Sam Seder Blog down - Open Thread

Use it if you need to.

THE GATES GATE

Today on The Young Turks, Michael Hirsh spoke of Seymour Hersh from the New Yorker Magazine and his latest predictions on the likelihood of strikes against Iran.  The audio segment can be heard here.

During the interview Hirsh discusses the role of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  It wasn't that long ago when many on the left including myself had serious doubts about Roberts ability to maintain objectivity.  While Defense Secretary Gates has long and controversial ties with various Bush administrations, some now look at him as the man who stands in the way of war with Iran.

I only began looking at Robert as a voice of reason when I heard of Admiral Fallon's description of General Petraeus as an Ass Kissing Chicken Shit.  I asked myself how Admiral Fallon got his post at CENTCOM and learned that it was Robert who installed him in that post.  So I say give Robert Gates space.

Michael Hirsh is the first to confirm to me that Gates and Cheney are the opposing voices pulling George into the future.  How can we help Robert?

Today Navy Adm. Mike Mullen is scheduled to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace.  He is already on record as saying the military is over stretched.  Robert Gates also nominated Adm. Mullen as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Let's watch and hope that reason triumphs over greed.  Could the Gates gate be in his choice of nominations?

Unfair Treatment to Kucinich

This should not be done to any of the candidates running for president....

From Media Bloodhound:

Special Report:
WashPo and Time Help ABC Bury Treatment of Kucinich

Following last Sunday's Democratic presidential debate on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Dennis Kucinich's campaign asked ABC News to address issues it had with treatment Rep. Kucinich (D-Ohio) received both during the debate and afterward in ABC's online coverage. In an email sent out to supporters on Wednesday, the campaign said it "submitted objections and inquiries to ABC News representatives on Monday and Tuesday. ABC News representatives have failed to respond - or even acknowledge - those objections and inquiries." I confirmed with the Kucinich campaign yesterday that it has subsequently been forwarded the same response ABC News Executive Director Andrea Jones sent to The Washington Post and Time magazine.

ABC News representatives felt it necessary to answer the Kucinich campaign's objections when Time magazine's National Political Correspondent Karen Tumulty queried them. Writing on the Time blog Swampland, Tumulty initially says of the Kucinich team's issues with ABC's treatment (which included Kucinich not having a chance to speak until 28 minutes into the debate), "These all seemed like fair complaints to me, so I asked ABC News to respond." Then Tumulty says, "In an e-mail, Executive Director Andrea Jones answered him [Kucinich] point by point."

While I give Tumulty credit for contacting ABC News, her investigative journalism unfortunately ends there. Once she receives the email from Jones, Tumulty slips into stenography mode. Jones' "point by point" response to the Kucinich campaign's complaints does not in itself exculpate or dispel any of ABC's wrongdoing. Tumulty fails to assess the accuracy and logic of Jones' answers.

First, just so we're all up to speed, here are the issues (an aggregate of the thousands of complaints received during and after ABC's debate coverage) that the Kucinich campaign asked ABC News to address:

* Congressman Kucinich was apparently deliberately cropped out of a "Politics Page" photo of the candidates.

* Sometime Monday afternoon, after Congressman Kucinich took a commanding lead in ABC's own on-line "Who won the Democratic debate" survey, the survey was dropped from prominence on the website.

* ABC News has not officially reported the results of its online survey.

* After the results of that survey showed Congressman Kucinich winning handily, ABC News, sometime Monday afternoon, replaced the original survey with a second survey asking "Who is winning the Democratic debate?"

* During the early voting Monday afternoon and evening, U.S. Senator Barack Obama was in the lead. By sometime late Monday or early Tuesday morning, Congressman Kucinich regained the lead by a wide margin in this second survey.

* Sometime Tuesday morning, ABC News apparently dropped the second survey from prominence or killed it entirely.

* AND, as every viewer of the nationally televised Sunday Presidential forum is aware, Congressman Kucinich was not given an opportunity to answer a question from moderator George Stephanopoulos until 28 minutes into the program.

Now back to Tumulty commenting on Jones' response [emphasis below is mine]:

This gist of her answer is this: She denies that Kucinich was cropped out of any photo, noting that "there are 20 photos live on the ABC News website, Mr. Kucinich is in a number of them and there is even one of him and his wife. He is one of 6 candidates who got his own photo in the slide show. As for the images, clearly nothing was cropped, the image in question was shot by Charlie Neibergall of the AP not ABC."

FALSE. Had Tumulty - Time magazine's National Political Correspondent and former member of the White House press corps - simply located the original AP photo (which, at most, should've taken a few minutes online), she would've found Kucinich in it and realized the following version ABC News prominently displayed online after the debate had, indeed, been cropped:

So Jones either lied when she said "clearly nothing was cropped" or was misinformed by someone on her staff. Since Tumulty seems to think her job ends with receiving answers from an ABC News spokesperson, she doesn't question the veracity of Jones' assertion, which is clearly false.

Adding to its duplicity, ABC News has now completely replaced the original photograph in question. If you click on the link in Tumulty's post (which is supposed to bring you to that photo), you are now taken to a wholly different shot that includes Dennis Kucinich and is currently the default debate photo sitting on the ABC News website.

So, in case your keeping score, first ABC disappears Kucinich from a photo by cropping him out, then denies it, then later disappears the original cropped photo, replacing it with a separate photo that includes Kucinich, making it appear as if nothing improper ever occurred.

Eat your heart out Fox News.

Tumulty does later post an update after she manages (she doesn't say how) to find her way to a page on the site Pinkraygun that shows the original AP photo and the doctored ABC photo side-by-side. This compels Tumulty to gingerly concede "there does in fact appear to have been some cropping." First, it was either cropped or it wasn't. "Some cropping" gives the impression a whole cropping didn't occur, which it did. Second, if there was "some cropping," then logic follows that Jones either did some lying or some misinforming. That, in turn, means Tumulty should be doing some follow up with Jones. She does not. Third, a question for Tumulty and her editors over at Time: How did you fail to bring this simple fact to light yourselves? You had three main points to investigate - whether a photo was cropped, whether a poll was manipulated and whether Kucinich was allotted a fair amount of time. Arguably, the cropped photo was the most simple and quick of the three to verify. Did you attempt to find this on your own? If so, what's your excuse for initially failing to obtain such readily available evidence? If not, what's your excuse for failing to pursue this evidence in the first place?

On to the poll(s):


She notes that the poll was and is live on ABC's website. (When I checked it, Kucinich was still winning, with Barack Obama a distant second.) She also notes the poll's disclaimer that it is "not a scientific survey," which seems like a decent reason for ABC not to treat it as a news story.

MISLEADING. Jones' statement circumvents the facts and the original thrust of the Kucinich campaign's complaint about the poll. Tumulty's unobtrusive reporting gives the impression the poll has always been up on ABC's site in clear view and at no time were changes made to it.

