A Lie Often Repeated... Is Still A Lie

Senate Judiciary to Probe Bush Spying Scandal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605Q.shtml
A key Republican committee chairman put the Bush administration on notice Friday that his panel would hold hearings into a report that the National Security Agency eavesdropped without warrants on people inside the United States. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would make oversight hearings by his panel next year "a very, very high priority." "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Robert Byrd | "Securing America without Destroying Liberties"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605R.shtml
"The Patriot Act has gone too far. Secret renditions should be stopped. Torture must be outlawed. Our military should not spy on our own people. The Senate has spoken: Let us secure our country, but not by destroying our liberties." - US Senator Robert Byrd

Pentagon Violated Law by Keeping Database on Anti-War Activists
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605S.shtml
Pentagon analysts appear not to have followed guidelines that require the deletion of information on American citizens and groups from a counterterrorism database within three months if they pose no security threats, Pentagon officials said on Thursday. As a result, dozens of alerts on anti-war meetings and peaceful protests appear to have remained in the database, even though analysts had decided that those involved presented no threat to military bases or personnel, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program is classified.

Here's my latest letter published in today's Times. Happy Solstice to you and yours!- Emily

The nationwide boycott of businesses that greet their customers with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is certainly a step in the right direction but what about the rest of the year? That's why I am announcing a boycott of all stores and restaurants that refuse to greet their customers with; "Welcome to (insert store name here), we'd like to remind all our customers that those who do not accept a strict interpretation of biblical scripture will be cast into a lake of fire for all eternity. Thank you for shopping at (insert store name here) and have a nice day".

Condi implied our interrogation of terrorist suspects saves lives in Europe but I would maintain that actual arrest with evidence of terrorist suspects in Europe saves lives in US, moreso.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5485701,00.html

This happened every few days when I was there.
Also, it's documented that interrogations often lead to fake confessions and cannot be relied on.

Leo is gone, but Cheney still lives.

Only the good die young.

Posted by: Cyrano at December 16, 2005 10:39 PM

Tonight I met somebody who had a loose connection to the cardiologists who worked on Cheney's heart. My face must have said it all when the person said to me,"Oh, you must have wished they failed." All I could do was nod my head up and down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17abramoff.html?emc=eta1

Columnist Resigns His Post, Admitting Lobbyist Paid Him

A scholar at the Cato Institute admitted he was paid by Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns favorable to his clients.

There are a couple of alternative press investigative reporters following a potential link the mainstream media won't touch with a thousand foot pole. They are from Raw Story and from Antiwar.com.

Was there a connection between Sybel Edmunds and Valerie Plame?

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_340.shtml

Read this before bed & you may not sleep.

http://www.impeachbush.org

'nuff said.

arbusto delenda est,
Otter

Gee, now ain't *this* a big surprise! Who'd'a thunk it, huh?

-----

President Bush said Friday his statement that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was innocent of criminal charges in Texas was meant to signal confidence in the justice system and not to make a pronouncement about the individual case.

"The point I was making was 'innocent until otherwise proven,'" Bush said in an interview to Friday for 'The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.' "It's a belief in the system, and that's not always the way people are treated here in Washington, as you know."

-----

it's waffle waffle time again,
Otter

And the hits just keep on coming:

-----

Pentagon May Not Hand Over Rumsfeld Papers

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon will comply with a House subpoena for internal documents detailing Hurricane Katrina-related correspondence except, perhaps, from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, an official said Friday.

Rumsfeld may claim executive privilege to resist turning over e-mails spanning nearly a month before and after the Aug. 29 storm, said Assistant Defense Secretary Paul McHale, the Pentagon's top homeland defense official.

[snip]

-----

Full story is here: http://tinyurl.com/bsvvo

impeach 'em all and let their God sort 'em out,
Otter

Oh, and BTW, this tidbit culled from the Washington Monthly (at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com ) is well worth noting and following up on:

-----

Koufax Awards....Nominations for the Koufax Awards, which honor the best blogs and bloggers of the left, are now open. Awards will be granted in 15 categories: Best Blog, Best Blog—Pro Division, Best Blog Community, Best Writing, Best Post, Best Series, Best Single Issue Blog, Best Group Blog, Most Humorous Blog, Most Humorous Post, Most Deserving of Wider Recognition, Best Expert Blog, Best New Blog, Best Coverage of State or Local Issues, and Best Commenter. Be sure to nominate your favorites!

http://wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2005/12/002153.html

-----

Sounds like a plan to me, and right up there a line or two back is the link to the place where you can cast your votes. So now geaux and dieu.

hey hey ho ho baby bush has got to go,
Otter

Oh my gosh, surprise me again already:

-----

OP-EDS FOR SALE

- A columnist from a libertarian think tank admits accepting payments to promote an indicted lobbyist's clients. Will more examples follow? -

A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients. Doug Bandow, who writes a syndicated column for Copley News Service, told BusinessWeek Online that he had accepted money from Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 articles over a period of years, beginning in the mid '90s.

