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What's Wrong with the Antiwar Movement?
Do you ever wonder why the antiwar movement has been so unsuccessful in bringing the war in Iraq to an end? Is there something missing? Is there some fundamental problem with the organizations that are supposed to be providing leadership? Or does spending time with antiwar organizers blind one to the reality that far too many of our fellow citizens continue to believe that Iraq is a noble cause?
These questions came to mind as I read through a Sunday Washington Post story by a reporter who accompanied Republican Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson on a three-day August recess trip through Georgia.
Here's the sentence that stabbed me in the heart:
"In three days on the road, not one Georgia resident urged Isakson to go back to Washington and end the war."
Let me repeat this sentence:
"In three days on the road, not one Georgia resident urged Isakson to go back to Washington and end the war."
How is it possible that ANY member of Congress could have gone home for this August recess, and not heard a single person ask him or her to go back to Washington and end the war? As Howard Dean so memorably demonstrated with his 50-state plan, it's a terrible mistake to turn your back on states just because you know you can't win there this time around.
If our antiwar organizations were doing their jobs, should there not have been at least one person at every single public event that our Reps and Senators attended, with a sign, a leaflet, a town-meeting question, a cry in the darkness, calling for an end to the war?
Or are things really so dark out there that our organizations tried, and no one could be found in the entire state of Georgia who was willing to show up at one of Isakson's events?
As we all know, it's not wise to uncritically accept any media outlet's description of reality. So it's possible that the Post's reporter did see or hear some opposition to the war as Isakson wended his way across Georgia. But in this case, the reporter made a categorical statement: "not one resident" spoke against the war. Categorical statements are the easiest to disprove, since even one instance is sufficient to overturn them.
If this story's "not one" claim is true, then the struggle to end this war has much farther to go than I had hoped. For starters, how about a cooperatively managed national campaign to ensure that no Senator or Representative will ever make another public appearance without at least one person showing up to call for an end to the war. If the opposition to the war is invisible at such public events, we can hardly expect to be winning hearts and minds.
****
In Georgia, Voices of Reassurance
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 2, 2007; A06
Excerpts: Full Article here.
COLUMBUS, Ga. As the Rotarians dined on fried chicken, Sen. Johnny Isakson shared a few thoughts about Iraq."Today, the news that comes back is pretty good," the Georgia Republican said from the podium to the packed downtown ballroom. "We're making progress on the military side and the security side. It is my sincere hope that we can, as soon as we can, reduce our troop forces, turn more over to the Iraqi army. But we should only do that when they are ready."
This is not a slice of electorate that is holding its breath, waiting for Congress to end the war. When Isakson suggested that the U.S. military could have a presence in the region for "a long time," no one flinched. They nodded at his depiction of the conflict as "the ultimate war between good and evil." And they put down their forks and applauded when he exclaimed, "To lose, all we have to do is quit. And I know the men and women of the United States military, and I know the heart of our country, and we don't quit!".....
In three days on the road, not one Georgia resident urged Isakson to go back to Washington and end the war. Far more typical was the pleading of Richard Monroe, the Clarkesville city manager, who approached the senator at a reception and said, "As a Vietnam veteran, I hope we don't publish a withdrawal date." Isakson shook his head and answered reassuringly, "Oh, no, that won't happen. This thing's turned around."
The Borowitz Report: Breaking News
Bush Pays Surprise Visit to Reality
President Calls Two-Hour Stop in Real World ‘Informative’
President George W. Bush departed from his planned itinerary on Labor Day to make a surprise visit to reality, later calling the two-hour stop in the real world “informative.”
For Mr. Bush, the visit to reality, while brief, was still significant because it represented his first visit to the real world since being elected President in 2000.
“The President has not visited reality the entire time he’s been in the White House,” one aide said. “The closest he’s come is watching ‘Survivor.’”
Mr. Bush touched down in the real world a little after dawn, delivering a brief address on the airport runway in which he attempted to put the best face on his relationship with reality, a relationship which has been frayed in recent years.
But beneath the smiles and positive statements, Mr. Bush’s aides seemed well aware that the President’s relationship with reality is complicated at best, since his approval rating in the real world currently hovers at an all-time low.
“The President deserves a lot of credit for making this visit to reality,” one aide said. “He doesn’t have a natural constituency here.”
On the whole, though, when the President’s two-hour visit was over, most of his staff seemed relieved that the potentially perilous tour of reality had passed without incident.
“It’ll be good leaving reality and going back to Washington,” one aide said.
Elsewhere, after a new study showed that only one in 1,000 Americans knows what the First Amendment is, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Good, then no one will notice when it’s gone.”
*****
OK, so we have really bad news and then the sarcasm about the really bad news. The question is:
How do we get constituents to send messages in to Congress about reality?
KOS PIECE: please help distribute request!!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/4/124818/1625
Thank you!
In Dirksen at JK hearing on GAO report on benchmarks not being met.
Join in here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/4/124936/0483
Here's the sentence that stabbed me in the heart:
"In three days on the road, not one Georgia resident urged Isakson to go back to Washington and end the war."
Let me repeat this sentence:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
I just called Senator Isaakson's office in Washington. I had three points to get across to the Senator's office:
1) Did the Senator have any idea what happened to all the WMD that supposed to be in Iraq?
2) I said that many Americans, myself included, believe that George Bush and Dick Cheney lied frequently over a period of about a year in order to drag the nation into war.
3) For lying about a matter of such great concern, Bush and Cheney should be impeached.
4) I asked if the Senator had ANY estimate about how many more years U.S. troop should be in Iraq.
Of course I got no answers about the WMD or the time Estimate...
Ummm, I hate to keep pointing this out, but Georgia is traditionally deep south territory.
What is wrong with the antiwar movement is the same answer as...'What is wrong with the people of Georgia?'
