Dept Of Homeland Conspiracy

Shoes thrown at Bush - The ULTIMATE insult!

2008-12-14T14:20:00.001-08:00

To bad he missed

Here Comes The NAU!!!

2008-11-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

This sticker has started appearing on some products at stores around town! Get ready for the Security and Prosperity Partnership or North America or The North American Union.

US Troops Drop Weapons

2008-10-12T15:11:00.001-07:00

WOW

Ann Arbor 9-11 Truth

2008-09-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

On Anniversary of 911 Many Ann Arborites Doubt Official Story

A group Ann Arbor citizens gathered yesterday at 5:30 pm on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Liberty adjacent to the Federal Building to express their dismay about the lies and cover-ups being perpetuated by our government and media concerning the events of Sept 11, 2001.

Numerous passing drivers on the active corner in the center of town showed solidarity with the protesters by honking and giving thumbs-up as they went by. Hundreds of fliers directing readers to 911Truth websites were handed to curious pedestrians who were very receptive, many expressing their own doubts as well.

A few responded angrily, with one man actually asking the group if they had "forgotten their meds". In our highly medicated and comatose society, "medications" seem to be the remedy for those who are concerned, upset and disillusioned with recent events.

Regardless of the fact that so many dumbing and numbing drugs are foisted on the public-- now, more than ever, the events of the terror attacks are questioned and disputed in every country around the world. No amount of "medication" will make this movement go away.

http://annarbor911truth.com/2008/09/on-anniversary-of-911-many-ann.php

Army: soldier suicide rate

2008-09-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Soldier suicides this year could surpass the record rate of last year, Army officials said Thursday, urging military leaders at all levels to redouble prevention efforts for a force strained by two wars.

As of the end of August, there were 62 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers and Guard and Reserve troops called to active duty, officials said. Another 31 deaths appear to be suicides but are still being investigated.

If all are confirmed, that means that the number for 2008 could eclipse the 115 of last year — and the rate per 100,000 could surpass that of the civilian population, Col. Eddie Stephens, deputy director of human resources policy, said at a Pentagon news conference.
"Army leaders are fully aware that repeated deployments have led to increased distress and anxiety for both soldiers and their families," Army Secretary Pete Geren said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_suicides

Cynthia McKinney at R-68 in Denver

2008-08-25T11:33:00.001-07:00

Right on!!!!

Hearing on Limits of Executive Power: Vincent Bugliosi

2008-08-15T18:50:00.001-07:00

Thanks to you, impeachment will be heard Friday

2008-08-15T18:16:00.001-07:00

Give,em hell Dennis

A2 Welcomes Nancy

2008-08-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

This is what greeted Nancy Pelosi when she came to Ann Arbor to sell her book. We had at least 50 people there.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/08/pelosi_meet_by_fans_and_protes.html

The 666 Microchip

2008-07-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

The 666 Microchip

Transcribed from a Power Point Slide Pesentation 'The 666 Microchip' – July 15, 2008

Motorola is the company producing the microchip for the MONDEX SMARTCARD. More than 250 corporations and 20 countries are involved in the distribution of MONDEX to the world and many nations are “privileged” to use this system, among them: Great Britain, Canada, U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvadore and Brazil.

They have developed several implants for humans using the “Bio-chip”.

The “bio-chip” measures 7mm in length and is .075mm wide, about the same size as a grain of rice. It contains a transponder and a rechargeable Lithium battery. A thermocouple circuit that produces an electrical current with the fluctuation of body temperature recharges the battery.

MONDEX spent more than $1.5 million dollars in research just to find the best place to insert the “Bio-chip” into the human body. They found only two satisfactory and efficient places – THE HEAD, underneath the scalp and the backside of the hand specifically … THE RIGHT HAND!

Revelation 13:16, 17 (v16) He causes all, both great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, (v.17) and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Revelation 13:16,17

How much of a coincidence is that?

One billion “bio-chips” are being produced by MONDEX a year. Its been in production for at least a year.

They discovered that if the chip were in a card, they would encounter serious problems. The chip could be cut and information changed or falsified. The value could be manipulated, stolen or lost. After you receive the card it will expire in one to two years.

In the end real money will be insecure in the general market.

There is only one solution for this problem, embraced by MOTOROLA … implanting the “biochip” in the right hand or head, where it cannot be removed. If it is removed by surgery, the small capsule will burst and the Lithium and chemicals in the microchip would contaminate the individual.

Moreover, the Global Positioning System (GPS) will detect if it was removed and alert the authorities.

Notice MONDEX means “money in you hand”.

MON = MONetary

DEX = DEXter = Right-hand side.

Want some Torture With Your Peanuts?

