We Are the Torturers
We are the Torturers
We have no clues
Time after time
We've done our penance
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
We've made a few
We've had some bad press thrown in our faces
But we've come through
We are the torturers my friends
And we'll keep on torturing till the end
We are the torturers
We are the torturers
No time for losers
cause we are the torturers of the world
We've taken our bows
and made curtain calls
You brought us fame and fortune and everything that goes with it
I thank you all
But it's no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
We consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And we ain't gonna lose
We are the torturers my friends
And we'll keep on torturing till the end
We are the torturers
We are the torturers
No time for losers
cause we are the torturers of the world.
Picks of the Week:
Chavez address to the United Nations
"The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time, [flips through the pages, which are numerous] I will just leave it as a recommendation."
Hugo Chavez: An exclusive interview with Greg Palast
"The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush’s $2 trillion rise in the nation’s debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.
"Chavez would put an end to all that. He’ll sell us oil relatively cheaply — but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations."
Chavez says Bush 'alcoholic' and 'sick man'
"'He walks like John Wayne,' declared the left-wing Venezuelan leader. 'He doesn't know anything about politics, he got there because of Daddy.' Bush's father, George Bush, was also a US president."
Chavez to double energy subsidies to needy in US
"A day after he called President Bush "the devil" from the podium at the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood at the altar of a Harlem church and presented himself as an angel, offering 100 million gallons of subsidized heating oil to needy Americans."
Neil Cavuto says poor Americans who accept heating oil from Hug Chavez are committing treason
"Neil Cavuto was livid and about to burst a blood vessel today (September 21, 2006) over Hugo Chavez's plan to sell heating oil at discount prices to low income residents of New York City. (Chavez also plans to donate 100 gallons of heating oil to 12,000 rural Alaskans, which, curiously, Cavuto didn't mention.) Avoiding obvious questions like why U.S. oil companies don't donate oil to our poor, or why it is that people in this country can't afford to heat their homes, Cavuto, wearing an American flag on his lapel, instead targeted his fellow citizens and insinuated that they are committing treason for accepting Chavez's offer."
The globalization excuse
"Put another way: Citizen earnings are at historic lows, while corporate earnings are way, way up.
"To rationalize this lopsided state of affairs, the 'global economy' is often blamed. We often hear that in an increasingly integrated world economy, American workers must accept lower wages, fewer benefits and less job security in order to compete with China, India or other developing countries. But what we don’t often hear is that the costs and benefits of globalization represent concrete political choices, not economic inevitability. Many countries—and some American states—have successfully combined international competitiveness with decent living standards for their workers. On the other hand, some places that have cut wages and benefits have not only failed to become more competitive in the international market, but have suffered adverse social and political consequences."
Chavez: US detained foreign minister
"Maduro told CNN Espanol shortly after being released that he was confined to a small room and told to remove his clothes.
"Maduro said that when he explained that he was the Venezuelan foreign minister and showed his diplomatic passport, he said he was threatened, pushed and yelled at by immigration and police officials."
US government apologizes for incident with Venezuelan foreign minister
"The US government has called regrettable an incident with Venezuelan foreign minister and apologized to the official Caracas, Ekho Moskvy reports. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the detention in the New York airport another provocation by George Bush. In his televised interview the Venezuelan president announced: 'They detained him and accused of taking part in terror attacks here on February 4, which is absolutely untrue.'
"It is worth reminding, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was detained by US migration service officials, when he was flying home by a regular flight after the UN General Assembly. The foreign minister says that he showed his diplomatic passport, but was rudely caught by two policemen. They seized his computer and documents."
Washington threatens wider Middle East war: A belligerent Bush addresses the UN
"The dominant message in the speech was contained in the implicit threats made against Syria and Iran that they could soon face the same fate as Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Such are the traditions of UN diplomacy—and the spinelessness of the world’s governments—that the body’s delegates politely applauded as Bush absurdly postured as the liberator of the Arab masses. His government’s policies of unprovoked aggression, military occupation and torture stand in direct violation of the UN charter and constitute war crimes for which he and other top US officials deserve to stand trial."
CIA 'refused to operate' secret jails
"The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme."
US war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000
"In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law."
But what the hell, I'm sure they are all guilty of some dastardly deed . . . or thought. Torture them all. Oops, we've already done that. And we will continue to do that. Remember when this would have been . . . oh, I don't know . . . unAmerican? I guess if we don't torture them over there we'll have totorture them over here.
As Army adds interrogators [torturers], it outsources training
"Since the Iraq war began, the U.S. Army has quadrupled the number of soldiers it trains each year to be detainee interrogators, according to Army officials involved in the program.
"Next year, 1,200 interrogators are set to be trained at the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., up from about 300 in 2003. "The number being trained is based on the current need of interrogators in theater," said Angela Moncur, deputy public affairs officer at the intelligence center."
A tortured debate
"A debate on torture. I don't know -- what do you think? I guess we have to define it, first. The White House has already specified 'water boarding,' making some guy think he's drowning for long periods, as a perfectly good interrogation technique. Maybe, but it was also a great favorite of the Gestapo and has been described and condemned in thousands of memoirs and novels in highly unpleasant terms.
"I don't think we can give it a good name again, and I personally kind of don't like being identified with the Gestapo. How icky. (Somewhere inside me, a small voice is shrieking, 'Are you insane?')"
Islamo-fascism? Maybe Americano-fascism is more to the point.
Senate-White House compromise sanctions CIA torture of detainees
"The Bush administration and Republican senators agreed Wednesday night on legislation that sanctions secret CIA prisons and permits abusive interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Conventions and other international and domestic anti-torture statutes.
"The bill also gives congressional approval for military commissions that strip Guantánamo detainees of basic due process rights, while denying them the elementary right to seek redress from arbitrary imprisonment through the filing of habeas corpus suits in US courts."
