On Monday September 17, Democratic Presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.
He was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977 on the promise to save the city’s municipally-owned electric system which offered customers significantly lower rates than the private utility. A year later, Cleveland’s banks demanded that he sell the city’s 70 year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private competitor (in which the banks had a financial interest) as a precondition of extending credit to the city. The attempted political blackmail failed as did several assassination attempts. He remembered his parents counting out coins on the dresser and refused to sell the people’s power. In an incident unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into default for a mere $15 million despite being offered triple collateral to protect the loan.
The principled stand destroyed his political career. He lost his reelection bid. He was demonized as the mayor who threw Cleveland into default. Fifteen years later, the citizens of Cleveland - recognizing he had saved them hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal power bills and also forced the private utility to keep bills low to compete – voted him into the Ohio Senate. His campaign signs featured a light bulb and the expression “Because he was right.” In 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored Dennis for “..having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city’s municipal electric system.”
In 2002 the second great challenge of his elected career occurred. After analyzing the “evidence” presented by the Administration in its rush to folly in Iraq and actually reading the National Intelligence Estimate, he stepped forward to help lead 125 Democrats in voting against the blank check for the President to wage an illegal, immoral and ineffective war.
Speaking from the floor of the House some 140 times against the war and appearing on over 100 radio and talk shows was a risky political move. But it did not stop him. The neo-cons and their complicit friends in media engaged in a frenzy of caustic name calling. In Feb. of 2003 when Dennis explained on “Meet the Press” that oil was a key causal factor for the war and that our troops would be trapped in a costly door-to-door war, administration zealot Richard Perle insisted Dennis’ comments were “scurrilous” and “an out-and-out lie.” For his tireless and courageous efforts he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award in 2003.
The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.
Don't miss this great interview Monday morning at 8:00 AM Pacific Time on the BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK SHOW!
You can also listen live or later in the archives at Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk Show
Lydia interviewing Dennis Kucinich is worth a listen.
ReplyDeleteSenior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
ReplyDeletePentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.
Dennis Kucinich would stop this.
Talks between the United Automobile Workers and General Motors appeared close to an impasse Sunday night, nearly two days after contracts covering 73,000 hourly workers expired.
ReplyDeleteThe dispute came even though the two sides had essentially agreed on the creation of a health care trust that would take responsibility for benefits paid to active and retired workers and their families.
Corporate America taking from the workers again.
Seventeen U.S soldiers were killed in Iraq in the past week.
ReplyDelete"Surge" is working well for Bush.
Senate and House negotiators said Sunday that they had agreed on a framework for a compromise bill that would provide health insurance to four million uninsured children while relaxing some of the limits on eligibility imposed by the Bush administration.
ReplyDeleteThe compromise, which resembles a bill passed by the Senate with bipartisan support, sets the stage for a battle with President Bush, who has denounced similar legislation as a step “down the path to government-run health care for every American.”
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday, “The House and the Senate still appear to be far away from legislation that we would find acceptable.”
Republicans will come under political pressure to support the compromise. But if the president vetoes it, he will probably have enough votes in the House to sustain his veto, Republicans say.
The compromise would increase tobacco taxes to finance health insurance for more children.
Congressional aides worked through the weekend to meld the Senate and House bills. Some details have yet to be decided, but the aides predicted that Congress would approve the compromise before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, a leading Democratic supporter of the legislation, said Sunday: “I’m increasingly optimistic that we’re going to have a deal. The House and Senate are working day and night to put together a framework that both Democrats and Republicans can support.”
Neither side will get all it wants, Mr. Rockefeller said, but “we are very close to a compromise that will protect the health and future of millions of children.”
At issue is the future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Supporters of the Senate bill, passed last month by a vote of 68 to 31, had enough votes to overcome a presidential veto. Only five Republicans voted for the House bill when it was approved, 225 to 204.
Bush and the Republican Party hate poor children!
Kucinich is a good man, but the wealthy and powerful can't stand him. I wish he could get some traction. He is by far the best candidate out there. I hope it doesn'a take 10 or 15 yrs for people to once again say, "He was right".
ReplyDeleteWow, Lydia...you get to use the same picture at the top of two consecutive posts! :-)
ReplyDeleteKucinich is one of the ONLY people advocating impeaching these treasonous thugs and criminals............Bush and Cheney and their Neo Con lackies should be in jail for life but instead they are trotting out the same tired lies and BS rhetoric to push us into a war with Iran that will likely start WW3 and completely destroy ANY semblance of freedom we have left..........no one challenges or opposes these buffoons and the few who do are not taken seriously.......we've become a nation of sheep rather than a nation of men
ReplyDeleteRove and his fascist liars CONSTANTLY label both the truth and very credible theories back by fact and logic as "conspiracy theories" by the fringe left even after many of these such as votor fraud, the outing of valerie plame, the blatant treasonous lies that manipulated us into this quagmire of a war have been proven.
ReplyDelete70%-80% do not support Bush's illegal war and they are relegated to the fringe left thats roughly 80% of our population or 240 million he is calling fringe extremists.........same for 9/11 over half of our population DONT BELIEVE what the Neo Cons are telling us about 9/11 but the fascists TRY to marginalize half of our nation as fringe wacco's once again instead of admitting it is THEM the Neo Cons who are the fringe wacco's.
By the admission of the chairmen of the 9/11 commission itself, they did not get to the truth, and were deliberately impeded and deceived through their entire investigation.
ReplyDeleteWe are not going to attempt in this alert to theorize about what the actual truth is. The one thing we know for sure is that the "official" story is a fairy tale, just like children's book Bush kept reading while he did NOTHING during the attack itself.
9/11 REINVESTIGATION ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/reinvestigate_911.php
Now that the American people are waking up to the fact that they've been lied to about everything else in the last 6 years, is it any wonder that they are increasing skeptical about how it is that our air defenses just evaporated on 9/11, so as to ALLOW any terrorist plot to succeed on that day.
Don't you think it's time, AFTER the deaths of 3,000 Americans in New York City, and even more in Iraq, AFTER squandering a trillion dollars or more of our treasury on a phantom WMD and Al Qaeda chase in that country, don't you think it's time that the American people were finally told the truth?
NOW, years later, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton whine they were systematically lied to and denied the funds to do a proper job. Why did they not put up more of a fight about this at the time they were betraying the trust of the American people? Of course the 9/11 commissioners have only themselves to blame for failing so miserably in their duty. In the first place, instead of a silly charade, they SHOULD have demanded that Cheney and Bush testify separately and under OATH with a transcript.
But they did not, because the Cheney White House already knew Bush could not be trusted alone to compose a sentence in the English language not being fed to him by a teleprompter. He's so stupid he might accidently blurt out the truth. He's prone to blurting out his own stage directions as it is, like when he said his job was to "catapult the propaganda". You can be sure Karl Rove winced when he heard that one on the TV.
Sept. 6, 2001, the Thursday before the tragedy, 2,075 put options were made on United Airlines and on Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines. Given the prices at the time, this could have yielded speculators between $2 million and $4 million in profit.
ReplyDeleteSUPPRESSED DETAILS OF CRIMINAL INSIDER TRADING
LEAD DIRECTLY INTO THE CIA'S HIGHEST RANKS
CIA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR "BUZZY" KRONGARD
MANAGED FIRM THAT HANDLED "PUT" OPTIONS ON UAL
by Michael C. Ruppert
[© COPYRIGHT, 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and FTW Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted or distributed for non-profit purposes only.]
FTW, October 9, 2001 - Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. Until 1997 A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering. Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee "private client relations". In this capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate and other investigators as being closely connected to the laundering of drug money.
Krongard (re?) joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Director George Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Executive Director by President Bush in March of this year. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. And, as we shall see, Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to the September 11 attacks.
THE SCOPE OF KNOWN INSIDER TRADING
Before looking further into these relationships it is necessary to look at the insider trading information that is being ignored by Reuters, The New York Times and other mass media. It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades - in real time - as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades.
It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades, "selling short" and "put options".
"Selling Short" is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months.
"Put Options" are contracts giving the buyer the option to sell stocks at a later date. Purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, they are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 - regardless of where the market then stands. A call option is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.
A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counter terrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:
- Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
- On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance; Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders", they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
- [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
- No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
- Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders", their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
- European regulators are examining trades in Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a "double whammy" for them.]
On September 29, 2001 - in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media - the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data".
"The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors - whose identities and nationalities have not been made public - had advance knowledge of the strikes". They don't dare show up now. The suspension of trading for four days after the attacks made it impossible to cash-out quickly and claim the prize before investigators started looking.
"October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. [This represents 230,000 shares]. Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called "put" options outstanding [valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares] according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp".
"The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options" This was the operation managed by Krongard until as recently as 1998.
As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.
CIA, THE BANKS AND THE BROKERS
Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let's look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history.
Clark Clifford - The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.
John Foster and Allen Dulles - These two brothers "designed" the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful - to this day - Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell.
Bill Casey - Ronald Reagan's CIA Director and OSS veteran who served as chief wrangler during the Iran-Contra years was, under President Richard Nixon, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and stockbroker.
