republican high crimes

read today: A petition listing 10 High Crimes which justified their impeachment:
(1) Starting a "war of aggression" (2) torture (3) arbitrary detention (4) war crimes (5) warrantless wiretapping (6) signing statements (7) election fraud (8) outing a covert CIA operative (9) the "unitary executive" (10) gross negligence for Katrina and global warming.
Each one of these crimes is as unacceptable today as it was then. After 5 years in Iraq, Bush has killed nearly 4,000 Americans and over 1 million Iraqis and incurred $3 trillion in costs. And there are many more crimes we could add, including Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence to stop him from testifying about the crimes of Bush and Cheney themselves, and Bush's ongoing threats to bomb Iran.

Republicans use war to get re-elected

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show.

In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Meanwhile, we have crumbling infrastruture, out of control prices due to all this increased debt and increasing numbers of people without health insurance.

We are borrowing principally from China to finance this war on Iraq which is being used by Al Quaeda to recruit and to blead us dry just like they did the Russians. McCain says we could be there another 100 years.

USA, Russia, China and Nazi Germany

The NSA traditionally handles foreign surveillance, but it's now involved in analyzing huge amounts of data that it gets from several different domestic agencies to seek out suspicious patterns.

The NSA uses powerful programs to analyze basic data from e-mail, Internet searches, airlines, telephone records, and financial information. As much as the agency can claim it's focused on foreign threats, the truth is that it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between domestic and international communications in a digital era.

The NSA doesn't need a judge's permission to gather the data and carry out the type of analysis that gives the agency the power to build a detailed profile of someone's behavior. It's all in the name of national security, just like Nazi Germany, Russia and China.

100 year republican war

Darth Vadar, Dick Cheney, is going to the middle east. Meanwhile, five U.S. soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a bomb blast in central Baghdad in this Republican War on Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said, in the worst single attack on U.S. forces in Baghdad in months, AND nobody cares anymore. McCain said it could continue up to 100 years.

cost of Republican war on Iraq

In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion _ or more _ by 2017.Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say. All this does not include the cost of taking care of all the wounded for years to come.

Also, no one has tried to calculate the economic damage done to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country.

republican insiders tell on each other about lies for iraq war

Did you know about Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable?" The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."

Did you know that Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser during most of Feith's time in office, failed in her primary task of coordinating policy on the war?

Did you know that there was widespread skepticism inside the top of the U.S. military about invading Iraq, with some generals arguing that doing so would distract attention from the war against global terrorists? ( exactly what happened.)

Did you know a war architect, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, contended that Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction with oil revenue. (what a lie that one was)

Did you know that both the CIA and Powell, who outlined the weapons case in a February 2003 speech at the United Nations, lied about the magnitude of the threat of Sadaam? A crucial role was also played in statements from Cheney and Rice, about the imminence of "mushroom clouds" emanating from Iraqi nuclear weapons, a case for the administration"s war on Iraq that had already been decided.

McCain to speak at secret right-wing group

Usually, political groups trip over one another to try and gain public notoriety and attention. The Council for National Policy, meanwhile, would be perfectly happy if the public didn’t even know it exists.

The CNP is made up of many heavy-hitters from the religious right and conservative movement in general, and they meet periodically to plot and scheme. It may sound excessively cloak-and-dagger of the group, but the CNP has a list of formal rules, one of which reads, "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting.”

republicans destroying our economy

The economy shed 63,000 jobs in February, the government said on Friday, the fastest falloff in five years and the strongest evidence yet that the nation is headed toward — or may already be in — a recession.

“Had the 450,000 people who left the labor force last month been counted among the unemployed, the jobless rate would have been 5.1 percent instead of 4.8 percent,” said Mr. Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute.

torutre US style

read today: Torture is not a new phenomenon. Just ask the Memphis police officers who beat me forty years ago. Waterboarding? Racist cops Have Been Torturing Black Suspects for years.

more republican justice

What has soared is the cost for taxpayers -- $50 billion per year at the state level and an additional $5 billion at the federal level, according to the Pew study. Perhaps more than even the stunning one in 100 figure, these are the numbers that should shake people awake.

But regardless of all proof to the contrary, many Americans remain attached to the idea that prisons keep them safe. "We are jammed up in this situation right now because we have fallen in love with one of the most undocumented beliefs," California Sen. Don Perata said in 2007. "That somehow you get safer if you put more people in jail."

republican justice?

The Siegelman case makes it clear exactly what Bush, Rove, and the disgraced Bush flunky Alberto Gonzales intended by firing the eight Republican US Attorneys. These eight refused to politicize their office by falsely prosecuting Democrats in order to achieve a Rovian political agenda. Apparently, there were only eight honest persons among the 1,200 Republican US Attorneys.

Bush, Rove, and Gonzales had no problem with the other 1,192. Professors Donald Shields and John Cragan report that the Bush Justice Department has investigated seven times more Democratic than Republican officials.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Terry Butts said that justice in America today is about political agendas, "not about convicting real criminals." Butts said that Siegelman's attorneys and allies expect reprisals from the US Attorney's office and Alabama's Republican establishment.

Siegelman has been in prison for over a year. His appeal cannot move forward, because Judge Fuller's court has not produced a transcript of the trial needed for appeal. In other words, Republicans are preventing Siegelman from being released on appeal by a higher court.

Karl Rove refused to testify about the case before Congress.On February 25, 2008, Fox "News" gave Karl Rove airtime in which to deny the accusations and evidence against him, which he did.
The Department of Justice refuses to release Siegelman trial documents to Congress.

It won't even let Congress see what Leura Canary had to say to her bosses about the ethics challenges brought against her, which they swept under the carpet.

Siegelman's family home was broken into. Siegelman's attorney's office was broken into and ransacked. Jill Simpson's house had a mysterious "electrical fire" and her car was run off the road.

McCain, a sham

From George Will, a right wing Republican: Although his campaign is run by lobbyists; and although his dealings with lobbyists have generated what he, when judging the behavior of others, calls corrupt appearances; and although he has profited from his manipulation of the taxpayer-funding system that is celebrated by reformers -- still, he probably is innocent of insincerity. Such is his towering moral vanity, he seems sincerely to consider it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others.

republican Cheney emails missing

When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to find out what was going on inside Vice President Dick Cheney's office, the prosecutor in the CIA leak probe made a logical move. He dropped a grand jury subpoena on the White House for all the relevant e-mail.

One problem: Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week's worth of e-mail from Cheney's office was missing. The week, surprise-surprise, was Sept. 30, 2003, to Oct. 6, 2003, the opening days of the Justice Department's probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Oh, how convenient and coincidental?????

Buckley, rest in peace

Born Nov. 24, 1925, in New York City, William Frank Buckley Jr. was the sixth of 10 children of a a multimillionaire with oil holdings in seven countries. The son spent his early childhood in France and England, in exclusive Roman Catholic schools. He died today.

Buckley spent a year as a low-level agent for the Central Intelligence Agency in Mexico, work he later dismissed as boring. He was one of the origianl neo-con conservatives.

The National Review, which he founded and controlled, defended the Vietnam War, opposed civil rights legislation and once declared that "the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail.

another Republican scandal

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) used his position in Congress to influence a federal land-exchange deal, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs, according to an indictment released yesterday. Renzi is one of the Arizona "co-chairs" of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign

USA, renditions, torture, Romania

Read Today: According to the Romanian official: U.S. pilots routinely filed bogus flight plans, or none at all, and headed to undeclared destinations. C-130 Hercules cargo planes and other U.S. military aircraft arriving from Iraq regularly parked in a restricted area just off the runway, where they feigned technical trouble and sat under guard for days at a time — awaiting repairs that never occurred.

Three buildings on the military portion of the air base were strictly off-limits to Romanians but were frequented and controlled by the Americans. Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, former presidential security adviser Ioan Talpes said in an interview with the AP, had an arrangement with the CIA that gave the agency the right to use the base as needed.

