TODAY'S TOPICS...Videos Only...
Note: I highly suggest you check out Thursday's blog...but, because there's so many good videos today, I couldn't resist posting again:
"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news…They sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate financial gain, and in so doing, I think they undermined a lot at CBS News."
-- Dan Rather last night (Add this to his expose on the e-voting machines and you have a full fledged redemption story)
VIDEO ONLY POST….Olbermann Special, Colbert Classics, Greenwald, and more
Olbermann special comment on the MoveOn insanity and Bush hypocrisy!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/countdown-special-comment-the-president-of-hypocrisy/
As Brad puts it, “and thus, Stephen Colbert hits on precisely the most alarming issue at the heart of the Tasering incident: The students (and Kerry) stood by. Did nothing. America pacified...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5088
And Colbert does it again, this time on Blackwater:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/21/the-w%c3%b8rd-colbert-on-blackwater/
Bush press conference covered by the Daily Show…welcome to Bizarro universe:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/21/daily-show-cliff-notes-for-bushs-press-conference/
The great Robert Greenwald makes another outstanding video short on Fox News, this time on the censoring of Sally Field. Watch as Fox guest after guest uses the word “god damn”…without being censored.
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/63139/
Rachelle Maddow nails the GOP crazies again…this time the “values voters” (as in sexists, bigots, and warmongers!)
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/63250/
And Moveon rep Eli Pariser is interviewed by David Schuster to respond to the mind bending attacks on the group's ad, the Senate passage of a censure of them, and the media’s absolutely sickening coverage of this “issue”. People are dying and killing for lies and we’re talking about whether calling a proven liar like Petraeus, “BeTrayUs”, is too mean??? What the f***??? (things have gotten so ridiculous in this country lately I have to cuss more…I just have to…). Schuster, who I normally really like, keeps pushing a nonsenical argument, that basically, because the media and GOP made this the story, and made it take away coverage and attention of the larger war debate, that that somehow is MoveOn's fault? Note to David: the fault lies in the media and GOP for making it the story...not in the group who did the ad!!!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/21/moveons-pariser-responds-to-petraeus-ad-distraction-in-senate/
And for a change of pace, enjoy going inside the mind of the brilliant Stephen Colbert as he discusses the Simpson’s (two of my favorites…Colbert and the Simpsons):
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/21/preview-of-colbert-on-this-sundays-simpsons-premiere/
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: Insanity, 1.2 Million Killed, Webb Amendment Loses, Blackwater, Economic Facts, Oil War, MoveOn
Note: at the bottom of this post there's a Pitt article and an intro by me you may find interesting.
“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”[..]If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care.”
-- Nelson Mandela, recent statement
“The history of the contemporary free market was written in shocks.”…. “Some of the most infamous human rights violations of the past thirty-five years, which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes, were in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free-market reforms.”
-- Naomi Klein, author
And look at this…Naomie Wolf (who I also have an article by today) is on the Colbert Report. I’ve been posting her a lot lately…Stephen and I do this a lot actually:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/the-colbert-report-naomi-wolf-on-fascism-in-america/
From another blogger...who I agree with absolutely:
I have to agree with Naomi’s summation. I don’t think speaking, emailing, writing, etc. is going to work anymore. It’s becoming abundantly clear these people only understand one thing. A rebellion is in order, if only the sheeple could stop scrambling through the maze in search of the ever elusive cheese, they might even notice…
BLACKWATER UPDATE...THE FUNDING OF CORPORATE KILLERS
"A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving" private security firm Blackwater USA says the company's employees "were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant." The Iraqi Interior Ministry says it has revoked Blackwater's license over the incident.
Watch the news report on what this criminal corporate army did (that we’re paying for) and what they’re trying to do in California (as in, expand their operations). We must stop them:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-courage-campaign-targets-blackwater-in-california/
Please go sign their petition here…the last thing we need is a giant Blackwater facility here.
And to continue my Blackwater expose (as private armies are a key component of fascism), watch this debate between Scahill, a Nation reporter that wrote a book on the subject, and a lobbyist for mercenaries:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/democracy-now-interviews-jeremy-scahill-about-blackwater/
And not to leave out what the victims of Blackwater’s crimes have to say, watch this video of Iraqi testimony:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/iraqi-victims-of-blackwater-speak-out/
END
STILL DON’T THINK ITS (LARGELY) ABOUT OIL?
The contracts that the Bush administration has been pushing the Iraqi government to accept are not just about the distribution of oil among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The contracts call for 30-year exclusive rights for British and American oil companies, rights that cannot be revoked by future Iraqi governments. They are called “production sharing agreements” (or “PSA’s”) - a legalistic code word.
The Iraqi government would technically own the oil, but could not control it; only the companies could do that. ExxonMobil and others would invest in developing the infrastructure for the oil (drilling, oil rigs, refining) and would get 75% of the “cost oil” profits, until they got their investment back. After that, they would own the infrastructure (paid for by oil profits), and then get 20% of oil profits after that (twice the usual rate). The profits are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Iraqi people would have no democratic control over their own major resource. No other Middle East country has such an arrangement.
Incidentally, polls show the Iraqi people overwhelmingly against “privatization”, but “production sharing agreements” were devised so they are technically not “privatization,” since the government would still own the oil but not control it. The ruse is there so that the government can claim it is not privatizing.
But none of this will work without military protection for the oil companies. That is what would keep us there indefinitely. The name for this is our “vital interests.”
--Professor George Lakoff
YET ANOTHER STUDY PROVES LIBERALS ARE SMARTER THAN CONSERVATIVES
Not that there was any question of this, I mean, these are the people that think God created the earth in 6 days, Saddam attacked us on 9/11, WMD’S were found in Iraq, trickle down economics help the poor and middle class, Bush is a good President, and…do I need to go on?
Anyway, check out this new study (I mentioned it last week, but its worth more detail):
Once again science has confirmed what we already know: liberals and conservatives think differently. Neuroscientists at NYU and UCLA conducted a simple test on college students all along the political spectrum.They were seated in front of computers and given the simple task of pressing a key every time the letter "M" flashed on the screen. Here's the hitch: every once in a while the letter "W" would flash and the subjects were told to not push a key when they saw "W."
Both groups recognized the letter "M" accurately. But when that pesky "W" popped up the conservatives just couldn't help themselves and -- DOH! -- they pushed the key! They simply could not recognize any letter not being "M." They continued to dogmatically stab away at the keyboard not seeing the letter so plainly in front of them. Everyone, of course, was hooked up to electroencephalograms, and liberals EEG's lit up like pinball machines while apprehending and considering all the subtle differences between "M" and "W." They made fewer mistakes and demonstrated a greater subtlety of mind. Conservatives, ever the partisans, just declared "W" was "M" and called it a day.
SNIP
Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research told The Los Angeles Times that the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity." The Times reports that "liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." Thus with one, simple experiment we have solved the mystery of how half our nation fell for the 9/11/Sadaam Hussein boondoggle. W is to M as Sadaam is to Bin Laden. While, they share some qualities (spikey, swarthy, hateful, gun lovin') they were decidedly NOT the same man. But those differences are irrelevant once your mind has been made up for you.
-- By Erika Schickel, HuffingtonPost.com
GOP “SUCCESSFULLY” FILIBUSTERS HELPING THE TROOPS/RESTORING HABEUS CORPUS
“I endorsed it. I intend now to cast a vote against it.”
-- Senator John Warner, deciding to oppose Webb’s amendment to give troops just a little f****** rest
That’s right, the Republican PHILIBUSTERED an attempt to give troops just a tiny bit of rest!
The vote was 56-44. It missed the 60 vote minimum. Warner helped torpedo whatever chance it had to pass because the White House got to him as usual….Let’s thank the Rubber stamp Republicans for not supporting our troops. And I’m so sick of these very honorable people. As Duncan notes: “Everything sure did change, with that Webb amendment getting the same number of votes it got last July” Kudos to Senator Webb for standing strong anyway.
THE GOP BEAT DOWN HABEUS CORPUS AGAIN TOO
FROM C&L:
Let’s be clear and unvarnished…44 of our Senators hate the Constitution and basic civil rights. They do not believe in the fundamental right of due process. RestoreHabeas.org has the breakdown.
Absolutely unacceptable. With all the horrors that we hear about Hamdan, about suicides, about innocent people rounded up for bounties and left to rot in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, it is absolutely immoral that 44 senators feel that entrusting basic civil rights of any person to the Bush administration is the way to go.
