White House Xmas Tree CENSORS "Impeach Bush" message (Updated)

The White House Christmas Tree every year features ornaments made by regional artists from every state in the union. Laura Bush asked Congress to each choose an artist from their district to make an ornament.

The artist from the district of Washington State that I live in made an ornament that uses words and pictures to commemorate the following historic events:

• Washington state's 1919 labor strike,
• the suffrage movement,
• the violent anti-World Trade Organization riots of 1999,
• Washington Congressman Jim McDermott's sponsorship of various Articles of Impeachment of the current administration this year and last.
  

Amazingly, it's actually been approved and will be hung on the White House's tree*. The full article includes this cute little quote:

"Apparently, they didn't read it -- or Laura Bush is more progressive than I believed,"

*:Update via rawstory:

A White House spokesperson originally told the Washington Post that the ornament would not be removed, condemning the "divisive and partisan" message as inappropriate for the tree. Sally McDonough, spokesperson for the First Lady, followed up and informed the Post that the ornament would not be hung: "We reviewed the ornament along with all the [other] ornaments, and Mrs. Bush deemed it inappropriate for the holiday tree."

Bastards.

Impeach before he Pardons himself

This is a long post, and not of my creation. It consists of two parts. The first part is from a Petition to Impeach Bush, the second part is an FAQ about Presidential Pardon Powers. Both come from Democrats.com's section on Bush Pardons.

To these excerpts, I'd like to add this observation:
If Bush choses to Pardon himself from his various crimes, he could phrase it such that it also protects him from prosecution for any complicity in 9/11, without having to specify such in a blunt self-incriminating way. In order to prevent that, Congress would need to begin Impeachment hearings before Bush signed the Pardon order. So, call your Congressmen and tell them to Impeach the Mass-Murderers!

Dear Representative and Senators,

President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney stand accused of 39 grave and impeachable offenses, including war crimes, torture, warrantless wiretapping, and outing a covert CIA operative.

Most of these offenses are felonies for which Bush and Cheney can be criminally prosecuted after they leave office. But prosecutions will be impossible if Bush issues blanket pre-emptive pardons for Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, other senior officials, and even himself.

Can Bush do this? Absolutely. Gerald Ford set the precedent in 1974 when he gave Richard Nixon a blanket pre-emptive pardon for any crime he "may have committed."

Presidential pardon power is nearly unlimited under the Constitution. We support efforts in Congress to outlaw pre-emptive or self-pardons, but even if a bill passes Congress before Bush leave office, Bush will certainly veto it. So how can we stop Bush's pardons?

The Founding Fathers clearly anticipated a corrupt President might pardon his co-conspirators, and specified impeachment as the remedy.

George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights, argued at the Constitutional Convention that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter [pardon] him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

As your constituent, I urge you to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney before they issue pardons. But if that fails, I urge you to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney afterwards for issuing pardons that constitute obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

A post-inaugural impeachment would prohibit those impeached from ever holding federal office, either elected or appointed. Arguably, impeachment would also nullify pre-impeachment pardons and permit prosecutions. Finally, impeachment would tell future Presidents they cannot abuse their pardon power to put themselves above the law.

In 1776, Thomas Paine famously wrote, "in America, the law is King." Congress must not allow a President to commit crimes with impunity, or it makes the President a King - or worse, a Dictator.

Pardon FAQ

Submitted by Bob Fertik on November 14, 2008 - 10:23am.

• Bush Pardons

Q. Why would George Bush pardon himself?

A. So he doesn't go to jail for his many crimes, including invading Iraq on the basis of lies, authorizing torture and warrantless wiretapping.

Q. If Bush pardoned himself, wouldn't that be an admission that he committed those crimes?

A. Yes, but he'd rather be embarassed than imprisoned.

Q. Does the President actually have the power to pardon himself?

A. Yes. Article 2, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives the President broad pardon power:

[The President] shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

There are only two restrictions on the President's pardon power:

1. He can only pardon "offences against the United States," in other words federal crimes. He cannot pardon state/local crimes or civil lawsuits or international crimes.
2. He cannot pardon in a "case of impeachment."

There is no restriction on a President pardoning himself. Richard Nixon considered pardoning himself in 1974, but he was already facing impeachment and a self-pardon would have guaranteed his conviction and removal. So he resigned and let Gerald Ford pardon him one month later. The Constitution gave Nixon the power to pardon himself - he simply chose not to use that power.

Q. Can a President pardon himself for a crime when he has not been convicted or even indicted?

A. Yes. Even though Richard Nixon was neither indicted nor convicted, President Ford granted him

a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9,1974.

Q. Can a President pardon himself for war crimes or other heinous crimes?

A. He can pardon himself for any federal crime, unless he is impeached by Congress.

Q. Can Congress stop a President from pardoning himself?

A. Under current law, Congress can only stop a self-pardon by impeaching the President.

Congress could try to pass a law against self-pardons, but that law could be vetoed by the President (or declared unconstitutional through an unconstitutional signing statement).

Congress could also introduce a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit self-pardons, but that process takes years and would not apply to George W. Bush.