2008-07-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

By Jeffrey Denning

Just when you thought you’ve heard it all...A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers

This bracelet would:

• Take the place of an airline boarding pass

• Contain personal information about the traveler

• Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage

• Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes

The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.” Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if the passenger got out of line.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/aviation-security/2008/Jul/01/want-some-torture-with-your-peanuts/#again

Costs Of War

2008-06-22T11:34:00.001-07:00

trillion wasted

Obama 'terrorist fist jab'

2008-06-13T05:47:00.000-07:00

It has started!!!

The Gloves are off

Fox News anchor taken off air after Obama 'terrorist fist jab' gaffe

Fox News anchor ED Hill has lost her show a week after suggesting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle's on-stage victory gesture could be seen as a "terrorist fist jab".

Hill, the anchor of Fox News show America's Pulse, made the comment last Friday after Obama and his wife affectionately bumped fists before his victory speech on becoming the Democratic candidate for president.

"A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently," said Hill in her show. "We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says."

According to US media reports Hill, who has been with Fox News Channel since 1998, has now lost her show although she is to stay with the network in an as yet undetermined capacity.

To read more http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/13/television.barackobama

I see a lot of "Terrorist fist jabs" in the NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, WNBA, LPGA, & many other sport too...Whitey

Ann Arbor Hash Bash 08

2008-05-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

This picture made it in the A2 News paper

Yep this is me at Hash Bash 2008

I felt like a rock star! So many people wanted to take my picture

A Quote From A Brother

2008-05-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

“Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to it’s people & illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue, & honor of it’s solders on the ground. Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send solders to die for illegal invasion they started. Somehow torture is tolerated. Somehow lying is tolerated. Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, & nonsense. Somehow nobody is accountable for this.”

Kevin Tillman
Brother of Pat Tillman

Neil Young: Let's Impeach The President

2008-04-30T12:33:00.001-07:00

Let's do it now...before it's to late!!!

Gas Price May Soar To $10.00

2008-04-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Gas Price May Soar to Between $7 and $10 a Gallon

By DAN DORFMAN
Special to the SunApril 28, 2008

Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.

That's the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.
Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

In Manhattan, at a Mobil gas station at York Avenue and East 61st Street, premium gas is now $4.03 a gallon. Two days ago, it was $3.96. Why such a high price? "Blame the people at STOPEC (he meant OPEC) and the oil companies," an attendant there told me.

These increases are taking place before the all-important summer driving season, signaling even higher prices ahead.

That's also the outlook of the Automobile Association of America. "As long as the price of crude oil stays above $100 a barrel, drivers will be forced to pay more and more at the gas pump," a AAA spokesman, Troy Green, said.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

While $7-$10 a gallon would be ground-breaking in America, these prices would not be trendsetting internationally. For example, European drivers are already shelling out $9 a gallon (which includes a $2-a-gallon tax).

Canadians are also being hit with rising gas prices. They are paying the American-dollar equivalent of $4.92 a gallon, and they're being told to brace themselves for prices above $5.65 a gallon this summer.

Early last year, with a barrel of oil trading in the low $50s and gasoline nationally selling in a range of $2.30 to $2.50 a gallon, Mr. Gaines — in an impressive display of crystal ball gazing — accurately predicted oil was $100-bound and that gasoline would follow suit by reaching $4 a gallon.

His latest prediction of $200 oil is open to question, since it would undoubtedly create considerable global economic distress. Further, just about every energy expert I talk to cautions me to expect a sizable pullback in oil prices, maybe to between $50 and $70 a barrel, especially if there's a global economic slowdown.

While Mr. Gaines thinks there could be a temporary decline in the oil price, he's convinced an overall uptrend is unstoppable. In fact, he thinks his $200 forecast could be conservative, and that perhaps $250 could be reached. His reasoning: a combination of shrinking supply and increasing demand, especially from China, India, and America.

Mr. Brodrick's $200 oil forecast is largely predicated on a combination of pretty flat supply and rip-roaring demand. Other key catalysts include surging demand in China and India, where auto sales are booming, and major supply disruptions in Nigeria and also in Mexico, our second-largest source of oil imports, where oil production has fallen off a cliff.

More factors include the ever-present danger of additional supply disruptions from volatile countries in the Middle East that are not our allies, and the unwillingness of SUV-loving Americans to trim their unquenchable thirst for foreign oil. Likewise, for the first time, emerging markets this year will use more oil than America.

To Mr. Brodrick, it all adds up to an ongoing energy bull market. His favorite plays are the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund ; United States Natural Gas Fund LP; Apache Corp.; Occidental Petroleum; Anadarko Petroleum, and Schlumberger.

Dandordan@aol.com

Gas was a buck 49 before Bush!!!
Thanx King George II

A Picture Is Worth A 1000 Words

2008-04-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

Lucky Larry wants $12.3 billion more for 9/11

2008-04-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

Lucky Larry wants $12.3 billion more for 9/11

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor

Like the proverbial bad penny, Lucky Larry Silverstein keeps popping up. He’s back and he’s bad again. Not content with the nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments he received to cover his losses at the World Trade Center, he is now seeking $12.3 billion in damages from the airlines and airport security companies for the 9/11 attack in a suit filed in 2004.