Senator Dodd has not given up the fight:
“America’s moral standing, and with it the security of the United States, suffered another setback today, atop a pile of setbacks that has accumulated over the past six years. The outcome of this vote is both symbolic and tragic. Each of us in the Senate faced a decision either to cast a vote in favor of helping to restore America’s reputation in the world, or to help dig deeper the hole of utter disrespect for the rule of law that the Bush Administration has created. Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues chose the latter, and my disappointment runs deep. But I will not rest my case with this vote. Instead, this defeat will only deepen my resolve to restore the rule of law and with it American security, for far too much is at stake - for every American - to simply give up the fight.”
END
ONE BILL DOES PASS SENATE...TO CONDEMN MOVEON! YAYYY!! (I'm going f****** insane!)
It’s okay though, because though the Senate couldn’t pass a restoration of Habeus Corpus or a bill to allow troops some rest time from the murder and death of Iraq, they were able to pass a bill that CONDEMNS MOVEON.ORG!!!! The bill passed with 72 votes…every fascist Republican, and nearly half the cowardly Democrats.
We have reached a new low in our nation’s history…
END
SOME ECONOMIC FACTS…IN THE FACE OF BUSH’S MIND BENDING “REALITY TWISTER” OF A PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY:
But, did you see what happened with OJ???
See here:
According to a new study, 1.2 million Iraqis have met violent deaths since the 2003 invasion, the highest estimate of war-related fatalities yet. The study was done by the British polling firm ORB, which conducted face-to-face interviews with a sample of over 1,700 Iraqi adults in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Two provinces -- al-Anbar and Karbala -- were too dangerous to canvas, and officials in a third, Irbil, didn't give the researchers a permit to do their work. The study's margin of error was plus-minus 2.4 percent.
AND THIS…
71.1 percent: The increase last month in the numbers of Iraqis forced to abandon their homes, "the sharpest rise so far."
AND THIS…
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" programs for Iraqi detainees. The commander of U.S. detention facilities said the effort is intended to "bend them back to our will." It is also an effort to identify "irreconcilables" and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities.
But the surge is working everybody!!! We’re making progress!!!
MORE VIDEOS…
Bill Maher visits idiot Wolf Blitzer. As I go insane, and watch our country become a joke, its nice to see someone like Maher on TV...at least he lives in the reality based community...there are fewer and fewer of us:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/bill-maher-on-the-situation-room-cutting-through-the-spin/
The Daily Show says goodbye to torturer and war criminal Alberto Gonzales:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-daily-show-goodbye-to-gonzo/
Colbert covers the attempt by the GOP to rig the election by divvying up California’s electoral votes:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-w%c3%b8rd-counting-votes-in-california/
ARTICLES: WAR ON REALITY, AMERICAN FASCISM
Will Pitt once again articulates perfectly how I've been feeling lately, and what I've been seeing. There is no one single crime or political development that can properly represent the true depths of insanity our country has reached, and the techniques used by those in power to bring us there. I am starting to feel, as Pitt apparently is, like I'm literally going insane. Don't worry, I'm not twitching or drooling on myself (yet), nor will you see me on a street corner without my shirt on talking to myself. But, my Matrix thesis is becoming more and more real to me every day, especially lately. As Pitt articulates, it is reality itself that is under attack, and has been significantly distorted...to such a degree in fact, that facts and logic really don't play a role in American politics anymore...and I can honestly say it frightens me...deeply.
I wish I had more energy to go into this now, but suffice it to say, the combination of the mind bending misdirection and lies propagated by Petraeus, Bush and company, along with the tasering, Habeus Corpus, the Webb Amendment, OJ Simpson, the overall drumbeat of propaganda, illogic, and deception I'm seeing on a level I never thought imaginable, and the media's coverage of it all has me, well, distraught and disillusioned...but only temporarily.
The past few days I kept thinking that my stress (now its bordering on disillusionment) was due to horrible traffic and my moving into a new apartment...but that really was only a component of what's had my heart and soul shaken. It's something far deeper and darker...its the fate of our nation, the current discourse underway here, and the ominous signs I see for our future. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up, and I still feel we have a shot to become something that resembles the priniples that were laid out in our Constitution...at our inception as a country (or idea). But man...I am feeling like I'm living in the world of the Matrix...one that is only increasing its distance from those basic principles that together, form a civilized nation, like reality, facts, justice, empathy, truth, and compassion.
Here's Pitt's take:
The process began in earnest more than a year ago with a publicity campaign that deliberately made no sense whatsoever. Day after day, statements and declarations came from all manner of White House officials that were little more than bags of over-the-moon nonsense - all patently inaccurate to nine decimals, yet spoken shamelessly into cameras with bare faces hanging out. With this, the Bush folks laid the mental foundation of the new reality to come; that foundation had to transmute lies into facts while still stuck in the old reality, but they had an edge that may have proven decisive: trust. If the American people hear the White House repeatedly claim that water is not wet and Godzilla is real, many of those Americans will believe it after a fashion.
SNIP
After all that came August, and if I'm right, the process was brought to a successful conclusion. In a way, this was the greatest challenge for Bush and his people, because they all had to argue time and again that Iraq was doing fine, that the whole thing was about freedom, that there was no civil war, that the "surge" worked, that the American people truly supported the whole bloody carnivorous process, and be damned with poll numbers and pundits and contradictory facts. General Petraeus was rolled out on cue, he hummed his bars and faked it at the same time, and as far as the mainstream press was concerned, the White House won the argument and that's that.
Think about it. The weapons of mass destruction were not there, connections to 9/11 and Osama bin Laden were not there, the hearts and flowers were not there, thousands upon thousands have been killed, billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars have been translated into the bank accounts of administration allies, a civil war is raging beyond any semblance of control there, Iraq's much-ballyhooed democracy is almost as chaotic as the streets outside Parliament, and the entire disaster has become a Quantico training ground for scores of bomb-makers looking to ply their trade in the wider world beyond.
And they got away with it. If that is reality, I want no part of it.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091907R.shtml
THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM
And this of course, is at the very heart of the fears and trends I just enumerated. Here's Naomi Wolf's piece putting into context the tasering of the Florida student (who was holding Greg Palast's fantastic book "Armed Madhouse").
A few clips:
...strategists using historical models to close down an open society start by using force on ‘undesirables,’ ‘aliens,’ ‘enemies of the state,’ and those considered by mainstream civil society to be untouchable; in other times they were, of course, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals. Then, once society has been acculturated to that use of force, the ‘blurring of the line’ begins and the parameters of criminalized speech are extended — the definition of ‘terrorist’ expanded — and the use of force begins to be deployed in HIGHLY VISIBLE, STRATEGIC and VISUALLY SHOCKING WAYS against people that others see and identify with as ordinary citizens. The first ‘torture cellars’ used by the SA, in Germany between 1931 and 1933 — even before the National Socialists gained control of the state, during the years when Germany was still a parliamentary democracy — were informal and widely publicized in the mainstream media. Few German citizens objected because those abused there were seen as ‘other’ — even though the abuse was technically illegal. But then, after this escalation of the use of force was accepted by the population, students, journalists, opposition leaders, and clergy were similarly abused during their own arrests. Within six months dissent was stilled in Germany.
What is the lesson for us from this and from other closing societies, some of them democracies? You can have a working Congress or Parliament; newspapers; human rights groups; even elections; but when ordinary people start to be hurt by the state for speaking out, dissent closes quickly and the shock chills opposition very, very fast. Once that happens, democracy has been so weakened that major tactical and strategic incursions — greater violations of democratic process — are far more likely. If there is dissent about the vote in Florida in this next presidential election — and the police are tasering voters’ rights groups — we will still have an election.
What we will not have is liberty.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/19/3949/
A TINY BIT OF GOOD NEWS (But what does it matter if we can’t stop them???)
29: President Bush's approval rating in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, which is "below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March."
Note: at the bottom of this post there's a Pitt article and an intro by me you may find interesting.
“What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”[..]If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care.”
-- Nelson Mandela, recent statement
“The history of the contemporary free market was written in shocks.”…. “Some of the most infamous human rights violations of the past thirty-five years, which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by anti-democratic regimes, were in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free-market reforms.”
-- Naomi Klein, author
And look at this…Naomie Wolf (who I also have an article by today) is on the Colbert Report. I’ve been posting her a lot lately…Stephen and I do this a lot actually:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/the-colbert-report-naomi-wolf-on-fascism-in-america/
From another blogger...who I agree with absolutely:
I have to agree with Naomi’s summation. I don’t think speaking, emailing, writing, etc. is going to work anymore. It’s becoming abundantly clear these people only understand one thing. A rebellion is in order, if only the sheeple could stop scrambling through the maze in search of the ever elusive cheese, they might even notice…
BLACKWATER UPDATE...THE FUNDING OF CORPORATE KILLERS
"A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving" private security firm Blackwater USA says the company's employees "were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant." The Iraqi Interior Ministry says it has revoked Blackwater's license over the incident.
