War is breaking out all over . . . .
Picks of the Week:
Harper's Weekly Review
Curtains for conservatism
"So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.
"The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.
"Yet their way of admitting this was to put on display the central goal of the currently dominant forces of politics: give away as much as possible to the truly wealthy. You wonder what those blue-collar conservatives once known as Reagan Democrats made of all this."
Final "Constitution in Crisis" report: Six years of unchecked abuses -- had enough?
"Our Constitution established a tri-partite system of government, with the notion that each branch of government would act as a check on the other two. Unfortunately, for the last six years, the Republicans in Congress have largely viewed themselves as defenders of the Bush Administration, instead of a vital check on overreaching by the Executive Branch. By doing so, I believe they have acted to the detriment of our Constitutional form of government.
"We have seen so many transgressions by this Administration that it is easy to forget last week's scandal amid this week's new outrage. I am hopeful that compiling all of these events of the last few years will help wake all of us up to the gravity of these matters and the cumulative damage to our country."
The Constitution in Crisis
The complete report
Bush admin may have violated 26 statutes, Dems say
"The laws implicated by the Administration’s actions include federal laws against making false statements to congress [sic]; federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other government employees; Executive Orders concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence; federal regulations and ethical requirements governing conflicts of interest; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; communications privacy laws; the National Security Act; and the Fourth Amendment."
Bush Crime Family.
The final say
"Americans, steeped in deep ignorance and prejudice about the Mideast, are now being misled by the administration and its media allies that Lebanon is a new front in the so-called war on terrorism. As I recently learned doing radio shows across the U.S., a great many Americans cannot distinguish between Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Taliban, the PLO, Hamas, etc. All are terrorists. Listeners even called in to ask if the fighting in Lebanon was the prelude to Armageddon."
The author also says,
"However, Canadian PM 'Steve' Harper has no doubts. He suggested the deceased Canadian major and his UN-mandated post may have been at fault for being in the way of Israeli bombs, and that Israel's destruction of the southern third of Lebanon was a 'measured response.' Many Canadians must suspect they elected a prime minister who actually may be George Bush's intellectual equal."
Both Canadians and Americans have to wake up to the coordinated takeover of North America by unsavory thugs.
'Outrage' at 'morally unconscionable position'
"Will Canada collude with state terrorism or will Canada adhere to the rule of law with respect to the illegalities of occupation and the physical and psychological tormenting and murdering of civilians? We call on Canada to call for an immediate ceasefire, observed by the U.N. and not NATO, and for the immediate restoration of aid to the democratically elected Palestinian government.
"In a just world, Israel would make reparations, just as Germany did to Jewish people."
By The Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation
CSIS spy networks in mosques not meant to target Islam, experts say
"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service practice of paying informants to gather intelligence from specific religious communities in Canada is a perfectly acceptable tactic that has been misunderstood and misrepresented, security experts say."
It's just part of a religious studies program for Canadian spooks. Really.
Stephen Harper: hanging out with the wrong crowd - If we must abandon peace, human rights, international law and negotiated settlements in international affairs in favour of blind warmongering, then where are we?
"If you've been given to grim thoughts lately, you might entertain this one: What new havoc will be loosed on the world before George W. Bush leaves office in over two years time? More specifically for our purposes, how deeply will our own Stephen Harper drag us into these adventures?"
Mexico leftists take city center in vote protest
"Launching a campaign of civil disobedience that raises the stakes in Mexico's political crisis, supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador seized control overnight of a six-mile (10-km) stretch of the capital's elegant Reforma boulevard and the imposing Zocalo square."
Too bad in 2000 or 2004 there weren't similar stories about Miami and Cleveland.
Mexico vote protests cripple capital
"Street protests led by the leftist candidate in Mexico's presidential election plunged the capital into chaos for a second day, raising fears of a long and increasingly nasty fight over vote fraud claims."
Serving as models for 2006, 2008 in US. "Voters of the world, unite!"
Evidence of election fraud grows in Mexico
"It appears that the U.S. media has become so enamored with the construct of the 'anti-democratic' left in Latin America -- the ubiquitous 'fiery populists' (a term that has described everyone from the centrist Lula da Silva to Hugo Chávez) -- that they are incapable of fulfilling their basic mandate to inform their readers when it comes to the political landscape south of the border. It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice.
"But back in the real world, a growing body of credible evidence from mainstream Mexican journalists, independent election observers and respected scholars indicates that an attempt was made to deliver the presidency to Calderón. It includes a pattern of irregularities at the polls, interference by the ruling party and some very suspicious statistical patterns in the 'official' results."
Partial vote recount ordered in Mexico
"The Federal Electoral Judicial Tribunal, a 10-year-old cornerstone of Mexico's democratic transition, instead ordered a more limited recount, starting Wednesday, of ballots cast in just 9 percent of polling places. The unanimous decision sparked angry jeers in tent cities set up by demonstrators on busy thoroughfares and raised fears that a peaceful protest movement could turn violent."
Adopting the US selection process.
Worst ever security flaw found inside Diebold TS voting machine
“'This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,' says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version."
“'Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,' according to Dechert. 'If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS -- and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.' This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation."
This isn't a flaw; it's GOP strategery.
Strong-arming the vote
"President Bush’s Justice Department has been criticized for letting partisanship guide its work on voting and elections. And party politics certainly appears to have been a driving force in a legal maneuver it just pulled off in Alabama, where it persuaded a federal judge to take important election powers away from the Democratic secretary of state and give them to a Republican governor. The Justice Department says it is trying to enforce the election law, but that is unconvincing. There are plenty of ways to enforce the law without creating the impression that it is tilting the electoral landscape in favor of Republicans."
Prosecutors mull pre-election indictments in Congress
"Federal prosecutors are unsure whether they should issue indictments for members of Congress prior to the November elections, as the decision might 'throw their congressional races into disarray,' The WALL STREET JOURNAL is reporting today."
So, a person in a corporation is up for a big promotion, and the local DA can't decide if the person should be indicted for robbery, because it might mess up the promotion.
AIPAC's hold
"As this event illustrates, it's impossible to talk about Congress's relationship to Israel without highlighting AIPAC, the American Jewish community's most important voice on the Hill. The Congressional reaction to Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory bombing of Lebanon provide the latest example of why.
"On July 18, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution 'condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel's exercise of its right to self-defense.' After House majority leader John Boehner removed language from the bill urging 'all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure,' the House version passed by a landslide, 410 to 8.
"AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. 'They [Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC,' said former Carter Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who addressed the House Democratic Caucus on July 19. 'They didn't prepare one.'"
In my next life, I want to be a US Congressman. Won't have to know nothin', won't have to do nothin', and I'll be rich.
Zionist Organization of America backs Bolton nomination
"The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has announced its strong support for Ambassador John Bolton to continue his tenure as US Ambassador to the United Nations and strongly urged US Senators to confirm him in his post at the world body."
US-Israeli onslaught on Lebanon intensifies
"Aided by the lack of any opposition from the UN and the European Union, the objectives set by the US and Israel from the outset of the war are being pursued methodically and with barbaric devastation. Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers has been used as a pretext to attempt to kill or drive out the population of south Lebanon and bring the entire country under its political sway."
