My flight from Los Angeles to Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C. on Sunday was delayed on the runway without explanation for more than two hours. Our Virgin America jet was pulled off to the side of an LAX runway where we watched plane after plane taxi by us and takeoff.
At one point the man next to me asked a flight attendant for an explanation but was told that the decision to keep us informed was solely up to the pilot. After an hour the Captain finally came on over the loudspeaker:
"We've been talking to our company about regulatory compliance concerning the boarding of liquids on this aircraft. I had to know exactly for sure what I was talking about before I gave you any sort of announcement. I don't want to cause undue alarm about this. It is not a threat against the aircraft. You really have nothing to be concerned about safety-wise...
Right now where we stand, we are talking to TSA right now. They're the ones that kinda make the decision on what happens with this. Whether or not we are, in fact, allowed to take off at this point. I'll be honest with you, we're about 50/50 whether we're gonna go back to the gate and have to do a re-screening or we can leave. That decision is being figured out right now."
Our wait continued interrupted only by the occasional moving of the airplane to different parts of the airport. Finally the Captain returned:
"We are still waiting word. Just trying to keep you up to date with as much as I know. And right now we do not have word. This has gone on to TSA - they are not known for being particularly fast with their decisions. So that's what's going on."
Good dirt on TSA but the info hardly helped us passengers as we waited still longer. Finally the pilot returned and announced we had been cleared for takeoff but failed to give any explanation:
So, upon debarking the aircraft I asked a member of the crew about the mysterious liquid that held up the full plane for hours and learned a passenger had brought aboard liquid medication.
So there you have it. A plane delayed for hours, without explanation, parked in multiple spots on the runway, while awaiting word from TSA about whether or not a return to the gate was in order to re-screen all the passengers because some passenger made the ginormous mistake of bringing onboard their liquid medication.
On Wednesday, famed Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi spoke to a packed and enthusiastic crowd of more than 350 Angelinos about his new book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” While Bugliosi’s talk will eventually appear on C-SPAN, you can view it first in its entirety below…
Part 1 (19:45)
In my book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,” I present evidence that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore under the law is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who died so far in this war.
Bugliosi began the evening by explaining to the Los Angeles audience that George W. Bush is guilty of murder, according to the law, if he brought the country to war under false pretenses. And Bugliosi emphasized the legal aspect of the case in order to fend off likely attackers:
So although Bush supporters can argue that Bush should not be prosecuted because they don’t think he did anything wrong, they cannot legitimately say that he should not be prosecuted if he has done what I say he did. To say that is to admit that you have no respect for our American system of justice and democracy and that you would prefer that presidents have the same rights as tyrannical dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein.
Bugliosi had a similar answer for those who simply believe it is impossible to prosecute Bush for murder:
There’s this sense out there among many that prosecuting Bush for murder can’t be done. Which is the equivalent of saying what - that he is above the law. That ordinary laws simply don’t apply to him.
Bugliosi also had some special words for the American Right Wing which has expressed its disapproval with his book:
The third group of people responding to my book is the nation’s right wing. And they of course have contempt for me and my book. But whatever contempt they have for me, I can assure them and I can assure you I have much much much more contempt for them. There are no more repugnant, hypocritical and un-American – and that’s the word I want to emphasize – un-American people in our society today than the right wing.
Bugliosi, however, made clear that this book was not political for him and even said he would have written the same book had Bush been a Democrat. So fair is Bugliosi that he even offers up some mitigating evidence for Bush and his co-conspirators:
And there is one thing that I should probably say in partial defense of these people that goes in mitigation, arguably reduces their moral culpability. And what I’m talking about is that many of these people are incredibly stupid. And they make up for their stupidity by being extremely ignorant. And when you combine stupidity with ignorance that’s a toxic combination.
Finally, Part 1 ends with the law:
If a conspirator, or anyone for that matter, deliberately sets in motion a chain of events which he knows will cause – that’s the key word – cause a third party innocent agent to commit an act, the defendant is criminally responsible for that act. Bush, in invading Iraq, caused Iraqis to kill American soldiers in much the same fashion that a person causes a gun to fire a bullet that kills someone by pulling the trigger.
Part 2 (17:54)
Part 2 begins with Bugliosi explaining the only way Bush might be innocent of murder:
Bush can only wash his hands of culpability if he did not take this nation to war under false pretenses. If he did, which the evidence overwhelmingly shows, he is criminally responsible for the deaths of all those American soldiers who have died fighting his war in Iraq.
The main issue would be whether or not George Bush went to war, as he always claimed, in self-defense – the so-called pre-emptive strike. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, alleged as so, therefore he was an imminent threat to the security of this country so Bush had to strike first in self-defense. If the war was not in self-defense but one that the prosecutor can prove Bush took us to under false pretenses than all of the killings of American soldiers in Iraq become unlawful killings and therefore murder.