David Doherty - The current Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange for enforcement is the retired General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.
George Herbert Walker Bush - President from 1989 to January 1993, also served as CIA Director for 13 months from 1976-7. He is now a paid consultant to the Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the nation, which also shares joint investments with the bin Laden family.
A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard - The current Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is the former Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown and former Vice Chairman of Banker's Trust.
John Deutch - This retired CIA Director from the Clinton Administration currently sits on the board at Citigroup, the nation's second largest bank, which has been repeatedly and overtly involved in the documented laundering of drug money. This includes Citigroup's 2001 purchase of a Mexican bank known to launder drug money, Banamex.
Nora Slatkin - This retired CIA Executive Director also sits on Citibank's board.
Maurice "Hank" Greenburg - The CEO of AIG insurance, manager of the third largest capital investment pool in the world, was floated as a possible CIA Director in 1995. FTW exposed Greenberg's and AIG's long connection to CIA drug trafficking and covert operations in a two-part series that was interrupted just prior to the attacks of September 11. AIG's stock has bounced back remarkably well since the attacks. To read that story, please go to http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/part_2.html.
One wonders how much damning evidence is necessary to respond to what is now irrefutable proof that CIA knew about the attacks and did not stop them. Whatever our government is doing, whatever the CIA is doing, it is clearly NOT in the interests of the American people, especially those who died on September 11.
On this particular night the crowd looked promising. I introduced myself to two women there, and after a short while, one of the women told me she worked for the CBOE. The CBOE is the Chicago Board Options Exchange. It is the exchange that handles trading in, among other things, stock options. I half-jokingly asked her, "Whatever happened to the CBOE investigation of all the profits made by those who bought put options on airlines stocks before 9-11?" (You make money on put options when a stock goes down in price.)
Her answered floored me. She said, "It probably would have been easy for us to find out who was behind the trades, but the government came in and told the CBOE president to stop the investigation."
Just to make sure I heard her right, I said to her, "The government came in and told the CBOE president not to investigate?" She said, "Yeah, it was really strange."
The conversation changed for a minute, but I wanted to get back to the government not wanting an investigation. I said to her again, a third time, making sure I heard right, "The government didn't want you to investigate?" She looked at me said "Yes, that's right." Then she looked at me a little longer, she knew I had interest in this topic, she looked a little nervous and then blurted out to me, "We erased the data. Our data on the trades is gone." [Strike The Root]
Lets look at the Facts shall we
ReplyDelete1) the Chairman of the 9/11 Commission admitted they DID NOT get to the facts and were constantly impeded, deceived throughout their investigation of what REALLY happened on 9/11.
2) Bush and Cheney refused to testify on record regarding 9/11.
3) There was an extrordinary amout of put options on American Airlines and UAL corp, the exact two airlines involved in the 9/11 tragedy......it was as if they KNEW this was going to happen and they could make alot of money off of this, and the insider trading lead to the highest ranks of the CIA, and the government also impeded and obstructed this investigation as well.
4) President Bush's cousin had a fortunate change of venue for a September 11 business conference:
President Bush's cousin should have been in the World Trade Centre when it was attacked. Jim Pierce, managing director of AON Corporations, had arranged a business conference on the 105th floor of the South Tower where its New York offices were based. But his group was too large so they decided to move across the street to the Millennium Hotel.
5) Several political, military and corporate leaders were warned not to fly or to get out of the way.
6) Warnings about 9/11 -- what, when, how -- came from at least 15 countries.
7) Multiple FBI investigations of the "terrorists" at the flight schools were blocked, according to FBI whistle-blowers.
8) George W. Bush read "My Pet Goat" while the towers burned, acting unsurprised and indifferent to the attacks.
9) The Project for a New American Century, a “neo-con” group whose members run the Bush regime, stated in September 2000 that a “new Pearl Harbor” would be needed for their geo-political goals. Since Richard Perle was a part of the PNAC group, perhaps 9/11 could be called “Perle Harbor.”
10) The anthrax attacks to silence the media and the Democratic leadership in the Senate (when Congress was considering the “Patriot Act”) came from an Army laboratory, not Islamic terrorists.
11) The non-response of the Air Force to the hijacked planes.
The arranging of multiple war games to paralyze the Air Force response.
These were events that could not have been arranged by crazed Arab fundamentalist hijackers -- they involved very senior officials of the Bush regime and top military officials. While is plausible that the paralysis of the Air Force defenses could have been arranged in order to ensure the success of the hijackers (and therefore, the pretext for the Oil Wars and Homeland Security), it is unreasonable to assume that these hijackers would have chosen (or been able) to aim for the nearly empty part of the Pentagon.
12) Massive stock trades betting that the value of United and American would decline were made the week before 9/11 (the CIA monitors these trades in real time).
And thats just off the top of my head the bottom line is NOTHING about GWB and his administration of treasonous Neo Con lackies is legitimate...........he stole the election using votor fraud and votor suppression and disenfranchisement..........he repeated this act in 2004...........he committed treason by lying us into a war it appears very likely he had knowledge of 9/11 and ALLOWED it to happen because it was just the Perl Harbor type event him and his treasonous Neo Con lackies needed to push their evil self sertving agenda and start their oil wars.
ReplyDeleteNow the Little megalomaniac is trying to repeat the war based pon lies by trying to justify nuking Iran pre-emptively and installing himself as a dictator here in America...........he needs to be removed from the levers of power and the fabric of our society before him and Dunce Cheney start WW3!
Like Clif said yesterday, Alan Greenspan a man who has been a Republican all his life just stated the Iraq war was all about oil and lambasted the Bush Administration and the Rubberstamping repug congress for abandoning and betraying conservative principles such as being fiscally conservative and said they DESERVED to lose power.
ReplyDeleteWhen a career repug like Greenspan says things like this the sheep NEED to start listening and asking questions BEFORE its too late.
America NEEDS to start asking questions like
ReplyDelete1) Why is Bush trotting out the same tired lies to justify an attack on Iran after what a total disaster his previous war based on a pack of lies in iraq has been?
2) Why is Bush issuing Executive Orders allowing him to declare martial law at will on a whim and become a dictator, just as Hitler did in Germany.
3) Why is Bush having Haliburton build concentration camps in America just as Hitler did in Germany?
4) Why is Bush issuing Executive orders allowing him to confiscate American citizens assets on a whim just as Hitler did in Germany.
5) Why is Bush claiming the right to imprison or torture American citizens on a whim with no evidence required just as Hitler did in Germany
6) Why is Bush using fear of the terrorist bogeyman to dismantle our freedoms seize more and more power and justify his twisted agenda just as hitler did in German?
It's a very sad day indeed when Americans would do to fellow countrymen as these jackasses have done. I just don't have any outrage left for these people...it has already been spent. Nothing shocks or surprises me anymore. I'm not numb...although I'd like to be. The thought of doing anything to Iran is just unthinkable. I believe it of course...but I don't want to think they could be so astoundingly stupid to do this to us first of all...and to the Iranians. THEY will not be happy until they've ruined the entire world...because the fallout in the atmosphere will eventually do us all in. And if they do this...I hope Dub's grandchildren are all born with legs growing out of their foreheads...so that he can see visibly what he has wrought upon the world. I guess their arrogance knows no limits.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I could on and on but thats just of the top of my head the important thing is
ReplyDelete1) People need to wake up and start asking questions and not just blindly trust this criminal.
2) Bush MUST not be allowed to attack Iran.......Congress and the Military must not Allow this.
I agree completely Sumo, I am very frustrated as well.
ReplyDeleteLarry, excellent review of Kucinich. If only he had half a chance.
ReplyDeleteMike, great analysis. I got kicked out of a MSN group in 2002 for stating that the Bush and bin Laden families had profited from puts on airline stocks. I'd say it's time for a full investigation.
Kucinich was brilliant, it was a great interview and he made alot of sense............its a shame more people dont take him seriously or listen to what he is saying!
ReplyDeleteit boggles the mind doesnt it Tomcat, its like we are living in Bizarro world or something where things only make sense if you are a Neo Con sociopath and sycophant.
ReplyDeleteDennis was right about Cleveland, and he was right about Iraq. No doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteHe does, however, have some past policy positions to reconcile with present ones. I'd like to hear his answers, but I doubt anyone will ever ask him.
Pearl Harbor: they saw it coming and let it happen to galvanize public support for world war
ReplyDeleteThere is overwhelming evidence that the Cheney-Bush regime knew in advance what, when and how the attacks would occur -- and that they were allowed to happen in order to further long standing goals of the military industrial complex for global empire and a domestic police state. It is even probable that the attacks received considerable assistance from elements in the US military-industrial complex to ensure their success. Giving more money and powers to the unelected secret government agencies will not make us safer. Indeed, we will be paying for our repression and the destruction of what is left of our liberties.
Most people who don't believe the official stories probably think that 9/11 was like Pearl Harbor - the government saw the attacks coming but chose not to intercept them, in order to reap political benefit (the domestic police state and the excuse for blatant global empire). It is true that the normal air defenses were muted (at best), not following the normal policies for these types of events (the "stand down" - the military's lack of reaction to the attacks - is detailed at www.oilempire.us/standdown.html).
