FBI Chief admits agency illegally spied on Americans, but promises not to do it again| |
Excerpt: The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.
FBI claims of "accidental"
lawbreaking debunked by ACLU
Excerpt: "Claims that the FBI's reported PATRIOT Act abuses were the 'unintentional' result of outmoded computer systems and human error are not credible, the American Civil Liberties Union said today, citing evidence that agents contracted with phone companies to obtain customer records and later sought to cover up the illegal requests," the ACLU press release stated. |
Kangaroo court at Guantanamo
will be closed to reporters| |
Excerpt: Reporters will be barred from hearings that begin Friday in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the 14 suspected terrorists who were transferred last year from secret CIA prisons, officials said Tuesday. |
Political purge of U.S. attorneys
bites Republicans on the butt
Bush's director for U.S. Attorneys mysteriously resigns| |
Excerpt: The "unprecedented" U.S. Attorney firing scandal keeps getting weirder. It was revealed today that Michael Battle, the director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, will resign on March 16.
Battle personally informed the fired attorneys of their removal, but the Department of Justice insists he was not involved in the actual decision making process (he allegedly told them the order had come from 'on high'"). A spokesperson also said the timing is merely a coincidence and "is not connected to the U.S. attorney controversy whatsoever." |
Bush appoints crook hip-deep in voter suppression as new U.S. Attorney| |
Excerpt: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant and the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was, according to BBC Television, the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election. |
Fired US prosecutors testify
to illegal political pressure| |
Excerpt: Alleging heavy-handed political pressure, fired U.S. prosecutors testified Tuesday they felt "leaned on" by Republican lawmakers to seek indictments and hushed by a Justice Department official who did not want them talking about their dismissals. Testifying before Democratic-controlled congressional committees, six of eight recently ousted prosecutors said they were fired without explanation. Several described what they said was improper pressure by Republicans on pending cases. |
Congress to subpoena Justice Dept officials over prosecutor firings| |
Excerpt: The Senate Judiciary Committee has taken the first step toward issuing subpoenas to five Justice Department officials whose names have surfaced in congressional testimony about the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. In a letter, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the panel, asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to allow the officials to meet voluntarily with the panel, Tracy Schmaler, a committee spokeswoman, said Wednesday. At the same time, the committee circulated drafts of subpoenas for the officials, including Kyle Sampson, the attorney general's chief of staff, who was said to have been involved in identifying the U.S. attorneys who were told to resign, and Monica Goodling, a Justice Department liaison with the White House on political appointments. |
Senator in U.S. Attorney scandal
hires lawyer who lost to
one of the fired prosecutors| |
Excerpt: Meanwhile, Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico has hired a defense attorney as the scandal unfolds. His choice has raised eyebrows -- Domenici's new lawyer is K. Lee Blalack. Blalack represented the jailed former Republican Congressmember Randy "Duke" Cunningham in his corruption case. Cunningham's prosecutor -- Carol Lam of San Diego -- was among the eight U.S. attorneys to lose their jobs. Some have speculated Lam was ousted as punishment for leading the case against Cunningham.
Comment: You know, if you're trying to convince the universe that a group of lawyers were not fired because of your personal grudges, maybe allying yourself with a lawyer that lost a high-profile case to one of the fired people is not the very best way to go about it. |
Rove was asked to fire U.S. attorney| |
Excerpt: Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state. |
It's just more of
Gonzales's Dept of Injustice| |
Excerpt: In January, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he "would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons." But it's already clear that he did indeed dismiss all eight prosecutors for political reasons -- some because they wouldn't use their offices to provide electoral help to the G.O.P., and the others probably because they refused to soft-pedal investigations of corrupt Republicans. |
Senators call on Gonzales to resign| |
Excerpt: The Senate's No. 3 Democrat said Sunday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign because he is putting politics above the law. Sen. Charles Schumer cited the FBI's illegal snooping into people's private lives and the Justice Department's firing of federal prosecutors. Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gonzales repeatedly has shown more allegiance to President Bush than to citizens' legal rights since taking his job in early 2005. "Attorney General Gonzales is a nice man, but he either doesn't accept or doesn't understand that he is no longer just the president's lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution even when the president should not want it to be so," Schumer said. |
Gonzales: Let's go back to
old rules for replacing US attorneys| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration agreed Thursday not to oppose legislation that would eliminate the attorney general's power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. The reversal by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales comes after weeks of controversy over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and after Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., criticized Gonzales and the administration for their handling of the ousters of the Republican appointees. The administration's retreat isn't likely to end the controversy, however. Two top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding documents on the prosecutors' discharges and interviews with department officials. The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to subpoena at least five high-ranking department officials to testify about the matter. |
Justice Dept admits another
U.S. Attorney was forced out| |
Excerpt: The Justice Department acknowledged yesterday that Thomas M. DiBiagio, the Maryland U.S. attorney who stepped down early in 2005, was forced from office and did not, as he said at the time, decide on his own to leave for personal reasons. |
|
|
Bush sends thousands more
U.S. soldiers into meat-grinder| |
Excerpt: President Bush asked Congress on Saturday for $3.2 billion to pay for 8,200 more U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of the 21,500-troop buildup he announced in January. |
Cracking down on "illegals"
by torturing their kids
Massachusetts kids stranded after
their parents are rounded up by
immigration and sent to Texas| |
Excerpt: Governor Deval Patrick urged U.S. authorities not to move any more workers detained in a large immigration raid out of state until their children are found and cared for. At least 361 people were detained for possible deportation in a raid Tuesday at a factory that makes equipment for the U.S. military. Social services workers called their stranded children a humanitarian crisis. One woman was detained until Thursday night, despite having a 7-month-old infant hospitalized for dehydration for lack of nursing, Massachusetts Department of Social Services spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said. |
Washington State sues Medicaid
for making U.S.-born babies
prove U.S. citizenship| |
Excerpt: Washington is suing the federal government over a new rule that makes it tougher to get medical coverage for infants born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, said the policy is immoral, adds to the cost of medical care and clearly violates the infants' constitutional rights. Gregoire said the rule on newborns makes no sense, because everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen and the Constitution guarantees them the same services that all other Americans are eligible for. |
ACLU sues gov't over children
held in brutal immigration jail| |
Excerpt: Civil liberties and immigration advocates sued federal officials Tuesday on behalf of children confined to a former Texas prison-turned-center for immigrant families awaiting possible deportation. The federal lawsuits, announced by the American Civil Liberties Union in Austin, focus on children held at the T. Don Hutto facility, a former prison in Taylor. Critics say the center inhumanely houses adults and young children in jail-like conditions. Families held at the center have complained of weight loss, sub-par schooling, long waits for medical care and threats of separating children from parents. The Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services have demanded its immediate closure. |
|
|
Whistleblower's video shows alleged
"data-mining room" at AT&T| |
Excerpt: In the name of fighting the "war on terror," the Bush Administration has secretly enlisted the help of telecommunications agencies across the nation to do "data-mining" -- using pre-programmed criteria to sift through the private information of Americans on the web and telephone lines in search of clues. In this clip, former AT&T technician Mark Klein discusses his investigation of a secret room built in conjunction with the National Security Agency through which all customer information was routed. |
D.C.'s handgun ban thrown out| |
Excerpt: The panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit became the nation's first federal appeals court to overturn a gun-control law by declaring that the Second Amendment grants a person the right to possess firearms. One other circuit shares that viewpoint on individual rights, but others across the country say the protection that the Second Amendment offers relates to states being able to maintain a militia. Legal experts said the conflict could lead to the first Supreme Court review of the issue in nearly 70 years.
