Denialist Reconstruction
Eric Von Zipper did not say, "You Denialists!"
Beyond Ups and Downs
A sine wave may be used to show human Ups and Downs, where Point of Ascension is an entry that reaches above the highest point of the wave; == a Point Beyond Ups & Downs attainable by using personal experience and a Control phrase like, "There's that one again." ~@~
Please Ask Your Doctor How To Stop Taking Corporate Drugs!
They Were Intended For Short Term Use While Undergoing Therapy!
In Order to Move Forward,
One Needs to Fix What Is Broken
Rethinking The Patriot Act
&
None of the Above
Should Be On Voter Ballots
Something we like to call: Nobody for President
Brief History:
General Douglas MacArthur begat the following Republicans: House Minority leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts, California Representative Richard M. Nixon, and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Joseph McCarthy begat an abusive hunt for subversives, used his powers of investigation to harass people with whom he and fellow Republicans differed politically...and after four years of being unable to produce any proof his allegations were true...and ruining many lives with his lies, was condemned by the Senate.
Richard M. Nixon begat Watergate and more Republican crooks.
Ronald Reagan begat Iran/Contra and Nobody mentions the Savings and Loan debacle anymore.
Bill Clinton begat Monica L. and it is interesting to note Republicans spent fifty-five million dollars to discover if Monica swallowed and ONLY three and a half million dollars investigating an INSIDE JOB known as 9/11.
Turd Blossom begat Republican Neocon ex alcoholic cocaine addict chickenhawk presidential candidate George W. Bush.
A shameful Supreme Court and four years later, a rigged election begat George W. Bush (sic) 'Guvner of the United States of Amerka' spare changing for political capital.
George W. Bush; along with a limp Senate/Congress begat Plamegate and an illegal war based on false pretenses. Unfortunately, like Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration tortured people, had children raped (reason why Democrats will not release Torture photos and video), and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11! The people were conned by Corporate Media and Politicians.
"This is not so much about Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. This is about the fact that the president didn't tell us the truth when we went to Iraq, and all these guys are involved in it." - Howard Dean
"If a president is willing to lie about the most basic governmental and political facts, civic debate becomes impossible, and the public becomes incapable of informed judgment. Because of the great weight that any president's words have with the public, the president of the United States must not be a liar." - Tony "Forked Tongue" Blankley.
September 2002 - According to DICK Cheney, ""I think that the people of Iraq would welcome the U.S. force as liberators; they would not see us as oppressors, by any means. And our experience was after the Gulf War in '91 that once the United States acted and provide leadership that in fact, the community, the region was more peaceful for some considerable period of time. That is what made possible a lot of progress in peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians back in the early '90s."
September 2002 - According to Donald Rumsfeld, ""Think of the faces in Afghanistan when the people were liberated, when they moved out in the streets and they started singing and flying kites and women went to school and people were able to function and other countries were able to start interacting with them. That's what would happen in Iraq."
January 2003 - According to Andrew Card, ""I think the Iraqi people are crying out for liberation and freedom. And they've been denied it. They've been living in fear for a very long time. They're a very industrious people, and they have an awful lot to contribute to their own society as well as to the world, and they've been denied that chance to do so...I think the Iraqi people would welcome freedom with jubilation."
February 2003 - According to Donald Rumsfeld war in Iraq was going to, "last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months"
February 2003 - According to Paul Wolfowitz, ""We can't be sure that the Iraqi people will welcome us as liberators, although based on what Iraqi-Americans told me in Detroit a week ago, many of them - most of them with families in Iraq - I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down. In short, we don't know what the requirement will be, but we can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark."
March 2003 - According to DICK Cheney, ""I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who's a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he's written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
October 2005 - According to Con. Rice, "I don't know how to speculate about what will happen 10 years from now, but I do believe that we are moving on a course on which Iraqi security forces are rather rapidly able to take care of their own security concerns."
US ready to stay 10 years in Iraq: Rice -
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200510200311.htm
by Albert Bates,
26 April 2009, Culture Change
via Keith Lampe
We really would like to get off our torture rant, but feel the obligation to connect the dots when we see them line up. We picked up a copy of the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal while passing through the desolate, echoing canyons of Nashville's international departure lounge at mid-day on Saturday and felt a sudden urge to scream. A two-hour flight and the in-flight wifi system on Delta/Northwest offered a better alternative.
What prodded us to write, at 30,000 feet over Mississippi, en route to Mexico, were the fascinating connections between the four seemingly different stories on the Weekend Journal's page A2. We started drawing arrows on the page with our pen. Top left was a story under the headline, "Memos' release upended strategy on past" in which Evan Perez and Jonathan Weisman wander behind the scenes at the White House to parse the intentions of the Obama administration concerning prosecution of war crimes by their predecessors.
The Perez/Weisman story would have it that Obama is adamant in squelching Congressional truth commissions and Justice Dept. special prosecutors while providing full and infuriating disclosure through slow time-release of historical documents and photos. The nuance unreported is that by taking that stance, the White House deflects right wing political heat, including that of Blue Dog Democrats, while stoking the fires of litigation and international prosecutions that will ultimately provide justice for the perpetrators. The President also gets to watch his political opponents slowly twist in the wind, hoisted by their own "maintain the cover-up for the sake of the country" petard. In a nation addicted to breaking-scandal news cycles, that Blue Dog just won't hunt.
Top right was a story under the headline "U.S. releasing Iraq, Afghan prison photos" although the actual release is still a month away. The release of part of the Pentagon's trove of abuse photos was ordered by a federal court as part of a case brought by civil libertarians in 2003, pre-Abu Gharib. The decision to let them go public now is part of that fire-stoking thang.
Of course, what we, the scandal addicted, would really like to see is the secret photos that circulated betwixt congressional oversight committees in 2006, showing sexually-explicit abuses of women Abu-Gharib prisoners. Those may never see the light of day, any more than the abuse of children pictures or the CIA's torture videos. Perhaps they can be viewed through plexiglas frames in a George W. Bush museum in Crawford, Texas, some day, something akin to the Dracula museum in Transylvania.
Lower left A2 was the headline, "Scientists fear people can spread new virus," over a story reporting the World Health Organization's concern that A/H1N1 flu represents "a cross of swine, avian and human viruses in a way that hasn't been seen before" and a warning that it could augur a global pandemic similar to 1918, if not stopped.
Lower right was the continuation of front-page-above-the-fold: "Mexico races to stop deadly flu outbreak." At press time, the Mexico City outbreak of H1N1 had infected 854 people, of whom 59 died within the preceding 48 hours. H1N1 was already showing up in central Mexican states, Texas and California, and the CDC's acting director was saying containment was no longer an option. These numbers and locations have since increased, and rumors emanating from workers in Mexico's hospitals say as many as 1000 fatalities occurred in a single hospital. People are fleeing the city, which has now closed schools, public buildings and places of entertainment. The official cases number in Mexico is 1400 at this writing.
What ties these four stories together?
Donald Rumsfeld.