Watch the news report on what this criminal corporate army did (that we’re paying for) and what they’re trying to do in California (as in, expand their operations). We must stop them:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-courage-campaign-targets-blackwater-in-california/
Please go sign their petition here…the last thing we need is a giant Blackwater facility here.
And to continue my Blackwater expose (as private armies are a key component of fascism), watch this debate between Scahill, a Nation reporter that wrote a book on the subject, and a lobbyist for mercenaries:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/20/democracy-now-interviews-jeremy-scahill-about-blackwater/
And not to leave out what the victims of Blackwater’s crimes have to say, watch this video of Iraqi testimony:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/iraqi-victims-of-blackwater-speak-out/
END
STILL DON’T THINK ITS (LARGELY) ABOUT OIL?
The contracts that the Bush administration has been pushing the Iraqi government to accept are not just about the distribution of oil among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The contracts call for 30-year exclusive rights for British and American oil companies, rights that cannot be revoked by future Iraqi governments. They are called “production sharing agreements” (or “PSA’s”) - a legalistic code word.
The Iraqi government would technically own the oil, but could not control it; only the companies could do that. ExxonMobil and others would invest in developing the infrastructure for the oil (drilling, oil rigs, refining) and would get 75% of the “cost oil” profits, until they got their investment back. After that, they would own the infrastructure (paid for by oil profits), and then get 20% of oil profits after that (twice the usual rate). The profits are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the Iraqi people would have no democratic control over their own major resource. No other Middle East country has such an arrangement.
Incidentally, polls show the Iraqi people overwhelmingly against “privatization”, but “production sharing agreements” were devised so they are technically not “privatization,” since the government would still own the oil but not control it. The ruse is there so that the government can claim it is not privatizing.
But none of this will work without military protection for the oil companies. That is what would keep us there indefinitely. The name for this is our “vital interests.”
--Professor George Lakoff
YET ANOTHER STUDY PROVES LIBERALS ARE SMARTER THAN CONSERVATIVES
Not that there was any question of this, I mean, these are the people that think God created the earth in 6 days, Saddam attacked us on 9/11, WMD’S were found in Iraq, trickle down economics help the poor and middle class, Bush is a good President, and…do I need to go on?
Anyway, check out this new study (I mentioned it last week, but its worth more detail):
Once again science has confirmed what we already know: liberals and conservatives think differently. Neuroscientists at NYU and UCLA conducted a simple test on college students all along the political spectrum.They were seated in front of computers and given the simple task of pressing a key every time the letter "M" flashed on the screen. Here's the hitch: every once in a while the letter "W" would flash and the subjects were told to not push a key when they saw "W."
Both groups recognized the letter "M" accurately. But when that pesky "W" popped up the conservatives just couldn't help themselves and -- DOH! -- they pushed the key! They simply could not recognize any letter not being "M." They continued to dogmatically stab away at the keyboard not seeing the letter so plainly in front of them. Everyone, of course, was hooked up to electroencephalograms, and liberals EEG's lit up like pinball machines while apprehending and considering all the subtle differences between "M" and "W." They made fewer mistakes and demonstrated a greater subtlety of mind. Conservatives, ever the partisans, just declared "W" was "M" and called it a day.
SNIP
Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research told The Los Angeles Times that the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity." The Times reports that "liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." Thus with one, simple experiment we have solved the mystery of how half our nation fell for the 9/11/Sadaam Hussein boondoggle. W is to M as Sadaam is to Bin Laden. While, they share some qualities (spikey, swarthy, hateful, gun lovin') they were decidedly NOT the same man. But those differences are irrelevant once your mind has been made up for you.
-- By Erika Schickel, HuffingtonPost.com
GOP “SUCCESSFULLY” FILIBUSTERS HELPING THE TROOPS/RESTORING HABEUS CORPUS
“I endorsed it. I intend now to cast a vote against it.”
-- Senator John Warner, deciding to oppose Webb’s amendment to give troops just a little f****** rest
That’s right, the Republican PHILIBUSTERED an attempt to give troops just a tiny bit of rest!
The vote was 56-44. It missed the 60 vote minimum. Warner helped torpedo whatever chance it had to pass because the White House got to him as usual….Let’s thank the Rubber stamp Republicans for not supporting our troops. And I’m so sick of these very honorable people. As Duncan notes: “Everything sure did change, with that Webb amendment getting the same number of votes it got last July” Kudos to Senator Webb for standing strong anyway.
THE GOP BEAT DOWN HABEUS CORPUS AGAIN TOO
FROM C&L:
Let’s be clear and unvarnished…44 of our Senators hate the Constitution and basic civil rights. They do not believe in the fundamental right of due process. RestoreHabeas.org has the breakdown.
Absolutely unacceptable. With all the horrors that we hear about Hamdan, about suicides, about innocent people rounded up for bounties and left to rot in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, it is absolutely immoral that 44 senators feel that entrusting basic civil rights of any person to the Bush administration is the way to go.
Senator Dodd has not given up the fight:
“America’s moral standing, and with it the security of the United States, suffered another setback today, atop a pile of setbacks that has accumulated over the past six years. The outcome of this vote is both symbolic and tragic. Each of us in the Senate faced a decision either to cast a vote in favor of helping to restore America’s reputation in the world, or to help dig deeper the hole of utter disrespect for the rule of law that the Bush Administration has created. Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues chose the latter, and my disappointment runs deep. But I will not rest my case with this vote. Instead, this defeat will only deepen my resolve to restore the rule of law and with it American security, for far too much is at stake - for every American - to simply give up the fight.”
END
ONE BILL DOES PASS SENATE...TO CONDEMN MOVEON! YAYYY!! (I'm going f****** insane!)
It’s okay though, because though the Senate couldn’t pass a restoration of Habeus Corpus or a bill to allow troops some rest time from the murder and death of Iraq, they were able to pass a bill that CONDEMNS MOVEON.ORG!!!! The bill passed with 72 votes…every fascist Republican, and nearly half the cowardly Democrats.
We have reached a new low in our nation’s history…
END
SOME ECONOMIC FACTS…IN THE FACE OF BUSH’S MIND BENDING “REALITY TWISTER” OF A PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY:
- According to Fed statistics released last week, U.S. consumers are carrying a record $2.456 trillion in debt (not including mortgages). The amount of revolving credit, such as credit cards, carried by consumers rose in July at an annual rate of 6.6%, or by $5 billion -- the third straight month of significant gains.
- Revolving credit was up 6.4% in June and a whopping 10.9% in May, the Fed reported.Nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans, registered only a modest 1.9% gain in July. That compares with 5.6% in June and 5.5% in May.
- According to the Commerce Department, the nation's savings rate for all of last year was minus 1%, the worst showing since the Great Depression.That means people were spending every last penny they earned, and then were dipping into savings, stocks or other resources to spend just a little bit more.
- ...the average family was spending 14.3% of disposable income to service its debt load during the first three months of the year, according to the liberal-minded Center for American Progress. That's up from 13% in the first quarter of 2001.
END
NEW STUDY: OVER A MILLION IRAQIS KILLED…
We have now put our nation, and therefore ourselves, in the record books for one of the greatest atrocities ever committed on another people. Three cheers for the USA! USA! USA! USA!But, did you see what happened with OJ???
See here:
According to a new study, 1.2 million Iraqis have met violent deaths since the 2003 invasion, the highest estimate of war-related fatalities yet. The study was done by the British polling firm ORB, which conducted face-to-face interviews with a sample of over 1,700 Iraqi adults in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Two provinces -- al-Anbar and Karbala -- were too dangerous to canvas, and officials in a third, Irbil, didn't give the researchers a permit to do their work. The study's margin of error was plus-minus 2.4 percent.
AND THIS…
71.1 percent: The increase last month in the numbers of Iraqis forced to abandon their homes, "the sharpest rise so far."
AND THIS…
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" programs for Iraqi detainees. The commander of U.S. detention facilities said the effort is intended to "bend them back to our will." It is also an effort to identify "irreconcilables" and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities.
But the surge is working everybody!!! We’re making progress!!!
