Building a Parallel Alternate Universe

Look up north, to Montibello, Quebec, and see what is going on as Canada, Mexico and the USA hold the Security and Prosperity Partnership meetings to the dismay of many Canadians.



Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, of Canada, emulating a typically bush response in a propaganda type effort to minimize the protests:

"I heard it's nothing... A couple of hundred. A hundred. It's sad."

As you get further into the story the reporter actually refutes those facts by disclosing that there were nearly a thousand protesters there. Too bad American reporters don't have that kind of integrity. And HEY! Canadian protesters refuse to get herded into little free speech pens, so they are hidden out of view, and march kind of like real free people. They have got a lot of nerve exercising those rights to free speech and assembly, eh? It is hard to remember exactly what free people actually look like after six years of a bush policed state. Here is a clue to jog your memory:

Some of the demonstrators went to designated protest areas — one in an empty field and the other a picnic area — while others chose to walk down Route 148 toward the hotel.

Some protesters decried the use of designated protest areas, calling them "protest pens."

"They're like cages and they want to keep people in an area where they can manage them," said Trevor Haché, who was part of a caravan of cyclists who rode from Ottawa to join the protest. "We're going to protest where we want to protest. It's our democratic right."

It is also nice to know that while Canadian conservatives are paralleling the Rovian spin doctrines applied generously in this country, with the complicity of the American media, it is at least being questioned and fact checked by Canadian Media, and the evidence broadcast on national television newscasts for your own lyin' eyes to ogle and decide...

Of note, as well, is the fact that they had tried to negotiate some common sense ideas to speed up border crossings between the USA and Canada. BUT which local Connecticut politician's department walks away from the table on this issue?

Joe Lieberman's Department of Homeland Security.

Just another case where Joe republican Lieberman fails to do his job. He has yet to provide any meaningful oversight after the failures to provide any help to the NOLA victims after Hurricane Katrina.

Also of note here is the fact that Mexican President Felipe Calderon actually left the talks early to help his country prepare for Hurricane Dean.

Calderon announced he would be cutting his visit to Canada short to return home on Tuesday as the potentially catastrophic Hurricane Dean headed toward the Yucatan Peninsula...

When Hurricane Katrina hit the US... Nero fiddled.



I would like you to take note of bush's middle finger while pretending to strum a chord in San Diego on August 30th.

Got the message America?

Just quick recap of what George Bush was doing as New Orleans was about to be crushed by Hurricane Katrina via the ThinkProgress Katrina time line:

Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN MISSISSIPPI [Office of the Governor]

5AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

Sunday, August 28

2AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]

MORNING — LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE:Lafayette Daily Advertiser] “Forecasters Fear Levees Won’t Hold Katrina”: “Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow.” [

9:30 AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared,” said Nagin. “This is going to be an unprecedented event.” [Times-Picayune]

AFTERNOON — BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: “‘We were briefing them way before landfall. … It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.’” [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]

4PM CDT — NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. … At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. … Power outages will last for weeks. … Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” [National Weather Service]

LATE PM — REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: “Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer.” [Times-Picayune]

APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]

LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD REQUESTS 700 BUSES FROM FEMA FOR EVACUATIONS: FEMA sends only 100 buses. [Boston Globe]

Monday, August 29

7AM CDT — KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7:30 AM CDT — BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOTIFIED OF THE LEVEE BREACH: The administration finds out that a levee in New Orleans was breached. On this day, 28 “government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, [reported that] that New Orleans levees” were breached. [AP]

8AM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC’s “Today Show”]

11:13 AM CDT - WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]

MORNING — BROWN WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE POTENTIAL DEVASTATION OF KATRINA: In a briefing, Brown warned Bush, “This is, to put it mildly, the big one, I think.” He also voiced concerns that the government may not have the capacity to “respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe” and that the Superdome was ill-equipped to be a refuge of last resort. [AP]

MORNING — MAYFIELD WARNS BUSH ABOUT THE TOPPING OF THE LEVEES: In the same briefing, Max Mayfield, National Hurricane Center Director, warns, “This is a category 5 hurricane, very similar to Hurricane Andrew in the maximum intensity, but there’s a big big difference. This hurricane is much larger than Andrew ever was. I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of lives is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge. … I don’t think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but there’s obviously a very very grave concern.” [AP]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING — BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAINWhite House] [

11AM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

LATE MORNING — LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

4:30PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

8PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]

LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]

Tuesday, August 30

11AM CDT — BUSH SPEAKS ON IRAQ AT NAVAL BASE CORONADOWhite House] [

MIDDAY — CHERTOFF CLAIMS HE FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” But later reports note that the Bush administration learned of the levee breach on Aug. 29. [Meet the Press, 9/4/05; AP]

PENTAGON CLAIMS THERE ARE ENOUGH NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IN REGION: “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.” [WWL-TV]

MASS LOOTING REPORTED, SECURITY SHORTAGE CITED: “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” [AP]

U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]

2PM CDT — PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]

BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

Wednesday, August 31

1:45AM CDT — FEMA REQUESTS AMBULANCES THAT DO NOT EXIST: “Almost 18 hours later, [FEMA] canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, ‘the DOT doesn’t do ambulances.’” [Wall Street Journal]

11:20 AM CDT — FEMA STAFF WARNED BROWN THAT PEOPLE WERE DYING AT THE SUPERDOME: Three hours later, Brown’s press secretary wrote to colleagues complaining that Brown needed more time scheduled to eat at a restaurant: “He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.” [AP]

NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ARRIVE IN LOUSIANA, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND FLORIDA: Troops arrive two days after they are requested. [Boston Globe]

TENS OF THOUSANDS TRAPPED IN SUPERDOME; CONDITIONS DETERIORATE: “A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. ‘We pee on the floor. We are like animals,’ said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. … By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. … At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming.”" [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/05]

PRESIDENT BUSH FINALLY ORGANIZES TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE FEDERAL RESPONSE: Bush says on Tuesday he will “fly to Washington to begin work…with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.” [New York Times, 8/31/05]

JEFFERSON PARISH EMERGENCY DIRECTOR SAYS FOOD AND WATER SUPPLY GONE: “Director Walter Maestri: FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed.” [WWL-TV]

80,000 BELIEVED STRANDED IN NEW ORLEANS: Former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy “estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged President Bush to send more troops.” [Reuters]

3,000 STRANDED AT CONVENTION CENTER WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER: “With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center — and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them — collecting a body was no one’s priority. … Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions.” [Times-Picayune]

PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY DECLARED FOR ENTIRE GULF COAST:WCBS-TV] “After a natural disaster, short and long-term medical problems can occur. Diseases like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and mosquito-borne illnesses tend to break out under these conditions.” [

BUSH SURVEYS DAMAGE FROM AIR FORCE ONE:Fox News] President Bush flew over New Orleans on Air Force One. “During the 35-minute tour, Bush clearly saw from his vantage point the damage to the football stadium in New Orleans as well as the flooded neighborhoods, wiped out bridges and slabs of foundations where houses used to stand.” [

CHERTOFF “EXTREMELY PLEASED WITH THE RESPONSE” OF THE GOVERNMENT: “We are extremely pleased with the response that every element of the federal government, all of our federal partners, have made to this terrible tragedy.” [Department of Homeland Security]