Comment: This is good news -- courts still recognize that we, the people, have rights. Neither the District of Columbia nor any other city, county, or state should attempt to confiscate Americans' rights, which dang well includes the right to bear arms. |
Vermont: 36 towns call
for impeachment of president| |
Excerpt: Voters in three dozen Vermont towns want Congress to begin an impeachment probe of Pres. George W. Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.
Impeaching Bush, state by state
Excerpt: Each of the three resolutions mentions Iraq lies, torture and illegal spying, with slight variations in tone and specifics. Assemblyman Paul Koretz's California resolution (which includes Dick Cheney) and the Illinois resolution both include the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, while Vermont's focuses almost exclusively on Bush's most salient transgression, his illegal spying on Americans. The spying charge leads the other two resolutions' list of charges as well. |
Iran / Run-up to the next war:
Supporter of Iran "regime change" named to top State Dept post| |
Excerpt: On Friday, Condoleezza Rice announced that Eliot Cohen has been chosen to be the new Counselor of the State Department. It is not hyperbole to say that Cohen is as extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets. Even back then [in 2001], look at what was on Cohen's mind: "Afghanistan constitutes just one front in World War IV, and the battles there just one campaign. . . . The immediate choice lies before the U.S. government in regard to Iran. . . . The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden." |
Webb: Bush has to ask Congress
for permission to attack Iran| |
Excerpt: The legislation would prohibit any funding for military action inside Iran without specific authorization from Congress. But it carves out exceptions that would allow Bush to use military force to repel an attack launched from Iranian soil or to thwart an "imminent attack." By requiring congressional consent for any unprovoked military strike on Iran, Webb said, "The Congress will be reassuring the American people that there will be no more shooting from the hip when it comes to the gravely serious question of when we send our military people into harm's way." |
Iran wants to talk with
U.N. about nuclear program| |
Excerpt: Iran said on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to brief the U.N. Security Council about his country's civilian nuclear plans, which the West says are a covert attempt to make atom bombs. |
Russia, China object to
financial sanctions on Iran| |
Excerpt: Russia raised concerns Friday about proposals to extend U.N. sanctions against Iran to its elite Revolutionary Guards, while China warned that reducing credit to the Islamic country could punish the Iranian people for their government's nuclear defiance. China's "main difficulty is with the financial and the trade sanctions against Iran because we feel that we (should) not be punishing the Iranian people," Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said, speaking to reporters after the closed meeting. |
IAEA puts tech sanctions on Iran| |
Excerpt: The United Nations' atomic monitoring agency on Thursday curtailed nearly two dozen nuclear technical aid programs to Iran as part of an international effort to pressure the country to halt its uranium enrichment program. |
This is the real Iran| |
Excerpt: This is a gallery intended to show views of other side of Iran, different with what you may have seen in the media. |
|
|
Democrats want soldiers out
of Iraq by '08 -- Bush vows veto| |
Excerpt: Congressional leaders moved beyond non-binding recommendations Thursday and signaled they will try to force the Bush administration to withdraw most or all American combat troops from Iraq before President Bush leaves office after next year. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic deputies attached their proposal to the president's request for almost $100 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The plan requires that all U.S. forces leave Iraq no later than the end of 2008, and possibly sooner if certain conditions aren't met. In the Senate, Democrats met in a special caucus and emerged with a resolution saying that by March 31, 2008, all U.S. combat forces would be withdrawn from Iraq, leaving only a "limited number of troops'' involved in force protection and training Iraqi forces to defend their country. |
When the White House
leaks a CIA operative's identity
Libby lied, and Americans died
| |
Excerpt: The conviction of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on criminal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury brings only a partial conclusion to the sordid political tragedy that is the Bush presidency. Yet the judgment on this matter goes to the heart of the administration. The means and the ends of Bush's White House have received a verdict from the bar of justice.