Human rights advocates say renditions were the agency's way to outsource torture of prisoners to countries where it is permitted practice.

Detainees were subjected "to interrogation techniques tantamount to torture" and underscored "a permissive attitude on the part of the Romanian authorities. Romanian officials said the U.S. military has invested about $18 million in Mihail Kogalniceanu Airport, including a $4 million perimeter fence, a new hangar and road improvements. Romania has supported and provided troops for the U.S.-led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Bush and other administration officials have confirmed the existence of the rendition program but have not named the countries involved

McCain, a hypocrite and liar

The Paxson deal, coming as McCain made his first run for the presidency, has posed a persistent problem for the senator. The deal raised embarrassing questions about his dealings with lobbyists at a time when he had assumed the role of an ethics champion and opponent of the influence of lobbyists.

The two letters he wrote to the FCC in 1999 while he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee produced a rash of criticism and a written rebuke from the then-FCC chairman, who called McCain's intervention "highly unusual." McCain had repeatedly used Paxson's corporate jet for his campaign and accepted campaign contributions from the broadcaster and his law firm.

more on being afraid of republicans

Since they endorsed McCain in January despite knowing this story -- and the clear implications of hypocrisy on campaign finance reform, let alone the other implications -- the most likely conspiracy would be that they favor McCain in the election. But I don't think there is a conspiracy.

I think the far simpler answer is the correct one. The McCain campaign threatened and intimidated them as the Bush team has done on countless occasions and they gave in until someone else was about to release the story. The only thing worse than being bullied by Republicans is getting scooped by your competitors. Remember, republicans are the part of "swift boating."

New York Times afraid of neocons

The John McCain-Vicki Iseman story is not the first article the New York Times has held back for political reasons. They have now done this on at least three occasions:
1. The original FISA story on how the Bush administration was not getting warrants for wiretaps inside the United States.
2. The original story in 2004 that showed Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
3. The McCain-Iseman story.
We had James Risen, the writer of the first two stories on our show back in 2005 and he admitted that they held the Bin Laden story until after the 2004 election because the New York Times didn't want to "get caught up in the politics of it."

Another way of stating that is that they were afraid of being called the liberal media by Republicans. After decades of being chastised for being liberal, they have become gun-shy. In this McCain story, they also held off until they were about to outed by other news agencies as sitting on the story.

McCain helping lobbyist and getting perks

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

McCain the Anti-lobbyist, yea right

when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.

McCain latest

read today: "Those who really care about such things have known since at least 2000, and likely much earlier, that McCain does favors for campaign contributors, and has not always been the most faithful of husbands.

I care not at all about the latter; while the former is one of many constant, low-level irritants people like me experience when reading yet another newspaper editorial about what a saint the guy is."

USA, a country that tortures people

U.S. officials have confirmed that the CIA's use of waterboarding required strapping the prisoners down and pouring water over their faces to make them fear that they were being drowned.

Experts on human rights abuses and torture say the approach is similar to the technique employed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, by the French in Algeria and, as recently as last year, by the dictatorship in Burma.

The use of cellophane in waterboarding is known as a "dry submarine," while the use of cloth dates back to the 1600s and is known as the "Dutch method." The "Dutch method" was also a favorite tactic used by police in the American South in the 1920s.

Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said the administration's rationale has exposed Americans to risk of mistreatment by other countries. "If Iran or North Korea wanted a blueprint for how to torture an American prisoner without upsetting the Bush administration, they would just need to read what our government is admiting," Malinowski said.

trust the Republicans

A report in 2006 by the Justice Department inspector general found more than 100 violations of federal wiretap laws.

In the warrantless wiretapping program approved by President Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials at the National Security Agency on some occasions monitored communications entirely within the United States in apparent violation of the program’s protocols.

Past violations by the government have also included continuing a wiretap for days or weeks beyond what was authorized by a court, or seeking records beyond what were authorized.

How do we know what they do with all these documents when problems like these are numerous? Trust us, they say. Do you trust these Republicans to obey the law?

thank you republican John McCain

The John McCain we fell in love with in 2000 -- the straight-shooting, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may maverick -- is no more. Here is just a few of the many flip flops (say and do anything):

He's been replaced by a born-again Bushite willing to say or do anything to win the affection of his new-found object of desire, the radical right. For example, on tape we now hear McCain singing the praises of Karl Rove, calling him "one of the smartest political minds in America," and saying, "I'd be glad to get his advice."

The old John McCain once called Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the like-minded religious bigots and agents of intolerance. The new John McCain now slavishly seeks their endorsement.

The old John McCain talked about trying to do something about global warming and encourage renewable energy. The new John McCain didn't show up for the vote on a bill that included tax incentives for clean energy, even though he was in DC. And then his staff misled environmentalists who called to protest by telling them that he had voted for it.

The new John McCain is now essentially running to give America a third Bush term -- and, indeed, will even out-Bush Bush when it comes to staying the disastrous course we're on in Iraq.

If you love George Bush, and all that he's brought you over the last seven years, you're gonna love John McCain.. If you think the problem with the United States right now is that we haven't given Bush enough time to finish his agenda, then John McCain is your man.

To think we voted for him, but that was when he was the old McCain. We didn't know he was such a flip-flopper. We are glad he has revealed his true self. Thank you John.

Infraguard Spy Ring to spy on US Society

The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society. See http://www.infragard.net

The FBI has a new set of eyes and ears, and they're being told to protect their infrastructure at any cost. They can even kill without repercussion. Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does -- and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials.
In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that.

One business executive, who showed his InfraGard card, said that they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law. InfraGard is "a child of the FBI," says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that "350 of our nation's Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard."

Govment Spy Org. to spy on U

Govment Spy Org. to spy on U

another Republican ripoff

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks,a republican, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was paid $100,000 to endorse a veterans charity that watchdog groups say is ripping off donors and wounded veterans by using only a small portion of the money raised for veterans services, according to testimony in Congress today.

Franks has since disassociated himself from Chapin's charities and asked that his name be removed from the solicitation. . We understand he developed misgivings and asked that his name be taken off," Congressman Waxman said.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Heard last evening: General Geoffrey Miller took torture techniques develped from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib. Later he was honored by the Pentagon. Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld and General Rick Sanchez were in charge.

Also, the CIA covered up at least one murder. Psychological torture is the most difficult from which to recover. A Lt. Col. Jordan was mentioned. Approvals for torture likely came all the way from the White House. In the long term, torturing others justifies others torturing us, not to mention it also separates us from allies we need in the real war on 9/11 terroists which were not even in Iraq when we invaded.

McCain, the new Bush

In the News: McCain and his up to 100 year war is the new Bushie. He will be charged with continuing the Bush foreign and domestic policies that with finish ruining our country.

Reagan like current Republicans

Republicans are entitled to their opinions no matter how distorted. They are not entitled to lie about the facts IMHO. They continue to deify Ronald Regean all the while denouncing others that advoate much of what Reagan actually did.

Here are just a few examples:
1. He "cut and ran" (as they like to call it now, about getting out of a 100 year war on Iraq) when he scurried out of Lebanon when militants destroyed the Marine barracks,
2. He later sold weapons to the regime in Iran,
3. He doubled Federal spending during his presidency, and
4. He raised the annual federal deficit from $73 billion to $153 billion.
THOSE ARE THE FACTS. THE FACTS. THE FACTS.

You see he was much like the Current Republicans, say one thing to cover doing the opposite. Hypocrites all.

republicans-- more phony talk, no action

President Bush drew great applause during his State of the Union address last month when he called on Congress to allow U.S. troops to transfer their unused education benefits to family members. "Our military families serve our nation, they inspire our nation, and tonight our nation honors them," he said.

A week later, however, when Bush submitted his $3.1 trillion federal budget to Congress, he included no funding for such an initiative, which government analysts calculate could cost $1 billion to $2 billion annually.

unity is unhealthy for freedom

Would it have been possible to design a government that fostered unity? That dream could indeed have been achieved, Madison explained, by summarily outlawing factions, but the cost would have been freedom itself. "Liberty is to faction," he wrote, "what air is to fire. . . . But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air."

