they write letters

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17486.html

(and ms bean is conspicuously absent)

They Must be Lying - I saw it on TV

and these figures, outlandish figures i've seen, i have to say, there's a little bit of hoopla involved in this

Nightline: Project Iraq
April 23, 2003 Wednesday
Source: ABC News

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS
Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) Let me go back to a point you were making a moment ago, namely, you can only really begin on this process in January. The Army began planning for this war, in some detail, last June, ten months ago. Why could you not on a contingency basis have said, we don't know if we're going war, there's a possibility we'll be going war, everyone's been thinking we'll be going to war for many months now, put out the bids and get some competitive bidding going on a global basis or even get some major competitive bidding here in the United States. If it happens, it happens and we're ready. If it doesn't, we don't have to go ahead with these projects.

ANDREW NATSIOS
Sure. We were plan on this last September and we spent the fall working with other domestic Federal agencies and the State Department and the Treasury Department and the National Security Council and MOB on an interagency agreement as to who would do that what. By October/November, that had been set. We began working on the scopes of work which actually take a long time to write because you're reconstructing large parts of a whole country, and by January they were ready to be bid. And we got approval in January to go out and do this truncated shorter process that takes about six weeks or two months. So, the timing actually goes back to September, but you don't just go out to bid, you have to have a document to bid.

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) Gotcha. Why it was not more competitive and why it ends up being cost plus, let's just take a quick break and when we come back, perhaps you'll address those two questions. Back in a moment. commercial break

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) And we're back once again with ANDREW NATSIOS, administrator for the Agency for International Development. I want to be sure that I understood you correctly. You're saying the, the top cost for the US taxpayer will be $1.7 billion. No more than that?

ANDREW NATSIOS
For the reconstruction. And then there's 700 million in the supplemental budget for humanitarian relief, which we don't competitively bid 'cause it's charities that get that money.

TED KOPPEL
(Off Camera) I understand. But as far as reconstruction goes, the American taxpayer will not be hit for more than $1.7 billion no matter how long the process takes?

ANDREW NATSIOS
That is our plan and that is our intention. And these figures, outlandish figures I've seen, I have to say, there's a little bit of hoopla involved in this.

clarification of hoopla

i really like your impeaches, let me shake your tree

Impeach Cheney

a request by a dirty fucking hippy blogger on the left graduate of Harvard Law School with honors, federal judicial clerkshiper, Department of Justice assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy, legal adviser to the assistant attorney general for antitrust, and the associate deputy attorney general, general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran, American Bar Association's Task Force on Presidential signing statements, author of several volumes on the United States Supreme Court, the United States Constitution, and international law, assisted three dozen countries in constitutional revision, including Russia, Spain, South Africa, Iraq, Cyprus, and Mozambique, and consulted foreign nations on matters ranging from telecommunications and cable regulation to sugar quotas, oil and gas pipelines, immigration, election laws, and human rights, ajunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a lecturer at the Bookings Institute, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University, executive editor of World Intelligence Review, a periodical devoted to national security and intelligence issues,* so you know it's just an idea you can dismiss out of hand just like the rest of the issues that we have of this administration

clinton got a hummer

habeas schmabeas

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/26/bending-congressional-ears/

vote to remove protections in the 2006 mca, bean in the affirmative

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll491.xml

bill to restore, specifically co-sponsors, bean in the absentia

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110:1416:./list/bss/d110HR.lst:@@@P|TOM:/bss/110search.html|

call

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

got permanency of presence ??

http://dahr.org/multi_media/dahr_jamail_the_bases_are_loaded.php

the nutshell, expanded

part 1



part 2



part 3

damn activist judges using the arguments of multiply divorced foreign hollywood actors in place of strict constitutional judgement

from Proxy

mr gonzales, at what point in time, if ever, did you stop being the president's personal defense attorney ??



from here

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/06/memory-all-alone-in-moonlight-i-can.html

w/more vids @ the link

I always tell people Abu Ghraib was Apocalypse Now meets The Shining

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=robotripping_at_abu_ghraib

but, remember, it's not what we do, it's the freedoms that we enjoy

that's why they need to be taken away

update 1 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061601074.html?nav=rss_world

update 2 http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/tortures_cheerl.html

update 3 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh

reprinted in full w/out permission, but w/citation

The delinquent Congress
By Ernest Partridge
Online Journal Guest Writer


Jun 14, 2007, 00:37


The administration of George Bush has, in effect, suspended the Constitution of the United States.

