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Showing posts from March, 2006

The Mad Hatters

By John H. St. John Online Journal Contributing Writer Mar 28, 2006 http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_636.shtml In July I will be 85, if I live that long, and never in my life have I felt more like Lewis Caroll’s Alice as she stepped into the mirror and entered Wonderland. It is not just that the corporations stole an election and gave us a mental defective for a president. It is a population that, pro or con, accepts the absurd idea that we are at war in Iraq. Even the bloody battles in Korea against Chinese and North Korean tanks were called a “police action.” The bloody attack shown to the world on television and proudly called “Shock and Awe” was done without any declaration of war. The present illegal occupation of Iraq is called a war and the moronic president is assuming all of the powers, and more, of a wartime president while Congress refuses his challenge to the Constitution. There have been other illegal incursions and undeclared wars, Vietnam for example; but ...

Rubber Stamp Republicans

by eriposte Tuesday :: Mar 28, 2006 Fraud and Perjury? Or at least that is what appears to be the case here. Anonymous Liberal (emphasis mine): Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The Court will be called upon to determine--among other things--whether a provision in last year's Detainee Treatment Act ("DTA") effectively strips the Court of jurisdiction to hear Hamdan's case. The Government contends that it does and in support of this position, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Kyl have filed an amicus brief with the Court. This amicus brief argues that the legislative history of the DTA supports the Government's position. Specifically, the brief cites a lengthy colloquy between Senators Kyl and Graham themselves which purportly took place during a Senate floor debate just prior to passage of the bill. Sounds harmless, huh? Here's the catch: Apparently this entire 8 page colloquy--which is scripted to...

progress in Afghanistan too

Making progress in Afghanistan too, I see. I wonder what the whacko ‘christians’ are going to feel about this. Another bush success story, or so we’re told. Just another country collaterally damaged on our way to world domination. Afghan Christian convert could face death March 19 2006 Independent Online (South Africa) http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1142776621938B212# Kabul - An Afghan man detained for converting to Christianity could face the death penalty if he refuses to become Muslim again, police and a judge said on Sunday. Abdul Rahman was detained two weeks ago after his relatives reported to the police about his conversion which is forbidden under Islamic Sharia law. "Yes that's true, a man has converted to Christianity. He's being tried in one of our courts," Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said, adding that his trial began early last week. He said the man could face the death penalty if he refused to revert to ...

the war

Unleashing the military power of the United States of America on March 19, 2003, the president bush turned them to invading Iraq. I don’t think the understanding of the enormity of that crime has settled yet on America. The crime is more than mass-murder. He has destroyed a nation. He has poisoned that’s nation’s people and environment with depleted uranium ammunition. He has raped their women and children. He has destroyed their homes and towns. He has stolen their treasure. It was all accepted. After all, the bush was ‘re-elected’. Why? Perpetual war, and an improvement on Orwell’s model: they’ll never have to change the ‘enemy’. With the ‘nation at war’, cover is provided for all kinds of atrocities, and the loss of civil rights. Cowed by fear, America has accepted what would have been unthinkable, and unacceptable at the end of the twentieth century. The ‘opposition’ has become cowed by fear of being called ‘un-American’. Look how easily the country has accepted the fact of the tor...

Iraq War Protests

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031606S.shtml March to New Orleans to Protest Iraq War The Associated Press Tuesday 14 March 2006 Mobile, Alabama - Hurricane victims and war veterans set out Tuesday on a march to New Orleans to protest the war in Iraq and what they view as a lack of relief aid for storm victims. Paul Robinson, the local chapter president of Veterans for Peace, said the 140-mile "Walkin' to New Orleans" march is scheduled to end Saturday. He said marchers, including several victims of Hurricane Katrina, are demanding not only an end to the war but also a large increase in resources to help hurricane victims rebuild their lives. He expected about 300 marchers to join in, some walking the entire distance and other joining at the end. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who spent a month protesting outside President Bush's ranch last summer, was expected to join the marchers in New Orleans, her sister, Dede Miller, said Monday. ...