FACT: The original poll, prominently displayed, asked, "Who won the Democratic debate?" Once Kucinich jumped ahead, this poll was scuttled from its prominence on the site. As it became clear Kucinich was trouncing his competition, ABC just happened to decide to post a new poll asking, "Who is winning the Democratic debate?" As the Kucinich campaign (and Tumulty) correctly cited, Barack Obama had an early lead in this second poll; but when Kucinich pulled ahead by a wide margin, ABC then dropped this poll from prominence, too. (Because the Kucinich camp had difficulty finding the poll after ABC moved it, they questioned whether ABC may have buried the poll "or killed it entirely." It appears ABC didn't kill it entirely; they just made it difficult for users work to find - which, as anyone who knows anything about online usability, is nearly tantamount to killing it). More at link.

And this they call the "Liberial Media"?

NUGENTS NUGGETS

Facing a draft, Nugent bravely wet his pants

Rocker is all talk as he calls Obama, Hillary vile names

August 27, 2007

BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist

So Ted Nugent roams a concert stage while toting automatic weapons, calls Barack Obama "a piece of -----" and says he told Obama to suck on one of his machine-guns. He also calls Hillary Clinton a "worthless bitch" and Dianne Feinstein a "worthless whore."

That Nugent, he's a man's man. He talks the talk and walks the walk, right?

Except when it was time to register for the draft during the Vietnam era. By his own admission, Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment. Creative!

GOLD RECOGNIZES ALBERTO

I took this screen shot of the price of gold as soon as Alberto Gonzales resigned his post.

Hastert Retiring, Will a Dem take his place?

Dennis Hastert isn't running again. Who will take his place? Chris Cillizza from Washinton Post's, The Fix, has some thoughts:

Analysis: Can Dems Pick Up Hastert and Pryce Seats?It's been a bad couple of days for House Republicans, as two senior lawmakers who once held top leadership positions in the GOP caucus -- former Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and ex-Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (Ohio) -- said they will not run for reelection next fall.

We've written before in this space that with Republicans no longer in the majority and a national political environment that looks decidedly unfriendly for GOPers in 2008, it's likely that a number of lawmakers who had been contemplating leaving office in elections past will retire this time around.

Republicans currently have four open seats -- two in Illinois, Hastert's 14th District and Ray LaHood's 18th, Pryce's 15th in Ohio, and the 52nd in California, currently held by Duncan Hunter. (House Democrats are so far losing three lawmakers: Luis Gutierrez in Illinois's 4th, Mark Udall in Colorado's 2nd, and Tom Allen in Maine's 1st.)

Wholesale retirements could leave an underfunded National Republican Congressional Committee hard pressed to cover all of its vulnerabilities, creating the potential for another cycle of significant Democratic gains in the House.

Here's a quick synopsis of the political situation in the districts currently held by Hastert and Pryce. We'll provide this synopsis any time a seat comes open between now and next November. These are meant to be sketches; we'll return to each race with additional analysis as events warrant.

Illinois's 14th District

Geography: The 14th runs west out of Chicago, taking in the population hub of Aurora as well as several smaller towns like Geneva and St. Charles (home of The Fix's in-laws).

Electoral History: President Bush carried the 14th with 55 percent of the vote in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000. Hastert has held the seat easily since 1986.

Candidates: Both sides seem headed for a primary. For Republicans, dairy magnate Jim Oberweis and state Sen. Chris Lauzen are seen as the two most serious contenders. Oberweis has name identification as a result of three unsuccessful statewide races -- twice for Senate (2002, 2004) and once for governor (2006); he also has very deep pockets. Hastert will not likely endorse in the primary race to replace him, but he's made clear that Oberweis is his preferred candidate. Lauzen has held an Aurora-based legislative seat since 1992 and has already formed an exploratory committee for the race.

On the Democratic side, national party officials seem to prefer Bill Foster. Foster, a scientist who spent two decades working at Fermilab in Batavia, is independently wealthy and has already pledged to put $2 million into the race. Foster also released a poll conducted for his campaign in April that showed him trailing Hastert by 27 points but with a generic Democratic candidate ahead of a generic Republican candidate 40 percent to 30 percent. John Laesch, the party's 2006 nominee, looks set to run again. State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, seen by some as the party's strongest candidate, has said she will not run.

Outlook: By the numbers alone, this district shouldn't be all that tough for Republicans to hold. But with Sen. Dick Durbin (D) expected to cruise to reelection in 2008 and the possibility of Sen. Barack Obama on the national ticket, Democrats are increasingly optimistic. The 14th District is not all that dissimilar to Illinois's 8th District, which was won by Rep. Melissa Bean (D) in 2004, and the 6th district, which played host to an expensive and competitive open-seat race in 2006 -- eventually won by now Rep. Peter Roskam (R). One other X-factor in this race is that the district is almost entirely covered by the pricey Chicago media market. If Foster and Oberweis wind up as the nominees, this could be one of the most expensive races in the country.

Sam Seder Show Blog Widget

I'm going to put up this embed widget for people to copy/paste the code. Post Sam's shows on your blog for those who miss the show. I will try to keep it current as soon as the show becomes available.

Embed code available by playing the show. Look for the <> button.

This embed created using SplashCast.

Custom Blog Widget Code:

<p><center><a href="http://samsedershow.com/">
<img border="0" width="200" src="http://www.rancholaluna.net/FREEDOM_FIGHTERS_SML.JPG" height="94"/></a></center>
<center><embed width="200" src="http://web.splashcast.net/go/so/1/p/SQAB7564BF/s/VXUS8580EY" wmode="Transparent" height="150" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/></embed></center></p>

Illinois Action Needed for DuPage County

Operation Turn DuPage Blue Announces


Help us oppose Senate Floor Amendment No. 2 to IL House Bill 1752


State Senator Dan Cronin (a Republican from District 21) has proposed an amendment to House Bill 1752 which seeks to amend the Election Code by making the minimum nomination petition signature requirement for county offices in DuPage County 1.5% (now, 0.5%) of the number of voters in a certain category.

OTDB thinks it is egregious that such a state law would single out DuPage County, seemingly for the purposes of making it three times more difficult for Democratic, and especially grassroots, candidates to run for office.

What makes Sen. Cronin's sponsorship of this amendment even more irksome is that he has recently written letters to the editor stating that, "It has become imminently clear that one-party rule in the General Assembly does not benefit the people we were elected to represent" (Elmhurst Press, 6/14/07) and that Illinois' budget stalemate was "the result of one-party control of our system of governance, which eliminates the need for cooperation and good-faith negotiations" (Daily Herald, 8/7/07).

Below is a list of Representatives. Please chose three or four to contact on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. The vote is on Friday. Let them hear us down in Springfield (and it will certainly echo around DuPage).

List of Representatives

Here's a story I haven't heard on the MSM yet and it's a doozy!

The Italians have uncovered a arms deal that involves the sale of Russian made arms to the Government of Iraq.

Here's the AP story:

Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal By CHARLES J. HANLEY and ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writers
Sun Aug 12, 3:28 PM ET

In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war.

Some guns the U.S. bought for Iraq's police and army are unaccounted for, possibly fallen into the hands of insurgents or sectarian militias. Meanwhile, the planned replacement of the army's AK-47s with U.S.-made M-16s may throw more assault rifles onto the black market. And the weapons free-for-all apparently is spilling over borders: Turkey and Iran complain U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil.

Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.

"Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases," Lt. Col. Daniel Williams of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), which oversees arming and training of the Iraqi police and army, told the AP.

Operation Parabellum, the investigation led by Dario Razzi, anti-Mafia prosecutor in this central Italian city, began in 2005 as a routine investigation into drug trafficking by organized-crime figures, branched out into an inquiry into arms dealing with Libya, and then widened to Iraq.

Court documents obtained by the AP show that Razzi's break came early last year when police monitoring one of the drug suspects covertly opened his luggage as he left on a flight to Libya. Instead of the expected drugs, they found helmets, bulletproof vests and the weapons catalog.

Tapping telephones, monitoring e-mails, Razzi's investigators followed the trail to a group of Italian businessmen, otherwise unrelated to the drug probe, who were working to sell arms to Libya and, by late 2006, to Iraq as well, through offshore companies they set up in Malta and Cyprus.

Four Italians have been arrested and are awaiting court indictment for allegedly creating a criminal association and alleged arms trafficking — trading in weapons without a government license. A fifth Italian is being sought in Africa. In addition, 13 other Italians were arrested on drug charges.

In the documents, Razzi describes it as "strange" that the U.S.-supported Iraqi government would seek such weapons via the black market.

Investigators say the prospect of an Iraq deal was raised last November, when an Iraqi-owned trading firm e-mailed Massimo Bettinotti, 39, owner of the Malta-based MIR Ltd., about whether MIR could supply 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 10,000 machine guns "to the Iraqi Interior Ministry," adding that "this deal is approved by America and Iraq."

The go-between — the Al-Handal General Trading Co. in Dubai — apparently had communicated with Bettinotti earlier about buying night visors and had been told MIR could also procure weapons.

Al-Handal has figured in questionable dealings before, having been identified by U.S. investigators three years ago as a "front company" in Iraq's Oil-for-Food scandal.

The Interior Ministry's need at that point for such a massive weapons shipment is unclear. The U.S. training command had already reported it would arm all Interior Ministry police by the end of 2006 through its own three-year-old program, which as of July 26 has bought 701,000 weapons for the Iraqi army and police with $237 million in U.S. government funds.

Negotiations on the deal progressed quickly in e-mail exchanges between the Italians and Iraqi middlemen of the al-Handal company and its parent al-Thuraya Group. But at times the discussion turned murky and nervous.

The Iraqis alternately indicated the Interior Ministry or "security ministries" would be the end users. At one point, a worried Bettinotti e-mailed, "We prefer to speak about this deal face to face and not by e-mail."

The Italians sent several offers of various types and quantities of rifles, with photos included. The negotiating focused on the source of the weapons: The Iraqi middlemen said their buyer insisted they be Russian-made, but the Italians wanted to sell AK-47s made in China, where they had better contacts.

"We are in a hurry with this deal," an impatient Waleed Noori al-Handal, Jordan-based general manager of the Iraqi firm, wrote the Italians on Nov. 13 in one of the e-mails seen by AP.

He added, in apparent allusion to the shipment's clandestine nature, "You mustn't worry if it's a problem to import these goods directly into Iraq. We can bring the product to another country and then transfer it to Iraq."

By December, the Italians, having found a Bulgarian broker, were offering Russian-made goods: 50,000 AKM rifles, an improved version of the AK-47; 50,000 AKMS rifles, the same gun with folding stock; and 5,000 PKM machine guns.

The Iraqis quibbled over the asking price, $39.7 million, but seemed satisfied. The Italians were set for a $6.6 million profit, the court documents show, and were already discussing air transport for the weapons. At this point prosecutor Razzi acted, seeking an arrest warrant from a Perugia court.

"The negotiation with Iraq is developing very quickly," he wrote the judge.

Bush's puppet government in Iraq has gone behind his back to purchase wearons and we don't know who they are going to. Don't you think this should be on a National News program?

Fed steps in to provide liquidity to market

Sub Prime financing, rate increases, credit debt have thrown the market into termoil. This has caused a worldwide credit problem. Read below for more info:

Fed injects $35 bln, conducts 2nd operation
By Tamawa Kadoya
29 minutes ago

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday provided the banking system with $35 billion in two cash infusions, the largest amount of liquidity in at least four months, adding ample funds for the second day running as financial markets fretted over credit conditions.

Before Wall Street's opening bell, the Fed infused $19 billion in a market operation that was conducted more than an hour before its usual time.

The Fed also took the unusual step of making a rare statement after the first operation -- the first time it's done so since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks -- in an effort to calm investors' fears.

By late morning, the Fed injected $16 billion in a second market operation -- an unusual occurrence for a Friday. The last time the Fed conducted two operations on a Friday was more than two years ago.

U.S. stock indexes sharply cut their morning losses after the Fed's second liquidity injection, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m. (1500 GMT) At midday, stocks still were down, but were well off their intraday lows.

In its statement after Friday's first market operation, the Fed said it would provide liquidity as needed "to facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets.

"In current circumstances, depository institutions may experience unusual funding needs because of dislocations in money and credit markets," it said.

The last time the central bank made a similar statement was after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it also said it would do what was necessary to keep markets functioning normally. The Fed made a similar vow in October 1987 following a precipitous decline in U.S. stock markets.

Central banks worldwide have now injected at least US$323.3 bln in the past 48 hours to prevent markets from spinning into a global liquidity crunch. Short-term interest rates spiked in response to banks' decreased willingness to lend to each other.

The Fed has now added a total of $35 billion of temporary reserves to the banking system through 3-day repurchase agreements, compared with adding $7.5 billion through 3-day repurchase agreements last Friday.

That followed Thursday's total injection of $24 billion in two separate operations.

"Today's action indicates that (Fed policy-makers) are being more pro-active to ensure financial stability," said David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix Asset Advisors in New York.

The fed funds rate was trading at 6 percent in early morning trade, but fell back to 5.25 percent shortly after the operation, in line with the target set by the central bank. It was last trading at 5.25 percent.

The Fed said all of the collateral accepted in the 3-day repos on Friday was mortgage-backed debt.

The Fed added a total of $84.5 billion to its reserves this week, compared with a total of $50.25 billion last week.

Also read what the world banks are doing:

Central banks pour money into bank system
59 minutes ago
FRANKFURT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve and European Central Bank pumped money into the banking system for a second day on Friday to ward off a global credit crisis and the Fed said it stood ready to do more if needed.

UPDATE: The Fed has now added 65 Billion to its reserves today.

John Dean on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

John Dean is an attorney and a disenchanted Conservative. You may remember him from the Nixon years. Here's a little of his Bio with more at the link:

Before becoming Counsel to the President of the United States in July 1970 at age thirty-one, John Dean was Chief Minority Counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, the Associate Director of a law reform commission, and Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He served as Richard Nixon's White House lawyer for a thousand days.

