But the image of cigars and stained blue dresses and tawdry sex acts with an emotionally unstable young woman in the Oval Office made me feel queasy deep down. It was a horrendous error in judgment on his part, as was his refusal to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit which ruined his last years in office and Al Gore's chance to take the reins.

I blame the Clintons for the past seven years of ugliness inflicted on us by the Bush administration. Had they supported the campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry with the zeal that they are supporting Hillary's run, none of this would've happened.

And yet they have the audacity to attack Barack Obama with more poison than they have ever directed at George W. Bush. Hurricane Katrina was ugly, and yet at the moment of reckoning, when George W. Bush was forced to address the American people on Thursday September 1, 2005 and explain why he had allowed Americans to drown on national television, I could stare only at President Clinton standing behind W, serving as some sort of support system with his new friend George HW Bush.

The first Black president should've kicked W in the a** when he had that precious opportunity. His presence there was tacit approval of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. I have never forgiven him for it, and have grown to despise him for the comments he's made on the campaign trail. He's probably not a racist, but he is a self-interested liar.

And now I have descended into ugliness.

Pray that this race will be over tomorrow. And change your name to "Hussein" in the meantime. Because you are beautiful.

homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto

Bob Mann — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:14:16 EST

"Homo sum humani nila me alienum puto"
"I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me."

Statement made by Publious Terentius Afer, know as Terrance. He was an African and a slave to a Roman senator. Freed by that senator he became the most popular playwright in Rome. Six of his plays and that statement have come down from us from 154 BC. This man, not born white, not born free, said,

I am a human being.

-- from a conversation Maya Angelou had with bell hooks

thats it

we are not victims

as we hear those that cry this and that -- try to turn up the religious or racial divisions -- try to twist and braid the ropes back around the necks of mankind again, like they know something we do not

remember

We are human beings.

this is the power of this evolutionary moment

this
now
is bigger than that

its beyond any weak ass cry of victimization -- its not leftist, rightest, sexist, racist, cultist, neoconist, rapist, scrapist, mapist, flapist, drapist, classist, massist, or even mean...

it is the integral openness of a new universal understanding

yes

The Amazing Morphing HRC!

Kevin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:28:06 EST

This is incredible! Check out this YouTube video of an MSNBC, report on which HRC is the real HRC. The mocking tone that she takes during one of her rallies, then the pit bull-esque attack mode, then the "sincere" gratitude expressed during the CNN debate.

It all goes to prove that HRC is anything but genuine. She is trying to be everything to everyone and thus attempt to adopt whatever personality is best self-serving. Everything is tactical to her, even her personality.

YouTube Clip

MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue

Nate Merwin - Washington — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:07:45 EDT

If you missed the live MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue, you can watch the show tonight on MTV at 7.

...or here: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1572958&vid=185110

Evacuation to the Big Easy

Erika Hussein Schinler — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:58:36 EDT

One of the many things I learned from living in New Orleans is that there is no shame in fleeing a city in the face of impending disaster. So on Monday, when San Diego was surrounded by a ring of fire and the Governator told me that the fires would likely burn for three days and also that there was no way to really contain the flames so long as the Santa Ana winds were blowing, that I had two choices--flee San Diego or pray for better weather. I'm not above praying, but I've noticed that there is sort of disconnect between mother nature and prayer. Gaia gets pissed sometimes and I haven't quite figured out how to appease her (nor do I think that she responds to personal prayers). She is on a different wavelength than the "Our Father Who Art in Heaven" entity who has been known to be more willing to entertain personal requests, e.g. his support of certain professional athletes who agree in advance to point to the sky after putting points on the board.

But so anyway, on Monday I gave Gaia a nod and then wigged out and booked plane tickets to New Orleans--the first city to pop into my mind and coincidentally the next destination on the Southwest departure board. I lived in the Big Easy from 1998-2001 and hold it dear because out of the twelve cities I've lived in, it's really the only place that has ever felt like home. [cue violins] See, I've never really gotten over Katrina and had not been able to stomach going back there until that exact moment last week. I believe that New Orleans was murdered and if you would like to see why, then feel free to visit my website at http://www.whoblewit.com. Although you don't need my website to revisit the horror that you no doubt felt when you watched Americans drown on national television. That is undoubtedly on the short list of why you are here, supporting a candidate who would never treat a U.S. city like a bag of unwanted kittens tossed off a bridge.

When we arrived in the Big Easy at midnight last Monday, I knew exactly why I was there. Our hotel was across the street from the Convention Center, the place where my law school graduation was held and also the place where people lined up crying and screaming for help when the cameras cut away from the Superdome on August 31, 2005. I spent a great deal of time staring at that building this past week, and while the small stream of convention-goers gave me some hope that New Orleans' economy might just bounce back after all, it was impossible to drown out the voices of the ghosts from 2005. Everywhere I looked I saw signs of recovery--walking from my hotel down Bourbon Street it was nearly impossible to detect any evidence of the huge disaster. But something was missing from New Orleans. There are people who used to be in New Orleans who are no longer there. They scattered to the four winds when the buses finally came on Setember 2, 2005 and I do not know where they are today.

I returned to San Diego this morning. My house is intact and my neighbors tell me that the breezes from the bay kept the choking smoke from filling up my neighborhood. I think they were trying to say that I needn't have left. But they do not understand my ulterior motives for jumping at the chance to return to a city I love and also how that city shaped my approack to risk. If Katrina taught us anything, it's that one can never really tell how a natural disaster is going to play out and that help might not be able to reach you when you need it. Better to be holed up in a hotel room watching CNN than stuck on your roof. My aversion to risk is equal to my distrust of the current administration who has used Katrina as an excuse to give themselves the unfettered right to declare martial law following a natural disaster (see the 2006 authorization bill PL 109-364). I am frankly surprised that Bush didn't use this disaster to flex his powers to suspend the Constitution. Those powers, thankfully, will be limited as soon as the ink is dry on HR 1585. So maybe the coast is clear for now.

But this isn't about me or my conspiracy theories. It is about moving on from all of that and envisioning how spectacular things are going to be when Barack is elected. And acting as we would if he were elected. We're all pitching in on this campaign as sort of a dress rehearsal for how we'll be asked to pitch in to help him fix this country once he's in office. And so I have a couple of ideas. One, getting together with people here in San Diego to help those displaced by the fires--perhaps by adopting a family or two for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Two, reaching out to Katrina evacuees who might want to return home. Or who might want to know that they haven't been forgotten about. Three, thinking about how to pump some money into the economy in New Orleans. I asked everyone I spoke with how I could help and they said simply, "Tell everyone you know to come here. Spread the word."