While Bugliosi's animus was mostly reserved for Bush and his co-conspirators, he did find time to also criticize Ken Starr, The New York Times and the Supreme Court:
I seem to be getting more angry and acerbic and caustic and that’s because I am always in a state of rage. How can I help but be -- the monstrous, grotesque, obscene Ken Starr almost destroyed the Clinton presidency over absolutely nothing while being totally and completely supported and funded by the federal government. They funded his seven year, seventy million dollar effort, the federal government. And the so-called liberal media, The New York Times savaged Clinton on a day to day basis, supported this monstrous, grotesque, obscene figure – one of the most reprehensible figures in American history – Ken Starr.
The US Supreme Court 2000, stopping the recount in Florida which was specifically authorized by Florida law, taking the election away from the American people and appointing George Bush president, one of the biggest crimes in American history.
The heart of Part 2, however, is reserved for Bugliosi's evidence against George W. Bush. And first on the list was Bush's lies to the country that were contrary to the National Intelligence Estimate:
In George Bush’s first speech to the nation on Hussein and Iraq, October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bush told Americans that Saddam Hussein was a great danger to this nation either by his attacking us with the so-called weapons of mass destruction or by giving these weapons to a terrorist group to attack us. And Bush said that this attack could happen, ‘on any given day,’ meaning what, that the threat was imminent.
The only big problem for George Bush is that on October the first, six days earlier, the CIA sent Bush its 2002 National Intelligence Estimate – a classified top secret report that represented the consensus opinion of all 16 US federal intelligence agencies on the issue of whether or not Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country and on page 8 of that 91 page report it clearly and unequivocally says – and by the way what I’m about to tell you to my knowledge has never been said or never been written or never appeared in any major newspaper or magazine in America – page 8 clearly says that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. That he would only be a threat if he feared we were about to attack him.
So we know then, not think but know, that when George Bush told the nation on the evening of October 7th, Cincinnati, Ohio, that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country, he was telling millions of unsuspecting Americans the exact opposite of what his own CIA was telling him. Now if we had nothing else at all, and there is so much more, that alone shows what, that George Bush took this nation to war on a terrible terrible lie. Therefore all the killings in Iraq became unlawful killings and murder.
But it gets worse! In fact, it gets evil, perverse, sick and criminal:
But it gets worse. It gets worse. October 4th, three days later, Bush and his people had the CIA release an unclassified summary version of the October 1st classified report so that this October 4th unclassified version could be released to the American public and to Congress. This unclassified version came to be known as the White Paper. And in this White Paper that was shown to the American people and to Congress, in which contained the opinion of 16 US intelligence agencies that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country, that conclusion was completely deleted, completely eliminated. Every single one of these all important words, the most important conclusion in that classified document, was completely deleted from the White Paper. And the question I have of you, is how evil, how perverse, how sick, how criminal can George Bush and his people be?
The next piece of ever damning evidence, according to Bugliosi, is the January 31, 2003, Manning Memo written by Tony Blair's chief foreign policy advisor after a top level meeting in the Oval Office less than two months before the invasion.
He says that George Bush was so worried about the failure of the UN inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction that Bush started to talk about three ways to ‘provoke a confrontation’ with Saddam Hussein. One of which he said was to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft over Iraq falsely painted in United Nations colors and he said if Saddam fires on those planes it would be a violation of UN resolutions and therefore justify our going to war. So here is George Bush telling Americans, telling the world, that Hussein is an imminent threat to the security of this country, but behind closed doors this very small human being was talking about how to provoke Hussein into a war.
Part 3 (15:50)
Part 3 begins with another piece of evidence against Bush. Mainly, how Bush responded to the ever positive testimony of chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix on March 7, 2003, by throwing him and his team out of the country and quickly invading Iraq. Blix had told the UN Security Counsel that the inspectors were getting proactive cooperation from Saddam Hussein and that their investigation would be completed in a few months:
Blix and his people became Bush’s biggest adversaries because if Blix and his people confirm that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that would rob Bush of his main argument for war – a war that he wanted to fight at all costs.
The bulk of Part 3, however, does not concentrate on evidence of Bush's guilt but rather Bush's state of mind. Bugliosi takes great offense to the fact that Bush has often described his days as perfect and that he proclaims himself to be so happy:
Even if George Bush was only guilty of making an innocent mistake in taking this nation to war in Iraq, not murder as I firmly believe, with all of the death, horror and suffering he has caused, what type of a monstrous individual is it who could be happy with his life? What type of a human monster is George Bush?