Here's his summation of the Fisa Act Ammendments. This is a must read:

The So-Called Protect America Act: Why Its Sweeping Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Pose Not Only a Civil Liberties Threat, But a Greater Danger As Well
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Aug. 10, 2007

Congressional Democrats are getting a lot of well-earned heat from rank-and-file members of their party, not to mention editorial writers and bloggers, for their lack of spine in refusing to reject the Bush/Cheney Administration's sweeping amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Just before Congress departed for its August recess, the Administration jammed through in five days - from start to finish -- the dubiously titled Protect America Act (PAA) of 2007, over the protest of the Democratic leadership. The only thing good about the PAA is that it is temporary - with a six month expiration date (although surveillance programs authorized under it can operate for up to one year.)

On her Democracy NOW daily program, Amy Goodman's (streaming video) interviewed Salon.com's law blogger, Glenn Greenwald, and the president of the National Lawyers Guild, Marjorie Cohn, about the PAA. The interview nicely sets forth what happened and its broad implications. Simply stated, Bush threatened to make a political issue of any effort by Congressional Democrats to protect the civil liberties of American. Bush surely succeeded beyond his most fervent hope in his intimidation of sixteen Democratic members in the Senate and forty-one Democratic members in the House, earning these members a place on "the roll of shame" in the blogosphere.

A Threat Greater Than That to Civil Liberties: Executive Aggrandizement

The Washington Post, the New York Times, and politically-diverse organizations ranging from the John Birch Society and the Cato Institute to the American Civil Liberties Union all agree that the PAA is a serious mistake, and threat to the civil liberties of Americans. They point out that the law ignores the Fourth Amendment while, at the same time, hiding its actual operations in national security secrecy. Indeed, Congress was not even certain about the full extent of what it has authorized because President Bush and Vice-President Cheney refused to reveal it.

It is not likely that law-abiding Americans will even know that the U.S. Government's intelligence gathering operations are listening in on their calls to and from foreign countries, or similarly scanning emails. For this reason, it is not to be expected that many Americans will care about what the Democratic Congress has given a Republican president who has proven himself insensitive to anyone's privacy other than his own.

There is, however, a threat in this new law even greater than its robbing Americans of their communications privacy, which commentators and critics have virtually ignored. This law is another bold and blatant move by Bush to enhance the powers of the Executive branch at the expense of its constitutional co-equals.

Congress was willing to give Bush the amendments to FISA that would make this law effective under current technology. The 1978 law did not account for the fact that modern digital communications between people outside the United States often is routed through the United States, yet the FISA Court said surveillance of such routed communications required a warrant. Nevertheless, Bush rejected the legislation proposed by the Democrats because it also contained checks on the use of surveillance powers.

This, of course, is consistent with Bush and Cheney's general drive to weaken or eliminate all checks and balances constraining the Executive. This drive was evidenced by countless laws enacted by the Republican-controlled Congresses during the first six years of the Administration, and in countless signing statements added by the President interpreting away any constraints on the Executive. Thus, when even the GOP Congresses required presidential compliance and reporting, they were thwarted.

The most stunning aspect of the Democrats' capitulation is their abandoning of their institutional responsibility to hold the president accountable. The Protect America Act utterly fails to maintain any real check on the president's power to undertake electronic surveillance of literally millions of Americans. This is an invitation to abuse, especially for a president like the current incumbent.

Fixing the Dangerously Deficient Albeit Quickly Sunsetting Protect America Act And Ignoring the White House's Requests For Even More Power

Though it is quite certain abuses of the surveillance powers under the Protect America Act will occur, they have not yet occurred. The failure to provide a check on such potential abuses, however, has already occurred. It represents the greatest failing of the Democratic Congress in acceding to the demands of Bush and Cheney. It is this failure that should be a paramount concern of the Congress when it next addresses this temporary law.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, requesting they develop legislation "addressing the many deficiencies" of the temporary law as soon as Congress returns from its recess.

Even though the White House got everything it demanded from Congress, it is requesting even more. When signing the Protect America Act, Bush said, "When Congress returns in September, the Intelligence Committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, including the important issues of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001."

Bush also wants legislative immunity for the American companies, and government officials (including himself), to protect them from criminal prosecution for violating the criminal provision of FISA. As readers will recall, before Congress caved and gave Bush power to conduct this surveillance, he - and telecommunication companies simply opted to do so illegally. Now, Bush will claim, with some justification, that because Congress has now made legal actions that were previously illegal, it should retroactively clear up this nasty problem facing all those who broke the law at his command.

If the Democrats fail to stand up to the bullying of this weak president, and ignore his demands for more unaccountability, they might as well start looking for another line of work. Not only are their fellow rank and file Democrats going to turn on them in 2008, but the overwhelming numbers of independents who assisted them in regaining power are going to desert them in droves.

At bottom, Democrats truly only need to add one fix to this dangerous law: meaningful accountability. They must do so, or face the consequences.

No one wants to deny the intelligence community all the tools it needs. But regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, no Congress should trust any president with unbridled powers of surveillance over Americans. It is not the way our system is supposed to work.

Lots of Economic news today!

Stock Market dropped like a brick this AM. Here's why...

From the AP:

Stocks plunge on rising credit anxiety
By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer
7 minutes ago

Wall Street plunged in early trading Thursday, yanking the Dow Jones industrials down more than 180 points after a French bank said it was freezing three securities funds that struggled to find liquidity in the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

The announcement by BNP Paribas raised the specter of a widening impact of U.S. credit market problems. The idea that anyone — institutions, investors, companies, individuals — can't get money when they need it unnerved a stock market that has suffered through weeks of intense volatility triggered by concerns about available credit.

A move by the European Central Bank to provide more cash to money markets intensified Wall Street's angst — although the bank's loan of more than $130 billion in overnight funds to banks at a bargain rate of 4 percent was intended to calm investors, Wall Street saw the step as confirmation of the credit markets' problems.

The Federal Reserve followed suit, adding $12 billion to U.S. markets to help ease liquidity constraints, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Bonds rose sharply as investors again sought the relative safety of Treasurys, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note falling to 4.78 percent from 4.89 percent late Wednesday. Bond prices move opposite yields.

Thursday's plunge continued an erratic pattern of triple-digit moves in the Dow for several weeks. There has been more panic and gambling in those moves rather than conviction — even when the Dow has finished up more than 280 points in a session, those gains have evaporated at the first mention of trouble in housing, subprime lending or the credit markets.

In early trading, the Dow fell 185.02, or 1.35 percent, to 13,472.84 after falling more than 200 points.

The Dow on Wednesday finished 2.45 percent below the record close of 14,001.41 reached on July 19. Since passing 14,000, the blue-chip index has been highly volatile — in the 14 trading days since that record close, 10 have seen a triple-digit gain or loss.

Also Thursday, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 24.25, or 1.62 percent, to 1,473.24, while the Nasdaq composite index lost 28.58, or 1.09 percent, to 2,584.40.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell. Light, sweet crude fell $1.03 to $71.12 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Just heard on CNN: Mutual funds are now affected by the European Bank move.

Stay tuned!

China Threatens to crash US Dollars

China holds close to a Trillion dollars of our debt. This is the money Bush borrowed from China to fight his war in Iraq and to give the wealthy Americans tax breaks.

I've been warning my friends and family for several years now, that China, still a Comunist country, could use this debt to destroy our economy by calling in our debt and converting to euros. China has just threatened this very thing.

