Amazing Distractions

George W. Bush commutes Scooter Libby's sentence. No jail time. What luck! It happened over a weekend, while the news was all over this developing story in London about car bombs and burning airports and Mercedes and doctors from foreign countries. These events are being touted as attacks but it is hard to find any damage.

Noone has been charged with anything yet in these "attacks." And the car bombs were not really bombs, they were "potentially viable explosive devices." One car was towed to a storage lot for bad parking, and only afterwards was it said to contain dangerous materials. The first car sat shrouded under a blue tarp before being loaded into a van and taken to a secret laboratory.

Like many anti-terror activities before today, this scare in England seems to be just that -- another boondoggle to frighten people and take their attention away from something else.

Why is 9/11 So Important?

The talking heads on TV, witness Homeland Security head Chertoff, still point to 9/11/2001 as a seminal event... a day that changed everything. This has been the mantra since that day. This event, and the accused perpetrators (never mind that those supposedly responsible have morphed from Osama bin Ladin to Saudi nationals to Saddam Hussein) are the reason we now have lost habeus corpus, the reason we are now enmeshed in a civil war in Iraq, the reason we are still losing soldiers in Afghanistan, the reason our gas prices are high, the reason we cannot expect the Executive branch of our government to follow the law....

I confess to holding a few assumptions. (1) The current administration is lying and has been lying about nearly everything. (2) Questioning the "official line" about what happened on (and who caused) 9/11 is verboten.

Actually, point 2 is indisputable. If you don't believe me, just try to raise a question, out loud, about how Tower 7 fell... or any other anomaly that day. Like how in the hell our national defense system failed us so badly that no planes were scrambled to confront the airplanes that turned off their transponders. Or why the members of the 9/11 commission just failed to include testimony from Norman Minetta that raised definite questions about just which orders Cheney wanted to stand as a plane approached the Pentagon.

Point 1 is obvious to anyone who learns about the world outside of Fox News [sic] channel. The lies are endless. Not only are they proven lies, they go unchallenged by the "MSM" ... who apparently have better things to do than source their stories and seek the truth.

The root of all current evil is 9/11. Once we shine the light on what really happened (and what DIDN'T happen) on that day, the remainder of our current issues and their solutions ... will come into focus.

That's why 9/11 is so important. If we leave those stones unturned, we are only trying to plug the hole in the dike when what we really need to address is why the seas have breached the dikes in the first place.

The Overarching Issue of Our Time

When we can no longer trust our government, our elected representatives and those they appoint, to protect and defend us, where can we go? What can we do?

The event that created the current climate we live in is referred to as "9/11." Everyone has heard, "9/11 changed everything," declared from every major media outlet for the last 5-1/2 years.

Let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that what we've been told by those same major media outlets about 9/11 is a made-up story. (I've researched plenty of information that suggests just that.) Yet, maybe you don't want to spend the time to look at it because there are so many other important issues that need dealing with, such as the occupation of Iraq, the state of our health care, the imminent disaster posed by climate change, the ongoing nemesis of HIV, or overpopulation or genetically engineered foods or colony collapse disorder or Somalia or Iran or the Israeli-Palestinian situation or $4.00 a gallon gas or ... the list could go on for a long damn time.

However, who do we look to for solutions to the problems in this increasingly long list? Can we alone fix any one of these crises? No. Can we lend our voices and our money to try to help? Sure, but it's a drop in the bucket. We look to our elected representatives and their appointees to deal with local, national and international issues.

But if they fail us, where do we go?

I guess what I'm trying to say is until we solve the many mysteries surrounding 9/11, we will not be able to move forward on any other issue. If certain powerful forces within our government are complicit in 9/11, we can't very well expect them to work for the common good on any other issue. In fact, think of a common issue we've seen progress on in the last 6-7 years. I can't think of any. Why not? Compassionate conservatives seem to care only about granting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And supporting an illegal invasion of a sovereign country, and assassinating the leadership of that country... and setting up a puppet government who will agree to granting 80% of profits from that country's oil fields to multi-national corporations for the next 30 years.

If we don't address the root cause of our invasion of Iraq, the root cause of the stripping of our civil liberties with the Patriot Act and various other bills that have gone into law since 9/11, we soon will find ourselves bereft of any of the promises made in the Declaration of Independence: including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we'll also be bereft of our Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of press, assembly, and the right to confront our accusers and have a speedy trial. Habeus Corpus is already a thing of the past.

I move that there is no more important issue than delving into what really happened on 9/11. That's even more important than impeachment, because it involves a larger group of people than the current [mis]administration. If we cannot have a proper, impartial and objective investigation of the biggest crime in our recent history, we are destined to become slaves to those who carried it out.

The FBI has insufficient evidence to charge Osama Bin Laden with the crime. So who did commit it?

Believe the mainstream media at your own peril, about anything.

When Is Breaking the Law Legal?

Even though I doubt she'll ever read it, I think I write this blog as if I were talking to my sister. She's four years younger than I; we have different fathers; and our mother (who died a dyed-in-the-wool dittohead) favored her over me. We correspond by e-mail now and then, and in a recent message she suggested I should listen to Rush (as in Limbaugh) to get my head straight. Needless to say, we grew up to be very different in our world views and politics.

Anyway, the ongoing saga of extreme politicization at the DOJ brings us a new chapter this week. Former DAG James Comey's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was so powerful that I fail to see how Congress can put off taking action on impeachment for one more day. Impeachment not only for Mr. Weaselwords Gonzales, but impeachment for those in the White House who tried to get an ailing AG "Let the Eagles Soar" Ashcroft to sign off on a super-secret program to spy on US citizens, and failing to gain DOJ authority, went ahead with the program anyway.

The law that created the FISA court has never been challenged. But this administration didn't want to have to go to the FISA court for some of its spying plans, so they simply ignored that law and carried on as if they had impunity from prosecution or accountability. And so far, those who are in a position to hold him accountable have so far let Bush act with impunity.

My sister says that Bush has a good soul and that he's made a few mistakes here and there but he means well and we really ought to stop being pinko traitors and just let him run the country the way he sees fit. Foreign policy disasters be damned, she knows those terrorists would be planting IEDs in her driveway if we left Iraq. Katrina victims should've listened to the warnings and fled before they drowned. And whose to say Bush broke the law anyway? Maybe it was a bad law. Maybe he needed to break it to protect us!

Maybe this administration has broken so many laws by now, using the same 9/11 excuse, that another one is meaningless. Let's think about this a minute.

• The folks at Bushco have brought us a war of aggression, clearly banned by international law.
  
• They've also sponsored in-house and outsourced torture, in Afghanistan and Iraqi prisons, at Guantanamo, and secret CIA outposts in other countries -- again, clearly banned by international treaty which is the same as the law of our land.
  
• They've instituted (and are still carrying out) illegal wiretapping on US citizens.
  
• They've failed to follow the laws that Congress has written requiring them to report on their activities and they've failed to respond to legal subpoenas to boot.
  
• They've changed the meaning of the laws Congress has written by adding "signing statements" claiming they read the laws but don't necessarily intend to follow or enforce them.
  
• They've tried to fix elections by using the DOJ as one of Karl Rove's personal political tools.
  
• There's simply not enough room to list all the intentional lies they told, from "the air in NYC (3 days after 9/11) is fine to breathe" to "there's disagreement about whether human activity is causing global warming" to "We know where they are(WMD)..."

One thing I'd like to ask my sister -- what about if a Hillary Clinton took any of these actions? Or a Ted Kennedy? Or a Harry Reid? Is it only Bush who should be immune from accountability? Or does this new impunity also apply to anyone who holds the title of President of the United States?

And I keep writing and calling members of Congress -- why aren't we impeaching them already?

The Man Who Doesn't Listen

I have to wonder of George W. Bush has ears at all. He certainly does not have ears to hear.

He says he listens to the "generals on the ground." But according to a general, an Iraq war general who led the troops on the ground, "You didn't listen." I'm talking about General John Batiste, but there's plenty more where he's coming from. General Shinseke was the first to be ignored. Sadly, I think General Batiste is not going to be the last. One can form the fairly safe opinion that Bush listens to "generals on the ground" only when those generals say what he wants to hear.

Colin Powel said we'd only be in Iraq as long as the [sic] sovereign Iraqi government wanted us to stay. But it seems as if a majority of the government wants us to leave! And, in fact, a majority of Iraq's civilian population wants us to leave too!

Then there's the walls we are constructing, separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia and vice versa. Iraq's leader, Prime Minister Maliki, demanded (after a massive demonstration against the wall) that construction halt. But uhmmmm... no, construction continued and has morphed to other walls in Baghdad as well.