If I ever killed one person in my life, even accidentally – a car accident – I’d never have another perfect day as long as I lived. George Bush is responsible for the horrible deaths of thousands of human beings and he is talking about having a perfect day. Bush’s plans to have a perfect day right in the middle of all the death and horror in Iraq goes so far beyond acceptable human conduct that no moral telescope can discern its shape, form and nature.
Bugliosi concludes by telling the audience that he will not rest or be satisfied until George W. Bush is prosecuted for first degree murder:
I don’t like to see anyone get away with murder, even one murder. [O.J.] Simpson got away with two murders and I got so angry that I wrote a book - Outrage, the Five Reasons O.J. Simpson got away with murder. If I can get so angry about someone getting away with one or two murders you can imagine how I feel about George Bush who has gotten away with over 100,000 murders and has been smiling and enjoying himself throughout the whole period. It may sound presumptuous of me but I can tell you that while I may not succeed, I’m not going to be satisfied until I see George Bush in an American courtroom being prosecuted for first degree murder.
The first degree murder of over 4,000 American soldiers:
If justice means anything at all in America, if we are not going to forget about those 4,000 young American soldiers who came back from Bush’s war in a box, I say we have no choice but to bring murder charges against the son of privilege from Crawford, Texas.
Dr. William F. Pepper is an internationally acclaimed lawyer who defended James Earl Ray in a 1999 civil trial (supported by Martin Luther King's family) where the jury found Ray not responsible for the MLK assassination. Now Pepper is defending Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a case he says is “an easier one than the assassination of Martin King and the innocence of James Earl Ray”.
Last Wednesday Pepper spoke about all of his projects, including 9/11 truth and prosecuting the Bush administration for war crimes, to a packed celebrity filled house in Los Angeles. Among those in attendance were Ed Asner, Gina Belafonte, Judd Nelson and 9/11 author Professor David Ray Griffin. Videos of his talk follow below...
Part 1 (6:21) - Introduction
In Part 1 Pepper talks about his background, childhood and motivation. He also speaks about the time he spent in Cuba playing baseball where he got to know Fidel Castro. According to Pepper, Castro foresaw much of what is happening in the United States today:
“When, in that massive country to the north, the masses of the people ever understand what it is that their ruling class has done to them and is doing to them, there will be such a torrent of opposition. They will rise like never before and then there will be the world’s greatest social revolution, the American second revolution.”
The video concludes with Pepper explaining how he came to work for Robert F. Kennedy and Martin King:
Part 2 (5:36) - Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination/James Earl Ray Innocence
“Took me ten years to convince myself that [James Earl Ray] was an absolute patsy” - Dr. William Pepper
In Part 2 Pepper begins with the Martin King assassination and explains how he became involved with James Earl Ray's defense some nine years later. He also goes into detail about the 30 day civil trial against Loyd Jowers, et al, where a jury found Ray not responsible for King's assassination after listening to 70 witnesses under oath.
Pepper believes that Ray's civil trial should serve as a template for getting out the truth in a wide range of cover-ups including the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and 9/11. He thinks using the courts is an effective way to get the truth into the public record despite the efforts by the mainstream media to prevent its dissemination to the public.
Part 3 (9:56) - Robert F. Kennedy Assassination/Sirhan Sirhan Innocence
“I found from just a preliminary examination of the record that [the Sirhan Sirhan case] on the law, on the facts of the case, was an easier one than the assassination of Martin King and the innocence of James Earl Ray” - Dr. William Pepper
In the first half of Part 3 Pepper details the startling evidence that necessitates a second shooter in the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. For starters the medical examiner states that Kennedy was shot four times from the rear including one shot about an inch behind his right ear which conflicts with all the witness testimony that Sirhan was always three to five feet in front of the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Secondly, the analysis of audio recordings from the assassination with formerly unavailable new technology has led to the determination that 13 shots were fired at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan's gun only held 8 bullets. In other words:
“There had to be a second shooter there” - Dr. William Pepper
In the second half of Part 3 Pepper details the efforts taken by the prison and the Department of Corrections to prevent his legal team from psychoanalyzing Sirhan Sirhan.
Part 4 (4:59) - Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (Continued)
In Part 4 Pepper continues the RFK assassination discussion and his efforts to clear Sirhan Sirhan whom he says is innocent:
“The problem we face is if we get our client clearly innocent of the killing of Bob Kennedy – which he is, clearly innocent of that killing – he has five other counts of attempted murder” - Dr. William Pepper
In addition to the belief in Sirhan's innocence Pepper believes the case is important because it is representative of a larger problem facing the country:
“Each of the things I’m talking about are symptomatic of a pervasive sickness in this country. This is not the country we were all led to believe it was or should have been. This is what has emerged because we have had a small group of criminals grab power over a period of time following the orders of the people in the shadows who really do dominate life and justice and the injustices that exist in the society.” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 5 (8:36) - 9/11
“The 9/11 matter is, in my lifetime, the most traumatic assault on democracy and the safety of this Republic.” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 5 is dedicated to finding out the truth about 9/11. Pepper supports two different ways for accomplishing this goal. First, he backs an effort to create a new commission to investigate 9/11 by New York state referendum. Volunteers are currently trying to get the necessary 30,000 signatures from registered New York voters to get the measure on the ballot.