From the UK Telegraph:

China threatens to trigger US dollar crash
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 1:41am BST 09/08/2007

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US Treasury bonds if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two Chinese officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning, for the first time, that Beijing may use its $1,330bn (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession.

It is estimated that China holds more than $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at China's Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what appears to be government policy, with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he said.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went further yesterday, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse, if it chose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US Treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency," he told China Daily. "Russia, Switzerland and several other countries have reduced their dollar holdings. China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar.

"The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar."

You can read more here.

This morning we get a response from Bush from the AP:

China dollar attack would be 'foolhardy' : Bush Thu Aug 9, 4:05 AM ET

President George W. Bush on Wednesday said China would be "foolhardy" to attempt to push down the dollar in retaliation for US pressure over Beijing's alleged currency manipulation.

Bush said he had not seen the report that Beijing was hinting at such a move, in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, but warned against any attempt by China to hit back at Washington using vast foreign currency reserves.

"That would be foolhardy of them to do that," Bush said in an interview with Fox News, adding he doubted the report was based on sources from the office of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

"If that's the ... position of the government, it would be foolhardy for them to do this."

A researcher at a top government think tank said Thursday China will not sell off its US dollar assets as long as there is no major disagreement with the United States.

Zhang Ming, an economist with the top Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, made the remark after Bush's comments.

"As long as there are no big upheavals in the American economy and there is no serious dispute between China and the United States, the Chinese government will not sell off US dollar assets in any major amounts," Zhang told AFP.

He said that China would stand to lose, too, if the dollar plunged as a result because an estimated two thirds of its 1.3-trillion-dollar foreign exchange reserves are tied up in US-dollar assets, mostly Treasury bonds.

"Neither China nor the United States would rashly touch the yuan exchange rate," Zhang said.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson meanwhile said on CNBC that suggestions that China was considering selling off dollar denominated assets to hammer the already weakened US dollar were "absurd."

"We have tensions and we have to deal with tensions on both sides ... but overall, both of our countries are committed to a constructive economic relationships," said Paulson, who returned from talks with top leaders in China last week.

China said on Friday it would not be pressured into currency reform as Washington and the US Congress renewed calls for it to speed up changes to make the yuan more market-oriented.

The Telegraph reported that two officials at leading Communist Party bodies had given interviews in recent days warning that Beijing might use more than a trillion dollars in foreign reserves as a political weapon in the event of US sanctions designed to punish Beijing for yuan manipulation.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such a move could trigger a crash of the already-falling greenback and a spike in the US bond yields, which could then dampen the beleaguered housing market and put the world's richest economy into a recession.

When asked whether such an option would hurt China more than the United States, Bush said, "Absolutely. I think so."

China reportedly holds some 900 billion dollars in a mix of US bonds.

Granted, if China tried this, the whole world would suffer, however, this is still hanging over or head. Damage would be done to our economy if China sold even a small amount of our debt.

More Bush:

Bush said the United States and China could resolve their differences "in a cordial way" as opposed to the reported option by Beijing of liquidating its vast holdings of US dollars or through legislation by the US Congress imposing sanctions on China.

He cited a high level "strategic economic dialogue" chaired by Paulson and Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi as an effective channel to discuss differences between the two powers.

Bush said the two powers had "a very complex trading relationship" and that it was "very important" for the US economy to have access to the vast Chinese market.

Critics of China in the United States say the yuan currency is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, making Chinese exports cheaper.

Some blame the low currency value for the loss of US manufacturing jobs and a US trade deficit with China that hit 232.5 billion dollars last year, according to Washington's figures.

Bush said Chinese goods had been beneficial for US consumers as they had helped hold down inflation, particularly in the face of rising energy prices.

The First Time

From Sam's bunker.

Don't Worry.....

Bush's Directive to block property...

From the White House's web site:

"Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq."

This defy's the Constitution!

Read this San Francisco Chronicle Editorial:

In Bush we trust - or else
Sunday, August 5, 2007

It doesn't require a subpoena of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or a brave whistle-blower to find President Bush's latest affront to the U.S. Constitution. It's in plain view on the White House Web site: "Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq."

This far-reaching order of July 17 may be Bush's most brazen defiance of the Constitution, which is no small feat for an administration that thinks it can set its own rules on electronic surveillance, torture, kidnapping, rendition, and the designation of "enemy combatants" who can be arrested on U.S. soil and held indefinitely without judicial review.

This one is a frontal assault on the Fifth Amendment, which decrees that the government cannot seize an individual's property without due process.

Under Bush's executive order, the U.S. government has endowed itself with the authority to freeze the American assets of anyone who directly or indirectly assists someone who poses "a significant risk" of committing a violent act that has the purpose or effect of threatening the Iraqi government, the "peace and stability" of the country or the reconstruction effort.

The White House has claimed the order is targeted at people or groups that are helping the insurgents, particularly in Syria or Iran, but the language of the order is far broader than its stated intent.

The order's liberal use of the word "or" and inclusion of the highly subjective term "significant risk" are particularly troubling in the hands of a White House that has suggested that domestic war critics are emboldening U.S. enemies in Iraq.

"On its face, this is the greatest encroachment on civil liberties since the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II," said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who was a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration and author of an article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton.

Fein said the sanctions against suspected violators would amount to "a financial death penalty." The executive order not only calls for the freezing of assets of anyone who directly or indirectly aids our enemies in Iraq, it prohibits anyone else from providing "funds, goods or services" to a blacklisted individual. In other words, a friend or relative could have his or her assets seized for trying to help someone whose bank account is suddenly frozen. An attorney who offered legal help could risk of losing everything he or she owned.

Then again, there's not much need for lawyers in the world of this executive order. The blacklist would be drawn up by the "secretary of treasury, in consultation with the secretary of state and the secretary of defense."

The targets of the property seizures, even American citizens, would not be given any advance notice or opportunity to challenge the government's action in court. The American Civil Liberties Union has noted that an order this sweeping could encompass "entirely innocent" activities such as an donations to humanitarian relief groups that indirectly provide what the U.S. government decides is "material support" to supporters of the insurgency.

"This order could have a serious chilling effect on charitable contributions intended to ease the suffering in Iraq," said Michael German, ACLU national security counsel.

The Fifth Amendment was written for good reason: It's dangerous to give the government unchecked authority to seize private property without judicial review. Our founding fathers knew that people in power were not always going to be reasonable or ethical - or competent.

One need look no further than the Transportation Security Administration's "watch list" - which subjects passengers from a secret list to additional security screening - to see the margin of error. I know: I was among the many thousands of Americans who ended up on the TSA watch list for no apparent reason. I recently made a flight without being flagged for extra scrutiny, but I have no way of knowing whether I was lifted from the list or slipped through the cracks. The government refuses to say who might be on the list - or why. (More at link)

Enough! Have you had enough of this administration? Get active or lose the America you thought you had!

Dems Caved on the FISA ACT-Bush got his way again

From the AFP:

Senate endorses expanded wiretap powers by Stephen Collinson
Fri Aug 3, 11:34 PM ET

The US Senate Friday voted to extend the power of US intelligence agents to eavesdrop on terror suspects, in a victory for the White House after a tense showdown with congressional Democrats.