Bush never did say he listened to polls (even though we know that is a lie) so I suppose even when a large majority think our country is moving in the wrong direction, well, we can't very well expect Bush to listen.

Bush must have his headphones tuned in to another place. Let me guess, it's either Karl Rove or the Almighty. I've got $20 on Rove. For anyone who thinks God is talking directly to Dubya, I've got a nice rubber room and suit for you to wear.

Mister total-failure Bush must not realize that the better part of being a politician is listening to constituents, allies, one's military leaders, and even .. dare I say it, one's conscience. Although, once the greed gene has seated itself deeply, one's conscience loses a foothold. That's when a person is truly lost.

I know what torture is, Mr. Bush. I know what murder is, for economic gain. I know what Jesus would do. I doubt you do.

There is only one recourse. Our Congress must demand impeachment of Cheney and Bush.

My Call for a New Investigation

See TruthAction.org.

Tenet's Damning Disclaimer

 
George Tenet, CIA chief from July 1997 to June 2004, is making the rounds to promote his memoir, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. He's particularly concerned about his "slam dunk" comment (aren't we all?) and how he claims it was used out of context to prove that he stood behind all the (phony) intelligence indicating Saddam Hussein had WMD and was a grave and gathering threat to us, our allies, and the rest of the world.

However, his convoluted explanation for when and how he used the "slam dunk" phrase sounds to me like an overt confession that he participated in creating the snow job, no, the avalanche of propaganda disseminated to frighten us all into supporting an invasion of Iraq. Here's what it sounds like Tenet is telling us now:

[Scene - the Oval Office] Tenet: Mr. President, my assistants here have prepared a few plans on how best to prepare the American people for your planned invasion in Iraq. Assistant1: [coughs] As usual, Mr. President, we have Rupert and the others ready to put up the flag all over the place. Assistant2: We've been working on Kofi for weeks, but it's not easy to get our wording in a UN resolution. We'll keep trying. Bush: [frowns] Tenet: Listen, we've got other things in mind too. Like keeping Judy Miller fed with information. Is there anything you've got anywhere you can leak? [glances at Cheney] Cheney: [snarls] Assistant1: We thought about using Hill and Knowlton to promote another phony story... you remember in your Dad's time, about the Iraqis taking babies out of incubators? Still working on something along that line, sir. Rice: I think the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" thing we worked up would be a great talking point. Bush: [scratches head, then winks slyly at Condi] Well listen up, what I wanna know is, are you fudgesticks gonna be able to come up with enough hoopla so the people get behind this here takeover in Iraq? I mean, y'all have had years to think up some good ways to smoke a screen, err, blow smoke... err, fobskugater things, right? Tenet: We can do it, Mr. President. I know our presentation today wasn't up to snuff, but just give us a little more time. Bush: You sure you can make this lie fly, cia-guy? Tenet: It's a slam-dunk, Mr. President.

I don't think George Tenet has helped himself much. Instead of being guilty of promoting what turned out to be faulty intelligence, he's just confessed to being guilty of participating in the rollout of the propaganda used to sell the war.

Letter to the Honorable John Murtha

 
 ThinkProgress reports on Representive John Murtha's Sunday, April 29 appearance on CBS's Face the Nation.

There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is the purse.

It's relatively clear that popular opinion has little if any effect on the Decider-in-Chief. And I don't think the world can wait for another election. Since it seems highly unlikely that the Democrats in Congress pull the plug on funding the occupation outright, our only real recourse is impeachment.

After participating, albeit in a modest way, in Impeachment Day on April 28, I thought a word of encouragement to the good Representative may be in order. I mailed the letter below to John Murtha today.

The Honorable John P. Murtha
United States House of Representatives
2423 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-3812

Dear Representative Murtha,

I am not a resident of your district in Pennsylvania, although I do live nearby in West Virginia.

I hope you don't mind that I write to urge you to support HR 333, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich's bill to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney.

Just your mention to various news outlets this weekend of impeachment as a possible course of action has animated many of us in this country who believe the time for accountability is long overdue. You may not be aware, but April 28th was dubbed "National Impeachment Day" and all across the country people spelled out I-M-P-E-A-C-H in many ways. Perhaps your staff has run across reports. You can visit A28.org for details on the hundreds of events.

I firmly think that we owe it to future generations to call a liar and a lawbreaker just that, no matter if they run the corner grocery store or the country. No man (or woman) is above the law. What will our silence on the subject of impeachment and trial for high crimes and misdemeanors say to those who follow us? That we were too afraid of doing the right thing? That we lacked the will to stand up for what we believe in -- justice, liberty, fairness, the rule of law, the Constitution!?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. There are likely many constituents in your district who feel similarly to me -- the last serious poll done on the topic of impeachment showed that 51% of Americans would support impeachment if it could be shown that Bush and Cheney lied us into war with Iraq. Let this letter give voice to someone in your district who is unable, for one reason or another, to speak with you directly.

Please urge your fellow members in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to remember that the people of this country want impeachment back on the table, now.

Sincerely,

April 28 2007 : IMPEACH

I Stand With Dennis Kucinich

I've been looking for MSM articles on this story, which surely deserves attention... it isn't every day that a Congressman brings Articles of Impeachment against a Vice President, after all! But where are they? I haven't even heard this news on NPR. What an amazing pity!

PoliticalAffairs.net nicely summarizes the three Articles of Impeachment here.

During the press conference announcing this resolution, reporters asked Representative Kucinich if he had co-sponsors for HR 333. Dennis responded that he did not stand alone, and as anyone outside the beltway knows, the courageous Kucinich is indeed supported by hundreds of thousands of people who are damn tired and awful angry about the lies and illegal actions of many members of Bush's inner circle.

Dana Milbank, in his washingtonpost.com video-story about the impeachment filing, stated with certainty that it was 'going nowhere.' I feel sorry for fellows like Dana Milbank. They are slimy, obsequious, full-of-themselves people who pretend to be news reporters but whose real vocation is a Bush boot-licker. Mr. Milbank, Dennis Kucinich is much more a man than you ever will be.

And in case any of my readers wonder just what Richard Cheney, VP, has done to deserve impeachment, The Nation article by John Nichols is a good read.

Impeach

The title says it all.

Kudos to all the state legislatures and city governments that are passing resolutions in favor of impeaching Cheney and Bush.

That is our remedy, my friends. And it is the only way we can start to make things right, absent a full blown insurrection and help from the other nations in the world.

We have, on our hands, an abysmal, decadent, wholly illegal leadership. We have to give it a shot at removing these criminals in the way prescribed. If we fail, I truly hope our friends outside this country give us a hand... either fiscally... or worse comes to worse, militarily.

Help now. Thank you. We, the people of the United States are sick and tired of being used in the name of torture and death. Honest to god, we do not want this legacy like a dead seagull draped over our neck and shoulders.

We DO NOT SUPPORT GW Bush and his minions.

Gonzales Testimony April 19 2007

Today's Senate hearing with Alberto Gonzales was really sad. He didn't know anything, was not in the loop, could not recall a meeting he attended, and frankly, he couldn't tell us anything about HOW the 8 attorneys made it onto the now-infamous list.

Alberto kept trying to convince us that really, nothing he did was improper even if it was ill-advised and ill-executed. Reminded me of heck-of-a-job Brownie actually. If he really takes responsibility for this mess he'd step down. But like other appointees in over his head (think BUSH, who was appointed President by the Supremes) he thinks even though he f'd up he should be able to continue to lead the DOJ.

He also reminded me of a cornered weasel, snarling at times, interrupting the Senate questioners a lot, contradicting them and lecturing them. He almost makes me feel sorry for him but then I remember he's the one who told Bush it was okay to torture.

Real weasels are cuter.

Can We Impeach Them for Blowing the Job?

We've got Dick (aka Darth) Cheney on Sunday morning talk shows maintaining that Iraq had connections with Al Qaida (you're supposed to think about 9/11 again) and insisting that more troops killing more Iraqis will give us a victory in this (faux) War on Terror.

We've got George (aka would-be-king) Bush sucking up TV time by commiserating with (and creating photo-ops with) the bereaved fellow students, faculty, staff and family members of Virginia Tech as a result of a very odd shooting on that campus.

So many other blogs have detailed the abysmal record of Dick and George's administration, that I hardly feel it is worth repeating the record here. I recently heard a phrase, I think a suggestion for a bumper sticker, that said: "Can we impeach them for blowing the job?"