Rummy was the Stan Laurel to Dick Cheney's Oliver Hardy in the Ford, Reagan and Bush Administrations, and not only knows where the skeletons are buried, probably did much of the spadework. [1]
Like Forrest Gump, Rummy is an apex of historical confluence, whether bringing a pair of golden cowboy spurs to Saddam Hussein [2], selling nuclear reactors to North Korea [3], or reassuring us that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq eventually. Whether Rumsfeld had a role in slipping superthermite girder paint past Marvin Bush at the World Trade Center [4], secreting nano-tefloned GMO anthrax from a national weapons lab and mopping up witnesses [5], or downing [6] a light plane that carried Paul Wellstone and his staff [7], we may never know. [8]
As a former chairman and major stockholder of Gilead Sciences [9], Rummy stands to gain financially from sales of Tamiflu, which, by sheer coincidence, is one of only two [10] anti-viral drugs that H1N1 appears [11] to not tolerate, very odd for a pill genetically designed for avian flu, not swine flu. One might not unreasonably inquire whether the Former Defense Secretary might be building a war chest for his coming legal fees, once the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [12] starts releasing its findings to The Hague. Perhaps Rumsfeld hopes to stay out of prison long enough to enjoy his huge new fortune, but Tick Tock, old man.
Oh, and Carl Levin, Diane Feinstein and Al Franken? Those guys should really get some flu shots.
Please visit the Culture Change Article for images and reference links.
War Criminal & Pandemic Profiteer
Hoover Institution Swine ..errr.. Fellow
Dirty-D Rumsfeld
No Problem Saddam, I'll Teach You How To Gas, Chemically, & Biologically KILL Anybody.
It's Part of the Deal!
In Rethinking 9/11, there is a story of 5 Osama's showing a certain lack of honesty that has never been explained.
If one is inclined, and feeling the bonds of Denialism loosening, it might be a good time to consider the Truth Behind WMD & "Mass Graves" Cover-up.
Most of the original sources should still exist, as well as corporate tax records, unless they were shredded during the Bush Administration. (Source references: +Bush +shredding available via Search Engine)
In other words, the letter Clinton received from Neocons, the first known one claiming WMD and a desire to murder Saddam; leaving out stealing Iraq's oil supply, was a priority; even if it included something as horrible as 9/11. (Search Engine)
Protecting [Zionist] Israel was also on the agenda and they are known for using a despicable humanitarian approach as their method. (Source references: +murder +Arabs +"Ariel Sharon" and: +world +condemns +Israel +settlements available via Search Engine)
They want war at any cost because they profit from it, win or lose. They have links to those who would control the Middle East and murder all Arabs, which has been going on for thousands of years; accomplishing nothing, except for the graves of their children!
They have unfortunately received money from misguided Christian Zionists (Search Engine: "Pat Robertson" ) to activate an Armageddon that would allow their interpretation of what they believe, rather than facts, which do not seem to include a majority of the planet, and there is no 'written in stone' reference!
[By the way, modern technology has revealed Somebody made multiple changes to some of the oldest, accepted, scrolls (allowed for examination), over the ages (kept changing certain things, in some cases the same things, over and over, to different things; resulting in a somewhat different story, if taken back to the original characters). It was at this point research seemed to take a low profile.) - Search Engine, 'dig deep', and Translation Engines are an asset.)] Interesting how easy people can be fooled (Search Engine: "Ministers of Satan" ), when the message was "Love One Another," and 'No More Killing!'
Christians & Spiritual Warfare via Herb:
Christians are to no longer execute sinners, so they should not wage carnal war, but spiritual warfare (John 18:36; 2 Corinthians 10:1-6; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Timothy 1:18-20; 6:11-14; 2 Timothy 2:3-5; 4:6-8)
Christians must be peacemakers forgiving those who do them harm treating their enemies with love and not seeking revenge (Matthew 5:9, Romans 14:19), (Ephesians 4:29-32; Colossians 3:12-14; Matthew 6:9-15; Mark 11:25-26), (Luke 6:27-36) (Romans 12:17-21; 1 Peter 3:8-12)
Hatred which is the same as murder is unforgiving, vengeful and hostile towards one's enemies (1 John 3:15)
Tightly connected with Neocons who sent Clinton the letter, Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense during Bush I and Vice President during Bush II, launched two (2) illegal wars, based on lies, against Iraq (Bush I Source = Christian Science Monitor - Babies in Incubators & Bush II Source = WMD), and obviously was involved in, at least, premeditated murder.
Unfortunately Congress, with an approval rating lower than the percentage of rat feces tolerated in the human food supply, did not do their job properly (Protecting the American People) are Accessories to murder, and they know it!
Does that help in understanding why Impeachment was 'shuffled' off the table?
Criminal Act
Click for A Few Words from the War Criminal known as Cheney
Does the Hoover Institution Hate Vietnam Veterans?
Martin Rowson
Sweet Condi & the Asspirate Neocon Band sing:
"We're Gonna Give Christianity A Bad Name"
encore with Dirty-D Rumsfeld: "Hail, Stanford, Hail"
According to a Senate Intelligence Committee Memo, George Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was the first person to verbally approve torture during July 2002.
Then there was the following question and answer during the 9/11 cOmmission:
BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States [using planes]."
Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings
Could Bush Administration Officials Be Prosecuted For 'War Crimes' As A Result Of New Measures Used In The War On Terror? The White House's Top Lawyer Thought So....during January 2002.
Updated: 1:21 p.m. ET May 18, 2004
http://www.newsweek.com/id/105057?tid=relatedcl
By Michael Isikoff
May 17 - The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.
The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes--and that it might even apply to Bush administration officials themselves-- is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, (.pdf ) memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes--defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions--such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners--was "undefined."
One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did not have Geneva Convention protections is that it "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," Gonzales wrote.
"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441 [the War Crimes Act]," Gonzales wrote.
The best way to guard against such "unwarranted charges," the White House lawyer concluded, would be for President Bush to stick to his decision--then being strongly challenged by Secretary of State Powell-- to exempt the treatment of captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Geneva convention provisions.
"Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that (the War Crimes Act) does not apply which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution," Gonzales wrote.
[Ed. Note: premeditation, pre·med·i·ta·tion [pree mèddi táysh'n] noun - Definition: 1. contemplation of intended crime: the act of thinking about and planning a crime beforehand, rather than acting on impulse in a moment of passion or mindlessness]
The memo--and strong dissents by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his chief legal advisor, William Howard Taft IV--are among hundreds of pages of internal administration documents on the Geneva Convention and related issues that have been obtained by NEWSWEEK and are reported for the first time in this week's magazine. Newsweek made some of them available online today.
The memos provide fresh insights into a fierce internal administration debate over whether the United States should conform to international treaty obligations in pursuing the war on terror. Administration critics have charged that key legal decisions made in the months after September 11, 2001 including the White House's February 2002 declaration not to grant any Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters prisoners of war status under the Geneva Convention, laid the groundwork for the interrogation abuses that have recently been revealed in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
As reported in this week's magazine edition, the Gonzales memo urged Bush to declare all aspects of the war in Afghanistan--including the detention of both Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters--exempt from the strictures of the Geneva Convention. In the memo, Gonzales described the war against terrorism as a "new kind of war" and then added: "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians."
But while top White House officials publicly talked about trying Al Qaeda leaders for war crimes, the internal memos show that administration lawyers were privately concerned that they could tried for war crimes themselves based on actions the administration were taking, and might have to take in the future, to combat the terrorist threat.
The issue first arises in a January 9, 2002, draft memorandum written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) concluding that "neither the War Crimes Act nor the Geneva Conventions" would apply to the detention conditions of Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The memo includes a lengthy discussion of the War Crimes Act, which it concludes has no binding effect on the president because it would interfere with his Commander in Chief powers to determine "how best to deploy troops in the field." (The memo, by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, also concludes--in response to a question by the Pentagon--that U.S. soldiers could not be tried for violations of the laws of war in Afghanistan because such international laws have "no binding legal effect on either the President or the military.")
But while the discussion in the Justice memo revolves around the possible application of the War Crimes Act to members of the U.S. military, there is some reason to believe that administration lawyers were worried that the law could even be used in the future against senior administration officials.