Democratic leaders balked at White House terms for a deal, but the Senate went ahead and passed a Republican bill which reflected President George W. Bush's requests.

The controversy centered on a program designed to listen in on telephone and email conversations mainly outside the United States, but routed through US-based communications firms.

Senators voted to permit intelligence officers to listen in to such conversations without obtaining prior approval from a special court.

The House of Representatives voted against a Democratic party alternative, but could vote on the version passed in the Senate, which provides rules which expire within six months, in the next few days.

"My Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed administration proposal," said Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, accusing the White House of misusing anti-terror powers in the past.

But White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said the bill would give US spy agencies the tools they needed to fight terrorism.

"It is urgent that this legislation become law as quickly as possible, so we encourage the House of Representatives to swiftly consider and pass this bill."

Democrats were angry because they claimed the Republican approach would allow Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, target of their demands for perjury and impeachment proceedings, to authorize wide-ranging surveillance.

US intelligence czar Mike McConnell however rejected the Democratic alternatives, saying they contained too much "uncertainty.

"I must have certainty in order to protect the nation from attacks that are being planned today to inflict mass casualties on the United States," he said.

The White House wants Congress to endorse eavesdropping on conversations between suspected terrorists abroad without prior court approval.

Democratic proposals allow that, but say individual warrants should be required before agents can listen in on a conversation involving one party in the United States, in a bid to protect civil liberties.

The White House says it is unreasonable to force agents to get the court to agree ahead of time to listen to conversations between a target abroad who makes frequent calls to a contact who happens to be on US soil.

Bush earlier urged Democrats to close the "intelligence gap" in US law, which he said threatened the government's ability to keep Americans safe, and urged them not to start a summer break before passing the bill.

"I'm going to ask Congress to stay in session until they pass a bill that will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States."

The rush to change US law came after a US federal judge earlier this year secretly ruled a key element of the electronic telephone wiretapping program was illegal.

The ruling held that the Bush administration had overstepped its authority in trying to eavesdrop on communications between two locations abroad that are passed through routing stations in US territory.

Republican Senator Christopher Bond, who sponsored the Senate version, warned that failure to act promptly could endanger US security.

It is definately time to have a third party that will stop the direction this country is being pushed. Write your congress people on how disappointed you are in them. Let them know that things must change and soon. Impeach the lot of them and change or ammend the laws to where they were.

Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness!

UPDATE: The House caved too!

House approves foreign wiretap bill

VIDEO -Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley about the FISA ACT

Jonathan Turley is a constitutional lawyer who is interviewed by Keith Olbermann about the updates Bush wants about the FISA Act.

Bush is holding Congress open until they pass a new FISA Act that gives the president more power to spy. He wants to put the DOJ/Alberto Gonzales in charge of this. Watch this video and you will get a good idea of what Bush and his Admin is trying to do. After the major problems with Alberto, Bush wants to give him more to screw up.

Keith Olbermann, Jonathan Turley, FISA Changes 8/3/07

Keith talks with Jonathan Turley about Bush's demand that Congress accede to his demands for FISA changes. 8/3/07

SAM TRIES A NEW FEED

NOTE: This link will disappear with the feed

BREAKING: EPA sides with BP on toxic dumping in Lake Mich.

From NBC5 News:

EPA Gives BP OK For Lake Dumping
Indiana Permit Is Within Federal Pollution Standards
POSTED: 8:49 am CDT August 1, 2007

CHICAGO -- The Environmental Protection Agency has said it will not stop BP from dumping thousands more pounds of toxins into Lake Michigan.
Indiana issued BP a permit that allows it to discharge 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into the lake.

Congress approved a resolution urging Indiana to reconsider, but now the EPA said the permit is valid and well within federal pollution standards.
Indiana also exempted BP from meeting mercury limits for the next five years.

From the Chicago Tribune:

EPA head: Agency won't stop BP refinery wastewater permit
Associated Press
3:55 PM CDT, August 1, 2007
CHICAGO

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not stop a permit that allows a BP refinery in Indiana to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan because it complies fully with the Clean Water Act, the agency's chief says.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said Tuesday he saw nothing wrong with the permit Indiana regulators awarded in June to BP, the first company in years allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes.

Although the federal government has been pushing for more than three decades to eliminate pollution in the Great Lakes, the EPA did not object to the BP permit.

Johnson told The Chicago Tribune in a brief interview Tuesday after a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center that the agency is trying to "work collaboratively" with BP and other companies to improve the condition of the Great Lakes.

"In this case, it's my understanding that Indiana issued a permit that is fully compliant with the Clean Water Act. As an agency we need to honor that permit," he said.

BP, one of the largest polluters of the Great Lakes, won permission from state regulators in June for its Whiting refinery to discharge into the lake 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids -- silty materials left after wastewater is treated and filtered.

BP needed the permit to move ahead with a $3.8 billion refinery expansion to process more heavy Canadian crude oil at the refinery, which is the nation's fourth largest. The permit gives BP until 2012 to meet a stringent standard for mercury pollution set by the EPA in 1995.

In recent years, the EPA has repeatedly stated a goal of "virtually eliminating" pollution in the Great Lakes. Asked how the BP permit squares with that goal, Johnson noted the agency spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year cleaning up polluted sites around the lakes.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted 387-26 to approve a resolution urging Indiana to reconsider the permit.

A coalition of lawmakers implored Johnson last week to put the permit on hold while BP considers additional upgrades. They question why the EPA is allowing BP to increase the amount of pollution it puts into the lake even as the agency addresses years of past contamination. And they demanded to know why EPA officials signed off on the permit when the Clean Water Act prohibits any decline in water quality, even when limits on pollution discharges are met.

"The administrator's comments aren't surprising, but they are unacceptable," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of the lawmakers threatening to punish BP in pending legislation unless the company finds a way to reduce pollution from its refinery.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican and former Bush administration official, has defended the permit, saying it was in compliance with state law. And Tom Easterly, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management commissioner, said the permit imposes even tougher requirements than federal law because Indiana has designated the lake an outstanding state resource deserving special protection.

We cannot let this happen! I cannot believe the EPA will allow this! It's time to demand a change of leadership in the EPA. More Cronyism from the Bush Admin!

DOD BRIEFING REGARDING COLONEL TILLMAN

General Censured for Tillman Investigation Mistakes
By Gerry J. Gilmore

American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, July 31, 2007 – The Army’s senior civilian announced today that a retired three-star general will receive a letter of censure as the result of a review of previous military investigations into the death of Army Spc. Patrick D. Tillman.

 

THURSDAY FUN AHEAD

OFFICIAL HEARING NOTICE / WITNESS LIST:

July 26, 2007

NOTICE OF COMMITTEE HEARINGThe Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing on “Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys? – Part VII” for Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

By order of the Chairman

Witness List

Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on “Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys? – Part VII”
Thursday, August 2, 2007Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 22610:00 a.m.

Karl Rove
The White House

J. Scott Jennings
The White House

DATE: August 2, 2007
TIME: 10:00 AM
ROOM: Dirksen-226
»
Fernando's blog

Countdown: More Political Problems for the Pentagon?

