Tell It

Halliburton Gave Troops Contaminated Water

Comcast subverts Net Neutrality Hearing

Net Neutrality Lowdown

"No one likes America"

Says Ahmadinejad.

The President of Iran just got back from a two-day trip to Iraq (see my earlier post). He was welcomed, and had more access to the country than Bush dares to take. After returning home he reiterated what he thinks of America, and what he thinks others think: "No one likes America."

His visit follows trips to Iran last year by top officials of Iraq's Shiite-led government, which has been fostering a closer relationship with predominantly Shiite Iran since the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2003. His visit was greeted warmly by Iraq's Shiite Muslim leaders, whose links to Iran predate the overthrow of Hussein...

On Sunday, in northern Iraq, he walked openly on the streets of Hawaija, a former al Qaeda in Iraq bastion now described in a Pentagon news release as "a market crowded with people and shops stocked with goods."

We must be doing great in Iraq. Ahmadinejad, supposedly our greatest enemy, walks the streets freely, the same streets we "liberated," and our "leader" sneaks around, too afraid to do anything but photo-ops with our troops. I guess I was wrong four years ago when I said this war was going to be clusterfuck.

The Atheism Fad (The Fox Delusion)

I love it when believers use the birth of a child as evidence for god... I have seen the birth of a child. If god is responsible for that horror show he should be ashamed of himself. -googtube

Murdoch's ill-begotten Fox News Network gives its take on the new fad of godlessness. To counteract all of those interviews they have had with Dawkins this one features two religious pundits and a Catholic priest. My favorite line : "Why is it that there is this posturing in the media as atheists as inellectuals?" and the priest goes on to decieve people by fucking up the statistics.

"Childbirth, a miracle? It's as much a miracle as eating a sandwich and having a big ol' turd come out later on." -Bill Hicks

Bush Keeps Low Profile In Iraq; "Narrowly Escapes Tar and Feathering"

Via DownWithTyranny:

Bush slinked in and out of Iraq for a quick unannounced photo-op and some handshakes on a heavily guarded American airbase. They never turned off Air Force One's engines... just in case the Iraqi people found out that the author of their misery was in the country. Now that he's murdered Saddam and his two sons, Bush's main nemesis in his world of power politics is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And he's in the midst of a much heralded, high profile visit to the country that it's self-declared "liberator" and "rebuilder" and "protector" is scared to death of.

Meanwhile Iran and Iraq are celebrating a new chapter in brotherly relations in Baghdad today while Bush skulks around his pig farm in Crawford, Texas muttering darkly about Iranian nukes and terror exportation.

Bush took his surprise photo-op trip to Anbar, Iraq in Sept. of 2007. No one played his theme song as he landed, that would surely have drawn attention. Strange that this new Iraqi Government is more friendly with the leader of Iran than they have ever been. And the US will not even open diplomatic relations with Iran. They hold his hand like Bush hangs onto the Saudi's.

Political Trials in America

Paul Craig Roberts: It does happen in America: The political trial of Don Siegelman



The Governor of Alabama has been in jail for nearly two years. He is no criminal. Between the Republican control of the judiciary, legislative, and executive recourses, and the jury tampering, he was set up for political reasons. The media is just catching wind of the story. Get acquainted with contemporary US political trials:

Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama, a Republican state, was framed in a crooked trial, convicted on June 29, 2006, and sent to Federal prison by the corrupt and immoral Bush administration. ..... What was the "crime" for which Siegelman and Scrushy were convicted? ..... Scrushy’s firm made a contribution to the Alabama Educational Trust, a charitable organization, to retire debt associated with the Alabama education lottery proposal. Scrushy was a member of Alabama’s Certificate of Need board, a nonpaid group that oversaw hospital expansion. Scrushy had been a member of the board through the terms of the prior three governors, and Siegelman asked him to serve another term.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Scrushy’s charitable contribution was a bribe to Siegelman in exchange for being appointed to the Certificate of Need board. In the words of federal prosecutor Stephen Feaga, the contribution was "given in exchange for a promise for an official act."

.....

How in the world did a jury convict two men of a non-crime?

The answer is that the US attorney used Governor Siegelman’s indicted young assistant, Nick Bailey, to create the impression among some of the jury that "something must have happened." Unbeknownst to Siegelman, Bailey was extorting money or accepting bribes from Alabama businessmen in exchange for state business. Bailey was caught. Presented with threats of a long sentence, Bailey agreed to testify falsely that Siegelman came out of a meeting with Scrushy and showed Bailey a $250,000 check he had accepted in exchange for appointing Scrushy to the Certificate of Need board. Prosecutors knew that Bailey’s testimony was false, not only because they had Bailey rewrite his testimony several times and rehearsed him until he had it down pat, but also because they had the check. The records show that the check, written to a charitable organization, was cut days after the meeting from which Siegelman allegedly emerged with check in hand.

.....