Control the dictionary, control the world
"Under the leadership of Alberto Gonzales and other lawyers -- mainly from the White House, Rumsfeld's office, and Cheney's office -- the Bush Administration went through all sorts of moral gyrations and emerged with new definitions of what constituted torture. Basically, it's not torture if it doesn't kill you or if the excruciating pain and injuries don't lead to organ failure."
So that's clarifying what is meant by US torture in Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.
Bill Clinton warns against wide torture approval
"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joined a chorus of critics of Bush administration proposals for treating suspected terrorists, saying it would be unnecessary and wrong to give broad approval to torture.
"In an interview with National Public Radio aired on Thursday, Clinton said any decision to use harsh treatment in interrogating suspects should be subject to court review."
A bad bargain
"Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession."
UN rights envoys condemn Bush plan on interrogation [torture]
"United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday that legislation proposed by President Bush for tough interrogations of foreign terrorism suspects would breach the Geneva Conventions.
"In a statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the five independent envoys also said Washington's admission of secret detention centres abroad pointed to 'very serious human rights violations in relation to the hunt for alleged terrorists'."
Bush shields dad on Chile terrorism
"By frustrating the Chilean investigation, the Bush administration also is protecting former President George H.W. Bush against possibly being implicated in this act of terrorism, conceivably as an accessory after the fact for diverting suspicion away from Pinochet."
Renouncing Bush's failure is a start: The president's onetime lapdogs should also rethink the extremist ideology that got us here.
"Perhaps he is not a conservative at all but a deficit-mongering big-government advocate, a world-changing radical in disguise and a cultivator of global anti-Americanism. Perhaps, from Baghdad to Kabul to New Orleans, bungling is not the exception but the rule because he and his inner circle hold planning, the law, diplomacy and even reason in contempt."
Bush owes us an apology
"The President of the United States owes this country an apology.
"It will not be offered, of course.
"He does not realize its necessity.
"There are now none around him who would tell him or could."
Torture is torture: Bush's 'program' disgraces all Americans
"It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of 'alternative' questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is 'the program.' Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous 'waterboarding,' which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie."
One has to care to feel disgraced.
Bush's 'dirty war' amnesty law
"The United States is following the lead of 'dirty war' nations, such as Argentina and Chile, in enacting what amounts to an amnesty law protecting U.S. government operatives, apparently up to and including President George W. Bush, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes.
"While the focus of the current congressional debate has been on Bush’s demands to redefine torture and to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, the compromise legislation also would block prosecutions for violations already committed during the five-year-old 'war on terror.'"
Bill changed to allow warrantless wiretapping on Americans when attack 'imminent'
"Under the measure, the administration would be required to share more details of the nature of the threat with the House and Senate leaders and the chairmen of both intelligence committees, who then would decide without administration input which lawmakers would receive the classified information."
Since were in a state of perpetual war against a nebulous enemy, all the Evil Moron has to do is talk about "chatter" and raise the rainbow coding system to magenta.
A "power station of espionage" in the shade of Italia Telecom
"Carlo de Benedetti, Calisto Tanzi, Diego Della Valle, the Benetton family… Almost all the gotha economic Italian was under control, like some politicians, of the journalists and the sportsmen. At the end of two years of investigation, the parquet floor of Milan ordered, Wednesday, the arrest of 21 people, several of them former leaders of Italia Telecom. 'A the shade' of the principal group of telecommunication of the country, 'saw the day a power station of espionage without precedent in the history of our country', worried yesterday the director about the daily newspaper Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, in a leading article titrated 'Attack against the democracy'."
The common denominator in the global trending toward fascism is corporate hegemony.
Torture in Iraq worse now than under Saddam?
"Reports from Iraq indicate that torture 'is totally out of hand,' he said. 'The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.'"
Just a speed bump on the road to democracy.
Judge, jury, and torturer
"'TRUST US. You're guilty. We're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why.' That is how Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, characterized the Bush administration's recent proposal for a draconian new trial system to deal with accused terrorists. The plan includes a reinterpretation of prisoner protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. Graham was joined in opposition last week by other Republicans, including Colin Powell. Remarkably , lawyers in the Pentagon also raised objections. But the White House argument is straightforward: terrorists are such a mortal threat that established due process must be suspended. In particular, the classified secrets of anti terrorist operations must be so closely held that the most basic pillar of jurisprudence -- the accused's right to know and respond to evidence -- must be discarded. The legislation was drafted by Franz Kafka."
The Kafkaesque nature of the US war on terror was evident in Bill "Dr. Mengele" Frist's appearance on Stephanopolous' show Sunday. When pressed, Frist refused to divulge what specific torture would be allowed. Such classified information, First said, would enable the torture victims to adapt to the torture. So, I guess the victims would practice breathing techniques that would thwart waterboarding, for example. Maybe a highly trained terrorist could learn to breathe through his/her butt. And I wonder, instead of pulling out all the finger nails, perhaps BushCo has devised a coding system much like the vaunted terrorism threat warning system. Maybe they'd just pull out every other finger nail if the victim was coded as "Yellow - of questionable value as a terror threat." Sadism is on the march in 'Merica.
US threatened to bomb Pakistan, Musharraf says
"Musharraf said the intelligence chief quoted Armitage as saying, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.'"It was insulting, Musharraf said. 'I think it was a very rude remark.'"
Downright ungentlemanly and in total violation of the ground rules laid out in The Dictator's Guide to Coalition Building.
Facing facts on Iraq
"While Iraq is a central issue in this year’s election campaigns, there is very little clear talk about what to do, beyond vague recommendations for staying the course or long-term timetables for withdrawal. That is because politicians running for election want to deliver good news, and there is nothing about Iraq — including withdrawal scenarios — that is anything but ominous.
"In the real Iraq, armed Shiite and Kurdish parties have divided up the eastern two-thirds of the country, leaving Sunni insurgents and American marines to fight over the rest. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his “national unity cabinet” stretch out their arms to like-thinking allies like Iran and Hezbollah, but barely lift a finger to rein in the sectarian militias and death squads spreading terror across Baghdad and the Shiite south."