Wes Clark speaking with Keith Olbermann of Countdown about Tillman's death.

DuPage's States Attorney Assaults Free Speech Part 1

DuPage Fight 4 Freedom

Impeachment!

As I have been saying, here, for awhile, Impeachment for this administration is needed for the sake of the Constitution and the Nation. If we do not do something to control this government, who's to say what will happen in the future. This government has stomped on the Constitution long enough. Others have said and I do believe that if we do not do something now, this nation will live under fascism.

From Seattlepi.com:

Talk of impeachment gets louder
By HUBERT G. LOCKEP-I COLUMNIST

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quick to quash any such idea after the Democratic sweep of Congress in last November's election. And the full-page ads from such groups as Why We Can't Wait, calling for the impeachment of the president, were dismissed as just more national noise from the Looney Left -- hardly to be taken seriously in the raging maelstrom of last fall's election politics.

But that was six months ago. Now, in midsummer and on the eve of a congressionally mandated assessment of the unending madness in Iraq, strange and ominous signs are beginning to appear in all sorts of odd and curious quarters, suggesting that this nation should not have to endure another 18 months of the George W. Bush administration and that, if we do, it well might be at the nation's peril.

Much of the current dismay swirls around Vice President Dick Cheney, who is busily ignoring rules of government he doesn't like and declaring his office to be beyond the purview of anyone's scrutiny, while actively setting about to demolish any government agency that has the impertinence to suggest otherwise. Cheney's advocacy of interrogation techniques for "enemy combatants" that many think tantamount to torture, of monitoring phone calls and e-mails without bothering about warrants, and of ignoring the niceties of the Geneva Conventions when dealing with terrorists has put him out of favor even with a growing number of conservatives. Some want to jettison him as a hopeless drag on the Republican Party's electoral prospects next year; others are beginning to join the throng that is convinced Cheney is out of control and needs to be dispatched for the heath and safety of the republic itself.

According to a senior U.S. diplomat, Cheney "kind of runs by his own rules"; he should, therefore, be a prime target for indictment for having cynically broken a whole bucket of U.S. laws. He has become an arrogant symbol for all that is despicable about the current administration and a contemptible example of the danger of letting such a high office fall into the hands of an ideologue.

The media are also speaking these days of a looming constitutional crisis as committee chairs in the House and the Senate confront a White House refusal to provide requested documents regarding the firings of U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department. The chairs of the two judiciary committees are seasoned, tough-minded Democrats who are not likely to take kindly to a flouting of their authority to look over the shoulder of the executive and his minions as they go about managing and manipulating the affairs of government. It's hard to imagine either of them blinking if the White House tries to stare them down.

The last time the nation heard talk of constitutional crises was in the tumultuous second term of the Nixon administration, when first a vice president and then the president himself bit the dust. That's why an op-ed piece in The New York Times last month takes on heightened significance as yet another warning rumble about the Bush White House and its future.

The op-ed was written by Egil Krogh, a Seattle attorney whose name figured prominently in the Nixon years when he was deputy assistant to the president. Krogh, by his own account, wrote the memo that recommended, in the name of "national security," the burglary in 1971 that ultimately led to the Watergate scandal. Krogh incurred a two- to six-year sentence and spent almost five months in prison for his efforts.

In the closing paragraph of his column, Krogh describes sending a memo to the White House staff, shortly after the inauguration of George W. Bush, reminding those who would serve the current president of the importance of personal integrity and of relying on "well-established legal precedents and not some hazy, loose notion of what such phrases as 'national security' and 'commander in chief' could be tortured into meaning." In his last sentence, he wonders "if they received my message."

Six months ago, the mayor of Salt Lake City -- a Democrat no less -- appeared before a committee of our state Senate to speak on behalf of a resolution asking Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush for "heinous human rights violations, breaches of trust, abuses of power injurious to the nation, war crimes and misleading Congress and the American people." Six months ago, hardly anyone took such talk seriously.

What a difference six months can make!

Hubert G. Locke, Seattle, is a retired professor and former dean of the Daniel J. Evans Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

If we don't insist that congress starts impeachment proceedings soon, we will lose the country we know and love. Take a hard look at what has happened because the future of this nation is now in our hands!

A History Lesson which relates to Today

Presenter, Mike Thomson inside US National Archives, Washington DC


Facsim! Corporate Military Complex! Government Coup!

1933 America!

Thanks to one of my favorite bloggers Kevin from Free Democracy blog, here is the story and the well documented BBC Radio transmission:

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

About Mike Thomson:

Mike Thomson worked in national radio, television and newspapers. He presented the Breakfast show on the former Radio 5, worked as a reporter for Sky News and World Service Television and wrote regularly for The Daily Mail, The Independent and The Observer. Mike joined Today in the mid 1990's as a reporter and covered stories across the globe.

Mike has won a number of prestigious awards throughout his career. These include: The Texaco Award for 'Industrial Journalist of the Year' in the early 1990's; A Gold Sony Award in 2002 for Best News Programme: Document; The Day They Made it Rain ; (Which he wrote and presented for Radio 4) Shared a Sony Silver Award in the same year for his contribution to Today's coverage of the race riots in northern England; and won another Sony Gold Award in 2003 for Best News Coverage following his reports for Today on the latest famine to hit Ethiopia.


Go here for the audio of this surprising documentary.

Does this country never learn from history? There should be a great discussion on this!

Paul Craig Roberts calls for Bush impeachment

Do you remember Paul Craig Roberts? He is the father of Reaganomics and a Consrvative. Read what he writes:

From Counterpunch:

Impeach Now
Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.

Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future.

Many attentive people believe that the reason the Bush administration will not bow to expert advice and public opinion and begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq is that the administration intends to rescue its unpopular position with false flag operations that can be used to expand the war to Iran.

Too much is going wrong for the Bush administration: the failure of its Middle East wars, Republican senators jumping ship, Turkish troops massed on northern Iraq's border poised for an invasion to deal with Kurds, and a majority of Americans favoring the impeachment of Cheney and a near-majority favoring Bush's impeachment. The Bush administration desperately needs dramatic events to scare the American people and the Congress back in line with the militarist-police state that Bush and Cheney have fostered.

William Norman Grigg recently wrote that the GOP is "praying for a terrorist strike" to save the party from electoral wipeout in 2008. Chertoff, Cheney, the neocon nazis, and Mossad would have no qualms about saving the bacon for the Republicans, who have enabled Bush to start two unjustified wars, with Iran waiting in the wings to be attacked in a third war.

The Bush administration has tried unsuccessfully to resurrect the terrorist fear factor by infiltrating some blowhard groups and encouraging them to talk about staging "terrorist" events. The talk, encouraged by federal agents, resulted in "terrorist" arrests hyped by the media, but even the captive media was unable to scare people with such transparent sting operations.

If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance.

A series of staged or permitted attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconsevatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states. Success would give the US control over oil, but the main purpose is to eliminate any resistance to Israel's complete absorption of Palestine into Greater Israel.