The second approach is to once again file a lawsuit in the courts. Pepper is leading this effort on behalf of the Jersey Girls and plans to sue, among others, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is widely believed to have sent $100,000 to lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta.
Part 6 (8:03) - War Crimes
“I’m determined that what I saw in Vietnam and what is happening in Iraq will not go unpunished. Absolutely determined that that’s the case. What that means is this entire gang of war criminals in Washington are going to have to be prosecuted” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 6 covers what Pepper believes is his most important project -- the prosecution of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, David Addington, Doug Feith and Richard Pearl, et al, for war crimes.
Pepper plans to accomplish this monumental task by following the precedent set in the case of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. In that case, a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet whose charges including 94 counts of torture.
Ultimately Pepper hopes for a conviction in absentia of the American war criminals which would prevent the guilty from ever stepping foot outside of the United States.
NOTE: To order a DVD of the night's entire programming, which includes a lively Q & A session with Dr. William Pepper and a talk by Professor David Ray Griffin on new 9/11 evidence, please contact Kathleen at quantumysticKFR@gmail.com to request a copy.
The first video is the ABC News investigative report, “The Principals”, which tells the story of how the highest ranking Bush admin officials - Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Powell (not such a good guy after all), Rice and Cheney - had meetings in the White House where they literally choreographed how prisoners would be tortured.
The second video is Countdown's Keith Olbermann interviewing constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley who was fairly clear about what all of this means:
“Well this is one meeting of principal, they are not talking about the Ali kind. And what you have is a bunch of people talking about something that is a crime for those of us that look at the criminal code and see torture for what it is. This is like meeting at The Bada Bing Club. These people are sitting around, regularly talking about something defined as a crime. And you even have John Ashcroft standing up and saying, ”Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this at the White House“. Obviously that is quite disturbing. It shows that this was a program, not just some incident, not just someone going too far, it was a torture program, implemented by the United States of America and approved at the very highest level. And it goes right to the President's desk.
And it's notable that this group wanted to get lawyers to sign off on this and they found those lawyers in people like Jay Bybee and John Yoo and those people were handsomely rewarded. In Bybee's case he became a federal judge after signing off on a rather grotesque memo that said that they could do everything short of causing organ failure or death.”
All of which makes Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and Cheney - WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS! WAR CRIMINALS!
Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
Read the rest of this really scary article at The Progressive.
Do the Bushies give a rats arse about national security? Please. Do they care one iota about the loss of American jobs? Laugh out loud! Do they think twice about the safety of American roads? Think again. They care about one thing and one thing only: CORPORATE PROFITS.
The Lou Dobbs video above is actually from March 8, 2007, when the White House first tried to sneak their new plan to allow Mexican truck drivers into the US to complete their runs anywhere in the country. The plan is a nonsensical proposition on many fronts and will lead to the loss of American lives. It will be impossible to regulate the hours Mexican truckers drive and to drug test them. And maintenance of Mexican trucks will not meet American standards.
The plan will also make it far more difficult to keep drugs and terrorists out of the country. But, after a few hiccups, the Bushies and big business will get their wish:
The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling.
The Transportation Department welcomed the decision and said in a statement that allowing more direct shipments from Mexico will benefit U.S. consumers.
But really, who the hell cares about lost jobs, increased drug trafficking, traffic fatalities, easier border crossing for terrorists and the like when the American consumer can get our Wal-Mart widgets for a penny cheaper and corporations can increase their bottom line by 10%?
One hopes that with all the money the wealthiest 0.6% of Americans - who received 75% of $92 Billion in savings from Bush's generous tax policies on capital gains and dividends in 2005 - were able to get themselves a sweet second or third yacht. Of course, this is a double whammy for the other 99.4% of us who not only didn't see much benefit from Bush's tax cuts but now share in the responsibility of making up those lost revenues to the government. Some more fun stats from Citizens for Tax Justice:
*Half of all tax filers (67 million Americans) reported an adjusted gross income of less than $30,000 and received virtually NONE of the benefits from the tax cuts.
*0.6% reported incomes greater than $500,000 and received tax deductions averaging $81,204 and accounted for 73.4% of the total tax savings.