I am very dismayed that "impeachment is off the table." Why? For God's sake, why? How else do we demonstrate in deed that we do not approve of the lawbreaking, arrogant politicians who have the nerve to tell us that we have no say in what happens in our country?

Anyway, in keeping with my thought process that every word posted on the 'net adds to the sum total of the words that represent how we, the people, really feel, let me say it again. IMPEACH. IMPEACH GW BUSH, IMPEACH DICK CHENEY.

I've submitted impeachment papers to members of Congress. Dennis Kucinich is ready to begin impeachment proceedings but he needs to know we support that. Please let Dennis Kucinich know we do support that.

Alberto Dodges the Bullet... for now

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is off the hook today and tomorrow, and won't have to testify until Thursday. The shootings at Virginia Tech are taking top billing in the media and Senator Leahy has determined that holding the hearing today is "inappropriate."

On Friday, Gonzales' office released a prepared statement [PDF] in advance of his long-awaited appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In it, Gonzales says he is "committed to assuring the Congress and the American public that nothing improper occurred here."

TheBlueState takes a look at some excerpts here. It seems Mr. Gonzales cares more about convincing us that nothing improper happened than providing full and complete information about what did happen, who made it happen, and why.

When Truth Is Told

How are you going to feel about torture then? How are you going to feel knowing that you silently assented to carrying out cruel and unusual interrogation methods that destroyed hearts, minds and bodies for no reason, for so long?

If a cabal inside our government sponsored a false flag event on 9-11, what then? Would weaselly Alberto Gonzalez and John Yoo still try to legally justify using waterboarding, humiliation, attack dogs, pissing on holy books, hanging by wrists or ankles, isolation, extreme temperatures, eardrum-piercing music for hours on end, on prime suspects?

If the vile and vicious persons -- the ones whose plans ended up destroying the entire World Trade Center complex, a wing of the Pentagon, a few planes and almost 3000 lives -- include some white Americans, will it be okay to torture them to find out who all was in on it?

There's more evidence that Cheney was involved in state-sponsored terrorism than there is for hundreds of detainees still held in Gitmo. Let's torture Dick for a few years and see what he'll confess to.

If it is okay to torture even one person, we are no better than anyone else who tortures.

The D'vidus Touch

Back when George W. Bush was campaigning to be president he promised he'd be a uniter and not a divider. He wanted to change the tone in Washington. Work with Congress, no matter what political affiliation. Of course, he also promised he would not do nation-building. So where did the hate start?

My take is, cleverly disguised think tanks planted the seeds during the Bill Clinton presidency. Some people became real Clinton-haters. I remember thinking at the time, how rude and cruel and crazy the voices sounded -- calling Clinton a murderer and rapist, a thief and a fraud. Hillary called it a "vast right-wing conspiracy." But eight years ago the words liberal and conservative weren't dirty words. Right-wing and left-wing were both valid political stances. Neo-conservatives did not sit at the main table.

Fast forward to today. So many aspects of our lives are weighed and measured and judged based on whether one calls oneself a Democrat or a Republican. When you testify in a Congressional committee, some lawmaker just has to ask, "Are you a Democrat?" Nevermind that you honorably served a Republican Administration. If you question a GW Bush appointee, or oppose US foreign policy, you deserve to be discounted, swift-boated, and discredited. You get to be called a traitor who deserves public humiliation and there are even some who will call for your hanging.

The US is more divided today than I can ever remember. The right doesn't trust the left any more than the left trusts the right. If you aren't with "them" you're against "them." Evil vs. good. Black vs. white. Dirty liberal pinko-commie hippie weaklings who want peace which equals surrender, vs. strong gun-toting smoke-em-out or just nuke the crap out of 'em, real Amurikans who won't settle for anything but victory.

It is as if GW Bush has the hands of a neo-conservative version of Midas. Everything he touches splits into opposing camps. Here in the US, it's rich vs. poor, corporations vs. workers, right vs. left, business vs. the environment. Iraq used to be united, but now... We have Sunni vs. Shia, Shia vs. Shia, Kurdistan vs. the rest of Iraq, Iraqi people vs. the puppet government that is trying to privatize Iraqi treasure.

Divide and conquer. It works the same at home as it does abroad.

Meet George W. Bush: the man with the D'vidus Touch.

Impeach!!

What is it going to take!? For God's sake, we have a president who can be proven to have LIED on multiple occasions, who can be proven to have KISSED OFF so many laws that the legislative branch has passed under the guise of his "signing statements," and who has blatantly rejected International Treaties and abused the Patriot Act and other laws to his own ends (witness recess appointments that would never pass congress).

I swear to God, if this were a Democratic president with a Republican congress, there is no way in hell he'd be allowed to continue. Impeachment would BE the subject of the day. This administration has gone beyond pushing the envelope in so many ways, and yet why ... WHY ???? .. are do our elected representatives look like they are pussyfooting around King George's throne?

The only reason I can imagine is that our so-called Democrats have been neutered somehow.

Give it up, Dems! State here and now why you cannot/will not impeach, let us know what you are being threatened with. Else, we have no recourse but to presume you are part and parcel of the despicable, greedy, propaganda-furthering war machine that GWB contributes to (with or without his conscious consent).

Truth in Media: Iran

Rosie O'Donnell upset quite a few pundits recently, and I think they were at least as upset by her questioning the official story about 9-11-2001 or wondering if we can trust the government (ours or the Brits') about maritime boundaries as they were about her insistence that we have to go outside of our country for unfiltered news.

Television is a fantastic propoganda machine. Talking heads on US "news" channels frequently appear in succession using the same key words or phrases to describe a situation. It's almost as if someone wrote a script for them.

It is plain for me to see that the latest churnings of the propaganda machine we Americans are exposed to daily seek to incite distrust and even hatred against Iran. With that in mind, here's a little background information concerning the most often repeated phrase attributed to Iran's President Ahmadinejad, that he wants to see Israel wiped off the map.

[source: Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to "wipe Israel off the map."]

If you don't know how to read or speak Iranian, and you know the media lies to us about everything else, wouldn't it be prudent to get a second or third opinion on this kind of contagious rhetoric?

Hasta Luego, Alberto

The highest ranking government law enforcement official ... lies to Congress under oath and to the people of the nation.

Alberto Gonzales claimed he had no knowledge about the firings of the US attorneys. No meetings. No discussion. No participation in the decision. But voila! Documents released from the DOJ put the lie to his mealy-mouthed denials.

Yet again, one of GW Bush's closest has been proven to have obstructed justice. What a fucking sad irony that this man is (and hopefully soon WAS) the head of the Department of Justice.

Nearly every single department of our government now stands for its OPPOSITE. Justice? ROFL! Can you say lies and injustice? Interior now stands for finding ways to let the polluters pollute. State now stands for siding with Israel, to hell with Palestinians, suck up to Korea now that we know they have a nuclear bomb, threaten and posture Iran because we KNOW they don't... yet.

Why has no one stepped up yet to IMPEACH this president and vice-president? I swear to God, had any previous president been as outrageous and duplicitous and low-down and scurrilous... he'd have been outta here long ago.

Lying Under Oath Used to be Illegal

The firing or forcing out of at least 8 US Attorneys is a hot topic these days, and rightly so. There is abundant evidence suggesting that loyalty -- nay, fealty -- to the Bush administration was a primary factor in drawing up the list of which USA's to get rid of.

It's obvious the folks at the AG's office and the White House shared concern over how these firings would be perceived. From the e-mails published 3-19-2007 at the House Judiciary Committee Web site, we can see that a good deal of effort went into concealing the political motivation for these firings. And then we have AG Gonzales himself, under oath and in front of the cameras, protesting that, "I think I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it."

Let's see, what is the meaning of "I think I would never..." ? Does he mean he would not do it again? Or does he mean he would not do it if he thought he'd be caught at it? Or perhaps he means that he personally wouldn't do it, but would have no hesitation to okay such a thing for a subordinate to do?

To listen to the damage control squad including WH Press Secretary Tony Snow, all of Fox News and a bevy of other paid propagandists, you'd think this sort of thing is not illegal at all. Firing the attorneys that is. They'll tell you that every President cleans house at the beginning of the term. It's only natural! Well, if it is justifiable and routine, why protest so loudly? Oh, I know. To distract from what IS illegal and unethical. Lying under oath.

I remember well that lying under oath (about a private sexual dalliance) was enough to start the impeachment ball rolling. How about lying under oath about turning the Justice Department into an army of personal yes-men for a unitary executive with a god complex?