Political abandonment, perpetrated by years of political corruption at every layer breeds a cauldron of poverty, ignorance and people who have been conditioned to believe everything they are told to believe.
It almost worked in Kansas too.
Just contributed $20 to the Tower veteran... I would he stays there the rest of the month.
"We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court," Goldsmith recalls Addington telling him in February 2004.
In his book, Goldsmith claims that Addington and other top officials treated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the same way they handled other laws they objected to: "They blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations," he writes. Goldsmith's first experienced this extraordinary concealment, or "strict compartmentalization," in late 2003 when, he recalls, Addington angrily denied a request by the N.S.A.'s inspector general to see a copy of the Office of Legal Counsel's legal analysis supporting the secret surveillance program. "Before I arrived in O.L.C., not even N.S.A. lawyers were allowed to see the Justice Department's legal analysis of what N.S.A. was doing," Goldsmith writes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/04/top-cheney-aide-were-o_n_63030.html
The White House has scrubbed its Web site of evidence it has reversed its policies on allowing public access to information to which it is legally entitled. However, a source told RAW STORY that the scrub would have no legal implications.
Sometime over the weekend, White House computer technicians removed from government Web sites any references to the Office of Administration or its previous compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.
Where visitors once just found information about how to file public records requests or view annual reports on the Office of Administration's FOIA compliance, the White House has appended the following admonition:
"The Office of Administration, whose sole function is to advise and assist the President, and which has no substantial independent authority, is not subject to FOIA and related authorities.
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/White_House_scrubs_freedom_of_information_0904.html
I am so sick of this bastard.
What's wrong with the anti-destroying America movement?
Apathy Kills
btw, the "Honk To Impeach" sign on the front lawn of a prominent home here in town as been ripped to shreds... hey, kinda like our Constitution, our morale, our nations status in the world, and our future.
Steve Fossetts plane is missing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070904/steve-fossett/
Did I say I love nuns? Man I LOVE NUNS!
“The National Coalition of American Nuns is impelled by conscience to call you to act promptly to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for … high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group wrote in a letter written on behalf of its board members.
The letter says that impeachment is warranted for their “deceiving the public under the false pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction” and “destroying” the reputation of the United States and the good will of other nations.
“The time for impeachment is now — before the example of George W. Bush’s regime is set in stone,” they wrote. “Future generations will thank you for preserving the freedom of our nation and its relation to the entire human community.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
HAHAHA!!
Posted by: Christy at September 4, 2007 03:35 PM
And it's also working in the suburbs of Southern California... to the delight of Republicans and dismay of Democrats.
The state Dems have no clue what the hell they're doing. They have completely turned off the motorists and the sportsmen, for starters - and as you know, EVERYONE in Red California drives, and most of them fish or hunt.
They will lose California at this pace, given that Southern California has 2/3 of the state's population and almost all of the growth.
From the last thread - thanks for sharing your story about the antisocial, anti-world church. The "NOTW" (Not of this world) bumper stickers so common in Red California are of the same symptom. I'm of the belief that antisocial religions have NO place in a civil discourse re: the role of religion in society, because they refuse to play by the society's rules or make it better.
I happened to visit a high-security Navy base in San Diego, Red California today on a job purpose.
Normally my access application is granted without question. But today, they somehow "lost" my application, and I had to be escorted in.
While waiting at the visitor's center, I had the pleasure of watching the 700 Club, with Pat Robertson predicting Huckabee winning the 2008 race.
It looks like I am about to lose my livelihood very soon... and my freedom of/from religion, my right to exist. I'm gonna call my hotelier uncle in British Columbia.
Need I add that they also wanted to know at the base, that (1) I was indeed naturalized (yes), and that (2) my birthplace was a Republican-friendly country (which it is).
Usually, saying that I am a US citizen is enough. But not today.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, who planned to visit Iraq on Tuesday, said that if Bush was considering simply reducing troops below the pre-surge level of 130,000, “that’s not withdrawal.”
“The withdrawal would be getting us out of the middle of that civil war,” Biden said on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “There is virtually no political progress being made ... I hope everyone levels with the American people. This is a civil war and we shouldn’t be in the midst of it.”
msnbc.com
just heard a rumor about Lindsay Graham
Ameriblog
It's a bigger rumor than I imagined.
Also Mitch McConnell.
& the triple murder/suicide involving Republican strategists.. more dirt on that
I don't want to spread the particulars but any sleuths interested, there are bits & pieces all over the place.
Arianna Huffington today wrote that the police should have better things to do than sting operations in bathrooms and I suppose that is true (& given her prior marital background, she may have some personal opinions on the subject).
That said, I would have no interest in these matters were not some of these fellows heavily involved in legislation to limit the rights of others & then acting hypocritically in their own lives.
People in positions of power should practice what they preach.
"(& given her prior marital background, she may have some personal opinions on the subject)."
Ummm, please clarify. I never kept up with her marrige history.
And
"& the triple murder/suicide involving Republican strategists.. more dirt on that"
Was that suppossed to be on Americablog cause I can't find anything on it.
Linkage?
Christy
Even Mother Teresa had doubts about her faith - after what she saw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/29/wteres29.xml
I like nuns too, especially the ones I've stood peace vigil with, those who smeared their own blood on missiles in Colorado and were arrested, and those who were killed in Central America by thugs.
I always imagine the chapel at the hospital is for Kwan Yin, who will not go to heaven until after all living beings, and whose likeness in gold I've worn around my neck for a decade without ever removing it, whose large statue I have in my yard, whose images I collect and have shrines to in my house.
It's a way to go on, and to do good work, without being under threat of hellfire but out of the reminder for compassion. If anyone ends up in hell, it will be those who terrorize others with fear.
Christy
Arianna Huffington used to be married to a gay Republican Senator. She was a Republican as well.