One lawyer involved in the interagency debates over the Geneva Conventions issue recalled a meeting in early 2002 in which participants challenged Yoo, a primary architect of the administration's legal strategy, when he raised the possibility of Justice Department war crimes prosecutions unless there was a clear presidential direction proclaiming the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. The concern seemed misplaced, Yoo was told, given that loyal Bush appointees were in charge of the Justice Department.
"Well, the political climate could change," Yoo replied, according to the lawyer who attended the meeting. "The implication was that a new president would come into office and start potential prosecutions of a bunch of ex-Bush officials," the lawyer said. (Yoo declined comment.)
This appears to be precisely the concern in Gonzales's memo dated January 25, 2002, in which he strongly urges Bush to stick to his decision to exempt the treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. (Powell and the State Department had wanted the U.S. to at least have individual reviews of Taliban fighters before concluding that they did not qualify for Geneva Convention provisions.)
One reason to do so, Gonzales wrote, is that it "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." He added that "it is difficult to predict with confidence what actions might be deemed to constitute violations" of the War Crimes Act just as it was "difficult to predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on terrorism." Such uncertainties, Gonzales wrote, argued for the President to uphold his exclusion of Geneva Convention provisions to the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees who, he concluded, would still be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessarily, in a manner consistent with the principles" of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
In the end, after strong protests from Powell, the White House retreated slightly. In February 2002, it proclaimed that, while the United States would adhere to the Geneva Conventions in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan, captured Taliban and Qaeda fighters would not be given prisoner of war status under the conventions. It is a rendering that Administration lawyers believed would protect U.S. interrogators or their superiors in Washington from being subjected to prosecutions under the War Crimes Act based on their treatment of the prisoners. © 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
Republican Alberto 'Torture Queen' Gonzales
http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/rpubsbad.html
A Secret History: How Torture Took Root
But while top White House officials publicly talked about trying Al Qaeda leaders for war crimes, the internal memos show that administration lawyers were privately concerned that they could tried for war crimes themselves based on actions the administration were taking, and might have to take in the future, to combat the terrorist threat.
The issue first arises in a January 9, 2002, draft memorandum written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) concluding that "neither the War Crimes Act nor the Geneva Conventions" would apply to the detention conditions of Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The memo includes a lengthy discussion of the War Crimes Act, which it concludes has no binding effect on the president because it would interfere with his Commander in Chief powers to determine "how best to deploy troops in the field." (The memo, by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, also concludes--in response to a question by the Pentagon--that U.S. soldiers could not be tried for violations of the laws of war in Afghanistan because such international laws have "no binding legal effect on either the President or the military.")
But while the discussion in the Justice memo revolves around the possible application of the War Crimes Act to members of the U.S. military, there is some reason to believe that administration lawyers were worried that the law could even be used in the future against senior administration officials.
One lawyer involved in the interagency debates over the Geneva Conventions issue recalled a meeting in early 2002 in which participants challenged Yoo, a primary architect of the administration's legal strategy, when he raised the possibility of Justice Department war crimes prosecutions unless there was a clear presidential direction proclaiming the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. The concern seemed misplaced, Yoo was told, given that loyal Bush appointees were in charge of the Justice Department.
"Well, the political climate could change," Yoo replied, according to the lawyer who attended the meeting. "The implication was that a new president would come into office and start potential prosecutions of a bunch of ex-Bush officials," the lawyer said. (Yoo declined comment.)
This appears to be precisely the concern in Gonzales's memo dated January 25, 2002, in which he strongly urges Bush to stick to his decision to exempt the treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. (Powell and the State Department had wanted the U.S. to at least have individual reviews of Taliban fighters before concluding that they did not qualify for Geneva Convention provisions.)
One reason to do so, Gonzales wrote, is that it "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." He added that "it is difficult to predict with confidence what actions might be deemed to constitute violations" of the War Crimes Act just as it was "difficult to predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on terrorism." Such uncertainties, Gonzales wrote, argued for the President to uphold his exclusion of Geneva Convention provisions to the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees who, he concluded, would still be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessarily, in a manner consistent with the principles" of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
In the end, after strong protests from Powell, the White House retreated slightly. In February 2002, it proclaimed that, while the United States would adhere to the Geneva Conventions in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan, captured Taliban and Qaeda fighters would not be given prisoner of war status under the conventions. It is a rendering that Administration lawyers believed would protect U.S. interrogators or their superiors in Washington from being subjected to prosecutions under the War Crimes Act based on their treatment of the prisoners. © 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
Secretary Rumsfeld's Court Filing Argues
Immunity for Responsibility from Torture and Abuse
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/2006_statements/etn_0306_rumsfeld.htm
On March 6, 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld filed a long-anticipated motion to dismiss the case brought by the ACLU and Human Rights First on behalf of victims of torture in U.S. custody. The lawsuit, the first federal court suit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was originally filed in March 2005 on behalf of Iraqi and Afghan citizens, who were tortured and abused at the hands of U.S. forces under Secretary Rumsfeld's command. The suit charges the Secretary and other senior commanders with legal responsibility for acts of torture and abuse against the Iraqi and Afghan torture victims in the case.
Following the filing, ACLU and Human Rights First attorneys rejected the position put forward by Secretary Rumsfeld in his legal papers, which assert that Secretary Rumsfeld is immune from responsibility for acts of torture and abuse committed against civilians detained by the U.S. military at Abu Gharib and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan under his watch.
"Secretary Rumsfeld makes the chilling argument that a government official who authorizes or condones torture is entirely immune from suit and cannot be held accountable for his actions. We believe that the courts must reject that contention to protect the rule of law and the principles of the Constitution," said Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the lawsuit and director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.
"Particularly in light of reports documenting how senior command and civilian leadership have escaped accountability for the gross abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, the Secretary's position that ordering torture was ‘within the scope of his employment' is a stunning abdication of the responsibility of command," said Deborah Pearlstein, counsel in the lawsuit and Director of the U.S. Law and Security Program at Human Rights First.
Since filing the original complaint on March 1, 2005, HRF and the ACLU have continued to update and refine the allegations based on independent research and press reports of further evidence of command responsibility in ordering or tolerating detainee torture and abuse. The lawsuit against Secretary Rumsfeld was consolidated last year with three similar complaints brought by the ACLU against Colonel Thomas Pappas, former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez on behalf of the torture victims who were detained in Iraq. The consolidated cases were then transferred to Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the District Court for the District of Columbia.
The groups are joined as co-counsel in the lawsuit by Bill Lann Lee, Chair of the Human Rights Practice Group at Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice. Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Ret. USN), former Judge Advocate General of the Navy; and Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret. USA), former Chief Judge (IMA) of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, are also engaged as "of counsel" to Human Rights First.
John P. O'Neill
John P. O'Neill was a man I respected ...and I tend to believe he was assassinated because of some information he discovered, similar to the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty that our government, Senate, and Congress continuously choose to ignore.
It is as if Republicans are a cancer destroying the United States with Democrats pretending they are a band-aid that can fix it. == Denialist Fact: Band-aids can not cure cancer and War Criminals belong in jail.
On hearing of John O'Neill's passing during the mass murders of 9/11, there were events that went so far beyond coincidental, I began to question integrity and honesty of our FBI. Why would they allow 'one of their own' to parish like this?
FBI terrorist fighter's body found at WTC
NEW YORK (CNN) --The body of John P. O'Neill, a former assistant director of the FBI and an expert on terrorism, was recovered Friday from the rubble of the World Trade Center.