Is it any wonder that the Bushies are fighting tooth and nail to testify under oath about what they knew and when they knew it? Do they really think we are buying the line that if we want the "truth" we'd do well to take what they tell us behind closed doors, without a record and not under oath?

Since when is the "truth" so fearful of being overheard or repeated or sworn to?

Does Bush Deserve Benefit of the Doubt?

Question: Does the Bush Administration deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore, on anything?

Think back to the secreted interview with Bush and Cheney holding hands before the 9-11 Commission (hint: whitewash, and we WILL uncover it). Think back to the Bush Administration's assertions that Saddam Hussein and his imagined WMDs were an immediate threat to the US (hint: intentional misrepresentation). Think back to W's protestation that no citizen in our country was being wiretapped without the FISA court approval (hint: LIE). Think back to W's declaration that we do not torture anyone (well, extraordinary rendition, waterboarding, and a host of other abominable practices excluded, and therefore, a LIE). Think back to the White House Press Secretary insisting that Karl Rove didn't know nuthin' about the Valerie Plame leak, and W's phony promise that anyone in the White House who participated in this egregious leak would no longer have employment there (hint: another flat-out lie).

Enough? Have you had enough yet?

Answer: No, the Bush Administration does not deserve to respond to Congressional inquiries behind closed doors, not sworn in, and with no transcript provided. If the firing of the US attorneys was all okay and up front and legit, there is NO reason in hell not to testify, sworn in, and have statements recorded.

I found it most difficult to listen to Tony Snow today, trying to paint Karl Rove et al as honorable people. Don't you?

Why They Outed Valerie

The current wisdom is that the reason Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert agent of the CIA was exposed has everything to do with trying to discredit Joe Wilson's assertion that OUR government was falsifying evidence to push a rationale for invading sovereign Iraq.

I suspect an even more despicable motive. Ms. Plame Wilson was involved in a division of the CIA dedicated to intelligence discovery regarding Iraq's WMD. Doesn't this ring any bells for anyone? Valerie is running a very covert op posing as someone else, in the effort to gather intel regarding Iraq's WMD for God's sake!

What better message to send to the CIA than "BACK THE F*** OFF" besides outing one of its premier assets involved in exactly the task of finding out IF Saddam really had WMD? I mean, do you recall.... please say you remember..!!! that the main REASONS we were given for the impetuous invasion and occupation of Iraq had everything to do with that nation's ability to create, distribute and deliver smoking mushroom clouds!!

So.. not only attempt to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson's honest but naked-making op-ed, but at the same time send a message to those in the CIA, who are trying to do a good job, by exposing one of the main channels of intelligence... honest intelligence... we had concerning Iraq!

Bastards. I hope their limbs are slowly eaten away in Hell.

How Many Conspiracists Does it Take to ...

Why is one conspiracy any more believable than another?

To read forums and blog comments, some people believe that 19 incredibly lucky Arabs with boxcutters pulled off the total destruction of the entire World Trade Center complex, plus the destruction of a plane with passengers and crew in Shanksville, PA, plus heavy damage all the way through several rings on one side of the Pentagon.

I'd say that's fairly outlandish.

But if you suggest there's more to the story, or a different story, all of a sudden it's impossible because it would take the assent, aid and continuing silence of thousands of people!


This, my friends, is a straw man argument. There is no mainstream 9/11 Truth theory that calls for a cast of thousands.

I mean, if all it took was 19 mostly Saudi Arabs, then surely another group of 19 could do it too. Especially if the event was planned in advance and the mechanisms put in place over time.

I do not believe now, nor have I ever taken seriously, the motive ascribed to Osama bin Laden and his followers, that, "they hate our freedoms." Did Osama benefit? Did Islam benefit? Did the Taliban benefit? Just who did benefit? And who might have had the means and a motive?

If we are looking for motive, we find one right here -- the implementation of the PNAC's hegemonic plan simply could not have happened absent our "new Pearl Harbor." The neo-cons seem to have been ready for 9/11/2001.

[Tunick photo found here, fair use]

Run to the Rock: IMPEACH

This powerful video says it well.

To the United States House of Representatives: it's past time you listened. We know your game. Either do the people's work or share the blame earned by the corrupt Bush administration and the prior rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

911 CONSPIRACY MOVES TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA VIA AL JAZEERA

911 conspiracy theories just became mainstream news. if you don`t think AL jajeera is mainstream media you better check their audience. it is bigger than the Washington post and new york times combined. conspiracy theories and theorist are sure to change names and categories very soon and become conspiracy TRUTHS and TRUTH REPORTERS.



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Why the BBC Video is Important

"9/11 Changed Everything"

Can you remember when and who first spoke the phrase, "9/11 Changed Everything"? Within a day or two of 9-11-2001, pundits began this curious chant. The phrase persisted through the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report where, on page 328, you'll find:

However, the attacks of 9/11 changed everything. Less than one week after September 11, an early version of what was to become the Patriot Act (officially, the USA PATRIOT Act) began to take shape.

But who seeded that phrase into media consciousness? I surely thought it odd at the time. 9/11 didn't change everything for me.

Someone Planted a Story for the Media

Who seeded the media with the notion that WTC7 collapsed because of fire and damage? The same entity responsible for releasing the soon-to-be news a tad too early, that's who. That's why the recently unearthed BBC video is so important. You know, the footage where Jane Standley reports that the Salomon building (aka WTC7) has collapsed, only it is quite uncollapsed in the view out the window behind her.

At about 5:10 in the video linked above, Jane makes a rather honest observation: "It looks like the aftermath of a huge Atom bomb or something..."

How Perceptions are Formed

This video is called The911Solution. Watch how the news was massaged from the very beginning. After all, if we see it on TV, it must be true, right?

To All the Debunkers...

...who suggest that it would be perfectly ridiculous for bad guys to pre-announce their dirty deeds: you must not be astute or educated enough to grasp the fact that the television is a tool to brainwash the masses. The purpose of the news feed that made it on air too early was not to pre-announce a crime. Its purpose was to provide an explanation (fire and damage) for WTC7's collapse to replace the only other conclusion people could have reached had they been left to their own observations (that WTC7 was imploded in some sort of pre-planned demolition).

Part of the Conspiracy? (2)

Richard Porter, head of news for BBC World, continues to explain away the "9/11 foreknowledge of WTC7 collapse" broadcast, the missing BBC tapes, and all in all, how reasonable and easy to explain the whole thing is, after all. He ends his blurb with, "There's no story here." I don't think he understands that he doesn't get to decide that.



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Fight Ignorance: Read Widely

"Fight Ignorance: Read Buzzflash"

Or so it says at the bottom of many of the pages at Buzzflash. The motto should read, Fight Ignorance: Be Sure to Read Things Not Allowed Here.

I have doubts whether Buzzflash will print my contribution to their Mailbag, so I reproduce here what I wrote them today.

There are a handful of alternative news compilation sites I've frequented—and supported, financially—over the last several years. Every site has its particular bias or focus, naturally, because there is a human on the other side of a site and we each wear our own spectacles, right?

I have been visiting Buzzflash almost every day for the last few years since the site presents a good cross-section of stories from major and not-so-major news publications around the country. Buzzflash's obvious bias, like many other sites these days, is anti-establishment, and in particular, anti-Republican. Not unlike DailyKos in this regard, Buzz tends to promote Dems while harping on Repubs. Fair enough, the ruling party deserved it.

Another site I've frequented is WhatReallyHappened. Michael Rivero's bias is plain to see—Zionism in its extreme form can be quite ugly, and computer hackers (the bad kind) do deserve to be strung up.

Yet another site I've spent much time perusing is InformationClearinghouse. You'll find some of the more graphic images and videos of the "war on terror" here. The site owner has some pretty strong opinions about neocons and torture and globalism.

I think it is fine if you run a site and make your biases known. But I've run into a problem with Buzzflash in this regard. The site owner has biases he or she keeps hidden. Thus, you think you understand the scope of the content and don't realize the filtering that goes on behind the scenes.

I should have guessed this about Buzzflash, given a recent guest contribution from one Peter Michaelson.

Mr. Michaelson wrote a piece for Buzzflash where he, with true Frist-like audacity, remotely diagnoses everyone associated with what is called the 9/11 Truth Movement. I'll blog about his piece separately. The bottom line is, it was a hit piece disguised as a plea to those folks who dare question the Official Rendition of Events on that "day that changed everything"—a plea to leave their pointless questions behind and join with the true progressives to fight for the issues that really matter. Mr. Michaelson derided and belittled and talked down to and insulted all those who ask questions about what really did happen on 9/11/2001. So, do we assume just because Buzz invites this guest to contribute an article (which was nearly universally repudiated by its own readers) that Buzz itself subscribes to the "you are a nutcase if you disbelieve the government line about 9/11" belief?