At Guantánamo in Cuba, in military prisons in the United States, and in secret detention facilities abroad, American citizens and non-citizens are being held without charge, without counsel, without prospect of a jury trial, in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth articles of the Bill of Rights. These rights apply to all persons under United States jurisdiction. The word “citizen” appears nowhere in the Bill of Rights.

The same administration has conducted warrantless surveillance of American citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and despite an explicit order of the Supreme Court to cease and desist.

And the administration, in violation of ratified treaties, which have the force of law (Article Six of the Constitution), is engaged in an undeclared war against a non-threatening nation, and is torturing prisoners. The treaties are, respectively, the Nuremberg Accords and the Geneva Conventions.

The president, upon signing congressional legislation, issues “signing statements” which state, in effect, that he can, at his discretion, ignore the legislation above his signature. And he has issued a “directive” that, in event of some unspecified “emergency” so designated by himself, he can assume dictatorial powers.

Nor is this the end of it. As most readers are well aware, there have been numerous additional illegal acts by the Bush administration, including the “outing” of a covert intelligence officer, obstruction of justice, and lying to the Congress and the American people.

The institution best situated to put an end to these crimes and to hold the criminals accountable to the rule of law is the Congress of the United States, each member of which has taken an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Five months into its new term, the Congress, now controlled by the Democratic Party, has done essentially nothing to restore the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. The initial decisive act leading to that end might be as simple as the passage of this two-sentence resolution: “The Congress of the United States hereby affirms that the Constitution is the supreme law of the United States. Accordingly, any and all legislation and executive orders in violation of the Constitution are null and void.”

The word “affirms” is crucial, for it states that at no time was the Constitution legally “in suspension,” and thus any legislation or acts by the Bush administration in violation thereof were at all times illegal and invalid. Accordingly, the word "restoration" must be avoided in such a resolution.

The Democrats should bring this resolution to a vote, and dare the Republicans to vote against it. The GOP would doubtless resist by calling it a “meaningless political stunt,” and would struggle to prevent an open vote. But if it were to be brought to a vote, who would dare go on record with a denial that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land?

And if such a resolution were to pass both houses of Congress, it should be immediately followed by other resolutions specifying the implications of that first resolution. Namely,

It is affirmed that all US citizens and other individuals under US jurisdiction enjoy the protection of Habeas Corpus, as specified in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.


Therefore, all persons in custody at Guantánamo and other prisons must either be charged with a crime and given a fair trial, or released. Following that, the Guantánamo facility must be closed and all "renditions" of prisoners to other countries ceased.


All torture of so-called “enemy combatants” must cease immediately.


All provisions of the USPATRIOT Act and the Military Provisions Act in violation of the protections of the Constitution must be declared null and void.


Acts of Congress signed by the president have the status of law, and signing statements have no legal status whatsoever.

In addition, the Congress should act upon the following:

Cite Attorney General Gonzales for perjury, obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress. Then proceed with his impeachment.


End the funding of the Iraq occupation, except for the funds required for the prompt withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.


Proceed with investigations and then indictments for war profiteering, with special attention directed toward Halliburton and its ex-CEO, Dick Cheney.


At long last, investigate election fraud by e-voting machines, intimidation, and voter disenfranchisement (e.g., through “caging lists”).


Above all, issue bills of impeachment against Bush and Cheney, followed by hearings in the House and trials in the Senate.

Impeachment is being resisted by “practical” Democratic politicians on the grounds that even if it succeeded in the House, conviction and removal from office would surely fail in the Senate.

I am not at all certain of this, in view of what might result from the House investigations and debate. But this objection misses the point. Ultimate conviction and removal may be less important than the impeachment process and the evidence and prosecution case that would result from it. Once the high crimes and misdemeanors of Bush and Cheney are brought to light, those who vote against impeachment in the House and conviction in Senate may pay a high price at the polls.

In the meantime, what is the progressive citizen and voter to do? Both parties have betrayed the trust of the American public and have violated their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution. Thus those of us who are justifiably disgusted with both parties, are faced with daunting dilemma:

On the one hand, should we punish the Democrats by voting for third parties? Such a decision serves to keep the Republicans in power, which would keep the culprits forever unaccountable for their crimes.

On the other hand, should we vote for the Democrats, as the lesser of the evils? If so, the party might construe this as public approval of its delinquent behavior.

With much reluctance and regret, I would opt for the latter alternative, all the while putting a well-deserved scare into the ranks of the “establishment” Democrats.

