THE UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE CONNECTION
By Howard Freeman (*)
*I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.*
INTRODUCTION
When I beat the Internal Revenue Service, I used Supreme Court (SC) decisions. If I had tried to use these in Court, I would have been convicted.
I was involved with a patriot group and I studied Supreme Court cases. I concluded that the Supreme Court had declared that I was not a person required to file an income tax -- that that tax was an excise tax on privileges granted by government. So I quit filing and paying income taxes and it was not long before they came down on me with a heavy hand. They issued a notice of deficiency, which had such a fantastic sum on it that the biggest temptation was to go in with their letter and say "Where in the world did you ever get that figure?" They claimed I owed them some $60,000. But even if I had been paying taxes, I never had that much money, so how could I have owed them that much? read
December 23, 2008
What do you know. Sixty Years after the fact
General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
George S. Patton, America's greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book. read
General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
George S. Patton, America's greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book. read
December 19, 2008
from TruthDig
The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
By Chris Hedges
December 17, 2008 "Truthdig" December 08, 2008 -- -- The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think. They focus instead, through the filter of standardized tests, enrichment activities, advanced placement classes, high-priced tutors, swanky private schools and blind deference to all authority, on creating hordes of competent systems managers. The collapse of the country runs in a direct line from the manicured quadrangles and halls in places like Cambridge, Princeton and New Haven to the financial and political centers of power. read
The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
By Chris Hedges
December 17, 2008 "Truthdig" December 08, 2008 -- -- The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think. They focus instead, through the filter of standardized tests, enrichment activities, advanced placement classes, high-priced tutors, swanky private schools and blind deference to all authority, on creating hordes of competent systems managers. The collapse of the country runs in a direct line from the manicured quadrangles and halls in places like Cambridge, Princeton and New Haven to the financial and political centers of power. read
December 14, 2008
from HuffingtonPost.Com
Iraqi Journalist Hurls Shoes At Bush… Shouted: "This Is A Goodbye Kiss, You Dog"...
Politico reports that White House Press Secretary Dana Perinso may have suffered a black eye in the wake of the shoe-throwing incident:
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was slightly bruised in the aftermath of the shoe-throwing melee at President Bush's news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, a senior administration official said.
But Perino will be fine and is continuing with the presidential party, the official said.
Journalists at the scene said she suffered a black eye, perhaps when she was hit with a microphone.
It's ironic that the president would be pummeled in such a controlled setting, when the White House took elaborate, James-Bond-like precautions to ensure he landed in secret. READ
Iraqi Journalist Hurls Shoes At Bush… Shouted: "This Is A Goodbye Kiss, You Dog"...
Politico reports that White House Press Secretary Dana Perinso may have suffered a black eye in the wake of the shoe-throwing incident:
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was slightly bruised in the aftermath of the shoe-throwing melee at President Bush's news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, a senior administration official said.
But Perino will be fine and is continuing with the presidential party, the official said.
Journalists at the scene said she suffered a black eye, perhaps when she was hit with a microphone.
It's ironic that the president would be pummeled in such a controlled setting, when the White House took elaborate, James-Bond-like precautions to ensure he landed in secret. READ
December 4, 2008
from http://www.guardian.co.uk
A lawless outcome to a lawless war
by Martin Kettle 12/3/08
If Bush pardons himself, it would be a stunning challenge to America's self-image as the upholder of law and freedom
Is George Bush preparing to give himself a presidential pardon? On first hearing, the idea sounds utterly incredible and outrageous. How can the head of a state in which respect for the law remains an active part of the national DNA even contemplate such an arbitrary and shameless act of apparent lawlessness? Amnesties and pardons of this kind are the stock-in-trade of tinpot dictators, not constitutional leaders. And yet ...
A Bush pardon would be a sensational final act to the most divisive presidency in modern America. But he certainly has the power to grant it. Article 2 section 2 of the US constitution gives the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons. The US courts have traditionally interpreted this power widely, to include amnesties, conditional pardons and blanket pardons. And all presidents have used the power – Harry Truman's 1,913 pardons is the postwar record. read
A lawless outcome to a lawless war
by Martin Kettle 12/3/08
If Bush pardons himself, it would be a stunning challenge to America's self-image as the upholder of law and freedom
Is George Bush preparing to give himself a presidential pardon? On first hearing, the idea sounds utterly incredible and outrageous. How can the head of a state in which respect for the law remains an active part of the national DNA even contemplate such an arbitrary and shameless act of apparent lawlessness? Amnesties and pardons of this kind are the stock-in-trade of tinpot dictators, not constitutional leaders. And yet ...
A Bush pardon would be a sensational final act to the most divisive presidency in modern America. But he certainly has the power to grant it. Article 2 section 2 of the US constitution gives the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons. The US courts have traditionally interpreted this power widely, to include amnesties, conditional pardons and blanket pardons. And all presidents have used the power – Harry Truman's 1,913 pardons is the postwar record. read
November 27, 2008
from WhatReallyHappened.com
Thanksgiving
Thanks to rising unemployment and food prices, the Washington Post tells us, Americans on food stamps are set to pass 30 million this month for the first time ever, passing the historic high set in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Not exactly something for those folks to celebrate.
Webmaster's Commentary:
I am sitting here trying to figure out what to be thankful for.
Obviously I am thankful for my wife and my health.
But I am much poorer this year than last, thanks to the government. Taxes are high and services low. People I knew are dead in a war started with lies that our grandchildren are expected to make the payments on. Why should anyone be thankful for that?
Our nation hovers at the edge of ruin because the government decided to help out the poor suffering corporations by giving them tax credits to make it easier to send American jobs to other countries, forcing Americans to take lower paying jobs, thereby triggering the debt crisis. Thankful for that? I don't think so.
Then the government decides to fix the credit crisis by taking $700 billion away from the working class to give to the banks so that the banks could turn around and loan it back to us at interest. Except that it didn't work out that way; the banks (and Wall Street) just shoved the cash into their golden parachutes. Thanks a whole bunch for THAT one, assholes.
The so-called bailout now stands at $8.2 trillion (with a "t"); a staggering sum of money so large most people cannot comprehend it. It works out to about $100,000 per US Household. Plus accruing interest. No way should anyone (except the corporations getting that cash) be thankful for that.
And here we are today, Thanksgiving, with a false flag operation leading to in invasion of Pakistan in the fond hopes that with a bloody war to distract us, we won't remember how badly the US Government has screwed up this country. No doubt, our leaders(?) are betting the farm that a new world war will get the nation out of a financial mess, just as the previous two world wars did. Frankly, I don't think it will work this time. In Big Mistake I and Big Mistake II, the US was a mighty manufacturing power. This time, we are not. If the US starts WW3, we will ultimately lose.
Thankful? Hell no. Nobody is that much of a schmuck.
Thanksgiving
Thanks to rising unemployment and food prices, the Washington Post tells us, Americans on food stamps are set to pass 30 million this month for the first time ever, passing the historic high set in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Not exactly something for those folks to celebrate.
Webmaster's Commentary:
I am sitting here trying to figure out what to be thankful for.
Obviously I am thankful for my wife and my health.
But I am much poorer this year than last, thanks to the government. Taxes are high and services low. People I knew are dead in a war started with lies that our grandchildren are expected to make the payments on. Why should anyone be thankful for that?
Our nation hovers at the edge of ruin because the government decided to help out the poor suffering corporations by giving them tax credits to make it easier to send American jobs to other countries, forcing Americans to take lower paying jobs, thereby triggering the debt crisis. Thankful for that? I don't think so.
Then the government decides to fix the credit crisis by taking $700 billion away from the working class to give to the banks so that the banks could turn around and loan it back to us at interest. Except that it didn't work out that way; the banks (and Wall Street) just shoved the cash into their golden parachutes. Thanks a whole bunch for THAT one, assholes.
The so-called bailout now stands at $8.2 trillion (with a "t"); a staggering sum of money so large most people cannot comprehend it. It works out to about $100,000 per US Household. Plus accruing interest. No way should anyone (except the corporations getting that cash) be thankful for that.
And here we are today, Thanksgiving, with a false flag operation leading to in invasion of Pakistan in the fond hopes that with a bloody war to distract us, we won't remember how badly the US Government has screwed up this country. No doubt, our leaders(?) are betting the farm that a new world war will get the nation out of a financial mess, just as the previous two world wars did. Frankly, I don't think it will work this time. In Big Mistake I and Big Mistake II, the US was a mighty manufacturing power. This time, we are not. If the US starts WW3, we will ultimately lose.
Thankful? Hell no. Nobody is that much of a schmuck.
November 14, 2008
The plunge protection team was at it again
Yesterday's spectacular upswing has all the hallmarks of a classic bomb and dump. With the election over, one has to wonder of the PPT isn't playing games to line their own pockets and pad their golden parachutes. The huge uptick seen in the second half of the day just didn't make any sense, with all the economic indicators continuing negative.
Yesterday's spectacular upswing has all the hallmarks of a classic bomb and dump. With the election over, one has to wonder of the PPT isn't playing games to line their own pockets and pad their golden parachutes. The huge uptick seen in the second half of the day just didn't make any sense, with all the economic indicators continuing negative.
November 11, 2008
Summing Up George Bush
11-11-8
Poor George Bush. All he did was lie about a disastrous war, ruin America's reputation, shred the Constitution, divide the country (quite purposely), let one of our cities drown, spy on us, turn us into torturers, stand by and exacerbate environmental calamity, double the national debt, polarize our wealth into banana republic proportions and deregulate us into the greatest economic disaster in a century.
And how do we express our gratitude? Did we impeach him? Did we bring him up on war crimes charges? Did we tar and feather him?
No, heartless ingrates that we are, we made him suffer for eight years as president of the United States, with all the isolated lack of attention that goes with that lonely job.
--David Michael Green
associate professor of Political Science
Hofstra University, New York.
11-11-8
Poor George Bush. All he did was lie about a disastrous war, ruin America's reputation, shred the Constitution, divide the country (quite purposely), let one of our cities drown, spy on us, turn us into torturers, stand by and exacerbate environmental calamity, double the national debt, polarize our wealth into banana republic proportions and deregulate us into the greatest economic disaster in a century.
And how do we express our gratitude? Did we impeach him? Did we bring him up on war crimes charges? Did we tar and feather him?
No, heartless ingrates that we are, we made him suffer for eight years as president of the United States, with all the isolated lack of attention that goes with that lonely job.
--David Michael Green
associate professor of Political Science
Hofstra University, New York.
October 21, 2008
from CounterPunch.com
The 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult
The God That Failed
By CHRIS FLOYD
Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash -- or rather, by the reaction to it -- is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command. In just a matter of days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks across the globe. Britain alone has put $1 trillion at the disposal of the bankers, traders, lenders and speculators; and this has been surpassed by the total package of public money that Washington is shoveling into the financial furnaces of Wall Street and the banks. These radical efforts are being replicated on a slightly smaller scale in France, Germany, Italy, Russia and many other countries. read
The 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult
The God That Failed
By CHRIS FLOYD
Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash -- or rather, by the reaction to it -- is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command. In just a matter of days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks across the globe. Britain alone has put $1 trillion at the disposal of the bankers, traders, lenders and speculators; and this has been surpassed by the total package of public money that Washington is shoveling into the financial furnaces of Wall Street and the banks. These radical efforts are being replicated on a slightly smaller scale in France, Germany, Italy, Russia and many other countries. read
September 23, 2008
Protesters unfurl 'Arrest Bush & Cheney' banner at Nat'l Archives
Mike Sheehan and David Edwards
Published: Tuesday September 23, 2008
Anti-war protesters hung a banner today at the National Archives calling for the arrest of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 22-foot-long banner in red, white and black reads, "Defend Our Constitution - Arrest Bush / Cheney! - War Criminals!"