Q. Can Congress impeach a President who pardons himself?

A. Absolutely.

Q. Can Congress impeach a President after he leaves office?

A. Yes. Impeachment has two consequences: (a) removal from office and (b) prohibition on holding future office. While removal would be moot after a President's term has expired, the prohibition would not. Former Presidents have served in Congress (John Quincy Adams) and on the Supreme Court (William Howard Taft). A President who was impeached, even after his term expired, could not hold such an office.

Constitutional scholars will note there is no direct precedent for impeaching an official who is no longer in office. The nearest precedent is Secretary of War William Belknap, who resigned over a kickback scandal a few hours before the House voted to impeach him. The Senate did not declare the case moot due to resignation; it held a five-month trial and came within two votes of conviction.

OS V

X is right. My version numbers were pretty error-ridden. The following history is at least a little more accurate, and not so blindly patriotic:

America Beta was the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity.It was open-source, and quickly ended up with regional version conflicts. Not surprisingly, it turned out to not be very perpetual afterall.

After that there was a 1.0 release, with an immediate 1.1 patch. This put the nation on a single standard, though many said the patch didn’t go far enough. Many users were locked out of the more important functions of the software, and your permissions were set at the factory. You either had the “Home” or “Professional” edition of the software, and most consumers were never allowed to upgrade. This version of the operating environment was also outwardly hostile to any indigenous program that was using resources the OS might want to draw upon. It had a nasty habit of repartitioning the hard-drive, often moving other programs onto bad sectors. This particular bug continued until version 3.6 or so.

In the 1860s we saw multiple competing releases. Each had it’s flaws, but eventually the more robust system prevailed. In the end people were happy to get back to a single standard again, which they heralded as the new and improved “3rd Edition” of America.

After a lot of hooplah, the public eventually figured out the system didn’t quite deliver on everything it promised, and some patches were going to be needed. There were version updates thereafter when the Jim Crow laws were repealed and again when various minority groups given suffrage. In addition to those needed upgrades, sometimes service packs were released when hackers compromised the security of the system and deleted or corrupted core resources. We hit 3.9 after Nixon resigned,but the promised major revision never occurred. 3.9.2 had no spam filter, and our inboxes were subjected to endless advertisements about cigars and blue dresses.

There was no 4.0. Instead, in 2000 after a major hardware crash, a rival operating system was installed: “American Vista” was an ironic title that implied you were now looking upon America from a distant vantage point. It had clearly been reverse-engineered, sort of a mix of our original software and a competing system designed in Germany in the 1930s. It had numerous unique bugs, many of which were passed off as “features”. It’s greatest commonality with the previous edition was the lack of spamfilter – but by this time the most common bulk scheme was from the actual manufacturer of the operating system, an outfit called WMD Inc. Most Americans reluctantly tolerated this version until the new user agreement included a clause pertaining to a monthly charge to use the system. That extra cost seemed to be the deciding factor.

That brings us to November 2008. We’ve just run a virus check, and are in the process of backing up the data in preparation of upgrading the software when the new version releases in January. Personally, I’m hoping this time we’ll get features that are genuinely features, including fewer security issues, a radical new graphical interface, and the option of setting certain parental controls to the “off” position. I also heard a rumor the software somehow reduces your carbon footprint, but I’m a little fuzzy on how that will work. I am very excited at the prospect that this version will be much more popular on the world market. For the past 8 years, the rest of the world had been more critical of our system software than we were, and there were numerous incompatibility issues. That may soon be a thing of the past.

Will the “America - OS V” be something completely new? Does the V stand for “5.0”, or “Victory?”
I’ll be happy with any meaning other than “Vista2”.

Palin=Cheney

For the record:
The VP is not "in charge of" the Senate. The VP has a largely ceremonial role, and casts a tie-breaking vote. The senate doesn't take orders from the VP. The VP doesn't veto. The VP doesn't perform the tasks of the Senate Majority Leader. There's not incentive or reason for the Senate to work with the VP, since the VP can only impact them if the Senate gets hung up in a perfect 50-50 split. 51-49 means the VP has nothing to do.

It's rather disturbing that Palin doesn't know what the office she's running for does. Here she was admitting as much two months ago...

You catch that last bit? She wants to make sure the VP slot is "a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans". That's like a confession that she plans to send more pork to her friends back home. A bridge to nowhere in every pot!

Get this: Palin refuses to say whether she would be part of the Executive branch. She either doesn't know, or she has more sinister plans.

Reminds me of someone else who thinks the office of the Vice President is all about exerting power on behalf of their friends. Someone who thinks the VP office is not part of the Executive Branch, and thus somehow miraculously exempt from Constitutional checks and balances. Someone who threw all kinds of fat to Haliburton. Someone who actively worked to undermine our constitution and our democracy. Someone ELSE who abuses power to actively impede investigations into their own wrongdoing. If it's not clear, that person is Cheney. McCain = Bush, and Palin = Cheney. If they are elected, it will be 4 more years of corruption, 4 more years of war, 4 more years of recession-into-depression. Probably 4,000 more dead Americans in Iraq, too.