Comment: Something else that's rarely mentioned is that Valerie Plame wasn't just a CIA covert operative working on weapons of mass destruction, she was the head of "Brewster Jennings & Associates", a fictional company that was a front for wide-ranging CIA operations. When her cover was blown, the company's cover was blown, so other CIA agents and assets and allies operating under the cloak of "Brewster Jennings & Associates" had their covers blown as well -- and while the actual body count remains classified, it's virtually certain that some of these agents, assets, and allies were killed -- sacrificed in an act of blatant treason, by an administration that doesn't give a damn about Americans' lives. |
Plame and Wilson pursue
civil case against White House| |
Excerpt: The CIA leak saga did not end with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's conviction this week. On top of his lengthy appeals, he and senior Bush administration officials face a lawsuit for their role in the exposure of a former CIA operative. Valerie Plame believes the administration violated her constitutional rights by leaking her identity to reporters in 2003, and she is demanding compensation. Her attorneys believe the case could reveal more about the inner workings of the Bush White House than surfaced during Libby's month-long trial. |
Plame, possibly Fitzgerald,
to testify before Congress| |
Excerpt: Valerie Plame, the former covert CIA agent whose cover was blown after her husband accused the White House of manipulating prewar intelligence, will testify before a congressional committee next week, the committee chairman said on Thursday. Waxman's panel is looking into whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding Plame's identity, the statement said. Waxman, a California Democrat, also sent a letter to the special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, asking for a meeting to discuss the possibility of Fitzgerald testifying before the House committee. |
|
|
Republican Senator speaks
of impeaching Bush| |
Excerpt: According to a new report in Esquire magazine, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has suggested that Congress may consider the impeachment of President Bush before his term ends:
"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."
Comment: Well, bake my biscuits -- now that even a Republican has glimpsed daylight, can we pretty please make it frickin' happen before Cheney-Bush and his merry madmen lead us into World War III? |
Marijuana prisoners cost Americans
about a billion dollars a year| |
Excerpt: 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses. |
Alcohol and tobacco are deadlier
than ecstasy, report warns| |
Excerpt: The British government is to be urged to consider a controversial plan to reclassify drugs according to the harm they do. The new ranking system would see alcohol placed high on the scale because of its links to violence and car accidents. Tobacco, estimated to cause 40 per cent of all hospital illnesses, would also come before the class-A drug ecstasy. |
U.S. military contracts out occupation of Somalia| |
Excerpt: The United States has hired a major military contractor to provide equipment and logistical support to the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, bringing U.S. dependence on private military companies in several hot spots to a particularly troubled corner of Africa. The DynCorp International contract is the latest in a series of deals that allow the United States to play a greater role in African military matters, without having to use uniformed troops who are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
This is how Republicans
"support the troops"
Contractor running Walter Reed
has multiple Republican ties| |
Excerpt: Vermont Congressman Peter Welch said a major factor in the conditions at Walter Reed might be the result of the privatization of services. Welch cited a five-year $120 million contract given to a company called IAP Worldwide Services, which is operated by a former Halliburton executive. The Corporate Research Project is reporting IAP has close ties to the Republican Party. Ownership of the company is controlled by the giant hedge fund Cerberus, whose chair is former Bush Administration Treasury Secretary John Snow. The IAP board of directors includes former Vice President Dan Quayle and retired Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee. |
Republican Congressman helped
hush up Walter Reed horrors| |
Excerpt: Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young (R-FL), the top Republican who previously chaired the committee that wrote Defense Department budget bills admitted yesterday that he was aware of many problems at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center but feared that more aggressive oversight would "give the Army a black eye." |
General formerly in charge of training: Republicans are awful for the military| |
Excerpt: "We've got this thing that so many military believe that Republican administrations are good for the military. That is rarely the case. And, we have to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldiers that the Republican party, the Republican dominated Congress has absolutely been the worst thing that's happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps." |
"They volunteered, didn't they?"| |
Comment: Astoundingly, I've been hearing this more and more, "They volunteered, didn't they?," as a particularly moronic right-wing argument that it's no big deal to take people who volunteer to defend America, and send them to die for diddlysquat. This article does a pretty good job shooting holes in such empty-headed un-American rot. |
Fox spends 12 times more airtime on Anna Nicole than Walter Reed| |
Excerpt: Both MSNBC and Fox News devoted more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith -- three weeks after her death on Feb. 8 -- than they did to the multiple developments involving the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed military hospital. The most lop-sided coverage by far was aired by Fox News, which featured only 10 references to Walter Reed compared to 121 of Anna Nicole -- roughly 12 times the coverage. |
|
|
Only professional reporters
allowed to cover news in France| |
Excerpt: The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday in the night of March 3, 1991. The officers' acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles. |
US justifies erasing
reporters' footage of attack| |
Excerpt: The US military has said that a soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in which at least eight Afghans were killed.
In a letter to the Associated Press news agency a military spokesman said publication could have compromised an investigation and led to false public conclusions. ...
"Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document," Colonel Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the US commander in eastern Afghanistan, said on Friday.
Comment: Ah yes, General, the American military's "investigative integrity"... like the U.S. military's lying promise to investigate the U.S. bombing of a Baghdad market, like the U.S. military's lying reassurances that napalm wasn't used on Iraqis, like the U.S. military's lying count of suicide attempts at Guantanamo ... |
Bush greeted with hatred, riots in South America| |
Excerpt: If President Bush needed a reminder of his growing unpopularity in Latin America, it was here in Sao Paulo in the shape of a 10,000-strong human wave marching noisily through the financial district.
There was none of the famed Brazilian hospitality. Even before Mr Bush arrived in Brazil on Thursday to begin a six-day tour of Latin America the protesters were out en masse. "Persona non grata" read one placard. "Get out you Nazi" said another. In case the message still hadn't hit home, there was one other taunt -- this time in English: "Bush, kill yourself." |
Homeland Security revives another
program of spying on Americans| |
Excerpt: Homeland Security officials are testing a super-snoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations.
The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations. |
Bush's GSA chief accused
of illegal campaigning| |
Excerpt: The head of the General Services Administration, Lorita Doan used a January 2007 teleconference to ask senior GSA officials to help 'our candidates' in the next elections through targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country. Doan discussed with GSA officials "how to exclude House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from an upcoming courthouse opening in San Francisco and how to include Republican Senator Mel Martinez." Doan's activity is now being investigated as a potential violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan campaign activities on federal property.