Well, I didn't. Until yesterday that is.

Buzzflash offers an alternative .net site that solicits news from users—sort of a toned down Digg. You post something, users "buzz" it or not and if it makes the grade the story is supposed to go on Buzzflash's main page.

So okay, there is a new story this week about someone who uncovered a piece of video aired by the BBC back on 9/11/2001. The video shows a female reporter, standing in front of windows that let on to a view of the World Trade Center complex from a pretty good vantage point, blithely repeating some information she'd been given that the Salomon Brothers building, aka WTC 7, had collapsed. The problem is the building is visible over her shoulder and out the window. She reports the story about 23 minutes before it actually happens.

This is no small bit of news and, at least in my mind, it should raise a few very troubling questions, to wit: Who provided this breaking news to the BBC that had yet to break? And why did her live feed suddenly go black a couple minutes before the building actually fell? Shouldn't we ask some questions of the BBC, this reporter, and possibly the news service that provided that feed? How did someone know ahead of time, for sure, that WTC 7 would collapse?

Shortly after posting the item on Buzzflash.net, and after it had been 'buzzed' a few times, the posting was removed.

A subsequent posting of a similar story, this one bringing to light the CNN broadcast of Aaron Brown saying that WTC 7 had fallen down, or was falling down (when it obviously wasn't since you could see it in the video behind Aaron) more than an hour before it actually DID crumble, well.. this posting was also duly removed from the pending items. It isn't as if the stories were voted down and rejected. They were simply removed from consideration. I'd wager that the majority of Buzzflash.net readers never got a shot at viewing and rating the stories.

So what we are left with is the knowledge that Buzz has a hidden bias. Talk about government lies, fine, unless it's lies about 9/11. Talk about corruption and evilness and lack of compassion in Katrina-handling or veterans' health care or Iraq profiteering, but don't mention the possibility of corruption or evilness or lack of compassion regarding the government's handling of 9/11. Talk about National Intelligence Estimates and Government Accountability Office reports and secret Pentagon briefings, but don't talk about the 9/11 Commission Report. Whatever you do, don't post a newly unearthed video of a live news broadcast from 9/11/2001 that indicates foreknowledge of at least part of the tragedy that day.

I'm more than a little disappointed that the Buzz folks, whoever they are, have a phobia about this topic. I'm also quite sure that I won't purchase anything from the Buzz store or financially support this site anymore.

You may well be behind the curve, Buzz. There is a growing understanding that the Official Rendition of Events simply doesn't add up. This is not a wild-eyed kook-generated conspiracy. The perpetrators left too many loose ends, and we the People want to know the truth. I wish you were there with us, but either you are a left gatekeeper or simply too afraid of being accused of wearing a tin foil hat. Either way, you'll never earn a place in your own hall of fame for courage in the face of adversity.

Maybe one day you'll be honest with your readers that you are scared to death about 9/11 questions. At least that way progressives like me won't waste a few years and a few hundred dollars on your site, thinking that we are hearing about all the important issues of the day. Or maybe you'll catch on and catch up. But first you'll have to pull your head out of the sand and join the people who care not only about the Iraq War but about the event that "changed everything" that got us in there in the first place.

Sincerely,

Lee Franklin

New Congress: Here is Your Mandate

There are three items on your agenda, you who find yourselves elected and in the new majority in the House and Senate. I'll spell them out nice and simple.

1. Create a voting system that is transparent and verifiable.


2. Get the military out of Iraq, and while you're at it, destroy those permanent bases.


3. Begin impeachment proceedings against the lawless elements in the current Bush White House, beginning with Bush himself.

That's it!

If our vote keeps getting hacked, the voice of the people is not heard and we have no representation. It is not enough that this nation's wonderful disgust for "stay the course" actually seated the other party in power. In state after state, no recount was possible because there was no record of the vote other than that contained on proprietary memory cards. In district after district with e-voting machines there was a serious discrepancy between the exit poll data and the reported vote count. If we do not fix this, we should change our name to the Disunited States of Banana Republicland. Fix our voting system now!

We are not fighting "terror" in Iraq. We are creating "terror" in Iraq. We are slaughtering Iraqi people, daily, in massive numbers. We are building colossal bases and a majestic embassy. We are trying to decimate the country of Iraq so we can take over that patch of sand with its oil, so we can threaten other neighboring countries, so we don't have to ask Turkey for permission to base troops for future imperialistic ventures. We MUST get out of Iraq now. Now!

And finally, we cannot accept the President's men -- Alberto Gonzalez, John Yee, et al -- telling us that they think it is legal to torture, legal to wiretap, legal to invade other countries. So what, I should hire a lawyer and then commit murder and use, as my excuse, that my lawyer thought that murder under these circumstances is legal? Hahahahaha. Give me a break. I do not believe, no matter WHO is President, that a "unitary executive" is Constitutional. When the chief executive of a country is allowed to trample on the law he is sworn to uphold, our nation is greatly weakened. Impeach now.

---

Later on you can start working on the rest of the issues, like global warming, health care, financial solvency. But if these BIG THREE don't get fixed first, you're just diddling yourselves over there in D.C.

Not in My Name

Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home!

Get them the hell out of Iraq, and Afghanistan for that matter.

As long as our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters are assigned to places like Forward Operating Base Falcon, as long as their jobs involve driving around Bahgdad or Kirkuk or Fallujah in tanks with guns trained on the local population, as long as they are ordered to bust down doors and drag Iraqi citizens out into the street -- bagging their heads and cuffing their wrists -- and haul them off for questioning somewhere, we fertilize their hatred against us.

In fact, given what happened at Abu Ghraib and other holding facilities in Iraq, we lost the Iraqi hearts and minds a long time ago.

A large majority of Iraqis want us to leave.

Our soldiers don't want to be there.

Top military men are in full revolt against the status quo. In an unprecedented display of dismay, they are retiring their commissions early to come out and say that the way the "war" is being waged is a farce.

Yet those responsible for this farce are still in their jobs -- "Yer doin' a good job, Rummy!"

There is an explanation for the disastrous state of affairs in Mesopotamia. Let me preface this by reminding us that nothing we were told in the pre-war buildup has turned out to be true. There were no WMD. Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to us or to his neighbors. We were not greeted with flowers. And our invasion and occupation sure as hell cannot be likened to a cakewalk.

There is an explanation for the disastrous state of affairs. We saw the new rationale, the new goalpost, laid out for us in the Chimp's press conference yesterday. Why are we in Iraq now? It is no longer the lofty notion of bringing democracy to the region. We are there now because Iraq is unstable, and we will stay until the job is done, that is, until Iraq reaches a point of "stability." How does that make sense, though ... how is that a reasonable goal?

It's clear that our continued occupation is the cause of instability, violence, chaos, resentment, and attacks. In fact, US intelligence agencies are uniformly of the opinion that we are breeding more terrorists by staying in Iraq. How does it make sense that staying another day will somehow magically change this fact? Simple answer: it doesn't.

There is an explanation for the ongoing disaster: we need an unstable Iraq to justify our continued presence. The longer we stay the more permanent bases we complete. The longer we stay, the more our permanent presence becomes the "facts on the ground." The longer we stay, the more resources in Iraq we can steal. The longer we stay, the more Iraqis who have means will leave the country. The longer we stay, the weaker the rest of the population becomes.

I ask myself, "Is it possible this administration is willing to be called incompetent and delusionary to cover for the real reasons we are there?" I ask myself, "Are the real reasons for our invasion and occupation any different from what they were initially? And if not, why should we believe the administration would tell us the truth now?" I doubt the real reasons are any more politically palatable than they were almost 4 years ago.

All this leads me to think we have only one option now... a military withdrawal, in as orderly a fashion as possible, and as quickly as possible. There are many who say, "But this will create a mess!" Yes, it is likely it will, at least in the near term. And we will have to face it, accept it, and recognize that this is the result of our misguided and mismanaged attempt at empire-building in the Middle East. We have to demand accountability from those responsible.

I thought, and wrote, a long time ago that the ill-conceived invasion was akin to opening Pandora's box. What's done is done. If we feel, as a nation, that we bear the responsibility to fix it, we first have to admit that we cannot fix it with guns and bombs and torture -- the very things that broke it in the first place.

We did break Iraq. On purpose. Our soldiers are not able to fix it, by the very nature of our armed forces. We are not fighting terrorism in Iraq, we are fighting Iraqi citizens. We've helped create a situation that has fractured Iraqi society and civilization. We've helped to pit Sunni against Shi'ite against Kurd.