Civilian deaths soar to record high in Iraq
"Nearly 7,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past two months, according to a UN report just released - a record high that is far greater than initial estimates had suggested. As American generals in Baghdad warned that the violence could worsen in the run up to Ramadan next Monday, the UN spoke of a 'grave sectarian crisis' gripping the country."
Spy agencies say Iraq war worsens terror threat
"A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."
There is no war on terror
"Part of what follows is derived from a series of some two dozen interviews I conducted over the summer with leading U.S. counterterrorism officials, many of whom served in top posts during the Bush administration. Not all of them agree with each other, nor with all of my conclusions, which can be found in the Sept. 21 issue of Rolling Stone . But most of them served on the front lines of the so-called 'war on terror.' If U.S. counterterrorism efforts were run by these officials, instead of Bush and Cheney, those efforts would look radically different than they do today.
"I. The threat of terrorism is wildly exaggerated.
"A strong and convincing case that the al-Qaida bogeyman is inflated far beyond the real but limited threat that it poses is made in the current issue of Foreign Affairs , in an article by political scientist John Mueller. He and others argue persuasively that the reason the United States has not been attacked since 9/11 is that terrorists are far less powerful than the White House claims. 'If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest,' writes Mueller. Why haven’t the Democrats picked up this argument?"
List of accusations of GIs in Iraq stuns experts
"The accounts are brutal: An Iraqi man dragged from his home, executed and made to look as if he were an insurgent. Three prisoners killed by their Army captors. A team of revenge-seeking Marines going home to home, shooting down unarmed Iraqi men, women, children.
"The recent flurry of accusations against U.S. servicemen has stunned military analysts and experts. Many see a critical new point in the war — though few agree whether it shows the toll of combat stress, commanders resolved to stamp out war crimes, or, as some claim, an overzealous second-guessing of the troops."
UN chief warns of Iraq civil war
"UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that Iraq is in danger of sliding into 'full-scale civil war'.
"He called for urgent action from Iraqi leaders and the international community to bring Iraq back from the brink."
No one dares to help
"As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead."The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened."
The good news is that his flifeless inger was still stained purple.
Who benefits from the Afghan opium trade?
"The UN estimates that for 2006, the contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of 2.7 billion. What it fails to mention is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country." . . . .
"Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized. The drug trade is protected. Amply documented the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.
"The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics."
Karzai (former CIA operative) was on CNN Sunday extolling the virtues of his government's anti-opium program. BushCo has a long history of profiting from narcotics.
The Bushes & the truth about Iran
"Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full history – and the 1980 chapter – hidden from the American people.
"Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush walled up the history even more by issuing an executive order blocking the scheduled declassification of records from the Reagan-Bush years. After 9/11, the younger George Bush added more bricks to the wall by giving Presidents, Vice Presidents and their heirs power over releasing documents."
The Bush Crime Family could very well be sulfurous. It certainly is full of bad eggs.
Falwell says faithful fear Clinton more then Devil: The evangelical leader tells a conference that the New York senator will mobilize his base like no one else if she runs for president.
"Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself."
All the insite about Bush's base you'll ever need.
Pressures mount on Bush to bomb Iran
"President George W Bush is coming under enormous pressure from Israel - and from Israel's neoconservative friends inside and outside the US administration - to harden still further his stance toward Iran. They want the American president to commit himself to bombing Iran if it does not give up its program of uranium enrichment."
Election dysfunction
"9. Amend the US Constitution to ensure an affirmative right to vote
"One hundred and eight democratic nations in the world have explicit language guaranteeing the right to vote in their constitutions, and the United States -- along with only ten other such nations -- does not. As a result, the way we administer elections in this country changes from state to state, from county to county, from locality to locality. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for a constitutional amendment that affirmatively guarantees the right to vote in the US Constitution."
Will the next election be hacked?
"In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised 'sleepovers' before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in 'Was the 2004 Election Stolen?' [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County."
Let's put it this way, if the GOP doesn't maintain power, people will start going to prison. Will the Americano-fascist party attempt to hack another election? Yes.
"Hotel Minibar" keys open Diebold voting machines
"Like other computer scientists who have studied Diebold voting machines, we were surprised at the apparent carelessness of Diebold’s security design. It can be hard to convey this to nonexperts, because the examples are technical. To security practitioners, the use of a fixed, unchangeable encryption key and the blind acceptance of every software update offered on removable storage are rookie mistakes; but nonexperts have trouble appreciating this. Here is an example that anybody, expert or not, can appreciate:
"The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet."
Wave of party switchers hits Republicans
"Some recent switchers are exiting GOP ranks with a bang. Distorted priorities, the federal deficit and the Iraq war are common themes in their announcements. And in a direct swipe at the far-right ideology that has become a governing credo in the Bush years, they cite intolerance in the party as the chief reason for leaving."
Question is, will these switchers offset the voting machine vote switchers?
Mexico's uncertainty grows with 'parallel' government
"The uncertainty over Mexico's political future has taken a new twist after supporters of the defeated presidential candidate elected him to lead a 'parallel' government that will spend the next six years opposing the man who won the election."
Interesting idea. Since the majority of voters in the US have been disenfranchised by two fraudulent elections. What about forming a parallel government?
US health care system falling behind
"The nation’s youngest and oldest citizens are suffering the most from a fragmented, wasteful and in some cases dangerous health care system, according to a new study.
"When compared to nearly two dozen other industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy for people who have reached the age of 60."
You know, it's time for Americans to convert their "We're # 1!" foam fingers into whoopy cushions. Recently, I've spent a lot of time escorting elderly friends to doctors' offices, giving me the opportunity to hear the give and take at the front desk. Over 95% of the conversation is about money, insurance. Little or none is about health.
What's really propping up the economy?
"For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your Aunt Tilly have justifiably bemoaned American health care -- the out-of-control costs, the vast inefficiencies, the lack of access, and the often inexplicable blunders."But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago."
No mention about the US system being inefficient.
