The First Amendment Shuffle
From Robert Rouse for Left of Centrist
Presenting the World Premiere of my latest song (written and recorded last night) and my latest Music Video (produced over the past two hours). This is “The First Amendment Shuffle“. Feel free to spread it around or use it on your own site or blog.
Iraq no longer a Political issue, Wrong! Sadly it served its purpose and Bush's middle east breakdown will now be carried forward by others! From James Joiner for An Average American Patriot
I am stupefied that no one has picked up on the fact that what is happening in Iraq and the middle east is long planned and the gauntlet will now be carried by others. Bush has ignored all good advice and proceeded with his new order middle east breakdown. He has done his damage. I have said numerous times in the past that bush had nothing to lose Politically so he took the hit for what he has done in the middle east, Now that Republican's are running for reelection he is calling the surge and Iraq a success but it is another Facade. Supposedly the Issue of Iraq has been taken away from Democratic Presidential nominees. Nothing could be further from the truth as once again both party's suffer from tunnel vision and the inability to look at and fathom the big picture. I will explain again!
First, those who call themselves experts once again prove they are no longer experts and that they do not have a clue! They stupidly ask Whatever happened to the war? they said that For months, it was all the rage on the campaign trail. Democratic contenders never missed a chance to pound on the Bush administration, rip the Republicans and remind voters over and over how badly things were going in Iraq. Republicans, as often as not, staunchly insisted that distant battles and homeland security went hand-in-hand. Day after day, stop after stop, the war was the focus of all things presidential. Now, the war is little more than a distant echo in most stump speeches. The Democrats are generally saying little more than "We should get out as soon as we can." The Republicans are hardly mentioning it.
Why? Here's their theory: Republicans know that a defining characteristic of the electorate now is widespread distaste for the war that Bush launched and has continued with the help of the Republican Party. They know that voters want out, and so most of the GOP campaigners are like kids who got bad grades in school last week: Although they need to address the issue, for the moment they'd rather not mention it, for fear of further punishment. The biggest exception of course, is Arizona Sen. John McCain. He is still talking about the war extensively and still trying to make the case for a continued U.S. presence in Iraq for years to come. But why aren't the Democrats talking it up so much anymore? Simple: The war is going much, much better than it was a year ago -- even a few months ago. You might even say we are winning. I fully accept that anytime our young people are dying and civilians are being killed in the midst of combat, it is difficult to even talk about winning or losing. But fatalities for troops and civilians alike are way down. Man are they off base with this one
They do not clue that Iraq has served its purpose and others will now pick up the gauntlet but first for us it is now about the economy stupid! But this is no recession we are facing, I will guarantee you that here too Bush will keep the truth hidden as long as he is in office. However if we are lucky enough to be rid of him next year the truth will start coming out. I have talked about this numerous times and it is undeniable to the unbiased thinker. Just read the facts of The Second Great Depression by Mike Whitney
I hope you read that but with that said I refuse to believe that there are still those who do not realize why Bush diverted from the war on terror to get back into the middle east. this was established in 1996 and Bush was just the fool they needed. going after Iran was only one of the original goals. Remember the Perle Wurmser Report from 2003,a Clean Break
Yesterday we discussed how Bush was in Bahrain cheerleading our supposed allies to marshal together and defy Iran who is their main threat. Bush is the big enemy to middle east peace as far as I'm concerned! It is old news now that Bush had pledged $20 Bullion in military aid to Saudi Arabia and other allies and was giving an additional $30 Billion to Israel to offset any threat they may feel. Yesterday he mad a show of making that money available to the Arabs.
Now I have said numerous times that Israel attacking Iran and Bush having to come to Israel's aid will most likely be his excuse to get into Iran. When Bush was caught lying about Iran wanting nuclear weapons Israel said that changes nothing and they are convinced Iran has a program. Today they indicated a willingness to use military force against Iran. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a powerful parliamentary panel Monday that Israel rejects "no options" to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a meeting participant said. The statement was the Israeli leader's clearest indication yet that he is willing to use military force against Iran.
"Israel clearly will not reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran," the meeting participant quoted Olmert as telling the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "All options that prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities are legitimate within the context of how to grapple with this matter." The meeting participant spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was closed. Olmert addressed the panel days after discussing Iran's nuclear ambitions in talks with President Bush in Jerusalem. During that visit, Israeli officials disputed the recently released conclusions of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. please read the entire story
** Anyway you look at it Bush will have his excuse to attack Iran and get his created middle east breakdown in full swing using Israel and so called middle east allies to do it while he uses another Facade and makes believe he is a peace maker. Iraq is not a dead issue it will no more be at peace than the rest of the middle east thanks to Bush. This is still just taking shape and I wish those so called experts would realize Iraq is not a dead issue. Democracy will not work there but Iraq has served its purpose. Bush got back into the middle east and he has managed to stay the course until an excuse can be found to get into Iran. Then this will really get started! Bush has set the stage for our future regardless of who is elected if we even have elections. This is still just taking shape and Bush will pay others to do their share of ensuring many wars to come in the near future while the chief idiot tries to secure his legacy as the fiscally responsible Peace President. What a bad joke and a Farce!
Like many of you, I was eagerly awaiting the beginning of another season of 24 Sunday night and am disappointed it will be put off for another year. However, I have EXCLUSIVE advance information on what happens the first four hours (two night premiere). The hell with a spoiler alert, you’re going to want to read this – whether you’re a 24 fan or not.
The following takes place between 1:00 and 2:00 PM.
It’s one year later. In an effort to slow things down in his life, Jack quits CTU and joins the U.S. Post Office, assigned to their Culver City branch. He’s making the adjustment well. For the entire first hour he is helping one customer. She needs stamps.
2:00:00
The following takes place between 2:00 and 3:00 PM
He finally says “next!” and his next customer is former colleague/computer geek/charm school drop out Chloe. She’s frantic. She just had a baby and it was kidnapped. If she doesn’t pay the ransom in one hour it will be killed. Jack asks why she waited until the last minute? She says she didn’t. She’s been in line for six hours! Fortunately, Jack is owed a break (since he hadn’t had one in over ninety minutes). He calls his daughter Kim who is currently kidnapped herself. Leave it to Kim to have a ‘tude. “I’ve been locked in this cellar for like what, eight months? And this is maybe the second time you’ve called?” Jack feels tremendous guilt for one second then presses on. Does Kim know anything about the Chloe kidnapping? “Oh sure, it’s always MY captors!” Jack says that’s not it. Maybe she’s heard something. Kidnapper scuttlebutt, shop talk, an inquiry to sublet the cellar? Kim says she’s got to go, they’re changing her ropes.
Chloe is beside herself but has to tell Jack that because he’d never guess from her blank expression. He vows to see what he can do but could Chloe help out by providing him the blueprints of every building in Los Angeles? She says no problem, that’ll only take a minute, and returns to CTU, which has now been relocated to where Tower Records used to be on the Sunset Strip (other than the electric fence that encircles it and the armed guards on the roof you’d think they were still open and selling the Taylor Hicks’ CD for 80% off).
Seven minutes later she has a lead. In a stroke of luck that could only happen on 24 it seems the ransom note was written on personal stationery. Abdul-Paula Shakira, terrorist organizer/AMPTP public relations consultant. Fortunately he’s only two blocks away. Jack hijacks a mail truck and heads over there. The postal inspector is irate. Jack has broken protocol! A madcap chase ensues at 5 m.p.h. with other postal vehicles in hot pursuit. Shots are fired. Hundreds are dead.
While in one of the many tunnels that Culver City is famous for, Jack gets a call on his cellphone. Reception is perfect! It’s former President Wayne Palmer, now a sous-chef at Duke Ziebert’s in Washington D.C. He just learned that Jack’s former flame Audrey Raines has had another breakdown. She thinks she’s an actress. Audrey's been admitted to the local drooling academy. They’re scheduled to administer shock treatment that will probably kill her, or at least render her lifeless (which is how she always was anyway).
Jack calls Chloe. Stall the kidnappers. He has one thing he has to do first. What? Fly to Washington D.C. and rescue Audrey. Chloe is upset (not visibly or audibly of course). She got him the blueprints and everything. Jack is annoyed. Why doesn’t anyone trust him? He’s saved the world seven times already for Chrissakes! You’d think he’d be entitled to a little respect. Chloe begrudgingly says okay but still believes he took steroids. New co-worker Karl Rove overhears this conversation and sends a text message to his Iranian wife who is in the middle of breaking down an M-16. Jack turns around and heads to LAX, which conveniently is only two blocks away. Audrey is in a padded cell doing the Faye Dunaway “wire hangers” speech from MOMMY DEAREST. Kim’s captors are filling out their tax forms, listing her as a deduction.