Ok - by popular demand, from Elizabeth, on possible connection between murder/suicide and callboy rings (we got interested in this because of all the Clint Curtis vote cheating issue etc.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs/message/41387
Some links having to do with the issue of gay polticians, outing, etc.:
http://www.blogactive.com (the whole site)
http://www.ameriblog.com (much of the site)
http://www.downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/02/is-lindsey-graham-homo-does-pope-go.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/001240.php
http://www.americablog.com/2006/06/is-your-member-of-congress-defending.html
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=8166
http://www.creoleneworleans.typepad.com/creole_folks/2006/11/republican_gay_.html
http://www.burntorangereport.com/archives/000432.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/10/12155/
Happy Muckraking! I'll join you as soon as I'm .. not here.
"..used to be married to a gay Republican Senator.'
Wow. I totally did not see that coming at all.
Ummm. Wow.
And now her daughter interns for Harry Reid, and her website censors some very interesting things.
The more I know about her, the less I trust her.
I mean, still better than CNN, but, it all seems like incest after a while.
it all seems like incest after a while.
Posted by: Christy at September 4, 2007 07:35 PM
We're all fuQued, thats all I know...
NMP
Holy crap on the other thing.
You know, the only thing I can think of is Jeff Gannon had to come from somewhere.
Seriously, look at the nexus between gay porn sites/ prostitutes, whos getting outed, Abramoff and the Marianas Islands, Hasteret, Foley, even right down to the Schoedinger rape allegations...
All of them have gay, man on man/man on boy sex, running through the middle of them.
It is almost like a group of pedophiles, seeking each other out and putting each other into power.
It all seems to be emenating from george w bush.
I just realized something.
You know those rare people we all seem to know atleast one of, those people (mostly men) who will literally have sex with anything.
Not because they are bisexual, or even gay, they are on that whole other level where they have sex with them to 'punish' them. To use them, like a toilet.
It is not even the thrill of gay sex or 'forbidden' or taboo sex. It is about humiliation and perversion.
It is not even a gay thing. All of them, even vitter seem to have that sexual moral abyss.
Like Rossi says 'Deviants'.
Posted by: not my president at September 4, 2007 07:16 PM
That's a very lovely image of Kwan Yin you're putting out. Isn't she really the personification of compassion?
It all seems to be emenating from george w bush.
Posted by: Christy at September 4, 2007 07:45 PM
http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/BOGROVE.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
Omg yall.
Wanna feel better?
READ THIS!
RAYMORE, MO. -- Talk about a nasty divorce. In an announcement last month that left Missouri politicos agape, state Sen. Chris Koster, a rising Republican star and chairman of the Senate's GOP caucus, abruptly declared himself a Democrat.
Not only did Koster join the marginalized minority party in Missouri, but he did so with a thundering speech that lambasted his former colleagues as ignoring the needs of their constituents and slavishly following the dictates of "religious extremists."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-koster3sep03,1,7404809.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
HeHeHe!
Quotations...
"The club, which holds two-week outings outside San Francisco at the Bohemian Grove, where members run about in the woods naked, includes many former Republican officials...Editor's Note: A brief article on June 11 reported the resignation of David R. Gergen, from the all-male Bohemian Club in California after his appointment as counselor to President Clinton. The article said the club holds two-week outings every summer at which "members run about in the woods naked." Although similar assertions have appeared in various newspapers over the years, The Times should have cited evidence or attribution to support that description of what the members do at the outings, or should have omitted it. Richard K. Arnold, a spokesman for the club, says it is not true. "The New York Times
"The Bohemian Grove, that I attend from time to time — the (inaudible) and the others come there — but it is the most faggy goddamn thing that you would ever imagine. The San Francisco crowd, it's just terrible. I can't even shake hands with anybody from San Francisco." — President Richard M. Nixon, Bohemian Club member starting in 1953 (Domhoff, p 15); [3]
"The mood is reminiscent of high school. There's no end to the pee-pee and penis jokes, suggesting that these men, advanced in so many other ways, were emotionally arrested sometime during adolescence" — Philip Weiss, Spy Magazine journalist, who infiltrated the Grove in 1989.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
Washington outing blogger says 'a few more' to come
The "most feared man" on Capitol Hill promises he's going to release the names of a few more closeted Republicans in the months to come.
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Washington_outing_blogger_says_a_few_0904.html
Olbermann to give special comment on tonight's Countdown.
Monkey I've read up on that sick stuff. Always in the hopes it was damnable lies.
I am scared to even know about such perveted and diseased realities. I don't want it to be true.
There is only so much decent people can take.
I am going to go throw up now. Thanks Monkey.
Breaking News
Sen. Craig reconsidering decision to resign, his spokesman says
Posted by: Christy at September 4, 2007 08:34 PM
From surge to purge... glad I could help.
Political abandonment, perpetrated by years of political corruption at every layer breeds a cauldron of poverty, ignorance and people who have been conditioned to believe everything they are told to believe.
It almost worked in Kansas too.
Posted by: Christy at September 4, 2007 03:35 PM
Yes, Christy. And that's where the real need is. Those people are so hungry for truth that they'll soak it up in a minute if they have an opportunity to change their lives.
Is there anyone on the DCP from Georgia? People, poor people, people of all descents are starving for truth that won't come from their pulpit or their government or their media. It will take lots of people with lots of signs to turn that around.
I hope they can become informed.
McCain faces hard-hitting high schoolers
“Thanks for the question, you little jerk … you’re drafted.”
PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire (CNN) – Sen. John McCain’s visit to Concord High School proved to be more than your average guest speaker appearance Tuesday with the Republican presidential candidate giving and getting a dose of the campaign’s trademark “straight talk.”