EARLY AM — BLANCO AGAIN TRIES TO REQUEST HELP FROM BUSH: “She was transferred around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with Fran Townsend, the president’s Homeland Security adviser, who tried to reassure her but did not have many specifics. Hours later, Blanco called back and insisted on speaking to the president. When he came on the line, the governor recalled, “I just asked him for help, ‘whatever you have’.” She asked for 40,000 troops.” [Newsweek]

4PM CDT — BUSH GIVES FIRST MAJOR ADDRESS ON KATRINA: “Nothing about the president’s demeanor… — which seemed casual to the point of carelessness — suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.” [New York Times]

7PM CDT — CONDOLEEZZA RICE TAKES IN A BROADWAY SHOW: “On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at ‘Spamalot!, the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.” [New York Post, 9/2/05]

8PM CDT — FEMA DIRECTOR BROWN CLAIMS SURPRISE OVER SIZE OF STORM: “I must say, this storm is much much bigger than anyone expected.” [CNN]

Thursday, September 1

7AM CDT — BUSH CLAIMS NO ONE EXPECTED LEVEES TO BREAK: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” However, as former FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN, “the president knew from our earlier conversations that that was one of my concerns, that the levees could actually breach.” [Situation Room, 3/2/06]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE VISITS U.S. OPEN: “Rice, [in New York] on three days’ vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at Grand Central.” [New York Post]

STILL NO COMMAND AND CONTROL ESTABLISHED: Terry Ebbert, New Orleans Homeland Security Director: “This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.” [Fox News]

2PM CDT — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES “DESPERATE SOS” TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: “This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention centre and don’t anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and we’re running out of supplies.” [Guardian, 9/2/05]

2PM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN CLAIMS NOT TO HAVE HEARD OF REPORTS OF VIOLENCE: “I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that.” [CNN]

NEW ORLEANS “DESCEND[S] INTO ANARCHY”: “Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. ‘This is a desperate SOS,’ the mayor said.” [AP]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE GOES SHOE SHOPPING: “Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, ‘How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!’” [Gawker]

MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY LEARNS OF EVACUEES IN CONVENTION CENTER: “We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need.” [CNN]

Friday, September 2

ROVE-LED CAMPAIGN TO BLAME LOCAL OFFICIALS BEGINS: “Under the command of President Bush’s two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan…to contain the political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.” President Bush’s comments from the Rose Garden Friday morning formed “the start of this campaign.” [New York Times, 9/5/05]

I'll end this where the Rovian spin machine kicked into high gear so that, instead of actually doing something meaningful for New Orleans, President bush could continue campaigning against the interests of America and her citizens. You can find the rest of the Katrina time line here. Meanwhile, you can still find America here:



[ed. note] minor updates for links'n'stuff - cm1

1 Million Deaths in Iraq?

According to this report from The Real News, we may be closing in on 1,000,000 deaths in Iraq that were caused by the invasion and occupation.



Taken from The Real News YouTube video description:

Independent group uses Lancet study to project Iraq death toll

2007-08-10

Last year, the medical journal The Lancet published an estimate of 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq based on a demographic study conducted by field workers questioning people in clusters throughout Iraq.

The group Just Foreign Policy has taken that number and projected it using Iraq Body Count, which tallies deaths reported by Western media sources. This leads to a rough estimate that one million Iraqis have now been killed in the conflict since the U.S.'s 2003 invasion and occupation.

When The Lancet published the 650,000 estimate, President George W. Bush said: "600,000 or whatever they guessed at is just, it's not credible."

We speak to Les Roberts, now at Columbia University, who is co-author of The Lancet piece "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey." Roberts has studied other conflicts, including in Congo, where his estimates have been widely accepted.

We also speak with Robert Naiman of the group Just Foreign Policy.

Why the disparity between the Iraq Body Count numbers and The Lancet study? Patrick Ball of the group Benetech has noted: "Methods such as media reports typically capture violence well when it is moderate, but when it really increases, they miss a great deal." (Ball is a co-author of the book State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996, and wrote the chapter "On the Quantification of Horror: Field Notes on Statistical Analysis of Human Rights Violations" in the book Repression and Mobilization.)

US Soldiers Call Out US Politicians on their BS

Via the NY Times, more soldiers are calling out all those BS artists in DC again:

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

The letter was written by these active duty, serving in Iraq soldiers:

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

I encourage you to read the entire letter if you still don't get the point... Oh yeah, and our allies, the Brits, have had enough too:

The UK Indpendent reports that the British military command wants to get out of Iraq as soon as possible.

Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay.

Last month Gordon Brown said after meeting George Bush at Camp David that the decision to hand over security in Basra province – the last of the four held by the British – "will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground". He added: "Whatever happens, we will make a full statement to Parliament when it returns [in October]."

Two generals told The Independent on Sunday last week that the military advice given to the Prime Minister was, "We've done what we can in the south [of Iraq]". Commanders want to hand over Basra Palace – where 500 British troops are subjected to up to 60 rocket and mortar strikes a day, and resupply convoys have been described as "nightly suicide missions" – by the end of August.

I have a bad feeling that the Brit's experience in the south of Iraq is a precursor for an even more dangerous and humiliating scenario for the American troops to their north.

The soldiers are telling you the truth, and meanwhile political hacks in Washington just don't get it, or refuse to accept the truth:

A soldier puts up a challenge to Congress and the pResident:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation. They don't have to do anything, just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home. And come stay here fifteen months with me.

Veteran activist jimstaro at ePluribus Media Youtubed an ABC report covering this story I blogged about on Saturday:

Spc. Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company Strykers:

We're supposed to be on the way home right now. We were supposed to be flying home in six days. Six days. But because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it. I, I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for fifteen months. I'll do fifteen more months. They don't even have to pay me extra. I just want him to come out here and ride with me another fifteen months.

The politicians all sit there in their cushy offices or their comfy little places on the floor of the House, The Senate, and in the White House. They do not have a fucking clue what they are doing to the soldiers. They do not have a fucking clue how stressed out the military is. How the policies they are all pushing for are breaking the military.

YOU all say YOU support the troops. What a fucking load of crap. If YOU aren't there in Iraq along side them in this endless war that YOU support...

Don't ever fucking tell me YOU support the troops.

That goes for all of you war cheerleaders, Republican and Democratic party alike, that continue to fund this endless disaster. The same thing goes for all of you keyboard and armchair warriors that cheer on the occupation of Iraq but are too hypocritical to spill your own blood in Iraq's desert sands.

Via the NY Times:
More soldiers and their families are speaking up against the Iraq occupation.

sptmck at 1%More Conscious has 100% more well chosen words concerning the soldiers that are mad about the longer deployments and the others that no longer believe in the mission in Iraq.


And this ABC video aired later in response to the original report:

There were other soldiers telling you the truth at the same time as Vassell, last month:

It is pretty plain and simple. You either support the troops by bringing them home... Or you don't support the troops at all. Cut and dry. There are no shades of gray in this.

When soldiers come right out and tell you shit like this it is a serious matter. They must have absolutely no confidence in their leadership or the mission they are being given if they are willing to risk the penalties of speaking out against their orders.

Beth Pyritz, an Army wife in Virginia,
has joined an antiwar group.