Weak EPA plan would leave 77 million Americans vulnerable to deadly pollution, lung association warns
"More than 77 million Americans could be left vulnerable to deadly particle pollution if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) follows through with a proposal to set weak public health standards for the pollutant, according to a new American Lung Association report."By contrast, stronger new pollution standards supported by the Lung Association and other major medical and public health groups would protect 159 million people, the report concludes."
BushCo = Eco terrorism.
Warming expert: Only decade left to act in time
"A leading U.S. climate researcher says the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert catastrophe.
"NASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)."
Breakfast with Al Gore persuades Branson to pledge billions to global warming
"'We just talked about the facts of the situation,' Gore said. 'You know, all of us have problems absorbing the reality of what we're facing with this. It's really a planetary emergency.'"
Bush reading program gets failing grade
"A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.
"The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use."
Batting a thousand at failure.
Two sets of budget figures in US
"The federal government keeps two sets of books, but the Bush administration only wants you to see one of them. There is the highly publicised 'President's Budget' issued by the Office of Management and Budget, and the almost-secret 'Financial Report of the United States' issued by the Department of Treasury. The budget says that the 2005 US fiscal deficit was $319 billion (Euros 254bn), but the Financial Report claims it is $760 billion (Note: all figures in US Dollars unless otherwise indicated)."
In keeping with their criminal values, it's appropriate the Bush Crime Family would have two sets of books.
Army Corps faked budget entries: Funds for Iraq work, set to expire, were stashed. It's called improper, but not criminal.
"The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to a federal audit released Friday.
"Corps officials listed $362 million in potential contracts for a nonexistent contractor labeled 'Dummy Vendor' in a government database, an accounting trick to preserve funds due to expire at the end of this fiscal year, the audit said."
If the auto industry is dead what does that mean for workers
"In the face of these pressures, it’s no surprise that analysts from the Motor City to Wall Street are convinced that this is the end of an era in the auto industry. There is no alternative, these experts lament. Today’s auto workers will have to make do with less or kiss their jobs goodbye."
There are always burgers to be flipped.
Quotes from www.bartcop.com:
"Chavez is doing a better job of criticizing Bush than the Democrats and it makes Charlie Rangle jealous." --Rush, making half-sense
"I've known Hugo Chavez for years, let me tell you that man knows a diablo when he sees one." -- Greg Palast.com
John McCain has caved into Bush yet again on the only issue that still had meaning for him. McCain who was a prisoner of war has now caved into Bush's plan to allow the CIA to torture prisoners in secret prisons in countries that allow torture. The Republicans think that if you tamper with the definition of torture then it makes it not torture. However - if Bush doesn't intend to torture then why do you need secret prisons in countries that allow torture to do it? --Marc Perkel
"American Airlines flight almost diverted a flight over gay kiss. Their statement said their actions were justified because of 9-11. Yes, we must stop men from kissing there so we don't have to stop them from kissing here." -- buzzflash Link
"He has a huge credibility problem, for obvious reasons, and if a member of my staff lied about their identity, lied about their name, lied to their editors, ...I would fire them." -- Editor of the Washington Blade on firing Jeff Gannon, Link
"Bush's real objection to Common Article 3 is not that it is vague. It is that it will not permit abusive practices that he isn't willing publicly to discuss or defend." --Washington Whore Post Editorial, Link
"There's a lot of tension in the world. Over the weekend, Pope Benedict apologized to the Muslims. Altar boys, on the other hand, are still waiting for their apology." -- David Letterman
"In the case of detainees, we are faced with the situation with a very serious, tough group of terrorists who are determined to kill Americans." -- Karen Hughes, on why they shredded the Constitution, Link
"Today's conservatives support the idea of limited government, but they have increased government's size. They believe in balanced budgets, but they have boosted pork to record levels. They believe in individual liberty and the rule of law, but they have condoned torture. They have substituted religion for politics, and damaged both." -- Andrew Sullivan, President, Gays for Bush, Link
"Pope Benedict offered these words of apology. He's sorry that people felt bad. That's known in Vatican terminology as a 'me-a-kinda.' It's a time-honored tradition in the Catholic Church dating back to the Inquisition when Pope Innocent IV said, 'We deeply regret the fact that so many non-believers happen to be flammable'." -- Jon Stewart
"I'm sick of Karl Rove's bullshit." -- Bill Clinton, sounding like a fighter Link
"The hot gossip in Washington is that Sleazy Rice is being linked to Canada's Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay. It's gotta be awkward dating a fellow diplomat. Like today, MacKay had to promise Condi he would get U.N. permission before he invaded her." -- Jay Leno
"Picture your family dead. Just for a second. Are you picturing it? Now go vote." -- Jon Stewart, summarizing Bush's handjob from Matt Lauer (R-Whore)
"The information that the CIA tortured out of Khaleikh Sheikh Mohammed has provided valuable information and has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including strikes within the U.S." -- America's clumsiest liar, Link
"Like a deer caught in the headlights." -- Bill Clinton, on Kerry's wimp/gelding campaign, Link
"I'm prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other." -- John Kerry, (D-Coward) threatening the Swift Boat liars two years too late, Link
"I just don't spend that much time on him...to be honest with you ... I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." -- President Murder Giggle on Osama bin Laden, March 13, 2002, Link
"There's kind of an urban myth about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throwaway lines when people say that." -- President Murder Giggle calling himself a liar, Link
"Bush goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture. He rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that he made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly." -- WaHoPo Editorial, Link
"Bush has given up on finding Osama Bin Laden. I'm surprised that the news media has not made more noise about Bush's reign of terror. As of 9/13/06, he has murdered a minimum of 44,000 people. Some sources estimate the total to be as high as 49,000. That's 17 times more deaths than Bin Laden is responsible for." --Celestial Reasoning, about Dubya, "The Biggest Terrorist of All Time", Link
"Democracies have no business running secret prisons. That's what our enemies do. Real security begins with remembering who we are. We gain nothing by adopting the methods of our enemies." -- Bob Schieffer, who lied to help Bush steal the White House, Link
We have no clues
Time after time
We've done our penance
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
We've made a few
We've had some bad press thrown in our faces
But we've come through
We are the torturers my friends
And we'll keep on torturing till the end
We are the torturers
We are the torturers
No time for losers
cause we are the torturers of the world
We've taken our bows
and made curtain calls
You brought us fame and fortune and everything that goes with it
I thank you all
But it's no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
We consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And we ain't gonna lose
We are the torturers my friends
And we'll keep on torturing till the end
We are the torturers
We are the torturers
No time for losers
cause we are the torturers of the world.