The protesters, perched on a ledge at the historic building in Washington, D.C., additionally claim to be on a hunger strike.
According to a press release, the five are military combat veterans from the anti-war group Veterans For Peace who intend to stay on the ledge and fast for a full day "in remembrance of those who have perished and those still suffering from the crimes of the Bush administration."
An Archives spokesperson had no comment when asked if authorities were planning to take action to stop the peaceful protest.
This video is from YouTube, broadcast September 23, 2008.
Mike Sheehan and David Edwards
Published: Tuesday September 23, 2008
Anti-war protesters hung a banner today at the National Archives calling for the arrest of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 22-foot-long banner in red, white and black reads, "Defend Our Constitution - Arrest Bush / Cheney! - War Criminals!"
The protesters, perched on a ledge at the historic building in Washington, D.C., additionally claim to be on a hunger strike.
According to a press release, the five are military combat veterans from the anti-war group Veterans For Peace who intend to stay on the ledge and fast for a full day "in remembrance of those who have perished and those still suffering from the crimes of the Bush administration."
An Archives spokesperson had no comment when asked if authorities were planning to take action to stop the peaceful protest.
This video is from YouTube, broadcast September 23, 2008.
September 17, 2008
from RumorMillNews.Com
Project Camelot And the Immediate Future
Posted By: IZAKOVIC
Date: Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 3:20 p.m.
This is a blockbuster of a two hour phone conversation with David Wilcock, focusing on immediate current events but spanning time travel, the Freemasons, the Anunnaki, the Nazis, WW II, advanced technology, the Roswell crash, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, the war in Georgia, the coming US election, Benjamin Fulford's testimony, and what may or may not happen in the coming few weeks and months. read
Project Camelot And the Immediate Future
Posted By: IZAKOVIC
Date: Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 3:20 p.m.
This is a blockbuster of a two hour phone conversation with David Wilcock, focusing on immediate current events but spanning time travel, the Freemasons, the Anunnaki, the Nazis, WW II, advanced technology, the Roswell crash, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, the war in Georgia, the coming US election, Benjamin Fulford's testimony, and what may or may not happen in the coming few weeks and months. read
September 10, 2008
from Info Clearing House
Hypocrisy of this Magnitude has to be Respected.
By William Blum
06/09/08 "ICH" - -- Im sorry to say that I think that John McCain is going to be the next president of the United States. After the long night of Bush horror any Democrat should easily win, but the Dems are screwing it up and McCain has been running more-or-less even with Barack Obama in the polls. The Democrats should run on the slogan "If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain", but that would be too outspoken, too direct for the spineless Nancy Pelosi and her spineless party. Or, "If you liked Iraq, you'll love Iran." But the Democrat leadership is not on record as categorically opposing either conflict. read
Hypocrisy of this Magnitude has to be Respected.
By William Blum
06/09/08 "ICH" - -- Im sorry to say that I think that John McCain is going to be the next president of the United States. After the long night of Bush horror any Democrat should easily win, but the Dems are screwing it up and McCain has been running more-or-less even with Barack Obama in the polls. The Democrats should run on the slogan "If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain", but that would be too outspoken, too direct for the spineless Nancy Pelosi and her spineless party. Or, "If you liked Iraq, you'll love Iran." But the Democrat leadership is not on record as categorically opposing either conflict. read
September 3, 2008
from RumorMillNews.Com
HALLIBURTON THEFTS - NEWS FROM AN EX-CIA INSIDER
A former high-ranking member of the CIA, now retired, who was a career employee, contacted us this week. Due to our reporting on Halliburton and their corruption we were given 46 pages of testimony on how Halliburton, the CIA, the Pentagon and Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have been stealing billions of dollars. What we were presented will shortly be presented to Congressman Waxman’s Oversight and Reform Committee in the House. These 46 pages of stepby-step criminal procedure is only part of a larger body of evidence being presented to Congress.
What is presented is astounding in the scope of the crime and the billions of dollars being stolen by these criminals. Please read
HALLIBURTON THEFTS - NEWS FROM AN EX-CIA INSIDER
A former high-ranking member of the CIA, now retired, who was a career employee, contacted us this week. Due to our reporting on Halliburton and their corruption we were given 46 pages of testimony on how Halliburton, the CIA, the Pentagon and Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have been stealing billions of dollars. What we were presented will shortly be presented to Congressman Waxman’s Oversight and Reform Committee in the House. These 46 pages of stepby-step criminal procedure is only part of a larger body of evidence being presented to Congress.
What is presented is astounding in the scope of the crime and the billions of dollars being stolen by these criminals. Please read
August 12, 2008
From Rense.Com
American Lies & American Delusions
By Karl Schwarz 8-12-8
I had a hard time not destroying my TV early today. That was because I saw the ultra asinine George W Bush saying something so preposterous, so inhumane, so in character with this piece-of-shit we have as President of the United States, I had to fight myself back.
I had to remind myself that strangling my TV was not strangling this cretinous bastard. And that is what George W Bush is.
This is what this shallow scumbag had to say in a photo op, after the US, Israel and Georgia attacked Russia as part of this bullshit Bush Strategic Plan and got their asses kicked black and blue:
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," said Mr Bush.
"Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
I agree with Jeff Rense: "The vile, inhuman, unimaginably OUTRAGEOUS hypocrisy of this little, drunken piece of shit's speechwriters leaves one staggering for words. The Rapist of Iraq, the Assassin of Afghanistan has spoken the most astonishing, stupendously hideous laughable filth of the new century and perhaps the last.' read
American Lies & American Delusions
By Karl Schwarz 8-12-8
I had a hard time not destroying my TV early today. That was because I saw the ultra asinine George W Bush saying something so preposterous, so inhumane, so in character with this piece-of-shit we have as President of the United States, I had to fight myself back.
I had to remind myself that strangling my TV was not strangling this cretinous bastard. And that is what George W Bush is.
This is what this shallow scumbag had to say in a photo op, after the US, Israel and Georgia attacked Russia as part of this bullshit Bush Strategic Plan and got their asses kicked black and blue:
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," said Mr Bush.
"Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
I agree with Jeff Rense: "The vile, inhuman, unimaginably OUTRAGEOUS hypocrisy of this little, drunken piece of shit's speechwriters leaves one staggering for words. The Rapist of Iraq, the Assassin of Afghanistan has spoken the most astonishing, stupendously hideous laughable filth of the new century and perhaps the last.' read
August 9, 2008
from Info CLearing House
The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?
By Ron Suskind
07/08/08 "Huffington Post" -- - -What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way:
The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush — a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush’s famous deck of wanted men — has been America’s secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger. The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, “resettled” Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money. read
The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?
By Ron Suskind
07/08/08 "Huffington Post" -- - -What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way:
The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush — a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush’s famous deck of wanted men — has been America’s secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger. The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, “resettled” Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money. read
August 8, 2008
from what really happend
Why TV News in the US is Utter Rubbish
It's not just that world events are ignored in favour of celebrity gossip. News anchors skew the facts to provoke debate
By Kieren McCarthy
08/08/08 "The Guardian" -- - For years it has been a joke that news in the United States is terrible: obsessed with trivia and celebrity; fronted by Botox bimbos; forever interviewing citizens about some artefact of small-town life when a major news story is breaking elsewhere.
Well, the truth is that it's far, far worse than that. There are a multitude of news channels - CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox. But after an hour of flipping between them during lunchtime last week, this was the sum total of information gleaned: there are two US presidential candidates; they have produced campaign ads; people have made video parodies and posted them on the internet; a US TV news host appeared on a US TV chatshow last night; and someone said something controversial (read ignorant) on a different TV show the day before. read
Why TV News in the US is Utter Rubbish
It's not just that world events are ignored in favour of celebrity gossip. News anchors skew the facts to provoke debate
By Kieren McCarthy
08/08/08 "The Guardian" -- - For years it has been a joke that news in the United States is terrible: obsessed with trivia and celebrity; fronted by Botox bimbos; forever interviewing citizens about some artefact of small-town life when a major news story is breaking elsewhere.
Well, the truth is that it's far, far worse than that. There are a multitude of news channels - CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox. But after an hour of flipping between them during lunchtime last week, this was the sum total of information gleaned: there are two US presidential candidates; they have produced campaign ads; people have made video parodies and posted them on the internet; a US TV news host appeared on a US TV chatshow last night; and someone said something controversial (read ignorant) on a different TV show the day before. read
August 1, 2008
via George Washington's Blog
Government Tries to Bury Anthrax Story
The government is trying to bury the 2001 anthrax attack scandal (the anthrax came from a U.S. military base) by claiming that one of the key suspects - Bruce E. Ivins - was a "lone nut" who committed suicide. The government claims that the anthrax letters were an innocent mistake which was "part of an Army scientist's warped plan to test his cure for the deadly toxin". Case closed.
There are just a couple of loose ends: read
Government Tries to Bury Anthrax Story
The government is trying to bury the 2001 anthrax attack scandal (the anthrax came from a U.S. military base) by claiming that one of the key suspects - Bruce E. Ivins - was a "lone nut" who committed suicide. The government claims that the anthrax letters were an innocent mistake which was "part of an Army scientist's warped plan to test his cure for the deadly toxin". Case closed.
There are just a couple of loose ends: read
July 31, 2008
The Biggest Secret
One of the most important posts will give you an idea of 'real' world history starting with the Sumerians.
Please try to read some of this... read
One of the most important posts will give you an idea of 'real' world history starting with the Sumerians.
Please try to read some of this... read
July 28, 2008
From Salon.Com
Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power
Salon has uncovered new evidence of post-9/11 spying on Americans. Obtained documents point to a potential investigation of the White House that could rival Watergate.
Editor's note: This article is part of a Salon investigative series on spying inside the United States by the Bush administration. Research support for the article was provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.
July 23, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.
While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.
Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA's working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.
The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi's and Conyers' offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses -- and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.
"If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration's attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don't know," says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.
"You have to go back to the McCarthy era to find this level of abuse," says Barry Steinhardt, the director of the Program on Technology and Liberty for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Because the Bush administration has been so opaque, we don't know [the extent of] what laws have been violated."
The parameters for an investigation were outlined in a seven-page memo, written after the former member of the Church Committee met for discussions with the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause and other watchdog groups. Key issues to investigate, those involved say, would include the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance activities; the Central Intelligence Agency's use of extraordinary rendition and torture against terrorist suspects; and the U.S. government's extensive use of military assets -- including satellites, Pentagon intelligence agencies and U2 surveillance planes -- for a vast spying apparatus that could be used against the American people.
Specifically, the ACLU and other groups want to know how the NSA's use of databases and data mining may have meshed with other domestic intelligence activities, such as the U.S. government's extensive use of no-fly lists and the Treasury Department's list of "specially designated global terrorists" to identify potential suspects. As of mid-July, says Steinhardt, the no-fly list includes more than 1 million records corresponding to more than 400,000 names. If those people really represent terrorist threats, he says, "our cities would be ablaze." A deeper investigation into intelligence abuses should focus on how these lists feed on each other, Steinhardt says, as well as the government's "inexorable trend towards treating everyone as a suspect."
"It's not just the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program,'" agrees Gregory T. Nojeim from the Center for Democracy and Technology, referring to the Bush administration's misleading name for the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. "We need a broad investigation on the way all the moving parts fit together. It seems like we're always looking at little chunks and missing the big picture."
A prime area of inquiry for a sweeping new investigation would be the Bush administration's alleged use of a top-secret database to guide its domestic surveillance. Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as "Main Core," the database reportedly collects and stores -- without warrants or court orders -- the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security.
According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as "an emergency internal security database system" designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community."