What Obama and others, captivated by the notion of unity, could reasonably promise is not national unity but simply unity within the Democratic Party or within the Republican Party. For Republicans and Democrats do not and should not agree. Different, competing visions of the public good are the lifeblood of a dynamic and open democracy. They strengthen our democracy, engage citizens in meaningful political debate and keep us awake.

When tumult is absent, when everyone in a state is tranquil, Machiavelli wrote, "we can be sure that it is not a republic." Out of unity, Obama believes, change will somehow emerge. But only insignificant or incremental changes can come out of the compromises that are reached through consensus. Transformational change, on the other hand, is the product of conflict and polarization.

It may be comforting to believe that consensus and unity are somehow healthier, more noble, less disruptive and destructive than sharp partisan battles. But it is the rough-and-tumble game of adversarial politics that preserves our freedom. Three cheers for disunity!

republicans are victims of own propoganda

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that many Europeans were confused about NATO’s security mission in Afghanistan, and that they did not support the alliance effort because they opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq.

“I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said as he flew here to deliver an address at an international security conference.

Well why not. These Republicans have been claiming here at home that making war on Iraq is the same war as the war in Afghanistan which it is not and never has been.

John Mc Who

John Mc Cain--McBush will be the same old political game, just more of the same, another Bushie.

more republican scandals

Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a developer at a substantial discount, then retaliated against the housing authority when it refused to do so, a recent court filing alleges.

The developer, Kenny Gamble, spoke about self-reliance at the Republican National Convention. He and his company have donated regularly to the state's GOP senator, Arlen Specter, records show.

Fox-organ of the Republican Party

REad today:
A) CNN's resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News' favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates' blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O'Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. ("The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.")
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson's recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his "exclusive" that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign

Fox News is nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece and Democrats need not engage with the News Corp. giant. From losing the election ratings race to CNN, to watching its favored son Rudy Giuliani fizzle in the primaries, Fox News is in for a bad year.

After all, Sean Hannity served as Fox News' official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless.

Don't even mention Ron Paul's name to the folks at Fox News, who have stepped outside their role as journalists to try to kneecap the anti-war GOP candidate.

The most blatant slap came right before the New Hampshire primary, when Fox News refused to include Paul in a televised GOP debate, despite the fact that just days earlier Paul grabbed 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus, nearly doubling the tally Giuliani posted.

Paul's Republican supporters became so incensed by the snub that they literally chased Sean Hannity through the New Hampshire night chanting "Fox News sucks!" and captured the scene in a homemade clip that really has to be seen to be believed.

To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O'Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that's a week to remember!

Republicans not for workers

The manufacturing sector -- a sign of national economic might -- has lost 269,000 jobs over the past 12 months, and 28,000 jobs in January alone. Manufacturing employment now accounts for less than 10 percent of the job market for the first time since data began being collected in the 1930s.

The economic storm clouds burst open yesterday with news that the economy shed 17,000 jobs in January, and the clearest sign yet that the economy may be in a recession.

This isn't a random event. This is the culmination of a bunch of disturbing trends we've seen in seven years. Stagnant incomes, rising costs in energy and food, and little to no personal savings have left families with no margin of error.

Republican Failure at our expense

President Bush's legacy will be assessed by many measures, most notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But by his own standards set at the start of his time in office, the president has failed to live up to either the tone or the results he promised.

In his final State of the Union address, Bush lays out a modest agenda—but only wants it on his own terms. But by his own standards set at the start of his time in office, the president has failed to live up to either the tone or the results he promised.

Contentiousness might explain why the president rapidly pivoted to putting pressure on Democrats to fall in line with the modest agenda of his final year in office. Instead of offering ground for cooperation, the president continued the pattern he set in the earliest months of his presidency: to insist on cooperation only on his terms.

He leaves to his successor a terrorist challenge, and a WMD threat, that is far more complex than he could ever have imagined in February 2001, AND the economy in a shambles.

capitalism rigged for fat cats

No one can have watched the "subprime mortgage" debacle without noticing the absurd contrast between the magnitude of the failure and the lavish rewards heaped on those who presided over it. At Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, large losses on subprime securities cost chief executives their jobs -- and they left with multimillion-dollar pay packages. Stanley O'Neal, the ex-head of Merrill, received an estimated $161 million.

Everyday Americans will conclude (rightly) that this brand of capitalism is rigged in favor of the privileged few. It's not as if these CEOs weren't compensated in all those years.

If you leave your company a shambles -- with losses to be absorbed by lower-level employees, some of whom will be fired, and shareholders -- do you deserve a gold-plated send-off? Still, the more serious problem transcends the high pay itself and goes to the wider consequences for the economy.

Wall Street's pay practices perversely encourage extreme risk-taking that can destabilize the economy. Subprime mortgage losses may simply be chapter one. Now there are signs of problems involving securities known as "credit default swaps." Never mind the details. Concentrate on the possible fallout.

If banks and investment houses sustain more losses, the nation's credit system will be further wounded and so will the economy. The Federal Reserve cut its key overnight interest rate yesterday from 4.25 percent to 3.5 percent -- a huge move -- in part to shore up this wobbly credit system. ANd they will be bailed out by our money.

another republican under investigation

"My wife, Julie, and I have made this decision after much prayer and deliberation," Doolittle said in a written statement. "It was not my initial intent to retire, and I fully expected and planned to run again right up until very recently." They all turn to "prayer' when caught.

Doolittle made no mention of the Justice Department investigation, explaining only that "we were ready for a change after spending almost our entire married lives with me in public service." What a hypocrite and an idiot if he thinks we believe that.

The Doolittles have been under investigation since 2004 in connection with luxury trips, campaign contributions and employment for Julie Doolittle provided by Abramoff and other lobbyists.

get voting registration forms

Please copy the website < www.govote.com > into your browser and get the form to send in to your state that registers you to vote.

CIA actions contributed to 9/11

The Central Intelligence Agency has an almost unblemished record of screwing up every 'secret' armed intervention it ever undertook.

From the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 through the rape of Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs, the failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the 'secret war' in Laos, aid to the Greek Colonels who seized power in 1967, the 1973 killing of President Allende in Chile, and Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra war against Nicaragua, there is not a single instance in which the Agency's activities did not prove acutely embarrassing to the United States and devastating to the people being 'liberated.'

The CIA continues to get away with this bungling primarily because its budget and operations have always been secret and Congress is normally too indifferent to its Constitutional functions to rein in a rogue bureaucracy.

The tens of thousands of fanatical Muslim fundamentalists the CIA armed are the same people who in 1996 killed nineteen American airmen at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole in Aden Harbor in 2000, and on September 11, 2001, flew hijacked airliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Republican impact on our country, what we need

Best read today: "When people say they want to kill us, we would be fools not to take them at their word. Still, we have had an overdose of fear in recent times.

We have been told to be afraid so that we might be less protective of our Constitution, less mindful of international law, less respectful toward allies, less discerning in our search for truth and less rigorous in questioning what our leaders tell us.

We have been exhorted by the White House to embrace a culture of fear that has driven and narrowed our foreign policy while poisoning our ability to communicate effectively with others.

One manifestation of fear is an unwillingness to think seriously about alternative perspectives. America's standing in the world has been in free fall these past few years because our country is perceived as trying to impose its own reality -- to fashion a world that is safe and comfortable for us with little regard for the views of anyone else.

I love America deeply and I believe our country is still the best in the world, but I also believe we have developed a dangerous lack of self-awareness. No nukes, we say, while possessing the world's largest arsenal. Respect the law, we demand, while disregarding the Geneva Conventions.