“I backed this war from the beginning, but I don’t think I can look my kids in the eyes anymore, if my husband comes home in a wooden box, and tell them he died for a good reason.”

Military Families Speak Out, one such group, which was started in the fall of 2002, now has about 3,500 member families. About 500 of them have joined since January.

Nancy Lessin, a founder of the group, said it was noteworthy that about a hundred military wives living on bases had joined in the last three months. Wives living on bases, she said, are more reluctant than parents of soldiers to speak out.

For Beth Pyritz, 27, who recently joined the group, the turning point came last month when her husband, an Army specialist, left for Iraq for his third deployment.

So it seems that it is going to be up to Congress to actually support the troops by ending the bushies' authorization to wage endless wars. bush won't do it. He never has supported the troops. It remains to be seen if Congress can finally do the right thing here.

Congress is on vacation now, and has yet to do the right thing when it comes to Iraq...

If you are in the minority party of warmongers and are about to try and spin the Iraq occupation with a fake Petraeus report in September, written by the White House, STOP... STOP THE FUCKING BULLSHIT NOW! We The Majority of The American People already don't fucking believe a word you say anymore. And neither do the soldiers. And if you are in the majority party in Congress, STOP PLAYING POLITICS AND START ENDING THE OCCUPATION NOW!

If you haven't got the leadership skills needed to end the occupation now, while you control both the Senate and the House in Congress, than why the hell would we ever give any of you the keys to the White House?

How Enlightened is Connecticut?

How enlightened is Connecticut when it comes to saving electricity by doing something as simple as changing from incandescent to fluorescent light bulbs?







Those numbers look pretty good, right? Think again...

Our state is ranked 40th in the USA in this simplest of actions to help the earth's environment.

When it comes to saving money on our electric bills and being enlightened about green issues Connecticut is looking like a bunch of dimwits.

CIA, FBI Caught Editing Wiki Pages

Sue, at MLN, recently reported on propaganda spammers filling the CFL Wiki pages with garbage:

Well, someone who is doing the nasty work for one SKorchin was easily traced to Fema.gov.

If you've been reading Dailykos, here and here, watching Keith Olbermann, or listening to NPR, you would know that an IP address can now be traced on Wikipedia.

This might help explain why the Katrina victims are still waiting for competent assistance.

Fema.gov vandalizes Lieberman opponent's biography page
by Sue
Fema.gov vandalized the John Orman, chairman of the CFL party's Wiki page.

71.252.64.8 came back as- Multi-RBL check 71.252.64.8 (poker-2.fema.gov) using Robtex. FEMA, of course, is under Homeland Security, which the senator runs.

I also traced another vandalizing IP address to Courtyard Hartford in Cromwell (Mr. Korchin's home town), but that's another story.

Crooks and Liars has the goods on Diebold and FOX "news" playing the propaganda game for their own benefit:

Via Salon:

“Diebold Election Systems” are three words synonymous with the aggressive pursuit of failure. Not only did the company badly implement a dubious concept — unverifiable electronic touch-screen voting machines — but it did so with determined flourish, letting its code and internal communication leak out onto the Web; employing as a chief executive a man who declared he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year”; abusing copyright law in an attempt to quell its critics; and, among many other caught-red-handed indiscretions, deleting criticism of itself from Wikipedia.

No wonder, then, that Diebold Election Systems has decided to steal a page from the playbook of that paragon of corporate responsibility Philip Morris (aka the Altria Group): Diebold will erase its sorry history with a simple name change!

Henceforth, when reaching for an example of mind-boggling incompetence, please say “Premier” rather than “Diebold,” because Diebold Election Systems is now Premier Election Systems.

The name change, the company says in a press release, “signals a new beginning” and a “fresh identity” — though in the same release the firm concedes that it will still be making and pushing the same sorry voting machines (machines that, as Princeton computer scientist Edward Felten and his colleagues showed last year, are actually vulnerable to a virus-based attack). Read more…

It seems Diebold has teamed up with FOXNews in an attempt to re-write history. We have to stay on top of this sort of trickery, especially with the crucial 2008 presidential election on the horizon. Let’s review - Diebold Election Systems is now PREMIER Election Systems.

But, now, even the CIA and the FBI are getting into Wiki propaganda game, adding a governmental censorship twist to the game:

People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.

snip

WikiScanner revealed that CIA computers were used to edit an entry on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A graphic on casualties was edited to add that many figures were estimated and were not broken down by class.

Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited by CIA computers to expand his career history and discuss the merits of a Vietnam War rural pacification program that he headed.

Aerial and satellite images of the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were removed using a computer traced to the FBI, WikiScanner showed.

There is nothing like a Grand Old Propaganda war being carried out by GOP wingnut arm chair warriors, corporations, and the government here in the US of A.

Face the facts wingnuts...

There are too many of us in the reality based world, and too few of you in the slimmest of minority GOP propaganda spinners, for you to get away with your kind of propaganda, censorship and yellow jopurnalism anymore.

Just another war you right-wingnuts will lose.

All Spin Zone has a list of the most active government agencies that are messing with Wikpedia, and a useful reader beware warning:

Want to know what agencies in the U.S. government are making changes to Wikipedia? Try this “top 25″ list on for size (from Government Executive Tech Insider):

1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa.gov) 6,846
2. Department Of Veterans Affairs (va.gov) 4,210
3. Forestry And Fire Protection (ca.gov) 4,148
4. Dept Homeland Security (dhs.gov) 4,081
5. Information Systems U.S. House Of Representatives (house.gov) 3,736
6. National Institutes Of Health (nih.gov) 3,019
7. U.S. Courts (uscourts.gov) 2,869
8. U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture (usda.gov) 2,435
9. City Of New York (nyc.gov) 2,404
10. Salem Public Schools (ct.gov) 2,398
11. U.S. Dept Of Justice (usdoj.gov) 2,189
12. Information Services Division (nd.gov) 2,140
13. U.S. Senate Sergeant At Arms (senate.gov) 1,809
14. Federal Aviation Administration (faa.gov) 1,706
15. NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (noaa.gov) 1,590
16. Dotrspavolpe Center (dot.gov) 1,566
17. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (llnl.gov) 1,456
18. U.S. Department Of Labor/Employment Standards Admin (dol-esa.gov) 1,449
19. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov) 1,449
20. Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov) 1,290
21. National Park Service (nps.gov) 1,214
22. Library Of Congress Information Technology Services (loc.gov) 1,142
23. Social Security Administration (ssa.gov) 1,134
24. U.S. Patent And Trademark Office (uspto.gov) 1,097
25. Virginia Information Technologies Agency (Vita) (virginia.gov) 1,047

Obviously, some of the changes being made were probably benign, in order to correct some factual error - but it’s easy to imagine that the vast majority of changes from government internet domains are being made to change perception. In other words, massaging the propaganda to fit a particular agency’s agenda.

I’ve always maintained that there’s a lot of good info on Wikipedia, but due to the open source nature of the site, it’s important to take what you find, and corroborate it through second and third sources. However, it’s interesting that government agencies have been sooooooooo active in altering entrys into on of the web’s most accessed information sites.

As with all things online, caveat emptor. Multiple sources are your friend.

In other words:

"Trust, but verify!"

The same kind of due diligence and protection that the FISA courts used to provide in the case of spying on Americans until Reid and Pelosi handed the criminal bush administrations the keys to our liberty, but that is a whole other Blog post.