An open letter to the good people of the Middle East from the we're not that stupid Americans
"You need to understand that most Americans are doing no such things. It is our elected or perhaps fraudulently selected government that is doing this. It is not even all the government but more specifically THIS Administration made up of the Bush family Dynasty, in the form of the President and all those under his immediate control depending on who one thinks controls who in this administration. It is not the American people against the Palestinian, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese and other people!"
Qana attack led to turning point in support of Israel
"As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident."It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time." . . . .
"The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike."
Oops!
12 official guidelines for the Israeli spokesman in time of war
"*Unlike, the Hamas and the Hezbollah, we never kill indiscriminately. We always kill very discriminately. We kill Arabs whether they are Arab women, Arab elders, Arab children, Arab refugees, Arab disabled hiding in a Red Cross shelter in Kafar Quana. We are after Arabs and to speak about us as if we are bombing and killing indiscriminately is an utter anti-Semitic lie."
Ad: 'For Zion's sake I will not keep silent'
"An advertisement running on Fox News network today, paid for by The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, is asking viewers to 'stand with Israel in its time of need.'"
Dear Kofi, it's time to remove the US and Israel from the United Nations
"Dear Secretary-General,I am writing to you with the hope that you will take swift action to address a grave and existential threat to the United Nations. The events in the Middle East are quickly spinning out of control as today’s attack on the UN offices in Beirut clearly indicates. The central problem is that the UN is no longer able to fulfill its mandate to "keep the peace" because of the obstructionism of the United States. In the last few days, 15 foreign ministers met in Rome to determine the appropriate language for a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire to the violence in Lebanon. As you know, the countries unanimously supported the motion except for the United States which blocked the measure to give Israel more time to destroy Lebanon with its vicious air-campaign. I think you will agree that the UN cannot survive if it is hamstrung in its duties by the narrow policy-objectives of the individual states. In this case, both Washington and Tel Aviv want war, and so, war it is."
Personally, I think countries who profit from war and war mongering should at least be removed from the Security Council.
"Let the killing continue": Slaughter taking place while Canada does nothing
"So the refusal of the US — and its attendants Britain and Canada — to call for a ceasefire amounts to an endorsement of a slaughter of completely unprotected people."
Blood on his hands
"I am told that the Israelis informed George W Bush in advance of their plans to 'destroy' Hezbollah by bombing villages in southern Lebanon. The Americans duly informed the British. So Blair knew. This exposes as a fraud the debate of the past week about calling for a ceasefire. Indeed, one of the reasons why negotiations failed in Rome was British obduracy. This has been a case not of turning a blind eye and failing to halt the onslaught, but of providing active support.
"Blair, like Bush, had no intention of urging the Israelis to slow down their bombardment, believing somehow that this struggle was winnable. Israel has a right to self-defence, but it could have responded to the seizure of its soldiers, and to the rocket attacks, by the diplomatic route. That would have ensured greater sympathy. Now, growing numbers in Israel itself realise that military action will bring no long-term solution."
US giving aid - and bombs
"As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues unabated into its fourth consecutive week, the United States says it stands ready to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire.
"But Washington has also decided to accelerate the supply of lethal weapons to Israel - 'perhaps intended to kill the very Lebanese the United States is planning to feed and shelter', said one Arab diplomat at the United Nations."
Wouldn't it make more sense for the US to immediately cut all aid to Israel until Israel stopped its aggression and committed to rebuilding Lebanon with its own money, not US tax payers' money?
Traumatized and afraid - 300,00 children who want to go home
"About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon, 48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres."
Pulling the plug on Israel (Scroll down)
"Whether or not it has reached critical mass, there exists a heterogeneous agglomeration of Jewish people around the world-- e.g., moi--for whom the state of Israel has come to represent an 800-pound albatross that needs to be pried from our necks before it drags us over a cliff. A sense of urgency is propelled by the U.S.-sanctioned bloodletting in Lebanon and Gaza (which now seems to have been planned in advance) and the evident flimsiness of its official justification. With Israeli adventurism on the march, there are well founded fears concerning the general threat that country poses to the peace of the world.
"And there is a paticularized danger which stirs a thick chunk of self-interest into the universalism of enlightened Jewish concern. In terms of the fabled Jewish-interest litmus, it is proving decidedly not "good for the Jews" when Israel gets away with murder. The spillover is ubiquitous. After all, we have it on no lesser authority than New York Times heavyweight Thomas Friedman that, in the early days of the American occupation of Iraq, American soldiers in Iraq were being referred to on the Iraqi street as 'the Jews'."
US supplying Israel with NSA signals intelligence
"Blumenthal claims to be in touch with 'a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation' to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing.
"Bush is being influenced by neoconservatives in his administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney's staff and Elliot Abrams, senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council. The group, according to Blumenthal, seeks to start a 'four front war' by giving Israel the pretext to strike Iran and Syria. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been briefed, but is not a central actor in the plan."
Doesn't this, and arming Israel, make the US an active ally against Lebanon? A Middle-eastern democracy?
Israeli raids kill 828, injure 3,200 in Lebanon in three weeks
"'At the 21st day of the Israeli offensive on Lebanon, the health ministry has counted 828 dead, more than 3,200 wounded,' an HRC spokesman who did not wish to be identified said. "'These are identified bodies, and the toll does not count the people still believed to be under the rubble,' he said."
25 Lebanese civilians to 1 Israeli civilians, dead
"Linked on the Information Clearing House* is a comprehensive article about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. By conservative estimates 461 Lebanese civilians have died so far, and 18 Israeli civilians. That is approximately 25 Lebanese to 1 Israeli. You can bet top dollar, we have heard about every Israeli killed. Israel would not allow the death of one civilian without an announcement, and supportive echos in the US press. The figures of how many Lebanese killed are downplayed, just like Arab Palestian casualities have been for years. Just like US officials downplay the deaths of Iraqi civilians."
'You go a little bit crazy seeing little body after little body coming out of the ground'
"What is obvious to everyone covering this conflict is that children are bearing the brunt of it. The few official figures collated so far seem to support this. Unicef says that 37 of the 60 dead in Qana on Sunday were children, and everywhere you go, it seems that it is the children who are being killed, injured and displaced. Yesterday the Lebanese government said that of the 828 of its civilians killed in the conflict so far, around 35% have been children - that's around 290. Unicef also estimates that about a third of the dead have been children, although it bases that figure on the fact that an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population are children, rather than any actual count of the dead. There are no official figures yet for the number of wounded children, but they will certainly exceed the number killed; as for those displaced, Unicef says that 45% of the estimated 900,000 Lebanese to have fled their homes are children."
Israeli strike kills 33 farm workers in Lebanon
"Security sources in Lebanon said at least 33 farm workers, including many Kurds and Syrians, were killed on Friday when Israeli aircraft bombarded trucks being loaded with fruits at a farm on Lebanon's border with Syria.
"They said the farm was near the village of Qaa in the northern tip of the eastern Bekaa Valley. Aircraft fired at least three rockets at the trucks which were being loaded with peaches and plums."
In defense of this war crime, Israel's Gillerman said, with a straight face, "Israel does not target civilians." It just kills them.
HRW: Israel deliberately targeting civilians
"As the Israeli administration announced that the civilians in Qana were killed by mistake; the Human Rights Watch Organization (HRW) declared that they observed the deliberate killing of civilians in Lebanon by the Israeli army, and noted that some of its strikes constitute war crimes."