Doan's inappropriate (and potentially illegal) behavior extends beyond partisan hackery. Last summer, Doan signed a $20,000 no-bid contract for a 24-page report "promoting GSA's use of minority- and women-owned businesses." |
New book is superbly researched
indictment of America's hired killers| |
Excerpt: Jeremy Scahill's brave and outraged Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army renders the story of the Blackwater mercenary group, and other mercenary groups that have seized the economic opportunities opened by the Bush regime's willingness to offer no-bid contracts and no-liability opportunities to fight America's wars. Blackwater -- founded by ultra-right-wing Christian conservatives -- hires Pinochet-era Chilean war-criminals, ex-law-enforcement types and former military, and others to serve in Iraq, Afghanistan -- and in America. They can and do murder civilians with impunity, they line their pockets with cost-plus multi-billion-dollar military expenditures, and they kill their own men -- and the American soldiers they are supposed to be helping -- through corner-cutting profiteering. |
US asks us to pick up litter while city
is in ruins, says mayor of Baghdad| |
Excerpt: Baghdad's mayor lashed out at the United States yesterday, for spending huge sums on projects to collect rubbish and plant trees while his devastated war-torn city struggles
without electricity. |
U.S. battalion cleans streets of Fallujah| |
Excerpt: The dangerous main drag through insurgent-infested downtown Fallujah, Iraq, was cleared of three dump truck loads of dirt, rubble and trash during a recent fast-paced night mission -- the first such cleanup on the street.
"It was definitely intense," said Chief Warrant Officer Bruce Broaddus, who headed up the mission for Engineer Support Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion. "It was a much different scope than we'd had before, especially with the buildings and actual big-time streets."
Comment: This must be some of what Bush claims is the "good things" we are doing in Iraq. Our troops are street
Comment: I actually think cleaning the streets up is one of the more productive things we could be doing there right now.
|
Lots of cops have had little or no training| |
Excerpt: Four months into his job, a police officer in Mississippi holds a gun to the head of an unarmed teenager and puts him in a chokehold. A rookie officer in Illinois gets into a car chase that kills a driver. And a new campus policeman in Indiana shoots an unarmed student to death. Some are blaming these harrowing episodes on what an Associated Press survey found is a common practice across the country: At least 30 states let some newly hired local law enforcement officers hit the streets with a gun, a badge and little or no training.
These states allow a certain grace period -- six months or a year in most cases, two years in Mississippi and Wisconsin -- before rookies must be sent to a police academy. In many cases, these recruits are supposed to be supervised by a full-fledged officer, but that does not always happen. |
US displeased over
German hunt for CIA agents| |
Excerpt: The case of Khaled al-Masri, who has German citizenship but is of Lebanese descent, is not the only case in Europe focusing on possible misconduct of CIA agents. Prosecutors in Milan want the Italian government to get Interpol involved in their hunt for 26 Americans, many of them CIA agents, accused of having assisted in the kidnapping and imprisonment of the Egyptian Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. He had been granted refugee status in Italy and was abducted in Milan in December 2003 before being flown to Cairo where he was tortured so badly that he suffered major kidney damage.
Similar criminal investigations are also being carried out in Portugal and Switzerland.
Comment: Oh, the American are unhappy. Do they think they're the Soviets who can push around their "allies"? |
News from America's
very bestest ally, Israel:
Israel accused of using Palestinian children as human shields| |
Excerpt: The Israeli army is investigating whether its troops used two Palestinian children as human shields during a house search operation in the West Bank following claims by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. |
UN committee: Israel should let Palestinians return to their land| |
Excerpt: A United Nations committee has called on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their property and land in Israel and to ensure that the bodies responsible for distributing property, such as the Jewish National Fund, not discriminate against the Arab population. |
|
|
Companies to pull ads from Coulter's
website for using anti-gay epithet| |
Excerpt: Verizon, Sallie Mae and Georgia-based NetBank each said they didn't know their ads were on AnnCoulter.com until they received the complaints.
A diarist at the liberal blog DailyKos.com posted contact information for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter's site after the commentator made her remarks about Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday.
"One of the best ways to communicate one's distaste for Coulter's repeated incidents of hate speech is to respectfully but firmly let her advertisers know you are deeply troubled by their indirect support of bigotry through their advertising on Coulter's Web site," the blogger VolvoDrivingLiberal wrote on DailyKos.com on Sunday.
Comment: This is a recurring news item -- American corporations are so stupidly run that many of the corporate giants supporting hate speech either don't know it, or can plausibly claim they don't know it. Anyone with a few hours spare time could spend it well, by taking notes of the sponsors on hate radio and TV, and contacting the sponsors.
Amazon still loves Ann Coulter
Excerpt: I was hoping to take a respite from the Coulter advertising campaign. However, the fact that Amazon is the ONLY remaining mainstream company with a presence on the site, coupled with the absolute inanity of their response, motivated me to head back to the keyboard. |
Conservative award-winner
is former gay porn star| |
Excerpt: As several gay blogs revealed late yesterday, Corporal Sanchez was known during his halcyon days as Rod Majors, a majorly well-endowed gay porn star. (Photos of Corp. Sanchez aka Rod Majors in action can be viewed here. I warn you, this link is NOT to be clicked on if you have minors around or if you're in a crowded workplace). According to Tom Bacchus, Sanchez was also a $200-an-hour male prostitute who advertised himself (here) as an "excellent top." |
Students suspended for
performing Vagina Monologues| |
Excerpt: The girls were suspended for a day each after they included the word ''vagina'' in an excerpt from the play that they read aloud at a school event last week. John Jay High School Principal Richard Leprine said they had agreed not to use the word. |
Feds seek to gag D.C. madam
from revealing customer list| |
Excerpt: Government lawyers claim that some discovery documents contain "personal information" about Washington, D.C. madam Deborah Palfrey's former johns and prostitutes that is "sensitive." |
State Farm denied claim for Hurricane Katrina damage, but sent teddy bear| |
Excerpt: Elizabeth Lynch, 91, a postmaster of Pearlington for more than 40 years, always paid her State Farm insurance policy a year in advance and followed suggested guidelines for coverage.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, her roof collapsed, and she looked to her policy for help. Her claim was denied. Instead, the insurance company sent over a small teddy bear wearing a red and white State Farm shirt, saying it would be comforting to "hug the little fellow" in her time of need. The back of the shirt read "Good Neigh Bear."