3:00:00
Next two hours tomorrow.
The CIA Created al Qaeda and there is 'Probable Cause' to Charge George W. Bush with High Treason!
From Len Hart for The Existential Cowboy
Bush's War on Terrorism is a treasonous fraud, a war on US citizens waged by the people's own government. "Terrorism", moreover, continues to be fraudulently cited in support of a war of naked aggression in which well over one million civilians have died. It is a clear violation of US Codes which bind the US to international conventions.
Now --high treason is a serious charge, in most societies, a capital offense. On June 19th in 1953, the US executed Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. They had been accused of spying for the Russians. Though there is little doubt that Julius Rosenberg spied for the Russians, the charges against his wife were most certainly specious. In any case, neither Rosenberg had done anything remotely resembling the heinous crimes for which there is probable cause now to try the person of George W. Bush, traitor to the US Constitution and the people of the United States against whom he has waged war with the apparatus of state, specifically the CIA, et al.
Recently, The Guardian's Jason Burke reported from the Middle East a truth that Bush doesn't want you to know: al Qaeda is a creation of the US CIA. The Bush administration has said that al Qaeda is responsible for the 911 attacks. Burke's story is about the Hezb-i-Islami group of mujahideen, a group whose training and weaponry are supplied by the CIA. The CIA maintains this fiction so that US government can exploit a perpetual "war on terrorism", a treasonous war waged upon US citizens in violation of US Constitution, Article III, having to do with the issue of high treason.
Section 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
The Bush administration has found terrorism especially useful. It is necessarily vague and open-ended. It does not require a formal Declaration of War by Congress. Terrorism, moreover, can be anything Bush says it is; there is, therefore, no accountability, no benchmarks by which success is determined or measured. "Terrorism" need never end. New "threats" are easily fabricated and exploited just as Hermann Goring himself recommended following the Reichstag Fire for which he, himself, took credit.
The charges against Bush will not stop there. Bush is commander-in-chief. He cannot claim to have been following orders when, under his orders, the US military embarked upon a program of torture and other violations of the Geneva Conventions. There is material evidence (that should be subpoenaed now) that people were murdered at Abu Ghraib. Why have not charges pursuant to the following US Codes been brought against George W. Bush?
(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
Bush is, therefore, subject to prosecution for capital crimes, though he has made unconstitutional attempts --ex post facto --to exempt himself from the provision cited above.
Al Qaeda --literally, "the Base" --is a cruel fiction that keeps not only Bush but the GOP in business. J'accuse! This exploitation of terrorism by this GOP administration is an ongoing treason, responsible for the deaths of more than 3000 people in New York City alone. There is probable cause to bring those charges against Bush now! A Federal Judge may convene a Grand Jury upon his/her own motion. I appeal to a Federal Judge to convene that panel while there is still hope that what remains of American democracy might be saved.
Voltaire said that if God had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent him! If al Qaeda had not existed, the CIA would have found it necessary to create them, arm them and train them. In fact, it did! If al Qaeda does not exist, then 911 said to have been perpetrated by them, must be re-examined.
If "al Qaeda" is simply a creation of the CIA, then the CIA must be investigated for its own treasonous, murderous connections to 911 and the series of Anthrax attacks with US Govt Grade anthrax, attacks targeting media and Democrats. How transparent! One wonders how the word "intelligence" managed to insinuate itself between the words "central" and "agency".
Briefly: there is enough evidence, enough "probable cause" to begin a federal grand jury investigation of the Bush Administration and the CIA right now! Based upon that investigation, charges of sedition and/or treason should be drafted consistent with several articles under US Codes, Title 18.
It follows that if Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is untrue, then so too every lie told to begin the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because both wars resulted in death, the orders to begin those wars are, likewise, violations of Nuremberg and other treaties to which the US is bound. If death has resulted from those orders, the said orders are capital crimes. The person issuing those orders is George W. Bush. Bush himself is, therefore, in violation of US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which he tried to change ex post facto. It is understandable that he would try to do so. Those US Codes make Bush himself subject to the death penalty.
The myth of "al Qaida" is built on an expansive foundation of many half-truths and hidden facts. It is a CIA creation. It was shaped by the agency to serve as a substitute "enemy" for America, replacing the Soviets whom the Islamist forces had driven from Afghanistan. Unknown American officials, at an indeterminate point in time, made the decision to fabricate the tale of a mythical worldwide network of Islamic terrorists from the exploits of the Afghan Mujahedeen. The CIA already had their own network of Islamic militant "freedom fighters," all that was needed were a few scattered terrorist attacks against US targets and a credible heroic figurehead, to serve as the "great leader."
The really tricky part of creating a mythical terrorist monster out of an incomplete truth is laying-out the facts behind your mythical story without revealing the whole truth about your part in its creation. In order to explain away the billions of dollars worth of weapons and training that went into the operation, they chose a rich jihadi, a Saudi millionaire named Osama bin Laden, who had been a faithful recruiter and business agent of the Mujahedeen. He was painted as the sole financier of the entire enormous operation that was centered in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bin Laden may not even have known that he was playing a part in a deceitful CIA global drama until after the fact. It is more likely that his history was chosen many years later to serve as the legacy of "al Qaida," than it is that he was a brainwashed tool of the spy agency all along.
The story of bin Laden is the story of the secret CIA/ISI insurgent camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Osama was 22 years old in 1979, when he was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp near Peshawar, Pakistan.
"Bin Laden family was put in charge of raising money for the Islamic brigades. Numerous charities and foundations were created. The operation was coordinated by Saudi intelligence, headed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, in close liaison with the CIA. The money derived from the various charities was used to finance the recruitment of Mujahedeen volunteers. Al Qaeda, the base in Arabic was a data bank of volunteers who had enlisted to fight in the Afghan jihad. That data base was initially held by Osama bin Laden." http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7746
Researcher Kurt Nimmo writes:
"The database of Islamic fighters that was collected by the program was labeled n Arabic, 'Q eidat ilmu'ti'aat', which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word 'Al Qaida" which is the Arabic word for 'base.'" http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=3569
In 1989, the US, under George Bush Sr. moved to abandon Afghanistan, making preparations to attack Saddam Hussein long before he had ever moved against Kuwait in 1991. As far as Bush knew, the spy agency had obeyed his orders to abandon the Afghan tribal bloodbath and civil war, but the CIA knew better than the Commander-In-Chief. This fit in well with a deceitful Secretary of Defense, who had also believed that he knew better than his boss, (as evidenced by Cheney ordering his underling Paul Wolfowitz to draw-up an alternative foreign policy, known as the "Defense Planning Guidance"). The covert foreign policy of Reagan and Carter had became even more secret, as control of the camp network was submerged even deeper into the bowels of the secret world of the CIA.
Bushies said that no one could have envisioned the use of air craft as weapons. In fact, everyone, it seems, but Bush and Rice envisioned precisely that! Certainly, it had been envisioned by the CIA and most certainly it was envisioned by al Qaeda--itself a creation of the CIA. What we have witnessed on the video above is nothing less than officials of the US government committing high treason against the people of the United States. This treason --in fact a war gainst the people themselves --makes the charges against the Rosenbergs pale by comparison.
There is a prescription by which the people may reclaim it's rogue and treasonous government. The people simply must unite to bring this junta to justice, insisting upon trials for Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet et al. Concurrently, a new administration must renew a promise made by JFK --a promise that most certainly cost him his life: the CIA must be "smashed into a thousand pieces".
A saying is often attributed to the Chinese: may you live in interesting times! It is not a fond wish; it is a curse!
ADDENDUM:
The Rosenberg case mentioned above says a lot about the US. Societal elements that would later make possible the ascendency of someone like Bush --a would-be dictator who disdains the instrument of our founding, the US Constitution, are present throughout our history. Zinn identified them in the Rosenberg case.
The Rosenbergs were charged with espionage. The major evidence was supplied by a few people who had already confessed to being spies, and were either in prison or under indictment. David Greenglass, the brother of Ethel Rosenberg, was the key witness [in the case against the Rosenbergs]. He had been a machinist at the Manhattan Project laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1944-1945 when the atomic bomb was being made there and testified that Julius Rosenberg had asked him to get information for the Russians. Greenglass said he had made sketches from memory for his brother-in-law of experiments with lenses to be used to detonate atomic bombs. He said Rosenberg had given him half of the cardboard top to a box of Jell-o, and told him a man would show up in New Mexico with the other half, and that, in June 1945, Harry Gold appeared with the other half of the box top, and Greenglass gave him information he had memorized.