General Ralph Eberhart, who was in charge of air defense on 9/11, was the first commandant of the new "Northern Command," the domestic unified military command established in October 2002. If the domestic use of the U.S. military escalates into full-scale martial law, the Northern Command would manage it. If 9/11 had been an "intelligence failure," General Eberhart would have been court-martialed instead of promoted.
The American Reichstag Fire:
The Pentagon attack - evidence that 9/11 was an inside job
The real issue is not whether "Bush Knew" and let it happen, but that the Air Defense system "stood down" to ensure that the attacks succeeded. Bush is one person. NORAD is a bureaucracy with specific protocols, chains of command, etc. - and its commander was PROMOTED after 9/11 to run the new "Northern Command" (domestic use of the US military). If and when we go to full strength martial law, General Eberhart (who was in charge of Air Defense on 911/2001) would be in charge of that.
The idea that they let it happen on purpose (to galvanize public support for war - like with Pearl Harbor, which was known in advance by FDR) and actual complicity (assistance with or orchestration of the attacks) are politically about the same. Either scenario involves a conscious, political decision to sacrifice thousands of citizens to create the pretext for global war -- which is a treasonous offense.
The "Pearl Harbor" analogy is not adequate to explain the evidence. Any plausible explanation needs to discuss why the plane that hit the Pentagon flew a 270 degree turn around the building and lined up with the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector. This is why 125 people were killed on the ground, instead of thousands.
Mr. Hanjour, the alleged pilot who supposedly flew with amazing accuracy into the Pentagon, was refused permission to rent a small plane a month before the attacks at Freeway Airport in Bowie, Maryland (he was said to have lacked any piloting skills). It is as if someone was learning to ride a bicycle and couldn't go around the block without training wheels - and the next week they claim to have won the Tour de France. The story that a muslim flight school drop out piloted a plane in a high speed, fighter pilot style 270 degree turn to spiral into the mostly empty, under reconstruction part of the Pentagon is analogous to the "magic bullet" that supposedly shot JFK and made numerous changes of direction (the only way the official story could support one gunman - which violates the known laws of physics).
www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/f77FoF.html
.... That side of the Pentagon was virtually empty and had been for some time because the building had been under reconstruction quite visibly on that side for 5-6 years and part of that was to reinforce the building from external attack. In fact some photos show the difference in damage on either side of that reinforcement work and it is striking. That plane went 270 degrees out of its way at high speed, a very sophisticated maneuver with no possible military advantage, to hit the empty side of the Pentagon. There, as in New York, I would argue that they minimized the number of deaths by timing and method of attack. ....
- John Judge
I suggest you ask any pilot that has flown one what it takes to bank into a building at 550 miles an hour, or to dive in a 270 degree turn from 5000 feet to fly so low that streetlamps are clipped off, into a building. There are two options: Military or experienced civilian pilots (many are military anyway) piloted these planes. The planes were flown on remote control.
- John Judge www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/puzzlePieces.html
It is possible to believe that there could be a military pilot from Egypt, Saudi Arabia or another Islamic country with a sophisticated Air Force could have actually been the pilot of the Pentagon crash. But the fact that the building was struck in the part that was "under construction" makes this possibility even less likely that Oswald's alleged "magic bullet." An Egyptian or Saudi military pilot would merely have nose dived the Pentagon, and would not have come in low, hugging the ground in order to strike the side at the one part of the building that had been reinforced. Perhaps Lee Harvey Osama was at the controls of the plane ...
Evidence that the Pentagon attack (and therefore, all of the hijackings) was conducted by a remote control computerized system placed into the planes is listed at www.oilempire.us/remote.html
In 1933, after Hitler came to power, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag (Parliament) building and blamed it on the Communists to justify abolition of civil liberties and the imposition of dictatorship. The Pentagon crash - the plane hit the mostly empty part of the building (maximum political impact / minimum casualties) - means that 9/11 was the American Reichstag Fire.
So lets see here........not only are we expected to believe that a pilot refused to even rent a small plane due to lack of basic piloting skills made a high speed 270 degree turn in order to strike the unoccupied portion of the Pentagon to reduce the loss of life,,,,,,,,,,,,,further are we supposed to believe that Bush would promote the man who presided over NORAD and American air Defense on 9/11 and allowed our military to stand down to head up Bush's northern Command which would seize control of our contry when martial law was implemented.
ReplyDeleteseems like another blindly loyal Bush cronny that got promoted BECAUSE he was blindly loyal to GWB rather than our country.............isnt it interesting that Bush would promote a man who proved incompetent during a national security crisis to be the very man who iks in charge during a National Security crisis, particularly one where martial law would be declared....................NO ONE would do that UNLESS they knew the circumstances behind what happened and knew the man was not incompetent and/or knew he was a blindly loyal partisan who was ALSO culpable in the treasonous act!
BTW Tomcat, i'm with you on not supporting Bush's new AG nomination, another torture loving antifreedom repug..........slap Bush in the snout and challenge his comfirmation.
ReplyDeleteThe drumbeat for a military assault on Iran is getting louder at some conservative think tanks, in the offices of hawks on the Bush and Cheney staffs, and among ground forces in Iraq dealing with weapons and explosives constructed in Iran.
ReplyDeleteAdministration calls for aggressive action to destroy Iran's nuclear program, and to cut off its funneling of arms and training to terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, have featured increasingly tough rhetoric.
Will the spineless Democrats allow this?
Democrats are not expected to take up President Bush's war spending request until November, giving them time to calculate their next move and see if Republican support for his policies deteriorates.
ReplyDeleteThe delay in passing the bill, which Bush says is needed by Oct. 1, is likely to intensify the standoff between the Democratic-controlled Congress and Bush, who says at least 130,000 troops are needed in Iraq through next summer.
Another feeble excuse!
Bush won't like this:
ReplyDeleteTIME has obtained an incident report prepared by the U.S. government describing a fire fight Sunday in Baghdad in which at least eight Iraqis were reported killed and 13 wounded. The deadly incident occurred when a convoy of U.S. personnel protected by Blackwater security contractors came under small arms fire. Blackwater returned fire, resulting in the Iraqi deaths. The loss of life has provoked anger in Baghdad, where the Interior Ministry has suspended Blackwater's license to operate around the country.
A U.S. Justice Department official has been arrested on suspicion of traveling to Detroit over the weekend to have sex with a minor.
ReplyDeleteJohn David R. Atchison, 53, an assistant U.S. attorney from the northern district of Florida, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit Monday afternoon.
An undercover officer posed as a mother offering her child to Atchison for sex, according to police.
It's those Republicans again!
looks like Bush's brownshirts arent popular anywhere Larry.
ReplyDeleteMike:
ReplyDeleteIt appears that way but it doesn't seem to matter.
Anyone awaiting an anthology of Vice President Dick Cheney’s papers might be in for a disappointment.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking on Friday at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., Cheney said that because he served as President Ford’s chief of staff, “researchers like to come and dig through my files, to see if anything interesting turns up.”
“I want to wish them luck,” he quipped, eliciting laughter from the crowd, “but the files are pretty thin. I learned early on that if you don’t want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just don’t write any.”
More Bush/Cheney secrets.
I'll go on record and say that Jeff Macke of CNBC is a idiot and a moron............only a fool would go on record and say the first potential fed funds rate cut is bullish for the economy...........Record high oil prices and the start of fed funds rates cuts are two of the most bearish indicators for the economy there are............the Federal Reserve DOESNT cut rates when the economy is booming and strong, they cut rates to revive a weak economy and fight recession.
ReplyDeleteThe rate cuts are too little too late as the Repugs have ruined the economy with their wars and tax breaks for the rich.
ReplyDeleteThey are too little too late, Larry, particularly if they do there usual 1/4 point cuts..........but either way people are in debt and losing good paying jobs and that has to affect consumer spending regardless of rate cuts.
ReplyDeletePeople arent going to buy a new car or go on vacation if they are up to their neck in debt and have lost their jobs and homes.
How Convenient:
ReplyDeleteA task force probing allegations of illegal activity by Karl Rove and other former and current White House officials is in jeopardy due to lack of funding, according to its spokesman.
Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical assistance it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
In April, Special Counsel Scott Bloch announced that a new, six-member task force from his office would probe the use of private e-mail accounts by White House aides, the firing of at least one U.S. attorney by administration appointees and presentations of political data by White House aides to other officials in government.
With all the foreclosures now and the ones that are coming in the spring of 2008, the economy will not recover.
ReplyDeleteSenate Democrats are confident they can pass legislation to give troops more rest between Iraq deployments, a measure aimed at pressing the Bush administration to change its war policy.
ReplyDeleteDefense Secretary Robert Gates called the proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a dangerous “backdoor way” to draw down additional forces. Gates said he would recommend a veto.
“If we get this next phase wrong — no matter how you feel about how we got to where we are, the consequences of getting this wrong for Iraq, for the region, for us are enormous,” he said Sunday.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., responded that shorter breaks were creating an undue strain on U.S. troops and their families.
I thought the press said Gates was different than the rest.