Some of the former U.S. officials interviewed, although they have no direct knowledge of the issue, said they believe that Main Core may have been used by the NSA to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Moreover, the NSA's use of the database, they say, may have triggered the now-famous March 2004 confrontation between the White House and the Justice Department that nearly led Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI director William Mueller and other top Justice officials to resign en masse.
full story
Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power
Salon has uncovered new evidence of post-9/11 spying on Americans. Obtained documents point to a potential investigation of the White House that could rival Watergate.
Editor's note: This article is part of a Salon investigative series on spying inside the United States by the Bush administration. Research support for the article was provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.
July 23, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.
While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.
Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA's working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.
The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi's and Conyers' offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses -- and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.
"If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration's attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don't know," says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.
"You have to go back to the McCarthy era to find this level of abuse," says Barry Steinhardt, the director of the Program on Technology and Liberty for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Because the Bush administration has been so opaque, we don't know [the extent of] what laws have been violated."
The parameters for an investigation were outlined in a seven-page memo, written after the former member of the Church Committee met for discussions with the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause and other watchdog groups. Key issues to investigate, those involved say, would include the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance activities; the Central Intelligence Agency's use of extraordinary rendition and torture against terrorist suspects; and the U.S. government's extensive use of military assets -- including satellites, Pentagon intelligence agencies and U2 surveillance planes -- for a vast spying apparatus that could be used against the American people.
Specifically, the ACLU and other groups want to know how the NSA's use of databases and data mining may have meshed with other domestic intelligence activities, such as the U.S. government's extensive use of no-fly lists and the Treasury Department's list of "specially designated global terrorists" to identify potential suspects. As of mid-July, says Steinhardt, the no-fly list includes more than 1 million records corresponding to more than 400,000 names. If those people really represent terrorist threats, he says, "our cities would be ablaze." A deeper investigation into intelligence abuses should focus on how these lists feed on each other, Steinhardt says, as well as the government's "inexorable trend towards treating everyone as a suspect."
"It's not just the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program,'" agrees Gregory T. Nojeim from the Center for Democracy and Technology, referring to the Bush administration's misleading name for the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. "We need a broad investigation on the way all the moving parts fit together. It seems like we're always looking at little chunks and missing the big picture."
A prime area of inquiry for a sweeping new investigation would be the Bush administration's alleged use of a top-secret database to guide its domestic surveillance. Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as "Main Core," the database reportedly collects and stores -- without warrants or court orders -- the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security.
According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as "an emergency internal security database system" designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community."
Some of the former U.S. officials interviewed, although they have no direct knowledge of the issue, said they believe that Main Core may have been used by the NSA to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Moreover, the NSA's use of the database, they say, may have triggered the now-famous March 2004 confrontation between the White House and the Justice Department that nearly led Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI director William Mueller and other top Justice officials to resign en masse.
full story
July 26, 2008
From Unknown News.com
Court says Bush can order indefinite military detentions of US civilians
Excerpt: President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-4 decision.
But a second, overlapping 5-4 majority of the court, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there.
Comment: Someone explain to me why these alleged judges shouldn't be promptly impeached and disbarred. Angry Annie PERMANENT LINK
Have a little think about it, and you'll see that the
Fourth Circuit judges have just endorsed dictatorial powers
Excerpt: Wake up, America! On July 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled by 5 votes to 4 in the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli [pdf] that the president can arrest US citizens and legal residents inside the United States and imprison them indefinitely, without charge or trial, based solely on his assertion that they are "enemy combatants."
Court says Bush can order indefinite military detentions of US civilians
Excerpt: President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-4 decision.
But a second, overlapping 5-4 majority of the court, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there.
Comment: Someone explain to me why these alleged judges shouldn't be promptly impeached and disbarred. Angry Annie PERMANENT LINK
Have a little think about it, and you'll see that the
Fourth Circuit judges have just endorsed dictatorial powers
Excerpt: Wake up, America! On July 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled by 5 votes to 4 in the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli [pdf] that the president can arrest US citizens and legal residents inside the United States and imprison them indefinitely, without charge or trial, based solely on his assertion that they are "enemy combatants."
July 21, 2008
From Telegraph.uk
The global economy is at the point of maximum danger
By Ambrose Evans- Pritchard
Last Updated: 6:53am BST 21/07/2008
It feels like the summer of 1931. The world's two biggest financial institutions have had a heart attack. The global currency system is breaking down. The policy doctrines that got us into this mess are bankrupt. No world leader seems able to discern the problem, let alone forge a solution.
The International Monetary Fund has abdicated into schizophrenia. It has upgraded its 2008 world forecast from 3.7pc to 4.1pc growth, whilst warning of a "chance of a global recession". Plainly, the IMF cannot or will not offer any useful insights.
Its "mean-reversion" model misses the entire point of this crisis, which is that central banks have pushed debt to fatal levels by holding interest too low for a generation, and now the chickens have come home to roost. True "mean-reversion" would imply debt deflation on such a scale that would, if abrupt, threaten democracy.
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The risk is that these same central banks will commit a fresh error, this time overreacting to the oil spike. The European Central Bank has raised rates, warning of a 1970s wage-price spiral. Fixated on the rear-view mirror, it is not looking through the windscreen.
# More Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
# More on economics
The eurozone is falling into recession before the US itself. Its level of credit stress is worse, if measured by Euribor or the iTraxx bond indexes. Core inflation has fallen over the last year from 1.9pc to 1.8pc.
The US may soon tip into a second leg of this crisis as the fiscal package runs out and Americans lose jobs in earnest. US bank credit has contracted for three months. Real US wages fell at almost 10pc (annualised) over May and June. This is a ferocious squeeze for an economy already in the grip of the property and debt crunch.
No doubt the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - $5.3 trillion pillars of America's mortgage market - stinks of moral hazard. The Treasury is to buy shares: the Fed has opened its window yet wider. Risks have been socialised. Any rewards will go to capitalists.
Alas, no Scandinavian discipline for Wall Street. When Norway's banks fell below critical capital levels in the early 1990s, the Storting authorised seizure. Shareholders were stiffed.
But Nordic purism in the vast universe of US credit would court fate. The Californian lender IndyMac was indeed seized after depositors panicked on the streets of Encino. The police had to restore order. This was America's Northern Rock moment.
IndyMac will deplete a tenth of the $53bn reserve of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC has some 90 "troubled" lenders on watch. IndyMac was not one of them.
The awful reality is that Washington has its back to the wall. Fed chief Ben Bernanke thought the US could always get out of trouble by monetary stimulus "Ã l'outrance", and letting the dollar slide. He has learned that the world is a more complicated place.
Oil has queered the pitch. So has America's fatal reliance on foreign debt. The Fannie/Freddie rescue, incidentally, has just lifted the US national debt from German 'AAA' levels to Italian 'AA-' levels.
China, Russia, petro-powers and other foreign states own $985bn of US agency debt, besides holdings of US Treasuries. Purchases of Fannie/Freddie debt covered a third of the US current account deficit of $700bn over the last year. Alex Patelis from Merrill Lynch says America faces the risk of a "financing crisis" within months. Foreigners have a veto over US policy.
Japan did not have this problem during its Lost Decade. As the world's supplier of credit, it could let the yen slide. It also had a savings rate of 15pc. Albert Edwards from Société Générale says this has fallen to 3pc today. It has cushioned the slump. Americans are under water before they start.
My view is that a dollar crash will be averted as it becomes clearer that contagion has spread worldwide. But we are now at the point of maximum danger. Britain, Japan, and the Antipodes are stalling. Denmark is in recession. Germany contracted in the second quarter. May industrial output fell 6pc in Holland and 5.5pc in Sweden.
The coalitions in Belgium and Austria have just collapsed. Germany's left-right team is fraying. One German banker told me that the doctrines of "left Nazism" (Otto Strasser's group, purged by Hitler) had captured the rising Die Linke party. The Social Democrats are picking up its themes to protect their flank.
This is the healthy part of Europe. Further south, we are not far away from civic protest. BNP Paribas has just issued a hurricane alert for Spain.
Finance minister Pedro Solbes said Spain is facing the "most complex" economic crisis in its history. Actually, it is very simple. The country was lulled into a trap by giveaway interest rates of 2pc under EMU, leading to a current account deficit of 10pc of GDP.
A manic property bubble was funded by foreigners buying covered bonds and securities. This market has dried up. Monetary policy is now being tightened into the crunch by the ECB, hence the bankruptcy last week of Martinsa-Fadesa (€5.1bn). With Franco-era labour markets (70pc of wages are inflation-linked), the adjustment will occur through closure of the job marts.
China, India, East Europe and emerging Asia have all stolen growth from the future by condoning credit excess. To varying degrees, they are now being forced to pay back their own "inter-temporal overdrafts".
If we are lucky, America will start to stabilise before Asia goes down. Should our leaders mismanage affairs, almost every part of the global system will go down together. Then we are in trouble.
The global economy is at the point of maximum danger
By Ambrose Evans- Pritchard
Last Updated: 6:53am BST 21/07/2008
It feels like the summer of 1931. The world's two biggest financial institutions have had a heart attack. The global currency system is breaking down. The policy doctrines that got us into this mess are bankrupt. No world leader seems able to discern the problem, let alone forge a solution.
The International Monetary Fund has abdicated into schizophrenia. It has upgraded its 2008 world forecast from 3.7pc to 4.1pc growth, whilst warning of a "chance of a global recession". Plainly, the IMF cannot or will not offer any useful insights.
Its "mean-reversion" model misses the entire point of this crisis, which is that central banks have pushed debt to fatal levels by holding interest too low for a generation, and now the chickens have come home to roost. True "mean-reversion" would imply debt deflation on such a scale that would, if abrupt, threaten democracy.
advertisement
The risk is that these same central banks will commit a fresh error, this time overreacting to the oil spike. The European Central Bank has raised rates, warning of a 1970s wage-price spiral. Fixated on the rear-view mirror, it is not looking through the windscreen.
# More Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
# More on economics
The eurozone is falling into recession before the US itself. Its level of credit stress is worse, if measured by Euribor or the iTraxx bond indexes. Core inflation has fallen over the last year from 1.9pc to 1.8pc.
The US may soon tip into a second leg of this crisis as the fiscal package runs out and Americans lose jobs in earnest. US bank credit has contracted for three months. Real US wages fell at almost 10pc (annualised) over May and June. This is a ferocious squeeze for an economy already in the grip of the property and debt crunch.
No doubt the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - $5.3 trillion pillars of America's mortgage market - stinks of moral hazard. The Treasury is to buy shares: the Fed has opened its window yet wider. Risks have been socialised. Any rewards will go to capitalists.
Alas, no Scandinavian discipline for Wall Street. When Norway's banks fell below critical capital levels in the early 1990s, the Storting authorised seizure. Shareholders were stiffed.
But Nordic purism in the vast universe of US credit would court fate. The Californian lender IndyMac was indeed seized after depositors panicked on the streets of Encino. The police had to restore order. This was America's Northern Rock moment.
IndyMac will deplete a tenth of the $53bn reserve of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC has some 90 "troubled" lenders on watch. IndyMac was not one of them.
The awful reality is that Washington has its back to the wall. Fed chief Ben Bernanke thought the US could always get out of trouble by monetary stimulus "Ã l'outrance", and letting the dollar slide. He has learned that the world is a more complicated place.
Oil has queered the pitch. So has America's fatal reliance on foreign debt. The Fannie/Freddie rescue, incidentally, has just lifted the US national debt from German 'AAA' levels to Italian 'AA-' levels.