Not tainted enough by the fact that Silverstein & Partners took out a lease for 99 years in July of 2001 on the WTC, two months before the attack . . . not content Larry & Partners upped the insurance at that time to $3.5 billion and (presciently) to cover potential hits by airliners flown by “terrorist hijackers” . . .

Not content that Silverstein & Partners subsequently sued the insurers for $7 billion, considering the attack a double strike because separate liners hit Towers One and Two. Not content that Larry spent the next six years in litigation with the insurance companies, only to have the deal fortunately settled, brokered by then Governor Spitzer in 2007, yielding $4.55 to Lucky Larry and Partners . . .

Not content either that his personal stake in the lease was only some $14 million, the balance supplied by his partners. Not content that he made another $500 million on the destruction of his Tower 7, which he owned and quickly rebuilt bigger and better. Not content that no liner hit Tower 7 and that the fires were out, he announced at 3:30 p.m. on 9/11 that there had been so much pain and suffering that he and the NYFD decided to “pull it” -- Tower 7 . . .

Not content that in fact at 5 p,m,, not even two hours later . . . Tower 7 went down at the freefall speed of gravity in a matter of seconds neatly into its own footprint, a classic “internal demolition.” Not content that you can’t set up an internal demolition on a 47-story steel-framed building in less than two hours or two days, or even two weeks. Not content that his “smoking gun” has attracted the attention of every 9/11 critic around the world . . .

Not content that the BBC made an incredible gaffe as a TV journo of theirs, supposedly in New York, reported that Tower 7 had fallen, that is, 26 minutes before it actually fell and with a News24 “time stamp” video to prove it. Not content that even Google had to pull the video . . . Larry Silverstein, the Oliver Twist of 9/11 disaster, is back, asking for more, sir, more please. Incredible! What colossal chutzpah!

But hey, Larry’s got reasons; boy, does he have reasons. His lawyers aired them in the United States Southeastern District Court in Manhattan, the same court in which the 9/11 victims families have been plaintiffs for cases to sue the airlines and security companies, and by the way, where 90 families have been turned down for lawsuits and only two remain who haven’t taken the money and shut up, and where Ellen Mariani has been consistently turned down and continues to be . . .

Yet,Larry’s lawyers have come to ask the wonderful Judge Hellerstein for more, the same Hellerstein who asked all the families to take the money and “move on” and told them that “money was the universal lubricant . . ." What goes around comes around.

By the way, the total claims involved come to about $23 billion. Silverstein’s chunk could endanger claims from other businesses and property owners, defense lawyers say. Why, Donald Migliori himself, the lawyer for the victims’ families, said he was confident “that their claims would not be affected because they would take priority over the property claims,” as reported by the New York Times. So they won’t be taking food from widows’ and children’s mouths to feed Larry, not this week at least.

Nevertheless, Desmond Barry, a lawyer for the airlines, said that if Lucky Larry won his claims, “He could push the total claims beyond the amount of insurance that the airlines and security companies have available. 'There ain’t that much insurance,' Mr. Barry said."
Silverstein’s laundry list for the $12.3 billion goes like this, “$8.4 billion for the replacement of destroyed buildings and $3.9 billion in ‘other costs,’ including $100 million a year in rent to the Port authority and $300 million a year in lost rental income, as well as the cost of marketing and leasing the new buildings.”

Mr. Barry, the Times tells us, reminded Silverstein’s folks that he “had been more than compensated by the nearly $4.6 billion insurance settlement, reached after almost six years of litigation. He argued that Mr. S. was entitled to the market value of the property, which he said had been established by the $3.2 billion.”

Judge Hellerstein was skeptical about Mr. Silverstein’s claim, and asked why he hadn’t sucked up his losses by just “walking away.” Hellerstein asked, “What’s the nature of your recovery,” to which Larry’s lawyer, Mr. Williamson, answered, “For damages suffered by the events of 9/11, not value. Damages.” He claimed the lease required Silverstein to rebuild and keep on paying rent.

Hellerstein retorted, “And so I’m putting to you if you walked away from the lease, you would lose the value of the lease . . . Would you have a further obligation to pay money?” Williamson answered, “You have to examine that question . . . But to me that’s not the test of what are our damages.”

When Hellerstein pressed for a dollar figure on damages, not the “precise amount,” i.e., “some order of magnitude would be appropriate,” Williamson balked. Barry said, “I think their claim is $12.3 billion.” Williamson added, “Plus prejudgment interest,” To which Hellerstein “tartly replied, 'We shouldn’t forget that.'” They won’t let you, Alvin.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers added that even after many settlements, there are seven wrongful death and two injury cases remaining from the more than 90 filed. Migliori, the victims’ survivors’ lawyer, felt that the claims with property damage, including Lucky Larry and some insurance company looking to recoup payments, should allow the death and injury cases priority of payment of damages. Fair enough.