Picks of the Week:
Chavez address to the United Nations
"The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time, [flips through the pages, which are numerous] I will just leave it as a recommendation."
Hugo Chavez: An exclusive interview with Greg Palast
"The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush’s $2 trillion rise in the nation’s debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.
"Chavez would put an end to all that. He’ll sell us oil relatively cheaply — but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations."
Chavez says Bush 'alcoholic' and 'sick man'
"'He walks like John Wayne,' declared the left-wing Venezuelan leader. 'He doesn't know anything about politics, he got there because of Daddy.' Bush's father, George Bush, was also a US president."
Chavez to double energy subsidies to needy in US
"A day after he called President Bush "the devil" from the podium at the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood at the altar of a Harlem church and presented himself as an angel, offering 100 million gallons of subsidized heating oil to needy Americans."
Neil Cavuto says poor Americans who accept heating oil from Hug Chavez are committing treason
"Neil Cavuto was livid and about to burst a blood vessel today (September 21, 2006) over Hugo Chavez's plan to sell heating oil at discount prices to low income residents of New York City. (Chavez also plans to donate 100 gallons of heating oil to 12,000 rural Alaskans, which, curiously, Cavuto didn't mention.) Avoiding obvious questions like why U.S. oil companies don't donate oil to our poor, or why it is that people in this country can't afford to heat their homes, Cavuto, wearing an American flag on his lapel, instead targeted his fellow citizens and insinuated that they are committing treason for accepting Chavez's offer."
The globalization excuse
"Put another way: Citizen earnings are at historic lows, while corporate earnings are way, way up.
"To rationalize this lopsided state of affairs, the 'global economy' is often blamed. We often hear that in an increasingly integrated world economy, American workers must accept lower wages, fewer benefits and less job security in order to compete with China, India or other developing countries. But what we don’t often hear is that the costs and benefits of globalization represent concrete political choices, not economic inevitability. Many countries—and some American states—have successfully combined international competitiveness with decent living standards for their workers. On the other hand, some places that have cut wages and benefits have not only failed to become more competitive in the international market, but have suffered adverse social and political consequences."
Chavez: US detained foreign minister
"Maduro told CNN Espanol shortly after being released that he was confined to a small room and told to remove his clothes.
"Maduro said that when he explained that he was the Venezuelan foreign minister and showed his diplomatic passport, he said he was threatened, pushed and yelled at by immigration and police officials."
US government apologizes for incident with Venezuelan foreign minister
"The US government has called regrettable an incident with Venezuelan foreign minister and apologized to the official Caracas, Ekho Moskvy reports. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the detention in the New York airport another provocation by George Bush. In his televised interview the Venezuelan president announced: 'They detained him and accused of taking part in terror attacks here on February 4, which is absolutely untrue.'
"It is worth reminding, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was detained by US migration service officials, when he was flying home by a regular flight after the UN General Assembly. The foreign minister says that he showed his diplomatic passport, but was rudely caught by two policemen. They seized his computer and documents."
Washington threatens wider Middle East war: A belligerent Bush addresses the UN
"The dominant message in the speech was contained in the implicit threats made against Syria and Iran that they could soon face the same fate as Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Such are the traditions of UN diplomacy—and the spinelessness of the world’s governments—that the body’s delegates politely applauded as Bush absurdly postured as the liberator of the Arab masses. His government’s policies of unprovoked aggression, military occupation and torture stand in direct violation of the UN charter and constitute war crimes for which he and other top US officials deserve to stand trial."
CIA 'refused to operate' secret jails
"The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme."
US war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000
"In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law."
But what the hell, I'm sure they are all guilty of some dastardly deed . . . or thought. Torture them all. Oops, we've already done that. And we will continue to do that. Remember when this would have been . . . oh, I don't know . . . unAmerican? I guess if we don't torture them over there we'll have totorture them over here.
As Army adds interrogators [torturers], it outsources training
"Since the Iraq war began, the U.S. Army has quadrupled the number of soldiers it trains each year to be detainee interrogators, according to Army officials involved in the program.
"Next year, 1,200 interrogators are set to be trained at the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., up from about 300 in 2003. "The number being trained is based on the current need of interrogators in theater," said Angela Moncur, deputy public affairs officer at the intelligence center."
A tortured debate
"A debate on torture. I don't know -- what do you think? I guess we have to define it, first. The White House has already specified 'water boarding,' making some guy think he's drowning for long periods, as a perfectly good interrogation technique. Maybe, but it was also a great favorite of the Gestapo and has been described and condemned in thousands of memoirs and novels in highly unpleasant terms.
"I don't think we can give it a good name again, and I personally kind of don't like being identified with the Gestapo. How icky. (Somewhere inside me, a small voice is shrieking, 'Are you insane?')"
Islamo-fascism? Maybe Americano-fascism is more to the point.
Senate-White House compromise sanctions CIA torture of detainees
"The Bush administration and Republican senators agreed Wednesday night on legislation that sanctions secret CIA prisons and permits abusive interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Conventions and other international and domestic anti-torture statutes.
"The bill also gives congressional approval for military commissions that strip Guantánamo detainees of basic due process rights, while denying them the elementary right to seek redress from arbitrary imprisonment through the filing of habeas corpus suits in US courts."
Control the dictionary, control the world
"Under the leadership of Alberto Gonzales and other lawyers -- mainly from the White House, Rumsfeld's office, and Cheney's office -- the Bush Administration went through all sorts of moral gyrations and emerged with new definitions of what constituted torture. Basically, it's not torture if it doesn't kill you or if the excruciating pain and injuries don't lead to organ failure."