During the question and answer session one student rose and asked a pointed question about McCain’s age: “If elected, you’d be older than Ronald Reagan, making you the oldest president. Do you ever worry that like you might die in office or get Alzheimer’s or some other disease that might affect your judgment?”
The Arizona senator chuckled slightly as the “oh my gods” filled the room. In a self-deprecating reference to his memory, McCain said his children have joked about their father “hiding his own Easter eggs,” but quickly added, that he was a “24-7” worker and would out campaign any of his rivals.
McCain then ended the exchange in his quintessential style: “Thanks for the question, you little jerk … you’re drafted.”
Another student then asked McCain a question about what he would do for “LGBT” rights – the initials stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bi Sexual, and Transgender people. McCain was confused by the question and admitted to the audience that he did not know what the initials meant. Once it was clarified, McCain told sophomore William Sleaster that he was opposed to any form of discrimination, but he supported the military’s current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and that he opposed gay marriage.
“I believe that the sanctity of marriage between man and woman is unique and should be preserved, and I understand the controversy that swirls around that issue, and that debate needs to be continued to be held, but I support that position,” McCain said.
“You want to take away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong,” Sleaster followed up.
“I don’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain responded, seeming to enjoy the back and forth.
“I came here looking to see a good leader, I don’t,” Sleaster said before leaving the microphone to some boos and gasps from the audience and an eventual scolding by a school administrator.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/04/mccain-thanks-for-the-question-you-little-jerk/
Posted by: monkey at September 4, 2007 08:42 PM
Thanks monkey, that was a great story about McCain's visit to a school. Sleaster sounds so much like my favourite kids through my years as a teacher. My favourites were always the ones other teachers couldn't stand. I found them intelligent, direct and confident. I guess they were actually smarter than the teachers who didn't like them.
All presidential wannabes need to stand up and address every item that's on that list of Christy's. And more.
And since we've just touched on Wikipedia. Australian leaders like Howard and Costello (PM and his Treasure) have employed people to trawl through Wikipedia and "edit out" the negative stuff about them. In other words, they pay people to delete the truth and insert lies.
If that happens in our teeny weeny government, what's happening to Wikipedia in your Halls of Law and Order?
nmp - I'm just looking up Kuan Yin. Thanks for referring to her. She's a goddess to discover more about.
Posted by: woz at September 4, 2007 09:15 PM
Oh pleeez, there is no such thing as the truth here anymore... it's long gone, never to be seen or heard again... and even if it was, who'd know if it's real or not?
Cynic cyanide.
Howard snubs Bush for footy bash
JOHN Howard joked that he was getting his priorities right by attending the Dally M Rugby League awards rather than personally greeting President Bush when he arrived in Sydney for the APEC summit.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22365266-5013109,00.html
Thanks for voting, here are the results so far:
Should Howard have personally greeted Bush?
Yes 41% (1244 votes)
No 58% (1728 votes)
Total votes Total of 2972 votes
Out of Iraq, but ‘in the neighborhood'?
Senate GOP leader signals a way to reduce Iraq deployment
WASHINGTON - Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky signaled Tuesday that he is looking for “a bipartisan agreement that we need a long-term deployment somewhere in the Middle East in the future” — but he pointedly did not say that accord had to entail maintaining the U.S. deployment in Iraq itself.
He said he hoped the politically charged debate in Congress over Iraq would not lead to an outcome in which “we just bring all the troops back home and thereby expose us once again to the kind of attacks we’ve had here” in the United States or attacks such as the one on the Navy ship USS Cole in 2000.
McConnell said if he and Democrats were able to reach an accord, the American troops would be “in that area of the world… It would be up to the generals to recommend where the troops ought to be. I think we need to be in the neighborhood of where the biggest problem is.”
“It’s an important reminder to Iran that we’re in the neighborhood,” he told reporters in a Capitol Hill briefing.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20585962/from/RS.1/
Ummm,we ARE the biggest problem in the neighborhood...
(insert primal scream here)
Bush's Success
Rating Hits Historic Low
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20070904/pl_cq_politics/bushsuccessratingathistoriclow;_ylt=Ao22JTv3KLMvji1qACrCOyf4R9AF
House Passes Bush-Backed Legislation Just 6 Percent Of The Time
even if it was, who'd know if it's real or not?
Cynic cyanide.
Posted by: monkey at September 4, 2007 09:19 PM
true :( ..... or not
What's even scarier than "into the neighbourhood" of Iraq is the joint American, Australian and Japanese intentions for Guam that I saw last night on TV. The 3 nations are going to sign a pact and line up their nuclear arsenal to point directly into China! I'll try and find the piece and post it in a few minutes.
America, Japan, Australia in Guam....
http://abc.net.au/foreign/content/2007/s2019958.htm
I'd like to pact them - in the compost so that they could at least do something useful for the planet. Nah. Everything their compostedness touched would shrivel and die.
PM, Bush unveil defence pact
September 5, 2007 - 11:20AM
Australia and the United States have agreed to a treaty allowing Australia better access to United States defence equipment, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
Mr Howard made the announcement at a joint press conference in Sydney with US President George Bush, who arrived in Australia last night ahead of the APEC leaders' meeting.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pm-bush-unveil-pact/2007/09/05/1188783280934.html
Calif. ballot proposal's GOP ties (Swift Boater)
Source: Yahoo/AP
Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk's law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago.
Hiltachk has been pushing a proposal to revamp the way California awards its electoral votes, a change Democrats claim would rig the 2008 race. He and Bell are the sole officers of a new political committee, Californians for Equal Representation, that is raising money to place the plan on the ballot in June.
Their success could hinge on whether they get the financial backing to collect more than 400,000 petition signatures needed to qualify the proposal for the ballot. And while Perry has not donated to their cause, his wealth and connections make him a potential financier for a drive that could cost more than $1 million. Running a statewide campaign would cost millions more.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070904/ap_po/california_votes
Scientology faces criminal charges
Source: Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium - A Belgian prosecutor on Tuesday recommended that the U.S.-based Church of Scientology stand trial for fraud and extortion, following a 10-year investigation that concluded the group should be labeled a criminal organization.