O'Neill had recently retired from the FBI and had just taken over security for the World Trade Center, said New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
"That Tuesday was his first or second day on the job," Kerik said Friday in an interview with CNN's Larry King Live. . "He was going to go into One World Trade, the tower one, and when the strike came he went into the second tower in an attempt to help people get out of the building and he died there. We found his body today."
O'Neill, 50, was the chief of international terrorism operations for the FBI. He supervised on-site investigations of the bombing by terrorists of the USS Cole in Yemen last year, and the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
A 1996 article published in the Van Impe Intelligence Briefing quoted O'Neill as saying, "No longer is it just the fear of being attacked by international terrorist organizations -- attacks against Americans and American interests overseas. A lot of these groups now have the capability and the support infrastructure in the United States to attack us here if they choose to do so."
In a 1997 speech to a meeting of the National Strategy Forum in Chicago, he called Afghanistan's conflict with Russia "a major watershed event" in terrorism.
Aided by the United States, Afghanistan "beat one of the largest standing armies in the world at that time, which gave them a buoyed sense of success and that they could take on other countries like the U.S. and be likewise successful," he said.
"John was a very good friend ... a great guy, a patriotic American," said New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. "Our hearts and sympathy and condolences go out to his family."
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/21/vic.body.terror.expert/
The problem with the above CNN article is it, as usual, leaves out important information. For example it leaves out Jerome Hauer located Mr. O'Neill's body, "perfectly intact", on September 13, 2001, two days after the 9/11 Attack. Rudolf Giuliani; Bernard Kerik's buddy, appointed Hauer to his position.
I find it disturbing Hauer was a participant of Operation Dark Winter, a director of Emergent BioSolutions Inc.; the company that sells FDA approved vaccine for prevention of anthrax infection, and has a Zionist/Neocon background.
I also find it disturbing another Zionist/Neocon, Larry Silverstein, owner of controversial WTC Building 7, offered John O'Neill the job that cost O'Neill his life. Oh, and never you mind about Bush family participation with Carlyle Group, or that the Bin Laden family was flown out of the United States immediately after the 9/11 mass murders.
WTC Building 7 Demolition?
Republicans and Democrats Have Become Constitution Stomping Criminals
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
9 Reasons Wired Readers Should Wear Tinfoil Hats
By David Kravets, November 24, 2011, Article Source
The FBI's Digital Collection System connects FBI offices and telecom providers around the
country to coordinate collection of phone taps for investigations of all sorts.
There's plenty of reason to be concerned Big Brother is watching.
We're paranoid not because we have grandiose notions of our self-importance, but because the facts speak for themselves.
Here's our short list of nine reasons that Wired readers ought to wear tinfoil hats, or at least, fight for their rights and consider ways to protect themselves with encryption and defensive digital technologies.
We know the list is incomplete, so if you have better reasons that we list here, put them in the comments and we'll make a list based off them.
Until then, remember: Don't suspect a friend; report him.
Warrantless Wiretapping
The government refuses to acknowledge whether the National Security Agency is secretly siphoning the nation's electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges. The lawsuit was based on evidence provided by a former AT&T technician Mark Klein that showed that AT&T had installed a secret spying room in an internet hub in San Francisco. The spying got so bad that Attorney General Ashcroft threatened to resign over it.
When a federal judge said a lawsuit on that issue could go forward, Congress passed legislation stopping the case in its tracks. Two American lawyers for an Islamic charity did, however, prevail in their suit that they were wiretapped without warrants, but the Administration is appealing. Much of the program was legalized in 2008 by the FISA Amendments Act.
The FBI has also built a nationwide computer system called the Digital Collection System, connected by fiber optic cables, to collect and analyze wiretaps of all types, including ones used in ultra-secret terrorism investigations.
Warrantless GPS Tracking
The Obama administration claims Americans have no right to privacy in their public movements. The issue surfaced this month in a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court to determine if law enforcement agents should be required to obtain a probable-cause warrant in order to place a GPS tracking device on a citizen's car. The government admitted to the Supreme Court that it thinks it would have the power to track the justices' cars without a warrant.
The invasive technology allows police, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to engage in covert round-the-clock surveillance over an extended period of time, collecting vast amounts of information about anyone who drives the vehicle that is being tracked. The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-fighting tool with "great frequency," and GPS retailers have told Wired that they've sold thousands of the devices to the feds.
Tracking Devices in Your Pocket
That mobile phone in your pocket chronicles almost everything. Once-secret software developed by a private company pretty much chronicles all you do on your smartphone and sends it to the carriers. The carriers themselves keep a wealth of information, such as text messages, call-location data, and PINs -- though none of them disclose to their customers what data they store or how long they keep the data.
Law enforcement can get at much of that historical data -- and often get real-time tracking information without proving probable cause to a judge.
Fake Cell Phone Towers
You make a call on your cellphone thinking the only thing standing between you and the recipient of your call is your carrier's cellphone tower. In fact, that tower your phone is connecting to just might be a boobytrap set up by law enforcement to ensnare your phone signals and maybe even the content of your calls.
So-called stingrays are one of the new high-tech tools that authorities are using to track and identify you. The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower.
The government maintains that the stingrays don't violate Fourth Amendment rights, since Americans don't have a legitimate expectation of privacy for data sent from their mobile phones and other wireless devices to a cell tower. While the technology sounds ultra-new, the feds have had this in their arsenal for at least 15 years, and used a stingray to bust the notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick in 1995.
The Border Exception
The Fourth Amendment doesn't exist along the U.S. border. You know that if you're a close supporter of WikiLeaks or a friend of alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning. You're no doubt very familiar with the U.S. government's laptop border search policy, which allows Customs and Border Protection agents to seize and search a laptop belonging to anyone crossing a border into the U.S.
Agents can search through files on a traveler's laptop, phone or other mobile device, read e-mail or view digital snapshots to uncover incriminating evidence, and they don't need any reason to do so.
The government argues, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court agrees that searching through a person's laptop for copyright violations is no different than looking through their suitcase for cocaine -- and thus fits squarely with what is known as the 'border exception' to the Fourth Amendment. That means a border agent doesn't need reasonable suspicion, probable cause or even a hunch to open your laptop, seize it and make copies of your data.
At least three supporters of WikiLeaks, including security researcher Jacob Appelbaum. have been subject to the policy and had devices seized and searched as they re-entered the U.S. from foreign trips. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seem to particularly like searching Appeblaum's devices and questioning him, despite the fact that Wikileaks has never been charged with a crime in the U.S..
The "6 Months and It's the Government's" Rule
If you're already not wanting a dose of Prozac, consider that the law allows the government to obtain Americans' e-mails, without a warrant, if it's stored on some other company's servers for more than six months. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, adopted in 1986, turned 25 this year. When written, the law assumed e-mails left on a server for that long were abandoned.
In the age of Gmail, that's simply ridiculous. A proposal to demand a court warrant for any and all e-mail never got a Senate hearing and was opposed by the Obama administration.
The Patriot Act
No paranoia list would be complete without including the Patriot Act, the now 10-year-old law adopted in the wake of September 11. The act, which has remained largely the same since former president George W. Bush signed the legislation six weeks after 9/11, gives the government, among other things, the power to acquire phone, banking and other records via the power of a so-called "national security letter," which does not require a court warrant.
National security letters, perhaps the most invasive facet of the law, are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, bank records and arguably websites you have visited.
The FBI need merely assert, in writing, that the information is "relevant" to an ongoing terrorism or national security investigation. Nearly everyone who gets a national security letter is prohibited from even disclosing that they've received one. More than 200,000 letters have been issued by the FBI, despite a series of stinging reports from the Justice Department's internal watchdog, who found FBI agents weren't just routinely sloppy; they also violated the law.