Of Pandas and Sea-Smurfs: Unintelligent Designs Upon Our Nation

Please forgive me, this post meanders even worse than usual. I started on one thing, which was funny, and in the process of looking for a link, I got so angry my politics radicalized.

Ah, for the good old days, when a Sea-Smurf was just one of these Snork thingees. When I first saw that cartoon, I thought they were just a harmless rip-off of the original smurfs. Now I know better....

These days, a Sea-Smurf is CCMRF, the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry, is an urban warfare unit active on US soil to brazen violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. If the real police can't resist beating up peaceful children, what makes us think Sea-Smurfs will do any better? They're gonna beat our heads in while shooting bubbles out their blow-holes. The damn things live under water, so they're already good at waterboarding.

Where did these strange creatures come from? Did they evolve from the natural world? Or were they intentionally designed by some malevolent force? The later case is all too true.

This weekend, McCain had to defend Obama against nutcases in Lakeville MN, who calling for the multiracial candidates murder at a McCain rally. That shouldn't have to happen - calls for murder happen at Nazi rallies, not the Town Hall meetings of an aging Republican candidate. It's hard to believe things have gone this far downhill in such a short span of years.

People like Palin give speeches designed to make people comfortable with their racism. "He doesn't think like us" she says. Meanwhile, off camera, someone else in the Rove/O'Reilly/Limbaugh corner of the political spectrum is busy sending out emails full of lies they know are lies. False allegations that Obama is a Muslim and somehow connected to terrorism, or obviously refutable lies that Obama was born in Kenya instead of Hawaii. These are things that can and have been refuted and disproven with fact, yet shadowy figures and their puppets continue to churn out this foul garbage. The point of all these lies is to rile up "the conservative base" especially the racist and phobic elements.

The truth is, the NeoCons are the enemy of intelligence. They are breeding a generation of stupidity. They coyly renamed Creationism "Intelligent Design" to erode support of evolution. They renamed arabs and muslims "terrorists" so we'd feel better about hating a race or religion, and then lie to categorize a black christian as an arab muslim, and thus, a terrorist. They are waging a war against rational thought. They want us to be dumb.

It's a win-win proposition for the NeoCons. If the nation rolls over and gets stupid, they win. And roll it probably will, because liberals (myself included) are too polite to fight dirty. We complain, we struggle against them, but we do so fairly. That's a losing strategy. Waiting till things get so bad there has to be a revolution is a losing strategy, too. Let's face it, if Civil War broke out today, who would win - bleeding heart Liberals, or gun-toting Christian extremists?

There is a winning strategy, but it'll be a hard pill for Liberals to swallow. It's distasteful. It's ugly. I railed against it many a time in the past year, and I was wrong. Dawkins path is what I'm talking about, and I hate to admit I finally agree with his strategy. Yes, atheists and agnostics, (and crazy contradictory people like myself who are still kinda-sorta Christian but think the bible isn't literal truth - more like literal nonsense) need to state that publicly, and often. People who detest racism need to comment on that disgust, in their daily lives, even when talking with people they barely know. People who think the major parties are complicit in evil need to speak up and say so, and then vote correspondingly. People who didn't previously believe in conspiracies, are going to have to admit "yes, that election was stolen, so some of these other conspiracy theories might be true, too - but not the bullshit antisemite theories blaming the Jews". We liberals would rather not talk politics or religion in "mixed company", but we're gonna have to if we want to save this country from Rove's "Permanent Republican Majority" and the Fascism it's moving us towards. Our sitting quiet reinforces and enables their bad behavior.

We need to express our views so often, and so freely, that our more rational, reasonable, scientific mindset becomes common place. Even at the risk of seeming slightly less rational and reasonable in the process. The opposition isn't being reasonable or playing fair, and occupying the moral high ground does us no good if they're winning in the schools, and the courts, and the rigged elections. We need to be jerks, to ensure our government works. You want moral high-ground to occupy: follow the law. Don't rig elections, but do start insulting people.

We're gonna have to ruffle some feathers. We're gonna have to insult some people, there's just no other choice. We're gonna have to be militant liberals, militant atheists, militant scientists. We're going to have to fight the NeoCon agenda to the watercoolers and smoke breaks, take politics to the bars and gaming sites we used to escape reality in, make more films like Fahrenheit 9/11 (and Zeitgeist, and Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden), Impeach the worst offenders, and yes, though I hate to say it, we're gonna have to sue at the drop of a hat.

This is where the party ends. I can't sit here listening to you, you and your racist friend. - TMBG

The next time you hear someone espousing racism, or creationism (aka Intelligent Design) or the myth that Obama has links to terrorists, get in their face about it. It's hard, it's rude, it's scary, but it's what we have to do. Because as long as we stay quiet, meek, or unobjectionable, those fucking bastards are going to win. Let's face it folks, it's not just the fate of Democracy that hangs in the balance, it's the survival of the human species.

What's Next?

Now that we've nationalized the banks, suspended the Posse Comitatus Act, and spied on the Red Cross, what's next?

There was a big list of differences between Democracy and Fascism/Authoritarianism, but we've been crossing multiple items off that list every month this year. It's fucking alarming.