They cut funding to the 9/11 Commission as well to stifle the investigation Larry........thats how these Brownshirts operate they loathe the truth, their punchdrunk on their own Orwellian fascist doublespeak, lies and partsan rhertoric
ReplyDeleteThey will do anything to protect Bush and his thugs and the hell with everyone else.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that President Bush now has the power to declare anyone he wants, including U.S. citizens, to be an "enemy combatant" -- and imprison them indefinitely without access to our court system?
ReplyDeleteLast September, Congress shamefully passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) -- which codified the suspension of habeas corpus rights, and allowed the government to continue holding prisoners at Guantanamo (and other secret sites) indefinitely with no access to a fair hearing in court.
Indefinite imprisonment without judicial review is unconstitutional -- and fundamentally un-American. It's a hallmark of fascist dictatorships, not constitutional democracies like ours.
Fortunately, there is movement in Congress to restore this fundamental consitutional right. This Monday, September 17th, the Senate is expected to resume debate on the Department of Defense Authorization bill and vote on S.185, the Specter-Leahy amendment to restore habeas corpus. This will be the first full up-or-down vote in Congress on restoring habeas corpus, and could give Guantanamo prisoners the long-denied right to independent review of their detention.
These clowns will all be gone and the war will be ended once a Democratic wins the White House........unless of course the Chimp declares martial law and cancels the elections............but then again what has this pack of fools ever succeeded at or done successfully except ruin our country.
ReplyDeleteIf that happens that will be the best thing Congress has acomplished since coming to power.
ReplyDeleteIf Bush declares Martial Law, I would imagine the masses of sheep will follow along like good livestock, Pelosi included.
ReplyDeleteDirector of National Intelligence Mike McConnell heads to Capitol Hill this week seeking to extend the government's power to read e-mails, listen to telephone calls and carry out other surveillance within the USA in national security cases.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are criticizing McConnell's proposals. They say judges should oversee such surveillance.
Some Democrats also object to a second item on the spy chief's wish list: immunity from lawsuits for telecom companies that helped the federal government intercept calls between U.S. and foreign intelligence targets without warrants from late 2001 until last January.
McConnell is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Complicating his task: a view among moderate Democrats that the self-described "apolitical" director has become an advocate for the Bush administration's expansive views on the government's power to spy.
McConnell is "undermining the authority of (his) office" by "appearing to play a political role," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence.
Will they extend this?
Once the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government, Madeleine Albright, spent Friday in central Iowa.
ReplyDeleteThe former Secretary of State is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, reported KCCI-TV in Des Moines.
Albright dealt with serious issues all over the world in her position as secretary of state. She said the world is in serious trouble.
"I don't think I have ever seen the world in such a mess," Albright said to a packed house at the West Des Moines Community Center.
"I believe that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy. That means that I am acknowledging it is worse than Vietnam," she told the group.
True words!
Obama had resisted some attempts by Democrats this year to tie money for the war to a deadline for withdrawal, although he voted against a supplemental spending bill in May that had no deadline.
ReplyDeleteObama signaled Sunday he would only support a future Iraq funding measure if it included a deadline.
“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.
By making the statement, Obama joined only Dodd, who has been critical of Clinton and Obama for their resistance to tying war appropriations to a schedule.
Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies
ReplyDeleteDedicated to everything from architecture to sports medicine, “career academies” claim to offer high school kids focus, relevancy, and solid job prospects. Now add a new kind of program to the list: homeland security high. In late August, Maryland’s Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.
The new school is funded and guided by a slew of federal, state, and local agencies, not to mention several defense firms. Officials say it will teach kids to understand the “new reality,” though they hasten to add that the school isn’t focused just on terrorism. School administrators, channeling Cheneyesque secrecy, refused to be interviewed for this story. But it’s no secret that the program is seen as a model for the rest of the country, with the Pentagon and other agencies watching closely.
Students will choose one of three specialized tracks: information and communication technology, criminal justice and law enforcement, or “homeland security science.” David Volrath, executive director of secondary education for Harford County Public Schools, says the school also hopes to offer “Arabic or some other nontraditional, Third World-type language.”
The school’s main goal is to get its grads jobs in the booming $24-billion-a-year homeland security industry. It’s certainly in the right location: Northeast Maryland has become a mecca for the military-industrial complex. The Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground is the county’s biggest employer, and all manner of defense contractors have set up shop nearby, including weapons maker Northrop Grumman.
However, it’s not clear how many Joppatowne grads will be on track to join the upper echelons of the intelligence community and how many will wind up as airport screeners. “We do want to encourage higher education,” Volrath says. “We also want to be realistic. Some of these defense contractors will have huge security needs, and the jobs won’t require four years of college.”
Critics see the school as a troubling landmark: a public school, possibly the first of many, that is an active participant in the war on terror. Jonathan Zimmerman, director of New York University’s History of Education Program, says that if it offered students an “intellectually curious” curriculum, “I’d send my daughter there. But my fear is that they will instead teach a series of predigested truths about keeping our country safe.”
Volrath maintains that Joppatowne High will remain above the fray. “The school’s built around the marketplace that surrounds the defense industry,” he explains, “but the program’s not involved in war or peace. Still, there are some realities about good guys and bad guys that will surely be discussed.”
The new neocon society begins with children.
Hey guys it appears john mccain is losing more donors even though he stopped using the bush name in his speeches
ReplyDeleteMcCain is a delusional Neo Con through and through.
ReplyDeleteDid you see McCain on Meet the Press yesterday?
ReplyDeleteHe kept interrupting John Kerry and wouldn't shut up.
Like a deranged old man.
Pearl Harbor: they saw it coming and let it happen to galvanize public support for world war
ReplyDeleteBeyond anecdotes disagreed with by other anecdotes, there is simply no good evidence of this.
The Pearl Harbor thoughts do reflect the possible reality of today.
ReplyDeleteHey guys it appears john mccain is losing more donors even though he stopped using the bush name in his speeches
ReplyDeleteIs it any wonder? He's jumped way off the deep end. He makes Chimpy look reasonable.
NO JR, and there WONT BE as long as Bush and his cronnies are ALLOWED to Obstruct Justice, stonewall, impede investigations and disregard Congressional subpoenas, and use the MSM to cover up and support their agenda and crimes.
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain has turned into a pathetic drooling loser who can't let go of the Bush dream of dominance.
ReplyDeleteIf Bush declares Martial Law, I would imagine the masses of sheep will follow along like good livestock, Pelosi included.
ReplyDeleteExcept..... they already aren't. A hell of a lot of cities are already "Wild West" towns, and a martial law declaration will make them worse than ever.
Maybe in suburbia it'll play, but in the cities (and more rural backwaters) it'll get nowhere. You'll see the coming of the dissolution of the US.
Jolly:
ReplyDeleteThe West will then be the one who will buck this,but I wonder about the south, who has turned into neocon alley.
Jolly:
ReplyDeleteThe West will then be the one who will buck this,but I wonder about the south, who has turned into neocon alley.
The urbanized east will also refuse it. Ahnold, IMHO, has been waiting for an excuse to crown himself the leader of a soverign nation. A martial law declaration would give him one.
I do agree with you about one thing though. Within 5 years of a Chimpy martial law declaration, the "United States of America" will consist of the old CSA, sans Texas (where there is also a huge native yearning to break free.)
I would have thought if any area would embrace it, then it would be the east.
ReplyDeleteChimpy isnt smart enough to run a country i would guess that id martial law were established in some shape or form and a dictatorship installed, chimpy's handlers would no longer need their face/puppet/cheerleader to trot out to try and sell their agenda and chimpy would be expendable to them.........since there is no honor among thieves.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought if any area would embrace it, then it would be the east.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. I don't see any largely urbanized area as gracefully bowing to the will of the monkey. In addition, in places like New York City Chimpy's approval ratings are consistently under 20%.
It also seems to me that at least some of Chimpy's handlers know this, and have apparently concluded that it's better to reign in hell. They are bankrupting us and smashing their only reliable instruments of control at the same time. What other possibilities exist save collapse? Seems to me some of these guys want to be kings down in Dixieland.
Wouldn't it be something for Bush to install Martial Law, then have his installed position taken from him in favor of someone else.
ReplyDeleteLydia did a great job interviewing Kucinich...........More people need to listen to Kucinich he is a smart guy and 100% right.............Bush and his treasonous cronnies need to be impeached and tried for treason.
ReplyDeleteI wish Kucinich could make it through all the primaries, but the way it is set up, he is doomed to fail because of the Corporate elite.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be something for Bush to install Martial Law, then have his installed position taken from him in favor of someone else.
ReplyDeleteI would think it's damn near a guarantee that Chimpy would wind up behind bars himself.
Cheney would probably be the one shoving Bush aside to take his place on the throne.
ReplyDeleteAl Gore is on the Tonight Show now.
ReplyDeletelarry...
ReplyDeleteI wrote about Der Fuhrer having the power to declare American Citizens as Enemy Combatants some time ago both before and after the MCA of 2007 was passed.
Not only does he have the power, but so does the Head of Homeland Security.
And about Martial Law he will use his private SA Troops {Blackwater} to quell the riots and arrest people who protest against him.