The prosecutors also had help from some jurors. On a WOTM Special Report hosted by former US Attorney Raymond Johnson, Alabama lawyer Julian McPhillips produced emails from two jurors about influencing other jurors in order to achieve a conviction. Jurors are not supposed to discuss a case outside the court or to consider information other than what is presented in court and allowed by the judge. The outside communication among the jurors is sufficient to declare a mistrial.
However, Federal District Judge Mark Fuller, a Bush appointee, ignored the tainted jury. Fuller himself was part of the prosecution. He bore a strong grudge against Siegelman. Fuller had been an Alabama district attorney before Bush made him a federal judge. Fuller’s successor as district attorney was appointed by Siegelman and produced evidence that Fuller had defrauded or attempted to defraud the state retirement system.

.....

But this brutish political persecution of Siegelman began with a stolen election in 2002.

Since the Republicans could not defeat Siegelman fairly and squarely, they resorted to election theft to seize power away from Governor Siegelman and the people of Alabama.

.....

The Bush Justice Department first went after Siegelman during his 2002 reelection campaign. When Siegelman was first elected in 1998, the Republican Alabama Attorney General, William Pryor, began investigating Siegelman. There was nothing to investigate, but his "investigation" was the entry for Leura Canary, who federalized the "investigation." Politically motivated leaks from the "investigation" were used in an effort to defeat Siegelman’s reelection.

It almost worked, but Siegelman narrowly won.

Unable to defeat Siegelman even with leaks from a phony investigation designed to smear him, the Republicans decided to steal the election. After all districts had reported the vote count, Siegelman thanked the voters for reelecting him and went to bed. During the night the Republicans, with no Democratic voting officials present, "recounted" the ballots in Baldwin County. Six thousand Siegelman votes that had been reported disappeared in the recount. The next morning Republican Bob Riley declared himself the winner.

The theft was so hastily arranged that the thieves forgot to change any of the other vote outcomes on the ballots. All other races had the same totals as originally reported, a statistical impossibility had there actually been a computer glitch as the election thieves claimed.
The Republican attorney general, Pryor, refused a recount. The Republican Justice Department and Republican federal judges looked the other way, as did the Republican propaganda sheets that masquerade as news media in Alabama.
President Bush rewarded William Pryor for his service by making him a federal judge in a recess appointment, as he could not be confirmed by the US Senate. According to MSNBC and other reports, investigations had produced more serious charges against Pryor than against Siegelman, but Pryor, being a chief Republican operative, was immune from prosecution.

The case against Siegelman was drawn out in the media for two more years in the hopes of smearing him forever. When Leura Canary’s false case was finally brought to court, Federal District Judge U.W. Clemon threw it out of court. Clemon cited an assistant US attorney and an assistant state attorney general for contempt of court. All charges against Siegelman and his co-defendants were dropped on October 5, 2004.
Vindicated, Siegelman began his campaign for recovering the governorship in 2006. The word came from Washington to get Siegelman at all costs. Siegelman was indicted a second time on October 26, 2005, costing him the Democratic primary. The jury twice deadlocked and was twice sent back by Siegelman’s adversary, Judge Fuller. With charges of jury tampering in the air, Siegelman was acquitted of 25 counts and found guilty of "pay for play." Judge Fuller had Siegelman handcuffed and manacled and immediately whisked off to prison for a seven-year sentence. Normally a non-dangerous person is left at liberty while the case is being appealed.

The Siegelman case makes it clear exactly what Bush, Rove, and the disgraced Bush flunky, Alberto Gonzales, intended by firing the eight Republican US attorneys. These eight refused to politicize their office by falsely prosecuting Democrats in order to achieve a Rovian political agenda. Apparently, there were only eight honest persons among the 1,200 Republican US attorneys. Bush, Rove, and Gonzales had no problem with the other 1,192.
.....

If it can happen to the governor, imagine how easily it can happen to you or me.

"Diebold Leaks 2008 Presidential Results Early"

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

If only real television were this enlightening, and entertaining. But really, we can only hope our shadowy puppet masters have mercy on us...

Of Prophets and Fools

Thanks to Pottersville for finding this inspiring and prophetic speech by JFK. As with Eisenhower's warnings of the military-industrial complex, we are currently in the midst of a regime who holds secrecy as an idol, and the people as merely an obastacle. On a side note, check out this video of an interview with LBJ's supposed mistress. She has a lot to say about how politics worked down in Texas back in the day. She talks about a meeting the night before the Kennedy assassination, where Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Dallas tycoons, FBI moguls and organized crime kingpings... and how he emerged from the conference to tell his mistress Madeleine Duncan Brown that "those SOB's" would never embarrass him again. Very Interesting videos. Peace.

History repeats

Vice President Henry Wallace
saw this coming back in 1944:

"The American fascist's method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

No intermediate Step

Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen?

Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. "There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, "but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. "In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."

Bureaucratic Satire

"Rest assured that safeguards are in place to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens. However, because of the highly classified nature of the program, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter in accordance with Executive Order 12598, as amended. Moreover, the third exemption to FOIA provides for the withholding of information specifically protected from disclosure by statute. Thus, your request is also denied because the fact of the existence or non-existence of the information is exempted from disclosure pursuant to the third exemption."

Feel safe yet?