Judge Hellerstein passed on setting a trial date. He said that would be “fictitious,” yet set a deadline for fact-finding for Silverstein to offer more documentation of his claim -- or risk losing it. Any trials, by the way, seem to be more than a year away.

The real caveat here is that to win a case of that size for damages, Silverstein would have to go to court for discovery. Meaning his lawyers could bring in every fireman who heard a blast, Silverstein himself for his “pull” remark, and even Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani for saying that morning, at 9:15 to ABC’s Peter Jennings, on the street that someone told him the towers were coming down. In short, you could grill ass like the devil until you found out what really happened.
Bottom line, Larry could get a billion dollar bone thrown at him, a take-the-money and-shut-up bone. Or Larry could end up in cement shoes, for real or legally. After all, Larry knew, going into the lease purchase that the Towers were asbestos-laden bombs, the first 60 floors sprayed with the building material when built from 1968 to '72. And they were supposed to be taken down eventually, according to a 1971 New York Council ban on asbestos.

Obviously, the buildings couldn’t be legally taken down by explosion or implosion. They would have to be taken down piece by piece. The cost would be in the billions by today’s standards. But there was another way to take them down, wasn’t there?

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3135.shtml

The Good Guys Dance While the Beat Goes On.

2008-04-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

I found this over at Smoking Mirrors

The Good Guys Dance While the Beat Goes On.

While the general public sits, in a drugged stupor, as hallucinating television sets bring them Donald Duck reporting the news, or Porky Pig from the runway at Milan, other things are being said and done which might have escaped the notice of the wider world. Japanese lawmaker and former Chief Cabinet Secretary under Koizumi has had a lot to say about 9/11 and then there is the former President of Italy as well as the one time head of their secret service who has said 911 was done by the CIA and Mossad and then there is the former German Minister Andreas Von Buelow who has something to say and all those professional airline pilots who have something to say as well as all those scholars and scientists who have something to say and then, there’s me. I’ve got something to say too and we’ll get to that.

I want everyone reading this essay who is in denial about 9/11 to ask themselves what they base that denial on. Ask yourself, “Why do I believe that Bin Laden attacked the WTC and points south?” Go stand in front of the mirror people and ask yourself what your credentials are for determining the scientific aspects of the 9/11 attacks. Ask yourself if you are or were at a high level in your government and privy to classified information. Ask yourself if you are trained in the sciences represented by those doubting the official version of the event or a commercial pilot like those linked here. Ask yourself if that really is Porky Pig talking to you from the runway in Milan.

The answer to the first question has to be, “Donald Duck told me so.” He may have been dressed like whatever wax figure reads you your news but it was Donald Duck who actually said it. You believe it because it is what you were told and nobody is going to tell you different because the people in charge are the good guys or they wouldn’t be in charge, right?

These are the good guys that told you the proven lies that have led to the mass murders in Iraq. These are the people who orchestrated and are covering up THIS! Go ahead… read it. You see Halliburton, the former playground of the vice president, reaping obscene profits from the war and poisoning American soldiers with bad water and you say, “These are the good guys.”

You see Dick Cheney go to Saudi Arabia and right afterwards you see that the Saudis are now preparing for nuclear war and you say “These are the good guys.” You see the sub prime mess and the food and energy shortages and the bees dying from genetically modified seeds and all of it because your government takes their orders from the money men who run the corporations and banks (and which is the clinical definition of fascism) and you say, “These are the good guys.”

April is here and strange doings are afoot. Al Sadr has shown the world that the U.S. and Israel along with ‘The City’ in London have lost control of the Iraq War, as if they ever had control outside of an insulated bunker on a small piece of real estate. What’s a fascist to do? Next stop Iran. The good guys are working out the details of the next false flag that will justify their long term plans.

Zionist controlled AOL is shutting down websites that question 9/11 while newscasters call for 9/11 truthers to be put in camps.

Twenty eight million Americans are on foodstamps. Isn’t that about one in ten people? Repossessed houses are being stripped of their copper and other fittings. And the beat goes on. And the beat goes on.

A person still in possession of a mind would ask themselves… why? You can’t say that the people responsible for these things are just stupid and incompetent. You have to know that there is a point to all of this. Ask yourself what this point must be. Why does the big freight train of life seem to be heading for a collective disaster of monumental proportion while your news sources are chattering away like Ritalin infused chipmunks searching for Jodie Foster and D.B. Cooper's parachute?

I’m not Nostradamus but you don’t have to be a seer to see. Most of you know that the official 9/11 story is garbage. By a wide margin you have been polled and found to have said so and yet… and yet… the beat goes on. High ranking figures in governments around the world are coming out and flat out saying that the CIA and Mossad engineered this event. Scientists and scholars are rebutting every aspect of the lies and still the beat goes on and these are still the good guys; over a million dead, people tortured and children raped and… these are the good guys.