[snip]

-----

This lovely little snippet comes to us from that well-known radical leftist bleeding-heart media source, Business Week magazine. *Damn* those whacko far-left publications! They must be outlawed at once! (Or at least have their phone lines tapped without a warrant, ahem.)

Full story is here: http://tinyurl.com/drswp

who would ever have dreamed that there might be corruption in the government,
Otter

More from the above-cited Business Week article:

-----

"For years, rumors have swirled of an underground opinion 'pay-for-play' industry in Washington in which think-tank employees and pundits trade their ability to shape public perception for cash."

[Yeah, well, *DUH*...]

"Bandow isn't the only think-tanker to have received payments from Abramoff for writing articles. Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. 'I do that all the time,' Ferrara says. 'I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future.'"

[My, what a nice surprise to finally find someone who's honest about his dishonesty, huh?]

"Ferrara, who has been an influential conservative voice on Social Security reform, among other issues, says he doesn't see a conflict of interest in taking undisclosed money to write op-ed pieces because his columns never violated his ideological principles.

"'It's a matter of general support,' Ferrara says. 'These are my views, and if you want to support them, then that's good.' But he adds that at some point over the years, Abramoff stopped working with him: 'Jack lost interest in me and felt he had other writers who were writing in more prominent publications,' Ferrara says."

[Awww, poor widdle baby wost his favowite sugardaddy. Waaaah.]

"Ferrara's boss has a very different take on the Abramoff op-ed writing than did his peers at Cato. "If somebody pinned me down and said, 'Do you think this is wrong or unethical?' I'd say no," says Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation. Giovanetti says critics are applying a "naive purity standard" to the op-ed business. "I have a sense that there are a lot of people at think tanks who have similar arrangements." "

[Oh, really? Why, I'm shocked -- *shocked*, I tell you, to hear that there is pandering going on in this establishment! *fnord*]

-----

okay, I'll stop now, I promise,
Otter

Thirty years and *still* nothing is any different in Washingtoon. The more things change, the more they remain insane.

-----

On October 29th and November 6th, 1975, the Church Commission held hearings on the National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment rights. It was the first time most of the general public had ever heard of our largest intelligence agency. Senator Frank Church of Idaho was chairing the hearings which were part of a larger effort, formally known as the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Here is how he opened the hearing:

"This morning, the committee begins public hearings on the National Security Agency or, as it is more commonly known, the NSA. Actually, the Agency name is unknown to most Americans, either by its acronym or its full name. In contrast to the CIA, one has to search far and wide to find someone who has ever heard of the NSA. This is peculiar, because the National Security Agency is an immense installation. In its task of collecting intelligence by intercepting foreign communications, the NSA employs thousands of people and operates with an enormous budget. Its expansive computer facilities comprise some of the most complex and sophisticated electronic machinery in the world.

"Just as the NSA is one of the largest and least known of the intelligence agencies, it is also the most reticent. While it sweeps in messages from around the world, it gives out precious little information about itself. Even the legal basis for the activities of NSA is different from other intelligence agencies. No statute establishes the NSA or defines the permissible scope of its responsibilities. Rather, Executive directives make up the sole 'charter' for the Agency. Furthermore. these directives fail to define precisely what constitutes the 'technical and intelligence information' which the NSA is authorized to collect.

"Since its establishment in 1952 as a part of the Defense Department, representatives of the NSA have never appeared before the Senate in a public hearing. Today we will bring the Agency from behind closed doors. The committee has elected to hold public hearings on the NSA only after the most careful consideration."

-----

Okay, so I lied about stopping now. Indict me.

gimme back my country dammit,
Otter

(P.S. In case you still haven't gotten your knickers sufficiently in a twist yet... to read the blog-ed column quoting even more unsettling pieces of those legislative NSA hearings from thirty years ago that still sound eeirly familiar today, point your favorite browser to http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/12/16/132830/71 for the whole shebang.)