Open letter to Bush from an Arab girl
"It has become extremely difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt on Lebanon, for you have left no doubt in our minds. We are now certain — like many of us have always been — that your foreign policy is completely biased towards Israel, and you have made no effort to hide this fact. Just out of curiosity: are they also drafted in Tel Aviv?
"It is your choice, Mr Bush, to support Israel, just like it is our — the entire Arab and Muslim world’s — choice to support Lebanon. You insist that Israel has the right to defend itself. Defending oneself, I believe, is a universal right, not exclusive to Israel."
The Moron IS a uniter.
The jerk: Why Saddam had to go by Greg Palast
"The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to 'support the Palestinian intifada' and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control.
“'Control is what it’s all about,' one oilman told me. 'It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.'"
The sound of one domino falling
"'If we left Iraq prematurely,' he said, “the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they’d order us and all those who don’t share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines.' And finally, he intoned, America will be forced 'to make a stand nearer home.'
"No one in charge of American foreign affairs has talked like that in decades. After Vietnam, of course, the communist empire did not swarm all over Asia as predicted; it tottered and collapsed. And the new 'enemy' that Mr. Rumsfeld is worried about is not a worldwide conspiracy but a collection of disparate political and religious groups, now united mainly by American action in Iraq."
Bomb blasts kill at least 40 people across Iraq
"Bombs killed at least 40 people on Tuesday, half of them Iraqi soldiers, in the latest blow to the new government's efforts to inspire confidence in the country's security forces.
"The most dramatic blast was a roadside bomb attack on a bus filled with soldiers on a road between Tikrit and Baiji north of Baghdad. At least 20 of them were killed."
GI's say officers ordered killing of young Iraqi men
"Four soldiers from an Army combat unit that killed three Iraqi men in a raid in May testified Wednesday that they had received orders from superior officers to kill all the military-age men they encountered."
Experts: Not a single Army combat team left ready to deploy
"A group of national security experts formed by Democratic leadership has reported to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) that, 'there is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy,' RAW STORY has learned.
"'The bottom line,' the group concludes in a letter to Democratic leadership, 'is that our Army currently has no ready, strategic reserve.'"
Thousands of troops say they won't fight
"Since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, the Pentagon says. More than half served in the Army. But the Army says numbers have decreased each year since the United States began its war on terror in Afghanistan.
"Those who help war resisters say desertion is more prevalent than the military has admitted.
"'They lied in Vietnam with the amount of opposition to the war and they’re lying now,' said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represents Army Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the war in Iraq."
Iraq resistance gains steam
"Iraqi resistance fighters have stepped up attacks against US occupation forces over the past weeks, with some security sources linking the momentum to the US-backed Israeli onslaught on Lebanon.
"'Attacks against US forces have increased, particularly since the Israeli military offensive on Lebanon began,' Anbar police officer Yusuf al-Dailemi told the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency."
Iraqi Shiites chant 'Death to Israel'
"Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon."
Blowback from a bad war
"With the military unable to meet recruitment goals for an unpopular war, gangbangers and white supremacists are having a far easier time getting "moral waivers" to enlist, according to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center called 'A Few Bad Men,' as well as an investigative series in the Chicago Sun-Times in May. The upshot: a future compromised in yet another way, as we train and further desensitize the psychologically fragile and psychotically embittered.
"Some of them, baptized in hellfire, could, like Timothy McVeigh, John Allen Muhammad and a long list of others, turn around and bite us. Bush's war to promote terror - the perfect self-sustaining fear machine - isn't just generating an endless supply of hardened enemies beyond our borders. It is also creating the conditions of social breakdown and psychological blowback within our borders. Guess what? Under Plan Bush, we'll never be safe."
Six Marines charged in Iraq assault case
"Six U.S. Marines were charged with assault late on Thursday in connection with suspected assaults on several Iraqi civilians in Hamdania, days before the alleged kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian there."
Bush urges Cubans to work for democracy
'''We will support you in your effort to build a transitional government in Cuba committed to democracy, and we will take note of those, in the current Cuban regime, who obstruct your desire for a free Cuba,'' Bush said in statement issued by the White House."
Pray for the Cubans; democracy may be on the march there when Fidel leaves office.
Following Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to Israel and 9-11
"Think of this as part two of Recherche du trillions perdu, my Online Journal article on Dov Zakheim, former Bush appointee as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as I mentioned, was buried under 9-11’s rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim’s watch.
"Yet on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense. So the dark card was shifted to another part of the deck."
BushCo and Israel were primary beneficiaries of 9/11.
NORAD tapes only intensify implausibility of 9/11 official story
"'During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, 'The plane is 50 miles out.' 'The plane is 30 miles out.'
"And when it got down to 'the plane is 10 miles out,' the young man also said to the Vice President, 'Do the orders still stand?'
"And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?'
"Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, May 23, 2003."
9/11 panel suspected deception by Pentagon
"Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said."
11 questions avoided by the media on NORAD tapes
3. Who designed the war games to involve 'hijackings'?
4. Who planned and scheduled the movement of Airforce aircraft north to Canada, Alaska and Greenland?
5. Who planned the terror exercise at the NSA involving an evacuation in response to threat from the air?
Blair 'must go now' as pressure mounts
"Writing in the Financial Times, Sir Rodric described the Prime Minister as 'frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussaud's' programmed by the CIA to 'spout the language of the White House in an artificial English accent'."
I wonder how Sir Rodric would characterize Evil Moron?
Why Bush's stupidity is a threat
This sort of display would be embarrassing were it not so frightening.
"Two days later, with Tony Blair standing at the adjacent podium, things went from bad to worse. One is used to hearing Bush say things that aren't true. He appears, however, from the look on his face and from the baffling nature of the untruths he uttered, to have lapsed from dishonesty into confusion. (Sheer boredom may have sent him tumbling to new depths of ignorance.) 'There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory,' Bush mused, 'because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy.'"
Olmert criticizes Syria, defends Bush
"On a table facing his desk, Ehud Olmert keeps photographs of three Israeli soldiers whose capture by Islamic militants in Gaza and Lebanon sparked the latest Mideast crisis."
(I include this sentence because just a few minutes ago, Al Franken defended Israel by saying the two soldiers were captured in Israel. Maybe he does have what it takes to be a US Senator."
In an interview with The Associated Press, Olmert lashed out at Syria, condemned Hezbollah, defended President Bush and predicted the crisis' outcome will 'create a new momentum between us and the Palestinians.'"
Speed up the killing? What the hell does he mean by a new momentum? By the way, have you noticed the complete lack of affect of Israeli spokespeople. They might just as well be reading financial reports. That Gillerman at the UN is the worst. Dead eyes . . . heartless.
US begins treaty - breaching germ war defence centre
"Construction work has begun near Washington on a vast germ warfare laboratory intended to help protect the US against an attack with biological weapon, but critics say the laboratory's work will violate international law and its extreme secrecy will exacerbate a biological arms race."
Bush justice
"What may at first blush appear to be nothing more than the puerile paranoid ponderings of a pop song may soon become the law of the land – at least as far as the trying of accused terrorists is concerned. The Bush administration is proposing what are called 'modest changes' to the procedural rules of military commissions charged with trying suspected terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay. These changes can be defined as modest in the same way that guillotining effects a modest change on one's ability to wear a hat."
