Election Fraud and Christianity

2006-01-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

Nelli Kim

2006-01-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

Stop Alito...STOP THE BUSH REGIME and Imperial Presidency

Al Gore Will Be Giving A Speech This Week on Our Constitutional Crises

2006-01-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Published on Thursday, October 6, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

American Democracy in Trouble: It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse Keynote Speech by Al Gore

We Media Conference in New York, NY October 5, 2005 I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?

I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people?

If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for
low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?
On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TVcommercials for their next re-election campaign.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason. Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well- informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason." Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."

Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.

Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books. Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that
America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.
And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average. When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes. Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession.
Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.

But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists. It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation. Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades. In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was
universally understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority of government.

The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:

1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all;

2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them;

3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.

What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly mediated between wealth and power. The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.

And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self- government was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under- girded and strengthened the rule of law. But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.

Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.
Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens. Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America. Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people.

Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.

So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and information network in all of American television. It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately
intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free." As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.
The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1006-28.htm

2006-01-02T00:16:00.000-08:00

The Fruits or evil deeds of the Bush Crime Family. Jesus said by their fruits shall you know them. Satan is the father of lies Who does bush, junior serve?

2006-01-02T00:06:00.000-08:00

Very courageous British Diplomat Craig Murray exposing horrific torture in hopes of ending it.

UK Torture Memos - Second Document

2006-01-01T23:53:00.000-08:00

Second Document - summary of legal opinion from Michael Wood arguing that it is legal to use
information extracted under torture:

From: Michael Wood, Legal Advisor
Date: 13 March 2003
CC: PS/PUS; Matthew Kidd, WLD
Linda Duffield

UZBEKISTAN: INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

1. Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that his
understanding was that it was also an offence under the UN Convention on Torture to receive or
possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe that this was the case,but undertook
to re-read the Convention.

2. I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect. The nearest thing is article 15
which provides:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which isestablished to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

3. This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK law any statement established
to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence.
[signed]
M C WoodLegal Adviser

=Comment #1: 12/29/05
They have no shame nor fear of retribution because with Bush in power, they're just following
orders! Hmmm, didn't we hear that someplace before...at the Nuremberg Trial? Fascism has a new
face,complete with big ears (besides George's, the NSA's).

=I also want to wish a Merry Christmas to Congressman Conyers and his family and to all of the
faithful posters on this blog.

Sadly, it's hard to have much Christmas joy when people who are struggling for peace and justice
in a world gone certifiably insane can no longer look to America for peace, justice, or even hope.
Many people lost that struggle this past year, and died alone and afraid in Iraq and Darfur and New
Orleans and countless other forlorn lands. We will never know their names or be able to honor
them as they deserve, but they have found love, peace, and justice in a better and brighter world
than this one.

====Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote Iraq war

From Capitol Hill Blue
CHB Investigates. . .Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promoteIraq war while home on leaveBy DOUG THOMPSONPublisher, Capitol Hill BlueDec 29, 2005, 05:44
Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of Americanmilitary men and women returned to the United Stateson holiday leave this month with orders to sell theIraq war to a skeptical public.
The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operationdubbed “Operation Homefront,” ordered militarypersonnel to give interviews to their hometownnewspapers, television stations and other mediaoutlets and praise the American war effort in Iraq.

Initial reports back to the Pentagon deem theoperation a success with dozens of front page storiesin daily and weekly newspapers around the countryalong with upbeat reports on local televisionstations.

“We've learned as a military how to do this better,”Captain David Diaz, a military reservist, told hishometown paper, The Roanoke (VA) Times. “My worry isthat we have the right military strategy and politicalstrategies now but the patience of the American publicis wearing thin.”
When pressed by the paper on whether or not hiscommanding officers told him to talk to the press,Diaz admitted he was “encouraged” to do so. Soreporter Duncan Adams asked:
“Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave withan agenda -- to offer a positive spin that could helpcounter growing concerns among Americans about theU.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not hisstrategy, especially after he discloses that superiorofficers encouraged him to talk about his experiencesin Iraq?”

Replied Diaz:

“You don't. I can tell you that the direction we'vegotten from on high is that there is a concern aboutpublic opinion out there and they want to set therecord straight.”

Diaz, an intelligence officer, knows how to avoid adirect answer. Other military personnel, however, tellCapitol Hill Blue privately that the pressure to “sellthe war” back home is enormous.
“I’ve been promised an early release if I do a good job promoting the war,” says one reservist who asked not to be identified.

In interviews with a number of reservists home for theholidays, a pattern emerges on the Pentagon’spropaganda effort. Soldiers are encouraged to contacttheir local news media outlets to offer interviewsabout the war. A detailed set of talking pointsencourages them to:

--Admit initial doubts about the war but claimconversion to a belief in the American mission;
--Praise military leadership in Iraq and throw in afew words of support for the Bush administration;
--Claim the mission to turn security of the countryover to the Iraqis is working;
--Reiterate that America must not abandon its missionand must stay until the “job is finished.”
--Talk about how “things are better” now in Iraq.

“My worry is that we have the right military strategyand political strategies now but the patience of theAmerican public is wearing thin,” Diaz told TheRoanoke Times.

“It’s way better now (in Iraq). People are friendlier.They seem more relaxed, and they say, ’Thank you,mister,’” Sgt. Christopher Desierto told his hometownpaper, The Maui News.

But soldiers who are home and don’t have to return toIraq tell a different story.

“I've just been focused on trying to get the rest ofthese guys home,” says Sgt. Major Floyd Dubose ofJackson, MS, who returned home after 11 months in Iraqwith the Mississippi Army National Guard's 155thCombat Brigade.

And the Army is cracking down on soldiers who go on the record opposing the war.
Specialist Leonard Clark, a National Guardsman, wasdemoted to private and fined $1,640 for postinganti-war statements on an Internet blog. Clark wroteentries describing the company's commander as a "gloryseeker" and the battalion sergeant major an "inhuman monster". His last entry before the blog was shut downtold how his fellow soldiers were becomingincreasingly opposed to the US operation in Iraq.

“The message is clear,” says one reservist who is homefor the holidays but has to return and asked not to beidentified. “If you want to get out of this man’s Armywith an honorable (discharge) and full benefits youbetter not tell the truth about what is happeningin-country.”

But Sgt. Johnathan Wilson, a reservist, got hishonorable discharge after he returned home earlierthis month and he’s not afraid to talk on the record.

“Iraq is a classic FUBAR,” he says. “The country isout of control and we can’t stop it. Anybody who triesto sell a good news story about the war is blowing itout his ass. We don’t win and eventually we will leavethe country in a worse shape than it was when we invaded.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7918.shtml
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revote2004/message/4087

New Year's Resolution: Impeach Bush & Cheney!! Here's how........... From: Democrats.com News <news@democrats.com>To: dem-activist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:59:58 -0400Subject: New Year's Resolution: Impeach Bush and Cheney
Let's Make our 2006 New Year's Resolution: To Impeach Bush and Cheney!

http://democrats.com/2006-resolution http://www.WorldCantWait.org "

DRIVE THE BUSH
REGIME OUT!
"http://www.ImpeachBush.org
"Clinton ruined a dress, BUSH RUINED A NATION!"

On December 15th, the New York Times revealed George Bush secretly ordered the National
Security Agency to spy on American citizens without warrants.

Bush's actions deliberately violated the strict FISA law and subverted the Constitution - both of
which are IMPEACHABLE offenses.Yet on December 17, Bush used his weekly radio address to brag that he broke the law repeatedly

- "more than 30 times."Shortly afterwards, Richard Nixon's White House Counsel John Dean (of Watergate fame) was on a radio show with Senator Barbara Boxer. Dean pointed out that George Bush was the first president in history to confess to an impeachable crime.So why is a confessed criminal still in the White House - and not in jail???

Because George Bush believes he is above the law. He believes he is a dictator - even a king or an
emperor.

Bush claims his dictatorial powers derive from 9-11. But where was Bush after August 6, 2001
when he read the CIA memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States"?
He was on vacation - the longest presidential vacation in history.And where was Bush on 9-11 itself after four commercial airliners were hijacked? He sat in a Florida classroom reading "My Pet Goat" - even after learning that two of the planes turned the Twin Towers into towering infernos. Then he flew west to get as far from Washington as possible.When American really needed a President to stop a heinous terrorist attack, George Bush went AWOL - just as he did to the National Guard in 1972.

George Bush should have resigned on 9-11 for his gross failures of leadership before and during
the terrorist attack. Instead, he used 9-11 to claim a mandate for dictatorship - first to shred the
Constitution, and then to launch an illegal and disastrous war in Iraq.It is time to revoke Bush's self-proclaimed mandate for dictatorship. It is time for a change.

My New Year's Resolution for 2006 is simple: to do everything in my power to impeach George
Bush and Dick Cheney.I have shared my Resolution with my Representative and Senators. Will you join me?
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/17

I believe impeachment is possible - perhaps even inevitable - if we all resolve to do our part.Even before the NSA wiretapping scandal broke, a Zogby poll found 53% of Americans thought Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq - and 57% believe Bush lied. After the wiretapping scandal, even libertarians and conservatives started suggesting impeachment. The list includes former Reagan official Bruce Fein, Norm Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, law professors Jonathan Turley and Geoffrey Stone, and even the editor of Barron's, Thomas
Donlan. When Americans across the ideological spectrum support impeachment, all we need is a
few Members of Congress to lead the way.

Recently, prominent Democrats like Senator Barbara Boxer, Rep. John Lewis, and Rep. John
Conyers began talking seriously about impeachment. Conyers compiled Bush's impeachable
offenses in a must-read book, "The Constitution in Crisis." He introduced two bills (H.Res.636 and
H.Res.637) to censure Bush and Cheney for withholding evidence from Congress. And Conyers
wrote a third bill - H.Res.635 - to create a select committee to investigate the Administration's
intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence,
encouraging and countenancing torture, and retaliating against critics, and to make
recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

Impeachment is becoming a campaign issue as well. With your support, ImpeachPAC.org has
raised $46,261.70 to support pro-impeachment candidates. Our first endorsed candidate, Tony
Trupiano of Michigan, is proudly campaigning on his support for impeachment, despite repeated
attacks by the Washington Establishment. We hope to endorse many more pro-impeachment candidates - both incumbents and challengers, in the weeks to come. You can help
by sending Democratic Congressional candidates here:

http://impeachpac.org/candidates

We are also forming a powerful Citizens Impeachment Commission of prominent Americans who
are willing to lead the fight in the year ahead. Our commission already includes activists Medea
Benjamin, Gene Bruskin, Tim Carpenter, David Cline, Steve Cobble, Karen Dolan, Jodie Evans,
Mike Ferner, Bob Fertik, Kim Gandy, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Tom Hayden, Doug Kreeger,
Bill Mitchell, Bill Moyer, Michael Rectenwald, Cindy Sheehan, David Swanson, Jonathan Tasini,
and Kevin Zeese; former government officials Elizabeth de la Vega, Larry Johnson, and Ann
Wright, Historians and Legal Scholars John Bonifaz, Marcus Raskin, Lawrence R. Velvel, and
Howard Zinn, and Talk Show Hosts/Editors/Bloggers/Pundits/Authors David Allen, Dave Allsopp,
The Bulldog Manifesto, Tom Engelhardt, Thom Hartmann, Laura Flanders, Justin A. Frank, MD,
Doug Ireland, Rob Kall, Susie Madrak, Mark Crispin Miller, Brad Newsham, Liza Sabater, and
Jeff Tiedrich. And we're just getting started! Please encourage prominent citizens you know to sign
up here:http://impeachpac.org/citizens

Until recently, the idea of impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney was a distant dream. But
now Democrats are taking the first steps towards making impeachment a reality. And if we devote
our efforts to this cause in 2006, I believe we will ultimately succeed.So please join me in resolving to make 2006 the Year of Impeachment - and sharing this New Year's Resolution with our Representatives:
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/17
Let's have a VERY Happy New Year!Bob FertikBob Fertik, PresidentDemocrats.com bob@democrats.com718-424-7772

===UK Torture Memos JUST RELEASED - PLEASE Distribute Widely
http://www.johnconyers.com/ SIGN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY LETTER HERE
http://www.conyersblog.us/

"It's not the big decisions that are hard. You can decide to invadeRussia over dinner, pick Waterloo for battle on a whim, it's easy todecide to risk a million lives. What's hard is to see how yourdecision affects one life, and if you can't do that, you'll lose yourhumanity." Ike, before Normandy, according to my recollection.

Applying that to this situation, the importance of judicial reviewextends beyond the protection of the individuals' rights in the faceof State power. The decisions being made by the Administration are(at this point, still) being made in representation of us. Thedecisions are being explained in vague and general terms, and thefacts behind the explanations are as vague and general, as are the consequences.

We are supposed to accept this on 'trust'. 'Trust' is much easier tocultivate, much easier to counterfeit, when the facts need not beexamined, and the consequences need not be faced (until later). Theimportance of judicial review extends as far as allowing us to seehow our decisions affect one life, each life, any life, your life,and mine. It is when we see this that we discover if 'we' are wrong.And correct ourselves.

That's why there are Courts, that's why the Administration doesn'twant to go there. Goerge wants to deprive us of the ability to seewhat we are doing, the ability to decide that it's wrong, the abilityto stop f**king up. Goerge wants to deprive us of the ability to seehow 'our' decisions affect our humanity and to defend that humanity,from him.

Hey, how about this one:
DailyKos, joining the efforts of UK Bloggers, has published a copy ofthe UK Torture Memo that Downing Street is trying to keep suppressed.
Here's the link: UK Torture Memos
Anyone not at risk for prosecution - print a copy to PDF, and spreadit widely. Perhaps the folks we help in the UK will help us get the
rest of the records we're seeking published in a similar way.

Problem......Links busted (already). Got another source?

Yes, thank you . The link worked when I went there. At any rate,those memos will be all over the Internets by tonight.
http://www.dailykos.com/special/Torture_memosUK Torture Memos
Source.

The first document contains the text of several telegrams that CraigMurray sent back to London from 2002 to 2004, warning that theinformation being passed on by the Uzbek security services was torture-tainted, and challenging MI6 claims that the information was nonetheless "useful".
The second document is the text of a legal opinion from the ForeignOffice's Michael Wood, arguing that the use by intelligenceservices of information extracted through torture does not constitutea violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Craig Murray says:

In March 2003 I was summoned back to London from Tashkentspecifically for a meeting at which I was told to stop protesting. Iwas told specifically that it was perfectly legal for us to obtainand to use intelligence from the Uzbek torture chambers.