Think about it. If another 9/11-type "security failure" were not in the works, why would Homeland Security czar Chertoff go to the trouble of convincing the Chicago Tribune that Americans have become complacent about terrorist threats and that he has "a gut feeling" that America will soon be hit hard?

Why would Republican warmonger Rick Santorum say on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that "between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public's (sic) going to have a very different view of this war."

Throughout its existence the US government has staged incidents that the government then used in behalf of purposes that it could not otherwise have pursued. According to a number of writers, false flag operations have been routinely used by the Israeli state. During the Czarist era in Russia, the secret police would set off bombs in order to arrest those the secret police regarded as troublesome. Hitler was a dramatic orchestrator of false flag operations. False flag operations are a commonplace tool of governments.

Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?

Only a diehard minority believes in the honesty and integrity of the Bush-Cheney administration and in the truthfulness of the corporate media.

Hitler, who never achieved majority support in a German election, used the Reichstag fire to fan hysteria and push through the Enabling Act, which made him dictator. Determined tyrants never require majority support in order to overthrow constitutional orders.
The American constitutional system is near to being overthrown. Are coming "terrorist" events of which Chertoff warns and Santorum promises the means for overthrowing our constitutional democracy?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Some Breaking News - Miers, Bolton Face Contempt Charges

From the Gavel

Judiciary Committee to Consider Contempt Proceedings for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton
July 23rd, 2007 by Jesse Lee
From the Judiciary Committee:

House Judiciary Committee to Consider Contempt Proceedings for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) announced that the Committee will meet Wednesday, July 25, at 10:15 am in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building to vote on contempt citations for former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton, following their refusal to comply with subpoenas issued in the U.S. Attorney investigation.

“This investigation, including the reluctant but necessary decision to move forward with contempt, has been a very deliberative process, taking care at each step to respect the Executive Branch’s legitimate prerogatives,” Conyers said. “I’ve allowed the White House and Ms. Miers every opportunity to cooperate with this investigation, either voluntarily or under subpoena. It is still my hope that they will reconsider this hard-line position, and cooperate with our investigation so that we can get to the bottom of this matter.”

The contempt of Congress citations are being considered in response to Miers and Bolton’s failure to comply with subpoenas issued by the Committee for documents and testimony, including Miers’ refusal to even appear at her scheduled hearing on July 12. White House Counsel Fred Fielding alerted the Committee on June 28 that the White House would not provide the documents as required by the subpoena, asserting the President’s executive privilege.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled her support over the weekend:

Pelosi promises congressional contempt charge for Harriet Miers
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle - July 22, 2007

Congress this week will take the next step to force the Bush administration to hand over information about the dismissal of U.S. attorneys and the politicization of the Justice Department, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday.

The House Judiciary Committee will bring contempt of Congress charges against the administration this week, said the San Francisco Democrat. She did not specify who the subject of the action would be, but Pelosi spokesman, Brendan Daly, said later it would be former White House counsel Harriet Miers, who defied a House Judiciary Committee subpoena to appear.

“They have disregarded the call of Congress for information about their politicizing the Department of Justice. We can document that. Those are actual facts and we will bring the contempt of Congress forth,” said Pelosi, who spoke with reporters at a San Francisco workshop for people who want to become U.S. citizens.

This is good news and necessary. The idea of executive privilege has been used wrongly in this instance. Pelosi is bending. Let's see if she will take impeachment off the table now. Just keep sending letters and emails and call her office.

Opinion from the New York Times - Founding Fathers feared Imperial Presidency

Since Bush took office (and I mean "Took") he and his admin have been doing everything in their power to give the president more powers and take away powers from congress. This is an opinion piece, however, our Founding Fathers did fear this would happen. And having just come out of a war fighting for the freedom from a king, another George, they made sure they addressed this issue by placing the checks and balances from the congress into the Constitution.

By taking away the congress' checks and balances for the Executive Office this administration is, in essence, making the Executive Office a dictatorship. This has become a Constitutional Chrisis and must be dealt with now!

Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War

By ADAM COHEN
Published: July 23, 2007

The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn’t have the power to do it. “I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” he said at a recent press conference. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.” He added magnanimously: “I’m certainly interested in their opinion.”

The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.

Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called “the foetus of monarchy.”

The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that “absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal.”

Many critics of the Iraq war are reluctant to suggest that President Bush went into it in anything but good faith. But James Madison, widely known as the father of the Constitution, might have been more skeptical.

“In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed,” he warned. “It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.”

When they drafted the Constitution, Madison and his colleagues wrote their skepticism into the text. In Britain, the king had the authority to declare war, and raise and support armies, among other war powers.

The framers expressly rejected this model and gave these powers not to the president, but to Congress.

The Constitution does make the president “commander in chief,” a title President Bush often invokes. But it does not have the sweeping meaning he suggests. The framers took it from the British military, which used it to denote the highest-ranking official in a theater of battle.

Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be “nothing more” than “first general and admiral,” responsible for “command and direction” of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress’s control over spending as “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

There's more at the link.

The powers that Bush Admin amassed for the executive office are bad enough now but think of future presidents from either party and what they can do to harm this country with these powers.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin on the planned Dem Fillibuster

He gives it to Mitch McConnell about his 60 vote straw-man arguement on the Iraq War vote and he calls down CNN for their report that this fillibuster was a theatrical event.

Watch it:



Keep writing your Senators, or call, or email or all three, and let them know how you feel about the war. The Dems need our input and support and the Repubs need to know how the "people" really feel. Let them know that following strictly to party won't make it any more! Get Active for change!

My greatest fear, Bush will attack Iran

Two news stories have me really concerned. These articles plus all the intel, recently, about a possible attack by Al Qaeda or other terrorists here in the United States.

Lets start with this from Think Progress:

On Heels Of Senate’s Iran Vote, Brownback Declared I’m Ready To Strike Iran

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 97-0 to pass a resolution sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to censure Iran “for what it said was complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.” The resolution required the Bush administration to regularly report to Congress on Iran’s role in Iraq.

While the resolution explicitly rejected authorization for immediate military action, the gist of the resolution declared Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States, thereby laying the foundation for a confrontation with Iran. Newshoggers wrote that the resolution may provide the “political cover for launching a war.”

Validating the concern many felt, Sen. Sam Brownback appeared on Fox News shortly after the vote and declared he was ready to preemptively strike Iran. Host Sean Hannity asked Brownback, “There’s probably going to come a point for the next president that they’re going to have to determine whether to go out and have that preemptive strike. And you’re ready and would be ready to do that?”

“Yes, I am, and I think we have to be,” Brownback answered. “Sean, if we’re going to be serious about this fight, and we’re in this fight, and probably for a generation. We’re probably in this fight for a generation.” Watch it:

The Senate voted 97 to 0 to pass a resolution by Sen. Lieberman to censure Iran! And on top of this story comes one from the UK's Guardian:

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran


· Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
· President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

There is no way this country can take on another war. We don't have enough military for three wars and it would be a mistake to attack Iran without giving diplomacy a chance. And I worry about Russian and China if Bush does this. It's time to impeach.

UPDATE: From Digby's blog:

If that isn't enough of a reason to have voted this amendment to oblivion, consider what Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February:


If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.