*13,776 tax filers with gross incomes greater than $10 million or 0.1% of all filers, received 28.2% of the total benefits averaging $1,876,280 each!!!!!
*The number of Americans living in extreme poverty has grown 26% since 2000. In all, 37 million Americans, or about 12% of the country, now live with “low food security,” uh, poverty.
*2 out of 5 elderly Americans live on less than $18,000 a year including social security.
*Low income Americans with disabilities experienced 50% cuts in their housing programs.
*Half of all IRS audits are now conducted on Americans making less than $25,000 per year.
For more dismal statistics on the rich poor divide see one of my earlier BRAD BLOG posts.
Thankfully Bush recognizes a problem when he sees it and before leaving on his month long vacation stressed that we need a new round of corporate tax cuts to make sure US corporations stay competitive!
In all fairness, it takes huge balls and a lot of propaganda to convince anyone that what the country needs is more corporate giveaways to the rich. That is a tall order that will require great effort by Bush. And it will be essential for him to recharge his batteries over a long vacation before the big sell. And if it means that he crushes Ronald Reagan's two term vacation record with 17 months to go in office, so be it.
Plus, nobody wants to be in the Capital during the God awful month of August when temperatures regularly hit a humid 100 degrees. Perhaps it was the heat that allowed Congressional Democrats to pass the new FISA law - which seems to get worse and worse by the day - before leaving on vacation. But Washington heat ain't nothing compared to Baghdad heat, huh, Tony Snow:
“You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August.”
Which helps explain why the Iraqi parliament is taking the month off as well. Surely our troops, a record 162,000 strong in Iraq, will get the month off too, right? I mean, one suspects that with all their gear, outdoor work and combat, the misery index (weather, though both work) would be worse for our troops than say an air-conditioned Oval Office, uh, speed boat.
Actually, while George W. Bush smashes records for vacation days our troops are getting tours of duty extended from a year to 15 months. And it is a bit odd that Bush would take off so much time right before the crucial General Petreaus report on Iraq. Especially since we are amidst:
“the inescapable calling of our generation”
Oh, I almost forgot that the greater troop levels were the result of Bush's January “Surge” plan. You might recall that the new plan came after great deliberation and partying during which time hundreds of our troops lost their lives:
Ultimately Bush decided upon following neocon Fred Kagan's (fresh off a “very cool” chinook helicopter ride over the Potomac) “Surge” plan which called for an additional 50,000 troops, uh, 35,000, no, 30,000, wait, 50,000, no, 30,000, hold on, 31,500, stop, 20,000, then 35,000, oh, let's just say more troops.
But here's the thing, while Bush and the lawmakers are getting much needed R&R, our depleted troops are dying in the heat of the Iraqi desert by the droves. Long time reporters in Iraq write about the grim picture. According to our own ambassador in Iraq, electricity in Baghdad can be counted on for “an hour or two a day” which is down from six hours earlier in the year and 16-24 hours under Saddam. Even the Brits admit the Surge will not succeed.
But none of this or the rising troop deaths can dissuade the Bushies who have already kicked up the propaganda so many notches that Emeril Lagasse must be envious. Sadly, the American people continue to buy into it. And the real big propaganda push will not hit until September.
Sadly, the truth is that there is nothing that Petraeus could say that would change the course of the war. As Eugene Robinson wrote in the Washington Post:
But if you think Bush is going to care what Petraeus's report says in September, get out of the sun immediately and drink lots of water. You're delirious.
Clearly Bush will continue this unjust, horrific war until the end of his presidency. And nothing from escalating American and Iraqi body counts to American geopolitical strategy can change his decision which was made long ago. W. has even stated that his presidency will be judged on the long term outcome of Iraq. And since pulling out or significantly reducing troops is akin to failure, Bush ain't budging. In other words, he's passing the buck to the next president.
This alone is immoral and it is patently absurd that a decision of this magnitude should rest with a man with such an obvious conflict of interest. And since everyone knows this, it is also immoral for the American people to standby and leave the decision to Bush.
And that would be true even if Bush were a moral person. The fact that he is not just makes the situation that much clearer. Lest we forget that he:
*Continues to push legislation to further enrich the super wealthy at the expense of the most needy in society.
*Imposes anti-condom policies throughout Africa which has led to a remarkable rise in HIV/AIDS.
*Signed a secret executive order authorizing the policy of “extraordinary rendition” which allows the CIA to kidnap any terror suspect from anywhere in the world and transfers them to prisons to be tortured and sometimes killed in countries like Uzbekistan and Egypt.
*Invades countries under false pretenses to further enrich the military industrial complex and his corporatist cronies.
Sick. Martin Luther King Jr. had it right when he said that “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” How can anyone read that short list of transgressions above and not believe that time is now?