[updtae] Via the Government Executive Tech Blog:

WikiScanner provides "Wired's list of salacious edits" on a stand alone page. The list provides some of the more troublesome edits and from where they originated, including some from government agencies

Bloggers Muzzled by Lawsuits in Canada

A CBC news report on how some Canadian Bloggers are being silenced by lawsuits:



Coming soon to an American court near you... Considering corporations have already tried it here. Remember the Blogger Spocko and his fight with Disney and ABC? But we enjoy a little more protection of our freedom of speech here, as the CBC report points out in their report, and a large chunk of the Blogosphere kicked into high gear spreading the word in Spocko's fight. Without that support Spocko might have been silenced by those corporations.

"What is that? Impeachment?"Judge asks how to stop illegal spying

Via Matt at ThinkProgress, and very disturbing given the outlandish criminal behaviour of the bush administration:

Federal lawyers argued that “almost nothing about the substance of the government’s conduct could be talked about in court,” but that the judges must give executive branch claims of state secrets the “utmost deference.”

The three judges on the court were unsatisfied with the argument, offering various stinging comments and rebuttals:

- “Is it the government’s position that when our country is engaged in a war that the power of the executive when it comes to wiretapping is unchecked?” asked Pregerson.

- “This seems to put us in the ‘trust us’ category. ‘We don’t do it. Trust us. And don’t ask us about it,’” said Judge M. Margaret McKeown.

- “Every ampersand, every comma is top-secret?” queried Judge Michael Daly Hawkins about a withheld document.

- “”Are you saying the courts are to rubber-stamp the determination of the executive of what’s a state secret? What’s our job?” asked Pregerson.

- “I feel like I’m in Alice and Wonderland,” observed McKeown.

When Deputy Solicitor General Greg Garre argued that “other avenues” than the court system were the proper forum for complaints about government surveillance, Pregerson shot back:

“What is that? Impeachment?”

3 judges, all of them very concerned about the legality of the programs, and even more so by King Lame Duck claims that he can be trusted and that the judges can't see the evidence at all in order to decide the case.



"Quack, quack... Nothing to see here!"


"Quack, quack... Move along!"

How Does Your Candidate Measure Up?

Many of us are familiar with the Political Compass. Some at MLN even had their compass score in their signatures for a while, and even took the time to chart some of their own personal scores in March. But do you know where the 2008 Presidential Candidates sit on this political chart?

You should:

My kingdom for a real progressive candidate!

Perhaps you've heard of the Political Compass website, where you can take a test that places you on a grid based on the degree to which you are "left" or "right" on the economic scale as well as how socially libertarian or authoritarian you are.

I'm damn near as moonbatty as it gets: -6.50, -6.67, which puts me in, for lack of a better term, the "deep Southwest" of the grid.

Anyway, thanks to a recent article on London's TimesOnline, we can see how the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates fit on the grid.

This should worry those on the left, and I know that many at MLN scored even further left than I did (I am a Liberal, but I am a moderate Liberal), as they watch the next candidate chosen for the Democratic party who is nothing less than a conservative. That is, if they chose anyone other than Kucinich or Gravel. And right now they aren't even counted in the top 3 contenders.

This is where the Democratic party is failing miserably. They are not really providing any different ideology than the GOP, just a moderate version of it, if they choose any of those conservative candidates on that chart.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden... They are all conservatives, as moderate as some of them may be, they are conservatives nonetheless.

Turkey-Contra Affair?

Black market arms deals...

The attacks were no mystery. What puzzled Turkish police was the weapons' origin. Glocks are high-quality sidearms, but by last year they had practically become common street weapons in Turkey. More than 1,000 had been taken from criminals, guerrillas, terrorists and assassins all over the country, and authorities believed tens of thousands more had found their way onto the black market

There are many more where those came from. At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive "disappearance" and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.

snip

Major U.S. arms transfers began when Gen. David Petraeus was commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq (MNSTC-I), better known as Minsticky. Its mission was to train, arm and organize Iraq's military and police forces, but the Iraqis' weapons came via the State Department, and the supply line was actually run by private contractors.

Drugs...

According to the State Deparment's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs' 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Turkey is a key player in this industry:

Turkey
I. Summary.
Turkey is a major transit route for Southwest Asian opiates to Europe, and serves as a base and refining center for major narcotics traffickers and brokers.... While most of the heroin trafficked via Turkey is marketed in Western Europe, an increasing amount of heroin and opium also is smuggled from Turkey to the U.S., but not in quantities sufficient to have a significant impact on the U.S.
II. Status of Country
Turkey is a major transshipment point. Turkey is also a base of operations for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium, morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs. The majority of these opiates originate in Afghanistan, and are ultimately trafficked to Western Europe. A smaller but still not insignificant amount of heroin is trafficked to the U.S. via Turkey... Turkish authorities continue to seize large amounts of heroin and precursor chemicals, such as acetic anhydride. It is estimated that multi-ton amounts of heroin are smuggled through Turkey each month. Some heroin is still being refined in Turkey.
[SNIP]
Drug Flow/Transit. Turkey remains a major route, refining center and storage, production and staging area, for the flow of heroin to Europe. Turkish-based traffickers and brokers operate in conjunction with narcotics smugglers, laboratory operators, and money launderers in and outside Turkey. They finance and control the smuggling of opiates to and from Turkey. Afghanistan is the source of most of the opiates reaching Turkey. Morphine and heroin base are smuggled overland from Afghanistan and Pakistan via Iran. Opiates and hashish also are smuggled to Turkey overland from Afghanistan via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Traffickers in Turkey illegally acquire the heroin precursor chemical, acetic anhydride, from sources in Western Europe, the Balkans and Russia. For fiscal year 2004, 2,304 liters of acetic anhydride were seized in, or destined for, Turkey. Some criminal elements in Turkey reportedly have interests in heroin laboratories operating near the Iranian-Turkish border in Iran. Turkish-based traffickers control much of the heroin marketed to Western Europe.

That's quite straightforward - Turkey is a key player up and down the value chain - yet the comprehensive 228 page report from Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank essentially ignores Turkey's role using various mechanisms of sophistry and mendacity - just as Sibel predicted.

At least three quarters of all heroin sold in Western Europe comes from Turkey - 4 to 6 tons every month - yet the World Bank report mentions Turkey exactly... once!
Here's the reference, in all it's glory:

The large dealers in both Lashkar Gah city and Kandahar claimed that they deal directly with buyers in Pakistan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

That single reference to Turkey is all that the report could muster.

And republican hacks behind the whole thing too, eh? Not like it hasn't happened before...

It is starting to look like a conspiracy theorist's dream. Or just what Sibel Edmonds was talking about all along. And the State Department keeps popping up in these kindof stories.

Immigration, Exploitation and Religion

Via ctblogger at HatCity Blog, New Milford's Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan talked about immigration, exploitation and and how it relates to religion last Sunday:

As a preview of tomorrow's full report on Sunday's prayer vigil from Kennedy Park, here's remarks from Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan of St. John's Episcopal Church.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

HMMM? She seems mighty familiar... :)

ctblogger promises updates on the event:

I'll have more details on what happened at the prayer vigil, including my rather intense confrontation with one of Elise Marciano's wackos who disrupted the event.