China, Russia, petro-powers and other foreign states own $985bn of US agency debt, besides holdings of US Treasuries. Purchases of Fannie/Freddie debt covered a third of the US current account deficit of $700bn over the last year. Alex Patelis from Merrill Lynch says America faces the risk of a "financing crisis" within months. Foreigners have a veto over US policy.
Japan did not have this problem during its Lost Decade. As the world's supplier of credit, it could let the yen slide. It also had a savings rate of 15pc. Albert Edwards from Société Générale says this has fallen to 3pc today. It has cushioned the slump. Americans are under water before they start.
My view is that a dollar crash will be averted as it becomes clearer that contagion has spread worldwide. But we are now at the point of maximum danger. Britain, Japan, and the Antipodes are stalling. Denmark is in recession. Germany contracted in the second quarter. May industrial output fell 6pc in Holland and 5.5pc in Sweden.
The coalitions in Belgium and Austria have just collapsed. Germany's left-right team is fraying. One German banker told me that the doctrines of "left Nazism" (Otto Strasser's group, purged by Hitler) had captured the rising Die Linke party. The Social Democrats are picking up its themes to protect their flank.
This is the healthy part of Europe. Further south, we are not far away from civic protest. BNP Paribas has just issued a hurricane alert for Spain.
Finance minister Pedro Solbes said Spain is facing the "most complex" economic crisis in its history. Actually, it is very simple. The country was lulled into a trap by giveaway interest rates of 2pc under EMU, leading to a current account deficit of 10pc of GDP.
A manic property bubble was funded by foreigners buying covered bonds and securities. This market has dried up. Monetary policy is now being tightened into the crunch by the ECB, hence the bankruptcy last week of Martinsa-Fadesa (€5.1bn). With Franco-era labour markets (70pc of wages are inflation-linked), the adjustment will occur through closure of the job marts.
China, India, East Europe and emerging Asia have all stolen growth from the future by condoning credit excess. To varying degrees, they are now being forced to pay back their own "inter-temporal overdrafts".
If we are lucky, America will start to stabilise before Asia goes down. Should our leaders mismanage affairs, almost every part of the global system will go down together. Then we are in trouble.
July 17, 2008
From Guardian.co.uk
Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'
· Nation slumps from 2nd to 12th in global table
· Richest fifth take home $168,000, poorest $11,000
* Ashley Seager
* The Guardian,
* Thursday July 17, 2008
* Article history
Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.
These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.
The American Human Development Report, which applies rankings of health, education and income to the US, paints a surprising picture of a country that spends well over $5bn each day on healthcare - more per person than any other country.
The report, Measure of America, was funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It shows each of the 11 countries that rank higher than the US in human development has a lower per-capita income.
Those countries score better on the health and knowledge indices that make up the overall human development index (HDI), which is calculated each year by the United Nations Development Programme.
And each has achieved better outcomes in areas such as infant mortality and longevity, with less spending per head.
Japanese, for example, can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years. In fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.
There are also wider differences, the report shows. The average Asian woman, for example, lives for almost 89 years, while African-American women live until 76. For men of the same groups, the difference is 14 years.
One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.
As a result, the US is ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday.
"Human development is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it," said the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, who developed the HDI in 1990.
"We get in this report ... an evaluation of what the limitations of human development are in the US but also ... how the relative place of America has been slipping in comparison with other countries over recent years."
The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.
It also reveals 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
And while in much of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia, levels of enrolment of three and four-year-olds in pre-school are running at about 75%, in the US it is little more than 50%.
The report not only highlights the differences between the US and other countries, it also picks up on the huge discrepancies between states, the country's 436 congressional districts and between ethnic groups.
"The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's co-author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.
"For example, the state human development index shows that people in last-ranked Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut."
Inequality remains stark. The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who make do with $11,352.
The US is far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare. The country has no federally mandated maternity leave.
The US also ranks first among the 30 rich countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.
It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners.
Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'
· Nation slumps from 2nd to 12th in global table
· Richest fifth take home $168,000, poorest $11,000
* Ashley Seager
* The Guardian,
* Thursday July 17, 2008
* Article history
Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.
These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.
The American Human Development Report, which applies rankings of health, education and income to the US, paints a surprising picture of a country that spends well over $5bn each day on healthcare - more per person than any other country.
The report, Measure of America, was funded by Oxfam America, the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It shows each of the 11 countries that rank higher than the US in human development has a lower per-capita income.
Those countries score better on the health and knowledge indices that make up the overall human development index (HDI), which is calculated each year by the United Nations Development Programme.
And each has achieved better outcomes in areas such as infant mortality and longevity, with less spending per head.
Japanese, for example, can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years. In fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.
There are also wider differences, the report shows. The average Asian woman, for example, lives for almost 89 years, while African-American women live until 76. For men of the same groups, the difference is 14 years.
One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.
As a result, the US is ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday.
"Human development is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it," said the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, who developed the HDI in 1990.
"We get in this report ... an evaluation of what the limitations of human development are in the US but also ... how the relative place of America has been slipping in comparison with other countries over recent years."
The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.
It also reveals 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
And while in much of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia, levels of enrolment of three and four-year-olds in pre-school are running at about 75%, in the US it is little more than 50%.
The report not only highlights the differences between the US and other countries, it also picks up on the huge discrepancies between states, the country's 436 congressional districts and between ethnic groups.
"The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's co-author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.
"For example, the state human development index shows that people in last-ranked Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut."
Inequality remains stark. The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who make do with $11,352.
The US is far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare. The country has no federally mandated maternity leave.
The US also ranks first among the 30 rich countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.
It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners.
July 15, 2008
From Information Clearing House
Enabling Tyranny
By Paul Craig Roberts
14/07/08 "ICH" --- I recently read that Brigette Bardot, now in her 70s, has been arrested as a hate criminal for complaining that Muslims in France slaughter sheep without first stunning them. The famous actress is known for her sympathy with animals, but the French government preferred to interpret her remarks as hatred for Muslims. Prosecutor Anne de Fontetts promised to throw the book at Bardot.
There are many incongruities here. The French are persecuting one of their own for taking exception to the practices of an alien culture. But then, perhaps this is just being broad-minded. What really jumps out is: if Bardot’s animal rights position makes her a hate criminal, what does French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s foreign policy position make him?
According to Information Clearing House’s running tally as of July 12, 1,236,604 Iraqis have been slaughtered as a result of the Sarkozy-supported US invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Bardot is a hate criminal under French law for complaining about how Muslims prepare their mutton, why isn’t President Sarkozy a hate criminal for supporting an American policy that has resulted in the deaths of 1,236,604 Muslims and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis?
Such incongruities are everywhere. It is as if people are no longer capable of thought.
Last week the US Congress passed an ex post facto law that legalized the illegal behavior of telecommunication companies that enabled the Bush Regime to violate US law and to spy on Americans without warrants. Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do.
The Bush Regime claimed that its illegal behavior, which requires an unconstitutional retroactive law to protect telecommunication companies and President Bush from being held accountable, is necessary to protect us. But as our Founding Fathers and every intelligent patriotic person since has patiently explained to the American public, it is the Constitution that protects us. No safety can be found by fleeing the Constitution.
Without the Constitution we have no protection. We simply stand naked before unbridled government power.
That’s pretty much how we stand now after 7.5 years of the Bush Regime. Electing a Democratic Congress in 2006 did not make any difference. Indeed, it was a Democratic majority Congress that last week gave Bush his unconstitutional ex post facto law.
As Larry Stratton and I point out in the new edition of Tyranny, the US Constitution has no friends. The Democrats don’t like the Second Amendment (another incongruity in the face of the right-wing police state that Bush has created), and the Brownshirt Republicans regard the rest of our civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists.
Across the political spectrum, Americans are happy to shred the Constitution in behalf of some agenda or the other.
The government is happy to oblige, because shredding the Constitution removes constraints on the government’s power.
It has fallen to the private, member-supported organization known as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to challenge the retroactive law that destroys the privacy rights granted to US citizens by the Constitution. The ACLU is regarded by conservatives as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, and the right-wing idiots on Fox “News” and talk radio will denounce the ACLU for wanting to empower terrorists.
Conservatives will repeat endlessly that Americans who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to fear. If this argument held any water, there would have been no point in the Founding Fathers writing the Constitution.
The position of the US Government is that the rights granted Americans by the Constitution facilitate terrorism. To be safe from terrorists, the argument goes, we must allow the government to take liberties with the Constitution. This argument gives government the power to set aside the Constitution, and, thus, enables tyranny. As Milton Friedman and many others taught us, rules are the essence of freedom, and discretionary power is the essence of tyranny.
Bush’s “war on terror,” essentially a hoax, has transformed the United States into a lawless nation. We are not lawless in the sense of an absence of laws. We are lawless in the sense that despite a surfeit of laws, we no longer have the rule of law.
If the President doesn’t like an existing law, he ignores it. If the President doesn’t like new laws passed by Congress, instead of vetoing them he prepares a “signing statement,” which says that he will determine what the law means.
This lawlessness has spread from the top of the federal government down to local governments and community associations. Recently the state of Georgia passed a law that reaffirmed that anyone with a carry permit was entitled to have their concealed weapon when dropping off or picking up passengers at the Atlanta airport. The Atlanta city government said it would not obey the state law and would arrest anyone, including the state legislator who sponsored the legislation, who carried a permitted weapon onto airport property.
A community in which I live has by-laws that forbid members of the board of the property owners association from serving as general manager of the designated community. This did not prevent the board from appointing one of their own the general manager. The POA board regards the by-laws which govern it as merely words without force.
Just like Bush regards the US Constitution.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan Administration, is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Enabling Tyranny
By Paul Craig Roberts
14/07/08 "ICH" --- I recently read that Brigette Bardot, now in her 70s, has been arrested as a hate criminal for complaining that Muslims in France slaughter sheep without first stunning them. The famous actress is known for her sympathy with animals, but the French government preferred to interpret her remarks as hatred for Muslims. Prosecutor Anne de Fontetts promised to throw the book at Bardot.
There are many incongruities here. The French are persecuting one of their own for taking exception to the practices of an alien culture. But then, perhaps this is just being broad-minded. What really jumps out is: if Bardot’s animal rights position makes her a hate criminal, what does French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s foreign policy position make him?
According to Information Clearing House’s running tally as of July 12, 1,236,604 Iraqis have been slaughtered as a result of the Sarkozy-supported US invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Bardot is a hate criminal under French law for complaining about how Muslims prepare their mutton, why isn’t President Sarkozy a hate criminal for supporting an American policy that has resulted in the deaths of 1,236,604 Muslims and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis?
Such incongruities are everywhere. It is as if people are no longer capable of thought.
Last week the US Congress passed an ex post facto law that legalized the illegal behavior of telecommunication companies that enabled the Bush Regime to violate US law and to spy on Americans without warrants. Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do.
The Bush Regime claimed that its illegal behavior, which requires an unconstitutional retroactive law to protect telecommunication companies and President Bush from being held accountable, is necessary to protect us. But as our Founding Fathers and every intelligent patriotic person since has patiently explained to the American public, it is the Constitution that protects us. No safety can be found by fleeing the Constitution.
Without the Constitution we have no protection. We simply stand naked before unbridled government power.
That’s pretty much how we stand now after 7.5 years of the Bush Regime. Electing a Democratic Congress in 2006 did not make any difference. Indeed, it was a Democratic majority Congress that last week gave Bush his unconstitutional ex post facto law.
As Larry Stratton and I point out in the new edition of Tyranny, the US Constitution has no friends. The Democrats don’t like the Second Amendment (another incongruity in the face of the right-wing police state that Bush has created), and the Brownshirt Republicans regard the rest of our civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists.
Across the political spectrum, Americans are happy to shred the Constitution in behalf of some agenda or the other.
The government is happy to oblige, because shredding the Constitution removes constraints on the government’s power.