Gold, already serving a thirty-year sentence in another espionage case, came out of jail to corroborate Greenglass's testimony. He had never met the Rosenbergs, but said a Soviet embassy official gave him half of a Jello box top and told him to contact Greenglass, saying, "I come from Julius." Gold said he took the sketches Greenglass had drawn from memory and gave them to the Russian official.
There were troubling aspects to all this. Did Gold cooperate in return for early release from prison? After serving fifteen years of his thirty-year sentence, he was paroled. Did Greenglass-under indictment at the time he testified-also know that his life depended on his cooperation? He was given fifteen years, served half of it, and was released. How reliable a memorizer of atomic information was David Greenglass, an ordinary-level machinist, not a scientist, who had taken six courses at Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute and flunked five of them? Gold's and Greenglass's stories had first not been in accord. But they were both placed on the same floor of the Tombs prison in New York before the trial, giving them a chance to coordinate their testimony.
How reliable was Gold's testimony? It turned out that he had been prepared for the Rosenberg
case by four hundred hours of interviews with the FBI. It also turned out that Gold was a frequent and highly imaginative liar. He was a witness in a later trial where defense counsel asked Gold about his invention of a fictional wife and fictional children. The attorney asked: ". . . you lied for a period of six years?" Gold responded: "I lied for a period of sixteen years, not alone six years." Gold was the only witness at the trial to connect Julius Rosenberg and David Greenglass to the Russians. The FBI agent who had questioned Gold was interviewed twenty years after the case by a journalist. He was asked about the password Gold was supposed to have used - "Julius sent me." The FBI man said:
Gold couldn't remember the name he had given. He thought he had said: I come from - or something like that. I suggested, "Might it have been Julius?" That refreshed his memory.
When the Rosenbergs were found guilty, and Judge Irving Kaufman pronounced sentence, he said:
I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb as already caused the Communist aggression in Korea with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 Americans and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. . . .
He sentenced them both to die in the electric chair.
Morton Sobell was also on trial as a co-conspirator with the Rosenbergs. The chief witness against him was an old friend, the best man at his wedding, a man who was facing possible perjury charges by the federal government for lying about his political past. This was Max Elitcher, who testified that he had once driven Sobell to a Manhattan housing project where the Rosenbergs lived, and that Sobell got out of the car, took from the glove compartment what appeared to be a film can, went off, and then returned without the can. There was no evidence about what was in the film can. The case against Sobell seemed so weak that Sobell's lawyer decided there was no need to present a defense. But the jury found Sobell guilty, and Kaufman sentenced him to thirty years in prison. He was sent to Alcatraz, parole was repeatedly denied, and he spent nineteen years in various prisons before he was released.
FBI documents subpoenaed in the 1970s showed that Judge Kaufman had conferred with the prosecutors secretly about the sentences he would give in the case. Another document shows that after three years of appeal a meeting took place between Attorney General Herbert Brownell and Chief Justice Fred Vinson of the Supreme Court, and the chief justice assured the Attorney General that if any Supreme Court justice gave a stay of execution, he would immediately call a full court session and override it.
There had been a worldwide campaign of protest. Albert Einstein, whose letter to Roosevelt early in the war had initiated work on the atomic bomb, appealed for the Rosenbergs, as did Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, and the sister of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. There was an appeal to President Truman, just before he left office in the spring of 1953. It was turned down. Then, another appeal to the new President, Dwight Eisenhower, was also turned down.
At the last moment, Justice William 0. Douglas granted a stay of execution. Chief Justice Vinson sent out special jets to bring the vacationing justices back to Washington from various parts of the country. They canceled Douglas's stay in time for the Rosenbergs to be executed June 19, 1953. It was a demonstration to the people of the country, though very few could identify with the Rosenbergs, of what lay at the end of the line for those the government decided were traitors.
In that same period of the early fifties, the House Un-American Activities Committee was at its heyday, interrogating Americans about their Communist connections, holding them in contempt if they refused to answer, distributing millions of pamphlets to the American public: "One Hundred Things You Should Know About Communism" ("Where can Communists be found? Everywhere"). Liberals often criticized the Committee, but in Congress, liberals and conservatives alike voted to fund it year after year. By 1958, only one member of the House of Representatives (James Roosevelt) voted against giving it money. Although Truman criticized the Committee, his own Attorney General had expressed, in 1950, the same idea that motivated its investigations: "There are today many Communists in America. They are everywhere--in factories, offices, butcher shops, on street comers, in private business--and each carries in himself the germs of death for society."
It's hard to read this without concluding that "justice" in America depends upon your political beliefs. And, if that is, indeed, the case, then there is no justice in America.
Know a blog that deserves to be featured on the Blog World Report? Contact Robert.
Great! Now not only can our troops come home, but they can come home with honor which was one of the benchmarks McCain has for when our troops could finally come home.
So if everything is great in Iraq and the surge has been this wildly huge success, why aren't our troops being loaded on to planes right now and flown home?
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly and misleadingly labels any gains in Iraq as breathtaking victories. As early as November, he said that “we’ve succeeded militarily.” Last week, he declared that “the surge worked.”
After the Iraqi government this weekend passed its new de-Baathification law — which “would allow thousands of former Baathists who were not involved in past crimes against Iraqis to fill posts in the Shiite-dominated government” — McCain added “political reconciliation” to his victory list. At a campaign stop today, McCain said that the new law is evidence that “we’re succeeding politically”: Continued Here
[^]
If success means establishing an Islamic Shi'a Theocracy aligned with Iran then boy-howdy we've succeeded!
All that human life and all those tax dollars have gone to create yet another Islamic Theocracy that will remain hostile to the United States long after we leave.
What did we get?
Cheap oil? Nope.
Are we safer? Nope. There are more radical Islamic terrorists in the world today than ever before and the Middle East is more unstable today than it was before the invasion.
How did America and more importantly Americans benefit from the invasion and occupation of Iraq? Can anyone tell me?
No Last Chance for the Dying
From TomCat for Politics Plus
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal on Monday by two advocacy groups arguing that dying patients have a constitutional right to access experimental drugs that have not received regulatory approval.
The Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs and the Washington Legal Foundation sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2003 seeking greater access for terminally ill patients to medicines that have cleared early, limited safety tests, but have yet to be approved.
The lawsuit argued that the FDA's policy to withhold early-stage experimental drugs from terminally ill patients violates the Constitution by depriving them of life and liberty without due process...
..."Approximately half a million Americans will die this year of cancer alone and a substantial proportion will find themselves at some point without any remaining treatment alternatives," he said.
The two advocacy groups only seek the right for dying patients to take a drug their doctors have concluded is justified by the available scientific evidence and is undergoing clinical trials involving a relatively small group of people, Ballenger said.
The Bush administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal... [emphasis added]
When someone facing death has run out of medical options, why not give them experimental drugs, as long as they are fully informed, willingly assume the risks, and agree to hold the pharmaceutical company blameless in the event of hastened death or undesirable side-effects? If patients meets all those criteria, they should have a right to a chance at life. Why is it that Bush and the GOP, aside from their attempts to deny women reproductive freedom, are always pro-death? The only downside I can see is that, if experimental drugs work, they might prolong the life of a disability or medicare recipient, keeping them on the roles longer. And therein lies the rub. Every penny spent prolonging life is a penny Bush and the GOP can't spend on a millionaire.
Racist Rantings in Old Newsletters Aren't the Only Skeletons in Ron Paul's Closet
From Skeeter Sanders for The 'Skeeter Bites Report
Maverick GOP Candidate Hotly Denies Being Author of Anonymous '80s and '90s Screeds in Newsletter That Bears His Name and Insists He's Not a Racist, But Why Is His Campaign Being Openly Supported By -- and Accepting Donations From -- Avowed White Supremacists?
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will have many more questions to answer than those asked during Thursday night's Fox News Channel-sponsored South Carolina Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach. Paul has suddenly come under fire after old newsletters bearing his name and containing anonymously written racist rants were revealed last week by CNN and The New Republic magazine. But that's not all: Several prominent white supremacists are openly supporting Paul's candidacy -- including an avowed neo-Nazi who claims that Paul has "extensive" connections with numerous white-supremacist groups. (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)
Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have complained for months that the mainstream news media have engaged in a conspiracy to keep him out of the public eye by ignoring his maverick campaign.