I am guessing there was some sort of nutty immigrant bashing involved. Figure the odds, eh?

The NewsTimes did a writeup on the event:

The unity vigil was organized by Danbury resident Jean Hislop and the Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan of St. John's Episcopal Church with the goal of bringing respect and dignity for the immigrants in the area.

"This vigil was held in recognition that all of us hold the same dreams and aspirations," Hislop said. "We hold the same value in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of our race, our religion or our legal status.

Hislop said the "blatant racism" seen in e-mails being circulated, reader responses to immigration articles on The News-Times Web site, and things she has heard people say to each other on the streets of Danbury had to be addressed and dispelled.

When there are 185 comments on a NewsTimes article there usually is not much point sifting through the garbage that is in there. It is always the same people bashing immigrants using different screen names. Don't get me wrong, there are always some thoughtful comments too, BUT... The thoughtful commenters are wasting their time if they think that the bigots and xenophobes are there to debate honestly.

Tonight on Don't Hijack My Thread Blog Radio

ePluribus Media presents ePluribus Radio

"Don't Hijack My Thread!" is an interactive discussion on today's hot political topics with a progressive slant. Join "rapid fire" hosts Adam Lambert (clammyc) and David Atkins (thereisnospoon)!

Listen Live Online!

8:00 pm EST

Call in to participate:

(718) 508-9410

Don't Hijack My Thread! will be recording another live show this week and we need callers. Think you have what it takes to sit on hold for upwards of five minutes for a few moments of radio obscurity and acute political observation?

Tonight's juicy list of topics include the following:

* Buh-bye Rove. Or is it just a smokescreen?

* Hastert's retirement - another one bites the dust.

* The "Petraeus" Report. Edited and rewritten by the White House.

* Bush declares Iran military "special terrorists".

* FISA - Dems backtracking on new law and govt. plans to use spy satellites on Americans.

* Not "mining" their business. Declining mine safety and lack of consequences under Bush administration.

The show is scheduled to tape every Wednesday, 8:00 PM (EST), though times are subject to change and update, of course! We are still in BETA testing, after all...

For those interested in calling in, the number is: (718) 508-9410

Don't Hijack My Thread is produced with ePluribus Radio, and the site is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=40864

You can stream the show live as it airs or download it an hour after air time.

TIPS FOR CALLERS:

• Please turn the radio off in the background when you go on air
• We can't screen callers or talk to you off-air, so be ready to state your name or blogger handle when we suddenly throw you live, on air with clammy c and the gang!
• Speak LOUD and CLEAR. We are severely limited in terms of our ability to control sound volume and even audio quality. We are looking into ways of increasing production values
• Familiarize yourself with our format and foibles by taking a listen to last week's show, linked in a previous Don't Hijack My Thread! post. Just click the media player embedded for your convenience--you don't have to download ANYTHING.

ePluribus Media

More Whackamole and the game is rigged

Here is a preview of what the juice-box politicians will be throwing out as those success stories that mean we have to stay in Iraq for forever and a day:

Intent on demonstrating progress in Iraq, the top U.S. general there is expected by Bush administration officials to recommend removing American troops soon from several areas where commanders believe security has improved, possibly including Al Anbar province.

According to the officials, Gen. David H. Petraeus is expected to propose the partial pullback in his September status report to Congress, when both the war's critics and supporters plan to reassess its course. Administration officials who support the current troop levels hope Petraeus' recommendations will persuade Congress to reject pressure for a major U.S. withdrawal.

snip

But it does not necessarily follow that Petraeus would call for reducing the overall number of troops in the country. Instead, he could move them to another hot spot, or use them to create a reserve force to counter any rise in violence.

More whackamole where the game is rigged against American citizens and, even worse, against the American soldiers forced to endure endless war from the failed bush propaganda administration. And just remember that the January surge ESCALATION is just a rinse and repeat pattern of failure.

From the LAT ...

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

--Josh Marshall

Just another White House snowjob that will barely resemble the facts on the ground. When will those republican children and their inbred neocon kissing cousins ever learn?

The Kiss Float

Joe Lieberman and George Bush about
to do the neocon wild thing...
Kiss and make war.

This is what happens when you marry car magnet faux support for the troops in an endless war they wouldn't let their children fight even if they might have, by some miracle of logic, wanted to because it is beneath their important positions in American society with the endless war, lying and traitorous military profiteers club.

Kucinich getting kicked for what?

We know that Kucinich is popular across the netroots for his his position on Iraq... So? WTF is this crap?

Iraq war veteran and short-time U.S. Senate candidate Paul Hackett tomorrow will announce his support for Rosemary Palmer, who's trying to move Dennis Kucinich out of Congress.

Palmer, running for the 10th Congressional District nomination, has a tough challenge, but if Hackett were to truly get involved, he might draw some attention for Palmer.

Palmer's 23-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II, was killed in Iraq two years ago. A former teacher, Palmer says that Kucinich seems too preoccupied with his quest to become president to represent the district well.

Kicking Kucinich, one of the few real liberals left in the Democratic party, would be political suicide on the party's part.

I don't live in OH-10, but what the party does across the country reflects on every other candidate. Connecticut Dems and indies didn't work their asses off in an effort to ditch Joe neocon Lieberman in order to drag the Democratic party kicking and screaming that tiny amount to the left for the pleasure of watching the rest of the party in other parts of the country losing their effin' minds on right wing crack.

No offense to Palmer, but the Dems need more Kucinich type candidates. There is nothing controversial about Kucinich's Iraq position. Most Americans agree with it.

If this is the Democratic party's answer to all of the problems in Iraq, then this country is fucked. And so is the Dem party.

New Kid in Town

Hello world!

My name is Edward and I was born at 5:17 PM on Thursday, August 9th, 2007. I drink liberally just like my Daddy... Got milk? And does anyone know what that shiny flashy thingie Daddy keeps pointing at me is? It looks yummy!

I may keep Daddy busy for the next couple of days.

Young Republicans on Sex and Iraq

A Young Republican resigns:

On Tuesday afternoon, Glenn Murphy Jr. e-mailed media outlets a letter announcing his resignation from both positions, citing an unexpected business opportunity that would prohibit him from holding a partisan political office.

Now... Just what was that great business opportunity?

The chairman of the Clark County Republican Party — who last month was elected president of the Young Republican National Federation — has resigned both posts, apparently in the wake of a criminal investigation.

snip

However, the Clark County Sheriff’s Department on Friday began investigating Murphy for alleged criminal deviate conduct — potentially a class B felony — after speaking with a 22-year-old man who claimed that on July 31, Murphy performed an unwanted sex act on him while the man slept in a relative’s Jeffersonville home.

Murphy, a 33-year-old Utica resident, has not been arrested nor has he been charged with a crime. A copy of the police report has been posted on an politically focused Internet site and another was provided to a reporter with The Evening News and The Tribune on Tuesday evening.

Ok... Sounds like Murphy might be thinking about a somnambulic version of Florida state Rep. Bob Allen's business model, BUT without money changing hands.

Sexual Perversity in Jeffersonville?
Or "About Last Night"

It's not like this Young Republican has a history of breaking the law, right?

In 1998, a 21-year-old male filed a similar report with Clarksville police claiming Murphy attempted to perform a sex act on him while he was sleeping. Charges were never filed in that case.