It is a dark and dreadful thing, given that 9/11 was done by the intelligence services of certain governments that elements of those same governments can imprison and torture men for information they could not possibly have since the events they are being questioned about are being carried out by the forces that are torturing them. This is beyond Kafka folks and it is happening in real life.

Mark my words people… the day will come when all of these things will be widely known and you will remember that you did and said nothing.

As the arrogant, rogue nation of Israel carries out it’s genocide on the original inhabitants of the land they occupy, your voice is not heard. Hundreds of thousands of people who have committed no crime live under the iron boot of a merciless regime which has abandoned all pretense of humanity and it is not only the Palestinians who suffer. And you say nothing because you are ignorant or afraid. You are afraid that you will be tagged with bankrupt terminology for daring to question the methods and motives of mass murdering demons dressed in human form. Because you cannot stand up, one day you too will kneel and receive the same tender ministrations that others have before you.

It is not a question of maybe this or maybe that any more. The stark truth is there before you in black and white and Technicolor and the beat goes on. It is within yourself that you must finally deal with your silence, your indifference and fear. All of the convenient lies that you tell your conscious mind percolate in the depths beneath your awareness and one day… one day they will rise to the surface and convict you as the beat goes on.

There is no hiding place from the truth of your complicity in the tragic events of your time. While you feed in your dreams in the land of plenty, the land of plenty is no more. While you imagine any one of your candidates will address the real issues that surround you, they mouth platitudes and bend their knee to the forces that cause all of the horrors of the time. You will have to answer for why you did and said nothing as the beat went on.

I gain no pleasure from having to tell you these things. I do not fabricate these things in my imagination. They are there for you to see for yourselves but something within you has failed. Something that should have been there went missing. Some quality that made you human has traveled on to more willing locations and you remain as something indefinable… not human… not yet a beast. But when the thin veneer of civilization is at last stripped away we shall see what you become.

For the moment the music is still playing. You travel to your jobs and you go about your activities and entertainments. Despite all of the evidence of these uncertain times you do believe it’s just a rough patch in the road and that mysterious elves will come out in the night while you are sleeping and fix your world. We shall see what ‘the good guys’ have to say about that. We shall see how you dance in time as the beat goes on.

Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain

2008-03-26T23:29:00.001-07:00

Looks like even Ozzy knows this war is WRONG!!!
IMPEACH King George II

The Assassination of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer

2008-03-24T14:49:00.001-07:00

Dog's Purpose

2008-03-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

Dog's Purpose (according to a 6-year-old) Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker.

The dog's owners, Ron, his wife, Linda, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying.

I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. As we made arrangements, Ron and Linda told me they thought it would be good for six-year -old Shane to observe the procedure.

They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on.

Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion.

We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, 'I know why.' Startled, we all turned to him.

What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, 'People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?' The six-year-old continued, 'Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.'

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Remember, if a dog were your teacher, you would learn things like:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up th e opportunity to go for a joy ride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.

Take naps. Stretch before rising. Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you're not.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by.

All will be well.

I am what I am by the grace of God

Was There More To The Fall Of Spitzer

2008-03-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

More To The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer Than Meets the Eye

March 17, 2008

by Mark Glenn, Correspondent, American Free Press Newspaper

When the scandal involving New York Governor Elliot Spitzer and his tryst with a $5,000-a-night prostitute named ‘Kristen’ was injected like an informational narcotic into the American consciousness the 2nd week of March, most people merely chalked it up as yet one more corrupt politician caught with his pants down, no pun intended. The theme of a moralizing, self-righteous politico pointing his finger into a news camera and Pharisaically grandstanding to the rest of the world while on the sly he was busying himself with the very business he was tasked with destroying is almost as old as the oldest profession itself.

However, information surrounding this case indicates there is much more to it than simply issues of hypocrisy and infidelity, although they certainly play a part. And once again–surprise, surprise–what it reveals is the hidden hand of that troublesome little experiment in Jewish self-rule violently nestled on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean known as the state of Israel.
In the first case, only a fool would assume the case involving Spitzer’s infidelity was some isolated, not-all-too-common thing. Realistic persons can assume (rightly) that American political figures are as rare at businesses peddling flesh as gravediggers are at graveyards. It is a fact that with political power comes the perception of invincibility and untouchability, where problems ‘get fixed’, dirt is swept under the rug and everything is ‘taken care of’.

That being said, let us begin with exhibit A–As it turns out the owner of the now-infamous Emperor’s VIP Club providing ‘services’ to Spitzer was operated by one Mark Michael Brener, an Israeli national who, when arrested, was in possession of two Israeli passports and a ton of cash. The connection between the state of Israel and the international trafficking of pornography, prostitution, and (if it can be believed) the sex slave business (that up until recently was legal in the Jewish state, provided the slave in question was not Jewish) is a well-founded fact.