So that's clarifying what is meant by US torture in Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.
Bill Clinton warns against wide torture approval
"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joined a chorus of critics of Bush administration proposals for treating suspected terrorists, saying it would be unnecessary and wrong to give broad approval to torture.
"In an interview with National Public Radio aired on Thursday, Clinton said any decision to use harsh treatment in interrogating suspects should be subject to court review."
A bad bargain
"Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession."
UN rights envoys condemn Bush plan on interrogation [torture]
"United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday that legislation proposed by President Bush for tough interrogations of foreign terrorism suspects would breach the Geneva Conventions.
"In a statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the five independent envoys also said Washington's admission of secret detention centres abroad pointed to 'very serious human rights violations in relation to the hunt for alleged terrorists'."
Bush shields dad on Chile terrorism
"By frustrating the Chilean investigation, the Bush administration also is protecting former President George H.W. Bush against possibly being implicated in this act of terrorism, conceivably as an accessory after the fact for diverting suspicion away from Pinochet."
Renouncing Bush's failure is a start: The president's onetime lapdogs should also rethink the extremist ideology that got us here.
"Perhaps he is not a conservative at all but a deficit-mongering big-government advocate, a world-changing radical in disguise and a cultivator of global anti-Americanism. Perhaps, from Baghdad to Kabul to New Orleans, bungling is not the exception but the rule because he and his inner circle hold planning, the law, diplomacy and even reason in contempt."
Bush owes us an apology
"The President of the United States owes this country an apology.
"It will not be offered, of course.
"He does not realize its necessity.
"There are now none around him who would tell him or could."
Torture is torture: Bush's 'program' disgraces all Americans
"It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of 'alternative' questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is 'the program.' Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous 'waterboarding,' which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie."
One has to care to feel disgraced.
Bush's 'dirty war' amnesty law
"The United States is following the lead of 'dirty war' nations, such as Argentina and Chile, in enacting what amounts to an amnesty law protecting U.S. government operatives, apparently up to and including President George W. Bush, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes.
"While the focus of the current congressional debate has been on Bush’s demands to redefine torture and to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, the compromise legislation also would block prosecutions for violations already committed during the five-year-old 'war on terror.'"
Bill changed to allow warrantless wiretapping on Americans when attack 'imminent'
"Under the measure, the administration would be required to share more details of the nature of the threat with the House and Senate leaders and the chairmen of both intelligence committees, who then would decide without administration input which lawmakers would receive the classified information."
Since were in a state of perpetual war against a nebulous enemy, all the Evil Moron has to do is talk about "chatter" and raise the rainbow coding system to magenta.
A "power station of espionage" in the shade of Italia Telecom
"Carlo de Benedetti, Calisto Tanzi, Diego Della Valle, the Benetton family… Almost all the gotha economic Italian was under control, like some politicians, of the journalists and the sportsmen. At the end of two years of investigation, the parquet floor of Milan ordered, Wednesday, the arrest of 21 people, several of them former leaders of Italia Telecom. 'A the shade' of the principal group of telecommunication of the country, 'saw the day a power station of espionage without precedent in the history of our country', worried yesterday the director about the daily newspaper Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, in a leading article titrated 'Attack against the democracy'."
The common denominator in the global trending toward fascism is corporate hegemony.
Torture in Iraq worse now than under Saddam?
"Reports from Iraq indicate that torture 'is totally out of hand,' he said. 'The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.'"
Just a speed bump on the road to democracy.
Judge, jury, and torturer
"'TRUST US. You're guilty. We're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why.' That is how Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, characterized the Bush administration's recent proposal for a draconian new trial system to deal with accused terrorists. The plan includes a reinterpretation of prisoner protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. Graham was joined in opposition last week by other Republicans, including Colin Powell. Remarkably , lawyers in the Pentagon also raised objections. But the White House argument is straightforward: terrorists are such a mortal threat that established due process must be suspended. In particular, the classified secrets of anti terrorist operations must be so closely held that the most basic pillar of jurisprudence -- the accused's right to know and respond to evidence -- must be discarded. The legislation was drafted by Franz Kafka."
The Kafkaesque nature of the US war on terror was evident in Bill "Dr. Mengele" Frist's appearance on Stephanopolous' show Sunday. When pressed, Frist refused to divulge what specific torture would be allowed. Such classified information, First said, would enable the torture victims to adapt to the torture. So, I guess the victims would practice breathing techniques that would thwart waterboarding, for example. Maybe a highly trained terrorist could learn to breathe through his/her butt. And I wonder, instead of pulling out all the finger nails, perhaps BushCo has devised a coding system much like the vaunted terrorism threat warning system. Maybe they'd just pull out every other finger nail if the victim was coded as "Yellow - of questionable value as a terror threat." Sadism is on the march in 'Merica.
US threatened to bomb Pakistan, Musharraf says
"Musharraf said the intelligence chief quoted Armitage as saying, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.'"It was insulting, Musharraf said. 'I think it was a very rude remark.'"
Downright ungentlemanly and in total violation of the ground rules laid out in The Dictator's Guide to Coalition Building.
Facing facts on Iraq
"While Iraq is a central issue in this year’s election campaigns, there is very little clear talk about what to do, beyond vague recommendations for staying the course or long-term timetables for withdrawal. That is because politicians running for election want to deliver good news, and there is nothing about Iraq — including withdrawal scenarios — that is anything but ominous.
"In the real Iraq, armed Shiite and Kurdish parties have divided up the eastern two-thirds of the country, leaving Sunni insurgents and American marines to fight over the rest. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his “national unity cabinet” stretch out their arms to like-thinking allies like Iran and Hezbollah, but barely lift a finger to rein in the sectarian militias and death squads spreading terror across Baghdad and the Shiite south."
Civilian deaths soar to record high in Iraq
"Nearly 7,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past two months, according to a UN report just released - a record high that is far greater than initial estimates had suggested. As American generals in Baghdad warned that the violence could worsen in the run up to Ramadan next Monday, the UN spoke of a 'grave sectarian crisis' gripping the country."