If he isn't breaking the law, he certainly has some typically sick Republican ideas of what sex is all about?

In a shocking police report filed by the Clark Co. Sheriff's office, Murphy is accused of sexually assaulting another man on Saturday, July 28, 2007, while he lay sleeping in his bed. The alleged assault of the 22-year-old man took place in the Jeffersonville, Indiana home of his sister following a Young Republican party in which both Murphy and the 22-year-old man had been in attendance. The victim's sister had urged both men to spend the night at her home because of the amount of alcohol the two had consumed during the party. The victim awoke in the morning to find Murphy performing oral sex on him according to the report. When the victim asked Murphy what he was doing, he responded: "He was holding his dick with one hand and sucking my dick with his mouth." The victim then pushed Murphy away, gathered his personal belongings and left. Murphy was later confronted with the charges by the victim's sister according to the report. The sister says Murphy admitted to her that he performed the sex act on her brother.

It certainly sucks to be Murphy right now.
Via Yoss... A money quote:

Thanks to exmearden for this quote:

"I will essentially be the mouthpiece and effective leader for the tens of thousands of Young Republicans, 18 to 40, across the country," said Murphy, who took a vacation following the organization’s convention and returned to Clark County last weekend.

Leaving little doubt how he originally got the overwhelming support of Young Republicans across the nation... And even less doubt why the Young Republicans are busy scrubbing their sites of the many pictures and references to Murphy they had all over the net...

The Young Republicans have quietly and quickly scrubbed any mention of their fallen leader, although the Indiana site hasn't.

Google Cache reveals that the site had Murphy all over it, including a YouTube appeal for GOP presidential contenders to participate in the upcoming YouTube debate. The video has since been removed as well.

snip

Here is the Google Cache of the now-defunct Team Murphy! campaign website.

In other news, Romney's Young Republican spawn seems to believe they are above serving the country by actually going to the endless occupation of Iraq they claim support - another republican perversion, this time, of logic - and would prefer to try and doom this nation with another 4 years of whackjob GOP presidential doom:

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."

Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for "a surge of support" for U.S. forces in Iraq.

snip

The woman who asked the question, Rachel Griffiths, 41, of Milan, Ill., identified herself as a member of Quad City Progressive Action for the Common Good, as well as the sister of an Army major who had served in Iraq.

"Of course not," Griffiths said when asked if she was satisfied with Romney's answer. "He told me the way his son shows support for our military and our nation is to buy a Winnebago and ride across Iowa and help him get elected."

I think that if these Romney chickenhawks are unwilling to put their lives on the line, and spill their own blood in Iraq's desert sand in an endless occupation that they falsely claim to support, then they suck just as much as their fellow Young Republican, Murphy.

Put That Conservative CT Blog in the Ignorant File

Have a couple of laughs at Cttaxed's expense:

We in Connecticut know the founder of the Kos was a strong supporter of Lamont in his bid to unseat Senator Lieberman. Most of us also know the Kos is generally speaking shall we say, left leaning.

Everyone in the Blogosphere already knows that Kos, the founder of dailyKos, is a Libertarian, and a right leaning one at that given the fact that he was Reagan Republican that ran from the GOP when the Republican party started to go completely insane on religion and war.

Now... As for this really asinine comment:

The traffic on reddit.com has gotten silly and boring with the constant calls for impeachment of Bush, Cheney, and the horse they rode in on.

Take it up with the majority of the American public that thinks that bush, cheney and their fellow criminals should be impeached for the sake of this nation. You few pathetic moonbat bush supporters left barking at the moon ought to be getting the point of just how irrelevant your whinings on this and pretty much any other subject truly are now.

Or are you really that ignorant on the value of your opinions in the public debate now? On second thought, nevermind the obvious.

Here you go, cttaxed, and just for you:

Some cheese to go with that whine...

Maybe it will be enough to tempt you to jump ship along with the bulk of the republican rats that were a little smarter and faster than yourself.

Thought new FISA laws would sunset in 6 months...

Then you better think again...

Constitutional scholar Marty Lederman points out a little-noticed provision of the law that shouldn't surprise any of us:

Although section 6(c) provides that the operative provisions of the Act "shall cease to have effect 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act," i.e., on February 1, 2008, there is an express exception in section 6(d), which reads as follows:

AUTHORIZATIONS IN EFFECT.—Authorizations for the acquisition of foreign intelligence information pursuant to the amendments made by this Act, and directives issued pursuant to such authorizations, shall remain in effect until their expiration. Such acquisitions shall be governed by the applicable provisions of such amendments and shall not be deemed to constitute electronic surveillance as that term is defined in section 101(f) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801(f)).

Thus, "acquisitions" authorized by Attorney General Gonzales will be permissible for one year, even if that period extends beyond the ostensible February 1, 2008 sunset date. I think it's fair to assume that the Attorney General will authorize a system of such acquisitions on or close to February 1, 2008, which will mean that the warrantless surveillance can continue until . . . February 1, 2009, or twelve days after the next President is sworn in.

That's right. Dubya and Attorney General Gonzales didn't get a six-month window in which to spy on everyone and everything—the PAA gives them 18 months.

Essentially, the criminal bush administration has just been given the right to spy on you - barring someone sane impeaching them all OR changing the law - right up until until the end of this nightmare regime.

Think about this. They will still be able to spy on Americans right up through the next election cycle... Right on until a couple of weeks after the next president takes their oath of office.

Via Cannonfire, and emphasis mine:

Picture two teams pitted against each other: Ashcroft, Mueller and Comey on one side; Gonzales, Cheney, Bush and Andy Card (and Rove?) on the other. Somewhere in the middle is the MAEP.

Cheney felt that the decision could not be put off until Ashcroft got out of the hospital. The hospital incident took place on March 10, 2004.

The crisis in March 2004 stemmed from a review of the program by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which raised "concerns as to our ability to certify its legality," according to Comey's testimony. Ashcroft was briefed on the findings on March 4 and agreed that changes needed to be made, Comey said.

Then came Ashcroft's illness and, on March 10, the mad rush to the hospital room, as Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card tried to get the gravely ill non-acting A.G. to sign off on the program. Robert Mueller called up the security guys protecting Ashcroft and told them that no matter what Gonzales or Card did or said, Comey was not to be kept out that room. Ultimately, Ashcroft told Cheney's henchmen that Comey was the acting AG and that he, Ashcroft could do nothing. (In this case, I think we can presume that "could" means "would.")

Ashcroft left office, for reasons still not fully understood, in February of 2005. You-know-who replaced him.

So what made the NSA program a matter of such dire concern on the might of March 10-11?

In the past, I've offered the opinion that the Mother of All Eavesdropping Programs was being used to spy on political opponents. I still have strong suspicions along those lines. However:

The next day, as terrorist bombs killed more than 200 commuters on rail lines in Madrid, the White House approved the executive order without any signature from the Justice Department certifying its legality. Comey responded by drafting his letter of resignation, effective the next day, March 12.

Comey was persuaded to stay after Bush promised unspecified changes to the law.

Could the race to the hospital have had any connection to the Madrid bombings? Did the Bush administration have advance warning of the plot?

One would have thought that, after Risen's article came out, the Bushies would have used Madrid as a propaganda point: "We could have prevented tragedy in Spain," that sort of thing. But they never made any real attempt to sound that note, although Gonzales did make a brief en passant mention of Madrid during his testimony.