Gangsters from the ‘Russian Mafiya’ (which Jewish American writer Robert Friedman ‘outed’ as being not as much Russian as Jewish) have made Israel their home away from home in running their international operations and enjoy close ties with Israel’s intelligence service Mossad. In both his books ‘By Way Of Deception’ and ‘The Other Side of Deception’ former Israeli intelligence officer Victor Ostrovsky details how one of Mossad’s primary functions was (is) entrapping important persons involved in politics, business, media and whatnot into compromising and embarrassing positions so as to make them more ‘pliable’ to the demands of the Jewish state. The fact that the Emperor’s Club was operating on an international basis indicates that more than likely it was connected with powerful forces (re, the intelligence services of a foreign country) that could offer it protection and cover. In short, the ‘escort service’ most likely served a dual role as a blackmailing operation for America’s power elite, and given the fact that Spitzer is Jewish and that it was an ‘Israeli shop’ indicates he thought he was safe.

Next, there is the timing of the story. Supposedly the whole affair was discovered as a result of ‘financial irregularities’ that triggered an investigation in 2006 that made its way all the way up to the US Justice Department. How fortuitous then for the war-hungry Neocons that the story broke just a few dozen hours prior to the announced ‘resignation’ of Admiral William Fallon, commander of CentCom. As commander of all military operations in the Middle East, Fallon was the one man standing in the way of George Bush and his Neocon ‘crazies’ (Fallon’s words) from attacking Iran. He made it clear on several occasions that an attack on Iran would not happen on ‘his watch’ and signaled his absolute opposition to widening an already disastrous war to include Judea’s ancient enemies in Persia. News was leaked a week prior to Fallon’s ‘resignation’ that he might be ‘relieved of duty’ by Bush, and then, almost by magical coincidence, there is Spitzer with his hand caught in the cookie jar right smack dab in the middle of everything, and during the most important days when Fallon’s story would have gotten traction. Tragically, the sacking of the one man who could have delayed Armageddon is washed down the memory hole and forgotten.

Exhibit B.

If indeed this was a deliberate political hit and Spitzer was not some innocent bystander caught in the cross fire, there are several reasons that paint a credible picture as to why he would have been targeted ahead of others. Enter exhibit C, the fact that as a Jew he committed a capital offense within his community when as Attorney General for the state of New York he investigated certain powerful Jewish groups, and not just ANY group such as ‘Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership,’ but rather the mother of them all, the World Jewish Congress. Tasked with receiving, handling and distributing reparations for Holocaust survivors through one of its adjuncts known as the ‘Claims Conference,’ Spitzer’s investigation was concentrated on–surprise surprise–‘financial irregularities’ within the organization.

‘How rich’, as the old saying goes, considering the fact that supposedly this was what led to Spitzer himself being caught red-handed. A story appearing in the Israeli publication Ynet of 2006 (the same year the investigations directed by and against Spitzer took place ) entitled Where Did The Shoah Money Go? details how a pittance of the billions collected in Holocaust reparations actually makes its way into the hands of survivors while at the same time executives of the WJC and Claims Conference spend millions on lavish trips for themselves annually. In the Ynet piece it discussed Spitzer’s investigation as well as his ‘grave’ report on the matter, that revealed

‘…Apparent financial irregularities amounting to millions of dollars, administrative deficiencies and circular transfers of 1.2 million dollars form the accounts of the WJC in New York to a bank account in Geneva…From there, the money found its way to a private bank account in England and from there to an account in the name of a private company called Solar…Upon opening of the investigation, the money was returned…’

The piece went on to describe how the money was used by officials of the WJC for lavish trips to Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, Geneva, Rio de Janeiro, Budapest, London, and of course Tel Aviv. In one case involving then-president of the organization Israel Singer it was revealed that in one year’s time he personally spent almost half a million dollars on 1st class plane tickets, posh hotel rooms and rich meals that would choke a pig to death. In addition, Spitzer’s investigation revealed Singer withdrew as much as ¾ of a million dollars in a year’s time for ‘expenses’ related to ‘Shoah’ business that obviously would be written off as tax deductions.

This by itself may seem like nothing, but when viewed in light of ancient Jewish traditions, and in particular something known as ‘mesira’ is when the picture takes on a whole new hue.
A recent piece appearing in the Forward (considered the most respected and influential Jewish newspaper in America) entitled “Case of Informant Reverberates Through L.A.’s Orthodox Community” reveals a phenomenon unheard-of by most persons outside of those nursed on Italian gangster films such as ‘The Godfather’.

In this case it is the ‘code of silence’ that is part and parcel of closed, secretive communities and organized crime groups. Within Jewish circles, ‘Mesira’ is the business of Jews ‘ratting out’ other Jews to Gentile governments, an offense so serious it is punishable by death for the ‘moser’, meaning the informant. Interviewed for the Forward piece was one Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, who said that“People are shell-shocked about the thing on many levels…Number one, our neighbors and friends are implicated, and number two, an act of mesira on this level was perpetrated by one of our own.”