Bush seeks retroactive immunity from US war crimes prosecution
"Now that the Bush team faces possible prosecution for war crimes under US law, the team is quietly changing the law to provide a 'legal escape hatch.' The recent US Supreme Court decision in Hamdan removed a potential defense from war crimes prosecution that the Bush team had been relying upon. So now the Decider is quietly changing this US law to exempt himself and other officials from criminal prosecutions that may not occur until the next administration."
Guantanamo detainees may remain indefinitely: Gonzales
"'If we choose to try them, that's great. If we don't choose to try them, we can continue to hold them,' he said."
With liberty and justice for all.
Global Eye
"The moribund republic was thought to have been bludgeoned to death when the Bushists brought out the blunt instrument of the 'unitary executive' earlier this year. After the regime's patently illegal domestic spying programs were revealed, the regime at last dropped all pretense and openly declared a presidential dictatorship, insisting that any action ordered by the commander-in-chief was beyond the reach of law."
US government asks federal court to stop domestic spying lawsuit
"The US government has asked a San Francisco court to quash a lawsuit charging that the Bush administration illegally spied on Americans' phone calls, legal filings showed.
"The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) lawsuit accuses US telecom giant AT and T of helping the National Security Administration to conduct 'wholesale' spying on millions of US customers."
US threatens suit if Maine probes Verizon ties to NSA
"The Bush administration is threatening to sue if Maine regulators decide to investigate whether Verizon Communications illegally turned over customer information to the National Security Agency."
Specter's NSA plan hits snag
"A White House-endorsed plan to formally legalize the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program ran into more political problems yesterday in the Senate, as Democrats successfully maneuvered to block a committee vote on the proposal."
Lick my silent sports car: How much has Big Auto lied? Take a drive in this four-wheel electri orgasm, and find out
"This car, it has a top speed of 130 mph. It has a range of 250 miles. It also has GPS navigation and air-conditioning and air bags and it surely will come with a very badass sound system. It has heated seats and (I presume) iPod integration and Bluetooth. You know, just like a real car.
"Oh, and by the way, this car? It's completely silent. It is 100-percent emissions-free. Doesn't even have a tailpipe. Because it has no internal combustion engine of any kind."
Tesla Motors
"100% electric, 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds, 135 mpg equivalent, 250 miles per charge, about 1 cent per mile"
The coming housing crash
"All the economists who missed the stock bubble—this is almost all economists—are just about to be embarrassed again. Several reports released this week provide the strongest evidence yet that the housing bubble may finally be deflating."
Mortgage defaults up 67% in California
"The number of defaults on mortgage payments rose to a three-year high in the second quarter in California, a 67% increase from the year earlier period, according to DataQuick, a real estate data-compiling firm."
What's the real federal deficit?
"The set [of books] the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
"The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion."
War, violence in Iraq taking toll on United States' wealth
"The United States must soon decide how much more the nation wants to invest in Iraq and if the country can afford the cost.
"Even more alarming than the steady deterioration of Iraq is the f
act that the U.S. isn't keeping this nation's Army and National Guard ready to meet any threat."
'Hourglass economy' divides Americans, defines politics
"'It bothers me,'' former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said in an interview. 'I tell you, I don't know why there hasn't been more discussion and more unhappiness about this because it's become quite distinct. For a long time now, if we believe the statistics, the average working guy does not have an increase in income.'
"The divide is reviving protectionism in Congress, awakening a debate on the minimum wage, and making the Federal Reserve more sensitive to the risks of causing a collapse in financial and housing markets."
Tax cheats out of control
"So many superrich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes." . . . .
"Cheating now equals about 7 cents out of each dollar paid by honest taxpayers, as much as $70 billion a year, the report estimated."
Coincidently, the IRS is cutting its staff dealing with wealthy Americans' tax returns by 50%.
Deal maker details the art of greasing the palm
"The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the proliferation of Congressional earmarks — money for pet projects inserted anonymously in spending bills — which critics say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills amount to $64 billion."
Quotes from www.bartcop.com and others:
"I have never painted a rosy picture. I have been very measured in my words, and you?d have a dickens of a time trying to find where I have been excessively optimistic." -- Rummy the liar, as she was busting him, Link
"It is unknowable how long this conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months. There is no question but that they would be welcomed." " -- Donald Rosey Rumsfeld, (R-Optimistic) 2-7-03, Link
"Isn't there some law against lying under oath?" --thelonegunman, Link
"If CO2 is a pollutant, God is a polluter." --Rep. Joe Barton (R-Blasphemer), Link
"We are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war. That means staying the course? is pointless..." --Thomas L. Friedman, Link
"Yesterday's situation was awful. But it's also awful that a million Israelis are worried about..." -- Der Monkey, Link
"Marine Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus, nephew of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), died Saturday in Iraq. Baucus said his family is 'devastated by the loss.'" -- Think Progress, Link
"The White House position appears to be to refuse to even contemplate ideas that, elsewhere, are widely considered obvious: That regardless of who started it, Israeli strikes are taking a vastly more terrible toll on Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah is taking on Israelis; that Israel's actions are turning the region ever more resolutely against the United States and its goals; that the death of 37 children in an air strike is a bloodbath that shocks the world; and that there is more urgency to stop the killing than there is to pursue a dubious and so far disproved theory of regional rebirth." --Dan Froomkin, WaHoPo
"Arlen 'Magic Bullet' Specter has been a janus-faced liar for more than forty years. His fulsome protestations against the Bush administration's pursuit of more executive power were nothing more than camouflage for his true beliefs exemplified by this proposed bill.
"He has never been a friend of democracy; he has served and is still serving his authoritarian masters every chance he gets. He cannot be trusted." --Steve in Phoenix
"The United States and Israel ...are teetering on the brink of a massive defeat in Lebanon and thus in the war on terror." -- David Horowitz, (R-Liar, Whore) Link
"To point out that our military has been neglected, that's no criticism of the military. That is criticism of a president and vice president and their record of neglect. I have a message to our men and women in uniform: Help is on the way." --Gov. Bush, 11/03/00, Link
"One night a couple of years ago we all went to bed in one era of history and woke up in another...I knew on that tragic day that many more tragic days were to follow, and I made the decision that I would use my little space to scream out louder against the great injustices the United States government was about to unleash upon the planet." -- Aaron McGruder, on why he turned political
"Bush met with the 'American Idol' kids last week...because there was nothing else going on in the world." -- Wake-Up Call!, Link
"I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat." -- Crawford resident on Cindy Sheehan Link
"I don't want her rights taken away, but she needs to be respectful for what our country stands for." -- Bill Johnson, Yellow Rose gift shop owner in Crawford, on Cindy Sheehan, Link
"And in the general hardening of outlook that set in . . . practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions . . . and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and eve defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive." -- Orwell's 1984
"There is a difference between Dems and Repubs; today's Republicans are retards. Any Party that goes out of its way to pander to the sizable voting block of people who take mythology literally; are mentally unstable and threat to the Republic. Bush has diddled everything they touch; with all their lies on Iraq, and their habit of screwing things up."
Harper's Weekly Review
Curtains for conservatism
"So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.