...
Van Espen's probe also concluded that Scientology's Brussels-based Europe office and its Belgian missions conducted unlawful practices in medicine, violated privacy laws and used illegal business contracts, said Lieve Pellens, a spokeswoman at the Federal Prosecutors Office.
"They also face charges of being ... a criminal organization," Pellens said in a telephone interview.
...
Investigators have spent the past decade trying to determine how far Scientology went in recruiting converts after numerous complaints were filed with police by ex-members alleging they'd been the victims of intimidation and extortion.
Justice officials seized financial records, correspondence, bank statements and other papers in their decade-long probe to track the flow of money to Scientology. Police also raided the offices of several consultancy firms linked to the Church of Scientology.
Pellens said that prosecutors expect Scientology to mount a strong legal challenge to the charges at a court hearing, which could come in the next two to three months. She acknowledged that could delay the case for years.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070904/ap_on_re_eu/belgium...
Scientology faces criminal charges
Posted by: rossiann at September 4, 2007 11:05 PM
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/09/04/940335-scientology-faces-criminal-charges
People keep sending this. I'm ready to read it!
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/gore200710?currentPage=1
It's about how stupid, petty and erroneous the media was in its coverage of Gore in the 2000 campaign.
Rossian
I wish Scientology would be permanently taken down.
They ruined the life of someone who meant alot to me.
People get sucked in worse than with heroin or "Born Again"
People are doing their homework left and right tonight
Take a look at this, and be sure to look through the comments.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1272/135/
Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/New_book_details_backroom_White_House_0904.html
New book coming out by DOJ lawyer called The Terror Presidency....
Those articles and comments made me paranoid and I have no arsenal, only a loyal cat. Heading to bed.
They ruined the life of someone who meant alot to me.
People get sucked in worse than with heroin or "Born Again"
Posted by: not my president at September 4, 2007 11:49 PM
I can believe that, I just have to watch Tom Cruiz, and his freaky domination of his women, makes you want to puke.
People are doing their homework left and right tonight
Take a look at this, and be sure to look through the comments.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1272/135/
He is the best, I read him every day, he tells it like it is, and he is spot on.
I am listening to them say that Georgie could put Lieberman out there for Gonzales Job, a republican put into his Senate Seat, it would bring the Senate back to 50 50 with Cheney having the deciding vote.
NOw that would not surprise me at all, with Lieberman so up Georgies ass, and so gung ho for the war in Iran. Work right into what Georgie wants.
Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead
http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1272/135/
Darn that man has always be able to put into words, my horror of that night in 2000 when the supreme court stole the election of the Presidency of the USofA
Posted by: woz at September 4, 2007 09:18 PM
woz, I have to rub it in - but Kwan Yin also happens to be a transgender woman, like me. :)
woz, I have to rub it in - but Kwan Yin also happens to be a transgender woman, like me. :)
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at September 5, 2007 01:43 AM
Ally - that's never been a problem to me. :) I just wish the perverted would get stung and have to come out from their thick concrete slab of bigotry, and get swamped in by the hellfire and brimstone they repeatedly spew over us all.
Great! It's good to see that *thinking* is alive and well in State Education in Melbourne and elsewhere.
Students strike over Bush
Dan Harrison
September 5, 2007 - 2:09PM
Up to 300 high school students are protesting on the steps of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station against US president George Bush's visit to Australia.
The Walk-out Against George Bush student strike comes despite Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's urging that they stay at school with their books instead of protesting.
Students gathered outside the station at 1.30pm, watched by up to 20 Victoria Police officers, including four in riot gear.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/students-strike-over-bush/2007/09/05/1188783294413.html
Felix Linden, songwriter, recently completed song, "Dying to come home"
http://www.myspace.com/felixsjam
Now, he was just a boy
When he was deployed,
Now someone must tell mother
That their baby's gone
Somewhere in this world there's a soldier
Dying to come home
Just in case you didn't read the article here are a couple of paragraphs. Well done kids! I love your thinking and your guts!
From the article above:
"Speakers at the rally denounced APEC as a "meeting of gangsters" and Mr Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Hoard as criminals.
"One speaker asked demonstrators to sign a citizens' arrest warrant for Mr Bush, which protesters planned to serve on the US president in Sydney.
"Protesters chanted "No racism/No war/This is what we're fighting for". They carried banners with message such as: "Bush puts the con in conservative" and "World's No 1 terrorist" with a picture of Mr Bush, "Howard equals coward" and "Melbourne says no to Bush"."
Up to 300 high school students are protesting on the steps of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station against US president George Bush's visit to Australia.
Posted by: woz at September 5, 2007 02:32 AM
Good for them.
woz if you have not gone in and read Chris Floyd, make sure you go in and read his posts, have been following him for couple of years, he has always written what I have always felt, and never been articulate enough to put into words, he is one of my favorites for speaking the truth, as I believe it to be
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock: Countdown to Midnight in Persia
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Day after day, almost hour by hour, fresh confirmation comes of the impending American attack on Iran. Yet the same surreal malaise that hung over public affairs before the war of aggression against Iraq has descended again. Everyone knows the war is coming and nothing will stop it, but the strange, ludicrous shadow play of sham "debate" goes on, as if there were some kind of political or diplomatic maneuver out there that could deflect the Bush-Cheney junta from its long-chosen course. But nothing will stop them, just as nothing — not even 10 million people in the streets around the world, the largest protest in human history — stopped them from the rape of Iraq. It's what they want to do — and they will do it.
The latest confirmation arrives from Juan Cole's new spin-off blog, "Global Affairs," where Barnett Rubin writes:
Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this — they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."