Now, however, they may be wishing that the media had continued to ignore him, for the Texas congressman -- who's made a name for himself as the only candidate in the GOP field who staunchly opposes the Iraq war -- is suddenly in the eye of a very unwanted media hurricane.
The New Republic magazine and CNN have uncovered a series of newsletters published in Paul's name in the late 1980s and early 1990s that contain numerous racially-charged articles -- including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went "to pick up their welfare checks."
But Paul has an ever bigger problem than the newsletters: Several prominent white supremacists have endorsed Paul's candidacy -- one of whom gave his campaign a $500 donation and another of whom is insisting in a statement posted on a far-right-wing Web site that the candidate has "extensive involvement in white nationalism" and is a "closeted" white nationalist himself.
Among the self-described "white nationalists" backing Paul's candidacy include former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke -- whom the national Republican leadership, including then-President George H.W. Bush, loudly repudiated in 1991 when he ran unsuccessfully as the GOP nominee for governor of Louisiana.
Bill White, leader of the American National Socialist Worker's Party, claims in a posting late last month to the Web site of the far-right-wing Vanguard News Network that "Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review" and other far-right groups at an Arlington, Virginia restaurant on a weekly basis.
Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Paul’s campaign, angrily denied White's claims, telling the Internet edition of The New York Times that neither Paul nor his aides ever attended these restaurant meetings, nor has the Texas congressman ever "knowingly" met White.
Norman Singleton, a congressional aide to Paul, acknowledged to the Times, however, that he met White at a dinner gathering of conservatives "several years ago," after which Singleton expressed his "indignation" with White's racial views.
Newsletter Articles Rail Against Blacks, Gays and Israeli Lobby
CNN acknowledged that all of the bigoted rants published in the copies of the Ron Paul Political Report newsletter obtained by the network were written anonymously and that the author's identity could not be determined. In an interview broadcast Thursday on CNN's "The Situation Room," the maverick GOP presidential candidate insisted that he didn't write any of the offensive articles and has "no idea" who did.
"When you bring this question up, you're really saying, 'You're a racist' or 'Are you a racist?' And the answer is, 'No, I'm not a racist,'" Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, insisting that he never read the articles. "I do repudiate everything that is written along those lines," he said, adding he wanted to "make sure everybody knew where I stood on this position because it's obviously wrong."
The controversial newsletters include rants against the Israeli lobby, gays, AIDS patients and the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- who was described as a "pro-Communist philanderer." The national holiday honoring what would have been Dr. King's 79th birthday will be observed next Monday.
One newsletter, dated June 1992 in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, says "order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks." The riots -- the worst in the city's history -- were triggered by the acquittal of four white police officers of criminal assault charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, a black motorist whom officers had initially stopped for speeding.
The Rodney King case was the most notorious in a decades-long series of racially-charged incidents that poisoned relations between the Los Angeles Police Department and the city's African American community. The officers were later found guilty in federal court on charges of violating King's civil rights.
Another anonymously-written rant in the newsletter says, "The criminals who terrorize our cities -- in riots and on every non-riot day -- are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to 'fight the power,' to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible."
Other Articles Make References to Paul's Texas Hometown
Other excerpts in the Ron Paul Political Report refer to Lake Jackson, Texas, where the candidate lives -- references that could lead readers to believe that the articles were written by Paul himself. In an October 1992 article, the newsletter describes "carjacking" -- literally hijacking cars, often at gunpoint, from motorists while the driver is behind the wheel -- as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos."
The article goes on to offer advice from others on how to avoid being carjacked, including "an ex-cop I know," and says, "I frankly don't know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self-defense, for the animals are coming."
In his interview with CNN, Paul insisted he would never use such language. "People who know me, nobody is going to believe this," he said. "That's just not my language. It's not my life. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, [Mahatma] Ghandi -- they're the heroes [of my life]."
That CNN and The New Republic were able to obtain copies of the newsletter -- the title of which was changed in 1993 to the Ron Paul Survival Report -- is something of a coup. The newsletter, produced during the 12-year period in between Paul's two stints in Congress (from 1979 to 1985 and from 1997 to the present), had only about 7,000 subscribers, and Paul, not surprisingly, had steadfastly refused to make copies available to the media.
Indeed, so obscure was Paul's newsletter that a Lexis/Nexis search for the publication by the liberal-leaning opinion site Daily Kos -- which posted passages from the article on the L.A. riots far more incendiary than those quoted by CNN -- turned up nothing.
Paul Campaign Won't Return $500 Donation From White Supremacist
The credibility of Paul's denials of being the author of the racist rants in his newsletters is undermined, however, by his campaign's refusal to return a $500 donation from Don Black, an avowed white supremacist, after the donation -- contained in a campaign finance report on file with the Federal Election Commission -- was made public on December 18 by The Associated Press.
Campaign spokesman Benton told the AP that the Texas congressman's camp doesn't monitor who its donors are -- nor does it return donations from donors deemed controversial. "Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights," he said.
"If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money,"Benton insisted. "Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom -- and that's $500 less that this guy [Black] has to do whatever it is that he does."
Black, a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, said he supports Paul's stance on ending the war in Iraq, securing U.S. borders and his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants. "We like his stand on tight borders and opposition to a police state," Black -- who runs a white-supremacist Web site and said he's been a "white patriot" for more than 30 years -- told the Palm Beach Post.
Paul, who finished a distant fifth in last week's New Hampshire GOP primary, has nevertheless become an Internet phenomenon in the current race for the Republican nomination -- much like Howard Dean on the Democratic side four years ago -- raising tens of millions of dollars from a devoted online voter base, many of them young people drawn to his libertarian views on social issues and his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war.
Unlike Dean, however, this isn't Paul's first run for the White House: He previously ran in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party while remaining a registered Republican. The most striking difference between the Texas congressman and his GOP rivals is his advocacy of a "non-interventionist" foreign policy, a position long associated with the Libertarian Party and denounced by his rivals as isolationist.
Neo-Nazi Claims Paul Is a 'Closeted' White Nationalist
But if the controversy over the racist newsletters and support from white supremacists wasn't bad enough for Paul, the candidate has a much more serious public-relations problem that could destroy his political career, let alone his White House candidacy: Claims by the avowed neo-Nazi Bill White that the congressman is a "closeted" white nationalist himself.
"I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn't see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble," White wrote in a statement posted on the Vanguard News Network Web site. "However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul's extensive involvement in white nationalism."
White claims that "Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet" with members of several far-right "white nationalist" groups, including "the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others" at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, "usually on Wednesdays."
The American National Socialist Workers Party leader branded as "ridiculous" dismissals by Paul's aides of white nationalism as a "small ideology" and that white activists are "wasting their money" trying to influence the candidate. "Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position," White insisted.
"I don't know that it is necessarily good for Paul to 'expose' this," White continued. "However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him [Paul] to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable. . .is outrageous."
Ex-Klansman Duke Endorses Paul -- But Says He Should 'Defend Whites More'
The "Stormfront" that White referred to in his posting is a white-supremacist Web site, which welcomes postings to the "Stormfront White Nationalist Community." The site, which bears the motto, "White Pride World Wide" on its home page, was founded and is operated by Black.
Black and fellow ex-Klansman Duke co-anchor an Internet-only radio show, "Stormfront Radio," on the site. In their latest Webcast, now online, Black and Duke discuss "What Ron Paul Must Do to Win." There's an interesting twist in their partnership in white nationalism: Black is married to Duke's ex-wife, Chloe Hardin, who divorced Duke in 1984.
In a posting on Stormfront's discussion page, Duke also endorsed Paul, declaring that his campaign "is good for America and the political process."
Explaining why he's backing Paul, Duke writes that "People such as Ron Paul shake up the system, and Paul takes a lot of correct positions, such as opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to foreign aid to Israel and the rest of the world, as well as having unrelenting support for the civil liberties of the American people."
But Duke went on to criticize Paul for not doing enough "to defend the heritage and interests of European Americans," particularly on the issues of illegal immigration and affirmative action.
On immigration, Duke urged Paul to "Hit immigration harder, and not by commercials showing some anchor babies in hospitals -- people feel naturally sympathetic to babies and mothers. Show pictures of the many illegal alien criminals who have raped, kidnapped and killed American citizens who our government has not prevented from entering the country."