"The episode was significant because it meant Republicans were acknowledging that they would not hold congressional power without the help of moderates. That is because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.
"Yet their way of admitting this was to put on display the central goal of the currently dominant forces of politics: give away as much as possible to the truly wealthy. You wonder what those blue-collar conservatives once known as Reagan Democrats made of all this."
Final "Constitution in Crisis" report: Six years of unchecked abuses -- had enough?
"Our Constitution established a tri-partite system of government, with the notion that each branch of government would act as a check on the other two. Unfortunately, for the last six years, the Republicans in Congress have largely viewed themselves as defenders of the Bush Administration, instead of a vital check on overreaching by the Executive Branch. By doing so, I believe they have acted to the detriment of our Constitutional form of government.
"We have seen so many transgressions by this Administration that it is easy to forget last week's scandal amid this week's new outrage. I am hopeful that compiling all of these events of the last few years will help wake all of us up to the gravity of these matters and the cumulative damage to our country."
The Constitution in Crisis
The complete report
Bush admin may have violated 26 statutes, Dems say
"The laws implicated by the Administration’s actions include federal laws against making false statements to congress [sic]; federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other government employees; Executive Orders concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence; federal regulations and ethical requirements governing conflicts of interest; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; communications privacy laws; the National Security Act; and the Fourth Amendment."
Bush Crime Family.
The final say
"Americans, steeped in deep ignorance and prejudice about the Mideast, are now being misled by the administration and its media allies that Lebanon is a new front in the so-called war on terrorism. As I recently learned doing radio shows across the U.S., a great many Americans cannot distinguish between Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Taliban, the PLO, Hamas, etc. All are terrorists. Listeners even called in to ask if the fighting in Lebanon was the prelude to Armageddon."
The author also says,
"However, Canadian PM 'Steve' Harper has no doubts. He suggested the deceased Canadian major and his UN-mandated post may have been at fault for being in the way of Israeli bombs, and that Israel's destruction of the southern third of Lebanon was a 'measured response.' Many Canadians must suspect they elected a prime minister who actually may be George Bush's intellectual equal."
Both Canadians and Americans have to wake up to the coordinated takeover of North America by unsavory thugs.
'Outrage' at 'morally unconscionable position'
"Will Canada collude with state terrorism or will Canada adhere to the rule of law with respect to the illegalities of occupation and the physical and psychological tormenting and murdering of civilians? We call on Canada to call for an immediate ceasefire, observed by the U.N. and not NATO, and for the immediate restoration of aid to the democratically elected Palestinian government.
"In a just world, Israel would make reparations, just as Germany did to Jewish people."
By The Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation
CSIS spy networks in mosques not meant to target Islam, experts say
"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service practice of paying informants to gather intelligence from specific religious communities in Canada is a perfectly acceptable tactic that has been misunderstood and misrepresented, security experts say."
It's just part of a religious studies program for Canadian spooks. Really.
Stephen Harper: hanging out with the wrong crowd - If we must abandon peace, human rights, international law and negotiated settlements in international affairs in favour of blind warmongering, then where are we?
"If you've been given to grim thoughts lately, you might entertain this one: What new havoc will be loosed on the world before George W. Bush leaves office in over two years time? More specifically for our purposes, how deeply will our own Stephen Harper drag us into these adventures?"
Mexico leftists take city center in vote protest
"Launching a campaign of civil disobedience that raises the stakes in Mexico's political crisis, supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador seized control overnight of a six-mile (10-km) stretch of the capital's elegant Reforma boulevard and the imposing Zocalo square."
Too bad in 2000 or 2004 there weren't similar stories about Miami and Cleveland.
Mexico vote protests cripple capital
"Street protests led by the leftist candidate in Mexico's presidential election plunged the capital into chaos for a second day, raising fears of a long and increasingly nasty fight over vote fraud claims."
Serving as models for 2006, 2008 in US. "Voters of the world, unite!"
Evidence of election fraud grows in Mexico
"It appears that the U.S. media has become so enamored with the construct of the 'anti-democratic' left in Latin America -- the ubiquitous 'fiery populists' (a term that has described everyone from the centrist Lula da Silva to Hugo Chávez) -- that they are incapable of fulfilling their basic mandate to inform their readers when it comes to the political landscape south of the border. It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice.
"But back in the real world, a growing body of credible evidence from mainstream Mexican journalists, independent election observers and respected scholars indicates that an attempt was made to deliver the presidency to Calderón. It includes a pattern of irregularities at the polls, interference by the ruling party and some very suspicious statistical patterns in the 'official' results."
Partial vote recount ordered in Mexico
"The Federal Electoral Judicial Tribunal, a 10-year-old cornerstone of Mexico's democratic transition, instead ordered a more limited recount, starting Wednesday, of ballots cast in just 9 percent of polling places. The unanimous decision sparked angry jeers in tent cities set up by demonstrators on busy thoroughfares and raised fears that a peaceful protest movement could turn violent."
Adopting the US selection process.
Worst ever security flaw found inside Diebold TS voting machine
“'This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,' says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version."
“'Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,' according to Dechert. 'If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS -- and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.' This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation."
This isn't a flaw; it's GOP strategery.
Strong-arming the vote
"President Bush’s Justice Department has been criticized for letting partisanship guide its work on voting and elections. And party politics certainly appears to have been a driving force in a legal maneuver it just pulled off in Alabama, where it persuaded a federal judge to take important election powers away from the Democratic secretary of state and give them to a Republican governor. The Justice Department says it is trying to enforce the election law, but that is unconvincing. There are plenty of ways to enforce the law without creating the impression that it is tilting the electoral landscape in favor of Republicans."
Prosecutors mull pre-election indictments in Congress
"Federal prosecutors are unsure whether they should issue indictments for members of Congress prior to the November elections, as the decision might 'throw their congressional races into disarray,' The WALL STREET JOURNAL is reporting today."
So, a person in a corporation is up for a big promotion, and the local DA can't decide if the person should be indicted for robbery, because it might mess up the promotion.
AIPAC's hold
"As this event illustrates, it's impossible to talk about Congress's relationship to Israel without highlighting AIPAC, the American Jewish community's most important voice on the Hill. The Congressional reaction to Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory bombing of Lebanon provide the latest example of why.
"On July 18, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution 'condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel's exercise of its right to self-defense.' After House majority leader John Boehner removed language from the bill urging 'all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure,' the House version passed by a landslide, 410 to 8.
"AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. 'They [Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC,' said former Carter Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who addressed the House Democratic Caucus on July 19. 'They didn't prepare one.'"
In my next life, I want to be a US Congressman. Won't have to know nothin', won't have to do nothin', and I'll be rich.
Zionist Organization of America backs Bolton nomination
"The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has announced its strong support for Ambassador John Bolton to continue his tenure as US Ambassador to the United Nations and strongly urged US Senators to confirm him in his post at the world body."
US-Israeli onslaught on Lebanon intensifies
"Aided by the lack of any opposition from the UN and the European Union, the objectives set by the US and Israel from the outset of the war are being pursued methodically and with barbaric devastation. Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers has been used as a pretext to attempt to kill or drive out the population of south Lebanon and bring the entire country under its political sway."