And Blackwater will fire on American Citizens and kill them. Also don't forget that the NRA knows who own weapons. They have more information on citizens with weapons then even law enforcement has and will use that list to confiscate guns and rifles from all who oppose this Nazi Regime.
We are so screwed and don't think Hillary is any better. I have come to believe that she's in bed with those who betrayed our country.
And good luck trying to get out of the country if your name is on the no fly or train list. They won't let you leave as you will be on there arrest and detain list.
Good luck everyone as you and the rest of America will need it.
God Bless.
Anon-Paranoid:
ReplyDeleteThe NRA angle is a good one to remember, as they fit right in with the neocon model.
Blackwater with all it's American thugs on board look where the money goes, and Bush has spread it to them well.
Cheney would probably be the one shoving Bush aside to take his place on the throne.
ReplyDeleteShooter's as stupid as Chimpy is. I'd think they'd both be shoved aside (or in Shooter's case, that pacemeker's batteries would "suddenly" die.)
And about Martial Law he will use his private SA Troops {Blackwater} to quell the riots and arrest people who protest against him.
ReplyDeleteAll the employees of Blackwater combined couldn't keep the peace in a medium-sized American city, let alone the big ones.
180,000 of them can't keep Baghdad down.
TV Newser | September 17, 2007 07:36 PM
ReplyDeleteNetwork Time Program Viewers
FNC 9:00 Bush Address 745,000
FNC 9:19 Dem. Response 813,000
FNC 9:24 Analysis 512,000
Network Time Program Viewers
MSNBC 9:00 Spec.Prog. 470,000
MSNBC 9:01 Bush Address 455,000
MSNBC 9:20 Dem. Response 446,000
Network Time Program Viewers
CNN 9:00 Bush Address 454,000
CNN 9:20 Dem. Response 507,000
CNN 9:24 Larry King 400,000
More people watched the Democratic response than did Bush's war speech.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who mounted failed bids for the White House in 2000 and 2004, excoriated the Bush administration for its post-9/11 policies that critics say trample on civil liberties and for its pursuit of war in Iraq, which he said distracts from fighting Osama bin Laden.
ReplyDeleteThe onetime Green Party candidate appeared at an anti-war rally in Washington Saturday, where he chastised "spineless, gutless" Democrats in Congress for failing to boot Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney from office.
"The impeachable offenses of Bush outnumber any other list of impeachable offenses of any US president," Nader said. "Not only did he and Cheney violate their oath of office to uphold the constitution and the laws of the land, but they proceeded to impose a practice of torture, to arrest thousands of Americans without charges and throw them in prisons without lawyers.... They spied on millions of Americans randomly without judicial approval. How many more impeachable offenses do those spineless, gutless, hapless Democrats need in the Congress."
Finally the truth about the Democrats.
President Bush was surprised by the criticism leveled against him and his administration by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in his new book, the White House said Monday.
ReplyDeleteGreenspan accused Bush of not responsibly handling the nation's spending and racking up big budget deficits, saying he and Congress' former GOP leaders abandoned the party's conservative principles favoring small government.
Bush the ego-maniac thinks everyone loves him!
(Reuters) - China is opposed to threatening Iran with war over its nuclear program and stands for a diplomatic solution, a government spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThe United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China have backed two rounds of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and other sensitive work that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
"We believe the best option is to peacefully resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations, which is in the common interests of the international community," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing.
"We do not approve of easily resorting to threatening use of force in international affairs," Jiang said when asked to comment on remarks by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner raising the prospect of war with Iran.
A warning from China.
35 dead and 77 wounded in another bombing in Baghdad.
ReplyDeleteyou do a good job covering all of this...phew...just got caught up...thank you Larry ( and Mike too)...
ReplyDeletethanks to Lydia for doing a nice post on Dennis....
Mike said BTW Tomcat, I'm with you on not supporting Bush's new AG nomination, another torture loving antifreedom repug..........slap Bush in the snout and challenge his comfirmation.
ReplyDeleteYou must have read my article, Mike. I'm amazed that some Dems are calling him moderate. He's as moderate as Bush is compassionate.
Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson seemed taken by surprise when asked Tuesday about oil drilling in the Everglades, apparently unaware it's been a major Florida issue.
ReplyDeleteBefore answering, he laughed at the question.
"Gosh, no one has told me that there's any major reserves in the Everglades, but maybe that's one of the things I need to learn while I'm down here," Thompson said after talking over state issues with Gov. Charlie Crist.
Gee I didn't know I had to know all this stuff to be President!
Covering up for Bush:
ReplyDeleteHoward J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged today in a 13-page letter.
The letter, signed by committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and released by the committee today, said the allegations were based on the testimony of seven current and former officials on Krongard's staff, including two former senior officials who allowed their names to be used, and private e-mail exchanges obtained by the committee. The letter said the allegations were not limited to a single unit or project, but concerned all three major divisions of Krongard's office -- investigations, audits and inspections.
Waxman demanded documents and testimony for a hearing next month into Krongard's conduct. A copy of the letter also was sent to the committee's ranking minority member, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.).
Krongard's office said he is traveling today and would not have any immediate comment.
The inspectors general of government departments and agencies are intended to be independent and objective investigators of fraud and waste. Sometimes, Foreign Service officers are appointed as IG at State, but Krongard, who was confirmed by the Senate in May 2005, was not a Foreign Service officer. He previously worked for an international law firm and had been general counsel for Deloitte & Touche in the mid-1990s.
The letter charged that Krongard "interfered with ongoing investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment." It said that "your strong affinity with State Department leadership and your partisan political ties have led you to halt investigations, censor reports and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement agencies."
Waxman accused Krongard of refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts; preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq; using "highly irregular" procedures to personally exonerate the embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses; interfering in the probe of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove; censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress; and refusing to publish critical audits of State's financial statements.
Among the e-mails obtained by the committee are exchanges between staff members as they discuss Krongard's decision not to cooperate with the Justice Department on the embassy probe. "Wow, as we all [k]now that is not the normal and proper procedure," an investigator wrote to Assistant IG John A. DeDona. DeDona forwarded the e-mail to the Deputy IG, William E. Todd, saying, "I have always viewed myself as a loyal soldier but hopefully you sense my frustration in my voicemail yesterday."
Thirteen House members have received subpoenas from the lawyer to Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor facing charges relating to the bribery conviction of now-incarcerated congressman "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA).
ReplyDeleteAccording to Congressional Quarterly, the 13 are teaming up to fight the subpoenas, saying the requests are "overly broad."
“They intend to fight the subpoenas," a source told the news service. “As we understand it, Wilkes’ lawyer is also trying to subpoena other government officials. The subpoenas say very little about what they are after.”
The 13 lawmakers have joined forces behind the scenes to try to fight the wave of subpoenas they have received in recent days from an attorney for Wilkes. Wilkes’ lawyer, Mark Geragos, has asked for information relating to his client's trial.
Five lawmakers received subpoenas for documents and testimony, according to CQ. Those are: House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX); Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA); House Defense Appropriations Chairman John Murtha (D-PA); and ranking House Appropriations Republican Jerry Lewis (R-CA).
Joe Kasper, a spokesman for for Rep. Duncan Hunter, told RAW STORY by email that Hunter had been advised by House General Counsel that the subpoena was "inconsistent with the precedents and privileges of the House." Hunter is the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a candidate for president.
"Congressman Hunter intends to continue consulting with House Counsel on this matter and will proceed according to their judgment," Kasper said.
More Republican corruption.
Two-thirds of Americans feel President George W. Bush is doing a bad job at running the United States, a survey published Tuesday showed.
ReplyDeleteBut although 67 percent of the 1,000 people polled earlier this month by Harris Interactive gave a negative assessment of Bush's performance, the president's rating has regained some ground from July, when 73 percent said he was not doing a good job.
Bush's performance rating has been in decline since October 2001, when a record 88 percent of Americans gave him good marks for a job well done.
The US president's popularity reached its lowest point ever in July, when only around one-quarter of Americans felt he was doing a good job.
In the poll released Tuesday, 72 percent of Americans also gave the two houses of the US legislature -- the House of Representatives and Senate -- bad marks.
Almost two-thirds -- 63 percent -- said the United States has "pretty seriously gone off on the wrong track," with a mere 24 percent saying "things are going in the right direction."
America overwhelmingly hates Bush!
O.J. Simpson was charged Tuesday with seven felonies, including kidnapping, in the alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in a casino-hotel room.
ReplyDeleteThe fallen football star was arrested Sunday after a collector reported a group of armed men charged into his hotel room at a casino and took several items Simpson claimed belonged to him.
Simpson was booked on suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. Clark County District Attorney David Roger filed those charges and added kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents.
Simpson, who was accused along with three other men, was also charged with one misdemeanor. He faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
He was being held without bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in the robbery reported at the Palace Station casino.
Outgoing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acknowledged Tuesday that he’s struggling to reduce surging disability claims from injured Iraq war veterans.
ReplyDeleteAddressing Congress for a final time before stepping down Oct. 1, Nicholson suggested to a House committee that the VA has yet to find a clear solution for long waits.