MORE VIDEOS…
Bill Maher visits idiot Wolf Blitzer. As I go insane, and watch our country become a joke, its nice to see someone like Maher on TV...at least he lives in the reality based community...there are fewer and fewer of us:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/bill-maher-on-the-situation-room-cutting-through-the-spin/
The Daily Show says goodbye to torturer and war criminal Alberto Gonzales:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-daily-show-goodbye-to-gonzo/
Colbert covers the attempt by the GOP to rig the election by divvying up California’s electoral votes:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/the-w%c3%b8rd-counting-votes-in-california/
ARTICLES: WAR ON REALITY, AMERICAN FASCISM
Will Pitt once again articulates perfectly how I've been feeling lately, and what I've been seeing. There is no one single crime or political development that can properly represent the true depths of insanity our country has reached, and the techniques used by those in power to bring us there. I am starting to feel, as Pitt apparently is, like I'm literally going insane. Don't worry, I'm not twitching or drooling on myself (yet), nor will you see me on a street corner without my shirt on talking to myself. But, my Matrix thesis is becoming more and more real to me every day, especially lately. As Pitt articulates, it is reality itself that is under attack, and has been significantly distorted...to such a degree in fact, that facts and logic really don't play a role in American politics anymore...and I can honestly say it frightens me...deeply.
I wish I had more energy to go into this now, but suffice it to say, the combination of the mind bending misdirection and lies propagated by Petraeus, Bush and company, along with the tasering, Habeus Corpus, the Webb Amendment, OJ Simpson, the overall drumbeat of propaganda, illogic, and deception I'm seeing on a level I never thought imaginable, and the media's coverage of it all has me, well, distraught and disillusioned...but only temporarily.
The past few days I kept thinking that my stress (now its bordering on disillusionment) was due to horrible traffic and my moving into a new apartment...but that really was only a component of what's had my heart and soul shaken. It's something far deeper and darker...its the fate of our nation, the current discourse underway here, and the ominous signs I see for our future. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up, and I still feel we have a shot to become something that resembles the priniples that were laid out in our Constitution...at our inception as a country (or idea). But man...I am feeling like I'm living in the world of the Matrix...one that is only increasing its distance from those basic principles that together, form a civilized nation, like reality, facts, justice, empathy, truth, and compassion.
Here's Pitt's take:
The process began in earnest more than a year ago with a publicity campaign that deliberately made no sense whatsoever. Day after day, statements and declarations came from all manner of White House officials that were little more than bags of over-the-moon nonsense - all patently inaccurate to nine decimals, yet spoken shamelessly into cameras with bare faces hanging out. With this, the Bush folks laid the mental foundation of the new reality to come; that foundation had to transmute lies into facts while still stuck in the old reality, but they had an edge that may have proven decisive: trust. If the American people hear the White House repeatedly claim that water is not wet and Godzilla is real, many of those Americans will believe it after a fashion.
SNIP
After all that came August, and if I'm right, the process was brought to a successful conclusion. In a way, this was the greatest challenge for Bush and his people, because they all had to argue time and again that Iraq was doing fine, that the whole thing was about freedom, that there was no civil war, that the "surge" worked, that the American people truly supported the whole bloody carnivorous process, and be damned with poll numbers and pundits and contradictory facts. General Petraeus was rolled out on cue, he hummed his bars and faked it at the same time, and as far as the mainstream press was concerned, the White House won the argument and that's that.
Think about it. The weapons of mass destruction were not there, connections to 9/11 and Osama bin Laden were not there, the hearts and flowers were not there, thousands upon thousands have been killed, billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars have been translated into the bank accounts of administration allies, a civil war is raging beyond any semblance of control there, Iraq's much-ballyhooed democracy is almost as chaotic as the streets outside Parliament, and the entire disaster has become a Quantico training ground for scores of bomb-makers looking to ply their trade in the wider world beyond.
And they got away with it. If that is reality, I want no part of it.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091907R.shtml
THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM
And this of course, is at the very heart of the fears and trends I just enumerated. Here's Naomi Wolf's piece putting into context the tasering of the Florida student (who was holding Greg Palast's fantastic book "Armed Madhouse").
A few clips:
...strategists using historical models to close down an open society start by using force on ‘undesirables,’ ‘aliens,’ ‘enemies of the state,’ and those considered by mainstream civil society to be untouchable; in other times they were, of course, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals. Then, once society has been acculturated to that use of force, the ‘blurring of the line’ begins and the parameters of criminalized speech are extended — the definition of ‘terrorist’ expanded — and the use of force begins to be deployed in HIGHLY VISIBLE, STRATEGIC and VISUALLY SHOCKING WAYS against people that others see and identify with as ordinary citizens. The first ‘torture cellars’ used by the SA, in Germany between 1931 and 1933 — even before the National Socialists gained control of the state, during the years when Germany was still a parliamentary democracy — were informal and widely publicized in the mainstream media. Few German citizens objected because those abused there were seen as ‘other’ — even though the abuse was technically illegal. But then, after this escalation of the use of force was accepted by the population, students, journalists, opposition leaders, and clergy were similarly abused during their own arrests. Within six months dissent was stilled in Germany.
What is the lesson for us from this and from other closing societies, some of them democracies? You can have a working Congress or Parliament; newspapers; human rights groups; even elections; but when ordinary people start to be hurt by the state for speaking out, dissent closes quickly and the shock chills opposition very, very fast. Once that happens, democracy has been so weakened that major tactical and strategic incursions — greater violations of democratic process — are far more likely. If there is dissent about the vote in Florida in this next presidential election — and the police are tasering voters’ rights groups — we will still have an election.
What we will not have is liberty.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/19/3949/
A TINY BIT OF GOOD NEWS (But what does it matter if we can’t stop them???)
29: President Bush's approval rating in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, which is "below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: Corporate Mercenaries, The Real Greenspan, Sleepovers, Surveillance Clock, Tasering, Habeus Defeated
Q. How did General Petraeus' testimony in front of Congress go?
A. Pretty good. He emphasized that progress was being made in Iraq. The same way he talked about the progress being made in Iraq when he testified in the same room back in 2004. He might be using the same script.
Q. What's the difference between then and now?
A. Back then, Baghdad still had electricity and water and the wheel.
-- Will Durst
He (Greenspan) retired only a year ago, but is already trying to revise the history. To explain away blunders that are now a financial crisis facing his successor. To rearrange the facts in exculpatory ways. To deny his right-wing ideological bias and his raw partisanship in behalf of the Bush Republicans.
The man is shrewd. He can see the conservative era he celebrated and helped to impose upon the American economy is in utter ruin. He is trying to get some distance from it before the blood splashes all over his reputation. Of course, he also came back to cash in-an $8 million advance for a book that is sure to be a huge bestseller.
-- William Greider, the Nation
VIDEO SECTION
Still don’t believe we live in a Police State? Yet another student protester is tasered…in addition to all the American’s being wiretapped, tortured, surveilled, arrested, intimidated, and of course, lied too. Granted, he cut in line and was being obnoxious but 6 cops and a taser??? The point of all this isn’t whether the guy was a jerk or not, the issue is if people are tased for being “disruptive” than that opens the doors for ALL protesters to be roughed up and tased (which is happening now).
This incident also highlights the growing use and abuse of “non-lethal” techniques by the police…which are sold to us as a positive development. Let’s be clear, police use of lethal force isn’t down one bit, but the tasering of people has skyrocketed. These techniques don’t change a thing when police are actually in a lethal situation, what they change is how police can disable people like say PROTESTERS! Protesters by definition are supposed to be obnoxious and disruptive.
This is simply another step toward a police state, where dissent is stifled and the public is intimidated…until we reach a point where no one will protest or “get out of line”. Watching the news, I just don’t feel people are getting this. I kept hearing, "yeah, but the guy was 'obnoxious' and cut in line". This is the height of ignorance...since when is it okay to taser, torture and beat people for this? Who is to say what constitutes that "obnoxiousness line" in which police can use these techniques? How many people will now be quiet because of this?