An open letter to the good people of the Middle East from the we're not that stupid Americans
"You need to understand that most Americans are doing no such things. It is our elected or perhaps fraudulently selected government that is doing this. It is not even all the government but more specifically THIS Administration made up of the Bush family Dynasty, in the form of the President and all those under his immediate control depending on who one thinks controls who in this administration. It is not the American people against the Palestinian, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese and other people!"
Qana attack led to turning point in support of Israel
"As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident."It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time." . . . .
"The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike."
Oops!
12 official guidelines for the Israeli spokesman in time of war
"*Unlike, the Hamas and the Hezbollah, we never kill indiscriminately. We always kill very discriminately. We kill Arabs whether they are Arab women, Arab elders, Arab children, Arab refugees, Arab disabled hiding in a Red Cross shelter in Kafar Quana. We are after Arabs and to speak about us as if we are bombing and killing indiscriminately is an utter anti-Semitic lie."
Ad: 'For Zion's sake I will not keep silent'
"An advertisement running on Fox News network today, paid for by The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, is asking viewers to 'stand with Israel in its time of need.'"
Dear Kofi, it's time to remove the US and Israel from the United Nations
"Dear Secretary-General,I am writing to you with the hope that you will take swift action to address a grave and existential threat to the United Nations. The events in the Middle East are quickly spinning out of control as today’s attack on the UN offices in Beirut clearly indicates. The central problem is that the UN is no longer able to fulfill its mandate to "keep the peace" because of the obstructionism of the United States. In the last few days, 15 foreign ministers met in Rome to determine the appropriate language for a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire to the violence in Lebanon. As you know, the countries unanimously supported the motion except for the United States which blocked the measure to give Israel more time to destroy Lebanon with its vicious air-campaign. I think you will agree that the UN cannot survive if it is hamstrung in its duties by the narrow policy-objectives of the individual states. In this case, both Washington and Tel Aviv want war, and so, war it is."
Personally, I think countries who profit from war and war mongering should at least be removed from the Security Council.
"Let the killing continue": Slaughter taking place while Canada does nothing
"So the refusal of the US — and its attendants Britain and Canada — to call for a ceasefire amounts to an endorsement of a slaughter of completely unprotected people."
Blood on his hands
"I am told that the Israelis informed George W Bush in advance of their plans to 'destroy' Hezbollah by bombing villages in southern Lebanon. The Americans duly informed the British. So Blair knew. This exposes as a fraud the debate of the past week about calling for a ceasefire. Indeed, one of the reasons why negotiations failed in Rome was British obduracy. This has been a case not of turning a blind eye and failing to halt the onslaught, but of providing active support.
"Blair, like Bush, had no intention of urging the Israelis to slow down their bombardment, believing somehow that this struggle was winnable. Israel has a right to self-defence, but it could have responded to the seizure of its soldiers, and to the rocket attacks, by the diplomatic route. That would have ensured greater sympathy. Now, growing numbers in Israel itself realise that military action will bring no long-term solution."
US giving aid - and bombs
"As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues unabated into its fourth consecutive week, the United States says it stands ready to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire.
"But Washington has also decided to accelerate the supply of lethal weapons to Israel - 'perhaps intended to kill the very Lebanese the United States is planning to feed and shelter', said one Arab diplomat at the United Nations."
Wouldn't it make more sense for the US to immediately cut all aid to Israel until Israel stopped its aggression and committed to rebuilding Lebanon with its own money, not US tax payers' money?
Traumatized and afraid - 300,00 children who want to go home
"About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon, 48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres."
Pulling the plug on Israel (Scroll down)
"Whether or not it has reached critical mass, there exists a heterogeneous agglomeration of Jewish people around the world-- e.g., moi--for whom the state of Israel has come to represent an 800-pound albatross that needs to be pried from our necks before it drags us over a cliff. A sense of urgency is propelled by the U.S.-sanctioned bloodletting in Lebanon and Gaza (which now seems to have been planned in advance) and the evident flimsiness of its official justification. With Israeli adventurism on the march, there are well founded fears concerning the general threat that country poses to the peace of the world.
"And there is a paticularized danger which stirs a thick chunk of self-interest into the universalism of enlightened Jewish concern. In terms of the fabled Jewish-interest litmus, it is proving decidedly not "good for the Jews" when Israel gets away with murder. The spillover is ubiquitous. After all, we have it on no lesser authority than New York Times heavyweight Thomas Friedman that, in the early days of the American occupation of Iraq, American soldiers in Iraq were being referred to on the Iraqi street as 'the Jews'."
US supplying Israel with NSA signals intelligence
"Blumenthal claims to be in touch with 'a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation' to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing.
"Bush is being influenced by neoconservatives in his administration led by Vice President Dick Cheney's staff and Elliot Abrams, senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council. The group, according to Blumenthal, seeks to start a 'four front war' by giving Israel the pretext to strike Iran and Syria. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been briefed, but is not a central actor in the plan."
Doesn't this, and arming Israel, make the US an active ally against Lebanon? A Middle-eastern democracy?
Israeli raids kill 828, injure 3,200 in Lebanon in three weeks
"'At the 21st day of the Israeli offensive on Lebanon, the health ministry has counted 828 dead, more than 3,200 wounded,' an HRC spokesman who did not wish to be identified said. "'These are identified bodies, and the toll does not count the people still believed to be under the rubble,' he said."
25 Lebanese civilians to 1 Israeli civilians, dead
"Linked on the Information Clearing House* is a comprehensive article about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. By conservative estimates 461 Lebanese civilians have died so far, and 18 Israeli civilians. That is approximately 25 Lebanese to 1 Israeli. You can bet top dollar, we have heard about every Israeli killed. Israel would not allow the death of one civilian without an announcement, and supportive echos in the US press. The figures of how many Lebanese killed are downplayed, just like Arab Palestian casualities have been for years. Just like US officials downplay the deaths of Iraqi civilians."
'You go a little bit crazy seeing little body after little body coming out of the ground'
"What is obvious to everyone covering this conflict is that children are bearing the brunt of it. The few official figures collated so far seem to support this. Unicef says that 37 of the 60 dead in Qana on Sunday were children, and everywhere you go, it seems that it is the children who are being killed, injured and displaced. Yesterday the Lebanese government said that of the 828 of its civilians killed in the conflict so far, around 35% have been children - that's around 290. Unicef also estimates that about a third of the dead have been children, although it bases that figure on the fact that an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population are children, rather than any actual count of the dead. There are no official figures yet for the number of wounded children, but they will certainly exceed the number killed; as for those displaced, Unicef says that 45% of the estimated 900,000 Lebanese to have fled their homes are children."
Israeli strike kills 33 farm workers in Lebanon
"Security sources in Lebanon said at least 33 farm workers, including many Kurds and Syrians, were killed on Friday when Israeli aircraft bombarded trucks being loaded with fruits at a farm on Lebanon's border with Syria.
"They said the farm was near the village of Qaa in the northern tip of the eastern Bekaa Valley. Aircraft fired at least three rockets at the trucks which were being loaded with peaches and plums."
In defense of this war crime, Israel's Gillerman said, with a straight face, "Israel does not target civilians." It just kills them.
HRW: Israel deliberately targeting civilians
"As the Israeli administration announced that the civilians in Qana were killed by mistake; the Human Rights Watch Organization (HRW) declared that they observed the deliberate killing of civilians in Lebanon by the Israeli army, and noted that some of its strikes constitute war crimes."