Most immediately, all Democrats who voted for Bush’s Iraq resolution and otherwise collaborated with the outlaw regime should be challenged in the primaries. A few might lose their seats to such challenges, though most would not. But even if the challenges fall short, strong showings at the polls by the progressive challengers will send a message: we the people are here, we protest, and we demand to be heard.

If that protest fails to reform the Democrats, then perhaps it will be time to look to third parties. The Democrats must understand that this remains a live option.

Finally, progressives must take a lesson from the religious right and take over the Democratic Party from the bottom up. Get active in local and state party activities, send progressives to the state conventions and then to the national convention. Far better to take control of an existing major party organization than to attempt to build a national organization for a minor party.

The good news for the Democrats is that public approval of Bush is down to around 30 percent. The bad news is that the public approval of the Democratic Congress is not much above that: 37 percent, down from 44 percent in April. And the worst news is that this poor and declining public opinion of the Democratic Congress is well deserved.

There is no other way to put it: the congressional Democratic leadership (with a few honorable exceptions) has failed the American public and has violated its oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We must demand that they wake up and do their duty, assuring them that if they do, they will earn the respect and support of their constituents.

Copyright © 2007 Ernest Partridge

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin. He publishes the website, The Online Gadfly and co-edits the progressive website, The Crisis Papers.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

kill the messenger



the highjacking of a nation

http://www.nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm

product placement

And just as Glenn Reynolds has done, Rush has developed a virtual obsession with the book The Dangerous Book for Boys, geared towards teaching "boys how to be boys." Rush spent the week hailing it as the antidote to what he calls the "Emasculation of America."

Identically, Reynolds on his blog has promoted the book a disturbing 17 times in the last six weeks alone.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/14/matthews/index.html

The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, Copyright © 2004 HarperCollins Publishers Australia

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0007232748

HarperCollinsPublishers, part of [Rupert Murdoch's] News Corporation

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/corporate/corporate_index.asp?id=cm_aboutus

something for something, or something latin like that

From the June 12 edition of the al Jazeera Network's The 700 a.d. Club:

(updated) (corrected host's name)

Abu Gordon ibn Absalom Robert al-Virgini: The question would be, ladies and gentlemen, if a million Muslims want to go to Colorado Springs and say, "We want to pray," you can't pray in Colorado. You can't have religious literature in Colorado. You can't get together in Koran study groups in Colorado. As far as having special places for foot-washing and all that, no way. You will abide by Biblical law because they're in control.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognize that Christianity is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Biblical law. In the Bible, it says it very clearly. There are two spheres. One is the Old Testament, which is the realm of war. The other is New Testament, which is that part that's under submission to Christ. There is no middle ground. You're either at war or you're under submission. Now, that's the way they think.

Now, sure, over there, you've got Christian light and you've got all these various things, but the idea is they don't want just accommodation, they want to take over and they want to impose Theocracy on you. And before long, ladies are going to be dressed in ankle-length dresses and whatever garments they would put on them, and next thing you know, men are going to be allowed to have wife-beating and you'll be stoning adulterers and so on and so forth. That's Colorado. We don't want that here in Iraq. If they don't like it here in Iraq, then let them go to Colorado, to Texas, to Ohio, to all those wonderful states around the Bible Belt.

slightly edited text from a far left smear site

from a comment on the media matters post:

Okay here's the difference. Islam teaches that one should love everyone, but kill the infidel. But the definition of who is the infidel is not the same as the Christian "disbeliever". An infidel is an "evil one". Muslims worldwide observe the practice of striking down evil in the world. And how do they determine who is evil? By behavior. The United States, in their words, is evil BECAUSE of the actions the US has taken. No, it's not because we are Christians (smart Muslims know that we are not a "Christian country" - it appears that only Christians see the US as a "Christian country"). It is because they have hundreds of incidences (and they can be cited) in which the US has taken ACTIONS that they see as evil.

So obviously there is a difference in moderate Islam (which is far more prevalent to extremists - otherwise all us non-Muslims would have been doomed long ago) and moderate Christianity. Muslims define evil by what men DO, while Christians define evil by what men BELIEVE.

By far the greatest number of Muslims (even extreme ones) couldn't care less what Americans BELIEVE. It's what we DO that they object to.

Christianity is the only major (dominant) world religion which judges people based on their beliefs. Muslims would be happy to share the world with believers of other faiths, provided that they don't engage in evil. Once they do, they become Satan incarnate and must then be defeated and destroyed.

brianswine / Wednesday June 13, 2007 12:06:47 PM EST

misc. ramblings

MUZZLING CERBERUS

Yes, we of the middle class are in a generational war all right–against the industrial cartels.