Our country hasn't seen anything like this since the Civil War, when such changes were temporary and rather more justified. Even with that context to explain them, such violations of the rights of the citizenry were a disgusting travesty that we should not be so happy to repeat.


P.S.: I realize the McBush '08 pic is only tangentially (you want fascism with that?) related to the topic at hand, but this place looks cheerier when there's a picture in at least every second blog post. I considered putting a picture in my previous post (the Palin Porno Post) but the google was too disturbing. Poor pitbulls.

Suicide Soldiers (Updated)

US Combat Deaths in Iraq War since it's inception: just over 4,000
US Combat Deaths in Afghanistan since 2001: just over 600

Those numbers I already knew. A volunteer for the ACLU, working on a street corner I happened to walk past today, alerted me to a related set of facts I'd been unaware of.

# of attempted suicides amongst active duty US soldiers in 2002: 350
# of attempted suicides amongst active duty US soldiers in 2007: 2,100

The vast majority of those suicides have been amongst units that are NOT seeing combat, mostly on bases within the US. The suicide rate amongst servicemen is the highest it's been since the Vietnam War.
Worse yet, she said the same thing is happening amongst the National Guard units that were deployed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Worst of all, she said, despite all the combat, more US soldiers had killed themselves this year than had died in Afghanistan.

What the fuck is going on? These figures seemed so crazy, I couldn't just take her word for it. I told her as much, I was openly skeptical.

She said she was quite confident in those figures, as she herself had been out of the army for less than a year, having been discharged for medical reasons just a few months ago. She said this is the most important election in US History, and that her experiences in the military convinced her to take an active role in the ACLU to help ensure the integrity of the vote this year. She said, if you doubt my numbers, google it yourself when you get home.

So I did. OMG WTF I feel sick! She was right. Combat deaths right now are less than 10% of what they were in Vietnam, but the suicide rate for soldiers is about the same as it was then? Remember, in 'Nam, people were drafted - our current Army is all-volunteer, yet this year is expected to set a record-high for both attempts and successful suicides among servicemen. That is a terrifying sign that something really abnormal is transpiring on bases in the US.

I now have to repeat my earlier question: "What the fuck is going on?"

Addendum/Update:

• According to the articles, the vast majority of the suicides are folks who either have never seen combat duty, or have returned to from deployment more than a year ago. Nearly all the suicides are occuring on US bases.
• According to the lady I was talking to yesterday, there's one base in particular that's had more suicides in the past 7 years than soldiers died in Afgahnistan. I haven't been able to find an online source that confirms that later point, but I also can't remember the name of the base she'd indicated, which would probably make the search much easier. If this is true, that's a sure sign that something fucked up is happening on that base.
  

Essential Viewing re: The Coup

The Coup occurred on October 1st, 2008. The groundwork for it had been laid years before, ratcheted up incrementally, depriving us of our freedoms, our liberties, and our peace of mind. October 1st was the day that the "President's personal army" set foot upon American Soil. The 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry is an urban-warfare combat unit on active deployment within the US to "protect" us from civil disrest.

We're all suspects?!

From the ACLU:

Under new FBI guidelines proposed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, all the FBI has to do to put anybody they want under prolonged physical surveillance is assert an “authorized purpose” such as detecting or preventing crime or protecting “national security."

These kinds of Bush/Cheney/Gonzales/Mukasey “just trust us” policies have been eroding our rights for the past eight years. After illegal spying and top-level torture policies coming from the White House, this is absurd. Enough is enough!

These new guidelines would allow the FBI to interview you, your friends and family under a false pretext. The FBI could recruit secret informants, and have them infiltrate peaceful protest groups. And the FBI to could initiate investigations based on little more than race, ethnicity or religion.

The FBI could also search commercial databases for personal details about your life with no real reason.

And all of this would be allowed without an ounce of evidence that you or anyone else has done anything wrong.

These guidelines represent one step closer to a police state. And the worst part is that there is good reason to believe the FBI has been violating its internal guidelines all along.

Fortunately, there is something we can do about this before the new regulations are implemented.

I just demanded that the Inspector General at the Department of Justice launch an investigation to determine if the FBI has been violating its own guidelines. The Inspector General’s office at the Department of Justice has proven to be an unbiased, internal watchdog that has consistently exposed wrongdoing. We need to urge the IG to do it again. Take action now at:

https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=FBI_guidelines&s_s=email1

I signed the petition. Will you sign it too, please?

And if you haven't watched the video attached to Jake's post below (Entitled "Coup!") please do so.

Delta Force interview from 60 Minutes

A very interesting segment from CBS's 60 Minutes. The interview below is with an officer of Delta Force (wearing extensive make-up since he does undercover work). He tells the tale of how his team was sent to Afghanistan in 2001 to kill Osama Bin Laden, but were hamstringed and reigned-in by higher officials. This interview could be seen (and I do) as strongly supporting allegations (from Michael Moore, from the 9/11 Truth movement, etc) that the war was never intended to punish or deter terrorists.

"We want[ed] to come in on the back door," Fury explains. "The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind."

But they didn't take that route, because Fury says they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure," he says.

...

"How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" Pelley asks.

"In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," Fury says.