And on affirmative action, Duke wrote that if he was Paul's campaign manager, he would "expose and hit the massive racial discrimination against European Americans in so-called affirmative action and the bald-faced lies of 'equal opportunity,'” accusing the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of being "an agency solely dedicated to racial discrimination against better-qualified white applicants, companies, employees and students."
Citigroup could write down as much as $24 billion due to subprime and credit-related losses, CNBC has learned. In addition, an estimated 20 thousand layoffs will be part of a comprehensive plan to slash costs and raise capital.
The plans will be unveiled Tuesday, when it reports fourth-quarter earnings. At the same time, Citigroup could also announce that it is cutting its dividend payment.
And guess who play the Citigroup bailout game anymore ... China!
Once again, Wall Street came knocking on Beijing's door. This time it went home empty-handed.
The Chinese government's apparent rejection of a planned multi-billion-dollar investment in Citigroup Inc. by state-owned China Development Bank suggests there may be limits to Beijing's status as a cash source for Western banks eager to plug holes in their balance sheets. ...
People familiar with the situation say China's senior leadership decided against backing the investment plan ...
And Merrill's in trouble too, but it and Citicorp might get a little help from another one of our "friends":
Merrill Lynch is seeking about $4bn in a second capital raising, as the hole in the US investment bank’s balance sheet continues to grow.
The Kuwait Investment Authority is expected to be a significant investor in the new deal, which could be announced as soon as midweek, according to people familiar with the matter. Other investors could come from Europe.
KIA, which may also invest as much as $2bn or $3bn in Citigroup, is emerging as an large source of rescue finance on Wall Street. Once among the most conservative of sovereign wealth funds, KIA is changing its strategy in order to move more quickly than competitors and seize opportunities amid the turmoil in the US credit markets, these people say. Both Merrill and KIA declined to comment.
If this had been a mere subprime crisis, it would now be over. But it is not, and nor will it be over soon. The reason is that several other pockets of the credit market are also vulnerable. Credit cards are one such segment, similar in size to the subprime market. Another is credit default swaps, relatively modern financial instruments that allow bondholders to insure against default.
But the Dear Leader says everything is fine! So shut up and go buy something. And remember to charge it.
The truth is everyone involved lost—the Burmese people, the military junta and the international community.
Most Burmese people lost faith in a better future, their dreams again destroyed by the dark reality of oppression and ruthlessness.
The generals lost their chance to show the world they wished to move towards a legitimate government and gain the world’s recognition as leaders who guided Burma to true democracy.
Their conclusion,
It’s the people who have lost the most, by far.
hit me pretty hard. Have we really lost the most? Below is what I feel.
If we look back at Burma's history, people of Burma have been subjected to a string of military junta's control and suppression since General Ne Win took over power in 1962. And Burmese people had also tried to free from the military control through major uprisings such as those in 1974 and 1988. Many lives were lost during those uprisings under the brutal hands of the military. Now, we have "Saffron Revolution" where more lives have been sacrificed. Despite all those sacrifices, our struggle to free Burma remains the same through the decades. As a result, the strength and hope of many ordinary people in Burma start to waver. Many begin to wonder whether it is truly possible to break free from such strong-hold of the military power over Burma.
If we were to look at the number of lives being destroyed under the brutal acts of the military, if we were to look at the ways our hopes were shattered repeatedly during 1974 and 1988 uprisings, we, Burmese people, have indeed lost the most. However, recent "Saffron Revolution" is different. I refuse to accept that Burmese people have lost their hopes over this September movement. In fact, we are all aware that this is probably the last chance for us. Having that notion, we continue to strive on. This September movement has become a catalyst for decades of suppression and subsequently, our strength and hopes to free Burma have been awakened. Therefore, people of Burma have NOT lost.
Then, what about the generals? Have they "lost their chance to show the world they wished to move towards a legitimate government and gain the world’s recognition as leaders who guided Burma to true democracy"? In my plain opinion, I do not think so. In fact, I do not even think that the generals care much about what the world thinks of them as long as they have the backing of certain countries which they can depend to sustain their power in Burma. So the question of whether they have lost "that chance", does not even seem applicable to them.
In conclusion, I feel that it is still too early to say who have lost. Afterall, our battle to free Burma is still not finished. So my fellow countrymen, let us replace the fear that the generals are trying so hard to instill into us, with perseverance for Burma's freedom. Let us do whatever we can so that the term, loss, would never be imprinted upon Burma's history again.
Last week President McDoodypants and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Yad Vashem (יד ושם), Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev accompanied Chimpy and the Shoe Queen. Chimpy visited several areas of the memorial, including the Hall of Remembrance, where the names of the death camps are listed, along with an eternal flame and ashes from the victims.
At one point during his tour, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and said:
"We should have bombed it," according to Shalev.
Rice must have gotten a good rush of Bush fart air when she heard this, as she then went over to discuss what Roosevelt and Churchill knew and did during the war. Bush altered his stance and then said the FDR’s and Churchill’s decision not to bomb it was "complex."
"We were talking about the often-discussed 'Could the United States have done more by bombing the train tracks?'" Rice told reporters later aboard Air Force One. "And so we were just talking about the various explanations that had been given about why that might not have been done."
Oh puhleezza - Bush actually sat and ‘pondered’ the ‘what-ifs’ regarding the decision to forgo bombing Auschwitz. That and Mitt Romney didn’t say he was more liberal than Ted Kennedy. Some things are just too incredulous for even Bushies to believe.
Wearing a yarmulke, Bush placed a red-white-and-blue wreath on a stone slab that covers ashes of Holocaust victims taken from six extermination camps. He also lit a torch memorializing the victims. Bush was visibly moved as he toured the site, Avner added.
Call me a cynic, but it sounds like crocodile tears to me -- after all it is a photo-op at one of the most solemn places in the world, and Chimpy wouldn't want to mess this up . I would bet Chimpy couldn’t even tell you what country Auschwitz was located in.
I might get a lot of heat for this, but as a Jew and an American I find it morally reprehensible that this asshole man is even allowed to enter Yad Vashem. George W. Bush, a world leader who out-and-out lied and distorted facts to start a war that has killed hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of innocent civilians, is “all choked” up at a memorial to those slaughtered in the Holocaust. George W. Bush, a chicken hawk who avoided going to Vietnam via family connections and probably has read NOTHING on the Holocaust has the gall to cavalierly say “bomb it” when referring to Auschwitz. George W. Bush, whose grandfather (Prescott Bush), was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the monetary backers of Nazi Germany, is standing over the ashes of victims from Auschwitz, Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka – the Nazi death factories grandpa helped indirectly finance.
Chimpy’s answer to everything – bombs and war (oh and tax cuts for the rich). Why didn’t he just sing about bombing Auschwitz to the music from a Beach Boys song? I just cannot stomach the irony. I just cannot stomach this man.
About ‘bombing’ the camps
There is good evidence Churchill and Roosevelt knew (at least sketchy details) about what was going in Auschwitz by 1943. Perhaps even as early as 1941, the Western leaders were briefed about the systematic killings of Jews and establishment of other concentration camps. But by 1944, with receipt of a very detailed report from two escaped prisoners, Allied leaders knew the truth about Auschwitz - that the Nazis had unleashed a clandestine war against the Jews (and Gypsys, homosexuals, Communists and other groups deemed subversive).
Starting with a plea from Rabbi Weissmandl of Czechoslovakia, there was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. At one point Churchill, ordered a plan be prepared, but dropped it when he was told that bombing Auschwitz would most likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation. Churchill was also told that bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. In July 1944 the U.S. War (now Defense) Department refused requests from Jewish leaders to bomb the railway lines leading to the camps. However a fleet of Air Force bombers flew along and across the five deportation railway lines on their way to bombing oil refineries nearby. They even (accidentally?) bombed part of a sub-camp of Auschwitz called Monowitz, killing some prisoners. Later several nearby military targets were bombed.
Why did Churchill and Roosevelt elect not to bomb Auschwitz? - we will never know exactly. I do not find using the excuse that it would have killed all the prisoners all that convincing – virtually all the prisoners would die anyway, and Churchill and Roosevelt knew that by 1944. What about bombing the rail lines into Auschwitz? That is a good question – and I cannot find an answer. Would it have diverted resources from ending the Nazi regime? Maybe. Technically not feasible? Perhaps. We know that not one of the death camps were bombed by the Allies, the Nazis did that themselves. Under orders from Himmler, the Nazis attempted to erase all traces of their monstrous crimes at Treblinka (~750,000 killed), Belzec (~450,000 killed) and Sobibor (sight of the largest and most successful prisoner revolt in 1943, ~250,000 killed) by leveling them after they were closed. As the Russian army approached Auschwitz (where estimates range from 1.1 million perished to 3 million perished) in early 1945, the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of their mass murder by destroying the crematoria. The Russians entered Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, finding around 7,500 abandoned prisoners, including many children.