Spy agencies say Iraq war worsens terror threat
"A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."
There is no war on terror
"Part of what follows is derived from a series of some two dozen interviews I conducted over the summer with leading U.S. counterterrorism officials, many of whom served in top posts during the Bush administration. Not all of them agree with each other, nor with all of my conclusions, which can be found in the Sept. 21 issue of Rolling Stone . But most of them served on the front lines of the so-called 'war on terror.' If U.S. counterterrorism efforts were run by these officials, instead of Bush and Cheney, those efforts would look radically different than they do today.
"I. The threat of terrorism is wildly exaggerated.
"A strong and convincing case that the al-Qaida bogeyman is inflated far beyond the real but limited threat that it poses is made in the current issue of Foreign Affairs , in an article by political scientist John Mueller. He and others argue persuasively that the reason the United States has not been attacked since 9/11 is that terrorists are far less powerful than the White House claims. 'If al Qaeda operatives are as determined and inventive as assumed, they should be here by now. If they are not yet here, they must not be trying very hard or must be far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than the common image would suggest,' writes Mueller. Why haven’t the Democrats picked up this argument?"
List of accusations of GIs in Iraq stuns experts
"The accounts are brutal: An Iraqi man dragged from his home, executed and made to look as if he were an insurgent. Three prisoners killed by their Army captors. A team of revenge-seeking Marines going home to home, shooting down unarmed Iraqi men, women, children.
"The recent flurry of accusations against U.S. servicemen has stunned military analysts and experts. Many see a critical new point in the war — though few agree whether it shows the toll of combat stress, commanders resolved to stamp out war crimes, or, as some claim, an overzealous second-guessing of the troops."
UN chief warns of Iraq civil war
"UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that Iraq is in danger of sliding into 'full-scale civil war'.
"He called for urgent action from Iraqi leaders and the international community to bring Iraq back from the brink."
No one dares to help
"As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead."The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened."
The good news is that his flifeless inger was still stained purple.
Who benefits from the Afghan opium trade?
"The UN estimates that for 2006, the contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of 2.7 billion. What it fails to mention is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country." . . . .
"Afghanistan and Colombia are the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized. The drug trade is protected. Amply documented the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.
"The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics."
Karzai (former CIA operative) was on CNN Sunday extolling the virtues of his government's anti-opium program. BushCo has a long history of profiting from narcotics.
The Bushes & the truth about Iran
"Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full history – and the 1980 chapter – hidden from the American people.
"Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush walled up the history even more by issuing an executive order blocking the scheduled declassification of records from the Reagan-Bush years. After 9/11, the younger George Bush added more bricks to the wall by giving Presidents, Vice Presidents and their heirs power over releasing documents."
The Bush Crime Family could very well be sulfurous. It certainly is full of bad eggs.
Falwell says faithful fear Clinton more then Devil: The evangelical leader tells a conference that the New York senator will mobilize his base like no one else if she runs for president.
"Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself."
All the insite about Bush's base you'll ever need.
Pressures mount on Bush to bomb Iran
"President George W Bush is coming under enormous pressure from Israel - and from Israel's neoconservative friends inside and outside the US administration - to harden still further his stance toward Iran. They want the American president to commit himself to bombing Iran if it does not give up its program of uranium enrichment."
Election dysfunction
"9. Amend the US Constitution to ensure an affirmative right to vote
"One hundred and eight democratic nations in the world have explicit language guaranteeing the right to vote in their constitutions, and the United States -- along with only ten other such nations -- does not. As a result, the way we administer elections in this country changes from state to state, from county to county, from locality to locality. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for a constitutional amendment that affirmatively guarantees the right to vote in the US Constitution."
Will the next election be hacked?
"In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised 'sleepovers' before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in 'Was the 2004 Election Stolen?' [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County."
Let's put it this way, if the GOP doesn't maintain power, people will start going to prison. Will the Americano-fascist party attempt to hack another election? Yes.
"Hotel Minibar" keys open Diebold voting machines
"Like other computer scientists who have studied Diebold voting machines, we were surprised at the apparent carelessness of Diebold’s security design. It can be hard to convey this to nonexperts, because the examples are technical. To security practitioners, the use of a fixed, unchangeable encryption key and the blind acceptance of every software update offered on removable storage are rookie mistakes; but nonexperts have trouble appreciating this. Here is an example that anybody, expert or not, can appreciate:
"The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet."
Wave of party switchers hits Republicans
"Some recent switchers are exiting GOP ranks with a bang. Distorted priorities, the federal deficit and the Iraq war are common themes in their announcements. And in a direct swipe at the far-right ideology that has become a governing credo in the Bush years, they cite intolerance in the party as the chief reason for leaving."
Question is, will these switchers offset the voting machine vote switchers?
Mexico's uncertainty grows with 'parallel' government
"The uncertainty over Mexico's political future has taken a new twist after supporters of the defeated presidential candidate elected him to lead a 'parallel' government that will spend the next six years opposing the man who won the election."
Interesting idea. Since the majority of voters in the US have been disenfranchised by two fraudulent elections. What about forming a parallel government?
US health care system falling behind
"The nation’s youngest and oldest citizens are suffering the most from a fragmented, wasteful and in some cases dangerous health care system, according to a new study.
"When compared to nearly two dozen other industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy for people who have reached the age of 60."
You know, it's time for Americans to convert their "We're # 1!" foam fingers into whoopy cushions. Recently, I've spent a lot of time escorting elderly friends to doctors' offices, giving me the opportunity to hear the give and take at the front desk. Over 95% of the conversation is about money, insurance. Little or none is about health.
What's really propping up the economy?
"For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your Aunt Tilly have justifiably bemoaned American health care -- the out-of-control costs, the vast inefficiencies, the lack of access, and the often inexplicable blunders."But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago."
No mention about the US system being inefficient.