*In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
*When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
*Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
*Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
*The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
We Americans like to think ourselves noble and a country that has done great things for the world. We stopped Hitler for crying out loud. Yes, but that was a couple of generations ago. And by remaining silent, this generation is burying the memory of the “Greatest Generation.” And our lack of action, for whatever reason, is as immoral as George W. Bush's action.
It is imperative that we wake-up to our faults and correct them before it is too late. For example, a glance at the two pictures below describe a world turned upside down by American military spending and penchant for war and killing:
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
We Americans seem to be the only ones oblivious to our faults. The entire world has been telling us we are ill for some time. The general consensus around the globe is that the US is a greater threat to world peace than even Iran and North Korea! And our best friends, the Brits, believe that only Osama bin Laden is a greater threat to world peace than the United States.
We are a sick country whose leaders continue to exploit our weakness. And our continued silence is immoral. We sit silently while our government exchanged our leader of the free world status with leader of rogue nations lambast. And if the people will not stand up united and force our leaders to listen to our will, we will become the “infamous generation” whose silence enabled George W. Bush and the corporate elite to destroy the Republic.
A closer reading of the new FISA atrocity reveals that even if Democrats let the bill expire per its 6-month Sunset provision, it would not do so until twelve days after Bush left office! The latest from Marty Lederman:
Thus, “acquisitions” authorized by Attorney General Gonzales will be permissible for one year, even if that period extends beyond the ostensible February 1, 2008 sunset date. I think it's fair to assume that the Attorney General will authorize a system of such acquisitions on or close to February 1, 2008, which will mean that the warrantless surveillance can continue until . . . February 1, 2009, or twelve days after the next President is sworn in.
Congress could, in theory, repeal section 6(d) if and when they enact a replacement statute. But it's safe to say this President would never sign a bill containing such a repeal. So it's likely the new surveillance will be in effect throughout the Bush Administration, even in the unlikely event that Congress lets the new Act “expire” on February 1, 2008.
Who needs enemies, foes or opposition when we have a Democratic Congress?
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for Democrats and the Democratic leadership comes this from the Washington Director of the ACLU, Caroline Fredrickson, responding to criticism that there was no organized lobbying against the new FISA bill that greatly expands Bush's power to spy on Americans:
Much of your criticism is unwarranted: we worked FISA and hard (and have been since December 2005). We reached out to Democratic leaders -- we met with Pelosi and with Reid -- we spoke with the staff from every leadership office. They did not listen to us. It was dem leadership who scheduled the vote on these particular bills. Why be mad at us and not at them? We met with them. They rebuffed our arguments.
We weren't notified that the bill was moving until 6 days before when Rep. Harman let it slip on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. We gave it the full court press: with action alerts, meetings with Members of Congress and Senators and their staff.
Pelosi and friends spent the entire week negotiating with the DNI and cut out ALL the civil liberties groups - not just the ACLU. Senator Rockefeller led the effort on the Senate side (with McConnell). The bill only passed because a) 41 dems crossed the line in the house, after the “liberal leadership” could NOT muster up its own party to assert its 30 seat majority, and b) most importantly, Pelosi, our “liberal leader” scheduled the bill in the first place. She could have put any bill on the schedule and she chose the Administration's. We worked this hard, and somehow you blame the ACLU?
Wow. Damning to say the least for Pelosi, et al. One wonders if Pelosi put impeachment back on the table which the House acted on and the Senate followed with convictions, would we notice any change in governing by our new president?
Glenn Greenwald: “It is inconceivable on every level that the Democrats would capitulate in this way and it is disgraceful beyond what can be adequately described.”
Marjorie Cohn: “This is a Congress that has remained terrorized by the Bush administration since 9/11.”
Marjorie Cohn: “It takes the power out of judges hands and puts it in the power of Alberto Gonzales and the Director of Intelligence.”
Glenn Greenwald: “Two months earlier James Comey testified before the Senate that he and Aschroft and others had discovered that whatever it was that they were doing from 2001 to 2004 was so illegal, so unconscionable, that they had all decided to resign en masse from the government unless that behavior seized immediately.” And Greenwald interviewed Senator Chris Dodd this weekend, “and I asked him whether or not Senators had any idea of how they had been using this secret spying in order to spy on Americans - what these additional programs are, what it was that they were doing that made James Comey and John Ashcroft threaten to resign from the government - he has absolutely no idea nor do the other Senators.”
In other words, Congress passed a law for which it knows nothing about but that we know was so unconscionable that John Ashcroft threatened to resign over it. And if that is not scary enough, the rubber stamp judges of the FISA court have been replaced by Alberto Gonzales.