Nicholson also said, though, he’s proud of many accomplishments during his 2 1/2 years as head of the Veterans Affairs Department, pushing forward initiatives such as requiring screenings for brain-related injury, adding storefront walk-in clinics and boosting mental health counselors.
But citing in part growing demands from a prolonged Iraq war, Nicholson also said the VA faces difficulties in meeting challenges and expressed sympathy to injured veterans who might have unfairly suffered as a result of unnecessary red tape.
More tragic results of Bush's war.
Late summer brought no relief from soaring foreclosures. The number of homes in some stage of default jumped 36 percent month-over-month in August, according to a regular monthly survey.
ReplyDeleteDelinquencies and defaults more than doubled year over year to 243,947, according to August figures released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, a marketer of foreclosed properties. RealtyTrac’s forecast is for total foreclosure filings to exceed 2 million this year.
“The jump in foreclosure filings this month might be the beginning of the next wave of increased foreclosure activity, as a large number of subprime adjustable rate loans are beginning to reset now,” James Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.
October is expected to be a peak month for hybrid adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) to reset, with the interest rates on some $50 billion worth of loans poised to go up dramatically.
It's the Bush economy.
Hey guys did you hear that bush met with some war bloggers and said he wishes he were in iraq with the troops
ReplyDeleteCheck out this unique take on Blackwater getting booted from Iraq, by Tom Harper:
ReplyDeleteWho Hijacked Our Country
Hey guys did you hear that bush met with some war bloggers and said he wishes he were in iraq with the troops
ReplyDeleteI wish he was there too. Him and every one of his chickenhawk, tough guy buddies.
Don't forget the action being organized for next month over what Bush is doing to the country:
ReplyDeleteShut it Down
By Hamid Sodeifi
ReplyDeleteIran
Recent reports, from a variety of well-connected sources in the US and internationally, point to the real possibility of a US attack against Iran. This comes as no surprise since Iran has always been the centrepiece of the Bush administration’s Middle East policy. Moreover, while ostensibly pursuing “diplomatic” channels, the US has always kept the military option openly on the table.
The pretext for the recent escalation in tensions is Iran’s nuclear technology and its Uranium enrichment program. Washington has warned that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran because it fears that Iran will use its nuclear technology for military purposes.
But Iran’s nuclear technology, as I will argue in this article, is merely a smokescreen behind which lies the Bush administration’s real intentions. To understand the situation, we need to have a broader perspective that goes beyond the current Iran-US standoff and looks at the region as a whole and the ambitions of George Bush and his gang of thugs in the White House.
First, however, let’s deal with the issue of Iran’s nuclear technology.
Contrary to media reports, which simply relay US State Department disinformation as facts, Iran has not violated its obligations under the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Like any other signatory to NPT, Iran has the right to develop and employ nuclear technology for civilian use. The Iranian government has stated, time and again, that it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons and has given the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) intrusive access to its nuclear sites. As the physicist Gordon Prather has put it, “after two years of goanywhere, see-anything inspections, [IAEA] has found no indication that any special nuclear materials or activities involving them are being—or have been—used in furtherance of military purpose.”
Even if Iran were to begin developing nuclear arms, most analysts believe that it is at least about 10 years away from reaching that goal. Referring to the consensus estimates of the US intelligence agencies, the Washington Post recently reported that “Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredients for a nuclear weapon”.
The warlords in the White House, however, have never been stopped by mere facts. They continue to insist, as Rumsfeld had put it prior to the invasion of Iraq, that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” and that Iran’s intention is to develop nuclear weapons.
US ENERGY GOALS
It is hard to ignore the obvious similarities between Washington’s claim now about Iran and that used before the invasion of Iraq regarding its supposed weapons of mass destruction which UN inspectors could not find anywhere. The parallels with Iraq do not end here, however. The US administration has also charged Iran with supporting international terrorism and having ties to Al- Qaeda. In other words, the White House is recycling all the same lies it used in the lead up to its invasion and occupation of Iraq.
As with Iraq, US objectives in Iran have nothing to do with any potential threat posed by Iran either to its neighbours or the US. On the contrary, the only credible threat in the region comes from the US which has a bloody history of wars of aggression around the globe in the interest of its corporations, most recently in Afghanistan and Iran. So, why is the US government so focused on this region?
The policy of the Bush administration has been to use the unparalleled military superiority of the US to dominate the globe and thwart potential competitors (particularly EU and China) by wresting control of the global carbon fuel deposits. Aside from the political leverage that such control affords the US vis-Ã -vis its competitors and adversaries, there are also tremendous profits to be made. This is why the first major act of the Bush administration in office, and Cheney’s first assignment as the US Vice President, was to pull together the major players in the energy sector in the US to develop a concrete action plan.
As I have argued in the pages of this magazine, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11. The 9/11 attacks were used by the Bush administration to build support for its wars for control of the key centres of global carbon fuel deposits. Afghanistan was an important (and economical) pipeline route for moving the significant oil deposits of Central Asian countries to ports in Pakistan for global distribution. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was about taking control of one of the richest oil deposits in the world.
Since the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, US policy-makers have re-oriented their approach to the Middle East and its oil and gas supplies. Instead of depending on strong but ultimately unstable regimes, like that of the Shah, they have determined that they need to control the region directly. The Carter doctrine was basically the articulation of this new approach. Since then, it has been the primary function of Centcom (US Central Command) to protect US oil interests in that part of the world.
Those who see the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and now possibly Iran, as actions by the imperial guardian to merely force “rogue” nations into compliance with international norms fail to understand the importance of energy resources and the agenda of the neoconservatives in the White House. Given the existence of numerous “rogue” nations around the world, why are they so fascinated with the “rogue” forces in this part of the globe? Why would their policy, long before September 11, focus so heavily on the Middle East as a priority area (I refer here not only to the Project for a New American Century report of 2000 but also its precursor, the 1992 Defence Policy Guidance)? Why would the opening shots of the New World Order, immediately after the collapse of USSR, be fired over the oil fields of Iraq? There is certainly something to be said about the enforcement of rules governing the global economy in favour of the imperialist nations of the North, resulting in systematic transfer of wealth and resources from the working classes of the South to the capitalists of the global north. But, at least in the case of the Middle East, that analysis needs to be augmented with considerations pertaining to energy deposits.
DOLLARS OR EUROS?
Another dimension to the conflict in the region is whether the global trade in oil and gas will continue to be denominated in dollars or change to Euros. One of Saddam Hussein’s cardinal sins prior to his overthrow was to demand payment for oil exports in Euros instead of dollars. The control of the revenues generated by oil (petro-dollars), and the fact that all importing nations need to maintain substantial amounts of dollar reserves for their petroleum purchase, has been critical to the US’s financial dominance of the globe. It has also allowed it to operate as no other nation can by virtue of its dollar dominance. This is how the US can run such balance of trade and current account deficits without major repercussions for its economy. This is another reason the US will have to act against Iran. Starting this year, Iran will open its Euro-based oil stock market (Bourse). This will remove one of the key impediments to global trading of oil and gas in Euros, opening the door not only for Iran to sell its oil for Euros, but also for many other countries to do the same. The US will not simply stand by and watch this happen.
A MILITARY STRIKE?
Given all this, how likely is the threat of a military strike against Iran? Not very likely, at least in the short run.
There are significant divisions within the American ruling class and the capitalist class globally. Within the US, an influential group oppose a military strike against Iran. There are several reasons for this. First, they argue, quite rightly, that there is no such a thing as a limited military strike against a few suspected nuclear facilities. Any attack must also take out Iran’s missile launching capabilities, its numerous air bases (military and commercial) and fighter planes, its communication networks and key government buildings in addition to suspected nuclear facilities. Many of Iran’s nuclear development sites are 12-15 feet under concrete re-enforced ground. To effectively destroy these sites, the US will have to use its nuclear weapons. Not only will this cause the immediate death of tens of thousands of people, but the resultant radioactive dust will have a devastating effect on countries as far as India and China.
Also, contrary to the fanciful expectations of the neo-cons, the more sophisticated elements within US establishment dismiss the idea that a series of US strikes against Iran will lead to the down fall of the Islamic Republic and its replacement with a pro-US government. Indeed, one of the biggest problems for the US is that there is no viable pro-US force in Iran to compete for power. Consequently, ruling class opponents of Bush’s plans argue that the US needs to acknowledge the failure of its 25 year sanctions policy and, instead, begin a process of limited reengagement with Iran. This policy will give US corporations access to Iranian markets and resources and, in the long run, put the US in a better position to press Iran to comply with its demands. There will also be a period of time in which the US can redevelop internal allies and military intelligence should it need to consider a military engagement.
Globally, there is very little appetite for another US led invasion while the fiasco in Iraq continues. Even the British dogs don’t seem all that keen to follow their masters into Iran. The rest of the European Union insists on finding a negotiated solution, and Russia, increasingly uncomfortable with US actions in the region, has firmly stated its opposition to a US military attack against Iran.