"Now there are words to describe my feelings at that moment, but being a lady, I don't use that kind of language," Patricia Cole Wilson, who had power of attorney for Lynch, wrote in a letter. Lynch died in November 2005. |
Bernanke says Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac threaten economy| |
Excerpt: Large investment portfolios held by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may imperil the broader economy and should be "anchored" to their affordable housing mission, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday. Investments by Fannie and Freddie "should be anchored to a clear and well-defined public purpose," Bernanke said, adding: "An obvious and worthy candidate is the promotion of affordable housing."
Fed officials have often argued the combined $1.4 trillion investment portfolios held by the two companies are so large and unwieldy they present a systemic risk to the broader economy and should be curtailed. |
Judge who sentenced Saddam flees Iraq| |
Excerpt: The Iraqi judge who pronounced the death sentence on Saddam Hussein has asked for asylum in Britain, al-Jazeera reported Friday.
Raouf Abdel-Rahman, a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, has fled the country, al-Jazeera said. He headed the Supreme Iraq Criminal Tribunal that convicted Saddam of ordering the death of Shiite men and boys in Dujail in 1982. British sources told the Arab-language news agency Abdel-Rahman has applied for political asylum with his family. |
British Foreign Office
helped set up Iraqi oil deals| |
Excerpt: The British Government intervened to help UK and US energy giants in their attempts to
secure lucrative contracts to exploit Iraq's ruined oilfields.
The Foreign Office delivered a report by
the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) -- a Washington-based think-tank backed
by a host of multinationals, including oil companies such as Shell and BP -- to Iraqi
officials in Baghdad, it has emerged.
The British ambassador to Iraq formally sent the "road-map" study on the Iraqi oil
industry to the then Iraqi minister of finance, according to documents seen by The
Independent on Sunday. The study recommended the Iraqi government sign long-term
production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies." ... |
'War on terror' looks like a giant boondoggle| |
Excerpt: "More than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government cannot show how the $5 billion given to public health departments has better prepared the country for a bioterrorism attack or flu pandemic. |
Pakistan threatens to back
out of 'war on terror'| |
Excerpt: Pakistani legislators have threatened to halt counterterrorism cooperation with Washington if American military aid is made conditional on Islamabad's commitment to fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Comment: If Pakistan won't promise to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, aren't they already halting counterterrorism cooperation? |
Kroger says store's refusal to
sell contraception was wrong| |
Excerpt: Kroger Co. said Friday it was reiterating its drug policies to all of its pharmacists after a Georgia woman claimed she was denied the so-called "morning after" pill at one of the company's stores. The Cincinnati-based grocery chain said if its pharmacists object to fulfilling a request, the store must "make accommodations to have that prescription filled for our customer." Major pharmacy chains such as CVS Corp., Rite-Aid Corp. and Walgreen Co. also have pledged to ensure that customers can buy Plan B, even if one employee declines to provide service for reasons of conscience. |
Portugal legalizes abortion| |
Excerpt: The bill must win presidential ratification and be published in official government records before it can become law. That process is expected to take several months. ... Before the February referendum, one bishop said abortion was "a variation on the death sentence," and compared it to the hanging of Saddam Hussein. An outspoken parish priest warned worshippers that they would be excommunicated if they voted "yes." |
Illinois threatens felony charges against couple whose car runs on vegetable oil| |
Excerpt: "They told me I am required to have a license and am obligated to pay a motor fuel tax," David Wetzel recalled. "Mr. May also told me the tax would be retroactive." Since the initial visit by the agents on Jan. 4, the Wetzels have been involved in a struggle with the Illinois Department of Revenue. The couple, who live on a fixed budget, have been asked to post a $2,500 bond and threatened with felony charges. |
UK rejects stamps honoring war dead| |
Excerpt: McQueen is desperate for the Royal Mail to make real stamps out of his replicas. "The idea of bending down to pick up a letter and that those who have died who look out at you seems immensely powerful. It seems we can have stamps to mark winning the Ashes -- but not this," he said. |
Secret Service investigates
mutilated cardboard cut-out of Bush| |
Excerpt: The artist, Michael McDonald, said the federal agents asked if he interpreted his work as a threat against the country's chief executive. He said he didn't.
"They said, 'You've got a knife sitting in the head of the president of the United States,'" McDonald said. "I said, 'No, I got a knife in a piece of cardboard.'" |
Sky-high cost of Australian
'air security' questioned| |
Excerpt: They've cost the taxpayer $106 million so far, they travel in business class, and over the past four years Australia's armed air marshals have had to act only once -- subduing a 68-year-old man who produced a small knife on a flight from Sydney to Cairns in 2003.
Now the value of having such expensive security in the sky is being questioned. |
Brain scan shows intent, scientists say| |
Excerpt: In the past, experts had been able to detect decisions about making physical movements in advance. But researchers at Berlin's Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience claim they have now, for the first time, identified people's decisions about how they would later do a high-level mental activity _ in this case, adding versus subtracting.
While still in its initial stages, the techniques may eventually have wide-ranging implications for everything from criminal interrogations to airline security checks. And that alarms some ethicists who fear the technology could one day be abused by authorities, marketers or employers. |
Halliburton outsources
itself -- moves to Dubai| |
Excerpt: U.S. oil services firm Halliburton Co. is moving its headquarters and chief executive to Dubai to better position itself to gain contracts in the oil-rich Middle East.