After this meeting Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign and CommonwealthOffice's legal adviser, wrote to confirm this position. This minutefrom Michael Wood is perhaps the most important document that hasbecome public about extraordinary rendition. It is irrefutableevidence of the government's use of torture material, and that I wasattempting to stop it. It is no wonder that the government is tryingto suppress this.

First document: Confidential letters from Uzbekistan
Letter #1 Confidential FM Tashkent TO FCO, Cabinet Office, DFID,MODUK, OSCE Posts, Security Council Posts
16 September 02

SUBJECT: US/Uzbekistan: Promoting TerrorismSUMMARY
US plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerouspolicy: increasing repression combined with poverty will promoteIslamic terrorism. Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynicalpolicy.

DETAIL
The Economist of 7 September states: "Uzbekistan, in particular, hasjailed many thousands of moderate Islamists, an excellent way ofconverting their families and friends to extremism." The Economistalso spoke of "the growing despotism of Mr Karimov" and judgedthat "the past year has seen a further deterioration of an alreadygrim human rights record". I agree.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners arecurrently detained, many after trials before kangaroo courts with norepresentation. Terrible torture is commonplace: the EU is currentlyconsidering a demarche over the terrible case of two Muslims tortured to death in jail apparently with boiling water.

Two leading dissidents, Elena Urlaeva and Larissa Vdovna, were twoweeks ago committed to a lunatic asylum, where they are beingdrugged, for demonstrating on human rights. Opposition politicalparties remain banned. There is no doubt that September 11 gave thepretext to crack down still harder on dissent under the guise ofcounter-terrorism. Yet on 8 September the US State Department certified that Uzbekistan was improving in both human rights anddemocracy, thus fulfilling a constitutional requirement and allowingthe continuing disbursement of $140 million of US aid to Uzbekistanthis year.

Human Rights Watch immediately published a commendably sober andbalanced rebuttal of the State Department claim. Again we are back inthe area of the US accepting sham reform [a reference to my previoustelegram on the economy]. In August media censorship was abolished,and theoretically there are independent media outlets, but inpractice there is absolutely no criticism of President Karimov or thecentral government in any Uzbek media. State Department call thisself-censorship: I am not sure that is a fair way to describe anunwillingness to experience the brutal methods of the security services.

Similarly, following US pressure when Karimov visited Washington, ahuman rights NGO has been permitted to register. This is an advance,but they have little impact given that no media are prepared to coverany of their activities or carry any of their statements.The final improvement State quote is that in one case of murder of aprisoner the police involved have been prosecuted. That is animprovement, but again related to the Karimov visit and does notappear to presage a general change of policy. On the latest cases oftorture deaths the Uzbeks have given the OSCE an incredible explanation, given the nature of the injuries, that the victims diedin a fight between prisoners.

But allowing a single NGO, a token prosecution of police officers anda fake press freedom cannot possibly outweigh the huge scale ofdetentions, the torture and the secret executions. President Karimovhas admitted to 100 executions a year but human rights groupsbelieve there are more. Added to this, all opposition parties remainbanned (the President got a 98% vote) and the Internet is strictlycontrolled. All Internet providers must go through a singlegovernment server and access is barred to many sites including alldissident and opposition sites and much international media(including, ironically, waronterrorism.com). This is in essence stilla totalitarian state:

there is far less freedom than still prevails, for example, inMugabe's Zimbabwe. A Movement for Democratic Change or any judicialindependence would be impossible here.

Karimov is a dictator who is committed to neither political noreconomic reform. The purpose of his regime is not the development ofhis country but the diversion of economic rent to his oligarchicsupporters through government controls. As a senior Uzbek academictold me privately, there is more repression here now than inBrezhnev's time. The US are trying to prop up Karimov economicallyand to justify this support they need to claim that a process ofeconomic and political reform is underway. That they do so claim iseither cynicism or self-delusion.

This policy is doomed to failure. Karimov is driving this resource-rich country towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy ofincreasing repression aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims,combined with a deepening poverty, is the most certain way to ensurecontinuing support for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They havecertainly been decimated and disorganised in Afghanistan, andKarimov's repression may keep the lid on for years – but pressure isbuilding and could ultimately explode.

I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases andwhy they back Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help fight terrorism but in the medium term itwill promote it, as the Economist points out. And it can never beright to lower our standards on human rights. There is a complexsituation in Central Asia and it is wrong to look at it only througha prism picked up on September 12. Worst of all is what appears to bethe philosophy underlying the current US view of Uzbekistan: thatSeptember 11 divided the World into two camps in the "War againstTerrorism" and that Karimov is on "our" side.

If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply betweenthe forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things,like securing the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan. Isilently wept at the 11 September commemoration here. The rightwords on New York have all been said. But last week was also anotheranniversary – the US-led overthrow of Salvador Allende inChile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say it, rather morepeople than died on September 11. Should we not remember thenalso, and learn from that too? I fear that we are heading down thesame path of US-sponsored dictatorship here. It is ironic that the beneficiary is perhaps the most unreformed of the World's oldcommunist leaders.

We need to think much more deeply about Central Asia. It is easy to place Uzbekistan in the "too difficult" tray and let the US run withit, but I think they are running in the wrong direction. We shouldtell them of the dangers we see. Our policy is theoretically one ofengagement, but in practice this has not meant much. Engagement makessense, but it must mean grappling with the problems, not mutecollaboration. We need to start actively to state a distinctiveposition on democracy and human rights, and press for a realisticview to be taken in the IMF. We should continue to resist pressuresto start a bilateral DFID programme, unless channellednon-governmentally, and not restore ECGD cover despite the constantlobbying. We should not invite Karimov to the UK. We shouldstep up our public diplomacy effort, stressing democratic values,including more resources from the British Council. We should increasesupport to human rights activists, and strive for contact with non-official Islamic groups.

Above all we need to care about the 22 million Uzbek people,suffering from poverty and lack of freedom. They are not just pawns in the new Great Game.
MURRAY
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #2ConfidentialFm TashkentTo FCO18 March 2003
SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICYSUMMARY

1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focussed on democracyor freedom. It is about oil, gas and hegemony. In Uzbekistanthe US pursues those ends through supporting a ruthless dictatorship.We must not close our eyes to uncomfortable truth.

DETAIL
2. Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan,about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hailKarimov as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seventhousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state withoutfreedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom ofmovement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion.It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands.Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous withmedieval serfdom.

3. Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half thepopulation of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all theother states in a region which is important to future Western oil andgas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the USis here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases areextending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.

4. Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to thecontrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid thisyear will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduceany meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid –more than US aid to all of West Africa – is related to comparativedevelopmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. Whilethe US makes token and low-level references to human rights toappease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as abastion against fundamentalism. He – and they – are in fact creatingfundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to aregime that tortures people to death for having a beard or prayingfive times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate theWest?

5. I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdrawa motion on Human Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling atthe UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. I was most unhappy tofind that we are helping the US in what I can only call this cover-up. I am saddened when the US constantly quote fake improvements inhuman rights in Uzbekistan, such as the abolition of censorship andInternet freedom, which quite simply have not happened (I see theseare quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for Uzbekistan, again Iunderstand at American urging).
6. From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US areactivated by shared values. Here we have a brutal US sponsoreddictatorship reminiscent of Central and South American policy underprevious US Republican administrations.

I watched George Bush talktoday of Iraq and "dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape rooms". Yet when it comes to theKarimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be treated aspeccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed ininternational fora. Double standards? Yes.

7. I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain tothe US, at senior level, our serious concern over their policy inUzbekistan.MURRAY
----------------------------------------------------------------------Letter #3
CONFIDENTIALFM TASHKENTTO IMMEDIATE FCO
TELNO 63OF 220939 JULY 04
INFO IMMEDIATE DFID, ISLAMIC POSTS, MOD, OSCE POSTS UKDEL EBRDLONDON, UKMIS GENEVA, UKMIS MEW YORK
SUBJECT: RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE
SUMMARY

1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbekintelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is badinformation anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up toconfessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK tobelieve, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.
2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered thequestion and decided to continue to receive the material. This ismorally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocriticalour post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moralstanding. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stoptorture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up theresults.
3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Servicesthey are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SISpresence here, but not as in a friendly state.

DETAIL
4. In the period December 2002 to March 2003 I raised several timesthe issue of intelligence material from the Uzbek security serviceswhich was obtained under torture and passed to us via the CIA. Iqueried the legality, efficacy and morality of the practice.

5. I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. MichaelWood gave his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain andto use intelligence acquired by torture. He said the only legallimitation on its use was that it could not be used in legalproceedings, under Article 15 of the UN Convention on Torture.

6. On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said thatthey found some of the material very useful indeed with a directbearing on the war on terror. Linda Duffield said that she had beenasked to assure me that my qualms of conscience were respected andunderstood.

7. Sir Michael Jay's circular of 26 May stated that there was areporting obligation on us to report torture by allies (and I havebeen instructed to refer to Uzbekistan as such in the context of thewar on terror). You, Sir, have made a number of striking, and Ibelieve heartfelt, condemnations of torture in the last few weeks. Ihad in the light of this decided to return to this question and tohighlight an apparent contradiction in our policy. I had intimated asmuch to the Head of Eastern Department.

8. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear that without informingme of the meeting, or since informing me of the result of themeeting, a meeting was convened in the FCO at the level of Heads ofDepartment and above, precisely to consider the question of thereceipt of Uzbek intelligence material obtained under torture. As theoffice knew, I was in London at the time and perfectly able to attend the meeting. I still have only gleaned that it happened.

9. I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain theUzbek torture material. I understand that the principal argumentdeployed was that the intelligence material disguises the precisesource, ie it does not ordinarily reveal the name of the individualwho is tortured. Indeed this is true – the material is marked with aeuphemism such as "From detainee debriefing." The argument runs thatif the individual is not named, we cannot prove that he was tortured.

10. I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry,nor my shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues wouldresort to it to justify torture. I have dealt with hundreds ofindividual cases of political or religious prisoners in Uzbekistan,and I have met with very few where torture, as defined in the UNconvention, was not employed. When my then DHM raised the questionwith the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily acknowledgedtorture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not thinkthere is any doubt as to the fact

11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly bemore widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonablegrounds for believing the material is obtained under torture. Thereis helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN Convention; "The competentauthorities shall take into account all relevant considerationsincluding, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned ofa consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of humanrights." While this article forbids extradition or deportation toUzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question also.

12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant.Article 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or athreat of war, internal political instability or any other publicemergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless – we areselling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It isdesigned to give the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and activity of the IMU andits links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West that theUzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keepthe assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that theyshould mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.

14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable.Sixteen months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area ofintelligence assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that theycan get it wrong on even the most vital and high profile issues, butthat they have a particular yen for highly coloured material whichexaggerates the threat. That is precisely what the Uzbeks give them.Furthermore MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of me andcertainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this assessment.

15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streamingdown his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with BinLaden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

16. I have been considering Michael Wood's legal view, which hekindly gave in writing. I cannot understand why Michael concentratedonly on Article 15 of the Convention. This certainly bans the use ofmaterial obtained under torture as evidence in proceedings, but itdoes not state that this is the sole exclusion of the use of such material.

17. The relevant article seems to me Article 4, which talks ofcomplicity in torture. Knowingly to receive its results appears to beat least arguable as complicity. It does not appear that being in adifferent country to the actual torture would preclude complicity. I talked this over in a hypothetical sense with my old friend ProfFrancois Hampson, I believe an acknowledged World authority on theConvention, who said that the complicity argument and the spirit ofthe Convention would be likely to be winning points. I should begrateful to hear Michael's views on this.

18. It seems to me that there are degrees of complicity and guilt,but being at one or two removes does not make us blameless. There areother factors. Plainly it was a breach of Article 3 of the Conventionfor the coalition to deport detainees back here from Baghram, but ithas been done. That seems plainly complicit.

19. This is a difficult and dangerous part of the World. Dire andincreasing poverty and harsh repression are undoubtedly turning youngpeople here towards radical Islam. The Uzbek government are thuscreating this threat, and perceived US support for Karimovstrengthens anti-Western feeling. SIS ought to establish a presencehere, but not as partners of the Uzbek Security Services, whose sheerbrutality puts them beyond the pale.

MURRAY

Second Document - summary of legal opinion from Michael Wood arguingthat it is legal to use information extracted under torture:
From: Michael Wood, Legal Advisor
Date: 13 March 2003
CC: PS/PUS; Matthew Kidd, WLD
Linda Duffield

UZBEKISTAN: INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

1. Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that his understanding was that it was also an offenceunder the UN Convention on Torture to receive or possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe that this was the case,but undertook to re-read the Convention.

2. I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect.The nearest thing is article 15 which provides:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which isestablished to have been made as a result of torture shall not beinvoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a personaccused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

3. This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK lawany statement established to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as evidence.
[signed]
M C WoodLegal Adviser

=Comment #1: 12/29/05
They have no shame nor fear of retribution because with Bush in power, they're just following orders! Hmmm, didn't we hear that someplace before...at the Nuremberg Trial? Fascism has a new face, complete with big ears (besides George's, the NSA's).

2006-01-01T23:50:00.000-08:00

The continuation of the Prescott Bush financed Third Reich - neverending war for the oil profiteers

Slouching Toward

2006-01-01T23:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/20/12819/467

Slouching Toward Kristallnacht

by Maryscott OConnor Tue Dec 20, 2005 at 10:08:19 AM PDT
crossposted from My Left Wing

A fascinating and terrifying excerpt of Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free: The
Germans 1933 - 1945Mayer, an American journalist of German/Jewish descent, says of his work:
"How could it -- the Holocaust -- have happened in a modern, industrialized, educated nation ?
The genesis of my interest in the Third Reich lies in my search for an answer to that enigmatic
question."

I know few people who haven't asked themselves the same thing. The first, most likely hypothesis
is that most people didn't know what was happening to the Jews. I may be wrong, but I believe
that's been shot down pretty decisively by now.

The following excerpt from Mayer's They Thought They Were Free... provides some pretty
plausible clues (the emphases are mine)...

Maryscott OConnor's diary :: ::

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening
gap, after 1933,between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to
begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know it doesn't make people close
to their government to be told that this is a people's government, a true democracy, or to be
enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing to do with knowing
one is governing.

What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by
surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believe that the situation was so
complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of
national security.

The crises and reforms (real reforms too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow
motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
To live in the process is absolutely not to notice it -- please try to believe me -- unless one has a
much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us ever had occasion to develop.
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that,
unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what
the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could
resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his
field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

"You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared
about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the
universe was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and,
above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that
were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was "expected to" participate
that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it
consumed all one's energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see
how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."
"Those," I said, "are the words of my friend the baker. "One had no time to think. There was so
much going on.""