But, perhaps most importantly, Iran is a significantly more powerful nation than Iraq was after a decade of crippling US sanctions. As well, Iran has considerable influence on the Shiite majority in Iraq, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and factions in Afghanistan. An attack on Iran could result in what is described as asymmetrical retaliation by its supporters in these areas. This could spell disaster for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, draw in Israel into a wider regional conflict, and lead to either a major human catastrophe if the US and Israel employ their nuclear weapons, or revolt and revolutions against US puppets in the region. Globally, a major hike in the price of oil, as a result of either an attack on Iran or Iranian disruption to flow of oil in the Persian Gulf, will send the global economy into a potentially severe recession. The outcome of an attack on Iran, whichever way viewed, is disastrous. In short, the military option is extremely risky.
On the other hand, unless Iran is brought into the US orbit of influence, the Bush administration’s plans to dominate the global capitalist system through control of energy resources will be severely curtailed. Iran has already signed major oil and gas treaties with China, India and Pakistan and is exploring a closer working relationship with Russia to supply Western Europe with natural gas. There are also agreements for oil swapping between Iran and some of the Caspian region nations. These types of deals and arrangements and Iran’s Eurobased stock exchange leave the US with little option but to exercise its ultimate trump card. So, while the possibility of a military attack is limited by its significant hazards, it cannot be completely ruled out, especially while Bush and his gang of war criminals are in charge.
Clif, do you think an attack on iran will cause a quick oil spike followed by quick demand destruction and recession or will the spike trigger a prolonged oil spike and hyperinflation?
ReplyDeleteregardless the dollar will be destroyed.
Greenspan, in an interview in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Monday, warned inflation will rise to about 5 percent in Europe and the United States.
ReplyDelete"The normal inflation level is closer to 5 percent than the current 2 percent," Greenspan said, adding that the 5 percent level fitted an economy with a "paper" standard where the currency is not linked to gold.
That implies that REAL rates are negative and gold and oil will spike significantly as the dollar plummets as confidence in the dollar evaporates.
ReplyDeleteFROM THE OIL DRUM!
ReplyDeletedbarberic on September 18, 2007 - 10:46am | Permalink | Subthread
"The normal inflation level is closer to 5 percent than the current 2 percent," Greenspan said, adding that the 5 percent level fitted an economy with a "paper" standard where the currency is not linked to gold.
I believe that he is attempting to move the goal post for what is to be considered for normal inflation in the core rate, giving Ben breathing room to re-inflate. With the core rate running around 2.5-3%, and real inflation running around 10% according to Shadowstats.com, we are looking at nearly doubling the inflation rate.
This makes sense if you follow the theories for re-inflation by Financial Sense Online and iTulip. Both are predicting a signficant re-inflation effort using fiscal policy (government programs) and monitary policy (money printing) to counteract the impacts of the credit bubble popping.
Get out your disco shoes; it will be the late 70's all over again with stagflation and commodity prices exploding.
Log in or register to leave a comment
BrianT on September 18, 2007 - 11:05am | Permalink | Subthread
D: The difference is the late 70s had widespread unionization. It was commonplace for unionized employees to receive YOY wage increases of 11-12%. Those days are gone, probably forever.
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson has become the fourth leading GOP presidential candidate to shun the PBS debate this month at a historically black college in Baltimore, the Huffington Post has learned.
ReplyDeleteThe debates, moderated by Tavis Smiley, will go on as planned, despite the absence of Thompson, former mayor Rudy Giuliani, former governor Mitt Romney, and Sen. John McCain. Each campaign cited scheduling issues as the reason for their absence. Nevertheless, the rejections underscore the consistent absence of GOP candidates.
It's those Republican racists.
President Bush's former United Nations ambassador John Bolton said the United States would stand behind a pre-emptive strike by Israel against countries developing "WMD facilities."
ReplyDeleteStand behind, Bush will order it.
After weeks of suggesting Democrats would temper their approach to Iraq legislation in a bid to attract more Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared abruptly Tuesday that he had no plans to do so.
ReplyDeleteThe Democratic leader said he will call for a vote this month on several anti-war proposals, including one by Sen. Carl Levin that would insist President Bush end U.S. combat next summer. The proposals would be mandatory and not leave Bush wiggle room, said Reid, D-Nev.
"There (are) no goals. It's all definite timelines," he told reporters of the planned legislation.
Of course you won't compromise Harry!
The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials throughout Iraq, except in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The move follows a weekend incident involving private security guards protecting a diplomatic convoy in which a number of Iraqi civilians were killed.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean the "surge" is working?
Iraqi government restrictions on security contractor Blackwater USA could mean a range of complications for US involvement in the country--potentially even undermining current plans to remove some troops on the ground, reports the Wall Street Journal in a story by August Cole and Neil King, Jr.
ReplyDeleteAfter an incident on Sunday in which Blackwater security personnel killed Baghdad civilians during a fight with insurgents, the government of Iraq announced that it plans to deny the firm permission to continue operations.
"The incident may increase strains between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," said the Journal. "The State Department relies heavily on Blackwater to guard its diplomatic compound within Iraq's Green Zone and also to provide security for U.S. diplomats as they travel around Iraq. The work often calls for Blackwater to draw on its fleet of armed helicopters, which give it an arsenal that other security contractors lack."
Looks like an excuse to prolong the war.
(Reuters) - Iran said on Wednesday it would use "all our means" to defend itself if attacked by the West, three days after France's foreign minister publicly raised the possibility of war over Tehran's disputed nuclear activities.
ReplyDeleteWhen asked whether Iran would block the Hormuz Strait, the world's most important water way for oil shipments, if attacked, government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham dismissed it as "far- fetched" that anybody would take "this foolish option".
But, "we would use all our means to defend ourselves because territorial integrity is a key issue for every country," he told a news conference.
News to Bush's big ears.
Of all the Democrats running for president, Dennis Kucinich's positions and values are the closest to my own.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Iraq war to gay marriage equity, Kucinich makes the most sense to me.
Yet, in this screwed up nation, a nation of guns owners and NASCAR fans, Kucinich receives little attention and the mainstream media marginalizes him repeatedly.
I don't get it.
The Harry and Nancy Show continues to tank with the American people.
ReplyDeletePresident George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March.
A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.
“The public mood is not just dark. What’s darker than dark?” Zogby said.
“The mood is getting ugly.”
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1359
Mike, any attack on Iran would throw the entire middle east into turmoil.
ReplyDeleteThe Shiite minorities through out the middle east would see it as a American attack at the behest of the Sunni dictators who need to distract their populations from their repressive policies, and the rising unemployment and frustrations of the large young populations who are much more radical then their older generations were.
Given that both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have sizable Shiite minorities within their own countries, they could feel the backlash, The backlash would probably come in the form of attacks on the infrastructure of each countries, so Iran doesn't need to attack the Straights of Hormuz directally(Thus making it much harder for the US and it's military superiority to bring that to bear on the attacks) if they can use their shiite brothers in the oil producing coutries to attack the oil infrastructure which would have the same effect to us, vastly lower world exports of oil, whch would result in marked higher prices of oil and the products we get from oil, which would most definately result in a recession, but combined with much higher prices for oil related producs and a much lower availability of oil and related energy resources to use to recover from the recession.
Whether you attack a choke point like the straights or you attack the production and pipelines inside producing countries you achieve the same result.
BTW, given that only the Saudis and Russians have the ability to ramp up production (to an extent which means anything to world markets), if any attacks on the Saudis result in their inability to ramp up production and exports when the world needs it, that leaves the Russians as the only swing producer left standing, not what Washington wants, but Puntin definitely knows what to do if that happens, (and Europe is held hostage by the Russians concernng energy supplies).
Thus attacking Iran could have the unintended consequences of further enriching the Russians and increasing the stranglehold Russia has over Europe concerning energy supplies and the implications that has concerning geo-political concerns. All our NATO allies could be looking to Russia and it's large oil and natural gas supplies at the same time the idiot in the White House asks them to join him in WW3, and the neo-cons don't have a clue what is gonna happen at that time.
Just as the stupid chicken hawk neocons refused to listen to Gen Shinseki, and think of the consequences of ignoring his advice, they will refuse to look at the consequences of this illogical and insane move against Iran beause they want the complete control over the middle east and the oil under the sand there, the consequences be damned .....
Key Republican leaders are encouraging the party's presidential candidates to rethink their decision to skip presidential debates focusing on issues important to minorities, fearing a backlash that could further erode the party's standing with black and Latino voters.
ReplyDeleteJust like the Republicans. Leaving out those who aren't like they pretend to be.
Also Mike, if Bush attacks Iran, and the Shiites retailiate by attacking the infrastructures in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Bush will have accomplished the total shut down of the major OPEC middle east production of oil, which means removing one half of OPEC production, and over a half of OPEC's exports to the world from the oil markets, for at least six months to a year, which means a long term recession (if not a depression) at the same time oil and other energy resources which depend on oil for their developement(think coal, and all the diesel fuel needed form modern coal mining) will also dissapear, which would result in high prices for energy and very depressed employment and economic production associated problems whch come with that.