Yes, Chimpy work will set you free. but I would think that the debate about Auschwitz is one you really should remain free of.
Hillary's National Lead Shrinks
From Christopher for From the Left
The more the American people get to know Hillary Clinton, the less they like her. Conversely, the more the more the American people get to know Barack Obama, the more they like him.
Clinton had dominated in national polls from the outset, holding a 30-point advantage as recently as a month ago, but a series of campaign missteps, coupled with a severe case of foot and mouth disease has eaten away at Clinton’s lead.
In the new poll, 42 percent of likely Democratic voters support Clinton, and 37 percent back Obama. Clinton’s support is down 11 percentage points from a month ago, with Obama’s up 14. Former Sen. John Edwards holds a third place with 11 percent, followed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 2 percent.
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today. Read the PDF here.
Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "will be a walk in the park compared to this," McConnell said. "this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we're going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens."
Read all our emails? As if they haven't done that already.
McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.
"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.
"Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
I am speechless, seriously and utterly speechless. Congress better step up to the plate on this bullshit. The infrastructure to tap into Americans' email and web search history may already be in place.-May be? Fuck it IS in place boys and girls, its called Room 641A. AT&T has the capabilities NOW, just ask Mark Klein.
Venezuela: Is Hugo Chavez Getting Bad Rap from U.S. Media?
From Leftside
To cite only the most recent of the literally thousands of examples of media bias against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, last week the bastion of liberal thinking, the NY Times, changed wording in a Rueters story from "pro-poor" to "self-styled socialist." The sentence that apparently offended NY Times editors was: "Chavez said it was important to reach out to Venezuela's middle class and other sectors of society often alienated by his pro-poor policies."
The truly laughable "NO" response to this question can be found here.
YES: It's absurd to call Venezuelan leader anti-U.S., dictatorial MARK WEISBROT, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
If we read the newspapers and watch TV in the United States, we are told that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a "dictator," "authoritarian," "a threat to democracy" in his own country and the region, and "anti-U.S."
But leaders who try to empower poor people are generally vilified in the media and hated by those in power. Martin Luther King, Jr. now has a national holiday named after him, but when he was leading marches in the Chicago suburbs or denouncing the Vietnam War, the press treated him about as badly as they treat Chavez.
The idea that Venezuela under Chavez is authoritarian or dictatorial is absurd. Most of the press there opposes the government, more so than in the rest of the hemisphere -- including the United States.
Chavez and his allies have won 10 elections, the most important of which were all certified by international observers. Last month Chavez lost a referendum that would have abolished term limits on the presidency and ratified a move toward "21st-century socialism."
After losing by a razor-thin margin, Chavez not only immediately accepted the results but last Sunday announced a shift of policy in line with the electorate's wants. He said that the government would slow its efforts at political change and concentrate on solving some of the voters' top-priority problems, such as crime and public services.
Chavez's relations with the Bush administration and the rest of the hemisphere are also commonly misrepresented.
The standard media description of the U.S. role in the military coup that temporarily overthrew Chavez in 2002 is that the Bush administration gave it "tacit support." But "tacit support" is what the administration gave to the opposition oil strike in 2002-2003, which devastated the economy in another attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In the April 2002 coup, the Bush administration actually funded opposition leaders involved in the coup, according to the U.S. State Department.
Rather than apologizing for supporting these attempts to overthrow and destabilize Venezuela's democratic government, the Bush administration went on to fund further opposition efforts, and continues to do so today -- including funding of the recent student movement in Venezuela, according to U.S. government documents.
Is it any wonder that Chavez does not have kind words to say about Bush?
Most of South America has left-of-center governments who understand that the Bush administration's hostility toward Venezuela is really about the U.S. losing illegitimate power over sovereign governments, in a region that Washington considers its "back yard."
Their leaders -- including President Lula da Silva of Brazil -- consistently defend Venezuela. In Venezuela, the economy (real GDP) has grown by 87 percent since the government got control over its national oil industry in early 2003; poverty has been cut by half.
Venezuelans have repeatedly elected Chavez for the same reasons Americans are voting for Barack Obama -- they see him as representing hope, and change, in a region that needs both.
There’s already been plenty of discussion of Clinton resorting to the use of race since Obama has seriously challenged her for the nomination. Sam Stein discusses this along with a copy of a memo from the Obama campaign. Joe Gandelman also posts the memo along with additional observations. Steve Benen ranks the examples on a five “Horton” scale after noting earlier in the day that Clinton was taking the race “in a cheap and ugly direction.”
There is some ambiguity in the use of race by the Clinton campaign as they know an outright racial attack would backfire. Instead they are concentrating on a series of subtle comments to inject race into the campaign while leaving them room for denial.
The topic has been discussed so much in the blogosphere that there really isn’t much more for me to add. There is, however, another aspect of this which I haven’t seen commented on but which also bothers me. Regardless of how one wants to interpret the Martin Luther King Jr. comments, there is an additional bias here beyond race. Clinton trivializes the work of Martin Luther King Jr. by arguing that “It took a president to get it done.” This is just one example of her bias towards big government solutions to all problems. Clinton sees the work of the politician as what is important. We cannot ignore the work of individuals outside of government such as Martin Luther King Jr. who changed the attitudes of society and who brought about the conditions by which politicians were willing to change the law.
The absurd part of Clinton’s argument is that it really does not apply well to Obama. Barack Obama has experience as both a community organizer and as a member of the legislature who was able to successfully bring about change. In making her argument against Obama she only highlights Obama’s strengths as well as her bias towards government as the only solution to problems.
To all the naysayers who complained that only liberal pussys and retired generals were demanding that Gitmo be closed: the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff (read: the head of the military other than Bush) is requesting the same thing:
The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been “pretty damaging” to the image of the United States.
“I’d like to see it shut down,” Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.
Negative publicity, international reputation, treatment of terrorists? These are the same things that Liberals have been saying about Gitmo for years now. I wonder if now, that a reputable military man is saying the same things, if we will see any change of tune from our friends on the right?
In case you missed it
From Pissed Off Patricia for Morning Martini
“The firefighting system in the massive $736 million embassy complex in Baghdad has potential safety problems that top U.S. officials dismissed in their rush to declare construction largely completed by the end of last year, according to internal State Department documents, e-mails and interviews.”
And then there’s this in the article
"This is serious enough to get someone killed," said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. "The fire systems are the tip of the iceberg. That is the most visible. But no one has ever inspected the electrical system, the power plant" and other parts of the embassy complex, which will house more than 1,000 people and is vulnerable to mortar attacks.”
You can read the entire Washington Post article here. But I warn you, that little bit of hair you haven’t ripped out of your head yet, may be in danger. One more in the bush administration’s long chain of total screw ups.
Well, not quite, but I am pleased to hear that both the Clinton and Obama camps are calling for everyone to roll back the raced-related hyperbole that has been thrown around over the past week. I believe that by each candidate making this call, each one is also taking responsibility for their own part in it. Both campaigns have been guilty of making irresponsible statements and of overreacting to statements made by their opponents.
"Over this past week, there has been a lot of discussion and back and forth - much of which I know does not reflect what is in our hearts," Clinton said in a statement. "And at this moment, I believe we must seek common ground."
"I don't want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this," continued Obama, as quoted by The Politico. "If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it."
Peace on the Potomac. Now let's win the White House, people!
Some of the human cost of the war
From Earlbo for The Peace Train
Across America, deadly echoes of foreign battles by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.
Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.
About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.
A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.
And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and then killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.
Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, veterans groups have long deplored the attention paid to the minority of soldiers who fail to readjust to civilian life.
After World War I, the American Legion passed a resolution asking the press “to subordinate whatever slight news value there may be in playing up the ex-service member angle in stories of crime or offense against the peace.” An article in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine in 2006 referred with disdain to the pervasive “wacko-vet myth,” which, veterans say, makes it difficult for them to find jobs.
Clearly, committing homicide is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans, many of whom struggle in quieter ways, with crumbling marriages, mounting debt, deepening alcohol dependence or more-minor tangles with the law.