You're with us or against us, we declare, while ignoring the impact of our actions on Turkey and the Middle East. Hands off Iraq, we warn, while our troops occupy Baghdad. Beware China's military, we cry, while spending as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Honor the future, we preach, while going AWOL on climate change.

We need to do a better job of seeing ourselves as others do. It strikes the world as ludicrous that we -- with all our wealth and power -- seem so afraid of terrorists, rogue states, illegal immigrants and foreign economic competition.

People put themselves in our shoes and expect us to act with confidence, and so we should, but true confidence is shown by a willingness to enter into difficult debates, answer criticism, treat others with respect and do our share or more in tackling global problems. Confidence harnessed to purpose is what America at its best has been all about.

We are 4 percent of a planet that is half Asian, half poor, one-third Muslim and by and large far more familiar with recent American actions than with our country's past accomplishments.

To many, the Bush republican administration is America. Our reputation is in disrepair. We will not recover by acting out of fear but by educating ourselves about the world around us, learning foreign languages, appreciating other faiths, studying the many dimensions of historical truth, harnessing modern technology to constructive ends and looking beyond simplistic notions of evil and good.

republicans worst in history

A number of eminent historians have in fact already reached the judgment that the current Republican administration will be judged as a failure and dangerous for America , based, among other things, on the strategic disaster of the Iraq war; the squandering of Washington's overseas image as a champion of international law and human rights; the defiance of constitutional safeguards at home; the politicization of the system of justice; and the distortion of scientific research regarding global warming and other critical issues.

foreign policty should be ...

The basic moral principle underpinning a non-interventionist foreign policy is that of rejecting the initiation of force against others.

It is based on non-violence and friendship unless attacked, self-determination, and self-defense while avoiding confrontation, even when we disagree with the way other countries run their affairs.

It simply means that we should mind our own business and not be influenced by special interests that have an ax to grind or benefits to gain by controlling our foreign policy.

Manipulating our country into conflicts that are none of our business and unrelated to national security provides no benefits to us, while exposing us to great risks financially and militarily.

US legacy in Iraq

December 2007 Unicef Report on Iraqi Children

Roger Wright, Unicef's Special Representative for Iraq recently told the media that "Iraqi children are paying far too high a price."

“While we have been providing as much assistance as possible, a new window of opportunity is opening, which should enable us to reach the most vulnerable with expanded, consistent support. We must act now.”

Unicef says:- An estimated 2 million children in Iraq continue to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education.
- Many of the 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted.
- An estimated 760,000 children (17 per cent) did not go to primary schools in 2006.
- An average 25,000 children per month were displaced by violence or intimidation, with their families seeking shelter in other parts of Iraq.
- In 2007, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters.
- Hundreds of children lost their lives or were injured by violence and many more had their main family wage-earner kidnapped or killed.

conservative(republicans)

Read today: "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." If we were all conservatives, we would still believe that the world is flat.

neocons and hawks are still in charge

The continued deference to former administration officials extends to the very lifeblood of the city right now—the presidential election, where neoconservative war boosters still enjoy A-list invites, give and get tons of money, and have the ear of top-tier GOP candidates.

Meanwhile, old and new Democratic hawks have largely pushed anti-war liberals to the margins of the establishment, creating think tanks with muscular names and erudite journals to catapult their colleagues into top-level jobs in a new Democratic administration.

Despite the declining appetite for war among regular Americans, the message is clear: when it comes to shaping future foreign policy for either party, hawks and internationalists are in, doves and realists are out.

republicans liying and people still dying

The total for violent civilian deaths to the end of 2007 in Iraq was between 81,174 and 88,585. US-LED coalition and paramilitary forces in Iraq were responsible for some 24,000 violent civilian deaths in 2007, according to an independent group monitoring casualties in the war-ravaged country. these republicans lied us into this war so they keep it going and don't care.

Republicans making us a third world country

The glaring features today of Third World countries include poverty, lack of democratic institutions, controlling oligarchies and the unequal distribution of income and wealth. In other words, the few enjoy a rich lifestyle while the many share subpar incomes and poverty.

Another characteristic of Third World countries is that a major portion of their fiscal expenditures is allocated to the military. In many Third World countries, the military is controlled by an elite or a small collection of the wealthy. Finally, in many Third World countries one finds that leadership is passed from one generation to the next, often via a close relative.

The United Nations publishes a Human Development Index that ranks countries in terms of life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living. The U.S., despite its vast wealth and power, placed only in the 12th position among industrial countries. The top four countries were Iceland, Norway, Australia and Canada. These top four countries still pay some lip service to income distribution as an important economic and social goal.

These Republicans are redistributing the wealth upward to fewer people rather than downward to greater numbers of our working population. They are also transferring wealth to themselves by issuing greater amounts of debt to our wealthy debt holders and overseas countries like India and China. Eventually, we will have to raise taxes on working men and women to pay for all this Republican debt.

quote of the day about Giuliani

"Rudy Giuliani is one dangerous man. He is a George Bush with brains."

Republicans say one thing but DO the opposite

It is common for politicians to court big money during a campaign. But private schmooze sessions such as the gathering in Utah pose a particular dilemma for McCain, who has spent a long career decrying "special interests" and politicians who offer special access to them in order to raise money.

As a presidential candidate this year, McCain has found himself assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising. He also counts more than 30 lobbyists among his chief fundraisers, more than any other presidential contender.

Republicanism from Nazism?

Now we find out that Bush acts as though he is not legally obliged to follow his own executive orders. That means the Bush believes: "I don't have to follow my own rules, and I don't have to tell you when I'm breaking them." That includes actions of the Executive Order that governs surveillance of us.

The Executive Order governing surveillance may not be the only one that Bush has modified without revealing he has done so. It appears that Bush has also modified the Executive Order governing the treatment of classified information from its plain text meaning.

So he does whatever his mood dictates when and at whatever time he decides, ignoring the rule of law and the Constitution. The Nazi rule in Germany acted in the same way in taking over Germany and attempting to conquor the world one country at a time. Sound familiar..

Republican record supported by republican candidates

What an unbelievable record of deceit, destruction, hypocrisy, incompetence, treason and greed. What a tragic tale of debt, lost wars, stolen elections, environmental crises, Constitution shredding, national shame and diminished security.

torture and more Republican lies

CIA operatives now SAY they destroyed the torture tapes because they wanted to protect the torturers, now called "debriefers."

We know that is a crock because all they had to do is black out their faces as is done every day to protect the identities of children.

They realy wanted to protect these Republican officeholders.

Should the USA torture people

In November 2002, an Afghan man froze to death overnight while chained in a cell at a C.I.A. site in Afghanistan, north of Kabul, the capital. Two more prisoners died in December 2002 in American military custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

By late 2002, interrogators were recycling videotapes, preserving only two days of tapes before recording over them, one C.I.A. officer said. Finally, senior agency officials decided that written summaries of prisoners’ answers would suffice. Clandestine service officers who had overseen the interrogations began pushing hard to destroy any taping.

Some of the C.I.A.’s techniques appeared to constitute "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" under the international Convention Against Torture. The CIA now prefers that we call their interrogators who tortured prisoners in secret CIA prisons around the world as "debriefers."

Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Williams, a JAG officer with the U.S. Naval Reserve, recently resigned his commission over the alleged use of torture by the United States and the destruction of video tapes containing instances of that torture.

Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947, giving him 15 years hard labor.

John C. Gannon, a former C.I.A. deputy director, says it was a tragic mistake for the administration to approve such methods. as waterboarding. So should our country be a country that tortures people? We report, you decide.

Republicans continue lying

It is a lie for Republicans to say that they are not raising our taxes when some of us know that we will have to pay for all this waste and their redistributing the wealth of our country to the rich, PLUS INTEREST, from their astronomical increases in the country's debt that is covered mostly by foreigners, principally China.

The rest of you just don't get it. They have lied to you and are continuing to lie so much that you are brainwashed.