ReplyDeleteBut that ain't gonna stop georgie or dead eye one bit, cause then they could declare a "national emergency" suspend all civil liberties and elections to make Bush the dick-tater he always wanted to be, with dead eye pulling the strings. (at least until the powers behind these clowns remove them and really take over, after they no longer need the fiction of a "democraticly elected" clown to front for them).
also, just like the aftermath of Katrina, some assets will be deemed uneconomical to rebuild, so production afer such an attack and resulting economc slow down could result in lower production and exports very long term, (think decades). Which means we in the good ole' USA would have to accept a much lower standard of living for our lives and future generations.....(if we survive WW3).
Barack Obama unveiled his tax cut plan Tuesday in Washington. Some would call it a Robin Hood approach, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. (Related: Obama tax plan: $80 billion in cuts, five-minute filings)
ReplyDelete"At a time when Americans are working harder than ever, we are taxing income from work at nearly twice the level that we're taxing gains for investors," said the Democratic presidential candidate.
Robbing the Republican elitists base to give to the poor. Best plan yet.
Republicans and the Bush administration used a 'bogus' terror threat that raised specific fears of an attack on the Capitol to scare lawmakers into adopting a dramatic temporary expansion of the government's spy powers last month, a top intelligence committee Democrat said Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteCongress agreed to give President Bush and the nation's intelligence agencies extra authority to spy on Americans just hours before lawmakers left for a month-long recess in August. In the legislative session's final week, news emerged of an impending plot by foreign terrorists to attack the US Capitol, and Republicans pointed to the reports as justification to expand the administration's powers.
"That specific intelligence claim, it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that," Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said at a forum on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act organized by the Center for American Progress in Washington. However, lawmakers did not learn of the claim's unreliability until "the day" they approved the FISA expansion, she said.
Now that you have admitted the truth, what are the Democrats going to do about it?
Senator Jim Webb appeared on CNN's American Morning to discuss his proposed amendment that would force the military to allow troops to be home for at least the same amount of time as they are deployed in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteCNN asked Webb about Senator John McCain's statement that the Constitution doesn't give Congress the right to manage troop rotations and that the Webb amendment "would create chaos." Webb replied, "Senator McCain -- who I've known for 30 years -- needs to read the Constitution. There's a provision in Article 1 Section 8 which clearly gives the Congress the authority to make rules with respect to the governance of ground and naval forces."
"I've been around the military all my life," said Webb. "This is something that can work. This administration can no longer be believed when it is talking about policy in Iraq. ... If we now have an administration that's admitting it want to be in Iraq for the next 50 years, we have to put a safety net under the way that they are using our people."
Unable to attract enough war-weary Republicans, Senate Democrats are abandoning calls for a full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq as the chamber resumes debating the war this week.
ReplyDeleteSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Democrats will push for a deadline of June 2008 and make a "stronger effort" to cut off war funding rather than calling for an immediate withdrawal to begin, according to an article in Wednesday's Washington Post.
"It's all definite timelines," Reid said.
The move appears part of a political maneuver by Reid, who, speaking to reporters Tuesday, indicated he wouldn't allow Bush 'wiggle-room,' by bringing forth an amendment by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) whose bill calls for end of combat by summer 2008.
Of course you will Harry the phony!
CBS The Republican Network:
ReplyDeleteDan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.
Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.” As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.
In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House,” though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from ‘the right wing.’ ”
He also continues to take vehement issue with the appointment by CBS of Richard Thornburgh, an attorney general in the administration of the elder President Bush, as one of the two outside panelists given the job of reviewing how the disputed broadcast had been prepared.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteI've always maintained that Rather was railroaded and the memo was not only accurate and factual, but real.
Carl:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I think Rather got screwed so CBS could not have problems with Bush.
Pope Benedict XVI refused to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in August, saying he was on holiday, an Italian newspaper reported Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteRice "made it known to the Vatican that she absolutely had to meet the pope" to boost her diplomatic "credit" ahead of a trip to the Middle East, the Corriere della Sera daily reported without citing its sources.
She was hoping to meet the pontiff at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo at the beginning of August, it said.
Even the Pope wants nothing to do with Condi!
U.S. housing starts and building permits both declined last month to a 12-year low, lagging analyst expectations, according to a joint report issued today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
ReplyDeleteBuilders broke ground on new dwellings in August at a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.307 million units per year, a 2.6-percent decline from July’s revised annual rate of 1.367 million and a 19.1-percent decline from the revised August 2006 rate of 1.646 million.
The new rate was well below the 1.35 million median forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 77 economists. (Their estimates ranged from 1.24 million units per year to 1.40 million.)
Building permits for privately-owned housing also fell, indicating the slump is likely to continue. Permits were issued in August at a rate of 1.307 million per year, a 5.9-percent decline from July’s revised rate of 1.389 million permits per year and a 24.5-percent decline from the August 2006 rate of 1.731 million.
The Bloomberg survey had predicted permits would fall only to 1.348 million units per year.
“The housing market now has another down-leg ahead,” John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C., told Bloomberg News. “We don't expect sales to bottom out until late this year, and prices will likely moderate even further.”
More results of the Bush economy.
I guess the Pope don't wanna see Condi-lies-a-lot until she gets rid of that "taint" of Bush she has on her.
ReplyDeletePolico:
ReplyDeleteAmericans aren’t just having a tough time seeing themselves pulling the lever for Republicans these days. Fewer are seeing themselves as Republicans, period.
That’s the conclusion of one of the party’s most respected polling firms, based on a compilation of its national surveys conducted so far this year. Public Opinion Strategies, based in Alexandria, Va., counts among its clients about one-fourth of all Republican members of Congress and is half of the bipartisan team that conducts polling for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.
Party identification — or affiliation, as it’s also called — measures whether people consider themselves to be Republican, Democratic or independent. In 2004, according to the firm’s merged polling data (think of it as one huge data set compiled over the course of a year), Republicans were at rough parity with Democrats in party ID, trailing them by three percentage points.
At this point in 2007, they trail Democrats by seven.
The development provides another angle from which to view the party’s plight in being defined in the public’s minds by an unpopular president sticking with an unpopular war and a group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill who continue to serve up easy fodder for late-night talk shows.
The lag in self-identified Republicans is another worry bead for the string of polling measures that warn of an uphill battle for the party next year. Barring improvement, it will affect their 2008 prospects as much as, if not more than, the far-more-hyped job approval rating of the outgoing president.
Of real concern is the firm’s finding of fewer self-identified Republicans among men over the age of 55 and men who live in rural areas — groups that have been GOP mainstays for most of the Bush era.
Data compiled by Public Opinion Strategies this year also reaffirms a more widely acknowledged point in political circles: that the GOP continues to trail dangerously on the question of whether voters would be more inclined to elect a Democratic or Republican member of Congress, aka the generic congressional ballot test.
According to the firm’s merged polling data for 2006, the party was at a 10-point disadvantage during a year that landed Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress.
At this point in 2007, the party remains at a nine-point disadvantage.
Much of this erosion is due to independents increasingly favoring Democrats. As the data show, self-identified Republicans and Democrats have been answering the generic ballot question basically the same way over the past few years; it is among independents that support for Republican members of Congress has plunged.
Between their growing deficit in party ID and loss of favor among independents, the math does not add up for the GOP — at least not at the moment. Even if their presidential nominee continues to receive about 90 percent of his party’s vote, that 90 percent will be smaller than the 90 percent of the Democratic vote going to that party’s nominee, and independents cannot be counted on to help the GOP compensate.
George W Bush: Destroying the Republican Party, Brick by Brick.
Condi was wanting to gain credibility by seeing the Pope, but the Pope didn't want to lose hos credibility.
ReplyDeleteGeorge W Bush: Destroying the Republican Party, Brick by Brick.
ReplyDeleteHeck of a job georgie, (and KKKarl)
Nobody wants to admit they are Republicans. Nobody.
ReplyDeleteFive U.S soldiers were killed in Baghdad today.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder people refuse to call themselves Republicans.
Well Larry, even some of the kool-aid sippers have figgered out the reichwing is really just second rate dumb wanna be facists, and little more. But still some are just as dumb as the neo-cons and will never figger it out ever,
ReplyDeleteBTW where is crusty, dolt, goo goo, and gay-dalf these days
Clif:
ReplyDeleteMaybe the trolls are part of the majority that refuse to call themselves Repugs, or they are hiding under a rock because they are Repugs.
50,000 Iraqis Displaced Since July
ReplyDeleteIn other Iraq news, new figures show the number of displaced Iraqis his risen by about fifty-thousand since July. The International Organization for Migration says more than two million, two-hundred twenty-five thousand Iraqis have fled their homes since the US invasion.
This doesn't matter as long as Bush and Condi have their own lovenest.
Home Foreclosures Up 36%
ReplyDeleteIn economic news, new figures show a continuing rise in home foreclosures around the United States. Foreclosure filings reached nearly two hundred forty-four thousand last month -- a thirty-six percent rise over July, and more than double over a year ago.
Bush's economy sure does work for homeowners.
Christopher has a list of the most corrupt in Congress. Notice the ratio of Republicans and Democrats.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Left
Please check out new post on Blackwater and sudden feeling that we've been down this road before..
ReplyDeleteFour dead in Ohio...