Of course I cannot verify this report. But besides all the other pieces of information about this circulating, I heard last week from a former U.S. government contractor. According to this friend, someone in the Department of Defense called, asking for cost estimates for a model for reconstruction in Asia. The former contractor finally concluded that the model was intended for Iran. This anecdote is also inconclusive, but it is consistent with the depth of planning that went into the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have no inside connections anywhere, but I do have a couple of friends who do. And one of them reported last week that one of his friends — with good sources among the Establishment, including the White House — also confirms that the attack on Iran is a done deal, "just a matter of time." Awaiting, no doubt, that post-Labor Day "rollout of product."
Cole also points us to the story by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane, who reported on the study by two respected British academics on the likely course of the coming war. According to Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, former Director of the British American Security Information Council, the war preparations now being made by the Bush Administration bespeak something far beyond a quick punitive strike on Iranian Guards positions or lightning raid on Iran's nuclear power facilities. Instead, what the Bush-Cheney junta envision is the complete destruction of the Iranian state in an aerial blitzkrieg aimed at up to 10,000 targets inside Iran.
The goal, says Plesch and Butcher, is to: cont
http://www.chris-floyd.com/
Baird, a democrat, has just gone on about how successful the surge has been and that we should not pull out the troops. That was on the NewsHour on US PBS.
Posted by: rossiann at September 5, 2007 03:00 AM
I have to wonder who is going to go and rip the guts out of another country Bush and Cheney don't agree with. Their collective paranoia has murdered hundreds of thousands of people so far. But we are winning said 3 of the 4 people interviewed on the Newshour. Where do the BushCheney duo find their military and the money to go and bomb the crap out of Iran? Military Personnel are already saying NO MORE!!
I am so glad that young marine is here in Australia making a lot of sense, while Bush and Howard climb into bed together for the good of all Christian Extremists across the world. Our Terrorists-in-Chief are not finished with their spewing forth of terror across the globe. To all who need to defend themselves against the might of America.
And Israel if Bush has his way. Israel military service is compulsory and it wouldn't be the first time that Bush has called for Israel to bomb places to oblivion. So perhaps he won't need American soldiers. Israel can do it well enough.
Thanks rossi for the intro to Chris Floyd. I hadn't come across him before. At least I don't think I have.
Baird, a democrat, has just gone on about how successful the surge has been and that we should not pull out the troops. That was on the NewsHour on US PBS.
Posted by: woz at September 5, 2007 03:25 AM
Unfrikingbelievable.
YOu know woz I have been posting since Christy got me started, but it is so heartrending, I keep thinking I have to give this up, I have to give this up, but I get up each day and go straight to the news, it takes over your life, and Georgie just get cockier and cockier.
They sure as hell knew who to put their money on when they put Georgie into power, because of the two Jeb and Georgie, Georgie is the psychopath the killing does not matter to him because he has no soul, he is nothing but a shell of a man. Maybe Jeb might not have been the mass killer that Georgie is, he already had his credentials up front, from when he was Gov. what was it 159 odd people put the death, wonder how many where innocent I know of one that was definitely innocent, I wonder how many more there where
I think he must be trying to out do Hitler.
FOR MASS MURDER that is.
Countdown Special Comment: You have no remaining credibility about Iraq, sir.
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment tonight is without a doubt, one of his hardest hitting and most emotional to date. Keith absolutely lays waste to President Bush’s lies and rhetoric about the surge. He contrasts his callous disregard for the truth and the troops between his six hour photo op in Iraq and the interview with Draper released this weekend.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/04/countdown-special-comment-you-have-no-remaining-credibility-about-iraq-sir/
A special comment about lying
Keith Olbermann on the difference between terrorists and critics
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/
Biography paints intimate picture of Bush
‘I cry a lot,’ president shares with journalist who profiled him
WASHINGTON - Under that famously self-confident exterior is a president who weeps — a lot.
President Bush told the author of a new book on his presidency that "I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve" or show anything less than steadfastness in public, especially in a time of war.
"I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me," he said. Yet, he said, "I do tears."
"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."
Bush granted journalist Robert Draper several extended interviews in late 2006 and early 2007, as well as unusual access to his aides, for the book "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," which went on sale Tuesday.
Draper's account of the bulk of Bush's presidency sheds light on a loyal and secretive inner circle that, at least privately, was not always on the same page. Draper tells of an April 2006 dinner at which Bush asked aides for a show of hands on whether his divisive defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, should be fired.
The vote: 7-4 to get rid of him, with Bush siding with those who wanted him kept on for the time being. Rumsfeld was replaced after the elections that fall switched control of the House and Senate to Democrats.
White House aides who wanted Rumsfeld out were privately dismayed when retired generals called publicly for his ouster, fearing that would steel Bush's resolve to keep his defense chief, the book says.
Bush, without addressing that meeting, suggested to the author that the ex-generals did get under his skin.
"My reaction was, 'No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react,'" he said.
Also in the book, Bush:
Acknowledged that sectarian violence after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein was "something we didn't spend a lot of time planning for. We planned for what happens if Saddam and his people dug into Baghdad," and we figured the Iraqi leader was fomenting ethnic divisions that would ease when he was gone. The opposite happened.
Said he wants to make money — "replenishing the ol' coffers" — after his presidency. He said he could make "ridiculous" money on the lecture circuit, citing the experience of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, as well as his own father.
Recalled his drinking days and how faith gave him the discipline to stop. "I wouldn't be president if I kept drinking. You get sloppy, can't make decisions, it clouds your reason, absolutely. I still remember the feeling of a hangover, even though I haven't had a drink in twenty years." He said he ate chocolate in the evenings after he swore off booze, because his body missed the sugar.