Ahother law and order Republican

A day after a federal court slip-up exposed intimate office e-mail exchanges with his executive secretary, Texas most powerful prosecutor, the district attorney of Harris County, issued a public apology Friday to his family and others.

The issue took on immediate political dimensions on Thursday when Mr. Rosenthal, a 61-year-old Republican who has announced he will run for a third term next year.

The messages, which had been turned over to lawyers in the course of a federal civil rights lawsuit that alleges misconduct involving Harris County sheriff’s deputies, contained Mr. Rosenthal’s professions of love and longing for the woman, Kerry Stevens, with whom he has acknowledged having an affair during his first marriage.

As district attorney of a county with a population of four million, more than that of several states, Mr. Rosenthal also presides over the country’s busiest capital punishment establishment, which has sent 100 convicts to their deaths since 1976.

creeping Republican tyranny

It has been two years since top New York Times officials decided to let the rest of us in on the fact that the George W. Bush administration had been eavesdropping on American citizens without the court warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.

The Times had learned of this well before the election in 2004 and acquiesced to White House entreaties to suppress the damaging information. In late fall 2005 when Times correspondent James Risen’s book, “State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” revealing the warrantless eavesdropping was being printed, Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., recognized that he could procrastinate no longer.

When Sulzberger told his friends in the White House that he could no longer hold off on publishing in the newspaper, he was summoned to the Oval Office for a counseling session with the president on Dec. 5, 2005. Bush tried in vain to talk him out of putting the story in the Times. The truth would out; part of it, at least. It was published with a slant toward limiting the scope of this treason.

Repbulicans are good at quoting our founding fathers but only when it suits their objectives. When was the last time you heard the following?

Our Founding Fathers were not oblivious to this issue; thus, James Madison addressed the problem as follows:
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ... The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

Bhutto, US lackey, killed in Pakistan

While some intelligence officials, especially within the US, were quick to finger al Qaeda militants as responsible for Bhutto's death, it remains unclear precisely who was responsible and some speculation has centered on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, its military or even forces loyal to the current president Pervez Musharraf. Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, is the garrison city that houses the Pakistani military's headquarters.

Perhaps more shockingly, an attendee at the rally where Bhutto was killed says police charged with protecting her "abandoned their posts," leaving just a handful of Bhutto's own bodyguards protecting her. "GHQ (general headquarters of the army) killed her," Sardar Saleem, a former member of parliament said.

Whatever the case, Bhutto's precise cause of death may never be known because of the failure to administer an autopsy. The procedure was not carried out because police and local authorities in Rawalpindi did not request one, according to IBNLive, but the government plans a formal investigation why this was the case.

Republican candidate frontrunner

Under attack, Drug Maker turned to Giuliani for help . Look it up.

what republican war is doing to Iraq

According to an Oxfam International report released in July this year, 43 percent of Iraqis suffer from absolute poverty, and that according to some estimates over half the population is now without work. Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen to 28 percent now.

George Orwell today

We are living George Orwell's nightmare in the 21st century; for war is claimed to be the way to peace and nuclear weapons are promised as the way to provide security.

Republicans without Nuremberg

A number of leading Nazis were executed for their unprovoked attack on Poland. The Bush administration has its own Poland in Iraq, and if there is an American attack on Iran it would also fit the Nuremberg definition. Unlike at Nuremberg, however, no one will be held accountable.

Is there any truth to this Huckabee story?

Read today: When the news is about your son actually hanging a dog -- one of the stranger moments of Mike Huckabee's campaign, which struggled with the rehash of an old story about the Arkansas governor's number one son killing a dog when he was a camp counselor in 1998 -- There isn't necessarily any need for the standard hangdog image. Because when you're riding an updraft of polling numbers, minor details like your son's torturing and killing of man's best friend don't lead to images of fatigue, sadness and impotence. A little sweat on the brow, perhaps.

republican war crimes

Read today: Current and former officials said the torture lasted weeks and even, according to some, months, and that the techniques included hypothermia, long periods of standing, sleep deprivation and multiple sessions of waterboarding. All these "alternative procedures", as Bush described them, are illegal under US law and the Geneva conventions. They are, in fact, war crimes

our Army due to Iraq update

The 15-month terms were always seen as a temporary measure. Talk to soldiers, and they will tell you that 15 months of continuous combat duty is simply too wearing.

Enlistment rates are down; junior officers are dropping out at rates unseen since Vietnam days. The war in Iraq is the main reason for both trends. The Army is already stretched to the bone. Senior officers and Gatess are deeply worried that maintaining this breakneck pace for much longer might break the all-volunteer Army.

If the terms of duty are cut back to 12 months of deployment, followed by 12 months home, it is not clear whether even 15 brigades can be sustained in Iraq for very long. And once troop levels fall below 15 brigades, it is not clear—as they approach 10 brigades, it is very unlikely—that the mission of securing the Iraqi population (the essence of counterinsurgency) can be sustained.

The clock is also ticking on the other games that are keeping ultraviolence at bay. After the Sunni-U.S. alliances defeat the jihadists, or reduce their ranks to a manageable level, nobody expects the Sunni fighters—who, before their "awakening," spent much of their time shooting and blowing up American soldiers—to become pliant citizens. Also, ethnic cleansing has Balkanised some neighborhoods and destroyed the mix of Sunnis and Shias.

In sum, U.S. forces may soon have more eruptions to damp down—or, to switch metaphors, more holes in the Iraqi dike to plug up. And the task will be more daunting still once the troop-levels decline.

All this is why Gen. Petraeus and most other officers refrain from wild cheering at the reports of declining casualties and violence. T

Republicans top-down class warfare

On Tuesday, the Republican controlled Federal Communications Commission changed the rules to allow the nation's giant conglomerates to further consolidate their grip on the media by permitting them to purchase TV and radio stations in the same local markets where they already own daily newspapers.

As a gift to the country's automobile industry, The Republican Controlled Environmental Protection Agency ruled Wednesday, over the objections of the agency's staff, that California, the nation's largest and most polluted state, and 16 other states, can't impose regulations to limit greenhouse gases from cars and trucks that are stronger than the federal government's own weak standards.

Class warfare is, in fact, the very essence of the tenure of these Republicans in the White House. In thousands of ways, big and small, they have promoted the interests of the very rich and the largest corporations.

Corporate lobbyists have the run of the White House. Their agenda - tax cuts for the rich and big business, attacks on labor unions, and the weakening of laws protecting consumers, workers and the environment from corporate abuse -that is the Republican agenda.

more on Republican Blackwater

Hostility toward Blackwater was already high in the Interior Ministry. The February 2006 shooting incident in Kirkuk had damaged U.S.-Iraqi relations in the area, leaving the Americans "hated and ostracized," according to Ali, the provincial council president.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., was founded in 1996 by a former Navy SEAL, Erik Prince, a big Republican contributor. In Iraq, the company protects the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats.

The company developed a reputation for aggressive street tactics. Even inside the fortified Green Zone, Blackwater guards were known for running vehicles off the road and pointing their weapons at bystanders, according to several security company representatives and U.S. officials.

"They're universally despised in the Green Zone," said one security official, who has managed security for several companies since 2004"That's not an overstatement. 'Universally despised' is probably a kind way to put it."

Clearly the overall philosophy and tactics of Blackwater were not in keeping with winning hearts and minds," said a senior defense official involved in private security policy. The company's aggressive tactics provoked widespread frustration among U.S. commanders in Iraq, but complaints went nowhere.

Many memos were sent up the chain of command, It was a huge issue with the military. The "coalition" knew about it, but nothing was ever done. It was completely ignored.

When |Bush was onced asked, by a citizen, "I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions,"
"I was going to ask him," the president responded, drawing laughter as he issued a mock entreaty. "Go ahead. Help."

In other words, he just blew off the question which makes him directly and personally culpable; AND What about winning the hearts and minds?

It's also about millions going to fatcat Republican Contributors.