Open letter to Bush from an Arab girl
"It has become extremely difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt on Lebanon, for you have left no doubt in our minds. We are now certain — like many of us have always been — that your foreign policy is completely biased towards Israel, and you have made no effort to hide this fact. Just out of curiosity: are they also drafted in Tel Aviv?
"It is your choice, Mr Bush, to support Israel, just like it is our — the entire Arab and Muslim world’s — choice to support Lebanon. You insist that Israel has the right to defend itself. Defending oneself, I believe, is a universal right, not exclusive to Israel."
The Moron IS a uniter.
The jerk: Why Saddam had to go by Greg Palast
"The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to 'support the Palestinian intifada' and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control.
“'Control is what it’s all about,' one oilman told me. 'It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.'"
The sound of one domino falling
"'If we left Iraq prematurely,' he said, “the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they’d order us and all those who don’t share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines.' And finally, he intoned, America will be forced 'to make a stand nearer home.'
"No one in charge of American foreign affairs has talked like that in decades. After Vietnam, of course, the communist empire did not swarm all over Asia as predicted; it tottered and collapsed. And the new 'enemy' that Mr. Rumsfeld is worried about is not a worldwide conspiracy but a collection of disparate political and religious groups, now united mainly by American action in Iraq."
Bomb blasts kill at least 40 people across Iraq
"Bombs killed at least 40 people on Tuesday, half of them Iraqi soldiers, in the latest blow to the new government's efforts to inspire confidence in the country's security forces.
"The most dramatic blast was a roadside bomb attack on a bus filled with soldiers on a road between Tikrit and Baiji north of Baghdad. At least 20 of them were killed."
GI's say officers ordered killing of young Iraqi men
"Four soldiers from an Army combat unit that killed three Iraqi men in a raid in May testified Wednesday that they had received orders from superior officers to kill all the military-age men they encountered."
Experts: Not a single Army combat team left ready to deploy
"A group of national security experts formed by Democratic leadership has reported to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) that, 'there is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy,' RAW STORY has learned.
"'The bottom line,' the group concludes in a letter to Democratic leadership, 'is that our Army currently has no ready, strategic reserve.'"
Thousands of troops say they won't fight
"Since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, the Pentagon says. More than half served in the Army. But the Army says numbers have decreased each year since the United States began its war on terror in Afghanistan.
"Those who help war resisters say desertion is more prevalent than the military has admitted.
"'They lied in Vietnam with the amount of opposition to the war and they’re lying now,' said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represents Army Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the war in Iraq."
Iraq resistance gains steam
"Iraqi resistance fighters have stepped up attacks against US occupation forces over the past weeks, with some security sources linking the momentum to the US-backed Israeli onslaught on Lebanon.
"'Attacks against US forces have increased, particularly since the Israeli military offensive on Lebanon began,' Anbar police officer Yusuf al-Dailemi told the London-based Al-Quds Press news agency."
Iraqi Shiites chant 'Death to Israel'
"Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon."
Blowback from a bad war
"With the military unable to meet recruitment goals for an unpopular war, gangbangers and white supremacists are having a far easier time getting "moral waivers" to enlist, according to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center called 'A Few Bad Men,' as well as an investigative series in the Chicago Sun-Times in May. The upshot: a future compromised in yet another way, as we train and further desensitize the psychologically fragile and psychotically embittered.
"Some of them, baptized in hellfire, could, like Timothy McVeigh, John Allen Muhammad and a long list of others, turn around and bite us. Bush's war to promote terror - the perfect self-sustaining fear machine - isn't just generating an endless supply of hardened enemies beyond our borders. It is also creating the conditions of social breakdown and psychological blowback within our borders. Guess what? Under Plan Bush, we'll never be safe."
Six Marines charged in Iraq assault case
"Six U.S. Marines were charged with assault late on Thursday in connection with suspected assaults on several Iraqi civilians in Hamdania, days before the alleged kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian there."
Bush urges Cubans to work for democracy
'''We will support you in your effort to build a transitional government in Cuba committed to democracy, and we will take note of those, in the current Cuban regime, who obstruct your desire for a free Cuba,'' Bush said in statement issued by the White House."
Pray for the Cubans; democracy may be on the march there when Fidel leaves office.
Following Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to Israel and 9-11
"Think of this as part two of Recherche du trillions perdu, my Online Journal article on Dov Zakheim, former Bush appointee as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as I mentioned, was buried under 9-11’s rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim’s watch.
"Yet on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense. So the dark card was shifted to another part of the deck."
BushCo and Israel were primary beneficiaries of 9/11.
NORAD tapes only intensify implausibility of 9/11 official story
"'During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, 'The plane is 50 miles out.' 'The plane is 30 miles out.'
"And when it got down to 'the plane is 10 miles out,' the young man also said to the Vice President, 'Do the orders still stand?'
"And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?'
"Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, May 23, 2003."
9/11 panel suspected deception by Pentagon
"Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said."
11 questions avoided by the media on NORAD tapes
3. Who designed the war games to involve 'hijackings'?
4. Who planned and scheduled the movement of Airforce aircraft north to Canada, Alaska and Greenland?
5. Who planned the terror exercise at the NSA involving an evacuation in response to threat from the air?
Blair 'must go now' as pressure mounts
"Writing in the Financial Times, Sir Rodric described the Prime Minister as 'frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussaud's' programmed by the CIA to 'spout the language of the White House in an artificial English accent'."
I wonder how Sir Rodric would characterize Evil Moron?
Why Bush's stupidity is a threat
This sort of display would be embarrassing were it not so frightening.
"Two days later, with Tony Blair standing at the adjacent podium, things went from bad to worse. One is used to hearing Bush say things that aren't true. He appears, however, from the look on his face and from the baffling nature of the untruths he uttered, to have lapsed from dishonesty into confusion. (Sheer boredom may have sent him tumbling to new depths of ignorance.) 'There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory,' Bush mused, 'because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy.'"
Olmert criticizes Syria, defends Bush
"On a table facing his desk, Ehud Olmert keeps photographs of three Israeli soldiers whose capture by Islamic militants in Gaza and Lebanon sparked the latest Mideast crisis."
(I include this sentence because just a few minutes ago, Al Franken defended Israel by saying the two soldiers were captured in Israel. Maybe he does have what it takes to be a US Senator."
In an interview with The Associated Press, Olmert lashed out at Syria, condemned Hezbollah, defended President Bush and predicted the crisis' outcome will 'create a new momentum between us and the Palestinians.'"
Speed up the killing? What the hell does he mean by a new momentum? By the way, have you noticed the complete lack of affect of Israeli spokespeople. They might just as well be reading financial reports. That Gillerman at the UN is the worst. Dead eyes . . . heartless.
US begins treaty - breaching germ war defence centre
"Construction work has begun near Washington on a vast germ warfare laboratory intended to help protect the US against an attack with biological weapon, but critics say the laboratory's work will violate international law and its extreme secrecy will exacerbate a biological arms race."
Bush justice
"What may at first blush appear to be nothing more than the puerile paranoid ponderings of a pop song may soon become the law of the land – at least as far as the trying of accused terrorists is concerned. The Bush administration is proposing what are called 'modest changes' to the procedural rules of military commissions charged with trying suspected terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay. These changes can be defined as modest in the same way that guillotining effects a modest change on one's ability to wear a hat."