It has fallen to the private, member-supported organization known as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to challenge the retroactive law that destroys the privacy rights granted to US citizens by the Constitution. The ACLU is regarded by conservatives as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, and the right-wing idiots on Fox “News” and talk radio will denounce the ACLU for wanting to empower terrorists.
Conservatives will repeat endlessly that Americans who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to fear. If this argument held any water, there would have been no point in the Founding Fathers writing the Constitution.
The position of the US Government is that the rights granted Americans by the Constitution facilitate terrorism. To be safe from terrorists, the argument goes, we must allow the government to take liberties with the Constitution. This argument gives government the power to set aside the Constitution, and, thus, enables tyranny. As Milton Friedman and many others taught us, rules are the essence of freedom, and discretionary power is the essence of tyranny.
Bush’s “war on terror,” essentially a hoax, has transformed the United States into a lawless nation. We are not lawless in the sense of an absence of laws. We are lawless in the sense that despite a surfeit of laws, we no longer have the rule of law.
If the President doesn’t like an existing law, he ignores it. If the President doesn’t like new laws passed by Congress, instead of vetoing them he prepares a “signing statement,” which says that he will determine what the law means.
This lawlessness has spread from the top of the federal government down to local governments and community associations. Recently the state of Georgia passed a law that reaffirmed that anyone with a carry permit was entitled to have their concealed weapon when dropping off or picking up passengers at the Atlanta airport. The Atlanta city government said it would not obey the state law and would arrest anyone, including the state legislator who sponsored the legislation, who carried a permitted weapon onto airport property.
A community in which I live has by-laws that forbid members of the board of the property owners association from serving as general manager of the designated community. This did not prevent the board from appointing one of their own the general manager. The POA board regards the by-laws which govern it as merely words without force.
Just like Bush regards the US Constitution.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan Administration, is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
July 13, 2008
From RawStory
Red Cross finds Bush administration guilty of war crimes
Andrew McLemore
Published: Saturday July 12, 2008
In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.
Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho said he had been waterboarded, "slammed against the walls" and confined in boxes "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position." read more
Red Cross finds Bush administration guilty of war crimes
Andrew McLemore
Published: Saturday July 12, 2008
In a secret report last year, the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Red Cross determined the culpability of the Bush administration after interviewing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the article.
Prisoner Abu Zubaydahwho said he had been waterboarded, "slammed against the walls" and confined in boxes "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position." read more
July 10, 2008
July 3, 2008
From RawStory.com
Judge rebukes Bush admin on warrantless spying
Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday July 3, 2008
A federal judge in California has rejected President Bush's stated view that he is authorized to ignore the law and institute warrantless surveillance of Americans.
US District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker confirmed that the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the "exclusive" means for domestic intelligence collection. Walker, chief judge for the Northern District of California, is hearing legal challenges to the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program as well as lawsuits against telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon.
Walker's latest finding comes in the case of an Oregon charity that says it was subject to a warrantless NSA wiretap, the New York Times reports.
The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.
But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.
“Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted,” the judge wrote. “Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing plaintiffs in lawsuits before Walker, praised the decision on its blog.
"The Court rejected the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA," wrote EFF's Kurt Opsahl.
The "bad news," though, is that Walker ultimately ruled that the charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, ultimately was unable to sufficiently show they were "aggrieved" under FISA. The judge did allow the group to re-file its case with more information.
EFF said the ruling "undermines" arguments in favor of granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that are subject to separate lawsuits. A FISA update bill in the Senate would effectively eliminate those suits.
Walker ruled against a "routine" dismissal of lawsuits based on state secrets privilege. In a lawsuit against AT&T, EFF is relying on internal company documents -- obtained from a whistle-blower -- it says show the company gave the NSA unfettered access to its networks. Such documents have not been declared a state secret, so the group says Walker's ruling could help that case.
Recognizing that a Congressional endorsement of telecom immunity seems inevitable, though, Wired's David Kravets says the ruling doesn't have much impact.
"If the [FISA] bill languishes or is scuttled, Walker's ruling could embolden the EFF's suit, which is also before Judge Walker," he writes. "If the legislation passes, Walker's ruling is irrelevant insofar as lawsuits targeting telecoms' alleged complicity with the Bush administration are concerned."
Judge rebukes Bush admin on warrantless spying
Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday July 3, 2008
A federal judge in California has rejected President Bush's stated view that he is authorized to ignore the law and institute warrantless surveillance of Americans.
US District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker confirmed that the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the "exclusive" means for domestic intelligence collection. Walker, chief judge for the Northern District of California, is hearing legal challenges to the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program as well as lawsuits against telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon.
Walker's latest finding comes in the case of an Oregon charity that says it was subject to a warrantless NSA wiretap, the New York Times reports.
The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.
But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.
“Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted,” the judge wrote. “Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing plaintiffs in lawsuits before Walker, praised the decision on its blog.
"The Court rejected the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA," wrote EFF's Kurt Opsahl.
The "bad news," though, is that Walker ultimately ruled that the charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, ultimately was unable to sufficiently show they were "aggrieved" under FISA. The judge did allow the group to re-file its case with more information.
EFF said the ruling "undermines" arguments in favor of granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that are subject to separate lawsuits. A FISA update bill in the Senate would effectively eliminate those suits.
Walker ruled against a "routine" dismissal of lawsuits based on state secrets privilege. In a lawsuit against AT&T, EFF is relying on internal company documents -- obtained from a whistle-blower -- it says show the company gave the NSA unfettered access to its networks. Such documents have not been declared a state secret, so the group says Walker's ruling could help that case.
Recognizing that a Congressional endorsement of telecom immunity seems inevitable, though, Wired's David Kravets says the ruling doesn't have much impact.
"If the [FISA] bill languishes or is scuttled, Walker's ruling could embolden the EFF's suit, which is also before Judge Walker," he writes. "If the legislation passes, Walker's ruling is irrelevant insofar as lawsuits targeting telecoms' alleged complicity with the Bush administration are concerned."
July 2, 2008
From 911 Hoax
Emergency Congressional Meeting - Closed Door Session
Note: the following remarks were sent to this author after Congress closed-door session (3/14/2008)
LAST NIGHT'S SPECIAL "CLOSED SESSION" OF U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSED A LOT MORE THAN THE PENDING SECURITY SURVEILLANCE PROVISIONS
LAST NIGHTS SESSION WAS ONLY THE FOURTH TIME IN 176 YEARS THAT CONGRESS CLOSED ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC
Word has begun leaking from last nights special, closed-door session of the United States House of Representatives.
Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the publicly stated reason for the closed door session, they were also bluntly warned about:
the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy to occur by September 2008,
the imminent collapse of US federal government finances by February 2009,
the possibility of Civil War inside the USA as a result of the collapse,
advance round-ups of "insurgent U.S. citizens" likely to move against the government,
The detention of those rounded-up at "REX 84" camps constructed throughout the USA,
the possibility of retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses,
the location of "safe facilities" for members of Congress and their families to reside during expected massive civil unrest
the necessary and unavoidable merger of the United States with Canada (for its natural resources) and with Mexico (for its cheap labor pool),
the issuance of a new currency - THE AMERO - for all three nations as the proposed solution to the coming economic armageddon.
Members of Congress were FORBIDDEN to reveal what was discussed and ABC News via WCPO web site at the link below CONFIRMS congress members were FORBIDDEN to talk about it!
Several are so furious and concerned about the future of the country, they have begun leaking info. More details coming later today and over the weekend.
Emergency Congressional Meeting - Closed Door Session
Note: the following remarks were sent to this author after Congress closed-door session (3/14/2008)
LAST NIGHT'S SPECIAL "CLOSED SESSION" OF U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSED A LOT MORE THAN THE PENDING SECURITY SURVEILLANCE PROVISIONS
LAST NIGHTS SESSION WAS ONLY THE FOURTH TIME IN 176 YEARS THAT CONGRESS CLOSED ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC
Word has begun leaking from last nights special, closed-door session of the United States House of Representatives.
Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the publicly stated reason for the closed door session, they were also bluntly warned about:
the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy to occur by September 2008,
the imminent collapse of US federal government finances by February 2009,
the possibility of Civil War inside the USA as a result of the collapse,
advance round-ups of "insurgent U.S. citizens" likely to move against the government,
The detention of those rounded-up at "REX 84" camps constructed throughout the USA,
the possibility of retaliation against members of Congress for the collapses,
the location of "safe facilities" for members of Congress and their families to reside during expected massive civil unrest
the necessary and unavoidable merger of the United States with Canada (for its natural resources) and with Mexico (for its cheap labor pool),
the issuance of a new currency - THE AMERO - for all three nations as the proposed solution to the coming economic armageddon.
Members of Congress were FORBIDDEN to reveal what was discussed and ABC News via WCPO web site at the link below CONFIRMS congress members were FORBIDDEN to talk about it!
Several are so furious and concerned about the future of the country, they have begun leaking info. More details coming later today and over the weekend.
June 27, 2008
From What Really Happened
The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal'
In a June 6 letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey--largely ignored by a press immersed in the future of Hillary Clinton--56 Democrats in the House of Representatives asked for "an immediate investigation with the appointment of a special counsel to determine whether actions taken by the President, his Cabinet, and other Administration officials are in violation of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441) . . . and other U.S. and international laws."
This isn't front-page news?
This isn't front page news because the servile corporate media enablers of this administration refuse to cover it, pure and simple.
The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal'
In a June 6 letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey--largely ignored by a press immersed in the future of Hillary Clinton--56 Democrats in the House of Representatives asked for "an immediate investigation with the appointment of a special counsel to determine whether actions taken by the President, his Cabinet, and other Administration officials are in violation of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441) . . . and other U.S. and international laws."
This isn't front-page news?
This isn't front page news because the servile corporate media enablers of this administration refuse to cover it, pure and simple.
June 23, 2008
From Yahoo News
George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero
LOS ANGELES - George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press. read
George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero
LOS ANGELES - George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press. read
June 21, 2008
From Chris Floyd
Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences
Friday, 20 June 2008
This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration's torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration's highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.
It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system's architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony. read
Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences
Friday, 20 June 2008
This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration's torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration's highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.
It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system's architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony. read
June 12, 2008
From Counterpunch.Org
Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption
By STEPHEN LENDMAN
Information for this article comes from long-time business, finance and political writer and analyst Bob Chapman who publishes the bi-weekly International Forecaster. It's power-packed with key information and a valued source for this writer. He obtained voluminous material directly from its source. People need to know it. Read on.
SueAnn Arrigo is the source. She was a high-level CIA insider. Her title was Special Operations Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). She also established the Remote Viewing Defense protocols for the Pentagon in her capacity as Remote Viewing Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It earned her a two-star general rank in the military. She called it a "ploy" so the Pentagon could get more of her time and have her attend monthly Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings. Only high-level types are invited, and she was there from October 2003 to July 2004.
Part of her job involved intelligence gathering on Iraq and Afghanistan - until August 2004 when she refused to spread propaganda about a non-existant Iranian nuclear weapons program and left. She followed in the footsteps of others at CIA who resigned for reasons of conscience and became critics - most notably Ray McGovern, Ralph McGehee, and Phil Agee.
On May 16, 2008, Arrigo sent extensive government corruption and cover-up information to Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee - in 12 separate cases. This article covers four of them or about one-third of what Congress got. The 12 are explosive and revealing but just the tip of the iceberg:
-- of government corruption and war profiteering;
-- sweetheart deals and kickbacks;
-- high-level types on the take;
-- trillions of missing dollars;
-- on September 10, 2001, Rumsfeld admitting "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions;"
-- imagine the current amount;
-- its corrosive effect on the nation; and people should
-- demand accountability - who profits, who pays and what are the consequences of militarism gone mad.
read entire article
Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption
By STEPHEN LENDMAN
Information for this article comes from long-time business, finance and political writer and analyst Bob Chapman who publishes the bi-weekly International Forecaster. It's power-packed with key information and a valued source for this writer. He obtained voluminous material directly from its source. People need to know it. Read on.