Moreover, a decade after Bush's signature, information is sketchy about how the law is being used in practice. For instance, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) claims the government applies a far broader, and classified, legal interpretation of the Patriot Act's power to let the government seize most anything it deems relevant to an investigation (Section 215).
"We're getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says," the Senate Intelligence Committee member said in a recent interview with Wired. "When you've got that kind of a gap, you're going to have a problem on your hands."
Government Malware
It's little known, but governments have their own malware/spyware that it deploys against suspected lawbreakers. The FBI's version, the last time we checked, was called CIPAV. Once an FBI agent convinced a target to install it (by clicking an e-mail attachment or link on the web), the spyware reports back everything that computer does online.
German states recently came under fire for misusing a similar program that reportedly could turn on a computer's camera and take screenshots. And a recent Wall Street Journal story catalogs a surveillance software company which trumpeted its ability to infect users via a fake iTunes update. The company sells its wares to governments around the world.
Known Unknowns
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took an unfair amount of abuse for his deployment of the phrase "known unknowns." And it's these known unknowns that might be the most disturbing part of the list. For instance, does the government think the Patriot Act allows it to force Google to turn over information about anyone who has searched for certain keywords using orders that come with a gag order? Is the NSA sucking up everything we say on our phones and that we do online, under the theory it pushed in a court case that it's not a search until a human actually looks at the data? How often do police investigating a crime ask wireless providers to give them a list of all the people whose phones were in use in the area when they think a crime was committed? What kind of sweeping surveillance orders have been issued under the 1998 law that Congress passed to legalize much of the warrantless wiretapping of Americans? And finally, how long is the government storing all this data, and how can we be sure that our future governments won't start using this data to target Americans based on activities protected by the First Amendment?
And no -- a tinfoil hat won't help you at all.
I Bin Thinkin' 'Bout My Legacy
Steve Bell
TRUTH Has As Many Letters As TRUST
Senate & Congress Go High Tech With Palm Pilot
Part of the Problem, Or Complete Cause?
Did A Chickenhawk Coward Order the Air Force to Stand-down On 9/11?
Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism,
Shooting Friends in the Face, Economy Rape
What Were War Criminal Cheney's Secret Energy Meetings Really About?
Photo of boots by Ward Reilly, member VVAW, VFP, Advisor IVAW
Nancy Pelosi Doesn't Care About Veterans
else, Dick Cheney Would Have Been Impeached and Thrown Into Jail?
Maybe Pelosi Is A War Criminal Too?
FREE - Use this image: http://flyingsnail.com/images/cheneybad.jpg
FREE - Use this image: http://flyingsnail.com/images/cheneyrapedamerica.jpg
FREE - Use this image: http://flyingsnail.com/images/cheneychickenhawk.jpg
When Dick Cheney Farts,
Does Wyoming Listen?
Nobody believes Dick Cheney employed Alien technology from Area 51 to stop his heart attacks.
Nobody believes Dick Cheney helped plan Anthrax Attacks on U.S. Citizens during Secret Energy Meetings.
Nobody believes Dick Cheney ordered the Air Force to 'Stand-down' on 9/11.
Nobody believes Neocons had something to do with 9/11.
Nobody believes Nancy Pelosi could have prevented torture by leaving Impeachment ON The Table.
Nobody has all the answers!
Chickenhawk's Halliburton Illegal War Profits?
Rush Limbaugh = Arrested On Drug Charges
[Bush] Defense Department Official Charged With Espionage Conspiracy
Fondren Worked for Hoover Institution Distinguished Visiting Fellow,
Dirty-D Rumsfeld
May 13, 2009
WASHINGTON, May 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Defense Department official has been charged with conspiracy to communicate classified information to an agent of a foreign government, David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Dana J. Boente, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; and Arthur M. Cummings, II, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI's National Security Branch, announced today.
A criminal complaint unsealed today in the Eastern District of Virginia alleges that, from approximately Nov. 2004 to Feb. 11, 2008, James Wilbur Fondren, Jr., while serving as an employee of the Defense Department, unlawfully and knowingly conspired with others to communicate classified information to another person who he had reason to believe was an agent or representative of a foreign government. [Continue Reading]
Who Advocated Serving the Wealthy As A Means of Helping the Poor?
Was It Colonommunists from FOX News?
Telecom Crimes & Punishment
Corporate Criminal Not Only Spies on U.S. Citizens,
THEY Turn Televisions Off!
AT&T Workers Create "Ready to Strike" Ringtone
The song's pro-labor lyrics include "Get ready to strike, get ready to walk the line" and "Protect my health care, don't lower my wages / Realize, recognize, mobilize, stay alive" and even a shout-out to technicians who support U-verse, AT&T's TV service.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/04/10/att-workers-create-ringtone/
Sabotage attacks knock out phone service
Nanette Asimov, Ryan Kim,Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writers - Friday, April 10, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/10/MNP816VTE6.DTL
CWA exec VP denounces AT&T, calls for petition signing
As tensions mount amid ongoing negotiations between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America, CWA executive vice president Annie Hill lashed out at AT&T Wednesday as "another big corporation looking out for its executives and big investors at the expense of workers." Hill made this comment and others pointing out AT&T's large profit in 2008 as evidence that the company was wrong to demand concessions on pay increases and health care benefits. Hill is leading a charge to get 10,000 signatures on a petition to the company to stop trying to cut jobs.
"AT&T claims that these cuts are necessary because of the poor economy," Hill wrote. "They've even had the nerve to compare telecom to the auto industry, even though telecom continues to expand and remain profitable. Just last year, AT&T made $12.9 billion in profits - almost a billion more than the previous year."
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/cwa-exec-vp-denounces-t-calls-petition-signing/2009-04-09
Big Cable's Internet Rip-Off
By Megan Tady
via Keith Lampe
You'll have to excuse me--I'm a little tired, having stayed up all night watching episodes of Lost online. I've never really cared what's in that hatch, but thought I should stream the videos before they cost me the equivalent of two weeks worth of groceries.
The good news is, that kind of online price-gouging has been delayed--for now, anyway. Thanks to a firestorm of public pressure and congressional opposition, last week Time Warner Cable shelved its pay-per-byte plan, which would link price to the volume of content consumers want.
The media giant's proposed pricing plan would force customers to purchase different tiers of Internet access. Customers who exceeded their bandwidth limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate. Think of it like a cell-phone plan that routinely gouges customers for using more than a monthly allotment of minutes.
It's a huge rip-off: In Rochester, N.Y., the company currently charges consumers $44.90 per month for unlimited access to the Internet. But under their new plan, consumers would have to pay $150 per month--over $100 more--for the same access. And this outlandish increase comes after the company has said it now costs less to connect consumers to the Internet. Time Warner had planned to test their pricing scheme in four markets; it has already imposed "overage" fines in Beaumont, Texas.
But the company hasn't abandoned its plan: It's only backing away until the fire dies down. In the meantime, other Internet service providers are waiting in the wings, watching the company's every move as they consider launching similar schemes. AT&T already has.
Stifling online innovation
There's a host of reasons why we should be worried about Internet service providers' march toward penalizing the use of the Internet. Exhibit A is last week's mainstream news cycle: tea bag protests, and the UK's sudden singing sensation, Susan Boyle. If you want substance in your news, you'll have to look elsewhere--beyond corporate media's steady stream of sensationalism, celebrity gossip, product placements and CSI-Everywhere.