The case highlighted by the Forward detailed the uproar in LA’s Jewish community over the fact that a rabbi named Kasirer agreed to act as an informant on a huge money-laundering scheme involving the Spinka Orthodox Community in LA. Another ‘prominent’ Orthodox Rabbi not named in the piece had the following to say–
‘He (the informer) is certainly persona non grata across the board…Everybody is just disgusted with the idea that a person tried to save himself by hurting others.”‘

Forget the fact that serious felonies were involved with the case involving the fraud and embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars. The important thing was that code of silence that was violated and this was what had the Jewish community in LA kvetching up a hurricane.
The fact of the matter is that by investigating the world‘s most powerful Jewish organization, the World Jewish Congress, Elliot Spitzer ‘ratted out’ his fellow Jews to a (at least in theory) Gentile government and as a result, incurred a death sentence of sorts. Not resorting to the more blunt, quick death that a bullet from a silenced pistol to the head would have affected, instead his executioners chose the noisy, embarrassing political death of having him step down from the governor’s office in disgrace. For the rest of his life he will be remembered for one thing and one thing only, so much so that he couldn’t win the office of county dog catcher if he were the only candidate on the ballot.

There are other reasons for interested parties to bring down Spitzer in such a way besides the aforementioned, one of which is making an example of him for others. It is a rule of thumb that periodically thugs have to beat up one of the kids on the playground just to show the rest of the crew who’s boss. As in the case of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and others who have run afoul of organized Jewish interests in this country, an example was made of Spitzer for the rest of the political herd to consider should they ever decide to get frisky or confident of their own power.

In a day when America is going bankrupt and is hated all over the world for her support of the MOTHER of all Jewish causes–the state of Israel–and her seemingly never-ending thirst for blood, Spitzer going down in such an ignominious manner was an all-too-effective way of warning other powerful persons in America–‘We can bring you down within a matter of hours, and don’t you EVER forget it bubba.’

And finally, there is exhibit D, the silence…The DEAFENING silence from the Jewish community concerning the prosecution (persecution) of one of their own. Generally groups such as the ADL, AIPAC, JDL, JDO and others circle the wagons whenever a member of the tribe is in the hot seat, come out like a swarm of hornets and shout down whatever bad light the accused happens to suffer at that moment, irrespective of his innocence or guilt. Keep in mind that the ADL was formed as a result of the vigilante execution of Leo Frank, a Jew convicted in a court of law of raping and murdering 13 year old Mary Phagan. When accused spies Weissman and Rosen of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee were arrested and charged with espionage a few years back, pundits and media hounds asserted it was a political pogrom orchestrated by ‘anti-Semites’ working in the Justice department. They pointed (and continue to point) to the fact that the law used in prosecuting the two Israeli spies was a century-old statute and very obscure.

Coincidentally, the law used in bringing the heat down on Spitzer also happens to be a century old and yet, the hounds are as quiet as church mice. When one considers all the noise made by organized Jewish groups both in the US and Israel for the release of convicted Jewish spy and traitor Jonathon Pollard vs. the silence surrounding the present hot soup in which Spitzer finds himself swimming, the contrast is, well, ‘pregnant’ with implications, for lack of a better word.

And everyone can dismiss the idea that this story was just ‘too big’ for the media to effectively cover up. Recall the stories released in the wee hours following the 9/11 attacks concerning the 5 dancing Israelis and the white van carrying explosives driven by members of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad towards the George Washington bridge–Certainly explosive stories, considering what took place that day, and yet barely anyone in America knows about them. Theoretically it could be Christmas and if the media wanted to cover up the fact, rest assured it would not see the light of day.

Other theories swirl about as to why Spitzer was targeted. Some deal with–again, ‘financial irregularities’, but in this case they are safely deflected towards other targets such as Bush and Co, which may be true or which may be a red herring set loose into the fishbowl of political discourse by interested parties working to protect Jewish interests operating under the ‘By Way of Deception Thou Shalt Do War’ theorem espoused by Mossad.

One thing everyone can bet on though, and even in these mad days of utter unpredictability, which is that the political assassination of Elliot Spitzer is–like all things taking place in the Occupied Territories known as the United States these days–the proverbial tip of the iceberg. There are two sides to every story: What the talking heads say happened and what really happened, and rarely do the two of them meet (even secretly) and get to know each other better, and not even in the most ‘conjugal’ of all places, the Emperor’s Club known as Washington DC.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/
http://www.crescentandcross.com/
nomorewarsforisrael@gmail.com

Peace March, Ann Arbor, Michigan

2008-03-19T04:00:00.001-07:00

Ann Arbor's Iraq War 5th Anniversary March

2008-03-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from Ann Arbor's Iraq War 5th anniversary march

There was a "die in" but I do't have any pictures of that because I was dead!

King George II was there

To see more pictures click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/24714472@N03/show/

I almost made it into the Ann Arbor News!