Iraq, Blackwater, your children and grandchildren

The U.S. government disregarded numerous warnings over the past two years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private security firms and documents. Last year, the Pentagon estimated that 20,000 hired guns worked in Iraq; the Government Accountability Office estimated 48,000.

The warnings were conveyed in letters and memorandums from defense and legal experts and in high-level discussions between U.S. and Iraqi officials. Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department took substantive action to regulate private security companies until Blackwater guards opened fire Sept. 16 at a Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and provoking protests over the role of security contractors in Iraq. Nothing was done until WE, John Q public, found out.

From a pure counterinsurgency standpoint, armed contractors are an inherently bad idea, because you cannot control the quality, you cannot control the action on the ground, but you're held responsible for everything they do and they are costly.

The Defense Department has paid $2.7 billion for private security since 2003, according to USA Spending, a government-funded project that tracks contracting expenditures; the military said it currently employs 17 companies in Iraq under contracts worth $689.7 million. The State Department has paid $2.4 billion for private security in Iraq -- including $1 billion to Blackwater -- since 2003, USA Spending figures show. This is just a tip of the iceberg of costs in Iraq.

Since it is all financed by long term debt, it's going to be paid by your children and grandchildren thanks to these Republicans.

Do you see any Republicans?

Tuesday, December 18, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate combined to give President Bush $70 billion to carry the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into next summer. Only 23 Democrats and one independent supported an amendment by Senator Feingold that would have required the safe redeployment of troops from Iraq.

Here are the senators who voted to end the war:
Akaka (D-HI)Boxer (D-CA)Brown (D-OH)Byrd (D-WV)Cantwell (D-WA)Cardin (D-MD)Durbin (D-IL)Feingold (D-WI)Harkin (D-IA)Kennedy (D-MA)Kerry (D-MA)Klobuchar (D-MN)Kohl (D-WI)Lautenberg (D-NJ)Leahy (D-VT)Menendez (D-NJ)Murray (D-WA)Reid (D-NV)Rockefeller (D-WV)Sanders (I-VT)Schumer (D-NY)Stabenow (D-MI)Whitehouse (D-RI)Wyden (D-OR)

Stop these Republicans

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.

“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said.

proof of Republicans ruining our economy

At the beginning of 2003, one euro bought one US dollar. Eighteen months ago, it bought $1.20. Now it is pushing $1.50, and there is no reason to think that it will stop there. Three of the world's biggest oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than U.S. dollars. Last week a Chinese central bank vice-director, Xu Jian, gave voice to the suspicion of many others, saying that the U.S. dollar was "losing its status as the world currency."

If that happens, then America loses a great deal. Other countries have to maintain large reserves of foreign currencies - most of which they keep in U.S. dollars - to cover their foreign debts, but the United States can pay its huge foreign debts in its own money. If necessary, it can just print more dollars. Having their own money as the world's reserve currency confers advantages that Americans would miss if they lost them.

The main reason for the collapse of the U.S. dollar is President George W. Bush's attempt to fight expensive foreign wars while cutting taxes at home. This involved deficit financing on a very large scale, and inevitably the value of the dollar began to fall - slowly at first, but with increasing speed as it became clear that the White House did not care.

"Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter," as Vice President Dick Cheney told then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

But they do matter. As the U.S. dollar fell in value, the price of oil (which is usually calculated in dollars) rose to compensate for it, but there was no comparable adjustment for foreign central banks that had huge amounts of U.S. dollars in their reserves. China, which was sitting on about a trillion U.S. dollars, simply lost several hundred billion as the currency's value fell. So various central banks started wondering if they should diversify their reserves, and some acted on it.

The downward pressure on the dollar will continue, because the United States is currently borrowing 6 percent of its Gross Domestic Product from foreigners each year to cover its trade deficit. Foreign banks were happy to go on lending so long as they had faith in the integrity of U.S. financial institutions, but that has been hit hard by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Besides, other markets, notably China and India, now offer a better return - and Congress's resistance to foreign takeover bids, combined with tighter visa restrictions, make the U.S. a less welcoming place for foreign investors.

Above all, there are now alternatives to the U.S. dollar. The last time it faced a comparable crisis was in 1971, when a different Republican president was trying to run another unpopular war without raising taxes. Richard Nixon devalued the U.S. dollar and demolished the Bretton Woods system that had fixed all other currencies in relation to the dollar, inaugurating the current era of floating exchange rates.

There was no other candidate then for the role of global reserve currency, so the dollar stayed at the center of the system despite all the turbulence. This time, by contrast, there is the euro, the currency of an economic zone just as big as the United States, with the Chinese currency as a possible long-term rival. But nothing is likely to happen very fast.

Republicans are ruining our economy for their fatcat short term gains while permanently damaging our hardworking middle class.

Republicans stole the election

Read today: The 2008 elections have already been marred by a number of controversies, the worst of which is the report that was published last Friday by Ohio's top election official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The report proves that the voting systems that decided the 2004 election in Ohio were rife with "critical security failures". The election was rigged; pure and simple--stolen by the Bush team and their friends in the establishment media who refuse to report the news. It's actually funny, in a cynical kind of way.

The perpetrators were so cocksure they could pull it off that---"the servers for the computation of the Ohio vote count were in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee that houses servers for the Republican National Committee.

The programmers who worked for Ken Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State, were Republicans who did websites for the Bush administration."

republican dirty tricks

The morning of election day 2002, repeated hang-up calls assaulted six phone lines tied to the New Hampshire Democratic Party. Three Republican operatives, including consultant Allen Raymond, eventually ended up in jail for their involvement in the phone jamming scheme. A fourth, former RNC offical James Tobin, will begin a second trial in February.

In his new book, Raymond says that the scandal goes "to the top of the Republican Party" because "the Bush White House had complete control of the RNC" and there was no way such a risky tactic wouldn't have been "vetted by" Tobin's "high-ups":

Phone records obtained in a civil suit brought against the NH GOP by the NH Democratic Party show that "Tobin made 22 calls to the White House political office in the 24 hours before and after the jamming" while the Republican National Committee has paid over $6 million in legal fees for Tobin.

republican surge

Arming the Sunnis + using air strikes = a successful 'Surge', at least statistically, for the time being. In reality, this will make the situation even worse as the Sunnis will inevitably turn on the occupation force they hate, the Shias will be even further alienated by their betrayal, and the thousands of new civilian casualties will only result in more hatred for the brutal occupation.

Add to this the US support for Turkey against the Kurds and you have all the ingredients of a complete nightmare and even more bloodshed. The 'Surge' will go down in history as one of the dumbest and most immoral political stunts ever devised.

Why we need for more Demos in Congress

The Democrats delivered much of what they promised last year. Of the six initiatives on the their "Six for '06" agenda, congressional Democrats sent five to the president and got his signature on four: a minimum-wage increase, implementation of the homeland security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, college cost reduction, and an energy measure that requires conservation and the expanded use of renewable sources of energy.

They also boosted spending on veterans' needs. Just yesterday, Democrats unveiled a proposal to create the first nonpartisan ethics review panel in House history and passed the most significant gun-control legislation since the early 1990s, tightening the instant background-check process.

Beyond those, Democrats secured the biggest overhaul of ethics and lobbying rules since the Watergate scandal. And they passed a slew of measures that have received little notice, such as more money for math and science teachers who earn more credentials in their field, tax relief for homeowners in foreclosure, a doubling of basic research funding, and reclamation projects for the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast.
Federal funding for stem cell research was vetoed by Bush. Republicans in Congress blocked all end-the-war bills.

Republicans

Republicans were (minimally) asleep at the wheel during America’s most severe domestic military attack in history, and are surprised that we might find that troubling.

They identify an enemy and claim that this person and his movement attacked the country, then they fail to come close to defeating this enemy in six years of war. Who’s ready to sign-up for that?

They bring us another war, based on lies, which turns into a quagmire based on lies, and which has nothing remotely to do with American security other than to radically diminish it. Then they belittle us as disloyal for opposing the moral, fiscal and humanitarian disasters they’ve made.