These days, "elsewhere" often means the Internet, where innovative journalism outfits are bringing investigative news, hard-hitting reporting and minority voices to audiences via online video. The Internet allows anyone with a creative idea, camera and computer to upload their content to the world, effectively bypassing media executives by allowing the public to choose what gets aired, and when.
Already, a digital divide prohibits millions of people from getting alternative news and videos online, let alone a missed episode of "The Office." (Nearly 40 percent of the country does not have high-speed Internet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and high-speed Internet access here is already far more costly than in many other countries.) Yet cable companies' pricing plans would put the unfettered Internet further out of reach for tens of millions of Americans.
And fewer people connecting means fewer people creating, thereby stifling online innovation.
Anti-competitive behavior
Time Warner and other Internet providers say they need to penalize users to slow down an impending "Internet brownout"--a day when we run out of bandwidth. That bandwidth doomsday, however, isn't even close.
Even one of Time Warner Cable's own executives offers evidence that bandwidth scarcity is a ruse: "Cable is like the Federal Reserve of bandwidth…we can practically print the stuff!" said Mike LaJoie, the company's chief technology officer. LaJoie has also said that supplying consumers with more bandwidth is "basically free."
Not only does Time Warner's pricing increase bear no relationship to the cost of connecting consumers, its bandwidth scarcity argument falls flat. So what's really behind the company's ploy?
Cable companies aren't happy the public is increasingly putting down remotes and turning on computers to watch online video. Used to their strangleholds on the American consumer, cable giants don't want their market challenged. What better way to crush online video viewing than by making it too expensive to watch?
Free Press is calling on Congress to investigate all cable companies threatening to introduce Internet usage caps. Already, activists have signed 16,000 letters urging Congress to look into Time Warner's plans to impose penalties against Internet users. (Congress is already getting the message that something's gone awry: Rep. Eric Massa and Sen. Charles Schumer (), both from New York, now oppose the Time Warner plan, and Massa has promised legislation to curb the price-gouging.)
The fight continues
Time Warner Cable has halted the billing plan as it continues its "customer education process" but probably only long enough to come up with better talking points to convince Americans that blocking Internet usage is in their best interest.
Or as Phillip Dampier, who runs the website StoptheCap.com, put it: "[The cable companies] still think they're right: the problem isn't draconian usage caps, it is that people weren't properly conditioned to accept them first…the OPEC of the Internet will be back by the fall, probably with almost the identical plan they ‘shelved' yesterday."
We can and should celebrate last week's victory: public pressure dampened Time Warner's spirits. But cable companies will soon be back to challenge the current system. We must be ready to stop them from swindling us by curtailing access to the Internet.
Megan Tady is a campaign coordinator and writer for Free Press, the national, nonprofit media reform organization, and a former National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4385/big_cables_internet_rip-off/
Napolitano regrets anger over intelligence report
Associated Press news release April 19, 2009 at approximately 13:00 UTC:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano says she regrets that some people took offense over a report warning that right-wing extremist groups were trying to recruit disgruntled troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
But she says "a number of groups far too numerous to mention" were targeting returning veterans to carry out domestic terrorism attacks.
She said the warning report that went out American law enforcement agencies was consistent with reports that were issued before.
Napolitano spoke on CNN's "State of the Union."
WTF?
"targeting returning veterans to carry out domestic terrorism attacks"
Let's Be Clear On This:
Suggest 9/11 Was An Inside Job Carried Out by Neocons
and Get Insulted by Drug Addict Flush Lintballs or the Pimp/Whores at FOX,
but It Is Perfectly Fine To Suggest Our Brave Military Are Being Recruited For:
DOMESTIC TERRORISM ATTACKS?
Looking For Domestic Terrorists?
Supreme Court to democracy: Drop dead
With a single rash, partisan act, the high court has tainted the Bush presidency, besmirched its own reputation and soiled our nation's proudest legacy.
By Gary Kamiya
Dec. 14, 2000 | Tuesday, Dec. 12, is a day that will live in American infamy long after the tainted election of George W. Bush has faded from memory. With their rash, divisive decision to dispense with the risky and inconvenient workings of democracy and simply award the presidency to their fellow Republican, five right-wing justices dragged the Supreme Court down to perhaps its most ignominious point since the Dred Scott decision.
The court was the last American civic institution to have preserved an aura of impartiality, to be regarded as above the gutter of partisanship and self-interest. The reality, of course, is that no court, no judge, no human being, is completely free of those entanglements. Yet the court has generally acted wisely in avoiding judgments that would inevitably and utterly besmirch it. With one reckless and partisan ruling, it squandered its most precious possession: its reputation. It may take years, even decades, to repair the damage done by the Scalia-Rehnquist court's decision to cancel the election and crown the winner.
It's hard not to conclude, now that this whole sorry saga is over, that the fix was in from the beginning. Not the crude, "vast right-wing conspiracy" fix of Hillary Clinton's imagination, but a de facto fix. Why shouldn't one think the game was rigged, when five Republican-appointed justices -- one of whose son works for the law firm of the lawyer representing Bush, another of whose wife is recruiting staff for the Bush admininstration and two of whom have made clear their desire to retire under a Republican administration -- trashed their entire judicial philosophy to ram through, with only the most cramped of legal justifications, a last-second victory for a Republican who lost the national popular vote and, when the votes in Florida are actually counted, is likely to have lost the Florida one as well?
Perfect justice does not exist. But this was judicial folly, politically explosive and judicially threadbare. This was the court stepping in and awarding victory to one side before the game was over. Even those of us who don't often agree with the court's conservative majority expected better. [Continue Reading]
What Corporate Media Failed to Mention About 9/11
New Air Space Rules Were In Place After A Small Plane Crashed Into White House
CRASH AT THE WHITE HOUSE: THE OVERVIEW;
Unimpeded, Intruder Crashes Plane Into White House
By MAUREEN DOWD,
Published: Tuesday, September 13, 1994
Shortly before 2 A.M. today, a small red-and-white plane flew low over 17th Street in the heart of the capital's downtown, banked left in a U-turn near the Washington Monument, and headed straight toward the President's bedroom in the White House.
No one tried to stop it.
Administration officials, who pieced together the flight path, said that the Secret Service agents stationed outside the South Portico had only seconds to scramble out of the way as the two-seat, propeller-driven Cessna 150, its power apparently shut off and only its wing lights on, came straight at them.
Gliding over the treetops, the Cessna passed the fountain and the red cannas blooming on the South Lawn, bounced off the grass just short of the White House, crashed through the branches of a magnolia tree planted by Andrew Jackson and came to rest in a crumpled heap two stories below the Clintons' unoccupied bedroom.
President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, were sleeping across Pennsylvania Avenue at Blair House, the guest house for visiting dignitaries, while repairs were being made to the ventilation system in the White House residence. The Clintons moved back into the White House today.
The authorities said the plane had been stolen and the pilot was Frank Eugene Corder, a 38-year-old truck driver from Maryland. His relatives said he had struggled with vertiginous moods, alcohol, a drug conviction, financial problems, the recent rupture of his third marriage and the death of his father.
Associates said that Mr. Corder, who was killed in the crash, even told a friend last year that he felt so hopeless he might fly a plane on a suicide mission to the White House. That could not be confirmed.
As the chilling sight of the crumpled airplane at the base of the mansion was beamed around the world, a debate began about whether White House security was lax.
Security officials said today that the plan for protecting the President against aerial attack relied more on moving him quickly to safety than on stopping the attack.
Secret Service officials, asserting that their shield around the President himself had not been penetrated, said their initial conclusion was that Mr. Corder was not trying to kill the President and appeared to have acted alone, though law-enforcement officials and several agencies would investigate.