Told of a false alarm the night of Sept. 11, 2001, when he and his wife, Laura, were in bed in the White House after the day's traumatic events and a Secret Service agent came to the bedroom and told them to get to the bunker. "They're coming," the agent said. "We're under attack." The couple hurried to the bunker, the president carrying a dog under one arm and a cat under the other, with his wife slipping on a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, feeling blind without her contact lenses. The source of the alarm — a plane in closed airspace over the Potomac River — turned out to be an authorized flight.
Draper, a national correspondent for GQ magazine, is a former editor at Texas Monthly, where he profiled Bush when he was Texas governor.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20594394/
Rossi
That's what is so bad about capital punishment. If there is one innocent person *state-sanctioned* killed, then that's too many.
And even Bush senior didn't kill that many. The military was sent to the Gulf and when they'd achieved the aim, the war was over.
But this Bush - has ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom were innocent civilians, including children. It makes me sick with the carry on about Bush being in Australia. The school kids in Melbourne really gave me heart.
Posted by: woz at September 5, 2007 07:01 AM
Yep, he's killed untold thousands of innocent people, but thankfully, he has Gods shoulder to cry on, so it makes everything a-ok.
Maker Breaker
Bush unlikely to cut troop levels significantly
Military advisors say current strategy working despite poor progress reports
WASHINGTON - President Bush’s senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press Tuesday.
The recommendations from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker come despite independent government findings Tuesday that Baghdad has not met most of the political, military and economic markers set by Congress.
Bush appears set on maintaining the central elements of the policy he announced in January, one senior administration official said after discussions with participants in Bush’s briefings during his surprise visit to an air base in Iraq on Monday.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20589286/
Wow, I'm both shocked AND awed...
Not.
My kids have discovered an age old game. Walk dragging your feet across the carpet, then kiss mommy.
I am about to hurt somebody.
Chertoff promised right-wing group charges against Clinton.
The LA Times reports that in 2001, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, met with the conservative group Judicial Watch and “personally assured” them that he would pursue criminal charges against Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) “in connection with a lavish fundraising event in Los Angeles.” Chertoff is now one of the names mentioned to take over the Justice Department, which has been criticized for a lack of independence.
http://thinkprogress.org/
Posted by: Christy at September 5, 2007 07:45 AM
Shock & awwwwwwwww
TWA 800 FOIA Suit Yields Smoking Gun
More than six years after retired United Airline captain Ray Lahr launched his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition into the fate of TWA Flight 800, the FBI has shown him—likely by accident—one seriously smoking gun.
The Boeing 747 blew up off the coast of Long Island on July 17, 1996. One of the FBI documents received recently by Lahr and his attorney, John Clarke of Washington DC, details a communication that took place six days after the crash:
"On Tuesday, July 23, 1996, a representative from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) advised [the FBI] that after a visual analysis of both the videotape as well as a number of still photographs taken from various portions of the tape, the phenomenon captured by [name redacted] appeared to be consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD [Man-portable air-defense] missile."
“The FBI guy who looked at this must not have read it, or not have realized what it would reveal,” says Lahr. “Otherwise he would have redacted most of it as before.”
Adding a new level of intrigue to the investigation is the fact that the video in question appears to have been shot on July 12, 1996, five days before the crash.
http://www.cashill.com/twa800/twa_foia.htm
Oh man that does not look good.
Hey Monkey, remember when I watched the Columbia explode in the sky right over me? I will never forget pointing my flag at it just as it came to pieces.
It was hard to mistake what I saw, but I went into all kinds of irrattional rationalities. I think I actually went into shock.
My question is... can a missle or rocket fired upwards ever be mistaken for something else? Have you ever heard of something else it could be mistaken for?
So compelling was the visual that the fellow made a comment to his friend, heard on the tape, “They must be testing a rocket.” The fellow calculated that object was heading towards the Atlantic Ocean.
On the document Lahr first received, the story of the video ends right there. The next two paragraphs had been fully redacted.
This current unedited version shows that the FBI took the video seriously enough to bring in the DIA for further analysis. As mentioned above, the DIA found the video image to be “consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD.”
What is shocking is that the authorities not only removed all reference to this video from the official record, but they also removed just about all reference to the DIA.
---------
Ok, just because... But WHY would our government hide it if flight 800 was brought down by a rocket...?
What would the motive be to hide it? I don't get it.
Posted by: Christy at September 5, 2007 08:42 AM
The motive would be to hide failure and incompetence, and to gie the illusion to our citizens and others that we are on top of things, and that such a breach of security here, in the mighty Usofa, is just not possible.
Now ya see it, now you don't.
"Although I have not seen the July 17 video, I have heard from scores, if not hundreds, of credible people who swear they saw it on television in the first hours after the crash. Some have described it to me and other independent investigators in perfect detail."
OH MAN! I wondered how that image got into my head. I saw it too!
They kept stopping the video and circling in red the light trail going upward, just before it intercepted the plane. They even asked.. 'Was this a MISSLE?'.
OMFG. I kept thinking I just must have had some other image of a... I thought it was like a memory I must have made up or inserted just for a visual. I kept thinking, but why would I add in all that detail?
Wow. Wow. Wow.
We are being brain f*cked.
that he would pursue criminal charges against Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) “in connection with a lavish fundraising event in Los Angeles.” Chertoff is now one of the names mentioned to take over the Justice Department, which has been criticized for a lack of independence.
@@@@@@@@@@@@
A high-rolling Hillary fund-raiser has already been indicted in California - for misreporting expenses and contributions. This is just one of the many things the Repubs and the rightwing will bring up about HIllary - in addition to the Marc Rich pardon and her brothers receiving payments from Marc Rich.
There is also the problem of the fugitive/felon, "Hill-Raiser" Hsu raising money for HIllary. Hsu has returned to California to face sentencing.
It stinks...