Weak EPA plan would leave 77 million Americans vulnerable to deadly pollution, lung association warns
"More than 77 million Americans could be left vulnerable to deadly particle pollution if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) follows through with a proposal to set weak public health standards for the pollutant, according to a new American Lung Association report."By contrast, stronger new pollution standards supported by the Lung Association and other major medical and public health groups would protect 159 million people, the report concludes."
BushCo = Eco terrorism.
Warming expert: Only decade left to act in time
"A leading U.S. climate researcher says the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert catastrophe.
"NASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)."
Breakfast with Al Gore persuades Branson to pledge billions to global warming
"'We just talked about the facts of the situation,' Gore said. 'You know, all of us have problems absorbing the reality of what we're facing with this. It's really a planetary emergency.'"
Bush reading program gets failing grade
"A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.
"The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use."
Batting a thousand at failure.
Two sets of budget figures in US
"The federal government keeps two sets of books, but the Bush administration only wants you to see one of them. There is the highly publicised 'President's Budget' issued by the Office of Management and Budget, and the almost-secret 'Financial Report of the United States' issued by the Department of Treasury. The budget says that the 2005 US fiscal deficit was $319 billion (Euros 254bn), but the Financial Report claims it is $760 billion (Note: all figures in US Dollars unless otherwise indicated)."
In keeping with their criminal values, it's appropriate the Bush Crime Family would have two sets of books.
Army Corps faked budget entries: Funds for Iraq work, set to expire, were stashed. It's called improper, but not criminal.
"The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to a federal audit released Friday.
"Corps officials listed $362 million in potential contracts for a nonexistent contractor labeled 'Dummy Vendor' in a government database, an accounting trick to preserve funds due to expire at the end of this fiscal year, the audit said."
If the auto industry is dead what does that mean for workers
"In the face of these pressures, it’s no surprise that analysts from the Motor City to Wall Street are convinced that this is the end of an era in the auto industry. There is no alternative, these experts lament. Today’s auto workers will have to make do with less or kiss their jobs goodbye."
There are always burgers to be flipped.
Quotes from www.bartcop.com:
"Chavez is doing a better job of criticizing Bush than the Democrats and it makes Charlie Rangle jealous." --Rush, making half-sense
"I've known Hugo Chavez for years, let me tell you that man knows a diablo when he sees one." -- Greg Palast.com
John McCain has caved into Bush yet again on the only issue that still had meaning for him. McCain who was a prisoner of war has now caved into Bush's plan to allow the CIA to torture prisoners in secret prisons in countries that allow torture. The Republicans think that if you tamper with the definition of torture then it makes it not torture. However - if Bush doesn't intend to torture then why do you need secret prisons in countries that allow torture to do it? --Marc Perkel
"American Airlines flight almost diverted a flight over gay kiss. Their statement said their actions were justified because of 9-11. Yes, we must stop men from kissing there so we don't have to stop them from kissing here." -- buzzflash Link
"He has a huge credibility problem, for obvious reasons, and if a member of my staff lied about their identity, lied about their name, lied to their editors, ...I would fire them." -- Editor of the Washington Blade on firing Jeff Gannon, Link
"Bush's real objection to Common Article 3 is not that it is vague. It is that it will not permit abusive practices that he isn't willing publicly to discuss or defend." --Washington Whore Post Editorial, Link
"There's a lot of tension in the world. Over the weekend, Pope Benedict apologized to the Muslims. Altar boys, on the other hand, are still waiting for their apology." -- David Letterman
"In the case of detainees, we are faced with the situation with a very serious, tough group of terrorists who are determined to kill Americans." -- Karen Hughes, on why they shredded the Constitution, Link
"Today's conservatives support the idea of limited government, but they have increased government's size. They believe in balanced budgets, but they have boosted pork to record levels. They believe in individual liberty and the rule of law, but they have condoned torture. They have substituted religion for politics, and damaged both." -- Andrew Sullivan, President, Gays for Bush, Link
"Pope Benedict offered these words of apology. He's sorry that people felt bad. That's known in Vatican terminology as a 'me-a-kinda.' It's a time-honored tradition in the Catholic Church dating back to the Inquisition when Pope Innocent IV said, 'We deeply regret the fact that so many non-believers happen to be flammable'." -- Jon Stewart
"I'm sick of Karl Rove's bullshit." -- Bill Clinton, sounding like a fighter Link
"The hot gossip in Washington is that Sleazy Rice is being linked to Canada's Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay. It's gotta be awkward dating a fellow diplomat. Like today, MacKay had to promise Condi he would get U.N. permission before he invaded her." -- Jay Leno
"Picture your family dead. Just for a second. Are you picturing it? Now go vote." -- Jon Stewart, summarizing Bush's handjob from Matt Lauer (R-Whore)
"The information that the CIA tortured out of Khaleikh Sheikh Mohammed has provided valuable information and has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including strikes within the U.S." -- America's clumsiest liar, Link
"Like a deer caught in the headlights." -- Bill Clinton, on Kerry's wimp/gelding campaign, Link
"I'm prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other." -- John Kerry, (D-Coward) threatening the Swift Boat liars two years too late, Link
"I just don't spend that much time on him...to be honest with you ... I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." -- President Murder Giggle on Osama bin Laden, March 13, 2002, Link
"There's kind of an urban myth about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throwaway lines when people say that." -- President Murder Giggle calling himself a liar, Link
"Bush goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture. He rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that he made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly." -- WaHoPo Editorial, Link
"Bush has given up on finding Osama Bin Laden. I'm surprised that the news media has not made more noise about Bush's reign of terror. As of 9/13/06, he has murdered a minimum of 44,000 people. Some sources estimate the total to be as high as 49,000. That's 17 times more deaths than Bin Laden is responsible for." --Celestial Reasoning, about Dubya, "The Biggest Terrorist of All Time", Link
"Democracies have no business running secret prisons. That's what our enemies do. Real security begins with remembering who we are. We gain nothing by adopting the methods of our enemies." -- Bob Schieffer, who lied to help Bush steal the White House, Link
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