Mr. Clinton was awakened at 2:35 A.M. by his chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta, who had been alerted to the 1:49 A.M. crash through a series of calls set in motion by a military aide who was sleeping in the basement of the White House residence, Lieut. Comdr. Richard Fitzpatrick. After being told of the crash, the President went back to sleep, aides said.
Mrs. Clinton returned to the family quarters this morning and watched from the Truman balcony above the diplomatic entrance as Secret Service agents, police officers and firefighters prowled the area, removing the wreckage, hosing away fuel and planting yellow flags to set off the gouge in the lawn left by the plane.
The South Lawn, where the Middle East peace pact was signed last year, was a remarkable sight today to those who had assumed that the White House had a sophisticated security system, with anti-aircraft guns and perhaps even rooftop missiles that could shield the mansion from an aerial intrusion, especially one so unsophisticated. Only 50 yards from the Oval Office, just around the corner from the Rose Garden, sat the tangle of metal, what was left of the plane's nose inches from the barred office window of the White House physician, Comdr. E. Connie Mariano, one floor below the State Dining Room. Near the Patio Furniture
The wreckage sat next to a set of white, wrought-iron patio furniture, across from the wide lawn where bleachers had been set up in anticipation of an afternoon ceremony today for the National Service plan, a ceremony that was moved. The cockpit was reminiscent of a crushed beer can, and the tail was tilted up, mostly intact. A tarpolin had been hung over the plane to conceal its identification numbers. A twisted brown aircraft seat rested in the dirt just left of the wreckage.
The scene was frightening proof of what military and security officials, planning against terrorist attacks, had long privately believed: that the White House is more vulnerable than anyone admits.
Judging from what happened today, either someone made a terrible security mistake or the integrity of the "secure" air space around downtown Washington -- one nautical mile on either side of the White House, extending up to 18,000 feet, and broadening to envelope the Mall, the Capitol and most of the area's well-known monuments and museums -- depends on intruders playing by the rules.
Passers-by can often see Secret Service agents walking on the White House roof or on duty in an observation post there. But experts said it would be dangerous to fire missiles in downtown Washington. A hit might send an aircraft crashing into a nearby landmark, like the Hay Adams Hotel or the Treasury Department. And, as a senior White House official noted today, "If you missed, E Street becomes pretty ugly, pal."
At a White House briefing this afternoon, a Secret Service official painted a picture of frantic activity and jittery uncertainty as the Cessna dropped quietly out of the night sky, landing without flame or fireball.
The official, Carl Meyer, said that agents had spotted the plane only after it completed its U-turn toward the White House and that they only had "enough time to run for cover."
Mr. Meyer added that he did not know if the Federal Aviation Administration's radar had detected the Cessna as it approached and violated the capital's restricted air space, saying that radar could probably not track a small aircraft flying at tree-top level, particularly if it was not using a standard electronic device that identifies the aircraft and enhances its image on radar screens.
Once the plane crashed, officials tried to determine whether the landing was an accident or part of an elaborate assassination attempt -- and whether the plane might still have explosives aboard.
"The first thing we had to determine was, what was the situation?" Mr. Meyer said. "Was this just a plane that ran out of gas? Did somebody have a heart attack? We just didn't have a good sense of what was involved here. Or, was it a diversion, was something going to come?"
Adolphus Roberts, an eyewitness who was on the mall and saw the plane approach from the north, over 17th Street, told investigators and reporters that the plane had flown near the Washington Monument and then made a left-hand turn toward the White House.
"It had lights on both wings, it turned left and lined up with the White House," he said. "I heard a large boom sound. There was no fire, no nothing." He said he heard no engine noise, suggesting that Mr. Corder may have cut his engine as he glided down toward the lawn.
By early morning, the wreckage was already a tourist attraction. No Plans 'Against a Lunatic'
Patrick Porter, 46, a software engineer for General Electric from Portland, Ore., looked at the South Lawn from behind yellow police tapes. "It just proves you can make all the plans in the world and there's nothing you can do to plan against a lunatic who doesn't think rationally," he said.
In Aberdeen, a small Maryland town 25 miles northeast of Baltimore, Mr. Corder's brother did not seem to know of any particular grudge that he might have held against Mr. Clinton. "Shock," said Mr. Corder's brother, John. "Surprise. It hit us right out of the blue."
After daylight, Mr. Clinton, wearing black jogging clothes and a baseball hat, returned to the White House and later peered out a window at the wreckage. Both he and his wife sought to play down the incident. In remarks by satellite to new members of his Americorps volunteer program, the President said that the White House "will be kept safe, and it will be kept open and the people's business will go on."
Mrs. Clinton told guests that it "has been quite an unusual day here at the White House."
Photos: Frank Eugene Corder, a trucker from Maryland, died when the small, single-engine plane he was piloting crashed on the South Lawn behind the White House early yesterday, the authorities said. He is shown in a 1993 photograph, above. At top, an investigator by the wreckage, just outside the Presidential private quarters, which were unoccupied at the time of the crash. (Photographs by Agence-France Presse (top), Associated Press (right) (pg. A1); Remnants of the plane that crashed near the White House's South Lawn being taken away yesterday. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) (pg. A20) Map/Diagram: "WHAT HAPPENED: The Crash at the White House" 1. Frank Eugene Corder stole a Cessna 150, a two-seat, single-engine airplane, from Hartford County Airpark, a private airport in Maryland, and took off after midnight yesterday. 2. He flew south toward Washington. 3. The plane entered the restricted flight zone at the center of Washington, near the White House. 4. After making a 180-degree turn west of the Washington Monument, Mr. Corder headed toward the White House. 5. The plane crashed at 1:49 A.M. on the South Lawn of the White House and skidded 50 feet along the ground into the wall two floors below President Clinton's bedroom; the Clintons were across the street at Blair House. Mr. Corder died in the crash. (Sources: Associated Press, Federal Aviation Administration) (pg. A20)
Crash at the White House - New York Times - 1994
To the Guy Who Called Me A Traitor
By Arnold Oliver
I haven't heard from you for a while. Three years ago you called me a "traitor", just before the invasion of Iraq. You also wrote, "Your voice against our elected government is a voice against its people, a voice against this nation."
I guess I must have set you off with my skepticism about an Iraqi nuclear weapons program and other nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the highly dubious claims being made that Iraq was involved with 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
I am sure that you had every intention to contact me and apologize since you were so utterly wrong about, well, everything. But I suppose you were busy.
As the third anniversary of the war approaches, let's review the fine mess that you've gotten us into.
The war in Iraq has become a horrendous drain of American lives and treasure. With no end in sight, we have already lost over 2300 U.S. soldiers and will spend more than $315 billion through 2006. At least 18,000 American soldiers have suffered devastating wounds, and another 50,000 show signs of acute psychological distress.
Iraqi losses have been staggering. Over the last three years, at least 100,000 have died--most killed by U.S. forces. It is estimated that U.S. troops kill three Iraqi civilians for each insurgent dispatched. As bad as Saddam's regime was, under Bush & Company Iraq has gone from being the one of the most developed and educated countries in the region to a failed state.
The insurgency rages unabated, and civil war looms; coalition forces control only the ground upon which they stand. Amnesty International reports that U.S. troops have detained thousands of Iraqis; many are innocent and many have been abused--all of which further inflames the insurgency.
Wealthy Americans, meanwhile, have been asked to sacrifice precisely nothing. The Bush administration has cut their taxes and put the entire cost of the war on the national tab. Our children and grandchildren will pay the bill. Meanwhile, Halliburton continues to rake it in--$16 billion in Iraq war contracts so far.