OMFG! I can remember it now, clear as day.
They showed flight 800 being destroyed by a missle ON TV!
The man that recorded that tape was a VIETNAM VET and he KNEW it was a missle!
OMFG I'm trippin.
Posted by: Christy at September 5, 2007 08:54 AM
If memory serves me correctly, and these daze it rarely does, the late Pierre Salinger presented evidence to that effect as well.
The eyes have it.
BTW with regard to the September showdown on Iraq in Washington:
I have two videos on Iraq running on my local cable access station this month and next. One is a 40 minute video of Sen. Lugar speech on Iraq given in July about all the problems of an Iraqi state ever emerging. The other video is a Code Pink video on the attack/assault on the village of Fallujah.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/13/twa/
SENATOR ISAKSON IS A CHICKENHAWK -
NO MILITARY SEVICE - NONE IN VIETNAM, OF COURES...
ISAKSON, Johnny, a Representative and a Senator from Georgia; born in Atlanta, Fulton County, Ga., December 28, 1944; graduated from the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga., 1966; member of the Georgia state general assembly, 1976-1990; unsuccessful candidate for election as Governor of Georgia, 1990; member of the Georgia state senate, 1993-1996; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1996; chair of the Georgia board of education, 1996; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Sixth Congress by special election to fill the vacancy created when United States Representative Newt Gingrich did not take his seat in the One Hundred Sixth Congress; reelected to the two succeeding Congresses (February 23, 1999-January 3, 2005); was not a candidate for reelection to the House of Representatives, but was elected to the United States Senate in 2004 for the term beginning January 3, 2005. (Source.)
I don't even know what to say. I just feel sick.
Someone MURDERED all those people. How could I miss that when I SAW IT?
I am going to go scrub my skin off and then paint until this ugly world disappears. My head hurts.
4 U.S. troops among 15 killed in Iraq attacks
U.S. forces capture alleged liaison to Iran's elite Quds Force
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three separate attacks in Baghdad killed four U.S. soldiers and at least 11 civilians, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Wednesday.
Three of the soldiers died after their Humvee was hit with an explosively formed penetrator, a type of bomb that the U.S. alleges Iran has been supplying to Shiite militias. Iran denies the accusation.
AP Television News video of the bombing Tuesday in the predominantly Shiite Mashtal neighborhood of eastern Baghdad showed the twisted wreckage of the Humvee burning wildly as soldiers hosed it down with water. Two soldiers were wounded in the attack.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20601969/
Anyone seeing some Iran story "plants" taking place, that could NEVER truly be verified???
Ramping up...
I remember hearing on news about eyewitness accounts where people insisted they saw that flight off Long Island shot down.
llow yourselves a chuckle-Amazon's tags for "Dead Certain"
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Certain-Presidency-George-Bu...
worst president ever (36)
war criminal (27)
joke president (24)
moron (24)
chickenhawk (21)
clown (20)
dumb (19)
idiot (18)
imbecile (17)
cretin (11)
draft dodger (6)
great man (3)
warmonger (3)
awol (2)
born rich (2)
born stupid (2)
dumbya (2)
impeach (2)
impeach now (2)
katrina (2)
mass murderer (2)
monster (2)
save america - impeach bush (2)
war crime (2)
worst american president (2)
2 good 4 2-ply (1)
bad decisions (1)
bird cage liner (1)
cheneys sock puppet (1)
christian (1)
coward (1)
criminal (1)
dead stupid (1)
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evil (1)
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impeach bush (1)
impeach george w bush (1)
inmate 15467 (1)
katrina complicit (1)
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psycho (1)
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religious fanatic (1)
right leader for civilization today (1)
save america by impeaching bush and chen... (1)
scumbag (1)
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At Amazon you can click on them too
Lawyer says Senate should not probe Craig
Idaho Republican may fight to keep Senate seat, reverse guilty plea
One of Sen. Larry Craig’s lawyers said Wednesday the Senate has no business looking into the conduct of one of its own following Craig’s guilty plea in connection with an airport men’s room sex sting.
An unbroken line of precedents dating back 220 years makes clear the Senate does not consider misdemeanor private conduct to be a fit subject of inquiry, asserted Washington attorney Stan Brand.
“We ought to seek to have the committee dismiss this outright,” Brand said of a Senate ethics panel’s investigation. “The Republican leadership called for an ethics investigation that had nothing to do with his office,” said Brand on NBC’s “Today” show.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17152243/
WASHINGTON - (AP) Efforts to rebuild Iraq’s shuttered industrial base, including an infusion of $760 million in U.S. funds over the past year, is making slow progress but has had little success getting Iraqi products to American consumers.
Paul Brinkley, deputy under secretary of defense in charge of business transformation, said Tuesday that the U.S. government spent $180 million of that total in July alone on Iraqi goods and services.
But he acknowledged that U.S. companies, which have many questions and concerns about production and stability in Iraq, are still slow to stock Iraqi products. Considering the state of play in Iraq, Brinkley said, people are cautious about placing orders for Iraqi goods.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20594905/from/RS.3/
Hmm, I wonder what could 760 MILLION dollars do for healthcare or infrastructure in THIS country?
I just went and looked up the passenger list, to see if anyone stuck out as a coincidence (IE target), looky looky.
Beatty, Charles, 50, senior systems engineer with the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va.; of Spotsylvania, Va.
There were some very interesting people on that flight.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/twa800/list01.htm
WASHINGTON - An Air Force squadron commander has been relieved of his command after five nuclear weapons were mistakenly loaded aboard a B-52 bomber and flown cross-country from North Dakota to Louisiana last week.
Five 150-kiloton warheads were attached to cruise missiles that were flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to be dismantled, but the warheads should have been removed.
Military officials insist the warheads remained “under control” at all times and did not pose a danger.
more on...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427730/