All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Iraq together again.

Bring our troops home now. Anything less is horribly cruel to our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. Anything less continues to hide the disaster we've created, on purpose, with the fiction that somehow our troops can make it better.

It's time we all accepted responsibility and face the music.

WTC 7 9-11-01

A 4 min. video about the collaps of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9-11-01.

Osama Was a Friend of Ours

Back when we were all a'skeered of communism and the USSR was our enemy, the US of A armed, supported and made friends with some Ay-rabs who were hanging out in Afghan-istan. One of these lead Ay-rabs was none other than Osama Bin Laden. If we could help the poor Ay-rabs in Afghan-istan resist the Russian move into their country, well hell, we'd be doing ourselves and all the communist-hating peoples worldwide a favor, right?

So our CIA made deals with Pakistan's ISI, their CIA counterpart. Through this connection, we sent material aid to the Afghan-istan terrorists who ended up thwarting commie Russia's drive to make the area their own.

Now, don't go telling me we will fight terrorism wherever we find it. Truth be told, we support and even create terrorists when it serves our "Nashnul intressshhhts."

So here we have good ol' Osama, he's a friend. That's a good reason why we never caught the dude even when we blamed him for coming up with this plan to fly planes into our buildings. That's probably also the reason we thought we could blame him for the events. After all, he was our boy, and we needed some scapegoat. How in hell we got from Osama to Iraq... well, that's all laid out in history now, the lies and the phony Niger documents and the smoking gun mushroom clouds and the morphing poor Saddam with Osama.

By the way, Saddam was our boy too. We put him where he is, we even gave him the chemical weapons we are now trying him for using against Iran and the Kurds.

Meantime, back at the ranch... the Congress just passed a bill and it's been signed... that effectively obliterates the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution. In fact, by writing and publishing this, I could be declared as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, making me eligible for one of those orange suits and a 6 x 6 cage down in Guantanamo.

Letter to Producers of the Diane Rehm Show

[For those who do not listen to NPR (National Public Radio), the Diane Rehm show is a highly respected and nationally distributed talk show.]

I'm sure this has already been suggested, but I'd like to hear a show anytime now ... given the upcoming 5-year anniversary of 9-11-2001 ... that takes a much closer look at the official story of events, as given in reports from the Administration and the 911 Commission report.

Bush, in his first radio address to the nation on the morning of 9-11, promised a full investigation into who perpetrated the tragedy. On the same day, Bin Laden was accused and a list of names and pictures of the 9-11 hijackers was published. A few months later a "Bin Laden" tape, supposedly found in a bombed-out house in Afghanistan, appeared to contain Bin Laden's confession. (The Osama in this tape really doesn't look like any other Osama pictures we've seen. Several of the alleged hijackers -- who should have died, right? -- seem to have been quite alive in the months following. Can this be disputed? I'd really like to know!)

The Bush administration fought setting up any 9-11 fact-finding body for 14 months. The Zelikow Commission that was grudgingly established (originally headed by Kissinger, wasn't it?) finally published a report which failed on a grand scale to adequately explain what exactly happened on 9-11. Two commission members have now indicated they seriously considered exploring criminal charges against certain officials for their misleading and contradictory testimony.

There's more. The 911 Truth movement seems to be growing, and respected professionals -- scientists, engineers, physicists and scholars -- have spent a great deal of time trying to analyze what happened. They cannot explain the WTC buildings collapsing into dust in their own footprints using the official line (WTC1, WTC2, WTC7 .. and what happened to WTC6? Have you seen the photos of the gaping vertical holes in that building?).

These brave people express dismay and disbelief that examination of the physical evidence (removed promptly from the scene and destroyed) was prevented. They claim it is impossible that the laws of physics somehow did not apply on 9-11 and 9-11 alone. (They point to the fact that no steel building before or since 9-11 ever collapsed due to fire. Can this been disputed? I'd really like to know!)

If .. and I pose this as an if that should be examined in great detail .. the official 9-11 story is more hype than fact, don't we as a nation deserve to discuss it? This seminal event .. the day that changed the world as we know it (according to the MSM anyway) .. has given rise to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to the abduction and interminable detention of foreign born and US citizens, to the abrupt passage of the Patriot Act, to warrantless domestic wiretapping, to disregarding the Geneva Conventions, and to countless other sea-changes in our way of life.

We are being told these are all for our own good. But what if the premise on which the War on Terror rests is a house of cards? We already know that we were hyped in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. We've seen repeatedly how certain politicians seem to rely on evoking fear by conjuring up images of 9-11. And who did forge those documents about Saddam's supposed attempt to purchase yellowcake from Niger? I'd really like to know.

I have so many questions and I don't want to wait 30 or more years for the answers to trickle out. By then, the real perpetrators will be dead and gone, and so will I. But the all too real results of this day that changed our lives forever will reverberate in the world my children and their children have to inhabit.

Thank you kindly for your consideration of one or more shows dedicated to revisiting 9-11. Someone has to do it. Is NPR and WAMU able and willing?

Dear Joe...

Dear Senator Lieberman,

Isn't it time to thank the Democrats of Connecticut for giving
you 18 years in which to serve them and our country? Wouldn't it
be the decent, and yes, even ethical thing to do, to accept the
fact you were defeated? Why do you believe running as an
Independent reflects, in any way, the will of the people?

To do so will only further damage your already tarnished image
and may do harm to Ned Lamont's campaign. Why are you really
going to try to stay in the campaign? You have campaign funds to
spend? You can't get over the fact you lost? You want to do harm
to the official Democratic candidate for revenge?

By ignoring the voices of your former constituents, you are
attempting to marginalize the very people you claim you
represent. You are calling them pro-terror and fake Democrats.
Were they pro-terror and fake Democrats when they gave you the
nod to represent them over the last 18 years?

Instead of living in the bubble you seem to have created about
you, please take a moment to reflect on the possibility that the
people of Connecticut -- and all over this Nation -- no longer
want the kind of policies you so fawningly support in our
current administration. Please try to find an honest place
inside yourself to realize that running your own race does
nothing to further the ideas and ideals of the Democratic party
you claim to live by.

Would you cut off your nose to spite your face? If you fulfill
your promise (or is it a threat) to run as an Independent, I am
most inclined to to think your answer to that question is yes.

Lee Franklin

Lamont Wins - US Goes on HIGH Terror Alert!

Read my response to news of Ned Lamont's pretty amazing win over Joe (No-Mentum) Lieberman in Buzzflash's Mailbag on August 9, titled I Refuse To Be Marginalized Any More.

Democrats registered to vote in this one. Non-registered Democrats changed their registration to vote in this one. (One has to wonder how many were truly independents or those registering for the first time, and how many were actually koolaid-drinkers who switched from their Repug label so they could vote for Joe...)

In the end Ned Lamont, unknown as of 5 months ago and with less than half the funds Joe had, succeeded in unseating Sore Loserman, a guy with national name recognition, a huge purse and ego to match, and recipient of a fatal "Kiss."

Joe sort of goes brain dead now, registering to run as an Independent while still retaining his Democratic party membership, in order to let the other voters of Connecticut give him yet another defeat.

The blogosphere sizzled over this race for the past few weeks, and given Lamont's win, was bound to explode with astute analysis of the meaning of this nearly unparalled turn of events. And then what happens, the very next day?

You got it! The alert system we haven't seen used since the last election cycle, and an alert level we've never seen -- red -- is suddenly issued! Remember, Tony Blair and Chimp are both on vacation, and have remained on vacation in spite of this extreme "terra-alert" while everyone who flies a public airplane in Great Britain or the US has to throw out all liquids and gels they carry.