Bush seeks retroactive immunity from US war crimes prosecution
"Now that the Bush team faces possible prosecution for war crimes under US law, the team is quietly changing the law to provide a 'legal escape hatch.' The recent US Supreme Court decision in Hamdan removed a potential defense from war crimes prosecution that the Bush team had been relying upon. So now the Decider is quietly changing this US law to exempt himself and other officials from criminal prosecutions that may not occur until the next administration."
Guantanamo detainees may remain indefinitely: Gonzales
"'If we choose to try them, that's great. If we don't choose to try them, we can continue to hold them,' he said."
With liberty and justice for all.
Global Eye
"The moribund republic was thought to have been bludgeoned to death when the Bushists brought out the blunt instrument of the 'unitary executive' earlier this year. After the regime's patently illegal domestic spying programs were revealed, the regime at last dropped all pretense and openly declared a presidential dictatorship, insisting that any action ordered by the commander-in-chief was beyond the reach of law."
US government asks federal court to stop domestic spying lawsuit
"The US government has asked a San Francisco court to quash a lawsuit charging that the Bush administration illegally spied on Americans' phone calls, legal filings showed.
"The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) lawsuit accuses US telecom giant AT and T of helping the National Security Administration to conduct 'wholesale' spying on millions of US customers."
US threatens suit if Maine probes Verizon ties to NSA
"The Bush administration is threatening to sue if Maine regulators decide to investigate whether Verizon Communications illegally turned over customer information to the National Security Agency."
Specter's NSA plan hits snag
"A White House-endorsed plan to formally legalize the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program ran into more political problems yesterday in the Senate, as Democrats successfully maneuvered to block a committee vote on the proposal."
Lick my silent sports car: How much has Big Auto lied? Take a drive in this four-wheel electri orgasm, and find out
"This car, it has a top speed of 130 mph. It has a range of 250 miles. It also has GPS navigation and air-conditioning and air bags and it surely will come with a very badass sound system. It has heated seats and (I presume) iPod integration and Bluetooth. You know, just like a real car.
"Oh, and by the way, this car? It's completely silent. It is 100-percent emissions-free. Doesn't even have a tailpipe. Because it has no internal combustion engine of any kind."
Tesla Motors
"100% electric, 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds, 135 mpg equivalent, 250 miles per charge, about 1 cent per mile"
The coming housing crash
"All the economists who missed the stock bubble—this is almost all economists—are just about to be embarrassed again. Several reports released this week provide the strongest evidence yet that the housing bubble may finally be deflating."
Mortgage defaults up 67% in California
"The number of defaults on mortgage payments rose to a three-year high in the second quarter in California, a 67% increase from the year earlier period, according to DataQuick, a real estate data-compiling firm."
What's the real federal deficit?
"The set [of books] the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
"The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion."
War, violence in Iraq taking toll on United States' wealth
"The United States must soon decide how much more the nation wants to invest in Iraq and if the country can afford the cost.
"Even more alarming than the steady deterioration of Iraq is the f
act that the U.S. isn't keeping this nation's Army and National Guard ready to meet any threat."
'Hourglass economy' divides Americans, defines politics
"'It bothers me,'' former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said in an interview. 'I tell you, I don't know why there hasn't been more discussion and more unhappiness about this because it's become quite distinct. For a long time now, if we believe the statistics, the average working guy does not have an increase in income.'
"The divide is reviving protectionism in Congress, awakening a debate on the minimum wage, and making the Federal Reserve more sensitive to the risks of causing a collapse in financial and housing markets."
Tax cheats out of control
"So many superrich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes." . . . .
"Cheating now equals about 7 cents out of each dollar paid by honest taxpayers, as much as $70 billion a year, the report estimated."
Coincidently, the IRS is cutting its staff dealing with wealthy Americans' tax returns by 50%.
Deal maker details the art of greasing the palm
"The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the proliferation of Congressional earmarks — money for pet projects inserted anonymously in spending bills — which critics say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills amount to $64 billion."
Quotes from www.bartcop.com and others:
"I have never painted a rosy picture. I have been very measured in my words, and you?d have a dickens of a time trying to find where I have been excessively optimistic." -- Rummy the liar, as she was busting him, Link
"It is unknowable how long this conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months. There is no question but that they would be welcomed." " -- Donald Rosey Rumsfeld, (R-Optimistic) 2-7-03, Link
"Isn't there some law against lying under oath?" --thelonegunman, Link
"If CO2 is a pollutant, God is a polluter." --Rep. Joe Barton (R-Blasphemer), Link
"We are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war. That means staying the course? is pointless..." --Thomas L. Friedman, Link
"Yesterday's situation was awful. But it's also awful that a million Israelis are worried about..." -- Der Monkey, Link
"Marine Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus, nephew of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), died Saturday in Iraq. Baucus said his family is 'devastated by the loss.'" -- Think Progress, Link
"The White House position appears to be to refuse to even contemplate ideas that, elsewhere, are widely considered obvious: That regardless of who started it, Israeli strikes are taking a vastly more terrible toll on Lebanese civilians than Hezbollah is taking on Israelis; that Israel's actions are turning the region ever more resolutely against the United States and its goals; that the death of 37 children in an air strike is a bloodbath that shocks the world; and that there is more urgency to stop the killing than there is to pursue a dubious and so far disproved theory of regional rebirth." --Dan Froomkin, WaHoPo
"Arlen 'Magic Bullet' Specter has been a janus-faced liar for more than forty years. His fulsome protestations against the Bush administration's pursuit of more executive power were nothing more than camouflage for his true beliefs exemplified by this proposed bill.
"He has never been a friend of democracy; he has served and is still serving his authoritarian masters every chance he gets. He cannot be trusted." --Steve in Phoenix
"The United States and Israel ...are teetering on the brink of a massive defeat in Lebanon and thus in the war on terror." -- David Horowitz, (R-Liar, Whore) Link
"To point out that our military has been neglected, that's no criticism of the military. That is criticism of a president and vice president and their record of neglect. I have a message to our men and women in uniform: Help is on the way." --Gov. Bush, 11/03/00, Link
"One night a couple of years ago we all went to bed in one era of history and woke up in another...I knew on that tragic day that many more tragic days were to follow, and I made the decision that I would use my little space to scream out louder against the great injustices the United States government was about to unleash upon the planet." -- Aaron McGruder, on why he turned political
"Bush met with the 'American Idol' kids last week...because there was nothing else going on in the world." -- Wake-Up Call!, Link
"I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat." -- Crawford resident on Cindy Sheehan Link
"I don't want her rights taken away, but she needs to be respectful for what our country stands for." -- Bill Johnson, Yellow Rose gift shop owner in Crawford, on Cindy Sheehan, Link
"And in the general hardening of outlook that set in . . . practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions . . . and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and eve defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive." -- Orwell's 1984
"There is a difference between Dems and Repubs; today's Republicans are retards. Any Party that goes out of its way to pander to the sizable voting block of people who take mythology literally; are mentally unstable and threat to the Republic. Bush has diddled everything they touch; with all their lies on Iraq, and their habit of screwing things up."
posted by Jerry | 9:04 PM
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