Despite the meddling, he got within 2 km of Bin Laden, and thought his unit had actually killed Bin Laden. It was nearly 6 months before they (or command) learned otherwise.

Also vailable commercial-free at RAW.

For 6 months Delta and Army Command thought Bin Laden was dead, but the American public never heard about it!?! (Or perhaps that's what that "Mission Accomplished" banner was supposed to represent?) Those wars have never had anything to do with terrorism, they are about extending US socioeconomic domination across the globe. Just like in 1984, or Fahrenheit 451, the war is unjustified, unending, and ultimately just a diversion to keep us from reforming the country we live in.

Those shots Pakistan fired last week: disrupting the October Surprise?

AP says:

Two intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said two U.S. helicopters crossed one mile into Pakistan in the Alwara Mandi area in North Waziristan on Sunday.

Citing informants in the field, they said Pakistani troops and tribesmen responded with small arms fire, but it was not clear whether it was aimed at the choppers or just warning shots.

The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said.

That account was denied by Pentagon officials. "There was no such incursion; there was no such event," said Defense Department spokesman Col. Gary L. Keck,

At the time I first saw the headlines about this, I didn't think much of it - just more sabre-rattling. The AP article claims it was gunfire, but the tiny blurb about it on network news Sunday night had said missiles were fired at the helicopter. The AP article says the US fired some missiles into Pakistan, so it's possible the news got confused about who shot what.

Or, it's possible they (or I) were confusing it for Thursday's event: According to Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two NATO helicopters fired upon by Pakistani forces on Thursday were U.S. military aircraft operating inside Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.

"They were U.S. helicopters," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters at a briefing. "The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan."

If the copters were NOT over Pakistan airspace, then it couldn't have been small-arms fire. It would have to be artillery or missiles. That, or they'd have to be hovering very low just over the border.

I also find it amusing that AP's headline on Sunday was "Did Pakistan soldiers shoot at US helicopters?" Regardless of whether they shot on Sunday, they did do so on Thursday. It's almost as though the Sunday article was designed to cast doubt on the Thursday news story.

It occurred to me today, while commenting a WhatSilence, to question why the U.S. Helicopters were traveling over the border into Pakistan. The AP article says the border is "poorly demarcated", and implies it must have been a mistake, but wouldn't military choppers have cutting-edge GPS? Mistakes still happen, no matter how good the tech, but it's also possible those choppers meant to be there. What could possibly be worth not just getting shot at, but maybe even jeopardizing our alliance with Pakistan?

Maybe, just maybe, they had a tip on Bin Laden. One they actually considered going after. A couple choppers full of Special Forces could snag him, and haul him out. It'd take a few days to process him, and by the time the Pentagon would be ready to announce they'd caught him it'd be October. That would be a shot in McCain's arm, wouldn't it?

Of course, this is all speculation on my part, and I have no evidence to support it. It may well be that the soldiers were just being idiots, and had wandered off course by accident, or were disobeying orders in search of excitement, or were on some other top-secret mission that's got nothing to do with Bin Laden.

By the way, I find it highly amusing that McCain criticized Obama (in Friday's debate) for saying he'd send troops into Pakistan, when it turns out the army had already done so this past month.

It's just frosting on the cake McCain is trying to have (Bush said we were going into Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran) and eat (Presidents don't do that sort of thing) at the same time. If showing your hand or threatening other countries is really so bad, McCain, then why aren't you trying to Impeach Bush over it? McCain is a hypocrite, and/or a liar.

Courts to Decide on Vote Theft

Republican Michael L. Connell has been subpoenaed to testify in regards to his part in the vote-tampering in the 2004 Presidential Election. Read more about it at RAW.

Republican Stephen Spoonamore is a tech security specialist who has stated publicly that his own party was involved in vote-theft in the 2004 Presidential Election. He's testifying in the court case as well. Read more about it at MCM's News From Underground.

Here's the most interesting segment of a recent interview with Spoonamore. The first minute is a little dry, but probably worth watching just for context. Around 1:30 is where he starts really making the point of how the election's have been rigged, and before the end of this 5 minute clip he names specific evidence that indeed the 2004 Presidential Election was rigged.



As Mark Crispin Miller says about Spoonamore:

There have been several other whistle-blowers on this front, but none is as compelling as he is--not just because he knows about the whole plot overall, but also because he is (a) a Republican, (b) an erstwhile member of the McCain campaign (he quit some months ago, when he discovered what they have planned) and (c) a prominent and well-respected expert on computer fraud. Detection of such fraud is, in fact, his specialty.

and here's some links to the rest of the interview:

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/images/SpoonIntvw3.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyByZx5GEaw It's a network, people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadsHqxid8I Electronic voting machines are a national security threat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxuXC4QlMk The genie is out of the bottleŠ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOHkY7sJ4ZI Fifty ways to steal an election.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1--KHOo8tkM Mike Connell: Bush IT Guru
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJHmuG8d2bQ The Rapp Family: Ohio election cover-up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z7DK3LgiOA Evangelicals and voting machines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WTe8ppEIic Paper ballots please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lrFkRHrRDI McCain/Palin will win by theft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s07oi2G_K4c People should doubt the vote, it's being stolen.