The cartels are as big a menace now as trusts were at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. They and the plutocrats who own them are a far greater danger to democracy and prosperity than ten thousand terrorists: these cartelist vampires are battening upon the lifeblood of the republic.

The cartels game the political market to shape policy to grow pie. A cartel is mature when it dominates its policy area to the increasing detriment of the general welfare.

The only credible military threat to the U.S. is its own war cartel.

It has sown fear and war for generations to reap its grotesque and murderous profit.

By initiating the Iraq invasion in the absence of any actual threat, on the basis of calculated and malicious lies, solely to profit the war & oil cartels, the President and his co-conspirators have plotted and committed High Treason against the Republic.

Every murder of our soldiers–every burning, every maiming–is on their heads. The massacres of Iraqis by insurgencies and militias that did not exist prior to the illegal invasion–the people killed with electric drills and dumped in the Tigris, undocumented in the morgues and the Overtonian death counts; mass slaughter, mass exodus: for each of these crimes the President is responsible. To aggravate his war crimes he has authorized torture and secret prisons, suspending habeas corpus and violating the Geneva conventions. He and his co-conspirators must be impeached and tried for their High Crimes and Misdemeanors and their Treason and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Let their names be forever sullied with their infamy.

Right now our foreign policy is run by the Cerberus of war and oil.
We need to starve the beast and put it on a short chain with a muzzle.

Comment by Doc Twain — June 9, 2007 @ 12:37 pm

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/08/mullen-generational/#comment-3849201
-------------

Outsourcing the Pentagon?

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently released a report questioning the Defense Department's outsourcing of professional, administrative and management services, particularly focusing on whether the government was relying too heavily on the private sector, and as a result, eroding Pentagon expertise.

"Demands on government expand, the federal workforce shrinks, and the technical skills within the government atrophy," wrote the CSIS. "Examining the line of what is inherently government and articulating a clear policy that can be embraced by all the parties will be critical to maintain a healthy government-industry relationship."

The report also raises concerns over the increasing influence of companies worth over $1 billion. When examining the sustainability of the current structure of the services industrial base, CSIS found that the structure squeezes out the mid-tier companies that "traditionally...served as a conduit for new ideas and improved business practices." As a result, the purported benefits of private sector innovation cannot be fully realized.

POGO is also investigating the issues at stake with outsourcing and whether contractors are performing inherently governmental functions. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are also covering these issues closely. Many benefits can be accrued by utilizing the private sector, but the federal government needs to be wary of losing control of vital programs and policy determinations. Without adequate expertise, oversight, and competition, the government and taxpayers risk becoming prey to the private sector.

-- Mandy Smithberger

http://www.feedage.com/feeds.php?feed=379697

-------------

got lawyers ??

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070608-6.html

from xaxnar's comment on digby's blog

Why would you vote on a computer that can be rigged without detection? You wouldn’t. At least, you wouldn’t want to. But since 2000, argues Steven Freeman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud and the Official Count, that is exactly what the people in 49 states have been doing—voting on machines that, with a simple software hack, can be seized and manipulated by anyone with brief access. These states have invested in computerized voting systems, operating on the proprietary software of private corporations. New York has until 2008 to decide if it will make the same investment.

and

“The history of exit polls, up until 2000, the big debate was that these things are too accurate. They let the press know who won the election before the polls closed,” he says, pointing as an example to the 1980 presidential race between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in which Carter conceded the race to Reagan based purely on the exit-poll results coming out of the western states.

Exit polls are also used in other countries for election-result-verification purposes, he points out. “But, all of a sudden, in 2004, they don’t work anymore.”

In 2004, where votes were counted by machine there was a 7-percent disparity between how the people said they voted in the exit polls and the official results.

“If people in fact voted as they said they did” in exit polling, he says, “George Bush did not win nationwide by three million votes, but rather lost by six million.”

In Ohio alone, there was a 12-percentage-point disparity. In states where votes were counted by hand, however, there was no disparity at all.

“Zero,” he says."

kinda reminds me of an old post

votes are [..] given, by voters, in a way that should be easily verifiable and auditable that doesn’t include proprietary source code running on uncertified machines with hazy chain-of-control data migration from the local polling place to where they are ultimately counted

and congress is doing what to verify the accuracy of the 2008 vote ??

Passive Citizenship is Not Enough

http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2007/052907a.html

By Nancy C. Unger
History News Service

the greatest story ever told

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

(be sure to note the date it was written)

from crooks