On that note, I was really happy to see my friend Medea Benjamin on Chris Mathews Hardball to discuss the growing use of these techniques (by police and government), and the increasing threat to our free speech:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/hardball-the-assault-on-free-speech-in-america/
If you haven't seen the incident itself:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62882/
David Schuster reports on the war for oil remarks by Greenspan. One of the most obvious, never reported reasons we invaded in the first place. NOW the media asks the question...great. But, Schuster is wrong about one thing, it wasn't to keep oil prices down…its about keeping them up…among other things:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/shuster-on-hardball-blood-for-oil/
Blackwater, (Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince)
Scahill:“ …instead the administration is building a coalition of corporations. Right now in Iraq, private personnel on the US government payroll outnumber official US troops. There are about 186,000 so-called private contractors operating alongside 165,000 troops. The US military is the junior partner in this coalition.—-This is a shadow war. We’re in the midst right now of a discussion about a surge, and about troop withdrawals, and we hear conflicting messages. But there’s been a surge on for four years of the private sector, in Iraq, this mercenary army that the Bush administration has built up all over that country.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/blackwater-author-describes-the-us-civilian-militia-groups-relationship-with-bushco-shadow-war/
UPDATE: My Man Waxman: Oversight Committee to Hold Hearings on Blackwater
Chris Dodd talks about his efforts to restore Habeus Corpus…it doesn’t get much more important than this people. And get this breaking news, the GOP crime family has just “PHILIBUSTERED” (actually only threatened to do so…which is enough these days) this bill to restore Habeus Corpus. So please, don’t think I’m too hard or overzealous on the Republican Party…they just “defeated” this bill, even though it got 56 votes, in the Senate…and prevented the restoration of the very foundation of our democracy…literally, the right that makes all other rights possible. A law that has been the cornerstone of western democracies for 800 years….and they stop it…even though they are in the minority, and probably 90% of the public favor it. I am literally outraged right now…hard to keep focus even. Here’s Dodd yesterday talking about it….this is before today’s disgusting news:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/leahy-dodd-introduce-bill-to-restore-habeas-corpus/
MoveOn continues to do the exact right thing (in this case anyway)…keep going after these criminals…take no prisoners. Here, they respond to Giuliani’s attacks of their Petraeus ad…and shame to all Democrats that condemn MoveOn…cowards, the whole lot of them:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/new-moveonorg-ad-giuliani-betrayal-of-trust/
Please compare and contrast the reporting of Laura Logan of CBS on what’s really happening in Afganistan to the vapid stenography of Katie Couric in Iraq:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/lara-logan-looks-at-success-in-afghanistan/
ARTICLE SECTION
BLACKWATER AND THE GROWING CORPORATE ARMY
Read this by Robert Scheer on the frightening rise of Blackwater and American corporate mercenary industry. Yet another piece to the larger authoritarian, fascist puzzle being laid out before our very eyes…add to that wiretapping, surveillance, police intimidation, the Patriot Act, and on and on…
A few clips:
Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it. Find some other, fresher way to explain why “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is dependent upon killer mercenaries. Or why the “democratically elected government” of “liberated” Iraq does not explicitly have the legal power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S. government has brought to Iraq accountable for their deadly actions.
But who told those Iraqi officials that they have the power to control anything regarding the 182,000 privately contracted personnel working for the U.S. in Iraq? Don’t they know about Order 17, which former American proconsul Paul Bremer put in place to grant contractors, including his own Blackwater bodyguards, immunity from Iraqi prosecution? Nothing has changed since the supposed transfer of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority, which Bremer once headed, to the Iraqi government holed up in the Green Zone and guarded by Blackwater and other “private” soldiers.
SNIP
Consider the irony of that last statement-that the U.S. experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that drove the founders of our own country to launch the American Revolution. As George Washington warned in his farewell address, once the American government enters into these “foreign entanglements,” we lose the Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed to the necessities of war for empire.
Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of its revenue from the U.S. government-much of it in no-bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish contributions to the Republican Party made by company founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents-its operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny. Blackwater and others in this international security racket operate as independent states of their own, subject neither to the rules of Iraq nor the ones that the U.S. government applies to its own uniformed forces.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/18/3918/
THE TRUTH ABOUT GREENSPAN
Read these two excellent exposes of the REAL Greenspan record…not the repackaged lie and historical revisionism he’s selling us now. Both articles, one by Paul Krugman and the other by the Nation magazine, are contained at this link.
Some clips first:
Mr. Greenspan now says that he didn't mean to give the Bush tax cuts a green light, and that he was surprised at the political reaction to his remarks. There were, indeed, rumors at the time - which Mr. Greenspan now says were true - that the Fed chairman was upset about the response to his initial statement. But the fact is that if Mr. Greenspan wasn't intending to lend crucial support to the Bush tax cuts, he had ample opportunity to set the record straight when it could have made a difference.
SNIP
In retrospect, Mr. Greenspan's moral collapse in 2001 was a portent. It foreshadowed the way many people in the foreign policy community would put their critical faculties on hold and support the invasion of Iraq, despite ample evidence that it was a really bad idea. And like enthusiastic war supporters who have started describing themselves as war critics now that the Iraq venture has gone wrong, Mr. Greenspan has started portraying himself as a critic of administration fiscal irresponsibility now that President Bush has become deeply unpopular and Democrats control Congress.
AND FROM THE NATION ARTICLE:
Alan Greenspan has come back from the tomb of history to correct the record. He did not make any mistakes in his eighteen-year tenure as Federal Reserve chairman. He did not endorse the regressive Bush tax cuts of 2001 that pumped up the federal deficits and aggravated inequalities. He did not cause the housing bubble that is now in collapse. He did not ignore the stock market bubble that subsequently melted away and cost investors $6 trillion. He did not say the Iraq War is "largely about oil." Check the record. These are all lies.
SNIP
The economic consequences of his rule are accumulating and even the dullest financial reporters are stumbling on crumbs of truth about Greenspan's legendary reign. It sowed profound and dangerous imbalances in the US economy. That's what happens when government power tips the balance in favor of capital over labor, favoring super-rich over middle class and poor, then holds it there for nearly a generation. Things get out of whack and now the country is paying big time. A pity reporters and politicians didn't have the nerve to ask these questions when Greenspan was in power.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807H.shtml
Most people don't even know these go on...this is more good news from our Secretary of State:
California Secretary of State: Voting Machine 'Sleepovers' Violate State Law
Debra Bowen Says 'Sleepovers Don't Comply With Security Requirements...It's Really That Simple'
Reply to BRAD BLOG Question During Conference Call Monday, Most Direct, Definitive Statement on the Controversial Practice Since She's Taken Office...She's hinted as much previously, and her new security requirements issued in the wake of her landmark "Top-to-Bottom Review" of e-voting systems would seem to preclude them, but CA Secretary of State, Debra Bowen has now given her most direct comment to date on the matter of voting machine "sleepovers". "Sleepovers don't comply with the security requirements," Bowen said in response to a question we submitted on the matter during a conference call with the Secretary sponsored by the Courage Campaign.
"It's really simple," she added, after a pause following her immediate, direct reply to the question. She went on to explain how unauthorized access to a single machine, by a single person, could allow an entire county's election to be flipped, putting every ones election at risk.If you're not aware of what "sleepovers" are, and the long struggle to help election officials understand the remarkable dangers thereof, read on. The complete question and Bowen's full answer is transcribed at the end of the article.It's good to have a new sheriff in town...
FULL REPORT, TRANSCRIPT OF BOWEN Q&A ON 'SLEEPOVERS':
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5081
Surveillance Clock Stands at Six Minutes to Midnight
ACLU.org:
The reality is we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States - a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready to be examined and used against us by the authorities whenever they want. The ACLU has created this Surveillance Clock to symbolize just how close we are to a “midnight” of a genuine surveillance society. But it’s not too late - there is still time to save our privacy.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/surveillancesocietyclock2.html
Q. How did General Petraeus' testimony in front of Congress go?
A. Pretty good. He emphasized that progress was being made in Iraq. The same way he talked about the progress being made in Iraq when he testified in the same room back in 2004. He might be using the same script.
Q. What's the difference between then and now?
A. Back then, Baghdad still had electricity and water and the wheel.
-- Will Durst
He (Greenspan) retired only a year ago, but is already trying to revise the history. To explain away blunders that are now a financial crisis facing his successor. To rearrange the facts in exculpatory ways. To deny his right-wing ideological bias and his raw partisanship in behalf of the Bush Republicans.
The man is shrewd. He can see the conservative era he celebrated and helped to impose upon the American economy is in utter ruin. He is trying to get some distance from it before the blood splashes all over his reputation. Of course, he also came back to cash in-an $8 million advance for a book that is sure to be a huge bestseller.
-- William Greider, the Nation
VIDEO SECTION
Still don’t believe we live in a Police State? Yet another student protester is tasered…in addition to all the American’s being wiretapped, tortured, surveilled, arrested, intimidated, and of course, lied too. Granted, he cut in line and was being obnoxious but 6 cops and a taser??? The point of all this isn’t whether the guy was a jerk or not, the issue is if people are tased for being “disruptive” than that opens the doors for ALL protesters to be roughed up and tased (which is happening now).
This incident also highlights the growing use and abuse of “non-lethal” techniques by the police…which are sold to us as a positive development. Let’s be clear, police use of lethal force isn’t down one bit, but the tasering of people has skyrocketed. These techniques don’t change a thing when police are actually in a lethal situation, what they change is how police can disable people like say PROTESTERS! Protesters by definition are supposed to be obnoxious and disruptive.
This is simply another step toward a police state, where dissent is stifled and the public is intimidated…until we reach a point where no one will protest or “get out of line”. Watching the news, I just don’t feel people are getting this. I kept hearing, "yeah, but the guy was 'obnoxious' and cut in line". This is the height of ignorance...since when is it okay to taser, torture and beat people for this? Who is to say what constitutes that "obnoxiousness line" in which police can use these techniques? How many people will now be quiet because of this?