Here's how it might have gone down:

[Chimp] (Ring ring) Hey poodle, how's things down on the island where you are vacationing?
[Poodle] Not too bloody bad. How's the brush-cutting going? *laughs respectfully*
[Chimp] Aww hell, it grows faster than I can snip it, sorta like whistle blowers or lawsuits against my administration or questions about the war without end. Speakin of which, I got a favor I need ta call in. You got anything for me in the Terror scene?
[Poodle] What do you need now, boss?
[Chimp] Well see it's like this. We got us a breakin story here about my best kissing cousin, Joe Lieberman, that drew the press away from all the turrible things Hizbawlah is doin ta Israel. I need a distraction. One that puts the fear back in the hearts of all my sheeple.
[Poodle] I see, blimey, sounds like a bit of an emergency. I'll ring you back shortly. (click)
======
[Poodle] (Ring ring) Cheerio cowboy, I have just the thing.
[Chimp] *chews something noisily* Spit it out, poodleboy.
[Poodle] MI6 has been keeping an eye on this group of disgruntled peaceniks. They tell me they can bust the group wide open anytime, just give the word. Apparently, they have been planning a protest aboard US bound airplanes.
[Chimp] Protest, eh? What were they gonna do, link hands and sing Koombye-ah?
[Poodle] Much worse, I'm afraid. They planned to drink enormous amounts of fluids before and during the flight, and then piss their pants in the planes. Their slogan is "Wake up and smell the pisspoor way our governments are dealing with world problems."
[Chimp] *long pause* You can fix it so that sounds mighty dangerous, right?
[Poodle] No problem, el presidente. In fact, I'll have our boys raise the alert to its highest level.
[Chimp] *cackles and snorts* I knew I could count on you, tonybaloney! By the way, we won't have to stop vacationing over this, right?
[Poodle] *sound of sipping through a straw* It will be a done deal, no need to get back to work, our security boys and TSA will take it from here.
[Chimp] Knew I could count on ya! Time for my afternoon nap. Laters!

The Slippery Slope

When did it start? Is there anyone still alive who remembers the horror and shame, the mass murder of innocents, and the sudden silence of disbelief post-Nagasaki?

Who among us believes there will ever be a reason to use a device like this again? If so, under what circumstances?

Our government -- mind you, these are OUR representatives, so what they do, think, say, plan or carry out is OUR responsibility -- is planning for a possible nuclear attack against Iran. Seymour Hersch pointed it out the other day. No one has denied it.

I wonder if we still can say NO to the lunatics in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. After all, we didn't do much when our military -- under orders (legal orders? hey generals, do you believe the orders were legitimate?) -- invaded Iraq. Turns out it was under false pretenses and if you didn't figure it out already, well, you were taken for a fool.

Then, we didn't do much when our government said, "Hey, we can call you people 'unlawful combatants' because we didn't give you our permission to defend yourselves, and that lets us lock you up for the next few decades without trial or representation."

After that, we just let it slide when our government redefined torture and exempted itself from the Geneva Conventions. After all, what's a little more bending of international law when nobody came down too hard on us for our preventive invasion in the first place?

Are you starting to see how this works yet?

Just eat a little bit of this at a time and before we know it, our bellies are so full of crap that it simply doesn't matter any more. We move from observing to excusing and rationalizing to becoming full participants. You know it. Those pictures from Abu Ghraib, when you saw them, was a bitter bite but you swallowed it. And in so doing, in allowing there to be times and situations in which torture is justified, you sold your soul. It's simply too late now to take back that permission.

Then, we stood down when we learned that our government exposed the identity of someone in our own intelligence community. Small potatoes at this point. Further, we put up a negligible fuss on discovering that our government was spying on us citizens, without warrant or independent oversight. After all, nobody even read the Patriot Act when it was passed, right? Following on, we now find out that the leader of the executive branch of our government himself authorized the leak of selected pieces of a classified document in order to discredit a citizen who was telling the truth that our government didn't want told.

At this point, any conscious normal human being should be tearing their hair out and screaming, "Impeach the bastards!"

If we don't say NO after all this, there's only one reason. We've slid too far, we're going too fast.

See you in hell.

Impeach Bush and Cheney

The i-word is showing up more and more, and I plan to use it in post titles frequently. Given the nature of our digital information world, the more times we use the i-word in conjunction with the names of the Bushco leaders, the more the machines who crawl over Internet content will capture it, record it, and report it.

Didn't we just go through an impeachment? But what other recourse do we have to let the current White House occupants know that we, we the people of this country that we love, will not stand for their out-and-out lies, law-breaking, Bill of Rights-shredding and Constitution-rewriting?

For what egregious acts shall we call for Bush and Cheney's impeachment? Let's start with law-breaking because too many pod-people will shrug off lying as something common in politics.

• Law-breaking
  ...from International Law to the laws of our land: there are laws against invading countries when they've done nothing to you first and then torturing their citizens and incarcerating them indefinitely without charges, not to mention warrantless wiretapping on citizens of the United States. There's more, but nobody has spilled the beans just yet.


• Bill of Rights-shredding
  ...goes on daily when our 'government' secretly tramples on free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures -- all in the name of prosecuting a war that isn't really a war, no matter how you look at it.


• Constitution-rewriting
  ...has been in the works since the founding of the Project for a New American Century. For centuries, pretty much everyone understood that our Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government, guaranteeing a check against any one branch running amok. But these days we see signing statements attached by the executive that essentially nullify lawful Congressional bills; we see threats against the judiciary and bullying or simply ignoring the legislature; and we hear unbelievable protestations that the executive is so supreme that it does not need to answer to anyone. That is an interpretation of the Constitution that is brand new since 2001. Last I checked, nobody asked if 'we the people' approve of this Constitutional mutilation.

Isn't that enough to impeach with?

There's more, this is just what's become 'common knowledge' so far.

If we don't send this message loudly and clearly now, I don't think we'll see another election in 2008. Why would an omnipotent executive ever let democracy get in the way of ruling?

Hello Almighty?

What I Want to Hear

... from Democrats or Independents or anyone. The label doesn't matter. The not-so-embedded media recognizes that election season is upon us and the question of the month seems to be, "What IS the Democrats' message, anyway?"

Well, here's what I think it should be.

Respect.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

• Respect the laws of the land and the Constitution of the United States. That means no illegal spying, no signing statements negating congressional law, no outing undercover CIA agents as political punishment, no hob-nobbing with corrupt lobbyists.
  
• Respect our allies. That means no making fun of France or Europe in general, even when they try to act as a moderating influence on a runaway (and run amok) administration.
  
• Respect the international treaties that we've been party to, and those we should be party to. That means support an International Criminal Court, get on board with Kyoto, for God's sake follow the Geneva Conventions, don't toss the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty in the garbage for one country (India) and point to it as reason for sanctions against another country (Iran) in the next breath, and treat Israel the same as Iraq when it comes to "breaking" UN resolutions.
  
• Respect international law. That means no preventive wars (Iraq), no manipulating other countries (the list is too damn long to put here).
  
• Respect the peoples of every land, regardless of what ornery dictatorship leads them at the moment. That means no more military engagements founded in falsehoods that end up killing (with bullets, bombs, or white phosphorus) and poisoning (with DU and God knows what else) innocent men, women and children. (Need I say Iraq?)
  
• Respect the citizens of this country. That means no more lying, propagandizing, revising history, tampering with courts and vote-counting, fear-mongering, stonewalling FOIA requests, threatening, bullying, ignoring, or separating government from the people.
  
• Respect human rights and civil rights everywhere, including the right to be treated humanely, decently, honorably. That means stop the damn torture, stop exporting 'suspects' to countries where they will be tortured, stop supporting mega-corporations who thrive only because they enslave peoples to do their labor, stop propping up the dictatorships who do your bidding even if their human rights records are almost as abysmal as our own. That also means respect a woman's right to make decisions about her own pregnancy.
  
• Respect the basic needs of peoples everywhere. That also means fix New Orleans and the whole southern infrastructure, even though lots and lots of poor folks and folks of color live there. That also means, stop messing with the school systems by trying to replace evolution with a religious belief, by giving children subliminal reading material that discourages independent thought. That also means reverse the the flow of money that has been creating a super-wealthy upper class while squeezing the middle class and totally impoverishing anyone below that. Actually this category could go on and on...
  
• Respect our earth, the environment, Mother Nature. Hell, respect the scientists who know we are changing the earth's climate. Respect pristine wilderness (ANWR), respect our wetlands (think Katrina and the Gulf), our oceans and waterways and forests and mountains. We don't have to leave a barren landscape as a legacy for our children's children...

That's just a start. But it all comes down to respect. The current adminstration has none for anyone but its own "elite backers." Believe me, you 'pioneers' are just a tiny minority in this country.

It's time for someone to stand up and say they stand for respect for the rest of us, the rest of the world.

Here's Why

Remember when Chimpy promised the people that if anyone in his administration had been involved in blowing the cover of Valerie Plame they would no longer work in the (our) White House? Yet now that the evidence is out clearly marking Libby and Rove as the actors-in-chief, Libby's boss is praising him for his service to the country and Rove is still in place.

I postulate a simple reason for this. Both Cheney and Chimpy knew and approved.

Gotta love simplicity. Cuts right through the spin, doesn't it?

Out of Control!