"Your friend the baker was right," said my colleague. "The dictatorship, and the whole process of
its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who
did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your "little men", your baker and so on; I speak
of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about
fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful,
fundamental things to think about - we were decent people - and kept us so busy with continuous
changes and "crises" and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the "national
enemies", without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were
growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to
think?"

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I
do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered
that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - "Resist the beginnings" and
"consider the end." But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings.
One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or
even by extraordinary men? Things might have changed here before they went as far as they did;
they didn't, but they might have. And everyone counts on that might.

"Your "little men," your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like
me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to
say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemoller spoke for the thousands and thousands of
men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the
Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing:
and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist,
and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always
uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman,
and he did something - but then it was too late."
"Yes," I said.

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me,
this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for
the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when
such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to
talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." Why not? - Well, you are not
in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also
genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows.
Outside, in the streets, in the general community, everyone is happy. One hears no protest, and
certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there will be slogans against the government
painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this.
In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues,
some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, "It's not so bad" or
"You're seeing things" or "You're an alarmist."

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These
are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do
you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the
Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even
neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought
as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in
their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups
become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves
wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves,
that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and
serves as a further deterrent to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything,
you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and
you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you,
never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come
immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently
shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in "43" had come immediately after the "German
Firm" stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in "33". But of course this isn't the way it
happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of
them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and,
if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you.
The burden of self deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little
boy, hardly more than a baby, saying "Jew swine," collapses it all at once, and you see that
everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live
in, your nation, your people is not the world you were in at all.

The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession
of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on
your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new
morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a
year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more
accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do
nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one
had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring
this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

"What then? You must then shoot yourself. A few did. Or "adjust" your principles. Many tried,
and some, I suppose, succeeded; not I, however. Or learn to live the rest of your life with your
shame. This last is the nearest there is, under the circumstances, to heroism: shame. Many
Germans became this poor kind of hero, many more, I think, than the world knows or cares to
know."

I said nothing. I thought of nothing to say.

"I can tell you," my colleague went on, "of a man in Leipzig, a judge. He was not a Nazi, except
nominally, but he certainly wasn't an anti-Nazi. He was just a judge. In "42" or "43", early "43", I
think it was, a Jew was tried before him in a case involving, but only incidentally, relations with an
"Aryan" woman. This was "race injury", something the Party was especially anxious to punish. In
the case a bar, however, the judge had the power to convict the man of a "nonracial" offense and
send him to an ordinary prison for a very long term, thus saving him from Party "processing"
which would have meant concentration camp or, more probably, deportation and death. But the
man was innocent of the "nonracial" charge, in the judge's opinion, and so, as an honorable judge,
he acquitted him. Of course, the Party seized the Jew as soon as he left the courtroom.
"And the judge?"

"Yes, the judge. He could not get the case off his conscience; a case, mind you, in which he had
acquitted an innocent man. He thought that he should have convicted him and saved him from the Party, but how could he have convicted an innocent man? The thing preyed on him more and
more, and he had to talk about it, first to his family, then to his friends, and then to acquaintances.
(That's how I heard about it.) After the "44" Putsch they arrested him. After that, I don't know."
I said nothing.

"Once the war began," my colleague continued, "resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried
with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure
to show it in public, was "defeatism." You assumed that there were lists of those who would be
"dealt with" later, after the victory. Goebbels was very clever here, too. He continually promised
a "victory orgy" to "take care of" those who thought that their "treasonable attitude" had escaped
notice. And he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to put an end to all
uncertainty.

"Once the war began, the government could do anything "necessary" to win it; so it was with the
"final solution" of the Jewish problem, which the Nazis always talked about but never dared
undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its "necessities" gave them the knowledge that they
could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the
Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of
complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. It was a long bet.
Not many made it."

It won't come in the same form. It never does. But it's coming. The lure of fascism is too powerful
for men like the ones currently pissing all over our Constitution.

Probably won't be the Jews. Maybe Arabs. Maybe gays. Maybe "libruls." Who the fuck knows? It
almost certainly won't be recognisable to most people until it's far too late.

If we let it happen.

With thanks to omblog.net for leading me to ThirdReich.net
Tags: fascism, parallels, nazis, i need attention (all tags)
View Comments 484 comments

2006-01-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.TheHungerSite.com click every day to give free food

Please Help Pakistan Earthquake Victims if You Can

2006-01-01T23:34:00.000-08:00

International relief groups estimate over 40,000 people died in Pakistan as a result of the
earthquake. Without adequate food, water, and shelter many of the people who survived the initial
destruction will succumb to the elements. Please donate now to help critical relief efforts.
https://ssl.charityweb.net/mercycorps/giftbasket/donation.htm?pDonorIntent=PakistanEarthquake&Custom15=23015

5 million Pakistani Quake Victims Need Immediate Help From: "Jenny M., Care2 Human Rights Alerts" humanrights@care2.com

Dear Friend,

International relief groups estimate over 40,000 people died in Pakistan as a result of the
earthquake. Without adequate food, water, and shelter many of the people who survived the initial
destruction will succumb to the elements. Please donate now to help critical relief efforts.
Reuters/Danish Ismail. Courtesy of alertnet.org How would you feel if a massive earthquake hit and your family was separated from you without a means to communicate?

That is exactly what happened last Friday in Pakistan when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake devastated the region. Only there, in the remote villages of the Hindu Kush without modern construction or
stringent building codes, buildings simply collapsed and buried thousands beneath the rubble.
And now the survivors need your help!

Can you help provide food, water, and shelter to the people of Pakistan who have lost everything?
The earthquake that ripped through the ancient villages of Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains left
people completely exposed to the elements. Rain and hail are coming as winter approaches, and
emergency help is needed so badly. Help Mercy Corps save as many people as possible by donating here:
http://go.care2.com/e/hbY/B3/FqhB

Care2 is working to support the efforts of Mercy Corps relief workers in Pakistan right now. These
workers are preparing the first shipments of lifesaving medical supplies for distribution. Mercy
Corps has assembled mobile medical teams made up of doctors, nurses and surgeons to provide
critical trauma care to those in need.

"It's horrific," says Dr. Arif Noor, a Pakistan-based doctor with Mercy Corps. According to Dr.
Noor, many small settlements in the mountain valleys have been completely washed away. Some
people are fleeing their leveled villages carrying the dead and wounded with them. Many others are
staying behind, unsure of whether missing family members are dead or alive. People are intensely
fearful of aftershocks, staying outside in open areas through the winter nights that bring torrential
rains and hailstorms.

Care2 partnered with Mercy Corps to provide desperately needed relief to tsunami victims last
winter, as well as to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and are proud to be working together once
again to bring relief to people in need. Please donate today to support these critical relief efforts.
Mercy Corps is coordinating relief efforts with the United Nations and other relief organizations
that are a part of this critical lifesaving response. "This disaster is beyond the scope of one
government, or many governments," says Dr. Arif Noor.

"Now is the time for the world to join hands and come together with this terrible tragedy." Please
help us today by making an immediate donation.

Jenny McKinleyCare2 & ThePetitionSite Team

Thank you for signing up to receive Human Rights Alerts via ThePetitionSite or Care2 website!
Your email address has not been bought from other sources. If you learned something interesting
from this newsletter, please forward it to your friends, family and colleagues.

Bushco Creating Division - false paradigm of left vs right

2006-01-01T23:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.StopTheLie.com/ about PNAC, DINOs and NeoCons instead of Democrats and real Republicans.

the division has been intentially created this administration thinks that it can create the reality, with a little help with their corporate media friends. There are some people who will always be in denial, but there are many people that are starting to question the media and the administration. Like a snowball rolling downhill, once enough corruption is exposed, there is no way to go except downhill for this administration.

Yes, some people are lazy boob tube watchers and only get glimpses of news, but there are many who like collecting information, and even some Republicans know their party has been highjacked.

They cannot maintain the facade forever. I still have hope--like Studs Terkel, I still believe in the
American people. Most are not cruel, but some are selfish and apathetic. The more the majority of
Americans lose their economic comfort zone, the more they will wake up. Losing your healthcare,
your pensions--seeing your children jobless or in minimum wage or yourself with a minimum wage job, seeing your children die after being lied to, will soon cause an effect. It's just a matter of time.

However, if there are that many clueless, I'm more than willing to see a few states secede
peacefully. ;-)

2005-10-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Gitmo - Only one photo from the Denver Post on the Concentration Camps that Katrina Survivors are being held prisoner in to prevent their holding onto their property from Bushco vultures and to test experiment if other American will care if US citizens are in Concentration Camps on the Mainland USA.

2005-10-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

Bush Kills Soldiers. How many more lives of US young people and Iraqis and now Iranians and Syrians must die for the Bush Regime's Insanity?

2005-10-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Praying for Fitzgerald to bring down this criminal cabal soon.

Capt. Ian Fishback is a highly decorated soldier - a culture in the high ranks that allowed the abuse to occur.

2005-10-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Daily life at Abu Ghraib: Filthy conditions, sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations

Gen. Karpinski demoted in prison scandal

Abu Ghraib disciplinary actions set

~Army captain calls prisoner abuse ‘systemic’
Soldier says he reported abuses but was ignored by chain of command

• Culture of acceptance behind abuse?

Sept. 28: An Army captain says it is not just rogue low-level soldiers behind the abuse of detainees in Iraq, but a culture in the high ranks that allowed the abuse to occur.

NBC’s Lisa Myers reports. Nightly News

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - The Pentagon has been actively prosecuting every soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. But in an exclusive interview an active duty U.S. Army captain says it's not just rogue, low-level soldiers behind the abuse of detainees in Iraq. He says there's a culture in the high ranks of the military that allowed the abuse to occur.

Capt. Ian Fishback is a highly decorated soldier — a West Point graduate, with two Bronze Stars and training for special forces. He has never talked on camera until now.

"Stripping detainees is unacceptable," explains Fishback. "Leaving detainees outside overnight is unacceptable."

2005-10-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Shame of America - What Amnesty International called Bush's Gulag of illegal torture prisons around the world. Cheney negotiated with Halliburton Brown and Root to build Gitmo and a hundred other torture prisons in 2000, BEFORE the atrocities on 911 - PNAC's New Pearl Harbor.

General Karpinski - torture IS STILL GOING ON

2005-10-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/abu_ghraib_karpinski_torture_still_going_on.htm

~~She also stated that even though innocent detainees had been deemed of no further Intel use and were recommended to be released by their interrogators, the higher uppers read the riot act and started a pattern whereby no one was to be released and innocent people were kept locked up without trial or charges.

The General went on to speak about the direct links to leading members of the Bush Administration:

~The General also agreed that private contractors were brought in to over see the interrogations. The orders to use torture techniques can be traced back to the criminals in Government.

"The orders came right from the top, filtered down from the secretary of defence, with the endorsement of the President, the Vice President, whatever advisors are surrounding them, filtered down through the Commanders in the field, these practices were not only endorsed, but were in use at Guantanamo bay and in locations in Afghanistan. And when General Miller visited Iraq he brought those techniques with him. And then he sent contract interrogators who had 'performed well' at Guantanamo Bay to Iraq as well."

The General agreed that in effect torture seminars were taking place as Miller would teach how to make techniques of torture more effective.

Karpinski also went on to explain how it came about that photographs and video of the torture were taken and how despite Congress having seen thousands of them, few of the persons responsible for authorizing the raping of women, the beating to death of innocent people, and the torture of minors have been brought to justice.

~~General Karpinski was not even informed of charges against her until the investigation was under way and she received a late night e-mail from the Commander of the Criminal Investigation Commission. His agent on site at Abu Ghraib was the one who received the disc of pictures from the MP. So the Commanding officer of all the reopened prisons in Iraq was not informed about an ongoing criminal investigation into occurrences at the prisons.

You see how it works, you play the game, you go along with whatever is being spun by the Neo-Cons or by the Pentagon and you get promoted. But the people who have the strength and the moral courage to stand up and say This is wrong, this is a lie, they are removed from their positions, they take their security clearance away and then they're out on the street."

General Karpinski went on to say that the reason talk of banning torture has come to the forefront, even though there should be no need for discussion on the topic is because it IS STILL GOING ON.

"There is overwhelming proof that torture is going on, that it has been directed and is likely continuing, even to this day. I don't want to believe it is but the statements from the people just returning from the theater give every indication that in fact it is, they still don't know where to draw the line." The General said.

On the topic of why the torture is so extreme and degrading, the General suggested that the interrogators are getting a bizarre pleasure out of it. She gave the example of using naked menstruating women to break Muslim Iraqi men.

"Who studied the Arab culture to come up with such a n idea, this is insulting to anybody." She said. "And the fact that they are using female soldiers to conduct this demonstrates what they think the likely;y role of women in the army is."

If you wrote a horror movie where the army was doing this it would be too unbelievable, yet this is happening in reality and the media has just accepted it as the norm now

~It seems clear and the General agrees that we are seeing the formation of a cold blooded torture core with Iraq as the beta test. Iraq is often referred to as a "laboratory". The test is to see how the prisoners, the soldiers and the public react to this.

"They are looking for the kind of people with this mind set, who can live with themselves whilst they are going forth with this global war on terrorism and trying to make a difference."

Fitzgerald Watch in Suspense

2005-10-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

REUTERS: Indictments Mon or Tues
Mon Oct 24th 2005, 10:23 AM ET

It's a big story from the MSM BUT they do minimize the potential...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be laying the groundwork for indictments this week over the outing of a covert CIA operative, including possible charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, lawyers involved in case said on Sunday.

Top administration officials are expected to learn from Fitzgerald as early as Monday whether they will face charges as the prosecutor winds up his nearly two-year investigation, the lawyers said.

Fitzgerald could convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to lay out a final summary of the case and ask for approval of possible indictments, legal sources said. The grand jury hearing the CIA leak case normally meets on Wednesdays and is scheduled to expire on Friday unless Fitzgerald extends it.

While Fitzgerald could still charge administration officials with knowingly revealing Plame's identity, the lawyers said he appeared more likely to seek charges for easier-to-prove crimes such as making false statements, obstruction of justice and disclosing classified information.

more...

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=pol...

~~~MORE POSITIVE spin at firedog lake http://www.firedoglake.blogspot.com/

she is also a attorney.

Of course the MM is gonna spin it as no big deal

~nonetheless - it opens the "gate" to the bigger questions
-- why did we invade Iraq in the first place?

-- how much of the Iraq-rational is true and how much was "sexed up"?

-- what didn't bush* know, when didn't he know it and why didn't he know it?

-- how much of what we are hearing out of the White House regarding Syria and Iran is true and how much is spin?

~Expect the unexpected. Fitzgerald is going to do what he believes is right. I think that the conspiracy and espionage issues will be included in the indictments

~It may be that Patrick Fitzgerald has been concentrating on the perjury charges, because he already has what he needs on the still more serious charges.

Also, there seems to have been so much serious crime the neocons have been involved in, much, if not all of it interconnected, I will not be at all surprised if, pursuant to the broad mandate given to him by the Attorney General, he extends his term, as Special Prosecutor.

After all, their m.o. in everything has not been to pussyfoot on the margins, but to dive in head first, making for the bulls-eye (usually a pot of gold), with all the long-term foresight (NOT) of their very own Big Business.