On the other hand, if the Bushies were (say) spying on John Kerry, Comey probably would have so testified -- if, in fact, Comey knew. It may be that Comey had suspicions but did not know.

You all remember the rumors of the bushy campaign supposedly spying on Kerry. Questions still remain about testimony that left everyone in the Blogosphere scrastching their heads and asking if there was more than just the one illegal spying operation going on that everyone already knew about from the whistleblower Or just how much bigger it was than just simply spying on the real terrorists?

From TPM Muckraker, an except of their roundup on what we knew at the end of July on the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) and what they termed "Program X":

Unfortunately for Gonzales, not even he has been able to keep the distinction between the Terrorist Surveillance Program and Program X straight. During a June 5th press conference this year, he said that Comey's dispute “related to a highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago” – precisely the opposite of what he’d testified before. By way of explanation, Gonzales testified Tuesday that his spokesman had subsequently contacted the reporter who’d asked the question, Dan Eggen of The Washington Post, to retract that statement.

Despite that embarrassing admission, Gonzales hewed to the same line this Tuesday he’d taken in the hearing the previous February, saying that Comey’s disagreement was “not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.” He maintained that line under blistering questioning – including the questions of senators, such as Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who also sit on the Senate intelligence committee and have been briefed on the program.

Following Gonzales' testimony, Democrats' contention that there was only one warrantless surveillance program was bolstered by the release of a May 2006 letter from John Negroponte, then the director of national intelligence, specifying that the March 10, 2004 meeting was, indeed, a TSP meeting. In response, an anonymous DOJ official told the Washington Post that in his testimony on Tuesday Gonzales "did not say that the TSP was not discussed at the meeting" -- underscoring the absurdity of the distinction that the administration is still trying to draw. Similarly, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee today that he and Comey had objections to the "much discussed" NSA program, a reference clear in context to the TSP.

In essence, the issue is this: if Gonzales succeeds in convincing the committee that there really is a material distinction between the program as it existed before and after Comey’s intervention, he won't just save himself from perjury. He will perhaps have preserved an administration strategy of concealing the scope of Program X from the public and most of Congress -- making it appear that the program that Bush disclosed in December 2005, incorporating Comey's objections, is the same program that existed since October 2001, long before Comey put the brakes on at least some aspects of it. That may be at the heart of the White House's claim of executive privilege to prevent the Senate Judiciary Committee from seeing documents detailing the genesis of Program X.

We may be about to learn whether a perjury investigation will pierce the obfuscations and begin to explore the extent of Program X -- a program the American public was never supposed to know about.

We have known for a long time that the FBI has been spying on "peace activists", and groups that oppose the Iraq invasion - You know? The liberal-peacenik, Quaker and Gold Star Mom Types - BUT...

What if this list of people included even the politicians that were working for ending this war? From the moderately Conservative Clintons ,to the more Centrist Kerry types, and certainly including the more Liberal Kucinich type politicians, the GOP and their mangled government institutionalist supporters seeking an eternal GOP government view them all as the enemy and are determined to keep this war going.

Think about how many times the criminal bush administration and it's supporters have said that all of us "liberal peaceniks" are "giving comfort to the enemy." Do you honestly think it would be below the gutter level of bush to authorize spying on all of those politicians they throw that same "aiding the enemy" label at, like Hillary Clinton, as well?

You would have to be a fool to assume otherwise given the already documented criminality of almost everyone involved in the bush administration from the preznit on down.

Doing what you can for INTERNET FREEDOM

skippy the bush kangaroo was shaking the longtail Blogs again, and this time pointing at Monkeyfister, who is about 40 hits away from rolling the counter over 50,000. Not bad for somewhere around the 1 year mark on a longtail Blog.

Anyways, while I was over there giving props to Monkeyfister I found this awesome message from Henry Rollins:


Your Freedom is Under Attack!



If you are unsure about exactly what Henry Rollins is talking about, concerning your internet freedom, well, you can find out more about it at Save the Internet where they will also tell you what you can do about it.

Joe neocon Lieberman and Iraq

According to the Waterbury Neocon American propaganda paper everything is just hunky dory right now:

Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the liberal Brookings Institute have been among the harshest critics of the war. But after an eight-day trip to Iraq, they find the political debate in Washington "surreal."

In "A War We Just Might Win" buried in the July 30 New York Times, they say the Surrendercrats gave up and neo-anti-war Republicans defected too soon: "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. We were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

snip

"(N)o more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave."

U.S. forces continue to help to build electricity, drinking-water and sanitation systems for the Iraqis. Sunnis and Shiites are setting aside ancient hatreds and working together, and not just on the soccer field. Streets that saw the worst sectarian combat are "coming back to life" while "the outpouring of popular animus" against al-Qaida is overwhelming. Iraqi soldiers and police are rapidly supplanting U.S. security forces in some northern cities. More must be done, but "the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008."

Messrs. O'Hanlon and Pollack say war critics "seem unaware of the significant changes taking place" in Iraq. They are too charitable.

Indeed they are being too charitable, BUT only to the neoconservative rags. But I would expect nothing less from conservatives like O'hanlon and Pollack. And don't give me that "Liberal" BS in the same sentence as the Brookings Institute. and nevermind the fact that a neocon rag is trying to tie the word "neo" to the overwhelming number of Americans that see the Iraq farce for what it is.

Let us take a quick look at just how great things are going, OK?

Iraq’s political crisis worsened Monday as five more ministers announced a boycott of Cabinet meetings — leaving the embattled prime minister’s unity government with no members affiliated with Sunni political factions.

Ok. Not so good politically.

The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon cannot track about 30% of the weapons distributed in Iraq over the past three years.

Ouch. Not so good on rebuilding the Iraq military either, as many of those weapons are now shooting back at Americans. Likely, more weapons than Iran could ever give to the insurgents.

Iraq's national power grid is on the brink of collapse, the country's electricity ministry has warned.

Water supplies to Baghdad have also been cut off for days at a time, with summertime pressures on key systems said to be more intense than ever.

UMMM? So much for rebuilding the the electric grid and water plants that those smiley neocon enablers are so happy about.

Fresh violence in Iraq has left at least 37 people dead with 28 of them killed by a suicide truck bomb in the northern town of Tal Afar, police say.

The blast hit a mainly Shia district of the mixed town and injured about 40, with some feared trapped under rubble.

A curfew was imposed across Tal Afar, which was once held up as a showcase for US-led efforts to pacify Iraq.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit commuters, killing nine and injuring eight, police and hospital sources say.

Anyone for a deadly game of whackamole?

As for the end of the the Waterbury Republican American neocon talking point extravaganza junkfest, whom else could any neocon hold up as a reasonable warmongering kindof guy?

So rather than demonstrate desperately needed honesty, courage and leadership, they kick the president when he is down and hope to avoid becoming the next Joe Lieberman. They forget Sen. Lieberman won re-election last fall despite the defeatists.

Remember the overwhelming majority of Americans that they labeled as defeatists? Well, the miniscule minority of insane neocons that label YOU as defeatist are lovin' their favourite warmonger, Joe neocon Lieberman.