Hungering For Justice At My First Congressional Testimony

By Mike Ferner Washington, March 14 -- Last Wednesday evening, the House Appropriations Committee voted to throw another $67,000,000,000 at the murderous work in Iraq and Afghanistan. That night members of the committee, righteously indignant and nearly unanimous, gave President "Bring ‘Em On" Bush a loud slap in the face. Whoa! You mean the most powerful committee in Congress voted 62-2 to stop funding our national war crimes orgy? Of course they did…and then we all lived happily ever after. No, the killing will proceed as planned, with no congressional intervention, although chances are you heard absolutely zip about the 67 Billion Dollar Question, thanks to the Guardians of Reality who insured the news from that hearing was the Dubai Port deal, not the unimaginable sum of our money Congress voted for war, nor the voices raised against it. That news must come from places like the internet site you’re now reading, not the corporate press. And I’m here to tell you the story. ...

To Our Republican Congress

by Mary Pitt 3/12/06 WOW!!! That felt good, didn't it? You sent the message to Little George, loud and clear, "The security of America is NOT for sale!" At long last, the lion of the American Congress found its hind legs, stood up and roared! This, the first truly bipartisan act since the Bush cabal took over, stomped into the White House, locked the door, pulled the shades, and gave the true governing body of the people the proverbial finger, is historic and little less than heroic. For this we thank you! As a life-long Republican who cannot be comfortable in the Democratic Party, this writer felt that the early years of party loyalty were at last, in some small measure, vindicated. For just a little while there we were pleased, gratified, and elated that Congress was, at last, acting as an independent branch of government with power equal to the administrative in upholding the will of the people. Unfortunately, this euphoria was dampened with the renewal of the hated P...

Antiwar Activists Arrested At House Appropriations Committee

News Voices for Creative Nonviolence: WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT campaign March 8, 2006 For Immediate Release Contact: Jeff Leys -773-573-5380 Antiwar Activists Arrested At House Appropriations Committee Hearing Washington, D.C. - March 8 - Two activists were arrested tonight after disrupting the hearing of the House Appropriations Committee. The Committee is considering approving nearly $65 billion in supplemental spending to fund the war in Iraq. The two were arrested as they read the names of Iraqi citizens and U.S. soldiers who have died in this war. The action was part of the "Winter of Our Discontent" campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Waiting outside the doors were supporting members from Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the general public who could not gain access to the full Committee because the hearing room was packed by House members and their staff. "We act today to stop the death and suffering this war is causing in Iraq, and to urge ...

Planned Media Gag May Save America

by Mary Pitt 3/6/06 Senator Pat Roberts, (R-KS), has announced that he is working on a bill that. if passed, will criminalize the publication of any "classified" information by the media. This would make the reporter who writes, and the news media for whom they work, equally liable under the anti-spy regulations with any whistle-blower who dares to try to get the truth out regarding the misfeasance and malfeasance of this administration. However, the very suggestion of the revocation of the First Amendment may be the one thing that will wake up our sleeping media to the truth of what has been and is being done to our democracy. Now the test for publish-ability will not be truth and verifiability but permission from the White House on pain of spending a long vacation in Halliburton's new Camp Northwoods. For much too long the media, like most of the citizenry, have viewed the ultimate takeover of our nation by the Neo-Cons as "just politics", a simple little game...

Congress, Shape the Hell Up

Congress, Shape the Hell Up or Get the Hell Out! By Chuck Wilson The media is reporting that lawmakers are still angry about the Dubai port deal. Both Republicans and Democratics balked when they learned last month that the Bushies approved a $6.8 billion deal for a company in the United Arab Emirates to take over six of our ports with no investigation and without telling Congress about it. It was a "done deal." It's still a done deal because after their little circus acts for public consumption, we're now hearing that our elected officials are feeling "powerless to prevent the sale from going forward, and their only hope is an 11th-hour intervention by Bush Hey -- you spineless wonders! You make the laws! We're not paying you to cringe in the corner and hope that George Bush will take pity on you! This is not Bush's country -- it's not your country, even though both of you are feverishly trying to sell it off to the highest bidder. It's our count...

Protesting US Torture Practices

15 Arrested At White House Protesting US Torture Practices By Mike Ferner March 2, 2006 Washington – Fifteen people were arrested yesterday in front of the White House after winding their way for two hours through the streets of the nation’s capital, demanding the U.S. stop torturing detainees in military prisons. Members of Witness Against Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice, and ending at the White House where U.S. Park Police carried out the arrests. Speakers called on officials in each of the buildings to cease planning and executing policies that have injured and killed people in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Arrested were Art Laffin, of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, Amanda and Matt Dalaisio, and Tania Theriault of the Catholic Worker’s Mary House in New York, Susan Crane from Jonah House in Baltimore, Matt Vogel, Mark Col...