They polarize the country economically in the name of their radical (supposed) free market ideas, which turn out to have a lot more to do with privileging certain elites than with privileging nobody, as per the theory. Then, as we are being gouged paying for gas, food and mortgages, they are astonished that we don’t give them credit for the wonderful state of the economy. Hey, the Dow’s up! What’s wrong with you people?

They offer us record-setting deficits in place of record-setting surpluses, and are shocked that we aren’t interested in such a golden opportunity to go broke.

They create a giant new government benefit structured to enrich insurance and pharmaceutical industries, while maybe incidentally also helping seniors once in a while, and they wonder why we’re not enthusiastic.

They attempt to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs of all time, in order to further enrich the already fabulously wealthy, and can’t imagine that we wouldn’t be all over that.

They allow us to suffer and die from diseases which might well have been cured by now, were it not for the fact that the religious radicals to which they cater have imposed their extreme fundamentalist views on the entire country. Then they’re astonished that we choose health and longevity over blastocysts in petri dishes.

They legislate by an act of Congress intervention into a personal family tragedy, and are amazed that we aren’t all clamoring to be treated like the Terri Schiavo family.

They block health care for children while uninhibitedly enriching crony contractors in Iraq and wonder why we don’t celebrate their twisted values.

They demonize gays and minorities and immigrants and liberals in order to divert attention from their real kleptocracy agenda, and we’re supposed to feel good about how they’ve restored dignity to American politics.

They imagine that good governance involves poor preparation before a natural disaster, criminal negligence during it, and shameful disinterest afterwards, and can’t quite fathom why even an embarrassingly intimidated American press can no longer withhold its criticisms.

They not only stand by and do nothing about the planet’s most serious environmental crisis ever, but they actually block other countries from rescuing themselves, all in order to maintain fossil fuel industry profits. And they wonder why we don’t beg for more of that.

They turn our country into a hated international bully, proud to be an aggressor, a torturer and a hypocrite, and then they’re shocked that we don’t find that a compelling self-image.

They trample the Constitution in every way imaginable, from checks and balances to separation of church and state to due process to illegal search and seizure to stealing elections. After constantly telling us how much we should revere the Founders, they are somehow surprised that we don’t approve of seeing their creation being trashed.

And this is just for starters...

Republican candidates of the same mold

The Republican candidates either have scandals in their past or are flipfloppers on the issues, or support unpopular causes. They all are talking about the past by promising to reduce the size of government (now while in power increased it) and appointing “strict constructionist” judges, etc, that make all judicial decisions based on their rightwing politics.

They all still support the war on Iraq and are in favor of running up huge debts to overseas governments like China. Their new "red scare" is to promise to be tough on illegal immigrants.

In many ways, at a time when the country — and even some Republicans — are hungry for change, this field of candidates is promising more of the same: to do just what Mr. Bush did, but promise to go one better.

republicans call this progress in Iraq

When the Iraqi government last month invited home the 1.4 million refugees who had fled this war-ravaged country for Syria -- and said it would send buses to pick them up -- the United Nations and the U.S. military reacted with horror.

U.N. refugee officials immediately advised against the move, saying any new arrivals risked homelessness, unemployment and deprivation in a place still struggling to take care of the people already here. For the military, the prospect of refugees returning to reclaim houses long since occupied by others, particularly in Baghdad, threatened to destroy fragile security improvements.

You move back to the house that you left and find that somebody else has moved into the house, maybe because they've been displaced from someplace else. And it's even more difficult than that, because in many cases the local militias . . . have seized control and threw out anybody in that neighborhood they didn't like."

your children's money to Iraq

The Republican approach to Iraq is the classic case of a politician arguing that a problem will be solved if only we keep throwing large sums of money at it.

That's why a report on the staggering costs of our Iraq intervention, issued this week by the Congress's Joint Economic Committee, is useful. The report noted that Bush has requested a total of $607 billion for the war and that its actual cost to our economy is $1.3 trillion.

US Graft in Iraq, tip of the problem

The U.S. military paid a Florida company nearly $32 million to build barracks and offices for Iraqi army units even though nothing was ever built, Pentagon investigators reported.

The Ramadi construction contract is one of many problems Pentagon investigators cited in this month's report on the military's oversight of $5.2 billion Congress approved in 2005 to help train and equip the Iraqi military and police.

The fat cats are getting rich on our money.

take a guess?

".......But now I know that all that they want is to break my faith, my soul, to separate me from my brothers in Christ. So I have to be more concerned about what they are doing. And be stronger in my faith and keep my faith deep in my heart with me here in my small cell......God called me to know him and to be his servant and I accept his mission.

All what I have done is from my conscience......I did my decision alone by the voice of God who called me in my heart. And the same thing happened with my action against nuclear weapons. From the beginning it has come to me from my belief from inside - my values, my respect for the human being and the human right. And of course everyone knows and understands all about nuclear weapons - the new holocaust that is hanging over our lives...... "

The question is.......where is he in prison?

only 14 cases against gitmo prisioners?

The current neo-con republican administration has been able to create cases against only 14 of those remaining at Gitmo. After all the years of illegal detention, harsh treatment, and denial of access to attorneys, the Bush regime has come up with 14 cases, and they are probably fabricated.

Where is the rule of law when hundreds of people can have years stolen from their lives?

It is uncertain how the court will decide the case. Bush’s solicitor general has told the justices that they should trust the executive branch to correctly balance “the interests of the prisoners” with the administration’s ability to “prosecute the global war on terror.”

In other words, it is Waco all over again. The executive branch runs roughshod over the US Constitution and then demands, “trust us,” which means don’t take away any of the illegitimate power that the executive branch has claimed and exercised or hold anyone accountable for abusing executive power.

The Republican justices or most of them are, or were, members of the Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers committed to increased power for the executive. These Republican justices will be inclined to decide the case in the interest of executive power.

why now Iran, Bush threat to Israel

Congress’ intelligence committees, Pentagon brass, and senior CIA officials reportedly made it quite clear they would go public if the White House did not publish a sanitized version of the key judgments of the latest National Intelligence Estimate.

Bush’s words and body language he is far from giving up on ways to “justify” attacking Iran’s nuclear program—weapons-related or not. He appears convinced he must honor the pledge he has made to Israel’s current leaders to eliminate what they have called an “existential threat” to Israel.

This came through in a particularly pointed way on October 17, when an agitated president ad-libbed about the possibility of World War III, complaining loudly, “We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to destroy Israel.” So that is what this is all about. We are fighting and dying for Israel.

The idiot eliminated Iraq which was the best counter weight to Iran, therefore Bush became the worst threat to Israel.

you, me and torture

Read this on the net: Since our government tortures people, we need to know how to deal with it, just in case they come for you and me.
1. They will try to tell you that you are alone. This is a lie. You are never without your ancestors.
2. They will "isolate" you. Again, this is a lie. The truth is that you come from a long line of survivors. This is simple biological fact. Your people have survived worse. Your people have already been tortured.
3. They will tell you that you are bad and evil. This is again a lie. You love many things and THERE IS NO EVIL IN LOVE.
4. They will make you think death is bad. It's not. All of your people, going back to the beginning have died.
5. They will make you feel pain and it will be real but this does not compare to their alternative.

Romney ducks Mormonism question

The Religious Right (the New Calvinists or New Puritans - as I call them) are not "mainstream" at all, but religious radicals who are working to establish a sort of Theo-democracy. As such they belong to the very sector of religious Americans who brutally persecuted Mormons in 1830's Missouri, and then led the successful campaign to completely disenfranchise Utah Mormons between the 1886 and the 1890's.

Romney knows that he can't come public with Mormon theology without completely losing the support of the New Calvinists but also many average Americans who, unfortunately, look to the New Calvinists for sound-bites on Christian belief and practice. Unlike orthodox Christianity,

Mormon thelogy is polytheistic, teaching that the Gods organized the universe from pre-existing, eternal, uncreated chaotic elements. It rejects Original Sin. It rejects Salvation by Grace, teaching that individuals must "work out their own salvation" and "learn to become Gods [themselves] the same as all Gods before have done."