In it's simplest terms: John Kerry actually won the popular vote and the electoral college in the 2004 Election. El Presidente Bush (or, more accurately, individuals within his party, working to benefit him) rigged the election to stay in office.

That Man's Family (some people just shouldn't have children)

• Prescott Bush was a Military Intelligence Officer during WWI. He wrote letters home talking of his daring heroic exploits, and the medals he received for such. Turned out later, he hadn't actually won any medals or performed said deeds. He claimed he'd been joking, and didn't expect his family to tell anyone he was a hero.
  
• His name came up in congressional testimony about The Business Plot in 1934. Smedley Butler alleged that Bush was one of several businessmen planning to replace the US President with a Fascist dictatorship.
  
• The assets of one of Bush's companies, UBC, were frozen under the Trading With The Enemy Act in 1942.
• Despite those allegations and entanglements, he served as a US Senator in the 50s and 60s.
• His son, George Herbert Walker Bush, was Director of the CIA, and later Vice President and then President of the United States.
• George H.W. Bush claims to have not been connected to the CIA prior to his sudden appointment as Director. Despite such claims, there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence linking him to the Bay of Pigs.
  
• There's also an FBI memo (released via FOIA) that says he was briefed by the FBI in '63 regarding the then recent JFK assassination.
• Ross Perot claimed that the reason he dropped out of the election in 1992 was because of being blackmailed by George H.W. Bush, who had digitally altered photos that would ruin Perot's daughter's impending wedding.
  
• Some versions of that story tell it that George H.W. Bush (as Vice President) was actively impeding Perot's efforts at locating and rescuing P.O.W.'s still in Vietnam, and that Bush's interference was the cause of Perot running against him in the first place.
• Niel Bush was a key figure in the Savings & Loan scandal of the 80s.
• Niel Bush had dinner plans with his good friend Scott Hinckley on March 30th, 1981. This is important because that same day Scott's brother John Hinckley Jr shot President Reagan. Had Reagan died, Niel's father, George, would have become President 8 years early.
• Jeb Bush was Governor of Florida, where he exerted his influence in a battle over the interpretation of ballots, which resulted in the Supreme Court declaring his brother (George Dubya Bush) President.
• George Dubya Bush was President during 9/11 and related death of 3,000 Americans,
• the trillion dollar War in Iraq and resultant death of 4,000 more Americans,
  
• Hurricane Katrina and it's embarrassing absentee government aftermath,
  
• the collapse of the US Housing Market,
  
• the collapse of the US financial sector,
  
• torture at Guantanamo,
  
• extraordinary rendition,
  
• the politicization of the Justice Department,
  
• a nationwide average of over $4 a gallon in gas,
  
• the erosion of the Constitution and our civil liberties,
  
• and outright voter fraud in Ohio that is now finally getting it's day in court.
  
• Did I miss anything? It turns out I missed these:
• Outright abuse of the line-item veto.
• Record amounts of time on vacation.
• Outright abuse of "executive privilege".
• Enron scandal (involving Bush's buddy Kenneth Lay)
  
• Halliburton profiteering (involving conflicts of interest for Bush's VP Dick Cheney)
  
• Abu-Ghraib prison scandal
• enough High Crimes and Misdemeanors to fill 35 articles of Impeachment
  

How many more generations will this family be allowed to commit acts of evil against the United States and it's populace? When will we finally hold them accountable in a court of law?

Documents scanned at the border

via

The Department of Homeland Security quietly expanded its authorization to examine, copy and archive an array of documents and electronic files from citizens and visitors crossing US borders, according to reams of internal documents released Tuesday.

The changes implemented last year reverse a two-decade-old policy requiring border agents to have reasonable suspicion of a crime before reading documents someone is bringing into the country; probable cause was required before documents could be copied.

Those standards have been thrown out the window in favor of lenient standards that allow Customs and Border Patrol agents to read or copy essentially anything they would like from a person entering the United States. The new policies also make it easier for CBP to share documents it copies or confiscates with other law enforcement agencies.

We've been planning this vacation to Canada for a while now, and I'm just not sure it's going to be the same without the suitcase full of amateur porn.

(And you thought I was going to bitch about America becoming ever more fascist.)

Still a few more days to Impeach

Congress will be closing soon, taking a break till after the election. They're pretty busy right now, trying to figure out how to bail out our financial sector without completely destroying what's left of the country.

The whole government is so well distracted by this latest predicament, they probably won't get around to Impeachment, but maybe we can remind them via a petition. We have one last shot - if they don't impeach now, the most corrupt administration in the history of our country gets off scott free.

Some say "what does it matter? He's a lame duck anyway!" or "we'll get him in the courts after he's out of office." Those people are forgetting about the Presidential power to Pardon. He can pardon himself, Cheney, his cabinet, key figures of the inJustice Department, CIA torture chiefs, and the Wall Street Tycoons behind the current financial disaster. Pardoning frantically in your last 2 months in office is something all Presidents do, so we should expect Bush will try the same.

Impeach Bush To Stop Pardons

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney stand accused of 39 grave and impeachable offenses.