On that note, I was really happy to see my friend Medea Benjamin on Chris Mathews Hardball to discuss the growing use of these techniques (by police and government), and the increasing threat to our free speech:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/hardball-the-assault-on-free-speech-in-america/
If you haven't seen the incident itself:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62882/
David Schuster reports on the war for oil remarks by Greenspan. One of the most obvious, never reported reasons we invaded in the first place. NOW the media asks the question...great. But, Schuster is wrong about one thing, it wasn't to keep oil prices down…its about keeping them up…among other things:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/shuster-on-hardball-blood-for-oil/
Blackwater, (Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince)
Scahill:“ …instead the administration is building a coalition of corporations. Right now in Iraq, private personnel on the US government payroll outnumber official US troops. There are about 186,000 so-called private contractors operating alongside 165,000 troops. The US military is the junior partner in this coalition.—-This is a shadow war. We’re in the midst right now of a discussion about a surge, and about troop withdrawals, and we hear conflicting messages. But there’s been a surge on for four years of the private sector, in Iraq, this mercenary army that the Bush administration has built up all over that country.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/blackwater-author-describes-the-us-civilian-militia-groups-relationship-with-bushco-shadow-war/
UPDATE: My Man Waxman: Oversight Committee to Hold Hearings on Blackwater
Chris Dodd talks about his efforts to restore Habeus Corpus…it doesn’t get much more important than this people. And get this breaking news, the GOP crime family has just “PHILIBUSTERED” (actually only threatened to do so…which is enough these days) this bill to restore Habeus Corpus. So please, don’t think I’m too hard or overzealous on the Republican Party…they just “defeated” this bill, even though it got 56 votes, in the Senate…and prevented the restoration of the very foundation of our democracy…literally, the right that makes all other rights possible. A law that has been the cornerstone of western democracies for 800 years….and they stop it…even though they are in the minority, and probably 90% of the public favor it. I am literally outraged right now…hard to keep focus even. Here’s Dodd yesterday talking about it….this is before today’s disgusting news:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/18/leahy-dodd-introduce-bill-to-restore-habeas-corpus/
MoveOn continues to do the exact right thing (in this case anyway)…keep going after these criminals…take no prisoners. Here, they respond to Giuliani’s attacks of their Petraeus ad…and shame to all Democrats that condemn MoveOn…cowards, the whole lot of them:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/new-moveonorg-ad-giuliani-betrayal-of-trust/
Please compare and contrast the reporting of Laura Logan of CBS on what’s really happening in Afganistan to the vapid stenography of Katie Couric in Iraq:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/19/lara-logan-looks-at-success-in-afghanistan/
ARTICLE SECTION
BLACKWATER AND THE GROWING CORPORATE ARMY
Read this by Robert Scheer on the frightening rise of Blackwater and American corporate mercenary industry. Yet another piece to the larger authoritarian, fascist puzzle being laid out before our very eyes…add to that wiretapping, surveillance, police intimidation, the Patriot Act, and on and on…
A few clips:
Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it. Find some other, fresher way to explain why “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is dependent upon killer mercenaries. Or why the “democratically elected government” of “liberated” Iraq does not explicitly have the legal power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S. government has brought to Iraq accountable for their deadly actions.
But who told those Iraqi officials that they have the power to control anything regarding the 182,000 privately contracted personnel working for the U.S. in Iraq? Don’t they know about Order 17, which former American proconsul Paul Bremer put in place to grant contractors, including his own Blackwater bodyguards, immunity from Iraqi prosecution? Nothing has changed since the supposed transfer of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority, which Bremer once headed, to the Iraqi government holed up in the Green Zone and guarded by Blackwater and other “private” soldiers.
SNIP
Consider the irony of that last statement-that the U.S. experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that drove the founders of our own country to launch the American Revolution. As George Washington warned in his farewell address, once the American government enters into these “foreign entanglements,” we lose the Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed to the necessities of war for empire.
Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of its revenue from the U.S. government-much of it in no-bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish contributions to the Republican Party made by company founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents-its operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny. Blackwater and others in this international security racket operate as independent states of their own, subject neither to the rules of Iraq nor the ones that the U.S. government applies to its own uniformed forces.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/18/3918/
THE TRUTH ABOUT GREENSPAN
Read these two excellent exposes of the REAL Greenspan record…not the repackaged lie and historical revisionism he’s selling us now. Both articles, one by Paul Krugman and the other by the Nation magazine, are contained at this link.
Some clips first:
Mr. Greenspan now says that he didn't mean to give the Bush tax cuts a green light, and that he was surprised at the political reaction to his remarks. There were, indeed, rumors at the time - which Mr. Greenspan now says were true - that the Fed chairman was upset about the response to his initial statement. But the fact is that if Mr. Greenspan wasn't intending to lend crucial support to the Bush tax cuts, he had ample opportunity to set the record straight when it could have made a difference.
SNIP
In retrospect, Mr. Greenspan's moral collapse in 2001 was a portent. It foreshadowed the way many people in the foreign policy community would put their critical faculties on hold and support the invasion of Iraq, despite ample evidence that it was a really bad idea. And like enthusiastic war supporters who have started describing themselves as war critics now that the Iraq venture has gone wrong, Mr. Greenspan has started portraying himself as a critic of administration fiscal irresponsibility now that President Bush has become deeply unpopular and Democrats control Congress.
AND FROM THE NATION ARTICLE:
Alan Greenspan has come back from the tomb of history to correct the record. He did not make any mistakes in his eighteen-year tenure as Federal Reserve chairman. He did not endorse the regressive Bush tax cuts of 2001 that pumped up the federal deficits and aggravated inequalities. He did not cause the housing bubble that is now in collapse. He did not ignore the stock market bubble that subsequently melted away and cost investors $6 trillion. He did not say the Iraq War is "largely about oil." Check the record. These are all lies.
SNIP
The economic consequences of his rule are accumulating and even the dullest financial reporters are stumbling on crumbs of truth about Greenspan's legendary reign. It sowed profound and dangerous imbalances in the US economy. That's what happens when government power tips the balance in favor of capital over labor, favoring super-rich over middle class and poor, then holds it there for nearly a generation. Things get out of whack and now the country is paying big time. A pity reporters and politicians didn't have the nerve to ask these questions when Greenspan was in power.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807H.shtml
Most people don't even know these go on...this is more good news from our Secretary of State:
California Secretary of State: Voting Machine 'Sleepovers' Violate State Law
Debra Bowen Says 'Sleepovers Don't Comply With Security Requirements...It's Really That Simple'
Reply to BRAD BLOG Question During Conference Call Monday, Most Direct, Definitive Statement on the Controversial Practice Since She's Taken Office...She's hinted as much previously, and her new security requirements issued in the wake of her landmark "Top-to-Bottom Review" of e-voting systems would seem to preclude them, but CA Secretary of State, Debra Bowen has now given her most direct comment to date on the matter of voting machine "sleepovers". "Sleepovers don't comply with the security requirements," Bowen said in response to a question we submitted on the matter during a conference call with the Secretary sponsored by the Courage Campaign.
"It's really simple," she added, after a pause following her immediate, direct reply to the question. She went on to explain how unauthorized access to a single machine, by a single person, could allow an entire county's election to be flipped, putting every ones election at risk.If you're not aware of what "sleepovers" are, and the long struggle to help election officials understand the remarkable dangers thereof, read on. The complete question and Bowen's full answer is transcribed at the end of the article.It's good to have a new sheriff in town...
FULL REPORT, TRANSCRIPT OF BOWEN Q&A ON 'SLEEPOVERS':
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5081
Surveillance Clock Stands at Six Minutes to Midnight
ACLU.org:
The reality is we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the United States - a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready to be examined and used against us by the authorities whenever they want. The ACLU has created this Surveillance Clock to symbolize just how close we are to a “midnight” of a genuine surveillance society. But it’s not too late - there is still time to save our privacy.
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/surveillancesocietyclock2.html
Monday, September 17, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: Shock Doctrine, "The Disgrace" (McCain), War Oil, Greenspan??!!, Maher/Hagel, Restore Habeus Corpus, Blackwater
“Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world. May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women. If mothers ruled the world, there would be no….““…god-damned wars in the first place.”
-- Sally Field accepting her Emmy…just as Fox censored her…
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
-- Former FED Chair Alan Greenspan (yes, you read the quote correctly)
VIDEO SECTION
I hope everyone remembers that since this blog’s inception I’ve been warning about just what a duplicitous scumbag John McCain really was, and exposing this fact as often as I could. But, in the face of the fawning media, and weak minded democrats and independents, he was able to build a Matrix like persona that directly contradicted reality.