~~~What lawyers? While Fitzgerald could still charge administration officials with knowingly revealing Plame's identity, the lawyers said he appeared more likely to seek charges for easier-to-prove crimes such as making false statements, obstruction of justice and disclosing classified information."

I am not struck with that notion that Mr. Fitzgerald will take the easiest road, for some reason.

My guess is as good as any, but I hope it is not wishful thinking.

~~~it's gotta end... my stomache can't take it anymore~~~Even if he goes with lesser charges right now...

...there is nothing to say that more serious charges can't be brought later on (as long as the evidence is there). A lot has been happening in the case lately. He might just want to put something on the table as a strategic manuever. Throwing down the gauntlet may be what it takes to make a breakthrough in another
direction.

~~ Read to the end of the article. Why are people just posting this...first part, in which the reporter is being very cautious? Later, he gives evidence of an expanded probe, and concludes with how bad this could be for the Bush regime.

2. Nobody's talking. And he has to rely on unidentified "lawyers" involved in the case, and outside lawyer pundits. My feeling about it was: a cauldron about to boil over (with the reporter a bit worried about getting scalded?--by lying defense lawyers? rumors? 'friendly fire'?) But that may just be me.

~Oh I think it will be more serious crimes of Espionage thats for some people!!!

~go read firedoglake and enjoy come back and tell me IF ya don't smile

~~Yep. Espionage.

~~Reuters is consistently fair and decent
I wouldn't lump them with the rest of the korporate media.

~Subject line is misleading, the article doesn't state indictments Mon/Tues It only suggests that the subjects in question may learn whether they will face possible charges

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5144936

~its a tuff crowd to play to how about CAEM Corporat And Entertainment MediaI only watch the weather channel and ooops they have manmade hurricaines now ..scalar haarp
so I only watch ..waht do I watch..??

This is a war an info war. battle for your heart and mind

Pray for the innocents..

~Is it Fitzmas Eve yet? I want to open my presents

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Everywhere you go.
Who's gonna do five-or-ten?
We're thinking once again
Of handcuffs and of orange jumpsuits aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Indictments on every score
But the prettiest sight to see
Is the scowl on Darth Cheney
At the slammer's front door.

A warrant or writ, a subpoena that fits
Is the wish of Barney and Ben;
The thought of Turdblossom hung up like a possum
Is the hope of Janice and Jen;
And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for court to start again.

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Everywhere you go.
There's an defendant who doesn't want to tell;
One in the White House as well --
The felony kind that doesn't mind the law!
It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Soon the bells will start
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the indictment that we sing,
Right within our hearts!

~~Anyone else thinks they will raise a terror alert on the same day?

2005-10-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

AFTER 300 BILLION DOLLARS, WHY DON'T OUR TROOPS HAVE ARMOR??

2005-10-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.billyjack.com/index.php?menuID=Page&pid=60
Chapter 8

How the Republicans and pro-war advocates are failing, even betraying, our Troops and Veterans

The Laughlin 16-point Program to Aggressively support our Troops and Veterans… and the 16 ways our troops are being betrayed

What do the words ‘support our troops’ really mean?

Does it mean only to cheer as we send them off to die and be maimed, or does it mean that we do everything possible to let them know we care about them there – but even far more important we do everything we can to bring them home safely and
as soon as possible? (See pages 9 & 34)

What is the best possible way we can help the over 100,000 Reservist families who are in serious financial trouble and the over 1 million children of the troops seriously suffering because their parents are gone?

Though it may have been necessary for our troops to win the war in Iraq, there is no possible justification to keep them there now that the war has ended --NATO and a dozen other coalitions, including Arab states, can administer to Iraq even more successfully – and by leaving we instantly reduce the sacred rage of 300 million Arabs in the region who see the US as conquerors with an occupation army, putting our troops in constant danger for as long as they’re there....

BillyJack.com How to REALLY Support the Troops and their families

2005-10-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.billyjack.com/index.php?menuID=Page&pid=60

~16 ways to really Support our Troops
16 Tests to see if you really support our troops

Would you save one million suffering American children of our troops from more pain, fear and harm, much of it irreparable, if you could? If you really support our troops, you can save their children immediately.

Americans may disagree on supporting the leadership in the White House, but we cannot agree more on the need to support our American brothers and sisters that risked their lives, especially those who lost them or were permanently crippled, serving with distinction and honor for a cause they believed in.

Shockingly, those who truly love our troops, wave the flag, and wear the yellow ribbons are unaware of the severe damage being done to the troops and their families by Bush and the Pentagon. Here’s 16 things you can do immediately to truly help these magnificent heroes and their equally heroic families who are suffering so terribly.

At this time when over 100,000 families of Reservists are still under extreme stress because of the severe financial hardships the calling up of their spouses created, virtually wiping them out financially with many losing their homes because of the inability to pay the mortgage or the rent, having their cars repossessed, having difficulty putting food on the table, paying their electric and water bills, getting the medical care they or their children need, having their education disrupted, etc., and at this time when almost 1 million children of all ...

Last week the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly (90-9) to stand solidly against torture

2005-10-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

cageprisoners.com

Stand with the Senate and Oppose Torture

The Senate has spoken, but the President may veto the anti-torture bill. Your voice is needed.

Over the past year and a half you have spoken out powerfully after the Abu Gharib and Guantanamo prison scandals. Washington and the world listened.

Last week the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly (90-9) to stand solidly against torture. The amendment, introduced by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), calls for prisoners and detainees to be treated according to guidelines established by the Army Field Manual. In short, it outlaws degrading and inhumane treatment of anyone in U.S. military custody.

This is no small statement. The amendment was introduced to the massive defense appropriations bill. Passage of the $440 billion
defense budget depends upon the adoption of this vital amendment.

Now, President Bush has threatened to veto the appropriations bill because of the anti-torture amendment.

The Senate did the right thing. Let us come together again to stand with them so that the world and the President know that the
American people demand humane treatment of detainees and prisoners of war.

Note: Yes, nine Senators voted against the measure (including both from Oklahoma). If they are YOUR Senators, you may wish to
tastefully alter your letter in a way most appropriate for both of your Senators. We will leave that to you, of course, but here are those who voted against the anti-torture amendment:

Sessions (R) Alabama
Stevens (R) Alaska
Allard (R) Colorado
Roberts (R) Kansas
Cochran (R) Mississippi
Bond (R) Missouri
Coburn (R) Oklahoma
Inhofe (R) Oklahoma
Cornyn (R) Texas

Use the link below to send a letter to your Senators on this issue. A copy will be sent to the President of the United States in a show of solidarity. By letting your Senators know you support their position, you will be sending a powerful message to the White House and to the world that Americans of faith will not support torture.

There is no question but that your voice and the concerns of so many other faithful people in the U.S. have helped encourage the
Senate to take this action. Does your faith matter in vital issues such as this? You bet it does! Is your voice heard? No question!

Send a letter of support to your Senators on this issue

http://www.faithfulamerica.org/index.php

www.faithfulamerica.org

~~help is on the way!

May God send bountiful strength, peace and resource to people affected by Hurricane Katrina. May each need be met and each life
strengthened spiritually and thereafter go forth and become a source of help and blessing to others. May our country grow closer to God and each other through this tragedy....In the name of the Christ.
Amen

iphill

~~HEAVENLY Father, I ask for your love and support to all people affected by this act of nature. I focus on those people of faith
who may be in doubt, that they are loved and encouraged, so that their old faith is made new, and for those without faith will look at them as shining beacons of the love you have for all you people, through all things.

Help people to remind each other to put the full armor on to protect themselves from the enemy who will run crazy in situations like this, when people are doubting.

I ask this in your sons name, Amen

2005-10-02T08:10:00.000-07:00

Juan Gonzalez: 'Ohio tally fit for Ukraine'
Posted on Thursday, December 02 @ 10:12:16 EST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News

Voter fraud in the Ukraine? Give me a break.

It has been a month now and we still don't have a clear count of the votes for our own presidential race from the state of Ohio.

For those who may have forgotten, Ohio supposedly assured George W. Bush a second term in the White House - only the most important job on the planet.

The morning after the election, we were told Bush was ahead of John Kerry in that state's unofficial count by 139,000 votes, or 2.5%.

At the time there were 155,000 uncounted provisional ballots and an unknown number of overseas ballots, but Kerry concluded they would not produce enough of a margin to erase his deficit, so he promptly conceded.

At the same time, given the bitter Democratic memories of the 2000 Florida fiasco, he assured his supporters he would fight to have every vote properly counted this time.

Within a few days, other problems began to show up in Ohio's preliminary tally.

We learned, for example, that an additional 93,000 voters had gone to the polls yet machines had registered no preference of theirs for President. Only a manual recount can tell us for sure what happened to those 93,000 ballots.

Then, red-faced election officials in Franklin County admitted a computer error on Election Night had tallied 4,258 votes for Bush in a precinct where only 638 people voted. That correction alone will drop Bush's margin by 3,620.

And now Daily News reporter Larry Cohler-Esses and I have uncovered some more unusual vote totals, this time in black neighborhoods of Cleveland. Those results are from the precinct-by-precinct tallies released by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, where Cleveland is located.
In the 4th Ward on Cleveland's East Side, for example, two fringe presidential candidates did surprisingly well.

In precinct 4F, located at Benedictine High School on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Kerry received 290 votes, Bush 21 and Michael Peroutka, candidate of the ultra-conservative anti-immigrant Constitutional Party, an amazing 215 votes!

That many black votes for Peroutka is about as likely as all those Jewish votes for Buchanan in Florida's Palm Beach County in 2000.

In precinct 4N, also at Benedictine High School, the tally was Kerry 318, Bush 21, and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik 163.

Back in 2000, the combined third-party votes in those two precincts - including the Nader vote - was 8. Cuyahoga, like most of Ohio's 88 counties, uses punch-card balloting.

"That's terrible, I can't believe it," said City Councilman Kenneth Johnson, who has represented the 4th Ward since 1980. "It's obviously a malfunction with the machines."

But Peroutka and Badnarik polled unusually well in a few other black precincts. In the 8th Ward's G precinct at Cory United Methodist Church, for instance, Badnarik tallied 51 votes - nearly three times better than Bush's 19. And in I precinct at the same church, Peroutka was the choice on 27 ballots, three times more than Bush's 8. In 2000, independent candidates received 9 votes from both precincts.

The same pattern showed up in 10 Cleveland precincts in which Badnarik and Peroutka received nearly 700 votes between them.

In virtually all those precincts, Kerry's vote was lower than Al Gore's in 2000, even though there was a record turnout in the black community this time, and even though blacks voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.

If this same pattern held true in other cities around Ohio, then quite possibly thousands of votes meant for Kerry somehow ended up in the tallies of the two independent candidates. So far, however, precinct-by-precinct results have not been posted by boards of elections in other counties, but by Thursday all official results are due.

On Monday, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell will certify Ohio's results and then a manual recount will be requested by the Green and Libertarian parties.

The Badnarik and Peroutka surge was not the only unusual occurrence in Cleveland.

Also unusual was the drop in the Democratic vote in scores of precincts compared to 2000. But more on that next time. Re: Juan Gonzalez: 'Ohio tally fit for Ukraine' (Score: 1)by BajanMan on Thursday, December 02 @ 19:10:19 EST(User Info) http://communities.msn.com/PlanetStahl

At the time there were 155,000 uncounted provisional ballots and an unknown number of overseas ballots, but Kerry concluded they would not produce enough of a margin to erase his deficit, so he promptly conceded.

There were also, in addition, more than 56,000 absentee ballots not counted - according to numerous sources (rense.com., common dreams, Jesse Jackson) and other ballots with the same "chad problems" as in FL.

Ultimately, with all these loose electoral strings waiting, the laws of probability had not yet been shown to -> 0 so it was not a judicious call for Kerry to make, at that time. Rather it was premature and dare I say, pusillanimous, as if the man had about all he could take, and simply didn't want to fight any more.

He just wanted to return to his bland, wonkonese existence in the Senate - to see who might out-drone the other. And continue to wage and partially win thousands of litte battles instead of fighting on in this one for all the marbles.

Maybe in some parallel universe, there exists a John Kerry who is working on a "stealth plan" and whose concession was part of that plan - to keep the intense media spotlight off him, not to mention that of Rove & Co. However, in this universe, I don't for a minute believe it's happening.

But who knows? Maybe, like in one of Ursula K. LeGuin's novels ('The Lathe of Heaven'), I will wake up in that alternative universe and discover the Kerry that fought and won. Leaving this version of the cosmos and particularly its reprehensible Earth events - and future history - behind.

It's nice to fantasize after all.

http://www.faux-news.com/stories/2004/11/29/
© 2004 Daily News, L.P.
Reprinted from The New York Daily

News:http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/257365p-220441c.html

2005-09-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

The Good Guys Helping us to have a Legitimate Government - Rep. Conyers, Barbara Lee, Lynn Wolsey, Jon Bonifaz

2005-09-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

Work For Verified Voting.com

Bush Mafia Asks What Didn't Go Right in the Murder of Tens of Thousands in New Orleans

2005-09-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

Bush says "What didn't go right" What Didn't Go Right? 911 and NOLA

Edited on Thu Sep-08-05

Any one notice that in both these disasters:

1. The President was unavailable for a significant period of time after a catastrophic disaster.
911: POTUS did not cut his reading of the "Pet Goat" book to Florida school children after being advised in the classroom he was visiting of the events unrolling in the skies. There was no telling how many planes were going to be involved in the event, yet the president took no aggressive action. It was the FAA, not the President, that made the decision to close US airspace.

And in the immediate time after the event he spent the day skip-hopping Air Force One all over the country (in the opposite direction) without a stopping long enough to lend a word of leadership of any kind the entire day of 911 until early evening.

NOLA/Katrina: The President did not cut his vacation short after the dire warnings of probable catastrophic disaster from the Nat'l Weather Service video-conference on Saturday prior to landfall.
In fact, he headed in the opposite direction to continue his vacation in California.

2. The President had decisions only he could make and was pointedly unavailable to make those decisions.

911: NORAD needed presidential authorization to shoot civilian planes down (as opposed to enemy incoming.)

NOLA/Katrina: Many resources (including US and UK Navy) were near or on the scene around the time of landfall but require the Executive to order them in to go in.

Other aid and supplies required the Executive to sign-off on, including accepting aid and rescue from other countries.

3. Resources that the Federal, and the Federal alone, had access to were not used until the disaster event was long over.

911: Our highly trained NORAD fighters were not dispatched, per hijacking incident, until AFTER there was no chance to catch that plane.

Isn't it NORAD/SPACECOM's business to defend against any attack from above? And aren't they supposed to be very, very effective at this?

NOLA/Katrina: Much (both military and governmental) was on the scene in NOLA/Gulf but was not given a go-ahead until days after Katrina.

Pass the tin-foil hat, please....

What didn't do right? Gee... I dunno... Just genocide by FEMA's delays and the widely reported blocking of food, water and supplies from reaching the trapped survivors in NOLA.

IT'S THE GENOCIDE, STUPID!

The more I've slept on this question, the more I believe this is what happened... knowing genocide of NOLA's residents. The excuse of not bringing in help so that people would leave is BEYOND IGNORANCE, it was a KNOWLEDGE that many would DIE as a result of this DECISION.
THAT'S GENOCIDE.

B U S H M U S T R E S I G N

Stuck in Detention Camps Like that one in Oklahoma. No way out. Marriott Hotels also couldn't locate almost 2000 employees I saw someone interviewed yesterday or the day before. They can't reach them and don't know what their status is. Holy crap 2000 out of 6000 postal workers in the area missing = 33% of them.

Extrapolating that for the total 5 million people in the area means potentially 1.67 million missing And these were people with regular jobs How many children, elderly, disabled, and self-employed aren't accounted for? 2,000 Postal Workers Missing

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168773,00.html
(sorry for the faux news link.....)

WASHINGTON — The post office has delivered some 15,000 Social Security checks at collection points in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina (search), officials said Wednesday. But the agency is still trying to locate 2,000 of its workers.

In the affected region, 188 post offices have returned to full service, 189 are providing limited service and 120 are still closed.

(snip)

Many have returned to work. Others, who have been evacuated, are working at post offices in other areas, and some 2,000 have not been heard from.

"That's a concern for us a week into this event," Day said.

Larry Johnson's diary at Booman Tribune says that he called in to the Coast to Coast show to tell them an analyst was making false statements. A booker in charge of the program did not choose to correct the issue. This is totally alarming to me. Most of you are familiar with Johnson through his testimony on the DSM.

SOME IN THE MEDIA IGNORING FACTS by Larry C. Johnson

While watching the MSNBC program, CONNECTED, COAST TO COAST with Ron Reagan, a man from the Evergreen Foundation was on air spinning the myth that the President had to "beg" the Governor of Louisiana to take action.

Having been on this show several times I called one of the bookers, Susan Durrwatcher, to alert her to the fact that this man was misrepresenting what happened. I offered Susan the following objective, documented facts (see timeline below).

Susan thanked me for my "opinion" and said "we just have a different perspective."

Stunned, I asked her by what standard of journalism that an objective fact was mere opinion? I asked her to simply look at the documents and correct the record. She declined. I asked her to remove me from the MSNBC list of contacts. I'm sure MSNBC won't miss me and I am certain I will have a happy life without having to subject myself to their unprofessional approach to journalism.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/9/7/142737/2117

A sign of an honest man is refusing to take part in catapulting the propaganda. Thanks to Larry Johnson for this. Susan Durrwatcher of MSNBC, hang your head in shame.

Cheney Diverts Power Crews from Hurricane Damaged Hospitals to Oil Pipeline - Murder

2005-09-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

After hurricane, Cheney's office diverted power crews from hospitals to oil pipeline
Posted on Thursday, September 15 @ 10:20:30 EDT
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=22764&mode=thread&order=1&thold=0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Nikki Davis Maute, Hattiesburg American

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.

That order - to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. - delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt.

At the time, gasoline was in short supply across the country because of Katrina. Prices increased dramatically and lines formed at pumps across the South.

"I considered it a presidential directive to get those pipelines operating," said Jim Compton, general manager of the South Mississippi Electric Power Association - which distributes power that rural electric cooperatives sell to consumers and businesses.

"I reluctantly agreed to pull half our transmission line crews off other projects and made getting the transmission lines to the Collins substations a priority," Compton said. "Our people were told to work until it was done.

"They did it in 16 hours, and I consider the effort unprecedented."...through the pipeline to avert a national crisis from the inability to meet fuel needs in the Northeast.

Callahan said the process of getting the pipelines flowing would be difficult and that there was a chance the voltage required to do so would knock out the system - including power to Wesley Medical Center in Hattiesburg.

With Forrest General Hospital operating on generators, Wesley was the only hospital operating with full electric power in the Pine Belt in the days following Katrina.

"Our concern was that if Wesley went down, it would be a national crisis for Mississippi," Callahan said. "We knew it would take three to four days to get Forrest General Hospital's power restored and we did not want to lose Wesley."

Compton, though, followed the White House's directive......real safety issues because there were fires in the trees on the lines and broken power poles."

Ready described working on the lines in the dark like attempting to clear fallen trees out of a yard with a flashlight and a chain saw.

"Everything was dangerous," he said.

Ready said the crew members did not learn they were restoring power to pipelines until after the job was done.

How did they feel about that?

"Is this on the record?" Ready asked. "Well, then, we are all glad we were able to help out."

Obviously, in the Republican view, the profits of oil and gas company executives take precedence over the lives of poor and sick people.

For them, it has always been this way, throughout the whole world.

Maybe the residents of Miss who voted these guys in for "moral values" can finally wake up and see what kind of "values" they are actually getting.So the White House was taking action in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. Surprise, surprise, its actions had nothing to do with saving lives.

Impeach the bastards.

Katrina slammed into South Mississippi and Southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, causing widespread devastation and plunging most of the area - including regional medical centers and rural hospitals - into darkness.

The storm also knocked out two power substations in Collins, just north of Hattiesburg. The substations were crucial to Atlanta-based Colonial Pipeline, which moves gasoline and diesel fuel from Texas, through Louisiana and Mississippi and up to the Northeast.

"We were led to believe a national emergency was created when the pipelines were shut down," Compton said.