(See what happens when I can't get back to sleep at night? I apologize for dominating the thread for the last several posts now -- although it's not like anyone else was up and posting at this hour anyway... *ahem*)

visualize chimpeachment,
Otter

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_nsa

Bush Approved Eavesdropping, Official Says
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer December 17, 2005

President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night.

The disclosure follows angry demands by lawmakers earlier in the day for congressional inquiries into whether the monitoring by the highly secretive National Security Agency violated civil liberties.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

Bush on Friday refused to discuss whether he had authorized such domestic spying without obtaining warrants from a court, saying that to comment would tie his hands in fighting terrorists.

In a broad defense of the program put forward hours later, however, a senior intelligence official told The Associated Press that the eavesdropping was narrowly designed to go after possible terrorist threats in the United States.

The official said that, since October 2001, the program has been renewed more than three dozen times. Each time, the White House counsel and the attorney general certified the lawfulness of the program, the official said. Bush then signed the authorizations.

During the reviews, government officials have also provided a fresh assessment of the terrorist threat, showing that there is a catastrophic risk to the country or government, the official said.

"Only if those conditions apply do we even begin to think about this," he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the intelligence operation.

"The president has authorized NSA to fully use its resources — let me underscore this now — consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution to defend the United States and its citizens," the official said, adding that congressional leaders have also been briefed more than a dozen times.

Senior administration officials asserted the president would do everything in his power to protect the American people while safeguarding civil liberties.

"I will make this point," Bush said in an interview with "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." "That whatever I do to protect the American people — and I have an obligation to do so — that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's more, so click on the link.... BUT, I got to that last above paragraph and had to re-read it several times.... So, The Cretin thinks that by taking away our Constitutional rights and privileges (and syping on us and breaking laws in the process like he is above the law) that he's "protecting our civil liberties?!?" Uh.... duh? Say..., WHAT?!?

The "logic" escapes me. Make the screaming stop, please... my head can't get the marbles to roll into place no matter how I shake it, and I keep hitting that nerve by the bone spur in my neck that causes my whole body to go numb....

If Santa can get us through the New Year's Eve deadline for the expiration of the Patriot Act (without any LameBrain senators pulling some last-minute shenanigans), I need to write him a thank you letter....

Tin Foil Hat thinking: if any of the NSA snoops are monitoring my internet activity, I hope they find any ancestors I may be missing in my genealogy research in foreign countries and let me know so I can enter the data in my genealogy program - tangled pedigree lines tend to get messy....

Beam me up, Scotty...!

Was President Bush right to authorize NSA eavesdropping on Americans? * 59482 responses


Yes; it was essential for national security
24%

No; it's unconstitutional
71%

I'm not sure
4%

I don't care
1%

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10491945

Karen,

Great pictures. I'd love to see the bottom one made as posters and placed all over America. With a picture of people on their roofs in N.O. drowning and the slogan, "Small enough to drown in a bathtub."

WEEKEND'S HERE...but not in DC. From D.U.

***EVERY DUer*** URGENT!! STILL IN CONGRESS TODAY!!
***EVERY DUer*** PLEASE ACT ON THESE IMMEDIATELY!!! STILL IN CONGRESS!!!

The following threads tell what you need to know. Those posters have made it
very easy to take ACTION! PLEASE ACT ON ALL THREE ACTIONS!

Time is very short, and these are URGENT ACTIONS!

*** STOP *** the Immoral Budget; Please contact Congress NOW

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5612367
**

Filibuster looming over ANWR shenanigans

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5618426

**

HEADS UP! PLEASE CALL IN FOR KATRINA FUNDING TODAY!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5612877

***

Information on status as of 4am saturday:

Lawmakers Still Working as Holidays Near

http://tinyurl.com/amzgr

Lawmakers Still Working as Holidays Near
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
December 17, 2005
2 hours, 7 minutes ago (presumably around 4am?? saturday)

WASHINGTON - Congress is facing a weekend and more of work as it seeks
pre-holiday agreements on the Patriot Act, military spending and the
largest of the government's domestic appropriations bills.

The House and Senate planned to work through Saturday, and possibly
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, to try to wrap up their work before ending
the legislative year.