But these killings provide a kind of echo sounding for the profound depths to which some veterans have fallen, whether at the bottom of a downward spiral or in a sudden burst of violence.
Thirteen of these veterans took their own lives after the killings, and two more were fatally shot by the police. Several more attempted suicide or expressed a death wish, like Joshua Pol, a former soldier convicted of vehicular homicide, who told a judge in Montana in 2006, “To be honest with you, I really wish I had died in Iraq.”
Few of these 121 war veterans received more than a cursory mental health screening at the end of their deployments, according to interviews with the veterans, lawyers, relatives and prosecutors. Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, those interviews show, but they were not evaluated for or received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides.
What is clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Falluja shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Tex., and Edwardsville, Ill.
“He came back different” is the shared refrain of the defendants’ family members, who mention irritability, detachment, volatility, sleeplessness, excessive drinking or drug use, and keeping a gun at hand.
Dead Men Walking, What sort of future do brain-injured Iraq veterans face?
In a flash, the blast incinerates air, sprays metal, burns flesh. Milliseconds after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonates, a blink after a mortar shell blows, an overpressurization wave engulfs the human body, and just as quickly, an underpressure wave follows and vanishes. Eardrums burst, bubbles appear in the bloodstream, the heart slows. A soldier—or a civilian—can survive the blast without a single penetrating wound and still receive the worst diagnosis: traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the signature injury of the Iraq War.
A soldier treated at Balad Air Base stands a 96 percent chance of surviving; several hundred come through every month. I ask Dr. Gerald Grant, who served as one of the few neurotrauma surgeons in Iraq, how the hospital managed to keep patients alive.
"It's complex in that it's not only medical advances," he tells me. "This war is different in that the aerovac system is superb. The ability to get someone into your care facility with many forward surgeons and subspecialists so close to the front line, very quickly, is a novel concept in this theater."
The moment an injured soldier hits the helipad at Balad, he's swept into a whirlwind of critical care. It's the one ER in the world where up to 10 surgical specialists are hell-bent on saving a life. Patients get lined up with IVs and catheters, undergo CT scans and X-rays, and then hit the operating table—the hospital's best time is 18 minutes. The head-and-neck team tackles their trauma while a cardiothoracic surgeon and a vascular surgeon go to work on the chest. They're shoulder to shoulder with the urologist, who's brushing against the chief trauma surgeon, who's coordinating everything over the buzz of orthopedic surgeons drilling external fixators into bone. It's crowded. It's hot.
From Walter Reed, soldiers are then triaged to one of the nation's VA polytrauma centers, where the hard work begins. (There are only 4 polytrauma centers and 21 designated polytrauma rehabilitation sites, a painfully small number to deal with the great many injured troops.) Weeks ago, a staff sergeant might have been conducting complex tactical operations; on the polytrauma unit, his biggest challenge might involve lifting his head off the pillow. Another soldier experiencing sequencing problems might try his hand at disassembling a carburetor in one of the rehab rooms. That same soldier could then be taken to physical therapy to work on his balance. Because of the brain's complexity, each injury manifests its own unique set of challenges.
"All the polytrauma centers offer patients highly individualized care," says Dr. Rose Collins, a psychologist with the Minneapolis polytrauma center.
"One of my roles is to decrease the barriers that get in the way of your participating in rehabilitation." Soldiers are not the only ones whose issues get addressed at the center. "Part of my job is to help their families," she says. "How do you make positive meaning out of this? How do you grieve ambiguous losses? On some level, family members prepare for the possibility of death, but they don't prepare for the possibility of severe disability. Who, outside in the real world, thinks about the lifetime impairments of a traumatic brain injury?"
The patients on the polytrauma unit represent some of the most complicated treatment challenges in the world. What looks otherworldly to us now will be commonplace in a matter of years. Projections based on a recent VA report suggest that 400,000 veterans deployed in the global war on terrorism will file for disability. Can such a number be adequately treated? With the lifetime costs of civilian brain injuries escalating, are local communities prepared for the complex treatment measures many veterans will require?
The military has done a spectacular job repairing bodies, but it has not yet learned how to put lives back together. "More lives are being saved," says Bolles. "At the same time, those that are being saved are the more critically injured. There's a higher incidence of permanently disabled people." America isn't prepared for the injured's medical demands. After the dream-team care is finished, soldiers are finding themselves trapped in a nightmare.
A CBS News Investigation Uncovers A Suicide Rate For Veterans Twice That Of Other Americans
But a five-month CBS News investigation discovered data that shows a startling rate of suicide, what some call a hidden epidemic, Chief Investigative Reporter Armen Keteyian reports exclusively. CBS News’ investigative unit wanted the numbers, so it submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense asking for the numbers of suicides among all service members for the past 12 years.
Four months later, they sent CBS News a document, showing that between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. That’s 188 last year alone. But these numbers included only “active duty” soldiers. The VA haf never done a national study seeking national data on how many veterans have committed suicide in this country?
So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.
And what it revealed was stunning.
In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.
Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.
It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)
One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)
Less than 24 hours into "truce," Clinton surrogate attacks Obama
From The Richmond Democrat
So now we know how Hillary Clinton is going to attack Barack Obama: over and over again and always through surrogates:
As both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to lower the tension after days of charged rhetoric over race, a congressional supporter of Clinton's presidential bid called the Illinois senator's remarks attacking her over recent comments about President Lyndon Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “absolutely stupid.”
"How race got into this thing is because Obama said 'race,' " New York Rep. Charlie Rangel,☼ one of the highest-ranking African-Americans in Congress, said in an interview on NY1.
It's becoming apparent that you cannot have a truce with Hillary Clinton.
Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie
From Sumo for Sumo Merriment
For the crust:
6 oz. (1-1/3 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for rolling out the crust 1 tsp. granulated sugar 1/4 tsp. plus 1/8 tsp. kosher salt 2 oz. (4 Tbs.) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 2 oz. (4 Tbs.) vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (put it in the freezer for 15 minutes before cutting)
For the filling:
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped 2 oz. (4 Tbs.) unsalted butter 4 large eggs 1 cup light corn syrup 1 cup granulated sugar 1/4 tsp. kosher salt 2 Tbs. instant espresso powder (or instant coffee) 2 Tbs. coffee liqueur (Kahlúa or Caffé Lolita) 2 cups lightly toasted, coarsely chopped pecans About 1/2 cup perfect pecan halves
Make the crust:
Pulse the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor just to blend. Add the butter and shortening and pulse several times until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, 8 to 10 pulses. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Tossing and stirring quickly with a fork, gradually add enough cold water (2 to 4 Tbs.) that the dough just begins to come together. It should clump together easily if lightly squeezed but not feel wet or sticky. With your hands, gather the dough and form it into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disk and wrap it in plastic. Chill the dough for 2 hours or up to 2 days before rolling. The dough can also be frozen for up to 2 months; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator before using.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature until pliable, 10 to 15 minutes. On a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a 1/8-inch-thick, 13-inch-diameter round. Be sure to pick up the dough several times and rotate it, re-flouring the surface lightly to prevent sticking. I use a giant spatula or the bottom of a removable-bottom tart pan to move the dough around. Transfer the dough to a 9-inch Pyrex pie pan and trim the edges so there's a 1/2-inch overhang. Fold the overhang underneath itself to create a raised edge and then decoratively crimp or flute the edge. (Save the scraps for patching the shell later, if necessary). Chill until the dough firms up, at least 45 minutes in the refrigerator or 20 minutes in the freezer.
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Line the pie shell with parchment and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until the edges of the crust are light golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Carefully remove the parchment and beans or weights. If necessary, gently repair any cracks with a smear of the excess dough. Transfer the shell to a rack to cool.
Make the filling:
Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or in a small metal bowl set in a skillet of barely simmering water, stirring with a rubber spatula until smooth.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Dissolve the instant espresso in 1 Tbs. hot water and add to the egg mixture, along with the coffee liqueur and the melted chocolate and butter. Whisk to blend.
Evenly spread the toasted pecan pieces in the pie shell. To form a decorative border, arrange the pecan halves around the perimeter of the pie shell, on top of the pecan pieces, keeping the points of the pecans facing in and the backs just touching the crust. Carefully pour the filling over the pecans until the shell is three-quarters full. Pour the remaining filling into a liquid measuring cup or small pitcher. Transfer the pie to the oven and pour in the remaining filling. (The pecans will rise to the top as the pie bakes.)