~~~This About Gets It: Bill Maher on Bush This from an email going around ... enjoyBill Maher put it very well on HBO the other night:

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that.

You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man?

Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't.

I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives.
You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal.

You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "

Bill MaherHBO-Real Time

Nail meet Hammer "You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal."Love it heard it on the radio today...well said. So true and so sad. (But still funny) We need 10 more Bill Mahers Truth spoken often tends to wake up the clueless if they're no longer able to sleep due to the volume of the truth being spoken to them."I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side." That is a terrific question..scary,but terrific.

Thanks for posting,this one gets passed around Here ya go! Scroll down to "Bill Maher: George Must Go" and there are several options to view it:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/10.html

B*sh's Base Deserts His Illegal Regime

2005-09-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Information, like this article, exemplify all the more just why we need an independent council to access the catastrophe...The republican senate and the vice president who presides over them do not want the light of day to expose the unlawful use of their positions. Voting them out, or putting them in jail, holding them responsible for the murder of the post-katrina deaths, are some solutions. This is BLAME and it isn't a game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~By an 8-point margin, voters are more likely to call themselves Democrats than Republicans"
Here is the full paragraph:

""For the first time, senior Republican consultants and lawmakers are warning the White House that Bush's base is perilously close to deserting him. The poll underscores their concerns: By an 8-point margin, voters are more likely to call themselves Democrats than Republicans; there was no gap in self-identification a year ago."

That is new and, IMO, this is BIG.

I certainly haven't been seeing the W stickers I saw earlier in the year (which I wanted to ram with my minivan - tsk, tsk). I think a lot of people have been scraping those bumper stickers off.

That is from the new AP poll.

Katrina Raises Voters' Doubts About Bush By RON FOURNIER, AP

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Katrina and the bungled government response have weakened President Bush, raising questions among Americans about his Iraq and flood-recovery plans and spreading fears among fellow Republicans about next year's elections.

An AP-Ipsos poll says nearly six in 10 people disapprove of Bush's job performance, unchanged from the record-low rating he had before last week's televised address from the heart of New Orleans.

That underscores why GOP leaders fear Bush could be a drag on GOP candidates in 2006.
-snip-That may play into two presidential decisions that threaten to divide the GOP coalition: Bush's nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and his final plans for Katrina spending. Social conservatives are demanding an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice. Some Republicans want him to select a woman or minority, and perhaps avoid a bitter fight by selecting a relative moderate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050920/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katr...

2006 Campaign Theme - Rubber Stamp for the Tom Delay/Bush Agenda - Rubber Stamp, Rubber Stamp, Rubber Stamp.

New York Times Agrees With Rep. Conyers About Voter ID "Poll Tax"

2005-09-27T02:39:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 20, 2005; Page A22

The report released yesterday by a commission on federal election reform, headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A. Baker III, contains a number of valuable proposals. But adopting one of the commission's recommendations -- that voters be required to present a government-issued voter ID at the polls -- would, on balance, do more harm than good.......

The advent of computerized voting systems has provoked anxiety about whether such machines are secure from fraud or malfunction; the commission -- again sensibly, and in contrast to the position of Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. -- endorsed the need for machines capable of delivering a voter-verifiable paper trail....

To its credit, the commission urges states to ensure that such IDs are "easily available and issued free of charge." But for those who don't already have identification, the hurdle of assembling the necessary documentation and obtaining the cards could prove a deterrent to voting.
On the other side of the balance is the risk of elections tainted by fraud or the perception of fraud. The commission found that "there is no evidence of extensive fraud in U.S. elections or of multiple voting, but both occur, and it could affect the outcome of a close election." That's true -- but so could turning away otherwise eligible voters......

Allowing voters to show alternative forms of identification or to sign a sworn affidavit of eligibility could go a significant way toward deterring fraud without imposing the burden of an inflexible photo ID requirement.....

Andy Stephenson be true to ideals EVERY VOTE COUNTS AND EVERY VOTE MUST BE COUNTED

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/opinion/20tue2.html

Denying Access to the Ballot Published: September 20, 2005I

It has been clear since 2000 that the election system is in serious need of reform. But the commission led by James Baker III and former President Jimmy Carter has come up with a plan that is worse than no reform at all. Its good ideas are outweighed by one very bad idea: a voter identification requirement that would prevent large numbers of poor, black and elderly people from voting......

But the bombshell recommendation is for the states to require voters to have drivers' licenses or a government-issued photo ID. That would not be a great burden for people who have drivers' licenses, but it would be for those who don't, and they are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities. These voters would have to get special photo ID's and keep them updated. If they didn't have the ID's, their right to vote would be taken away.....

The disappointing report made public yesterday was not a complete surprise. There have been red flags waving around the commission for some time; Mr. Baker is remembered by many for his fierce fight to stop the counting of votes in Florida in 2000. .......

Obstruction of Justice Department "Privacy Act" Protects Chertoff and Torture ?

So, let me see if I have this right, they want to mandate a national id for WE THE PEOPLE but they're not willing to give up documents on Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Bolton, Rumsfeld, Rice, Negroponte, Chertoff, Sensenbrenner, Delay, Hassert, Roberts, Myers, etc. etc. etc. ?

...Good job Senator Levin (D-MI)!!!!!

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000248.htm#comments

Nevertheless, there are two resoultions filed in Congress, S.CON.RES.53 & H.CON.RES.247:
S.CON.RES.53Title: A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress that any effort to impose photo identification requirements for voting should be rejected.Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack (introduced 9/20/2005) Cosponsors (19)Latest Major Action: 9/20/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration. COSPONSORS(19), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)

Sen Akaka, Daniel K. - 9/20/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham - 9/20/2005
Sen Corzine, Jon S. - 9/20/2005
Sen Dayton, Mark - 9/20/2005
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. - 9/20/2005
Sen Dorgan, Byron L. - 9/20/2005
Sen Durbin, Richard - 9/20/2005
Sen Feingold, Russell D. - 9/20/2005
Sen Harkin, Tom - 9/20/2005
Sen Kennedy, Edward M. - 9/20/2005
Sen Kerry, John F. - 9/20/2005
Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. - 9/20/2005
Sen Leahy, Patrick J. - 9/20/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. - 9/20/2005
Sen Pryor, Mark L. - 9/20/2005
Sen Reid, Harry - 9/20/2005S
en Salazar, Ken - 9/20/2005
Sen Stabenow, Debbie - 9/20/2005
Sen Wyden, Ron - 9/20/2005

H.CON.RES.247 Title: Expressing the sense of Congress that a requirement that United States citizens obtain photo identification cards before being able to vote has not been shown to ensure ballot integrity and places an undue burden on the legitimate voting rights of citizens.Sponsor: Rep Lewis, John (introduced 9/20/2005) Cosponsors (19)Latest Major Action: 9/20/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

COSPONSORS(19), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)
Rep Brown, Sherrod - 9/20/2005
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. - 9/20/2005
Rep Doggett, Lloyd - 9/20/2005
Rep Emanuel, Rahm - 9/20/2005
Rep Fattah, Chaka - 9/20/2005
Rep Filner, Bob - 9/20/2005
Rep Green, Gene - 9/20/2005
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. - 9/20/2005
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 9/20/2005
Rep Honda, Michael M. - 9/20/2005
Rep Hoyer, Steny H. - 9/20/2005
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. - 9/20/2005
Rep McDermott, Jim - 9/20/2005
Rep McGovern, James P. - 9/20/2005
Rep Neal, Richard E. - 9/20/2005
Rep Payne, Donald M. - 9/20/2005
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. - 9/20/2005
Rep Serrano, Jose E. - 9/20/2005
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete - 9/20/2005

Rep. Conyers' Blog - Honest Elections

2005-09-27T01:55:00.000-07:00

Five Pillars Without Any Legs

I just received a report about a rather strange gathering of the Baker Carter election reform commission. In a small, cramped room in the Capitol, President Jimmy Carter, James A. Baker, III, and more than a dozen other commissioners discussed the Report of the Baker-Carter Commission on Federal Election Reform in advance of the press conference scheduled for 1:30pm today......

Saturday, September 17th, 2005
Pushing Back Against the Bush Smear Machine

I'm saddened, but not surprised, that the Bush Administration would politicize the Hurricane response. But they may have reached another new low when they enlisted the beleaguered U.S. Attorneys offices in the Gulf Region to find a scapegoat - this time in the form of the environmentalists. Yesterday's Clarion Ledger reports that the Justice Department put out an APB for dirt on environmentalists relating concerning the levees. ........

Friday, September 16th, 2005

Lights Go On In N.O. for Bush Photo-Op and then Off?