Most of these offenses, including war crimes, are felonies for which Bush and Cheney can be criminally prosecuted after they leave office, even if they are not impeached by Congress.

Obviously Bush and Cheney do not want to be prosecuted. So to protect themselves, George Bush's last official act will likely be pardons for himself, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and everyone else who committed crimes as part of the Bush Administration.

While most lawyers assume pardons cannot precede convictions, Gerald Ford set a powerful precedent by pardoning Richard Nixon in 1972 before he was even indicted, let alone convicted. If Ford could legally pardon Nixon, then George Bush can legally pardon himself.

So there is only one way to stop George Bush from pre-emptively pardoning himself, Cheney, and everyone else in his administration: Congress must impeach Bush and Cheney before Bush can issue such pardons.

The Founding Fathers clearly anticipated a corrupt President might pardon his co-conspirators, and specified impeachment as the remedy.

George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter [pardon] him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

Impeach the bastards! Sign the Petition! Contact congress! Save what's left of America!

Halliburton involved in human trafficking

For just a second, that confused me. "What's the big deal?" I wondered. Isn't everyone who drives a car involved in human trafficking? I don't even drive a car, but sometimes I use a crosswalk, and that slows down traffic. :)

Then I realized, "Halliburton involved in human trafficking" is just a friendly way of saying "Halliburton = Slavery".

Thirteen Nepali men were recruited and held against their will for thirteen months in a human trafficking scheme engineered and perpetrated by Halliburton and its Jordanian contractor, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in California federal court.

The Nepali men, each between the ages of 18 and 27, were allegedly hired as kitchen staff by the then-Halliburton subsidiary KBR and its Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners. Once they arrived in Jordan, however, their passports were seized and they were dispatched to Iraq.
...
Only one man survived. After he was released by Iraqi rebels, he said he was assigned to work as a loader/unloader in a US military warehouse facility supervised by KBR. He asserts that he was held for 15 months against his well [sic], before the firm finally allowed him to return home to Nepal.

Wow. Talk about your clusterfucks of a traffic jam. I've gotten home from work late before (due to bad traffic), but this is taking it to a new extreme.

That sort of thing ought to be illegal! Oh, wait, it is.

Crib notes for everyone out there who might not drawing the connection:

1. Slavery = Halliburton, (established above)
   
2. Halliburton = Cheney, (34 million $ Conflict of Interest)
   
3. Cheney = Bush, (Impeach the bastards!)
   
4. Bush = McCain. (Don't vote for Bush's 3rd Term!)
   

Thus, the transitive property suggests that McCain = Slavery. No big surprise there.

Tangential reminder: Halliburton / KBR have government contracts to build, maintain, and staff detainment camps in the US for use in the event of Martial Law. Sorta takes you back to Nazi Germany, doesn't it?

The voter fraud has already started

The much reviled Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi is up for relection this year, and is being challenged by activist Cindy Sheehan. (You may remember Cindy. Her son was one of the first soldiers to die in Iraq, and she spent a summer camped out in front of the White House at a time when no one else was willing to protest the war.)

As an Independent, in order for Cindy to get on the ballot, she needs a lot of signatures of registered voters in San Francisco by this Friday. California has some very strict ballot laws, and if successful, Cindy would be only the 6th Independent candidate ever to get on the rolls.

Last Friday, a week early, she turned in over 40% more signatures than she needed to the Election Board. Everything looked great, and it seemed she was going to really give Nancy Pelosi a run for her (party's) money.

The election board did a "random sampling" of 531 of the signatures, and determined that 300 were registered voters and are "challenging" the other 231. This allows them to determine that 43.5% of her signers aren't registered voters, and thus she can't be on the ballot (unless she gets 2,000 more good signatures by this Friday). The process is lengthy, and the election board had done a random sampling previously of the signatures she'd turned in before this point - that batch had only a 22% "challenged" status. Now she hands in 10,000 more signatures, and the percentage doubles?

That seems suspicious to me. Pretty much no matter how you slice it, this means something unethical has happened. Here's some possible interpretations:

1. The people of San Francisco could be so nutso that 43.5% of them listened to the people with the clipboards speak long enough to get to sign, and then wrote fake names.
   (I don't know about you, but if someone tries to get me to sign something on a street corner, I either ignore them and walk away, or agree with them and listen and sign. It's never occurred to me to sign a fake name to undermine them. Even if it had, it seems a dubious tactic and a waste of my time. Could 43.5% really do that? Are "we, the people" that dumb?)
   
2. Someone on Sheehan's campaign could have been corrupt, and signed thousands of false names to get her on the ballot. Considering that Sheehan is running as the reform candidate, this seems unlikely, but it's not impossible. People do do dumb things - but you'd think even 10 or 20% of the signatures being in the same handwriting would stand out.
3. Someone on Sheehan's campaign could be a stooge or tool of either major party, and signed thousands of false names in an attempt to trick Sheehan into not getting enough signatures. Again, thousands of made up names in the same handwriting seems awfully risky, but as I said, people do stupid things.
   