Of course most everybody now sees him for the disgraced, craven, warmonger he is…wars and elections have a way of exposing these types. But, if there’s any of you left that view him otherwise, watch this montage of his recent debate (or thrashing) with John Kerry on Meet the Press, with inserted video clips proving the many ways in which he contradicts his own words, distorts reality, and, well, lies...A LOT. If anyone EVER tells you again, that at least McCain is a standup guy, or straight talker, you have my permission to grab the nearest glove and slap them across their face (and say something clever). Being tortured in Vietnam doesn’t make you a good leader, or human being.
Watch this…have a barf bag nearby:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62825/
The totally UNREPORTED anti-war protests that took place in DC this weekend paint a very dark portrait of our “democracy”. As OJ received non-stop 24/7 coverage again, our country continues to split at the seams…but who would know? Without press coverage of protest and activism, how do we know that others are just as sickened by this war as us and are fighting to stop it, and will the life blood of a functioning democracy - protest, dissent, and debate - be squashed simply by rendering them silent (like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it)?
Let's try and keep it alive: Watch this speech by Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against The War from this weekend’s protests:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/adam-kokesh-when-injustice-becomes-law-resistance-becomes-duty/
Bill Maher interviews Chuck Hagel on the Petraeus dog and pony show. Note on Hagel: while he’s wrong on nearly every other issue in his life, its still curious to me why he articulates opposition to the war and the lies so much clearer and powerfully than the vast majority of the Democrats? The leading Dems would do well to take notes when Hagel talks about Iraq…that, and get a spine implant:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/16/sen-hagel-on-real-time-petraeus-dog-and-pony-show-dishonest-hypocritical-dangerous-and-irresponsible/
The “Shock Doctrine”…whether it’s used to scare the public into submission, torture prisoners, or implement “free market” reforms in ravaged nations (or New Orleans) hit by national disasters, one thing is certain, it’s a “go to” method by our government and corporatocracy. Naomi Klein has a new book about the technique and how our empire uses it…here is a video short to some of her words…frightening, sad, and moving. Worse, it’s being done in our name:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62129/
ARTICLE SECTION: Iraq - Bob Herbert, McGovern
The Iraq Humanitarian Crisis...
I know it can be uncomfortable being reminded of just how mind numbing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq has become. But, as hour after hour of news coverage seems to focus on everything BUT the hell the Iraqi people are living through…and/or what the Iraqi people want (instead of wealthy American pundits), I feel obligated to post this Bob Herbert piece.
Every time I hear Bush and co. talk about the humanitarian crisis that would ensue in Iraq if we redeploy I want to...first, punch him in the face, then second, explain to the entire country that that crisis is happening now, BECAUSE of what our country has done...and worst of all, what it has done with our money and in our name.
All I ask, is whenever you hear someone arguing for why we “don’t have the votes” to end the war, or we need to just wait it out until a Democrat takes over the Presidency, or worse, that we need to keep troops there for the sake of Iraqis, just remember the facts (some coming in article below)…even if we can’t see them on our news, or hear them from the Iraqi people ourselves, let us not forget the role we have played in creating this hellish reality. There can be no debate if one does this.
I guess its a worn out cliche to say "think of the children" but F***** it: think of the Iraqi children...and then tell me about why strategically we should let this war go on until January 2009 and deal with it then...
A few clips:
While more than two million Iraqis have fled to other countries, another two million have been displaced internally…Iraqis are enduring most of their suffering out of the sight of the rest of the world. International relief organizations and most of the news media are largely kept at a distance by the insane levels of violence.
Access to safe drinking water is a problem in much of the country. (The World Health Organization was asked to help with a recent outbreak of cholera in parts of Kurdistan that is believed to have been caused by polluted water.) Sanitation facilities are routinely crippled by violence and sabotage. The economy, like the country's infrastructure, is in shambles.
The worst aspect of the nightmare, of course, is the rain of death that has descended on Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Controversy has surrounded virtually all attempts to estimate the number of civilian casualties, but no one disputes that the toll is staggering.
SNIP
The effect on children of the carnage, the dislocations and the deteriorating quality of daily life has been profound. Conditions in Iraq were dire for children even before the war. One in eight died before the age of 5, many from the effects of malnutrition, polluted water and unsanitary conditions.
Now, more than four years after the invasion, huge numbers of Iraqi children are finding themselves orphaned, homeless, malnourished, and worse. According to Unicef, the U.N.'s children's agency: "Many children are separated from their families or on the streets, where they are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Most children have experienced trauma but few receive the care and support they need to help them cope with so much chaos, anxiety and loss."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091507F.shtml
Reasons for War...
I guess today’s focus will stay on Iraq. I suppose in the face of all the lies and propaganda this week, compounded by the media focus on OJ Simpson and Britney Spears, I felt the need to go back to the basics and remind us of what's really happening to human beings there...rather than say some politician or political party's poll numbers! And in the case of this article, more reminders and revelations on the “how’s” and “why’s” this atrocity ever could have occurred (hint: oil, empire).
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern delves into these questions, particularly in light of the rather shocking admission by Alan Greenspan that this war was indeed about oil (and that Republican economic policy has been a failure…wow!).
A few clips:
For those of us absorbing more than FOX channel news, the primacy of the oil factor was a no-brainer. The limited number of invading troops were ordered to give priority to securing the oil wells and oil industry infrastructure immediately and let looters have their way with just about everything else (including the ammunition storage depots!). Barely three weeks into the war, Rumsfeld famously answered criticism for not stopping the looting: “Stuff happens.” No stuff happened to the Oil Ministry.
SNIP
There were, to be sure, other factors behind the ill-starred attack on Iraq-the Bush administration’s determination to acquire large, permanent military bases in the area outside of Saudi Arabia, for one. But that factor can be viewed as a subset of the energy motivation-the need to have substantial influence over the extraction and disposition of the oil in Iraq. In other words, the felt need for what the Pentagon prefers to call “enduring” military bases in the Middle East is a function of its strategic importance which, in turn, is a function-you guessed it-of its natural resources. Not only oil, but natural gas and water as well.
I find the evidence persuasive that the other major factor in the Bush/Cheney decision to make war on Iraq was the misguided notion that this would make that part of the world safer for Israel. Indeed, the so-called “neo-conservatives” still running U.S. policy toward the Middle East continue to have great difficulty distinguishing between what they perceive to be the strategic interests of Israel and those of the United States. And in my view, they show themselves extremely myopic on both counts.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/17/3902/
IRAQ INTERIOR MINISTRY BANS BLACKWATER AFTER FATAL CIVILIAN SHOOTING: Iraq's Interior Ministry has banned the American private security firm, Blackwater USA, from operating in Iraq after eight civilians were killed after Blackwater members guarding a State Department motorcade allegedly responded to gunshots with open fire. In 2003, the Bush administration awarded the firm a $21.3 million no-bid contract to provide security for then-Amb. Paul Bremer. In 2006, the company moved from solely providing private security details "to a more 'overt combat role,' essentially becoming an army for hire." Though dozens of Blackwater mercenaries have been killed or wounded in Iraq, notably the four guards who were killed in Fallujah in 2004, the Pentagon does not include these causalities in its official tally. Iraq's Interior Ministry has indicated it will investigate Sunday's incident and press charges against the individuals involved. It is unclear whether the Iraqi government has the authority to prosecute Blackwater employees. As the AP notes, "Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there."
The UK Sunday Telegraph reports that the Pentagon is "taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran," developing a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in that country.
Today in Iraq, "almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters." Many archaeological workers trained under Saddam Hussein are now "using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities."
URGE SENATE TO RESTORE HABEUS CORPUS...
This week, the Senate is debating whether or not to restore habeas corpus -- the fundamental constitutional right that allows citizens to challenge the lawfulness of their imprisonment. President Bush currently has the power to declare anyone, including U.S. citizens, "enemy combatants" and throw them in jail indefinitely without any explanation for their imprisonment.
In September of last year, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which suspended the right of habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War. This July, we told you that the Senate was expected to vote to restore habeas corpus with an amendment (S. 185) introduced by Senators Leahy and Specter to the Department of Defense authorization bill. This vote was postponed due to a dispute over funding the war in Iraq. But today, the Senate has once again resumed debate on this critical amendment and may vote this week on whether to restore our Constitution.
Without habeas corpus, we've taken the first step on a very slippery slope towards dictatorship.
Tell your senators that you want to see habeas corpus restored.
“Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world. May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women. If mothers ruled the world, there would be no….““…god-damned wars in the first place.”