And More Fuzzy Math from Bush

From Brian Williams via Kos, I see that in parts of New Orleans, power came on shortly before the speech, to much aclaim, and the power stopped after the Prez spoke. We are clearly in the theater of the absurd when a president can use entire communities and their electricity needs as mere props in his political propoganda....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901431.html
http://www.johnconyers.com/
http://www.conyersblog.us/

2005-09-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

Blogged by Rep. John Conyers

Monday, September 19th, 2005
Conyer's" Action Items Conyer's" Blog

Join With Me in Fighting New Poll Tax Proposal

I have spent my more than 40 years in public service fighting for voting rights and a better democracy. Today, I am sad to say, there are proposals being made that would set us back in that struggle. A privately funded, unaccountable Commission organized by former Bush-Cheney campaign lawyer James Baker, III, and former President Jimmy Carter issued a report today that includes policy proposals that will disenfranchise over ten percent of eligible voters –– a national ID requirement to vote.

I need your help to fight this 21st Century disciminatory poll tax today. It is unconscionable that in the very year we are celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, that we would even consider a proposal that would make it more difficult for tens of millions of citizens to vote

2005-09-27T01:43:00.000-07:00

Conyer's" Action Items
Conyer's" Blog

Good Start on Defeating Photo ID Proposal

We made very good progress on the first day, thanks in no small part to your help. We recieved lots of press, including an AP story. We got great editorials in both the New York Times and the Washington Post. The New York Times was particularly strong, writing "the bombshell recommendation is for the states to require voters to have drivers' licenses or a government-issued photo ID. That would not be a great burden for people who have drivers' licenses, but it would be for those who don't, and they are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities. These voters would have to get special photo ID's and keep them updated.

If they didn't have the ID's, their right to vote would be taken away. The commission recommends that the cards be free. But election administration is notoriously underfinanced, and it is not hard to imagine that states would charge for them. Georgia is already charging $20 and more for each of its state voter cards."

I also participated in a press conference today with Senators Obama and Dodd and Rep. John Lewis where we announced our resolution opposing the ID requirement. Our petition to the Speaker and Majority Leader is going well, with approximately 4,000 signatories already. Please let your friends and family know about this so we can keep the momentum going in this critical fight.

Please Sign the Letter to Congressional Leadership.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. -Speaker/Majority Leader-:

The advances our country has achieved in voting rights over the past half-century have provided a model for democracies across the globe. Recently, we are sad to say, there are proposals being readied that would set us back in that struggle. In particular, the Baker-Carter Commission Report includes a proposal for a national ID requirement to vote that could disenfranchise over ten percent of eligible voters. When voting rights legislation is considered in the [House/Senate], we strongly urge you to exclude this provision........

http://johnconyers.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={99FFEEE4-D8DC-4CD8-992B-9EB3A4F0123A}

2005-09-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

American citizens will not allow any more bush crimes on our country

2005-09-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Sean Penn - responsibilities of citizens - bush destruction of government gave us yet another American Tragedy

2005-09-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

Bush's lack of compassion - How many of our elderly folks died because of bush's Katrina genocide?

2005-09-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

Join the March on Washington may turn into an Occupation until Fitz's Federal Marshalls haul bushco away

2005-09-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

Venice, New Orleans Thank you Bush Crime Family

2005-09-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

Crying Child Evacuated to Houston Dome - Barbara bush you can see how well this is turning out for them

2005-09-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4900

An Open Letter to Senator John Kerry on Irregularities, Fraud, and Conspiracies

1st January 2005

to those who suggest we move on, get over it etc.. would you just move on if you
were robbed and the thief got away? would you recommend one to just get over
being raped? Possibly. However I shall attempt to examine the evidence and seek
justice. The criminals must be apprehended. The theft of the election in Ohio was done
rather sloppily with the evidence scattered all across the floor.

so look at these few facts and respond with more than a meaningless rant. fact1: one
machine in Ghana ward 1b registered 4,258 votes for g.w. where only 638 people
voted. In that county there were machine shortages and malfunctioning tabulators
only in dem. Precincts. Matt Damschroder, former head of rep.

Party in that county and board of elections director attested to these "anomalies",look it up. Fact 2: 29 precincts in a single Ohio county reported more votes than registered voters by 93,136, similar to what occurred in 6 Florida counties where a cumulative 188,885 votes more than
registered voters appeared: fact3: in Miami county, Ohio we saw a 98.6% turnout in
concord sw precinct 520 for bush 157 for Kerry, only 10 folk did not vote, yet a
preliminary canvas found 25 that did not; fact 4: not to be outdone largely republican brook park saw a record setting turnout 14,458 out of 14,491 or 99.4%; the list goes on and on and on. Ask yourself am I being honest with myself?

let us all be honest with ourselves and see the beast for what it is. This vampire called
America is at its core a culture of death. All that is occurring be it the leveling of
fallujah, fraudulent elections, torture and mass incarceration all over the world, 725
military bases all over the world and on and on and on flow naturally from the
American culture of conquest. All which we are witnessing/enduring is consistent with
Americas (whose name for the land is violence) racist and genocidal history.
be it sand creek massacre, clearcut Inc., the dispensation of nuclear cocktails to
pregnant women (see Pulitzer prize winning journalist Eileen wilsomes "the plutonium
files"), or the CIA overthrowing any government that dared to claim sovereignty all of
these life destroying activities emanate from the core of the hyper-industrial-military
mindset that is America.

All of the life affirming views like "quit blowing up brown
skinned children for Lockheed martin and halliburton" are labeled un-American.
and they are. americanism is the progeny of European habits of mind and is
destroying life on earth. The heney-kissinger-wolfowitz-baker-Bolton-negroponte-rove
cult wedded to the brzezinski-Rockefeller-murdoch-soros gang are merely the latest
techno industrialists who destroy so much so fast using the latest in the pentagons
blood soaked bag of techno tools. These are clean cut savages, lord of the flies at
hyper speed.

as for foreign aid America ranks dead last as a percent of gdp at .15%. Note the
position of the decimal. Highest per capita rate of incarceration. No health care except
for wealthy. Etc. Etc. Etc. And as for that 350 million for the tsunami victims well
guess what? Earmarked for long term reconstruction and development. Can you spell
IMF?

ask the Iraqis about reconstruction. It is long past time for us all to stop living the lie
that is America. detumescent democrats are not capable of purging the world of
rapacious republicans most are too deep in the game or cowardly. Exceptions like
conyers, waters, McKinney, prove the rule.

now for all those who are devout coincidence theorists ignore the fact that every
discrepancy,irregularity,oddity,whatever went bushes way; that your country is the
worlds largest polluter by far and that your government is murdering women and
children every day

(is bombing a pregnant woman from the sky a military abortion pro-lifers?) in Haiti,
Iraq, Colombia, etc. The rest of the world does not envy mcameriwalmartika it wants
you to stop the slaughter. So go. Take your made in Bangladesh flag and wave it in
denial on your way out the door.

as for me I remain insufficiently patriotic.

People worked their hearts out for Kerry and to have a real President

2005-09-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

Ask Sen. John Kerry to sign to continue the lawsuit to make sure future elections are clean. Deadline August 30, 2005

Rep. Conyers helped introduce Cindy and the vital work she is doing to save lives by inviting her to testify in his Downing Street Minutes adhoc Hearing that was covered by C-Span and there were other Gold Star Famlies for Peace who had lost loved ones to Bushco' Pack of Lies who gave heartbreaking testimony and in the questions and answers, Conyers was surprised by all the other family members who wanted to talk about and show photos of their loved ones and Conyers took the time to allow them to do it though the scheduled time for his hearing in the basement which was the only room Sensenbrenner couldn't forbid him to use was up.

Conyers was also expected at the demonstration that was to march to the White House with the
signatures of 130 members of Congress and over a half million American citizens. Conyers and the 5 other Congresspersons with him were stopped outside the barred gates of our White House and Conyers had to pass the petitions through the bars to a young guard since Bush would not meet with Congresspersons on the People's business.

Indymedia had pictures of one of the most honorable members of Congress being stopped at the barred gates. Please write, or email or call Senator John Kerry and request that he NOT withdraw
from the lawsuit against the obstruction of the recount in Ohio. This is very important to Rep. Conyers and I think we should try to help him when he asks.

You can access Sen. Kerry at his website by typing his name into Search Engine. Congress.org will publish your Letters to Leaders on the screen almost immediately so you don't feel that they disappear down a rabbit hole.

PLEASE go to ConyersBlog.com to read about the ACTION ITEMS he provides and requests about Cindy in Crawford, writing letters, signing his letter and VERY IMPORTANT - THAT RAT JOHN KERRY IS ABOUT TO WITHDRAW FROM THE SUIT AGAINST OHIO'S OBSTRUCTION OF THE VOTERS IN THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL "ELECTION" AND THIS SUIT IS AGAINST THE
OBSTRUCTION OF A FAIR RECOUNT.

Anyone who kept up with the daily reports on The Green Party Recount site and Rep. Conyers' brave informal hearings since as a member of the minority party does not have subpeona power and the Republican Chairman Sensenbrenner would not let him hold formal Hearings on Ohio and made him use a basement for the Downing Street Memos hearings also covered by C-SPAN and which featured Cindy Sheehan's testimony about her son's death and introduced Cindy's activism to a wider audience.

People worked their hearts out for Kerry and to have a real President both before the "election" and after in the months long investigation into the Election Fraud in Ohio and Ken Blackwell and others are now in big trouble for suppressing the vote in Ohio for a very long time.

2005-09-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

INDYMEDIA AfterDowningStreet
Police forcibly break up Cindy Sheehan rally
By Pete Dolack

The New York City Police Department forcibly broke up this afternoon's rally for Cindy Sheehan, moving in as Cindy was speaking at about 3 p.m. in Union Square. The rally had been underway for about an hour, and was about to conclude as Cindy spoke following several other speakers, including a few who are traveling with her on her caravan.

As Cindy was speaking, a large platoon of police massed behind from the interior of the park, then formed a circle behind her, the speakers' area and a few dozen people who were deployed in an arc behind her. Overall, about 200 people were in attendance, with the crowd steadily increasing in size as the rally progressed. As the police formed their arc just behind, the men and women immediately behind Cindy linked arms. A captain made a cutting motion at his throat, signalling he wanted no more free speech. He waited about 30 seconds, then the police moved in. They didn't dare arrest Cindy, but they immediately moved in and grabbed Zool, the event's organizer and one of the main organizers of Camp Casey-NYC, pulling him away and arresting him. I do not believe anyone else was arrested; at least I didn't see any other arrests. I was nearby, and there was no hesitation on the part of the police in specifically targetting Zool.

The police also took the microphone and sound system. The crowd shouted "Shame! Shame!" at the police and asked what they were so afraid of, but made no response. There was a moderate press presence, even a bit of corporate media there, although the only television crew covering the rally was RTV from Russia.

No warning of any kind was given, and this was a permitted rally. Other than the captain making his cut motion, 30 seconds before forcibly breaking up the rally, there was no warning, verbal or in any other fashion. The police had massed perhaps three or four minutes before moving in. Until then, the rally had gone smoothly, starting just after 2 p.m. as scheduled. Cindy and the rest of the caravan arrived sometime after 2:30; the rest of the rally was comprised of speakers from the caravan. Many groups were in attendence besides Camp Casey-NYC, including Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, the Troops Out Now Coalition, the No Police State Coalition and the Green Party, among others.

As several people confronted the police in the minutes following the arrest of zool and the stealing of the sound equipment, a woman from the caravan said they had done more than 100 events in 51 cities, and nothing like this had ever happened to them. There is no free speech in Crawford, Texas -- Camp Casey has been under attack there -- and there is no free speech in New York City. The police have attacked Camp Casey-NYC on at least two previous Mondays, have taken the camps's tents, confiscated banners and made arrests. This is merely the latest example of Bloomberg's contempt for opinions that challenge the authorities, particularly Republican Party authorities. And where are our supposed policital leaders? Nothing but silence.

Free Zool now! Defend free speech in New York City!

video just before police moved inhttp://thirdplanetvideo.com/CindySheehan.html

2005-09-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

2005-09-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

Galloway Does Boston ProudSeptember 14th, 2005 Todd Chretien

“We who live in the United States or Britain, only have to answer one question, do we stand with the occupier, or with those who are resisting colonial occupation.” “The swamp of hatred that our policies have created in the Muslim world nourish the mutation of hatred that believes killing innocent people in New York or London is somehow a blow against those responsible in our countries for those policies. All we have done be invading and occupying Iraq is increase the number of people who hate us and the intensity with which they hate us.”

“The US and Britain’s unquestioning support for the State of Israel is the flaw that lies at the heart of the West’s attitude toward the Muslim world.” Standing ovation from 400 people. George Galloway did historic Faneuil Hall proud last night. Despite a complete boycott by the mainstream media, the boisterous crowd cheered the MP who took a stand against the hawks in the Senate. They rose to their feet and pledged to work for the next two weeks to mobilize for the September 24 national anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. to show Bush that his is in an ever-shrinking minority of American opinion that believes the war is just.

In a small gesture of respect that very few people could see because of the position of the stage, he touched his fingers to his lips and gently laid a kiss on the bust of Fredrick Douglass that adorns the stage. Galloway then strode to the podium and announced that he stands proudly in the tradition of an English MP named Fox who was twice expelled from parliament: the first time for supporting the American Revolution; the second time for submitting a resolution (“perhaps it was a bit provocatively phrased”) congratulating the French people on the separation of their king from his crowned head.

Before Mr. Galloway mounted the platform, meeting chair Annie Zirin kicked off the night saying, “we need to make a change to a system that can put 250,000 troops in the Middle East, but cannot evacuate the sick, the elderly and the poor from New Orleans.” She then introduced Eriko Nagai from the Northeastern University chapter of the Campus Anti-War Network who announced that CAN was sending a bus with volunteers, supplies and money to New Orleans and asked the crowed to contribute. Boston City Councilman Chuck Turner called on the crowd to speak and act in order
to challenge the sick priorities of the system that found money for war but not education. Prof. William Keach, spoke powerfully to need to challenge not only the war criminals in the Oval Office, but the pro-war Democrats who made the invasion possible. Prof. Naseer Aruri, speaking on behalf of the National Council of Arab Americans said that it was not only the duty of the brave parents like Cindy Sheehan who have lost children in the war to stand up, but that it was every person in
America’s duty to challenge the dangerous and racist policies guiding its actions today.

Boston was a great first step. Tonight, Galloway takes on ex-leftists, turned character assassin and professional hatchet man Christopher Hitchens in the Baruch Performing Arts Center here in New York City. The grapple in the apple will be a thing to watch and you can!

See it re-broadcast on CSPAN or see it live via webstream.