4. The voter registration lists could have been purged by the election board (much as they were in Florida in 2000) such that 43.5% of San Francisco voters will learn in November that they aren't registered to vote after all.
5. Someone at the election board could have gone fishing for unregistered signatures, then combined that list with a random sampling so as to create a "challenge-able" percentage that was just a few points higher than what she'd exceeded the requirements by.

Personally, I think scenarios #4, and #5 are the most believable. They're certainly easier to carry out than scenarios 1-3, with less risk of exposure. If the answer is just scenario 1 stupidity, I'm going to be very disgusted with my fellow Americans.

Obviously, there's motive for someone to subvert the election system - the entrenched pro-establishment anti-Impeachment Pelosi has power back home and is in danger of being ousted, so it's possible a Democrat at the election board might do this to protect her. Considering the history of the Bush Administration rigging elections, it's possible a Republican might do this, too - and they'd likely anticipate that if Pelosi remains in office there'll be little chance of post-election war-crimes trials.

Who did what and why?

How'd I miss this: Halliburton Detention Centers in the US?

I'm frankly quite surprised that I haven't heard about this previously. It's more than 2 years old, but it's downright disturbing. You'd think it would have been more widely reported.

What I'm talking about is an announcement of a $385 million dollar contract for Haliburton to build special prisons within the US. These prisons are not hold criminals, but instead for "immigration emergencies" and for use during "national emergency, such as a natural disaster".

Certainly, if there were a natural disaster that required the relocation of Americans, you wouldn't put them in a Detention Center. If "the big one" hit California today, we wouldn't put the survivors in prison, would we? You'd build a hospital for that, not a Detention Center. More likely, you'd just house them in a sports arena till things stabilized.

I can't imagine an immigration emergency so drastic as to justify this, either Even if you had a nuclear meltdown in Mexico or Canada, and millions of refugees fled across the border, you wouldn't house them in a Detention Center.

So, maybe it's just legislative pork. It's hard to tell from the press release if Halliburton actually built anything, or if the contract is just $385 million to plan for such contingencies. Perhaps we just paid them nearly 400 million to not actually do anything.

What could you use a Detention Center for? Imprisoning dissidents after declaring martial law? Rounding up the people who throw fits after you disclose that aliens are real and you've been lying for generations? It's hard to say.

I don't know how much prisons cost per prisoner. Is 385 million dollars enough to build a prison to hold 1,000 prisoners, or enough to build a prison that could hold 500,000 prisoners? Even if it's $50,000 per detainee, that'd make a facility big enough to hold 7,700 people. But if you're just packin' 'em in, with minimal comfort, it's a lot less per person...

A chill goes down my spine, as I remember that quote from Congressman Olver who said that Impeachment wasn't being pursued by himself and his fellow Democrats out of fear that Bush would declare martial law and suspend the 2008 elections. What had once sounded like crazy talk is now looking eerily plausible. Is this Halliburton Contract evidence that Bush and Cheney are planning something big?

I'm going to include the entire text of Halliburton's Press Release, so it'll always be available to anyone who wants to read it. There's no indications that the original will go away any time soon, but just to be safe...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 24, 2006

KBR AWARDED U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY CONTINGENCY SUPPORT PROJECT FOR EMERGENCY SUPPORT SERVICES

ARLINGTON, Virginia – KBR announced today that its Government and Infrastructure division has been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL).

With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.

“We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency operations support,” said Bruce Stanski, executive vice president, KBR Government and Infrastructure. “We look forward to continuing the good work we have been doing to support our customer whenever and wherever we are needed.”

The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.

The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.

ICE was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.

KBR is a global engineering, construction, technology and services company. Whether designing an LNG facility, serving as a defense industry contractor, or providing small capital construction, KBR delivers world-class service and performance. KBR employs more than 60,000 people in 43 countries around the world.

Halliburton, founded in 1919, is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries. The company serves its customers with a broad range of products and services through its Energy Services Group and KBR. Visit the company's World Wide Web site at www.halliburton.com.

Here's that clip on the Olver quote, as a reminder:

Court rules in favor of Congress over Executive Branch

via RAW:

WASHINGTON — President Bush's top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches.

...

U.S. District Judge John Bates ... said there's no legal basis for that argument.

...

"Indeed, the aspect of this lawsuit that is unprecedented is the notion that Ms. Miers is absolutely immune from compelled congressional process. The Supreme Court has reserved absolute immunity for very narrow circumstances, involving the President's personal exposure to suits for money damages based on his official conduct or concerning matters of national security or foreign affairs.

The Executive's current claim of absolute immunity from compelled congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law."

This is a great day for America. The struggle is far from over, as Bush can appeal this, but the precedent helps Congress a lot. The tide of the battle is turning.

Tell your congressman to support Impeachment

http://democrats.com/35-articles-of-impeachment

That link will take you to a petition you can sign to encourage your Representatives to vote in favor of Impeachment.

In Friday's congressional hearing:

Chairman John Conyers insisted it was not an "impeachment hearing." But he also said, "I believe the evidence on these matters is both credible and substantial and warrant the response of the executive branch, under oath if at all possible... Let me add, we are not done yet, and we do not intend to go away until we achieve the accountability that Congress is entitled to and the American people deserve ."