SueAnn Arrigo is the source. She was a high-level CIA insider. Her title was Special Operations Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). She also established the Remote Viewing Defense protocols for the Pentagon in her capacity as Remote Viewing Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It earned her a two-star general rank in the military. She called it a "ploy" so the Pentagon could get more of her time and have her attend monthly Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings. Only high-level types are invited, and she was there from October 2003 to July 2004.
Part of her job involved intelligence gathering on Iraq and Afghanistan - until August 2004 when she refused to spread propaganda about a non-existant Iranian nuclear weapons program and left. She followed in the footsteps of others at CIA who resigned for reasons of conscience and became critics - most notably Ray McGovern, Ralph McGehee, and Phil Agee.
On May 16, 2008, Arrigo sent extensive government corruption and cover-up information to Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee - in 12 separate cases. This article covers four of them or about one-third of what Congress got. The 12 are explosive and revealing but just the tip of the iceberg:
-- of government corruption and war profiteering;
-- sweetheart deals and kickbacks;
-- high-level types on the take;
-- trillions of missing dollars;
-- on September 10, 2001, Rumsfeld admitting "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions;"
-- imagine the current amount;
-- its corrosive effect on the nation; and people should
-- demand accountability - who profits, who pays and what are the consequences of militarism gone mad.
read entire article
June 11, 2008
How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?
(From What Really Happened)
The many lies told by Fox and Bill O'Reilly are probable cause to suspect Fox of criminal complicity with the Bush regime. It is reasonable to suspect that Fox is called Bush's 'propaganda ministry' because it is Bush's propaganda ministry. Bush may yet stand trial for war crimes and mass murder. But what of his enablers inside his 'propaganda ministry'? It is reasonable to ask how many members of the Fox board, how many executives, how many on-camera shills share Bush's guilt for having perpetrated a murderous lie upon the American people and the world. read
(From What Really Happened)
The many lies told by Fox and Bill O'Reilly are probable cause to suspect Fox of criminal complicity with the Bush regime. It is reasonable to suspect that Fox is called Bush's 'propaganda ministry' because it is Bush's propaganda ministry. Bush may yet stand trial for war crimes and mass murder. But what of his enablers inside his 'propaganda ministry'? It is reasonable to ask how many members of the Fox board, how many executives, how many on-camera shills share Bush's guilt for having perpetrated a murderous lie upon the American people and the world. read
June 9, 2008
From: Information Clearing House
A Special Thank You To George W Bush
By Ted Twietmeyer 6-7-8
On behalf of the American people, today I step forward and extend my thanks to you. During your two terms in office, you've worked very hard to help the average American's life. I'd like to take a moment or two and specifically thank you for the following:
* The stress of going to work for millions of Americans has been greatly relieved by your diligent efforts by sending all those terrible sources of income to China.
* Now that we have Homeland Security we can all sleep better knowing that when the doors of our homes are kicked in at night, it will be only for our protection and our own good. We trust you implicitly to do the right thing.
* Millions of Americans, who have been stressed out for years by living the American Dream of owning a home, will no longer have these worries. Living in a car or RV is so much simpler, and far more comfortable.
* The mice, ants, roaches and other pests brought on by having food in American cupboards and pantries has finally been brought under control. The New America you've given us has made that happen, by emptying pantries and cupboards all across America. Companies like D-Con, Rent-A-Kill and Orkin may have their very existence in peril with the lack of food.
* Your 100 year war you have bestowed upon the American people and indeed, all of the western world to fight terrorism will provide jobs for all. All those children from your wonderful "No Child Left Behind" public school policy that are now graduating from high schools everywhere are unfit for college. But they will find food, shelter, training and employment under the loving organization of Homeland Security.
* You have shown us you must be a God, for you could see the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center which was never televised. You were so humble that you didn't want to admit you could see it without the aid of television, so you stated you saw it on television.
* We all thank you for your gift of the Patriot Act. Since the 1200+ page document was all ready to sign the same week as 9-11, clearly you have the gift of foresight and had it all ready ahead of time. You saw that terrible evil coming on 9-11, but you didn't stop it because all those deaths were good forAmerica.
* Your quiet, diligent work to take down America's borders by leaving them effectively undefended to allow millions of illegal aliens to enter America and burden her down in her time of need, is a love for America beyond compare.
* We all understand even another way you show us love, by the special protections you give to corporations like Blackwater that help destroy America's reputation. We realize that it's for our own good.
* We're all so sorry that those six nuclear weapons that reached Barksdale, Louisiana last year (the logistics staging airbase for the mid-east war) were stopped by those annoying patriotic Americans. They should have been allowed to proceed to destroy Iran and officially start WW3. After all, you know what's best for America.
* All Americans everywhere want to join together and thank you for the highest fuel prices in the history of the planet. It took you considerable hard work and the courage to give away all the Iraqi oil to foreign corporations that many thousands of American soldiers died for, to make this gift become a reality. Because of this wonderful gift, millions of Americans will no be troubled by making vacation plans. And they will not have to endure all that stress relief that goes with a nice vacation.
* We all want to extend a special thank you for staging not one war, but two wars without any means to pay for them. Foolish people on Capitol Hill during WW2 wasted so much time selling war bonds to pay for that war. Perhaps by the end of 2008, you can get a third front started for us to enjoy with no possible way to pay for it.
* Millions of homeowners everywhere are so grateful that you have pulled funding from minor projects like rebuilding America's aging infrastructure. Cities and towns everywhere have created tremendous tax increases, and homeowners everywhere are so happy about it they have used garage and yard sales to display and celebrate their gratitude for taxes they cannot afford.
* We're all grateful for you not working too hard to find your arch enemy and supposed architect of 9-11, Bin Laden. We understand your need for him, and that finding him would end all justification for the mid-east conflict. No one wants to let the air out of your war tires.
* There all are those careers you've so graciously destroyed in the military to protect yourself. These patriotic men and women have no business upholding the Constitution like they have, despite their oath when each was sworn in at the induction center. Their allegiance must be to you, not the Constitution. You have stated to us that the Constitution is "just a God-Da..d piece of paper" and this is how we know that you are where everyone's faith must be centered.
* Surely there are many more gifts you've given America, and we're terribly sorry if we have omitted them. And we're all sure, that the coming atrocities you'll bestow upon us and the world before you leave office will be for the good of America, and the entire world.
In closing, I'd like to say that destroying America with a carefully crafted plan is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Certainly, you make Mike Rowe proud. But I don't think he'd be able to do your dirty job in a short segment on his cable show, "Dirty Jobs."
A Special Thank You To George W Bush
By Ted Twietmeyer 6-7-8
On behalf of the American people, today I step forward and extend my thanks to you. During your two terms in office, you've worked very hard to help the average American's life. I'd like to take a moment or two and specifically thank you for the following:
* The stress of going to work for millions of Americans has been greatly relieved by your diligent efforts by sending all those terrible sources of income to China.
* Now that we have Homeland Security we can all sleep better knowing that when the doors of our homes are kicked in at night, it will be only for our protection and our own good. We trust you implicitly to do the right thing.
* Millions of Americans, who have been stressed out for years by living the American Dream of owning a home, will no longer have these worries. Living in a car or RV is so much simpler, and far more comfortable.
* The mice, ants, roaches and other pests brought on by having food in American cupboards and pantries has finally been brought under control. The New America you've given us has made that happen, by emptying pantries and cupboards all across America. Companies like D-Con, Rent-A-Kill and Orkin may have their very existence in peril with the lack of food.
* Your 100 year war you have bestowed upon the American people and indeed, all of the western world to fight terrorism will provide jobs for all. All those children from your wonderful "No Child Left Behind" public school policy that are now graduating from high schools everywhere are unfit for college. But they will find food, shelter, training and employment under the loving organization of Homeland Security.
* You have shown us you must be a God, for you could see the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center which was never televised. You were so humble that you didn't want to admit you could see it without the aid of television, so you stated you saw it on television.
* We all thank you for your gift of the Patriot Act. Since the 1200+ page document was all ready to sign the same week as 9-11, clearly you have the gift of foresight and had it all ready ahead of time. You saw that terrible evil coming on 9-11, but you didn't stop it because all those deaths were good forAmerica.
* Your quiet, diligent work to take down America's borders by leaving them effectively undefended to allow millions of illegal aliens to enter America and burden her down in her time of need, is a love for America beyond compare.
* We all understand even another way you show us love, by the special protections you give to corporations like Blackwater that help destroy America's reputation. We realize that it's for our own good.
* We're all so sorry that those six nuclear weapons that reached Barksdale, Louisiana last year (the logistics staging airbase for the mid-east war) were stopped by those annoying patriotic Americans. They should have been allowed to proceed to destroy Iran and officially start WW3. After all, you know what's best for America.
* All Americans everywhere want to join together and thank you for the highest fuel prices in the history of the planet. It took you considerable hard work and the courage to give away all the Iraqi oil to foreign corporations that many thousands of American soldiers died for, to make this gift become a reality. Because of this wonderful gift, millions of Americans will no be troubled by making vacation plans. And they will not have to endure all that stress relief that goes with a nice vacation.
* We all want to extend a special thank you for staging not one war, but two wars without any means to pay for them. Foolish people on Capitol Hill during WW2 wasted so much time selling war bonds to pay for that war. Perhaps by the end of 2008, you can get a third front started for us to enjoy with no possible way to pay for it.
* Millions of homeowners everywhere are so grateful that you have pulled funding from minor projects like rebuilding America's aging infrastructure. Cities and towns everywhere have created tremendous tax increases, and homeowners everywhere are so happy about it they have used garage and yard sales to display and celebrate their gratitude for taxes they cannot afford.
* We're all grateful for you not working too hard to find your arch enemy and supposed architect of 9-11, Bin Laden. We understand your need for him, and that finding him would end all justification for the mid-east conflict. No one wants to let the air out of your war tires.
* There all are those careers you've so graciously destroyed in the military to protect yourself. These patriotic men and women have no business upholding the Constitution like they have, despite their oath when each was sworn in at the induction center. Their allegiance must be to you, not the Constitution. You have stated to us that the Constitution is "just a God-Da..d piece of paper" and this is how we know that you are where everyone's faith must be centered.
* Surely there are many more gifts you've given America, and we're terribly sorry if we have omitted them. And we're all sure, that the coming atrocities you'll bestow upon us and the world before you leave office will be for the good of America, and the entire world.
In closing, I'd like to say that destroying America with a carefully crafted plan is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Certainly, you make Mike Rowe proud. But I don't think he'd be able to do your dirty job in a short segment on his cable show, "Dirty Jobs."
June 5, 2008
From TBR News:
The Voice of the White House
Washington , D.C. , June 1, 2008 : “My colleague here showed me an overview, official study concerning U.S. detainees. It is not generally knows to the public but the U.S government now has over 30,000 (31,082 as of May 19, 2008 ) people in secret custody, all over the world.
An official U.S. program of torture and ‘rendition’ has been going on since before 9/11 and has never stopped. A number, estimated to be approximately 3,500, have been killed during these interrogations or have died as the result of them. read
The Voice of the White House
Washington , D.C. , June 1, 2008 : “My colleague here showed me an overview, official study concerning U.S. detainees. It is not generally knows to the public but the U.S government now has over 30,000 (31,082 as of May 19, 2008 ) people in secret custody, all over the world.