From the Geneva Conventions to the UN Charter to the Treaty on Torture, the Bush regime has left the fabric of international law in tatters. Our country has become an international pariah.
And the troops have had it. A large majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq now say it is time to leave: 72% "think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately." (Le Moyne College/Zogby International, 2/28/06)
Many of us saw it all coming. But we were censured and ridiculed, our competence and integrity questioned, and in some cases our careers were damaged.
But I should not complain. When you denounced me, I joined a distinguished group that included generals Tony Zinni and Bill Odom, hard working UN weapons inspectors, and regrettably, too few brave journalists and academics. Let's salute all who refused to be intimidated.
During another war at another time, Theodore Roosevelt put it well, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president . . . is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
But you, on the contrary, readily gave in to the orchestrated campaign of mass hysteria that was used to manipulate the American public into supporting an unnecessary and illegal war. You choose to give your support to an administration that "went to war without requesting--and evidently without being influenced by--any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq," according to Paul Pillar, recently retired from the CIA.
In blindly following incompetent leaders, you abetted taking our country into what Gen. Odom calls "the greatest strategic disaster in US history". By choosing to be an unthinking disciple you abandoned your responsibilities as a citizen in a democracy.
To the guy who called me a traitor: The one who betrayed our country was you; and the hands stained with the blood of the innocent are yours.
Arnold Oliver is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio
http://counterpunch.org/oliver03212006.html
Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 or report from 29 districts. The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
Gil Scott-Heron - B Movie Lyrics
A suggested Post by my brother Amestizo
Well, the first thing I want to say is…"Mandate my ass!"
Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate – or a landslide. 21% voted for Skippy and 3, 4% voted for somebody else who might have been running.
But, oh yeah, I remember. In this year that we have now declared the year from Shogun to Reagan, I remember what I said about Reagan…meant it. Acted like an actor…Hollyweird. Acted like a liberal. Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California, then he acted like a republican. Then he acted like somebody was going to vote for him for president. And now we act like 26% of the registered voters is actually a mandate. We're all actors in this I suppose.
What has happened is that in the last 20 years, America has changed from a producer to a consumer. And all consumers know that when the producer names the tune…the consumer has got to dance. That's the way it is. We used to be a producer – very inflexible at that, and now we are consumers and, finding it difficult to understand. Natural resources and minerals will change your world. The Arabs used to be in the 3rd World. They have bought the 2nd World and put a firm down payment on the 1st one. Controlling your resources will control your world. This country has been surprised by the way the world looks now. They don't know if they want to be Matt Dillon or Bob Dylan. They don't know if they want to be diplomats or continue the same policy - of nuclear nightmare diplomacy. John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now.
The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can – even if it's only as far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards. And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse - or the man who always came to save America at the last moment – someone always came to save America at the last moment – especially in "B" movies. And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future, they looked for people like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for Ronald Reagan – and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at – like a "B" movie.
Come with us back to those inglorious days when heroes weren't zeros. Before fair was square. When the cavalry came straight away and all-American men were like Hemingway to the days of the wondrous "B" movie. The producer underwritten by all the millionaires necessary will be Casper "The Defensive" Weinberger – no more animated choice is available. The director will be Attila the Haig, running around frantically declaring himself in control and in charge. The ultimate realization of the inmates taking over at the asylum. The screenplay will be adapted from the book called "Voodoo Economics" by George "Papa Doc" Bush. Music by the "Village People" the very military "Macho Man."
"Company!!!"
"Macho, macho man!"
" Two-three-four."
" He likes to be – well, you get the point."
"Huuut! Your left! Your left! Your left…right, left, right, left, right…!"
A theme song for saber-rallying and selling wars door-to-door. Remember, we're looking for the closest thing we can find to John Wayne. Clichés abound like kangaroos – courtesy of some spaced out Marlin Perkins, a Reagan contemporary. Clichés like, "itchy trigger finger" and "tall in the saddle" and "riding off or on into the sunset." Clichés like, "Get off of my planet by sundown!" More so than clichés like, "he died with his boots on." Marine tough the man is. Bogart tough the man is. Cagney tough the man is. Hollywood tough the man is. Cheap steak tough. And Bonzo's substantial. The ultimate in synthetic selling: A Madison Avenue masterpiece – a miracle – a cotton-candy politician…Presto! Macho!
"Macho, macho man!"
Put your orders in America. And quick as Kodak your leaders duplicate with the accent being on the dupe - cause all of a sudden we have fallen prey to selective amnesia - remembering what we want to remember and forgetting what we choose to forget. All of a sudden, the man who called for a blood bath on our college campuses is supposed to be Dudley "God-damn" Do-Right?
"You go give them liberals hell Ronnie." That was the mandate. To the new "Captain Bly" on the new ship of fools. It was doubtlessly based on his chameleon performance of the past - as a liberal democrat – as the head of the Studio Actor's Guild. When other celluloid saviors were cringing in terror from McCarthy – Ron stood tall. It goes all the way back from Hollywood to hillbilly. From liberal to libelous, from "Bonzo" to Birch idol…born again. Civil rights, women's rights, gay rights…it's all wrong. Call in the cavalry to disrupt this perception of freedom gone wild. God damn it…first one wants freedom, then the whole damn world wants freedom.
Nostalgia, that's what we want…the good ol' days…when we gave'em hell. When the buck stopped somewhere and you could still buy something with it. To a time when movies were in black and white – and so was everything else. Even if we go back to the campaign trail, before six-gun Ron shot off his face and developed hoof-in-mouth. Before the free press went down before full-court press. And were reluctant to review the menu because they knew the only thing available was – Crow.
Lon Chaney, our man of a thousand faces - no match for Ron. Doug Henning does the make-up - special effects from Grecian Formula 16 and Crazy Glue. Transportation furnished by the David Rockefeller of Remote Control Company. Their slogan is, "Why wait for 1984? You can panic now...and avoid the rush."
So much for the good news…
As Wall Street goes, so goes the nation. And here's a look at the closing numbers – racism's up, human rights are down, peace is shaky, war items are hot - the House claims all ties. Jobs are down, money is scarce – and common sense is at an all-time low with heavy trading. Movies were looking better than ever and now no one is looking because, we're starring in a "B" movie. And we would rather have John Wayne…we would rather have John Wayne.
"You don't need to be in no hurry. - You ain't never really got to worry. - And you don't need to check on how you feel. - Just keep repeating that none of this is real. - And if you're sensing, that something's wrong, - Well just remember, that it won't be too long - Before the director cuts the scene…yea."
"This ain't really your life, - Ain't really your life, - Ain't really ain't nothing but a movie."
[Refrain repeated about 25 times or more in an apocalyptic crescendo with a military cadence.]
"This ain't really your life, - Ain't really your life, - Ain't really ain't nothing but a movie."
Closing Argument
Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.
Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.
Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.
In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretapping's, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.
There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.
Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.
Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.
This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?
*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*
Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.
Alan: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.
Judge Robert Sanders: Please get out of the chair.
Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.
Judge Robert Sanders: Get out of the chair!
Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled un American.
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentially, it's speech time.
Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!
Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!
Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.
Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."
Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."
I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her. ~ Boston Legal ~ Stick It ~ Season 2 ~ Episode 19 ~ [Video at link] ~ Written by David E. Kelley & Janet Leahy ~ Directed by Adam Arkin.
None of the Above
Should be a choice on Voter Ballots
American Dream ~ George Carlin/L.I.L.T ~ http://vimeo.com/72719973