Bake the pie until the filling puffs up, just starts to crack, and appears fairly set, 45 to 55 minutes. Transfer it to a rack and allow it to cool completely (at least 4 hours) before serving.
Tips:
This pie tastes best if cooled and then refrigerated for several hours or overnight.
Who knew that publishing some half-assed cartoons could put someone on the path to martyrdom? The newly- (and largely self-) appointed Patron Saint of Conservative Persecution, Ezra Levant, had his day in what he and his sycophants refer to as "Kangaroo Kourt"(*snicker*) at the Alberta Human Rights Commission on Friday. The AHRC was getting Levant's side of the story as it investigates the viability of a complaint made against Levant's odious "Western Standard" for publishing the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that enraged European Muslims a couple of years ago. ("Defiantly" rerunby St. Ezra a few days ago. Whew -- I can hear AC/DC now: "Who's got big balls!?" Whoever would have expected testicles of such cantaloupian proportions on that nerdy little Ezra guy. I'm, you know, impressed. Or something.)
No doubt Levant originally published the cartoons for the express purpose of injecting some opportunistic buzz into the failing health of the Standard, and it couldn't have played out better. In lieu of the bombs and burning cars he was probably hoping for, a human rights complaint would do. The fact that Levant went out of his way to make an unnecessary personal appearance at the AHRC (with cameras rolling to capture his carefully-scripted pontifications) should have clued someone into the fact that they were being played, but... well, remember Saddam? The people falling for Levant's histrionics are the same people who allow themselves to be led by the nose into illegal wars. They're malleable, to say the least. Add their existing persecution complexes, and the stage was set. Enter the Drama Queen.
Levant's visit with the AHRC wasn't a "hearing" as much as a first step in determining whether the complaint against him even holds any water (hint: it doesn't). Levant is a lawyer -- he knows good and well how much liability he actually has in this case. That's probably why he chose to make a personal appearance (accompanied by cameras) at such an early stage -- he knows this will be his only opportunity to make hay, so he's Drama-Queening it up. It would hardly be worth comment except that it's brought up the issue of free speech.
I think the complaint against Levant is frivolous -- however, taken in context with the Standard's pattern of behaviour it's easy to see how it came about. From the combox of the Standard's Shotgun Blog, October 2006:
"Nuke 'em"? (Who else but RG?) And that's just an abbreviated sample. There's no doubt some of the comments in that thread constitute hate speech, some of it so noxious that even another wanked-out conservative complained:
Of course this Moderate Voice of Reason was immediately called out as a "leftist" ("leftist" -- who the fuck says "leftist" anymore? Hey buddy, the McCarthy Era called, they want their word back). Well, so much for free speech! Complaints notwithstanding, these comments are fairly typical of the kind of discourse the Standard not only allows but encourages. It's not hard to see how someone might eventually reach critical mass with these mouthy morons and fire off a human rights complaint. Publishing cartoons -- meh. Advocating genocide -- not so meh.
As I've said here before, one of the reasons I'm not crazy about hate speech legislation is that it can open the door to so much abuse (which includes giving pompous assholes like Levant the opportunity to set themselves up as martyrs). But at the same time, I believe our minorities have the right to live peacefully without being subjected to bigotry. Because a scurvy, scummy little cadre of nitwits insists on being such bigoted douchebags, the unfortunate reality is that those who feel threatened need some avenue to address their concerns.
While the right to free speech comes with an implied responsibility not to be a jerk about it, there'll always be someone happy to invoke their right to be an asshole. The question is whether the right to be an asshole supercedes a minority's right to live free from abuse.
Thanks to our wonderful mainstream news media, I knew nothing about it. My hat is off to Chaotic Fred (aka Mandelbrot), and I bow deeply in his direction for alerting me to what Real ID is all about.
Some of us may believe that having national ID system is a good thing because it represents a uniform national standard, while others might view it as something we might expect to see in a totalitarian society. I tend to side with the latter group.
According to Wikipedia, the Real ID Act of 2005 "requires people entering federal buildings, boarding airplanes or opening bank accounts to present identification that has met certain security and authentification standards." Sounds innocent enough on the surface, right? However, when one considers the author of this was Ohio's Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner, who attached it to a military spending bill that passed 100-0 without debate, one starts to wonder just how innocent Real ID is.
If you only look at what I put in bold print in the previous paragraph, you might think "So?" But it gets interesting. More from Wikipedia:
After 2011, "a Federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver's license or identification card issued by a state to any person unless the state is meeting the requirements" specified in the REAL ID Act. States remain free to also issue non-complying licenses and IDs, so long as these have a unique design and a clear statement that they cannot be accepted for any Federal identification purpose. The federal Transportation Security Administration is responsible for security check-in at airports, so bearers of non-compliant documents would no longer be able to travel on common carrier aircraft without additional screening."
If your state doesn't comply with the federal government re. this Real ID business, you won't be able to board airlines "without additional screening". I couldn't find a definition of that "additional screening"... This is basically like having to have a passport to fly from one city to another inside our own country. It represents travel restrictions, plain and simple.
Look for your state on the following list. These are states which have passed resolutions opposing the Real ID Act or refusing to implement it:
Maine, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington
Similar bills are pending in:
Alaska, Arizona , Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts , Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania , Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington D.C., West Virginia , Wyoming
"Many Maine lawmakers believe the law does more harm than good, that it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to enforce, is threatening to individual privacy, makes citizens increasingly vulnerable to ID theft, and would cost Maine taxpayers at least $185 million in five years because of the massive unfunded federal mandates on all the states. The Resolution vote in the Maine House was 137-4 and in the Maine Senate unanimously, 34-0.
"The Utah resolution states that REAL ID is "in opposition to the Jeffersonian principles of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government." It further states that "the use of identification-based security cannot be justified as part of a 'layered' security system if the costs of the identification 'layer'--in dollars, lost privacy, and lost liberty--are greater than the security identification provides":
"the "common machine-readable technology" required by the REAL ID Act would convert state-issued driver licenses and identification cards into tracking devices, allowing computers to note and record people's whereabouts each time they are identified"
"the requirement that states maintain databases of information about their citizens and residents and then share this personal information with all other states will expose every state to the information security weaknesses of every other state and threaten the privacy of every American"
"the REAL ID Act wrongly coerces states into doing the federal government's bidding by threatening to refuse noncomplying states' citizens the privileges and immunities enjoyed by other states' citizens"
------------------------
"Portions of the Real ID Act pertaining to states were scheduled to take effect on May 11, 2008, three years after the law passed, but the deadline had been extended to December 31, 2009. On January 11, 2008 it was announced the deadline has been extended again, until 2011, in hopes of gaining more support from states."
The only states that are going along with this bullshit so far are:
Alabama
California
North Carolina
North Dakota
If your state is in that last group or if you don't see your state listed there, write to your Senators and/or Representatives. Demand that they oppose the Real ID Act of 2005. If your state is one of those doing something to combat this crap, write to your Senators and/or Representatives and either thank them for opposing this shit, or demand that they oppose it.
Our country is headed in a bad direction. This Real ID thing is not what we need to be doing if our goal is to preserve individual liberties. Does our government need to know where we are at all times, know what we are doing at all times, and restrict our freedom of movement? No, the government does not need to do those things, and we do not have to sit by and let the Bush-Cheney administration crap on us. The bastards.
Let's do what we can to keep this kind of thing from happening in America.
I am stupefied that no one has picked up on the fact that what is happening in Iraq and the middle east is long planned and the gauntlet will now be carried by others. Bush has ignored all good advice and proceeded with his new order middle east breakdown. He has done his damage. I have said numerous times in the past that bush had nothing to lose Politically so he took the hit for what he has done in the middle east, Now that Republican's are running for reelection he is calling the surge and Iraq a success but it is another Facade. Supposedly the Issue of Iraq has been taken away from Democratic Presidential nominees. Nothing could be further from the truth as once again both party's suffer from tunnel vision and the inability to look at and fathom the big picture. I will explain again!
In a flash, the blast incinerates air, sprays metal, burns flesh. Milliseconds after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonates, a blink after a mortar shell blows, an overpressurization wave engulfs the human body, and just as quickly, an underpressure wave follows and vanishes. Eardrums burst, bubbles appear in the bloodstream, the heart slows. A soldier—or a civilian—can survive the blast without a single penetrating wound and still receive the worst diagnosis: traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the signature injury of the Iraq War. 