An official U.S. program of torture and ‘rendition’ has been going on since before 9/11 and has never stopped. A number, estimated to be approximately 3,500, have been killed during these interrogations or have died as the result of them. read
May 31, 2008
ARE YOU ANGRY YET? ~~ YOU SHOULD BE!
A must read post by Michael Rivero of What Really Happened.
You should be! You’ve been lied to. Your tax money has been taken from you and spent under false pretenses. Your children have been sent off to kill and be killed in an illegal war launched without Congressional approval. You who fought in the war and think you came back home healthy, well, you’ve been lied to as well. Your health is all downhill from here (ask any Vet from Desert Storm), and your children will have a higher incidence of birth defects because that depleted uranium isn’t as harmless as you were told it was. And those VA medical benefits you were promised? That was a lie too. Are you angry yet? read
A must read post by Michael Rivero of What Really Happened.
You should be! You’ve been lied to. Your tax money has been taken from you and spent under false pretenses. Your children have been sent off to kill and be killed in an illegal war launched without Congressional approval. You who fought in the war and think you came back home healthy, well, you’ve been lied to as well. Your health is all downhill from here (ask any Vet from Desert Storm), and your children will have a higher incidence of birth defects because that depleted uranium isn’t as harmless as you were told it was. And those VA medical benefits you were promised? That was a lie too. Are you angry yet? read
May 28, 2008
From Yahoo News:
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan reveals truth about IRAQ war
WASHINGTON - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'
The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."
The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."
"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.
White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague. read
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan reveals truth about IRAQ war
WASHINGTON - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'
The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."
The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."
"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.
White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague. read
May 27, 2008
From Keyhole Publishing
Orwellian America: 9/11 and the Road to Iran
Richard M. Dolan - May 9, 2008
Played Like Suckers
As the father of two homeschooled children, I find myself doing all kinds of unusual, albeit engaging, activities that I might not otherwise be doing. For instance, my son, Michael, who is nearly 12 and shares many of my interests, graciously encourages me to read some of the books that he’s reading. He’s still trying to hook me on his Dungeons & Dragons library – not much luck there yet – but we do love history both ancient and modern. Last year, we read all of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey together. Most recently, we finished George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
I have been a fan of Orwell since my teens. Yet, it’s been many years since I read this little classic novella, a brilliant allegory of the Russian Revolution. Napoleon the pig was modeled on Stalin – he eventually becomes indistinguishable from the humans, even to the point of walking on his hind legs and carrying a whip.
One of the horses, Boxer, is the tragic hero. Boxer believes in the Revolution, he believes in Animal Farm. He works and works, and then works himself into exhaustion. His two mottos are “I will work harder,” and “Napoleon is always right.” At the end, he is sold to the slaughterhouse and turned into glue. The money from his sale brings in a crate of whisky for Napoleon. read
Orwellian America: 9/11 and the Road to Iran
Richard M. Dolan - May 9, 2008
Played Like Suckers
As the father of two homeschooled children, I find myself doing all kinds of unusual, albeit engaging, activities that I might not otherwise be doing. For instance, my son, Michael, who is nearly 12 and shares many of my interests, graciously encourages me to read some of the books that he’s reading. He’s still trying to hook me on his Dungeons & Dragons library – not much luck there yet – but we do love history both ancient and modern. Last year, we read all of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey together. Most recently, we finished George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
I have been a fan of Orwell since my teens. Yet, it’s been many years since I read this little classic novella, a brilliant allegory of the Russian Revolution. Napoleon the pig was modeled on Stalin – he eventually becomes indistinguishable from the humans, even to the point of walking on his hind legs and carrying a whip.
One of the horses, Boxer, is the tragic hero. Boxer believes in the Revolution, he believes in Animal Farm. He works and works, and then works himself into exhaustion. His two mottos are “I will work harder,” and “Napoleon is always right.” At the end, he is sold to the slaughterhouse and turned into glue. The money from his sale brings in a crate of whisky for Napoleon. read
May 20, 2008
For Profit
By Malcolm Martin
From 19/05/08 ICH
Our children are taught that the United States of America is a democracy. As the tale is told, at the founding of the nation, a government “of, by, and for the people” was established. Four score and seven years later, a President Abraham Lincoln called the nation’s people to join and die in a great civil war that such a form of government might not perish from the earth and their eventual victory preserved American democracy into the future.
Those children can someday refer to the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the full story. But aside from how closely this lesson is in accord with the historic truth, the idea has today become an outright lie and an utter absurdity. The United States of America is now better described as a corporatocracy. The government is owned and the people are dictated to by these capitalist creations whose God is Mammon. Ironically as Lincoln spoke his immortal words at Gettysburg, the Industrial Revolution had begun to generate these entities that would have completely removed any vestige of American democracy seven score and five years later.
Corporations are, of course, different from people. They are devoid of human emotion. They are constitutionally unable to generate empathy. They feel nothing if people suffer exploitation, if people live in misery, or if people die horribly. Union Carbide was unaffected by the thousands dead and dying in Bhopal. It registered only on a balance sheet as a $470-million loss taken for the sake of future corporate viability under a new name, Dow Chemical. The corporation cannot be reasoned with, pleaded with, or shamed into changing course even in times like these, when life on the planet hangs in the balance. McDonald’s is in the process of teaching Starbucks that even the pretense of a social conscience is too expensive a marketing ploy. read
By Malcolm Martin
From 19/05/08 ICH
Our children are taught that the United States of America is a democracy. As the tale is told, at the founding of the nation, a government “of, by, and for the people” was established. Four score and seven years later, a President Abraham Lincoln called the nation’s people to join and die in a great civil war that such a form of government might not perish from the earth and their eventual victory preserved American democracy into the future.
Those children can someday refer to the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for the full story. But aside from how closely this lesson is in accord with the historic truth, the idea has today become an outright lie and an utter absurdity. The United States of America is now better described as a corporatocracy. The government is owned and the people are dictated to by these capitalist creations whose God is Mammon. Ironically as Lincoln spoke his immortal words at Gettysburg, the Industrial Revolution had begun to generate these entities that would have completely removed any vestige of American democracy seven score and five years later.
Corporations are, of course, different from people. They are devoid of human emotion. They are constitutionally unable to generate empathy. They feel nothing if people suffer exploitation, if people live in misery, or if people die horribly. Union Carbide was unaffected by the thousands dead and dying in Bhopal. It registered only on a balance sheet as a $470-million loss taken for the sake of future corporate viability under a new name, Dow Chemical. The corporation cannot be reasoned with, pleaded with, or shamed into changing course even in times like these, when life on the planet hangs in the balance. McDonald’s is in the process of teaching Starbucks that even the pretense of a social conscience is too expensive a marketing ploy. read
May 3, 2008
From What Does it Mean
Top CIA Agent Killed Trying To Protect D.C. Madam
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Russian Security Services are reporting today on a bizarre plot currently unfolding in the United States where one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) top agents was gunned down by US police while attempting to reach Deborah Palfrey, a woman known as the D.C. Madam, and who was, also, found dead by hanging.
Roland Carnaby these reports state, the CIA’s top US operative for American Affairs, and codenamed in former KGB files as “Tuxedo”, was gunned down by police in Houston, Texas, after a high-speed chase he was engaged in while attempting to foil the kidnapping attempt against him and his wife.
US news reports also show that CIA Agent Carnaby’s attempts to call for help from his contacts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prior to his being murdered were not answered in time. US news reports are also reporting that Carnaby’s wife has retained an attorney and plans to sue American authorities for her husband’s brutal death.
To the greatest mystery, however, of the murdering of this CIA officer, according to these FSB reports, is that Agent Carnaby was tasked by his superiors to meet with the recently convicted D.C. Madam Deborah Palfrey in her Florida home, and who had reported to the CIA that her life was ‘in danger’ over her threatening to release her secret files that would detail the high-level US Government Officials who utilized her prostitution services.
Of the top US Officials said to have been a client of the D.C. Madam was one of their top War Leaders, Vice President Richard Cheney, and as we can read:
"Apparently, the ABC-owned radio station did not like our report that Disney/ABC, under pressure from the White House, killed the DC Madam's list story. The two morning radio hosts also did not like our report that Vice President Dick Cheney is on the list from his time as a part-time resident of McLean, Virginia while he was President and CEO of Halliburton."
These FSB reports continue by stating that with the War Leaders in the US currently in their last weeks, or days, of expanding their current wars to engulf the entire Middle East, and with their time in office running short, they could ill afford yet another scandal, of which the secret files of the D.C. Madam would certainly ignite.
Russian Legal Analysts further point out in these reports that even though the D.C. Madam had been convicted by a US Federal Court, her death prior to her appeals being filed mean that her conviction is now set aside and she is now, even though dead, now ‘innocent’ of all charges against her.
The importance to this turn of events, the Legal Analysts say, is that with the D.C. Madam now being ‘innocent’ the US Government now has no legal claims to her secret files, and which they had planned on confiscating since her announcement of releasing them to the public through a bidding process.
It must be cautioned, however, the FSB concludes in their report summary, that it is entirely possible that the D.C. Madam may not be dead and has, instead, been brought into greater protection for later use against American War Leaders through this apparent suicide of hers.
To whichever the case may be it is not in our knowing, expect to point out the most obvious fact that, once again, events in the United States continue to show a Nation divided against itself as it accelerates its plunge towards the abyss.
© May 2, 2008 EU and US all rights reserved.
[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]
Top CIA Agent Killed Trying To Protect D.C. Madam
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Russian Security Services are reporting today on a bizarre plot currently unfolding in the United States where one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) top agents was gunned down by US police while attempting to reach Deborah Palfrey, a woman known as the D.C. Madam, and who was, also, found dead by hanging.
Roland Carnaby these reports state, the CIA’s top US operative for American Affairs, and codenamed in former KGB files as “Tuxedo”, was gunned down by police in Houston, Texas, after a high-speed chase he was engaged in while attempting to foil the kidnapping attempt against him and his wife.
US news reports also show that CIA Agent Carnaby’s attempts to call for help from his contacts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prior to his being murdered were not answered in time. US news reports are also reporting that Carnaby’s wife has retained an attorney and plans to sue American authorities for her husband’s brutal death.
To the greatest mystery, however, of the murdering of this CIA officer, according to these FSB reports, is that Agent Carnaby was tasked by his superiors to meet with the recently convicted D.C. Madam Deborah Palfrey in her Florida home, and who had reported to the CIA that her life was ‘in danger’ over her threatening to release her secret files that would detail the high-level US Government Officials who utilized her prostitution services.
Of the top US Officials said to have been a client of the D.C. Madam was one of their top War Leaders, Vice President Richard Cheney, and as we can read:
"Apparently, the ABC-owned radio station did not like our report that Disney/ABC, under pressure from the White House, killed the DC Madam's list story. The two morning radio hosts also did not like our report that Vice President Dick Cheney is on the list from his time as a part-time resident of McLean, Virginia while he was President and CEO of Halliburton."
These FSB reports continue by stating that with the War Leaders in the US currently in their last weeks, or days, of expanding their current wars to engulf the entire Middle East, and with their time in office running short, they could ill afford yet another scandal, of which the secret files of the D.C. Madam would certainly ignite.
Russian Legal Analysts further point out in these reports that even though the D.C. Madam had been convicted by a US Federal Court, her death prior to her appeals being filed mean that her conviction is now set aside and she is now, even though dead, now ‘innocent’ of all charges against her.
The importance to this turn of events, the Legal Analysts say, is that with the D.C. Madam now being ‘innocent’ the US Government now has no legal claims to her secret files, and which they had planned on confiscating since her announcement of releasing them to the public through a bidding process.