-snip-

Also (reference to patriot act) stalled are the Republicans' $40
billion-plus, five-year spending cut plan, the $453 billion defense
budget and a $602 billion appropriations bill for the departments of
Labor, Education and Health and Human Services.

-snip-

Adding uncertainty to the defense bill is a bid by Sen. Ted Stevens
(news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, to attach a plan for oil
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That legislation
already blends Pentagon funding and money for the war in Iraq with
hurricane relief aid and a scaled-down plan to fight bird flu.

-snip-

***

these snips reference legislation still in progress this weekend.

THESE ARE ENORMOUS BILLS AND SCHEMES TO MANIPULATE THEM, AND

MANIPULATE US WITH THEM!!

PLEASE ACT IMMEDIATELY!!!

responsibility and
solidarity

http://tinyurl.com/7dvtd

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051216/in_the_kingdom_of_the_halfblind.php
In The Kingdom Of The Half-Blind
Bill Moyers

If you haven't read this yet, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the piece.... FOIA, the Tomlinson stuff, etc., is included.... Grab a cuppa, since it's a bit longish. Every time I read something by Moyers my respect for him increases.

Raise your hand if you also think a lot of the current info we're reading about will be ignored (or not heard or read about if it makes Lamestream Media) by most people in their mad rush for Christmas and New Year's Eve plans and family get-togethers....

NonnyO,

Moyer's is terrific. (Grabbing my cuppa and sitting down to read...)