Watch the Baruch Assault on Hitchens and then get your tickets to see him in person
in your city. Todd Chretien is the Galloway National Tour Coordinator and a frequent contributor
to the International Socialist Review.

Brit MP Galloway's Speaking Tour

2005-09-15T06:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-35.htm~~New York, NYWednesday, September 14, 7pmGeorge Galloway and Christopher Hitchens Debate: The Iraq WarModerated by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!Mason Hall, Baruch Performing Arts Center17 Lexington Avenue at 23rd StreetCo-sponsored by Nation Books

Sold Out! Sorry, no overflow seating or standby list! Seating is first come first serve, and there will be metal detectors, so come early. Will-call tickets ordered from Baruch's box office can be picked up at:55 Lexington Avenueon 25th Street, between Lexington and Third, south side of street 11am to 7pm Monday through Friday 11am to 3:45pm on the day of the event After 4pm on the day of the event they will be available outside the theatre (on the south side of 23rd Street, between Lexington and Third, closer to Lexington) The event will be webcast live (audio certainly and we hope video as well), starting at 7:10 pm, at many locations, including: kpftx.org check back for more online webcasts There is a book signing after the event, starting at 9:10 pm, with book signing lines for Christopher Hitchens, George Galloway, and Amy Goodman.

More on the speaking tour:

http://www.mrgallowaygoestowashington.com/

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7852 Articles

2005-09-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

Published on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 by the Times Online (UK) Galloway vs. The US Senate: Transcript of Statement George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement
to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption "Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf."Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world ithout ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.
"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made
of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing ommerce. You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'. "Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly nsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today. "You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in agram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong. "And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today. "Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio
Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't now who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is? "Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period. "But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These
documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it. "The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq.

And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies. If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

2005-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Kerry at Democratic Convention

2005-08-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

Shaposhnikova beam

2005-06-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

Who says the Bush Regime is not the continuation of the Third Reich?

2005-06-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

They are interviewing Galloway now, asking him how he prepared. He says that he has made more than 1,100 public speeches since 9/11. He reads a lot, every chance he gets.

***and this Scotch/Irish, punk Philly kid salutes him for speaking TRUTH to POWER

MP3... 4 minhttp://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/George_Galloway.mp3
Real Video... 47 minhttp://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Galloway/Galloway....
Transcript...http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-35.htm
his political party website ....http://www.respectcoalition.org
his emailgallowayg@parliament.uk
BTW: found an error in the gov website link to the whole (3 hr) real media file. here is the correct link to the real file...http://hsgac.senate.gov/audio_video/051705video.ram start at 1:51:26

more contact info...
OfficePhone 020 8980 3507Fax 020 8981 5862
Email office@respectcoalition.org Post Respect The Unity Coalition, Room 207/208 Coborn House, 3 Coborn Road, Bow, London E3 2DAPressPhone 07980 675998, 07958 450867, 07749 411191, 020 8980 3507Email press@respectcoalition.org Website/TechnicalEmail admin@respectcoalition.org http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?sec=1

psst... pass the word
peaceReady-made base - DU has 70,000 reg members PLUS untold numbers of lurkers - Galloway already has solid backing from an organized, interconnected base of people who are spread all over the country and the world. Good thinking, man! Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

2005-06-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

RULE BRITANIA

THE LION THAT ROARED
THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD
AVENGING ANGEL

YOU DON'T STEP ON SUPERMAN'S CAPE
YOU DON'T SPIT IN THE WIND
YOU DON'T MESS AROUND WITH THE OL' LONE RANGER
AND YOU DON'T LIBEL GEORGE GALLOWAY, NOT EVEN CONGRESS

GALLOWAY SMACKED THOSE LYING NEOCONS SO SILLY, THEY DELETED HIS TESTIMONY FROM THE OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL SENATE HEARINGS LIKE THEY DELETED REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNLEY'S HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT BUSH'S INVOLVEMENT IN 911 ATROCITY.

2005-06-01T05:12:00.000-07:00

Galloway's defense and disgust at the bottomless pit of corruption of the slime that have stolen our government, our children and looted our treasury and committed atrocities in Iraq to steal even more.

2005-06-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

Galloway's blistering attack on the neoCon Senators who manufactured lies about Galloway as well as many other who oppose their genocide in Iraq.

2005-06-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

Rebellion is as healthy as the sense of life.

2005-06-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

Defiance Contact Sheet 3

2005-06-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

Defiance of misused power to murder and torture innocent people and steal their resources.

2005-06-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

Gymnast Shaposhnikova dancing Toreador-Beatnik defiance in 1980. Seems like a dance expression of Galloway's testimony and accusations.

2005-06-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

Can see Galloway really does care about the immense suffering caused by the Bush Regime and the Senate enablers.

2005-06-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Galloway's Blue Barely Controlled Rage at the Atrocities and Filthyness of the Bush Regime and poodle Blair.

2005-06-01T04:55:00.001-07:00

Galloway's Blue Expressions of Disgust and Outrage.

2005-06-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

Galloway Blue Expression Contact Sheet 2

2005-06-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Galloway's disgust at the lies and manipulations that have cost so many innocent lives for greed and power hunger.

2005-06-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

Galloway Contact Sheet 3 Oil For Food Senate Hearings MOTHER OF ALL SMOKESCREENS to deflect attention from the massive embezzlement of the Bush Regime in Iraq.

2005-06-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

Galloway Color Contact Sheet 2 - Oil for Food Senate Hearing where Galloway was libeled.

2005-06-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

I'm sure Jesus' statement "Hypocrites, Brood of Vipers how can any of you escape damnation. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel...You devour the houses of the widows and orphans." to the Bush/Blair wolves in sheep's clothing.

2005-06-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

A real Lion's roar of outrage at the lies and murders of the Bush Regime aided by the Senate and Tony Blair.

2005-06-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

Oil for Food - Clinton and Bush Regime corruption cost the lives of one million Iraqi children. Pretending humanitarian effort, really infanticide.

2005-06-01T04:39:00.000-07:00

Galloway challenging neoCon Coleman for his "PACK OF LIES" that he supports from the Bush Regime that have cost so many lives.

2005-06-01T04:37:00.000-07:00

Defiance against Tyranny for Freedom.

2005-06-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Contact Sheet 1 Color Galloway

2005-06-01T04:28:00.000-07:00

Member of Parliament, George Galloway

Election Fraud and Christianity

2005-06-01T04:21:00.000-07:00

Election Fraud and Christianity

Interview by Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams

[Thom Hartmann] George Galloway!

[Thom Hartmann] Thom Hartmann here with you on AM 620 KPOJ in Portland and we're also going to record this and play it on our national program. Thanks so much, Mr. Galloway for being with us today.

[George Galloway] You're most welcome.

[Thom Hartmann] First of all, my apologies if I have your title wrong. I'm calling you mister. Is that how?

[George Galloway] Mister, mister's more than adequate.

[Thom Hartmann] OK. I'm wondering, what is your opinion on the legality of Guantanamo Bay and what do you think of the construction of a death chamber there, which was reported by the BBC yesterday?

[George Galloway] Well, it's an utterly illegal process which is being followed. People are being taken, in some cases from third countries. One of the British citizens, for example, was taken from the Gambia. Others have been taken from Pakistan. Others still from, from Afghanistan. They're taken by force, drugs forcibly injected into them, hooded, chained, and taken to a cage in the tropics where by all accounts they're being kept in conditions that you wouldn't keep a dog in in your country or mine. And if you did, you'd be, you'd be had up for cruelty by the authorities.

And then there's very clear evidence of systematic torture. There's the desecration of the Koran which may or may not have happened, depending on which edition of Newsweek you are prepared to believe. This is a big scar on the face of the United States. And it seems to me that too few citizens of the United States have fastened on to the fact that the protestations by your president and your government of being interested in human rights and democracy and freedom are quite negated by the very existence of Guantanamo Bay.

But of course, that's not the end of it. Bagram Air Base is exactly the same kind of place. Abu Ghraib prison, well we perhaps, on a family show, shouldn't probe too deeply into the disgusting obscenities that were going on there. And, it turns out, that where the United States itself is not prepared to physically torture people, it merely subcontracts out the task; sending people to the likes of Uzbekistan and Egypt and other prison states where less squeamish governments will torture people for the United States and give the U.S. the testimony they get as a result. Which, of course, it goes without saying, is almost never of any use because anyone will say anything under torture.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah.

[George Galloway] And all sorts of wild goose chases are no doubt embarked upon as a result of all this. So I'm afraid Guantanamo is a blot on the landscape and the fact that the United States occupies it in Cuba without Cuba's agreement is just the icing on the cake.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah. George Galloway, Member of Parliament in the, in Great Britain, of the House of Commons. Why do you believe that Tony Blair decided to join president Bush in waging war when, as has recently emerged with this Downing Street memo, he knew that the case was flimsy, and do you think that either Blair or Bush or people in their administration should be prosecuted on any, on any level for this activity?

[George Galloway] Well, first of all I am sure that they will not be prosecuted, because it is only losers that are prosecuted. In the international system that we have there's no chance of the likes of Henry Kissinger, for example, the greatest living war criminal in the world today with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor or in many other places on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars. That's for the tin pot tyrants, the tiny tyrants like Milosevic; they get sent there. The big tyrants never face justice.

I wish I knew the answer to your first question, why did Tony Blair join it? Certainly, it's been utterly ruinous to his political reputation. He will, he will be followed into the history books and into the grave with this mark of Cain on his forehead. He will be remembered for nothing other than that he followed George W. Bush over a cliff; took the rest of us with them, and we haven't yet reached the bottom, I'm afraid. All I can say from my own conversations with Mr. Blair, man to man, are that I think that both him and George W. Bush are possessed of a kind of messianic belief that somebody, God perhaps, gave them the job of shouldering the white man's burden, which is the world. That someone gave them the right to step outside of international law; go anywhere, do anything, pay any price in other people's blood, to reshape the world in their image; in the image that they want to see. And I think that both men will be damned in history. Both men have made their respective countries the two most hated countries in the world. They have endangered the lives and safety of our citizens. They have damaged our economic and cultural and social interests, and they should face prosecution, but never will.

[Thom Hartmann] Mr. Galloway, you called for a police inquiry into ballot fraud and ghost voting in Bethnal Green and Bow. In America, now, we just have this, just recently released, Congressman John Conyers went to Ohio and held hearings, 13 or 12 members of Congress, several weeks of hearings under oath, and determined that there was considerable election fraud in this last election where George Bush became president. And of course we know now that, in fact it was first reported on the BBC - Americans didn't know it but, but folks in the UK knew - within weeks of the 2000 election, that George Bush's brother Jeb and Kathleen Harris in Florida had conspired to remove the names of thousands of legally registered, tens of thousands of legally registered African Americans - largely Democratic voters - from the rolls there in Florida. What do you think is the solution to making elections, both in the United States and the United Kingdom, and around the world for that matter, open, fair and accurate?

[George Galloway] Well, you know, we're used to sending observers to third world countries and former banana republics to observe their elections. But the British election recently, and your election just a little more distantly, and the one in 2000 for that matter, really, if they had been observed by third world observers would have been declared bogus and deeply flawed.

Your president stole the presidency in Florida using his brother and his brother's close friends to cheat the people of the United States out of their freely elected president who was undoubtedly Al Gore. Even if you only counted the votes that actually made it through the hoops in order to be cast, the president was really Al Gore. And in Ohio, and I've read the stuff that Congressman Conyers is doing and I commend it, it's clear enough on the face of it that there was substantial fraud in that state and thus delivering the Electoral College vote for president Bush.

In our country, the government have vastly inflated the number of people voting by post which, as the courts have found, is wide open to electoral fraud, and electoral fraud there has been. I don't need to deal with the allegations, which are in their thousands. I can just deal with the cases that have already been dealt with. Six new Labour councillors were struck off and thrown out of the council in Birmingham, which is Britain's second city, having been caught red-handed in a room around a table at the dead of night, at midnight, with thousands, and I mean thousands, of other people's ballot papers that they were happily filling in, and they are now facing criminal prosecution as a result. Another new Labour councillor in the town of Blackburn, where the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw represents, and he was a close associate of Jack Straw, and he was a 65 or 67 year old man, has just been sent to prison for three and a half years for having been caught red-handed doing exactly the same thing.

When you add the thousands of allegations that there now are of voter fraud in the last election then I've called for the police to move in en masse, because we are heading down the road towards a kind of corruption that we never thought we'd see. Perhaps it's an innate sense of democratic superiority on our part. We use to think that that kind of ballot-rigging and voter fraud was something that happened in other countries, not in the mother of democracies, Great Britain.

[Thom Hartmann] Now this was a vote by mail problems that you had in the UK. Here in Oregon, we have the only vote by mail system in the state and I think we always thought that it was impregnable. It was, it was immune to this sort of thing.

[George Galloway] Well, yours may be, yours may be. Ours is very far from that. And when the electoral rolls are in the state that they are in... In my own constituency, for example, there were no less than 14 voters registered in one flat in Brick Lane, which is a heavily Asian, Bengali area, a Bangladeshi area in my constituency, and when we went there, not only were there not 14 voters living there, which would have been odd in any case given the size of the apartments, but there were no voters living there. Indeed, there was no one living there, it was utterly derelict. Now, somebody registered them and many hundreds, maybe even thousands of others for votes that they would cast by post who simply didn't exist. And of course, the scam is that someone picks up the ballot papers when they are posted out by the authority, fills them in and returns them.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah. George Galloway, Member of Parliament, Member of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. What lessons have you learned, if I can change the topic just for a moment to economics, and then if you have another moment,

[George Galloway] Of course.

[Thom Hartmann] I'd like to get back to the loss of freedoms in the wake of 9/11, but I'm curious about privatization in the UK. It's all the rage in the United States. I was over there when you were privatizing your railroads, could you speak to the citizens of America about the dangers of privatization, please?

[George Galloway] Well, what a way to run a railroad! That's what most people in the country are saying now, and how's this for a turnaround? British Rail, which was owned by the state, which was a nationalized railway, was probably the least loved institution in the United Kingdom when Mrs. Thatcher privatized it. Now, fully 80% of the people of the country, 80, eight zero percent of the people of the country want the railways taken back into public ownership because they realize now that we're paying three times the subsidy to the private owners of the privatized railways that we were paying to the nationalized railways and we've got a dirtier, more dangerous, and more expensive service as a result. It takes longer now to go from London to Birmingham on the train than it does to go from where I'm sitting in the House of Commons to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and it's only 110 miles from London to Birmingham. We've had a whole series of railway disasters caused by people cutting corners to save costs, to make more profits. We've had delays that would make your hair stand on end; people in the depths of winter being delayed 5, 7 hours on railway journeys, and we have rolling stock which has not improved since the public sector days. All that's happening is that we're giving huge state subsidies to private owners who are putting it in their pockets.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah.