It must be cautioned, however, the FSB concludes in their report summary, that it is entirely possible that the D.C. Madam may not be dead and has, instead, been brought into greater protection for later use against American War Leaders through this apparent suicide of hers.
To whichever the case may be it is not in our knowing, expect to point out the most obvious fact that, once again, events in the United States continue to show a Nation divided against itself as it accelerates its plunge towards the abyss.
© May 2, 2008 EU and US all rights reserved.
[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]
April 28, 2008
from rense.com
A Carnival Of Madness
By Judith Moriarty 4-28-8
What is not being reported on the 'news' in the U.S., is the billion dollar walled 'embassy' (really a small town of several thousand) being constructed, which in reality, is the new headquarters for the 'oil ministry' - serving U.S. Oil conglomerates in the U.S. The 'Hydro-Carbon Law' - written here by U.S. energy interests, is the only holdup. The Iraqi people do not want their oil given away as war booty. Meantime, private equity firms, are investing in a huge Disney World theme park - outside the Green Zone. more
April 22, 2008
From Clay and Iron
PROOF OF OKC APRIL 19TH 1995 WAS AN FBI / ATF BOMBING SPECIAL OPERATION Dr Bill Deagle MD
May 1st 2008 is a special day for Jesse C. Trentadue. This is the day he finds out if a Federal Judge permits an already mandated Video Deposition to take place of Terry Lynn Nichols.
In Feb 2007, Jesse C. Trentadue Attorney, spent one and one-half days with Terry Lynn Nichols, obtaining his deposition. In it, he stated that there were many other parties involved and that the operations were overseen by FBI. Jesse won a Federal injunction allowing a video deposition of Terry Lynn, but the US Dept of Prisons and FBI had filed motions to quash his video deposition of Terry. May 1st 2008 is May Day for the Old World Disorder, as this Video evidence will demand finally a Grand Jury, that will make complicit two and possibly three Presidencies, FBI, ATF, and US State's Attorney in Colorado, Arapahoe County Sherriff, and many more.
read
PROOF OF OKC APRIL 19TH 1995 WAS AN FBI / ATF BOMBING SPECIAL OPERATION Dr Bill Deagle MD
May 1st 2008 is a special day for Jesse C. Trentadue. This is the day he finds out if a Federal Judge permits an already mandated Video Deposition to take place of Terry Lynn Nichols.
In Feb 2007, Jesse C. Trentadue Attorney, spent one and one-half days with Terry Lynn Nichols, obtaining his deposition. In it, he stated that there were many other parties involved and that the operations were overseen by FBI. Jesse won a Federal injunction allowing a video deposition of Terry Lynn, but the US Dept of Prisons and FBI had filed motions to quash his video deposition of Terry. May 1st 2008 is May Day for the Old World Disorder, as this Video evidence will demand finally a Grand Jury, that will make complicit two and possibly three Presidencies, FBI, ATF, and US State's Attorney in Colorado, Arapahoe County Sherriff, and many more.
read
April 21, 2008
From ICH: Truth as a Causality of War
"Just as the Wall is Called a Fence, So are the Mercenaries Called Contractors" By Dan Glazebrook
19/04/08 "PalestineChronicle" -- -Robert Fisk has a well-earned reputation as one of the most honest and hard hitting foreign correspondents in the British media. He has worked in Northern Ireland, where he exposed the presence of the SAS in the mid-1970s, as well as Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon. It was here, as a witness to the immediate aftermath of the Israeli-organised Sabra and Shatila massacre of 2000 Palestinian refugees, that his journalism took on its current form: angry, passionate, and as he puts it "partial on the side of the victims"--a style of journalism which, unfortunately, is not shared by many of his colleagues in the profession. In the midst of a torrent of lies and propaganda emanating from our media about British and US policy on the Middle East, Fisk's writings are a breath of fresh air--although the hellish reality he depicts does not always make for pleasant reading. more
"Just as the Wall is Called a Fence, So are the Mercenaries Called Contractors" By Dan Glazebrook
19/04/08 "PalestineChronicle" -- -Robert Fisk has a well-earned reputation as one of the most honest and hard hitting foreign correspondents in the British media. He has worked in Northern Ireland, where he exposed the presence of the SAS in the mid-1970s, as well as Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon. It was here, as a witness to the immediate aftermath of the Israeli-organised Sabra and Shatila massacre of 2000 Palestinian refugees, that his journalism took on its current form: angry, passionate, and as he puts it "partial on the side of the victims"--a style of journalism which, unfortunately, is not shared by many of his colleagues in the profession. In the midst of a torrent of lies and propaganda emanating from our media about British and US policy on the Middle East, Fisk's writings are a breath of fresh air--although the hellish reality he depicts does not always make for pleasant reading. more
April 20, 2008
From Global Research: Bio-electromagnetic Weapons: The ultimate weapon
Electromagnetic weapons operate at the speed of light; they can kill, torture and enslave; but the public are largely unaware that they exist, because these weapons operate by stealth and leave no physical evidence. Electromagnetic weapons have been tested on human beings since 1976. By widely dispersing the involuntary human test-subjects, and vehemently attacking their credibility, it has been possible for the United States to proceed with these human experiments unhindered by discussions or criticisms, let alone opposition. more
Electromagnetic weapons operate at the speed of light; they can kill, torture and enslave; but the public are largely unaware that they exist, because these weapons operate by stealth and leave no physical evidence. Electromagnetic weapons have been tested on human beings since 1976. By widely dispersing the involuntary human test-subjects, and vehemently attacking their credibility, it has been possible for the United States to proceed with these human experiments unhindered by discussions or criticisms, let alone opposition. more
April 18, 2008
From Thomas Pain's Corner
Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone spent 12 years as a “peoples’” Democratic Senator from Minnesota, courageously fighting for veterans, environmental protections, labor rights, campaign finance reform and better foreign policy, eventually becoming know as The Conscience of the Senate. Very early in his career,1991, at a White House reception for new members of Congress, Wellstone repeatedly told Bush Senior he should be more concerned about issues like education and health care. He also cautioned against the Persian Gulf “War”. President Bush was soon heard asking, “Who is this chickenshit?” Wellstone voted against that first invasion of Iraq. Near the end of his career, 9-11 spurred the already long-planned final invasion of Iraq. Just days before the vote in the Senate to authorize the invasion, Dick Cheney told Wellstone:
“If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.”
Two weeks after voting against the invasion, Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, along with his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, three campaign staffers and both pilots. CorpoGov lied extensively about weather conditions and pilot incompetence, until evidence became overwhelming that the plane had been brought down by electromagnetic weaponry few Americans even know about. Much of the truth is at: (4) http://www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html read whole article
Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone spent 12 years as a “peoples’” Democratic Senator from Minnesota, courageously fighting for veterans, environmental protections, labor rights, campaign finance reform and better foreign policy, eventually becoming know as The Conscience of the Senate. Very early in his career,1991, at a White House reception for new members of Congress, Wellstone repeatedly told Bush Senior he should be more concerned about issues like education and health care. He also cautioned against the Persian Gulf “War”. President Bush was soon heard asking, “Who is this chickenshit?” Wellstone voted against that first invasion of Iraq. Near the end of his career, 9-11 spurred the already long-planned final invasion of Iraq. Just days before the vote in the Senate to authorize the invasion, Dick Cheney told Wellstone:
“If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.”
Two weeks after voting against the invasion, Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, along with his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, three campaign staffers and both pilots. CorpoGov lied extensively about weather conditions and pilot incompetence, until evidence became overwhelming that the plane had been brought down by electromagnetic weaponry few Americans even know about. Much of the truth is at: (4) http://www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html read whole article
April 16, 2008
Anatomy of a 'terrorist plot'.
When you see the big headline that the "FBI Uncovers Massive Terrorist Plot", please remember this article. read The truth is, homeland and fbi have uncovered exactly ZERO valid 'Terrorist' plots since 2001. Here is another HUMOROUS attempt to frame Low IQ citizens for attempting to blow the Sears Tower!
When you see the big headline that the "FBI Uncovers Massive Terrorist Plot", please remember this article. read The truth is, homeland and fbi have uncovered exactly ZERO valid 'Terrorist' plots since 2001. Here is another HUMOROUS attempt to frame Low IQ citizens for attempting to blow the Sears Tower!
April 2, 2008
You can't handle the truth! read
Two truths denied by nation and media: 1) Bush and Cheney are war criminals; 2) 911 was an inside job. In the meantime, unless something is done, Bush will have led this nation into another bloody, criminal war crime: an attack --possibly nuclear --upon Iran. It is the nature of evil that Bushco has compromised many otherwise good Americans now powerless to act because they have fallen into the spider's web. read
The real truth in Iraq
IRAQ: 'Handed Over' to a Government Called Sadr
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*
BAGHDAD, Apr 2 (IPS) - Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure.
The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation.
"Mehdi army militias controlled all Shia and mixed parts of Baghdad in no time," a Baghdad police colonel, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "Iraqi army and police forces as well as Badr and Dawa militias suddenly disappeared from the streets, leaving their armoured vehicles for Mehdi militiamen to drive around in joyful convoys that toured many parts of Baghdad before taking them to their stronghold of Sadr City in the east of Baghdad." more
April 1, 2008
Those unappreciative Iraqis!
I'm simply flabbergasted that the Iraqi people are not more appreciative of the US contribution to their cultural and economic development. Haven't they seen how much money we've spent since 2003 (almost 1 TRILLION). Haven't they seen all the stuff we've shipped over, how many tons of cement we've poured in their 8 foot high barriers and prison... i mean "protected" cities. We've spent 1/2 BILLION just on the US embassy ALONE! (Let's not mention that we can't move into it yet due to shoddy construction.) Anyway, for the rest of the story, read this
I'm simply flabbergasted that the Iraqi people are not more appreciative of the US contribution to their cultural and economic development. Haven't they seen how much money we've spent since 2003 (almost 1 TRILLION). Haven't they seen all the stuff we've shipped over, how many tons of cement we've poured in their 8 foot high barriers and prison... i mean "protected" cities. We've spent 1/2 BILLION just on the US embassy ALONE! (Let's not mention that we can't move into it yet due to shoddy construction.) Anyway, for the rest of the story, read this
March 24, 2008
The real US death toll
I hate to say it, but we have to be REALLY gullible to believe that the death toll for American combat troops in IRAQ is only 4,000. If we know anything from past wars, we should understand that every conflict has been shaped to show the appropriate amount of casualties for maximum political gain. This is no different.
The Project on Defense Alternatives states that the Iraq war is being managed by a 'Perception Team' that seeks to innoculate US citizens against even CARING about the human toll. This program also seeks to provide the impression that this war is bloodless and precision effective, producing very few casualties.
Most of us have read previous instances of data being "cherry picked" by the armed forces to advance the war. It makes sense that the death counts in Iraq are also being tabulated by very strict, favorable guidelines. I.E. Only those soldiers actively participating and dying in a "properly engaged" warfare battle may be counted, but those who die after the same battle on their way to the hospital are counted as "non warfare related". Are they counting death by depleted uranium? How about suicide bombings? Does incidental death while serving in Iraq count? How about friendly fire?
Ask yourself, how can OUR numbers POSSIBLY be so low, when we have documented proof that over 1.1 MILLION Iraq citizens are dead? Are we just lucky? Are we just good shots? Do we have better armor? Whatever excuse is being made to defend these INCREDIBLY low numbers does not mean we need to simply hand over our common sense without questioning the absurdity of the statement. The numbers simply don't make sense.
Below is a more realistic take on our casualities.
Over 70,000 deaths, and over 1 million disabilities among American soldiers attributed to Iraq Wars says U.S. government data read and another
Also remember, we are not even including the high number of VETERAN SUICIDES that are occuring on the order of 400 per month! (over 6,256 by 2005!) read
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