The winds of Katrina did something no one had been much able to do since 9-11, except, to a lesser degree and a shorter time, Cindy Sheehan. See, Bushco CEO Rove understands full well how important it is to control the message. Not only has he made sure that Bushco's name appears in the "news" every single day, he has crafted the content of the accompanying message and insured that it has been dutifully disseminated by every possible medium.

Cindy Sheehan, by promising to camp out in a Texas ditch until she received an answer from Bushco, managed to wrest control of the media -- unwittingly, I'd bet -- for a brief time in the lazy dog days of August. I mean, what she did was so fresh, so preposterous, that the media just had to take notice. After all, many of the usual voices were on vacation.

And then came Katrina in September. The winds of this massive storm not only ripped the roofs and siding off hundreds of thousands of buildings. It ripped the remote control right out of CEO Rove's fingers and sent it flying far out of his reach. For days the message was not carefully crafted. For agonizingly long days the message was raw and truthful and real and in living color, too.

It was beautiful and horrifying at once.

The Era of Making Distinctions

The flavor of the current societal bias is overwhelmingly political. How exactly did this happen? We still point out when someone is black or maybe when someone is Hispanic or possibly when someone is poor. But the labels liberal (as in bad) and conservative (as in good) when describing individuals whose occupations or life work should be apolitical is now pervasive. Entertainers. Scientists. Judges. Journalists. Teachers. Diplomats. Preachers. We know, somehow, that the executive branch of the government wants to know one thing first -- which side are you on.

Bushco ran on a platform that included frequent chants about his being a Uniter, not a Divider. Yet even in the McCarthy era we were together in the same camp except for the Communists. Now, we are either 'with' or 'against' the administration. Everyone is drawing these lines, it is how we define ourselves in 2005. It isn't healthy.

Can't we all just get along?

Now Let Us Celebrate the Idiots

In these trying times the dunce rules. And 'dunceness' is celebrated, elevated, and memorialized in our major media. Witness "Blue Collar TV" or many of the current and recent films. I mean to cast no aspersion on Forrest Gump, for the message there was plainly that simplicity may well cover a beauty and depth of heart and compassion that is plainly lost on those more sophisticated. However, with the advent of the Chimp in Charge, the C- student, the man who failed at every venture he ever got involved with, the redneck with the down-home twang and the folksy mannerisms.... suddenly being dumb and out of touch and unable to string a sentence together with real words is something we all misunderestimated the power of ... apparently.

Blah.

Science and scientists are currently marginalized and their scientific studies are discounted. Medical men, environmentalists, engineers .. their recommendations are spurned. Education has been dumbed down to the ability to answer questions on standardized tests -- no wonder teachers find little reward in their time-honored profession. Evolution is slowly being replaced by schmevolution (thank you Jon Stewart).

Ever since the Emperor got wind that he may not be wearing any clothes, the propaganda has been set into high gear to make idiocy 'cool' and most acceptable.

I don't know about you, and I'm certainly no genius, but one thing I learned as I grew up was, "be around those you want to be like." And I extrapolate that to mean, elevate those who represent the best .. in brains, ethics, sincerity. Down with the intentionally mediocre, the banal, the corrupt.

Down with Bushco and the media blitz designed to make stupid admirable.

"The Aftermath Will Be a Cakewalk"

Remember the rosy predictions about the state of Iraq after our unwarranted, immoral, and by international standards illegal invasion? We were supposed to conjure images of thankful Iraqi children strewing flower petals at the feet of our brave soldiers as they marched their victory march through the streets of Baghdad. We were led to believe the people would pay us obeisance for relieving them from the misery of a brutal dictator who cut off ears and fingers on a whim, for whom mass murder was just another day at the office, someone who reveled in the thought of spraying poison gas on thousands at a time.

I now find it hard to see where the fabrications end. We had to have worked hard ("It's hard wurk!") to paint Saddam Hussein as Satan, Osama, Hitler all rolled into one. Given that the tales we were told by our "We will restore honor and dignity to the White House" administration about WMDs in Iraq and about the post-invasion scenario turned out to be total falsehoods, I have to sprinkle at least a few grains of salt on the stories about how disgusting and awful Saddam and his sons were.

But that's not what was on my mind for the blog today. Ever since it became clear that what we were told about the Iraqi people's welcome was way, way off base, some anonymous administration official lets slip, from time to time, a short-term prediction. That prediction always is, "because of [insert latest move toward 'democracy' here], the [terrorists | insurgents | foreign fighters | Zarqawi | Al Qaeda in Iraq | etc, etc] will try to make things worse so expect more bombings and disruption and terrorist activities."

I am getting very tired of this pathetic singsong excuse, how about you? If every deadline for "democracy" we set causes hundreds or thousands to die, why do we keep doing it? Bushco seeks to validate its slow but unending assimilation of Iraqi Oil and other assets by asserting that "terrorists hate freedom" and you can see that to be true by how much resistance they put up whenever Bushco inches forward with its plans. Such resistance can only be dealt with by applying even more force, and to hell with the damage that results.

What of the "law of opposites" or Karma or the Golden Rule? I do know better and it very much looks, to me, like Bushco wants the conflict in Iraq to continue. It's good for business, which is the only "nashunal intereshtsss" that Bushco recognizes.

"We have to make sure this never happens again,"

...they always say. How many times will we let our government mouth this pathetic platitude? Now, after how much warning about the potential devastation a large hurricane could cause... now after ignoring science and technology and common sense! Now that the worst has happened, we have to figure out what went wrong? So it can be fixed and never happen again? How many iterations of failure will we put up with? Intelligence failures, planning failures, rogue corporals following orders from hired mercenaries in Abu Ghraib failures, political spite blowing secret agent's cover failures, leadership failures -- the litany of abominable failures since January 2001 are several too many.

So how will we make sure any of these will never happen again? So many words out of so many mouths that may as well be assholes instead, talking crap, spewing crap. But there's no real intention there to change. Real change. Transformative change. I don't see it even though you can find out what needs changing and how to go about it. It's there. There just is no real leader to take hold and speak the truth.

I fear we are lost, we the people have lost, short of a real revolution.

Remember September 11, "The Day That Changed Everything..."

but what about August 28 and 29 and 30 and ...

If the slaughter of 3000 or so citizens of this great United States could change everything, then what about this slaughter of 10,000 citizens? Where is the catch phrase that will permit us to focus on the systemic problems that birthed the death of an entire American city?

I remember thinking .. "Huh?" when every official and the parroting media started saying, "This changes everything," or "Nothing will be the same, now." I thought, well, hey, something pretty incredible just happened alright, but why should that change who we hold ourselves to be? Honest, moral, just, forgiving, welcoming, free, symbols of all that can be good in our world... But oh how everything did change.

We turned into obsessive vengeful ghouls, casting aside decency and morality and patience and yes, even basic intelligence. We slavered and growled, we taunted and mocked, we used our treasure to spoil a hundred years of developed world manners and invaded a sovereign nation based on LIES. Lies freely spouted but carefully concocted, rehearsed and propped up, lies painstakingly designed to incite us to slaver even more with the urge for revenge.

The poor dear peoples of Iraq, already burdened by the dictator we had imposed upon them, became 'rag-heads' and scum, the focus of our collective scorn and hatred. Stop! we yelled, but of course we yelled it in English and they were confused so we slaughtered them too.

So what shall be the new battle cry in this immense disaster? Pray to GOD! No one is to blame! Bah. I pray that the incompetence and negligence and willful ignorance that Katrina has exposed will truly change everything. It is long past time that we work toward equalizing the have nots and the haves. It is way past time for this administration's egregious policies to be laid bare for all to see the outcomes. This is what happens when the rich bitches get away with murder. Murder happens.

I do pray for you, New Orleans, and for all the people who have been displaced, drowned, corralled, transplanted, separated, and suffocated with empty promises. Lord have mercy.

The President Who Lost a Whole American City

...may well be Bush's epitaph and the legacy that albatrosses his neck in the picture painted for posterity by the history books.

Purposeful degradation of the federal government's ability to respond has resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of our own citizens but also the shameful loss of untold billions of dollars in commerce. The latter is why even Bush's normal flunkies are spitting mad at the string of decisions that led to the loss of an entire American city.

Katrina was one thing. People can rebuild their homes and businesses, it would have been hard. But the drowning of New Orleans and its environs is a different story. The city has been declared dead. Residents have been replaced by gun-toting militia of all stripes.

"No, former residents, you must leave to make way for Halliburton who will take care of the rebuilding. Sorry about your jobs and lives, go settle down elsewhere. New Orleans will be better than before, mostly because you won't be a part of it."