And this is why the GOP is on the decline, not just in Connecticut, but across this nation. This is also a good reminder why the Waterbury Republican American is fit to line any old bird cage. Just ask any neocon where they are most likely to find their favorite chickenhawk droppings? The Republican American, of course!

Keep in mind these radicals that support Joe Lieberman, and the 70% of Connecticut GOP voters that voted for Joe neocon Lieberman (Independent-R, CT) in 2006 when you see Joe and his fellow republicans kissing up to the GOPs' next presidential nominee.

Joe is no Democrat, nor is he a moderate. He is a neocon wet dream... And Joe neocon Lieberman is just another republican stain on American politics. And don't be the least bit surprised when Joe Lieberman comes out tweeting his chickenhawk tune for the GOP presidential candidate.

You know Joe will. He is a republican water carrier, through and through.

Bucking the Republican Clones

BooMan on the fools that think they can ride The Netroots Bronco:

Frontrunning candidates, the DCCC, prominent journalists, the congressional leadership...none of them know how to control the netroots. The netroots' demands are simple: stop this administration from committing crimes and get our troops out of Iraq. After that, it's all detail. With each capitulation, with each gloss-over and passing of the buck, the Establishment further alienates themselves from the citizen activists that do not need and will not be told what to do or think. We've educated ourselves and passed our verdict. Those that will not convict and sentence are just cogs in an appeasement machine that is chug-chug-chugging over a collective cliff.

There will no successful triangulation of the administration's war, or their crimes. The leader that plausibly makes the case that justice will be done is the candidate that will rise to the top.

If any of the candidates, or the leadership, or the media, thought or think that the Netroots' can be tamed through co-option, they must surely be disabused of that notion by now.

The people of this country...the people that are truly paying attention and participating in the blogosphere...demand justice and an end to this war. And that is not going to change.

You see, we don't give a hoot what the loonies running the assylum think. We have an agenda that is in direct conflict with theirs.

One of the comments summed up the big problem in the diary, and it is pretty plain when you talk to people outside of the Blogosphere about what is going on that the comment is 100% correct:

"The kicker is that the folks at the barber shop, the guys working on your car, most of the folks in the supermarket aisles know what's going on.

They may not read the blogs or read them much, but [their thoughts align] more with the nutso, "far left" bloggers than it does with the MSM on the war, terrorism and even civil liberties.

I wonder when the democratic candidates and their courtiers will figure that one out?"

Bob Higgins seems to think it is much worse than just the fight within the Democratic party for control of the Netroots:

My voice and the more powerful and eloquent voices of others with the same message might have been crickets chirping in the wilderness, they could not be heard above the howl of the bitter wind driven by the building stampede.

The great headlong rush was on. The Democrats looked like the riotous crowds of Pamplona in their frenzied dash for campaign funds, for their rightful share of the political plunder that had, for so long, been denied to them. Like the mobs of Pamplona except they were chasing after the bulls, racing madly down the streets of our capitol, through the storied halls of our public monuments, their larcenous rotting hearts exposed, their shameless, greedy, grasping palms outstretched, drooling mouths at the ready, eager to suck at the poisonous teats of public corruption and corporate largess, it was a sight from hell.

The relief of last November is now long forgotten amid in the fear and loathing of July, the wars continue unabated, the so called opposition party has joined in dividing the spoils and trampling the law, the hope is gone and, I belive, it is time for every American who cares for this country, for humankind to face up to the sickening and unavoidable reality of our times.

The government of the United States is thoroughly and completely corrupt. From top to bottom, from one side of the aisle to the other, at all levels, whether we look at the federal system or in our statehouses, our government, our institutions, our military, our courts and schools and regulatory bodies, each and every one, has fallen under the control of criminals. And they are being aided and abetted by the treacherous and treasonous majorities of both of our so called political parties.

We need not travel 12,000 miles and comb the dusty caverns of remote mountain ranges, or the empty blazing deserts of Arabia in a search for terror and evil. All the terror, all the fear, all the evil we could ever desire to discover is centered in the chambers of our government and commerce and the evil hearts and minds of those who control them.

The government of the United States now operates under the careful tutelage, direction and control of enormously powerful international corporate interests which have no respect for the people of this or any other nation, not their laws, not their values nor their common histories and least, their humanity, their very lives.

The only interest of these piratical, plutocratic vermin is to take the labor from our backs, to strip the fruit from our trees and the crops from our fields, to mine the ore and pump the oil from our earth, to discover a way to steal the water from our seas and the very light from our sky and make it their own, to control it all, to control it all in their thirst for profit, in their worship of Mammon, of Moloch.

Look not to the media, the self exalted press, those journalistic guardians of the past, have become the corporate stooges of the present, the once independent protectors of the people no longer exist, they were bought, bought and sold in the same trades as the judges, as the preachers, the pastors, bishops, and the healers, bought as cheaply as the public servants, their souls are owned by the houses of wealth and power. All the saviors have sold us out, there is no one to save us but ourselves.

Every day that the Democratic party continues to allow the criminal bush administration to destroy this country a bit more, chipping away at our rights, our Constitution, the very soul of this country, is another day that proves everything that Bob has written is true.

It is left to us, the people, the netroots, those with a conscience, and those of us that are real patriots, to defend this country from the glutenous appetites of those in power, the politicians and the business men feeding at the troughs of our government and on the lives of our children, that continue to ignore our pleas for political sanity and for real justice.

More and more, and every day, I am left with the feeling that We The People are the only ones that can stop this now, and it may take more than just withholding campaign contributions, and sending MORE Emails and letters, and standing with a sign on the street to do it.

For once, I hope I am wrong BUT I am am no longer waiting for the Democratic party to do the right thing here, and now. Constitutional crisis be damned! They have always had the power to stop the madness and have shied away from doing the right thing every single time they have have been given the chance to do so.

They are not innocent bystanders here:



All it would have taken was 40 Democrats with a conscience to do the right thing, and shut down Congress altogether. Before the 2006 elections, and after the 2006 elections. And they have not. But it sure was easy enough for them to find more than 40 Democratic party members to turn their backs on the people in the House when the FISA Bill came up...

217 Years, Over 1 Million Lives Saved!

Happy Birthday to the Coast Guard:

The US Coast Guard is 217 years old today and they figure they have saved more than 1 Million people in that time....

After reviewing old log books and records dating back nearly to 1790, when Congress created the 10-boat fleet that would eventually become the Coast Guard, the agency concluded that it has saved at least 1,109,310 lives.

Here is a video of some of the things these guys do to help keep us safe:

"U S Coast Guard VIDEO: Since 1790, The Coast Guard has rescued thousands of mariners in distress. This is the Top Ten Rescue videos of all-time. These videos were rated both on the significance of each particular case, as well as the dramatic footage of the rescues."

It takes a lot of courage to do what they do every day...

A Quick Republican Recap

I am just back from a weeks vacation in Quebec, and then a week of volunteering at the New Milford Boy Scouts' Clatter Valley day camp. And YES! I have as much fun as the kids at camp! Given the fact that I have been out of the political loop for the last couple of weeks, I thought that this quick recap of all things republican, past present and future, Via Missy's Brother at MLN, might be a useful way to get back on top of things:



John G. Rowland? Isn't that Rell's bestest buddy? Anyways, I still have some photos from my vacation to put up (after I sort through them all!), BUT I'm back, rested, and ready to go!