[George Galloway] Now, we are the only country in the whole world that privatized our Air Traffic Control space; even the United States did not do that.

[Thom Hartmann] We're talking about it here.

[George Galloway] Yes, you're talking about it. Mr. Blair was ahead of you. He was ahead of Mrs. Thatcher, who wouldn't have dreamt of any such reckless measure. And we've now handed over control of our Air Traffic Control space to people whose primary responsibility, who's very legal and fiduciary duty is to use their investment to make a profit for their shareholders. That's got to be legally their first priority; to make a profit for their shareholders.

Now, just like an equally deadly privatization, though it doesn't sound like it, it might sound banal, when we privatized the cleaning services in hospitals, we immediately passed on to companies a duty not primarily to keep the hospitals clean, but primarily to make a profit for their shareholders. The result has been an explosion, a veritable explosion, in re-infection rates; so-called MRSA which is a kind of super bug mutant, which is actually killing 10,000 people a year in Britain. And there are many hospitals, including the one in my own constituency, miscalled the Royal London Hospital, though you'd never find a member of the royal family in it, I can assure you, where you're as likely to come out sick as you are to come out cured because of the state of the cleaning services in the hospitals. And that's directly linked to the privatization of that service.

So I say to the people of the United States that the rest of the world is falling out of love with privatization. Some things are too important to be left to the private sector. And just as some things are too important or specialized to be left to the public sector, nobody's saying that every cafe or fish and chip shop on the corner should be owned by the state - that would be absurd. But there are some things like Air Traffic Control, like national railway networks, like the cleaning of hospitals, like the teaching of our children in schools which are too important to be left to people who are doing it for profit.

[Thom Hartmann] Well said, and in fact, Senator Bill Frist, the fellow who's leading the United States Senate now, his family fortune was built on hospitals, previously public hospitals being made private, and we're seeing the consequences of that in the United States with exploding health care costs and other problems.

[George Galloway] Yes. Well we say here - it might be a little unfair - we say here that if you fall down in the United States, the ambulance man must feel for your wallet before he feels for your pulse.

[Thom Hartmann] Yes, and to some extent it actually is true. My last question for you is sort of a two part here. I know you have to get back to the work you're doing and I very much appreciate you spending your time with us, sir.

[George Galloway] You're welcome.

[Thom Hartmann] First of all, Senator Norman Coleman, whose committee you testified before and to whom you spoke the week before last, as I recall, or last week - recently. There are reports, which I've been unable to absolutely confirm, but apparently, from the searches of the senate web site, it looks like your testimony has disappeared from the record.

[George Galloway] That's right.

[Thom Hartmann] Do you know about that, and what are your thoughts on that?

[George Galloway] It has been. It has been. It has been airbrushed from the, from the record. And in a way, if you saw the testimony, you'll know why. Because what I managed to do, and I thank God for the breath that he gave me to do it, was blow away the smokescreen that these people are trying to throw up to divert attention from the very real crimes, high crimes and misdemeanors that they themselves are responsible for. And I've had, and I'm not exaggerating this, more than 12,000 emails from the United States. 12,000 emails, and it's not easy in the United States to find out the email address of a British parliamentarian.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah.

[George Galloway] And these people have all written to me. Many of them have drawn attention to the fact that although for one day, just 24 hours, my testimony was on the web site it has now been wiped off it. And that tells you all you need to know, really, about the quality of the commitment to democracy and open government that these people really have as opposed to the talk that they talk.

[Thom Hartmann] Well, and finally, with regard to democracy, what do you see the problem with the new laws we're debating, enhancing actually the so-called Patriot Act here in the United States. I know you have these kinds of things going on in the UK, the curtailment of freedoms, the loss of liberties in the wake of 9/11. I'm assuming that you've probably seen the Power of Nightmares, the BBC documentary which nobody in the United States has seen. Do you think that these changes are necessary or useful? What's your, what's your opinion of this?

[George Galloway] Well I'm afraid I'm an advocate of the great Dr. Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. He didn't mean, of course, the patriotism which is a noble, genuine love for what's best about your country and its beauty and its achievements and so on, but those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people. As a means of getting them to fall in behind the colours and march off to ignoble wars; wars of conquest, wars of aggression, wars for exploitation.

And that's what I think this Patriot Act is all about. It's about fooling the American people into believing that if you just arm the state with enough fly swats you'll be able to whack away all the beasts that are coming your way. But the truth is, these mosquitoes are coming out of a swamp; a very real swamp of grievance, of bitterness and hatred at our injustice and at the policies that we are following. And unless we drain that swamp by reversing the policies of injustice that have germinated this threat then it doesn't matter how many Patriot Acts you pass, it doesn't matter how many fly swats you hand out, how many mosquito nets you wrap yourself in, you're not going to be able to stop them hurting us again.

[Thom Hartmann] Yeah. Well said. Mr. George Galloway, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.

[George Galloway] You're welcome. Any time.

[Thom Hartmann] I do appreciate it. I truly appreciate it.

[George Galloway] Thanks.

[Thom Hartmann] Thank you very much for being here on the Thom Hartmann program.

[George Galloway] Bye

Thom Hartmann is a nationally syndicated talk show host and the award-winning, best-selling author of 14 books. www.thomhartmann.com George Galloway is a British Member of Parliament who just won re-election, and recently took on U.S. Senator Norm Coleman.

Reprinted from Common Dreams:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0528-27.htm

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"Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway'" | Configure | 15 comments
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Re: Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway' (Score: 1)
on Sunday, May 29

does anyone know?

has galloway's congressional testimony been offically expunged??

diskappeared? never said; never happened...
move on... kinda deal?

offically? factually?
removed and expunged that testimony from congressional record?

the citizens pay for alla this forgery and chicanery?...and devious psuedo-prosecutorial baloney? from 'officals' who are also riding the big gravy train...

the part i really zoomed in on when was coleman was cynically questioning the various business backgrounds of various companies represented by certain of his contributors...

...and galloway came cocked and loaded...told coleman he has been doing his own research as to coleman's financing and various lobbylapaloozas to this place and that...usually high class whoring for votes on dirty and complex corporate protectionist legislation, explotive corporate welfare that feeds the death machine... et al.
but hey, maybe that's just me...
soooo: coleman answers quick and off the cuff...tho they will try to spin it this way and that...and i quote :

GALLOWAY: I've checked your website. There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you.

SEN. COLEMAN: Certainly not at $600,000 American.
_______

yeah better strike that from the record...
the way it really works ta daaaaaa

was it offically struck from the record...
it is gone as a matter of record, it is gone?
does anyone know?

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Re: Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway' (Score: 1)
on Sunday, May 29

This Mr. Galloway is very, very wise and I truly hope we'll get to read/hear more of what he has to say in the future. I love his style; gets the whole message across in a way which is easy to get, doesn't mince words but is nicely succinct.

I'm one of those 24,000 emails, btw.

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Re: Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway' by biohazard on Sunday, May 29

I positively danced a little jig of glee upon reading Mr. Galloway's comments about Kissinger. Ol' Hank got gutted like a tuna. The rest of the interview was outstanding as well.

RadioActive Babe

Re: Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway'
Sunday, May 29

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Re: Thom Hartmann: 'Interview with British MP George Galloway'
Sunday, May 29 @ 13:23:33 EDT

I'm a little puzzled as to why people in our government feel, that if truth is to be extracted from prisoners, or if they want a prisoner to be tortured physically or mentally, all they have to do is send them to a country of choice where this can be done. In Vietnam, prisoners were handed over to the South Vietnamese military, where they were taken care of. In Afghanistan and Iraq the US is doing the same. Now mind you, I'm not a lawyer, but didn't anyone ever hear of the principal/agent relationship. This means that the principal (US) is just as guilty as the agent that commits the torture. Handing over a prisoner, knowing the end result, makes this country culpeble, as if its own people had committed the torture.

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his email: gallowayg@parliament.uk (Score: 1)
Sunday, May 29 @ 12:47:23 EDT

"And I've had, and I'm not exaggerating this, more than 12,000 emails from the United States. 12,000 emails, and it's not easy in the United States to find out the email address of a British parliamentarian."

It took me 5 minutes:

gallowayg@parliament.uk

Please send today this gentleman your appreciation for his grilling of the GOP commission.

(You saw it on it on Smirking Chimp!)

buiyb

2005-03-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

Spiritual, Looking upward for help

Go to Barbara Boxer Group to Stop the Recall for her Brave Stands for Democracy

2005-01-30T03:51:00.000-08:00

JOIN THE REAL BOXER REBELLION AT:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoxerRebellion/message/34

We need everyone to hit all their personal favorite websites andblogs to recruit fellow Boxer supporters to this group and the groupblog. Talk about all the good work Sen Boxer is doing right now, andleave the links to both the group and the blog.

Sen. Boxer is carrying the majority of the burden of putting upresistance to Dubya and the neo-con. Point that fact out, and rallysupport for Sen. Boxer.

There is a right wing site, not a YAHOO GROUP with similar name trying to RECALL BOXER as they did illegally to Davis to install Arnold in California. There is more information on the above yahoo group for Sen. Boxer about the neo-con legal attempts to have her recalled. SHOW YOUR GRATITUTE FOR HER STANDING ALONE DURING THE NO CERTIFICATION FOR BUSH VOTER FRAUD and for Sen. Boxer’s grilling of Condi’s lies which is also printed on this site. Scroll down to see how Boxer really exposes Condi’s lies and her blasé attitude to the US soldiers and Iraqis that were murdered because of Bush Regimes WMD lies which they are now trying to brush aside as “frivolous”.

TORTURE and Accountability of those who ordered it is “frivolous”, the indirect murder of our soldiers because of lack of armor and other basics is “frivolous” Stealing the votes of the American people is “frivolous” PROTESTING GENOCIDE, THE STEALING OF TWO ELECTIONS IN A ROW AND TAKING OUR CIVIL RIGHTS IS FRIVOLOUS??!!!
There are only about 30 members for the above pro-Boxer group and if the people who wrote thousands and tens of thousands of letters trying to stop the war, trying to get coverage of the massive “Election Fraud”, trying to get Congresspersons to refuse to certify this stolen election, those who do not want Gonzales or torture and human experimentation as a policy of the United States of Skull and Bones better start doing something.

If you can’t even show Sen. Boxer how grateful you are for her stand against the Bush thugs then don’t complain when other Senators seeing that the Liberals and those with some humanity left to protest on these sites can’t be bothered to show support of Barbara Boxer by going to her site. Why should other Congresspersons put their careers, their lives and the lives of their families on the line for you and your family if you don’t care enough to support her by doing this small thing, signing up with her group to find out what she is up against and it is not only the Hate Jocks calling for a recall and to oust her from the Senate but there is already a legal process started.
Please get involved. Stop being Kitty Genovese neighbors and do SOMETHING!

Subject: Thank them

Dear Friend:
Remember Fahrenheit 911 when no senator would object to the certification of the Florida vote? Not this year. Sen. Barbara Boxer joined the objection to voting irregularities in Ohio and the new Democratic Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada stood with her. This forced the House and Senate to hold two hours of debate on the integrity of voting in our country -- hopefully beginning some real reform.

Thousands of people are sending thank you letters to Sen. Boxer and Sen. Reid. Join me in signing the thank you letter at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/boxer_reid/

According to this post at DU the righties are talking about trying torecall Boxer:Hmmm.. Arizona Republicans tried to organize a recall of McCain

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&\topic_id=298112&mesg_id=298112

The DJ spent the entire morning commute radio timedemanding a recall of Boxer and belittling DU and MoveOn.org. The station said it received over 200emails.

They must have taken it seriously becausethe went to the trouble of investigating what citiesthe emails came from. The DJ joked about the factthat most of the emails were not even from California.
The fact that this DJ is calling for a state-wide recall of Boxer must have caught her attention. Senator Boxer was on KLSD (Air America) speaking with local wonderful pro-liberal jock Stacey Taylor about the recall. The twostations were both talking about her at the sametime -- one pro -- one con. Couldn't listen to both.

So, at least we pissed him off. I'm so aggravated though.It's so unfair that he has such a huge audience to vent his spleen. I hope everybody here signed up and offeredsupport to re-institute the Fairness doctrine.These rightwing DJ Hate-Spewers are a dying breed on radio

Just days ago, Limpbog lost his New York time slot to Air America. Clear Channel has just announced it is adding liberal shows to its stations. I think people are fed up with the Limpbog wannabe hate screamers.

I used to listen to outr local hater, and could not believe the shit they mangle to create sensationalist hate. I have given up listening... life is much better. Anybody else got any info to verify or refute this?

2005-01-30T03:16:00.000-08:00

Yelena Advancing in Arabian Floor Exercise

2005-01-30T03:02:00.000-08:00

Rep. Conyer's Website has report on Election Fraud

2005-01-30T03:01:00.000-08:00

Interior of Sen. Boxer's preserving California Mission Churches

2005-01-30T02:59:00.000-08:00

Sen. Boxer historic preservation of California's Mission Churches

2005-01-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

Tribute to Sen. Boxer

2005-01-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

Sen. Boxer and Rep. Jones brave stand against certifying fraudulent election

Just Read Iraqi Humanity Blog - Heartbreaking

2005-01-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

I am a Christian and do not believe in the destruction of America and the World Dominion plans of the never elected Mr. Bush.

Please go to the Green Recount site to see how the bush regime is going after the brave attorneys who exposed the massive voter fraud and suppression in Ohio. And how Blackwell, who receives a salary for being a supposedly objective overseer of the FAIR AND TRANSPARENT ELECTORAL PROCESS instead in his well publicised role as Co-Chair to Elect Bush committed many illegal acts of Voter Suppression and myriad types of fraud against the American people and should be the one facing criminal charges.

Blackwell, in a well publicized letter by the blogosphere bragged about stealing the election for Mr. Bush and obstruction a fair Recount/Audit by the attorneys and destroyed Voter information which by law is supposed to be kept for 22 months and this destruction of evidence of fraud is also being carried out in New Mexico.

The very corrupt Ohio Attorney General is charging the Greens attorneys with bringing frivolous lawsuits and I am furious to have a second stolen election which is an act of treason against the people of the United States of America called frivolous.

Vote Stealing and the torture atrocities which resulted in Rumsfeld, Generals Sanchez, Miller and others being indicted for Crimes Against Humanity was also termed by the never-elected Bush Regime as frivolous.

There are tens of millions of very angry Americans at the theft of our country and I will try to focus on activism to stop this continuation of the Nazi's World Dominion plan by the very corrupt Bush Regime who has very real Nazi ties and agenda and actions.