Marjorie Cohn: “Even though I am a criminal defense attorney, I quite enjoyed writing up a sample indictment of Alberto Gonzales for War Crimes. He's a war criminal because it was memos that he signed and policies that he put into place, that he convinced Bush to put into place, that led to torture of prisoners in US custody.”
“Torture is illegal under our law. It's illegal under three treaties we have ratified -- the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And notwithstanding the Bush administration's distaste for treaties and so-called international law, our Constitution has a provision called the Supremacy Clause and it says that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land. That means that treaties are US law. And pursuant to those treaties we have enacted two federal US statutes -- the Torture Statute and the War Crimes Act. Under the War Crimes Act, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions constitute war crimes. So torture is illegal, all the time. And, in fact, the Torture Convention says, no exceptional circumstances, even a state of war can ever be used as a justification for torture.”
And yet we torture at Gitmo, Abu-Ghareb, all around Iraq, Afghanistan and at CIA black-sites.
Glenn Greenwald: “The greatest threat, the truly unresolved issue is whether we will have a military confrontation with Iran prior to the end of the Bush presidency.”
Amy Goodman: “And yet your explanation of the Democrats and how they are dealing with the president at his lowest polling ever -- perhaps in modern polling history, still caving in bill after bill.”
Glenn Greenwald: “What is so baffling about it is, i think people forget that immediately before the midterm election in 2006, Karl Rove's strategy was to force a vote on the military commissions act and warrantless eavesdropping.” And Democrats voted against both and the Republicans tried to make a huge deal about Democrats being weak on terror. “And the Republicans got crushed with that strategy. And Democrats refuse to realize that that strategy no longer works. Americans are largely immune to this fear-mongering.”
Marjorie Cohn: “The war was premeditated, deliberate, violation of the law. The UN Charter, also a treaty, also part of US law says the only two instances where a country can use force against another is in self-defense or when the Security Council agrees. And there was never any evidence that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to us or any other country...and the Bush administration knew that...they intended to invade Iraq since way before 9/11. And now it's really clear why they did that. And that is to install huge permanent military bases, the biggest in the world, and the biggest US embassy in the world in Baghdad. And to privatize Iraq's oil. They are trying to push through this Iraqi oil law that even Congress is touting as a benchmark for Iraqi progress and it would give control of 3/4 of Iraq's oil to foreign oil companies.”
“It is very important not to say that the war was a mistake, the war is being fought incompetently. The war is illegal and it is also immoral. It is killing thousands of US soldiers. It is killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and draining our national treasury. And the majority of American people know this. But Congress has not caught on yet. ”
(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.
we really don't know the half of it. The part we do know basically places “all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish[es] the checks and balances in the Constitution” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency” like a
or a
This has led many on the internet (and here, here and here) to fear the worst which is understandable considering that our
very funny, but I meant
thinks he is a
With this back drop, Congressman Peter Defazio (D-Oregon) who serves on the Homeland Security Committee and has clearance to see secret documents figured he'd take a looksie at the classified parts of the Directive. Only he was amazingly denied access to the confidential parts of the Directive by the Bush administration. DeFazio was none too pleased stating:
“I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack...
We're talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America. I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee.”
Legal scholar Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute concurs, stating that he could not “think of one good reason” to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.
Well, since there appears to be little we individual citizens can do to learn the government's plan in the event of a catastrophe, it would be prudent for all of us to have our own plans. Should Bush/Cheney declare Martial Law and start locking up Americans by the bunches, what will you do? Can you make a run for the border? Do you have a passport and is it current? How 'bout a Republican Party card with your name on it (I'm not kidding)? Cash on hand?
Maybe peoples worries about the Directive do not prove out. Maybe nothing happens and Bush turns over the reigns of the country to the next elected president. Maybe. And maybe people are right to worry.
Read more about Congressman DeFazio in The Oregonian
Now that I have your attention, click your way over to Anything They Say, where Bhc has returned after a short hiatus with a powerful sweeping piece, PIPELINES AND IMPERIAL MISSIONS, on the Bushies and the Middle East that will take your breath away. I cannot remember an article so breathtaking in its scope and I read Harper's!
Bhc covers all the well-known angles and facts, starting with the now familiar 1992 Defense Planning Guide which outlines the case for American empire. Additionally, he pulls in his unparalleled knowledge of all things oil, from pipelines to the Iraqi Oil Law, which are key to understanding the Bushies foreign policy. And before all is said and done, Bhc takes readers on a tour de force of the ever important currency and commodity markets and the actions and reasoning behind moves from recently emerging powers Russia, China and Iran. And this is but a cursory view of the subjects covered in the post. Like I said, it is truly sweeping.