At its inception, with the publication of "The Book of Mormon" in 1830, Mormonism rejected the doctrines of Biblical infallibility and Biblical literalism.

As a Mormon, I was put-off by Romney's disingenuousness when he was asked on a TV interview to explain how Mormonism differs from other Christian denominations. Romney tried to give the impression that he was unqualified to speak for the LDS Church, referring poeple to the Church's website.

When confronted with the fact that he has been an LDS Bishop, he tried to give the impression that, in a "lay church," the calling of a Bishop isn't important. This is untrue.

Bishops interview, and must approve every person in their Ward boundaries (aka Parish) who wishes to convert to Mormonism and be baptized. The process by which they do this (the Bishop's Interview) is the means by which the Bishop finds out if the would-be-convert understands the LDS Church's theology.

If the would-be-convert is ignorant of certain doctrines, it is the Bishop's job to instruct them in the theology before approving that person's baptism.

The Bishop also interviews every single member of his congregation yearly, to pastor them through any spirital crisis or tragedy, and to determine if each person is "keeping the commandments" (i.e., following Church dictates on lifestyle choices), is "active" (attending Church meetings regularly), and "has a testimony" (understands and accepts the Church's theology.)

A Bishop is asked almost daily by some individual or some organization with the LDS Church to explain some aspect of Mormon theology. Whenever a Mormon has a question or concern about any aspect of Mormon theology, they are instructed to ask their Bishop about it.

Romney is intentionally misleading the press by making it seem as if he is unqualified to discuss Mormon theology. Remember, besides being a Bishop, he served as a full-time Mormon missionary for two years. For two years, his full-time calling was specifically to teach Mormon theology to potential converts--not only explaining Mormon doctrine, but explaining how it differs from orthodox Christian doctrine.

The LDS Church brags that young men come back from two year missions who a deeper understanding of their religion than that enjoyed by believers of other faiths. Is Romney the lone exception to this?

The fact is, Mitt Romney is probably one of the LDS Church's MOST qualified speakers on the subject.

why some Gitmo Saudis are inmates?

For five years, Jumah al-Dossari sat in a tiny cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, watched day and night by military captors who considered him one of the most dangerous terrorist suspects on the planet.

In July, he was suddenly released to his native Saudi Arabia, which held a very different view. Dossari was immediately reunited with his family and treated like a VIP. He was given a monthly stipend and a job, housed and fed, even promised help in finding a wife. Today, he is a free man living on the Persian Gulf coast.

So, why was he held in a cell for five years?

who benifits warmongering on Iraq and Iran

Bush has been trying to work up an attack on Iran based on a non-existent nuclear weapon program. When asked how he could be threatening World War III with a nuclear-armed Iran when US intelligence (and the International Atomic Energy Agency) cannot find evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, Bush said that “nobody told me” about the new finding. Noone except the neo-cons believes that.

Surely, no one believes that Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or that Bush and Cheney were working up an attack on Iran because the executive branch did not know of the intelligence findings of its own agencies.

So why are they. The real answer is to look at who is benefiting, getting rich or gaining more wealth.

waterboarding US claims of morality

Waterboarding as an interrogation technique has its roots in some of history's worst totalitarian nations, from Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition to North Korea and Iraq.

Republican spin machine

These neo-con republicans are certainly professional wordsmiths. What do all of the following words mean???: tough methods,
number of tactics, harsh methods,aggressive techniques,all of the techniques used,appropriate interrogation procedures,interrogation practices,coercive techniques,effective coercion,interrogation program,aggressive interrogations, interrogation policies and the tactics, harsh interrogation methods,tough methods used, and enhanced techniques

Talk about Republican spin! The use all of those words really means >>> the word TORTURE. And if waterboarding is not torture, Please give me a neo-con Republican politico to demonstrate it on.

Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate who is also a Mormon,

Unlike traditional Christians, Mormons also revere the Book of Mormon equally with the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. They believe that Jesus visited the Americas after he was crucified and that he will return and reign from the United States and Jerusalem.

They believe that the dead can be baptized, that God was once a man and that a human can become like a god. And, they say, God speaks through living apostles and prophets, such as Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Mormon Church.

Mormons believe the faith's founder, Joseph Smith Jr., a Palmyra farmer, was guided by an angel to a set of ancient records etched on golden plates. Those records, which include an account of Jesus Christ's appearance in the Americas after his crucifixion, are in the Book of Mormon. For many traditional Christians, such ideas are heresy.

Smith taught that the true church of Jesus Christ disappeared with the death of Christ's last apostle and that Christianity lapsed into darkness -- the "great apostasy," Mormons call it -- for almost 18 centuries. He also said that God used him to restore the "only true church" to the Earth.

In addition to believing that polygamy was sanctioned by God, they believed until 1978 that God did not allow black people to serve in their priesthood. They have rejected both doctrines, but they still allow only men to serve as priests.

another republican lie

President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

The new intelligence report released yesterday not only undercut the administration's alarming rhetoric over Iran's nuclear ambitions but could also throttle Bush's effort to ratchet up international sanctions and take off the table the possibility of preemptive military action before the end of his presidency.

your children's money going down the Iraqi rathole

U.S. officials now say one-third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants goes unaccounted for; an estimated $18 billion has gone missing from Iraqi government coffers since 2004. "Everyone is stealing from the state," says one Shiite leader.

are these top republians racist?

The G.O.P., by its own doing, is saddled with a history that most recently includes “macaca” and Katrina, Mr. Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University in 2000, and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.

Their party’s top 2008 presidential contenders would not even show up for a September debate moderated by Tavis Smiley for PBS at the historically black Morgan State University

These Republicans are strangers to the mainstream multiracial and multicultural America..

big business republicans vs. working people

Big business republican lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year’s elections, are racing to secure final approval for gutting a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules.

They are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. Electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

For example, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys.

The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting final rules that would allow utility companies to modify coal-fired power plants and increase their emissions into the air we breath without installing new pollution-control equipment.

Corporations and trade associations are expecting battles over taxes and health care as they lobby in advance of the next year's elections.

Iran,neo-cons,patriotism,facism

But, "attacking Iran" could just be the last act of "losing on purpose". Suffering a massive loss on an ill-advised third front would make a good excuse for all sorts of reajustments in the power paradigm.

The neo-cons have been out to wreck the USA from the start, so what's to stop them now? Sure, militarily we'll get a black eye, but we'll also get a surge of patriotism and a reason to suspend elections. Beyond that, we can talk NAU while we "heal", since we're all so ashamed of being 'merican "losers".

republican war with Iran for the election

The Bush administration has charged that Iran is funding anti-American fighters in Iraq and sending in sophisticated explosives to bleed the U.S. mission, although some of the administration's charges are disputed by Iraqis as well as the Iranians. The Bush administration is headed straight for a war with Iran that had been set on this course for years.

The Iran war will be another elective war, not a war of necessity. A war of necessity would be fought at the point and time a conflict is required, if somebody is threatening to invade you, to attack, etc. But an elective war is one where we choose to go to war. It will be conducted on a timescale that's beneficial to the republicans in the next presidential elections.

Also, the need to redefine the Iranian threat away from exclusively being focused on nuclear activity, because now you have the difficulty of both the IAEA saying there is no nuclear weapons program and the CIA saying pretty much the same thing.

So the Bush administration needs to redefine the Iranian threat, which they have been doing successfully, casting Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror, getting the Senate resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command a terrorist organization, and creating a perception amongst the American people, courtesy of a compliant media, that talks about the reason why things are going bad in Iraq is primarily because of Iranian intervention.

Take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker-busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008.

Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches the obvious, that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the political season of the summer just in time for the presidential election of 2008.