Texas-based Halliburton, which was led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, did not specify what, if any, tax implications the move might entail. It plans to list on a Middle East bourse once it moves to Dubai -- a booming commercial centre in the Gulf. |
"Vulture fund" company seeks $40 million
payment from Zambia on $4 million debt| |
Excerpt: Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. |
Plan to test bombs goes up in smoke| |
Excerpt: San Joaquin Valley air officials have revoked a permit allowing the federal government to test its nuclear weapons arsenal near Tracy after learning the bombs would
have radioactive material. |
Should killing be merely a mouse click away?| |
Excerpt: Slouched at a computer, the hunter perks up as a 12-point buck eases into view on his screen. Maneuvering his mouse, he swivels the rifle and focuses the cross hairs. With a click of the mouse, the rifle fires a bullet, mortally wounding the deer.
Comment: Remotely killed animals get more consideration than people.
By now there's tons of evidence that the Bush Administration will lock you up, torture, or kill you with as little as ZERO evidence of wrong-doing (of course, the quick kills may be more merciful than the months of torture to which they subject many these days).
Overseas we now patrol the skies with remotely controlled robots which kill anyone we view with suspicion: evidence not required (or perhaps ever sought at all). |
Utah boy will compete at National Spelling Bee -- while parents are deported to India| |
Excerpt: Ken and Sarita Sah were deported back to India last July after 16 years residing legally in this country. They ultimately lost their battle to remain under tough U.S. immigration regulations in the post-9/11 atmosphere. |
|
Lightning round news
|
New Mexico springs to Pluto's defense
A parasitic infection can give you
schizophrenia, make you have a car crash,
or determine the sex of your child
Scientists break speed of light
Have you clicked our
(new and improved) Mystery links?
|
|
Everything's hunky-dory at Walter Reed,
says Nat'l Guard Adjutant General
by Sharon Rose, Unknown News | |
Excerpt: "I had my staff contact every soldier who is or has been stationed at Walter Reed. In reply, each soldier provided a response and a description of their care to date. In all instances, I am happy to report, the soldiers were satisfied with the hospital care. Only one has expressed any negative remarks regarding the care or service at WRAMC." Major General Gus L. Hargett; Jr. |
| |
Excerpt: Despite a flagrant mocking by the U.S. Administration, France recovered promptly from its firm stand against the Iraq invasion. Changing the name of french fried potatoes to freedom fries did not affect the gourmet industry either. |
Update on my brother's murder
by sheriff's deputies in San Diego
by Kristopher Hayes, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: We were initially told that the investigation of my brother's "suicide by cop" would take up to twelve days to be completed. Now they say we won't ever find out when they conclude their investigation and may need to read it in a newspaper. |
Let go of the rock!
by Kathy Fisher and Jim Kirwan, Kirwan Studios| |
Excerpt: The only check upon the slaughter that's going on comes from that much-maligned human conscience (that most have tried to forever-silence) -- yet most cannot STOP the NIGHTMARES. This is nature's way to end this practice by the slow torture of those who pull the triggers and operate the gunsights of OUR multi-billion dollar killing machines (the same ones we rent or sell to ISRAEL -- to desecrate and murder all those that we don't dare to do ourselves). |
Summing up our predicament
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: Little doubt that the meltdown is under way. The only question remaining is whether or not the super rich will effect a mass murder/suicide scenario, or whether they will agree to join the rest of the species and try to save ourselves from the impending disasters that they have engineered through their greed and ignorance. |
Alibis to justify the Bush-Cheney Reich
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: We're in Afghanistan still because the Taliban continue to resist our puppet regime and fight back against the occupation forces. If *only* they would surrender and consent to be governed by Bush's puppets, then we could torture, imprison and execute them all and then we would have peace in Afghanistan! But no, they continue to resist. Why can't they lay back and accept their dominion by Amerika? |
They're quite mad, you know
P.M. Carpenter's Commentary
| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war reminds me of flying-ace Snoopy, with goggles down and steely determination, though of course his victories are all in his head. Or maybe a Vegas high-roller, who, after an unbroken four-year losing streak, decides to bet what little is left in one last gamble.
The first metaphor is that of delusion; the second, that of pathetic desperation. Still, either is superior to the administration in sanity or wisdom, since neither is playing with other people's lives. In doing the latter, one enters the decidedly unmetaphorical realm of criminal recklessness -- which some men in uniform, perhaps looking for civilian brownie points, now want to broaden. |
Whatever happened to the Bill O'Reilly/Andrea Mackris sex scandal?
by Daryl D., Blogcritics Magazine| |
Excerpt: The Bill O'Reilly/Andrea Mackris scandal not only begs for questions about it's "sudden" disappearance, but reveals, once again, how hypocritical and morally corrupt the right wing religious fanatics in this country are. Bill O'Reilly's audience not only aggressively defended him, but maintained their viewership over the years. Fellow right wing pundit Michelle Malkin, who freaks out at the mention of the words "gay" or "sex," didn't issue any condemnation of Bill O'Reilly's immoral behavior. Michael Savage, who was fired from MSNBC for wishing AIDS and death on a homosexual caller, seemed rather silent about the situation. Rush Limbaugh, who ended up being exposed as an illegal drug user after condemning illegal drug users, defended O'Reilly. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and other darlings of the right wing didn't issue any condemnation either. On October 21, 2004, the fiercely heterosexual Matt Drudge tried very hard to smear Andrea Mackris. |
In debt we trust as the economy goes bust
by Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
| |
Excerpt: Not only does perpetual indebtedness serve the American financial system, it serves the political establishment as well by making it exceedingly difficult to protest that establishment when one is over one's head in debt. As a matter of fact, perpetual indebtedness serves to make the consumer subservient not just because his credit rating might be used against him should he choose to organize politically, but to a certain extent, the consumer, particularly if he/she is uninformed, often feels a certain sense of "gratitude" for those pieces of plastic and the "privilege" of owning one's own home.
Debt industry propaganda markets not only the very expensive use of someone else's money, but an idea, an image, and philosophy -- that is, the notion that this is America, and where else in the world can one have what one wants so instantly? Notice Mastercard's use of the word "priceless" in many of its commercials that depict families enjoying an expensive evening at a restaurant or baseball game courtesy of Mastercard. What's "priceless", of course, is not what is consumed, but sacred family time. The logic of Mastercard's ads communicate the message that since no price can be put on family time, why would you not want to charge the expenses of that time with Mastercard? You may be in perpetual debt, but wasn't it all worth it to have those priceless moments with family? Whether by way of playing on "family values" or using some other manipulative tactic, all debt industry marketing strategies are designed [in the words of that industry] to encourage consumers to "accept more debt."