But, don't let the scope and length of the article scare you away. Where Bhc shines, and has always shined, is in tying so many seemingly disparate facts into one wholly readable story. By the end, what now appears to be a tangled web of unrelated stories, propaganda and political maneuvering, is unraveled into a perfect web that is supported by the facts and common sense. All of which makes it odd that this story will be entirely new to many, if not, most.
With the above in mind, those who get their news solely from the mainstream media are advised to proceed cautiously and prepare themselves to be shocked by the truth. Of course, we Americans don't much like the truth. “We'd rather be lied to about war and then get pissed about the lie than admit to why we really went there.”
Henry Frankenstein: Dangerous? Poor old Waldman. Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if no one tried to find out what lies beyond? Have your never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars, or to know what causes the trees to bud? And what changes the darkness into light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy.
Doctor Waldman: You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!
How the right wing corporate controlled empire created a monster and why that might turn out to be a good thing...
John Kerry calls for the return of the fairness doctrine and for equal time requirements in the media. As if anyone needed any proof that an imbalance existed in the media, a recent study evidenced that conservative talk radio accounts for 91% of total talk radio programming. Again, nothing surprising.
But what is particularly interesting about this brief video is that it was posted on YouTube by MDRUDGE and has 180,000 views in one day -- much of them coming from the conservative blogosphere including Hugh Hewitt and Real Clear Politics. The base of the Republican party has always been overly sensitive to such accusations about the media because they actually believe the laughable propaganda about a liberal bias. This ridiculous notion, mind you, is not shared by those at the top of the party like Rich Bond (the former Republican party chair), Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan, among others, who all admit the idea is rubbish.
Knowledge of the truth about media bias, of course, never stopped Kristol and his colleagues from continuously using the liberal media ploy to fool the rabid Republican base into backing their policies for war or voting for their pro corporate candidates for political office. After all, you don't cut off the hand that feeds you. And here is where our first monster was born.
As I blogged about here, corporations require year over year growth in revenues and profits or management risks losing $$$$ as Wall Street moves to better investments. This results in more corporate lobbying, bribery, corporate welfare, government give-aways, corporate tax breaks, cronyism and corruption than the previous year. Thus, every year the corporate whores that make up the media punditry, think tanks and Fox “News” must come up with more ridiculous incendiary rhetoric to rally the base whose skepticism grows with every scandal and as their quality of life worsens with higher energy prices, education costs, health care costs and lost jobs. At this point, the right has used every trick in the book from liberal media bias, racism, the faux liberal attack on religion and Christmas, anti-gay, xenophobia, anti-Muslim, creation of an evolution vs. creationism debate, etc. to stoke the fears of its base and rally the troops to overcome the greed and corruption of the corporate-government relationship.
Trent Lott was speaking on June 15 about why Congress was unable to pass immigration reform. The problem was the rabid Republican base that he and his colleagues created to help line the pockets of corporations and themselves as well as win elections had grown into an independent force that was now derailing the corporate/government plans to secure cheap labor. And I can't stop my crocodile tears. Imagine encouraging the worst racist fears in people, not to mention, fear-mongering about the threat of terrorism, year after year for political gain and then crying foul when it comes back to haunt to you. Actually, you need not imagine it.
So now we are stuck with two monsters that must be killed. First, we have the ginormous corporations that must improve their bottom lines which requires even more heinous activity, usually with a government hand, than the year before. The amount of money at stake is so great that no human could help but be influenced by it, never mind, a member of Congress. Thus, we will continue to see more Enron's, Halliburton no-bid contracts, Big Oil billion dollar giveaways, Big Tobacco hundreds of billion dollar giveaways and a bigger portion of the country's tax bill paid by individuals rather than corporations - until this corporate monster is killed. For a current example the idea of allowing News Corp. to buy the Wall Street Journal borders on insanity but it would never be stopped by our government because so many politicians receive benefit from Murdoch's empire.
And we will continue to see more influence from the fringe but powerful group of hate first, irrational, radicals that make up the Republican base and have the power to kill legislation favored by up to 70% of the country. Trent Lott is right to realize the danger that this monster presents to the country. And as one might expect, conservative talk radio was none to happy about Trent's comments or John Kerry's remarks and will fight back hard and dirty. Which is hardly surprising considering the hate rhetoric leaders on the right have filled it with over the years. This monster is a powder keg that wants to blow.
And of all of this might be the best thing to happen to the country. On their own, each monster poses a real threat to the country which has already been severely weakened by six years of Bush policies. It is difficult to see how we reign in or kill either monster on their own considering the corporate monster controls much of Congress, the media and the courts but can't seem to control the radical monster. But, both monsters are showing a willingness to fight each other as evidenced by the Lott quote and reaction from the blogosphere.