-- Sally Field accepting her Emmy…just as Fox censored her…
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
-- Former FED Chair Alan Greenspan (yes, you read the quote correctly)
VIDEO SECTION
I hope everyone remembers that since this blog’s inception I’ve been warning about just what a duplicitous scumbag John McCain really was, and exposing this fact as often as I could. But, in the face of the fawning media, and weak minded democrats and independents, he was able to build a Matrix like persona that directly contradicted reality.
Of course most everybody now sees him for the disgraced, craven, warmonger he is…wars and elections have a way of exposing these types. But, if there’s any of you left that view him otherwise, watch this montage of his recent debate (or thrashing) with John Kerry on Meet the Press, with inserted video clips proving the many ways in which he contradicts his own words, distorts reality, and, well, lies...A LOT. If anyone EVER tells you again, that at least McCain is a standup guy, or straight talker, you have my permission to grab the nearest glove and slap them across their face (and say something clever). Being tortured in Vietnam doesn’t make you a good leader, or human being.
Watch this…have a barf bag nearby:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62825/
The totally UNREPORTED anti-war protests that took place in DC this weekend paint a very dark portrait of our “democracy”. As OJ received non-stop 24/7 coverage again, our country continues to split at the seams…but who would know? Without press coverage of protest and activism, how do we know that others are just as sickened by this war as us and are fighting to stop it, and will the life blood of a functioning democracy - protest, dissent, and debate - be squashed simply by rendering them silent (like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it)?
Let's try and keep it alive: Watch this speech by Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against The War from this weekend’s protests:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/adam-kokesh-when-injustice-becomes-law-resistance-becomes-duty/
Bill Maher interviews Chuck Hagel on the Petraeus dog and pony show. Note on Hagel: while he’s wrong on nearly every other issue in his life, its still curious to me why he articulates opposition to the war and the lies so much clearer and powerfully than the vast majority of the Democrats? The leading Dems would do well to take notes when Hagel talks about Iraq…that, and get a spine implant:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/16/sen-hagel-on-real-time-petraeus-dog-and-pony-show-dishonest-hypocritical-dangerous-and-irresponsible/
The “Shock Doctrine”…whether it’s used to scare the public into submission, torture prisoners, or implement “free market” reforms in ravaged nations (or New Orleans) hit by national disasters, one thing is certain, it’s a “go to” method by our government and corporatocracy. Naomi Klein has a new book about the technique and how our empire uses it…here is a video short to some of her words…frightening, sad, and moving. Worse, it’s being done in our name:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/62129/
ARTICLE SECTION: Iraq - Bob Herbert, McGovern
The Iraq Humanitarian Crisis...
I know it can be uncomfortable being reminded of just how mind numbing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq has become. But, as hour after hour of news coverage seems to focus on everything BUT the hell the Iraqi people are living through…and/or what the Iraqi people want (instead of wealthy American pundits), I feel obligated to post this Bob Herbert piece.
Every time I hear Bush and co. talk about the humanitarian crisis that would ensue in Iraq if we redeploy I want to...first, punch him in the face, then second, explain to the entire country that that crisis is happening now, BECAUSE of what our country has done...and worst of all, what it has done with our money and in our name.
All I ask, is whenever you hear someone arguing for why we “don’t have the votes” to end the war, or we need to just wait it out until a Democrat takes over the Presidency, or worse, that we need to keep troops there for the sake of Iraqis, just remember the facts (some coming in article below)…even if we can’t see them on our news, or hear them from the Iraqi people ourselves, let us not forget the role we have played in creating this hellish reality. There can be no debate if one does this.
I guess its a worn out cliche to say "think of the children" but F***** it: think of the Iraqi children...and then tell me about why strategically we should let this war go on until January 2009 and deal with it then...
A few clips:
While more than two million Iraqis have fled to other countries, another two million have been displaced internally…Iraqis are enduring most of their suffering out of the sight of the rest of the world. International relief organizations and most of the news media are largely kept at a distance by the insane levels of violence.
Access to safe drinking water is a problem in much of the country. (The World Health Organization was asked to help with a recent outbreak of cholera in parts of Kurdistan that is believed to have been caused by polluted water.) Sanitation facilities are routinely crippled by violence and sabotage. The economy, like the country's infrastructure, is in shambles.
The worst aspect of the nightmare, of course, is the rain of death that has descended on Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Controversy has surrounded virtually all attempts to estimate the number of civilian casualties, but no one disputes that the toll is staggering.
SNIP
The effect on children of the carnage, the dislocations and the deteriorating quality of daily life has been profound. Conditions in Iraq were dire for children even before the war. One in eight died before the age of 5, many from the effects of malnutrition, polluted water and unsanitary conditions.
Now, more than four years after the invasion, huge numbers of Iraqi children are finding themselves orphaned, homeless, malnourished, and worse. According to Unicef, the U.N.'s children's agency: "Many children are separated from their families or on the streets, where they are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Most children have experienced trauma but few receive the care and support they need to help them cope with so much chaos, anxiety and loss."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091507F.shtml
Reasons for War...
I guess today’s focus will stay on Iraq. I suppose in the face of all the lies and propaganda this week, compounded by the media focus on OJ Simpson and Britney Spears, I felt the need to go back to the basics and remind us of what's really happening to human beings there...rather than say some politician or political party's poll numbers! And in the case of this article, more reminders and revelations on the “how’s” and “why’s” this atrocity ever could have occurred (hint: oil, empire).
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern delves into these questions, particularly in light of the rather shocking admission by Alan Greenspan that this war was indeed about oil (and that Republican economic policy has been a failure…wow!).
A few clips:
For those of us absorbing more than FOX channel news, the primacy of the oil factor was a no-brainer. The limited number of invading troops were ordered to give priority to securing the oil wells and oil industry infrastructure immediately and let looters have their way with just about everything else (including the ammunition storage depots!). Barely three weeks into the war, Rumsfeld famously answered criticism for not stopping the looting: “Stuff happens.” No stuff happened to the Oil Ministry.
SNIP
There were, to be sure, other factors behind the ill-starred attack on Iraq-the Bush administration’s determination to acquire large, permanent military bases in the area outside of Saudi Arabia, for one. But that factor can be viewed as a subset of the energy motivation-the need to have substantial influence over the extraction and disposition of the oil in Iraq. In other words, the felt need for what the Pentagon prefers to call “enduring” military bases in the Middle East is a function of its strategic importance which, in turn, is a function-you guessed it-of its natural resources. Not only oil, but natural gas and water as well.
I find the evidence persuasive that the other major factor in the Bush/Cheney decision to make war on Iraq was the misguided notion that this would make that part of the world safer for Israel. Indeed, the so-called “neo-conservatives” still running U.S. policy toward the Middle East continue to have great difficulty distinguishing between what they perceive to be the strategic interests of Israel and those of the United States. And in my view, they show themselves extremely myopic on both counts.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/17/3902/
IRAQ INTERIOR MINISTRY BANS BLACKWATER AFTER FATAL CIVILIAN SHOOTING: Iraq's Interior Ministry has banned the American private security firm, Blackwater USA, from operating in Iraq after eight civilians were killed after Blackwater members guarding a State Department motorcade allegedly responded to gunshots with open fire. In 2003, the Bush administration awarded the firm a $21.3 million no-bid contract to provide security for then-Amb. Paul Bremer. In 2006, the company moved from solely providing private security details "to a more 'overt combat role,' essentially becoming an army for hire." Though dozens of Blackwater mercenaries have been killed or wounded in Iraq, notably the four guards who were killed in Fallujah in 2004, the Pentagon does not include these causalities in its official tally. Iraq's Interior Ministry has indicated it will investigate Sunday's incident and press charges against the individuals involved. It is unclear whether the Iraqi government has the authority to prosecute Blackwater employees. As the AP notes, "Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there."
The UK Sunday Telegraph reports that the Pentagon is "taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran," developing a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in that country.
Today in Iraq, "almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters." Many archaeological workers trained under Saddam Hussein are now "using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities."
URGE SENATE TO RESTORE HABEUS CORPUS...
This week, the Senate is debating whether or not to restore habeas corpus -- the fundamental constitutional right that allows citizens to challenge the lawfulness of their imprisonment. President Bush currently has the power to declare anyone, including U.S. citizens, "enemy combatants" and throw them in jail indefinitely without any explanation for their imprisonment.
In September of last year, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which suspended the right of habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War. This July, we told you that the Senate was expected to vote to restore habeas corpus with an amendment (S. 185) introduced by Senators Leahy and Specter to the Department of Defense authorization bill. This vote was postponed due to a dispute over funding the war in Iraq. But today, the Senate has once again resumed debate on this critical amendment and may vote this week on whether to restore our Constitution.
Without habeas corpus, we've taken the first step on a very slippery slope towards dictatorship.
Tell your senators that you want to see habeas corpus restored.
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