The collection industry, which thrives on confusion, issuing reams of unintelligible instructions with its credit cards, and essentially builds it industry on lending to poor risk customers, is hugely profitable. This astonishingly de-regulated industry has created a no-win set up for consumers with steadily increasing interest rates and a dizzying array of fees that Curtis Arnold, founder of cardratings.com, says can very quickly mushroom into unmanageability for even the most conscientious card holders who use their cards responsibly and pay off their balances monthly. ...
Comment: Life in the highly computerized 21st century is a MMORG -- Massively Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Game. Every endeavor, pastime, financial relationship, job, debt, obligation, duty -- even births and deaths -- are governed by an intricate set of Rules. The Rules are interpreted by computer programmers and system designers, implemented by computers (with a piquant touch of randomness resulting from human data entry clerks, CSRs and corporate executives), and enforced by SWAT teams, judges and juries.
I am reminded, once again, of Bruce Sterling's prescient novel, Distraction. This excerpt is set in 2044, but might as well be NOW:"It had never occurred to the lords of the consumer society that consumerism as a political philosophy might one day manifest the grave systemic instabilities that Communism had. But as those instabilities multiplied, the country had cracked. Civil society shriveled in the pitiless reign of cash. As the last public spaces were privatized, it became harder and harder for American culture to breathe. Not only were people broke, but they were taunted to madness by commercials, and pitilessly surveilled by privacy-invading hucksters. An ever more aggressive consumer-outreach apparatus caused large numbers of people to simply abandon their official identities. In my twenties, as a result of poor decision-making I once had 14 separate outstanding debts, payable monthly. It was hell. It ended badly.
I haven't had any debts for a long time now, and in Fascist America it feels even better to pay with cash -- almost a subversive act to withdraw cash from the bank and then hand-deliver the moola to a store clerk.
Unfortunately our US MMORG requires 2 forms of ID in many instances. Legally, a credit card ought not be obligatory to function, but as a practical matter serious players desire the additional capabilities obtained with a 2nd ID document (i.e. credit card.)
All I can say about that is, treat your creditors better than your best friend, your wife or your dog. Imagine that your best friend loaned you money and you promised to pay the money on the 1st. Would you blow off your friend and then whine that you were only 29 days late and it shouldn't be counted against you; it wasn't a "missed" payment but merely "late"?
But if you have a friend who asks for a loan, just *give* him the freaking money and don't expect it back. It is better to have a friend than a debtor! |
30-day countdown to war
by Bob Moriarty, 321Gold
| |
Excerpt: Bush and the Gang of Fools in Washington will be part of it; we don't have two carrier groups in the Middle East to support tourism. When it happens, kiss the dollar and the United States of America goodbye. If you don't own gold now, buy some fairly soon. My experience as a combat intelligence officer tells me the attack will be in the next month.
Comment: I don't have the gut feeling that 30 days is the right number. But I plan to get very busy this week and re-doublecheck my TEOTWAWKI preparations (I have already chomped through several stockpiles of pre-WW3 food, but this might be IT, so back to the store! |
Air America 2.0 begins today
by Mark Green, Air America
| |
Excerpt: Speaking personally, my brother and I are excited by this important challenge and look forward to working with the Air America professionals -- in front of the mic and behind it -- who have held this dream together. Steve Green has been a very successful businessman accustomed to making money -- and he doesn't intend for AAR to be an exception. I've been an author, public interest lawyer and the NYC Public Advocate. For me this feels like a continuation of so much I've done in the progressive movement over three decades. Air America is like a public advocate for the country, exposing problems and offering solutions.
We're both optimists in the spirit of Walt Whitman, who wrote that "America is always becoming." Well, Air America too is always becoming. |
Civil liberties advocates' worst fears
realized with PATRIOT Act scandal
Editorial, People For the American Way
| |
Excerpt: At issue are "national security letters" -- an executive branch mechanism that was greatly expanded by the Patriot Act and essentially allows the government to circumvent the longstanding requirement that warrants be obtained before individuals' private data, such as telephone records, bank statements, or Internet data can be examined without those individuals' approval. According to the inspector general's report, the FBI has been obtaining national security letters inappropriately or even illegally, and the result has been an unwarranted intrusion into Americans' privacy. |
Not "crossing the line", obliterating it
by Bonnie Erbe, U.S. News & World Report
| |
Excerpt: When a U.S. senator (to wit, Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican) feels free to call a prosecutor at home and hang up on him for resisting political pressure in the course of executing his prosecutorial duties, the line between politics and law enforcement has been so thoroughly violated that it no longer exists. |
On the big issues, the New York Times
flips the bird to normal Americans
by David Sirota, AlterNet
| |
Excerpt: The first example comes from the Times' piece today about congressional Democrats' anti-war Out of Iraq Caucus, the New York Times is so blinded by its elitist, Serious Person disdain for the vast majority of the public that it actually published this absurdly oxymoronic statement:"Even with a majority of Americans opposing the war, the caucus is struggling to overcome its fringe image." I say this statement is oxymoronic because Democrats who want to bring the troops home from Iraq do not have a "fringe image" among the public, which also -- according to polls -- strongly wants the same thing. |
Why the media passes off bunk as news
by Drew Curtis, Christian Science Monitor| |
Excerpt: So whose fault is all this, the media's or the public's? Both. Real news is simply not a ratings leader. Evening network news shows aren't shown during prime time because they can't hack it. This is also why prime-time news shows consist almost entirely of celebrity interviews and pedophile arrests. Note which type of "news" gets the better time slot. |
60,000 marriages broken
by Iraq, including mine
by Stacy Bannerman, The Progressive
| |
Excerpt: Although the majority of Americans are opposed to the "surge," most members of Congress are reluctant to block the supplemental appropriations request that will fund it, claiming that they don't want to abandon the troops. Congress has abandoned the troops for nearly four years. It is the soldiers, their families, and the people of Iraq that pay the human costs. The tab so far: more than 3,000 dead U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded, over half a million Iraqi casualties, roughly 250,000 American servicemen and women struggling with PTSD, and almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine. |
Iraqi MP: Some lawmakers to lose immunity| |
Excerpt: Iraq's Parliament is to be asked to strip immunity from several of its members to allow them to be investigated for various alleged crimes, senior lawmaker Abbas al-Bayyati said Wednesday.