Posted by: NonnyO at December 17, 2005 08:55 AM

I'm emailing them to people. And since I don't have tv news, I don't even know if they can watch it on tv. (I do have CNN, MSGOP, FOX)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17legal.html?th&emc=th
Behind Power, One Principle as Bush Pushes Prerogatives
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - A single, fiercely debated legal principle lies behind nearly every major initiative in the Bush administration's war on terror, scholars say: the sweeping assertion of the powers of the presidency.
~~~~~~~
By asserting excessive powers, Mr. Smith said, President Bush may provoke a reaction from Congress and the courts that ultimately thwarts executive power.
"The president may wind up eroding the very powers he was seeking to exert," Mr. Smith said.

{We should be so lucky....}

House Disavows Calls for Iraq Withdrawal
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 16, 9:10 PM ET

WASHINGTON - For the second time in as many months, the House rejected calls for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq with a vote Friday that Democrats said was politically driven and designed by Republicans to limit debate on the war.

In a 279-109 vote, the GOP-controlled House approved a resolution saying the chamber is committed "to achieving victory in Iraq" and that setting an "artificial timetable" would be "fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory."

Democrats voted against the resolution by 108-59, while 32 of them voted "present," a rarely used option that signals neither support nor opposition. That split underlined divisions within the party over alternatives to President Bush's Iraq war policies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congress_iraq

Posted by: NonnyO at December 17, 2005 09:06

NonnyO,

Bush has brought us to the brink of Fascism. Ok..he's PAST the brink...

But nonetheless, we currently have one party rule, one theocracy, a corrupt media, a propaganda media, and they're stacking the supremes, AND they've taken the fair out of "Fair elections."

He may have the opposite effect later, but I'm scared that if we don't take back Congress in 06 that the damage will be everlasting.

Posted by: sparrow at December 17, 2005 08:55 AM
Posted by: sparrow at December 17, 2005 09:06 AM

Moyers always gets my brain working, thinking.... I think that's the other reason I like him, in addition to his common-sense and factual approach to things. What he says makes me think....

I'm ignoring TV news except when I accidentally catch it waiting for something I might want to watch come on, but occasionally I'll catch BBC on PBS. I know ABC has gone to the dark side, so I avoid their infotainment "news" because it's become so insipid and downright silly. Last I heard any "news" teasers on ABC or CBS (national and local) they were still yapping on about avian flu many weeks after the first stories came out about it (avian flu does NOT pass from person to person anyway, and people can only get it by handling droppings from infected birds ~ it's not a real news story to me if it's not contagious from person to person, so it's one of those fake side "issues" for sheeple to get paranoid about while real news stories are ignored by Lamestream Media).

Posted by: sparrow at December 17, 2005 09:13 AM

I have repeatedly said (in emails to legislators) that this nation is already a fascist nation in all but name. No response, although the thrust of my communications were on other topics. I think they don't believe their constituents have functioning brain cells and can think for themselves - or maybe the senators and reps think they still have some way to control the imbalance of power that has shifted to the executive branch, and maybe they're the ones deluding themselves into a false sense of security in thinking they can do something against the slime machine sitting in the White House. So far, since 2001, they've proved they have no power to stop the illegal, immoral, and unethical behavior by a corrupt, power-mad executive branch and it's oozing over to the legislative branch with indictments against DeLay, et al.

Like you, I fear for this nation if our legislators and the sleep-walking sheeples don't wake up from this nightmare. I keep pinching myself hoping I'll wake up, but all I get is bruises....

Impeach.

Totally OT (for which I am famous) but once in awhile I think we need to know what good people are doing to help...

Storied Train Used As Vehicle For Giving
Guthrie Tour Aids Musicians With Losses in Katrina

"This train is bound for glory," sang Arlo Guthrie, joined by his daughter Sarah Lee, son Abe and various friends, as the City of New Orleans train rumbled past factories and fields between Chicago and Kankakee, Ill.

-snip--
In a hastily-pulled-together benefit, Guthrie and a crew of musicians are riding the City of New Orleans from Chicago to the Big Easy, stopping along the way to play fundraising shows. The goal is to raise money for New Orleans musicians who lost instruments, homes and work as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
--snip--
Singer Cyril Neville, a New Orleans native who recently moved to Austin, hopes the tour will remind people about the devastation that still exists in the city, and the tireless efforts of grass-roots community leaders there.

During the Kankakee show, where he wore Mardi Gras beads and a handmade T-shirt charging ethnic cleansing in New Orleans, Neville sarcastically dedicated a song to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"This train is full of patriots who love America, this is the real rainbow coalition," he said. "Hopefully we'll make a difference. The main thing is to keep a dialogue open about the realities of what has gone on. If we ignore our realities we invite our own destruction. So I'm going to get on this train and ride up and down in the spirit of Woody Guthrie."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601733.html

Hope the Rads benefit from the fundraiser.

In a 279-109 vote, the GOP-controlled House approved a resolution saying the chamber is committed "to achieving victory in Iraq" and that setting an "artificial timetable" would be "fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congress_iraq
Posted by: sparrow at December 17, 2005 09:09 AM

I have a fundamental "issue" with "achieving victory" in Iraq. The Cretin's attack was illegal, unjust, immoral, unethical and an arbitrary decision to preserve, protect, and defend the oil fields and refineries in Iraq. HOW can one "achieve victory" in an unjust and illegal attack?!?!? The premises for the attack were all based on LIES. When the premises are flawed the conclusion is wrong (or so said my philosophy professor in a Logic class). If the premises are flawed, the only possible conclusion for an outcome in Iraq is that we lose, no matter what (not to mention the loss of life and limb for our military and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens), because there was no good reason for the war in the first place.

It's illogical to assume there could be a "victory" in Iraq.

Another travesty in N.O...

Dispute Over Historic Hospital for the Poor Pits Doctors Against the State

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 16 - Charity Hospital, an institution that for nearly three centuries has been dedicated to treating the poorest and sickest here - the shot, stabbed, overdosed and uninsured - has been abandoned downtown since Hurricane Katrina. It is now at the center of a battle over whether it will continue that tradition, or become a more conventional hospital.

The state officials who manage Charity say Hurricane Katrina dealt this Huey Long-era landmark a deathblow and want it torn down. In its place, they say, they want to build a hospital with a "new mission," one that treats both public and private patients and relies less on government money.

But doctors who work there sharply disagree with that plan. They say Louisiana officials are using the storm as an excuse to achieve the state's long-sought goal of demolishing Charity, getting millions in federal dollars to build a new hospital, and then moving away from a promise that has long been made to the city's poor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/national/nationalspecial/17charity.html

The "logic" escapes me. Make the screaming stop, please... my head can't get the marbles to roll into place no matter how I shake it, and I keep hitting that nerve by the bone spur in my neck that causes my whole body to go numb....

Posted by: NonnyO at December 17, 2005 07:42 AM

OK, the laugh REALLY helped today. Thanks Nonny, even though I know you were not kidding.

New thread and let's keep talking over there...

Jib-jab's Year-end roundup of "2-0-5" - good & funny (and sad...) summary of what we've been through this year...

http://www.jibjab.com/Home.aspx

http://edition.cnn.com/

Should the government have been given the authority to spy on Americans without warrants after the 9/11attacks?

Yes 30% 54684 votes

No 70% 127688 votes