Comment: Purge instead of surge? |
A short history of STUFF
by The Feral Metallurgist, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: It all would have been so different if humans hadn't discovered some STUFF called oil. |
Here's your gun, go to war now
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: I want you to look me straight in the eye without tearing up, and tell me this sh*t of a lie of a war is worth your kid's life! |
DNA bouillabaisse gumbo
by Kevin Good, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: Genealogists and historians have taken this mess to the full sixth degree of separation. They discovered the Thurmond family bought their slaves from Dutch seafaring entrepreneurs who were the ancestors Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Captain Rodham, in Africa, bought people from the Kenyan ancestors of Senator Barack (did you know his middle name is Hussein?) Obama and offered them free passage to a new life in America, a fast track through the INS system, a Social Security number and jobs Americans wouldn't do. |
Conspiracies:
What's credible and what's not?
by Debby, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: I personally paid attention to Ronald Reagan speak about the shadow government and the likes when he was running for President. I heard it come out of his mouth and how he was against the power it held over the government. I had never heard of anything like that until then. After he went in to office an attempt was made on his life. ...
Conspiracies:
Who am I to discredit someone else? by Debby, Unknown News
Excerpt: I am not interested in talking about a conspiracy about Reagan. ... |
Bush leaves cities defenseless
after blowing $300 billion on security
by Lambert's Blog| |
Excerpt: "Although the Bush administration has warned repeatedly about the threat of a terrorist nuclear attack [especially during election campaigns] and spent more than $300 billion to protect the homeland [or, in the original German, Heimat], the government remains ill-prepared to respond to a nuclear catastrophe."
Katrina all over again. Except worse, of course. Whoopsie! This is McClatchy, not Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson, so I don't have to ram the obvious conclusion home: the reporter does it all by themselves:
"Experts and government documents suggest that, absent a major preparedness push, the U.S. response to a mushroom cloud could be worse than the debacle after Hurricane Katrina, possibly contributing to civil disorder and costing thousands of lives." |
John Wolf must wonder, What's a journalist?
by Think & Ask| |
Excerpt: His clips made their way onto television news and across the Internet for free distribution at the time. Wolf's footage later became the focus of grand jury investigation at the scene of the
protest to determine how a police officer was injured and how a police car was damaged by an explosive device during the protest, which was held to coincide with the G8 Summit in Scotland.
In 2006, Wolf refused to hand-over the footage to prosecutors, claiming he was a journalist and needed to protect his sources as guaranteed by the First Amendment. His decision landed in him jail 1 August 2006. Judge William Alsup of the Federal District Court did not buy the argument that Wolf was
or is a journalist.
Comment: It's a ruling that says, broadly speaking, only journalists under corporate control count as 'journalists'. |
American Gulag: Petty criminals doing hard time
by Sasha Abramsky, San Francisco Chronicle
| |
Excerpt: How tragic that over the past 20 years, the country's political leaders have so often decided to deal with many of the most noxious side-effects of poverty -- from chronic drug use and the establishment of street drug markets, to hustling, gang membership and spraying graffiti on public buildings -- through a vast over-reliance on incarceration.
How doubly tragic that this has occurred in tandem with a political assault on the Great Society anti-poverty programs put in place during the 1960s; that the investments in infrastructure, public education, public health care and job training which might curtail crime more effectively are, instead, being replaced by massive public expenditures on building new prisons. |
Right and wrong among the pundits
| |
Comment: This is a well-done look at a few popular pundits who favored the stupid attack on Iraq, and a few others who opposed it. Guess which ones have flourished, and which ones have been effectively flushed away? |
Marijuana: It's a wonder drug
by Lester Grinspoon, The Boston Globe
| |
Excerpt: A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and U.S. drug policy -- that we still need "proof" of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years. |
The War on Terror is the
leading cause of terrorism
by Kim Sengupta and Patrick Cockburn,
The Independent [London, UK]
| |
Excerpt: An authoritative U.S. study of terrorist attacks after the invasion in 2003 contradicts the repeated denials of George Bush and Tony Blair that the war is not to blame for an upsurge in fundamentalist violence worldwide. The research is said to be the first to attempt to measure the "Iraq effect" on global terrorism.
It found that the number killed in jihadist attacks around the world has risen dramatically since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The study compared the period between 11 September 2001 and the invasion of Iraq with the period since the invasion. The count -- excluding the Arab-Israel conflict -- shows the number of deaths due to terrorism rose from 729 to 5,420. As well as strikes in Europe, attacks have also increased in Chechnya and Kashmir since the invasion. |
Top 10 modern delusions
by Francis Wheen, The Guardian
| |
Excerpt: 9. America's economic success is entirely due to private enterprise -- In the 19th century, the American government promoted the formation of a national economy, the building of railroads and the development of the telegraph. More recently, the internet was created by the Pentagon. American agriculture is heavily subsidized and protected, as are the steel industry and many other sectors of the world's biggest "free-market economy". At times of economic slowdown, even under presidents who denigrate the role of government, the U.S. will increase its deficit to finance expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. But its leaders get very cross indeed if any developing country tries to follow this example. |
If you want your America back
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: These war criminals, these lying, deceiving, murdering thieves who sh*t on our Constitution, who sent our soldiers to die for Exxon's oil, who stole our tax money, who sent our jobs overseas and rewarded the job-shipping corporations with tax breaks, those people understand nothing but power and force.
Show it to them. |
That election that was supposed to change everything
by Leon Fisher, |