Here's some more pictures from the march!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnholland/

They Fired My Doctor!!!

2008-02-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

Doctor claims her activism got her fired

Packard Community Clinic says Catherine Wilkerson refused to sign contract

Thursday, February 14, 2008

BY JO COLLINS MATHIS The Ann Arbor News

Ann Arbor physician Catherine Wilkerson says she's been fired from the Packard Community Clinic for her political activism.

Officials with the clinic insist that's not the case and say she was dismissed for refusing to sign an employee contract.

Wilkerson said she refused to sign the contract because it included a vague clause that violates her freedom of speech and is unlike anything she's seen in a contract in her 30 years in medicine.

"I think the clause was put in as a tool to force me out of the clinic,'' she said.

Jim Frenza, chairman of the clinic's board of trustees, said the contract is among the standard papers given to all clinic employees.

"Obviously, we're concerned because there are two stories out there,'' said Frenza. "One I think is factual, and the other is the story she's providing people.''

Frenza said several weeks ago Wilkerson was offered a contract identical to the one the clinic's other two physicians were given, and she failed to sign it within the required four weeks. She also refused to sign a letter of acceptance that went along with a new employee manual. Signing the letter is a condition of employment, he said, and others signed it.

"We obviously take a very, very strong exception to what she's saying on her Web site,'' he said, referring to www.defendwilkerson.org, which is organizing an online petition drive in support of Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, who has worked at the clinic for five years, is an outspoken critic of the local Jewish community's support for Israel.

Last December, she was found not guilty in a trial after she was charged with interfering with police and emergency responders during a disturbance at a guest lecturer's speech at the University of Michigan in November 2006.

Wilkerson claims that last October, before the trial, clinic medical director Ray Rion told her she was not a good fit for the clinic because of her political activities, citing the publicity surrounding the approaching criminal trial and her human rights activities on behalf of the Palestinian people.

Three weeks after a jury found her not guilty on Dec. 3, Wilkerson said Rion gave her a contract requiring her to refrain from conduct, both at work and outside of work, which reflects negatively on the reputation and public image of the clinic; which negatively affects the ability of the clinic to retain current patients, attract new patients or attract donations; or which may otherwise in Rion's judgment reflect poorly upon the public image of Wilkerson or the clinic.
Calls to Rion were referred to Frenza.

The clinic has offered Wilkerson a severance agreement and a letter of recommendation related to her clinical skills.

Wilkerson said she wants a contract, not a severance agreement.

Wilkerson said she's exploring her options for the future, but is still willing to sit down and negotiate a fair contract with the clinic.

Frenza said two other employees have also resigned, including her nurse and a care provider who worked one day a week. He said he's concerned about the clinic's reputation because of the controversy surrounding Wilkerson, but noted that the clinic has a 35-year history in the area with many loyal patients.

The clinic, at 3174 Packard Road, is a primary and mental health care practice that serves patients regardless of ability to pay. More than 50 percent of patients are uninsured.
Jo Mathis can be reached at jmathis@annarbornews.com or 734-994-6849.

http://www.mlive.com/annarbor/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-26/120300363145120.xml&coll=2

This was my Doctor & was 1 of the best I have ever had. She went out of her way to find out what was wrong with me. 4 years & a lot of pain. The other doctors at PCC would just give me a pill. Dr. Wilkerson would even do follow up calls to make sure I was doing ok! It seems that
McCarthyism is alive & well & is practiced at Packard Community Clinic.

Record Oil Profits AGAIN!!!

2008-02-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

Exxon Mobil Profit Sets Record Again

By any measure, Exxon Mobil’s performance last year was a blowout.

The company reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries.
Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007.

The company also had its most profitable quarter ever. It said net income rose 14 percent, to $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the last three months of the year. The company handily beat analysts’ expectations of $1.95 a share, after missing targets in the last two quarters.

Like most oil companies, Exxon benefited from a near doubling of oil prices, as well as higher demand for gasoline last year. Crude oil prices rose from a low of around $50 a barrel in early 2007 to almost $100 by the end of the year — the biggest jump in oil prices in any one year.

1 Year Old Sign

2008-01-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

01/31/08

I-94 West

I had to work out of town & that meant I had to drive by the billboard where I put up a wood Impeach sign, & to my surprise it was still up! So this sign has been up for over a year!

It been so cold here, that even if the house was on fire I would have to think about going outside.

Letter To The Editor 2.0

2008-01-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

I LUV my puter!

http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1200066094171740.xml&coll=2

A Giant Copy Of The Constitution

2008-01-03T04:20:00.000-08:00

Protesters advocating impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney carry a giant copy of the Constitution as they follow at the end of the 119th annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California January 1, 2008.
See more GREAT pics -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cfpuporg/

Looks like someeone took our 4th of July march idea & did something wonderful with it.
Great work folks! Now we a few million more people to do the same.

Winter Wonder Land 2.0

2008-01-01T08:23:00.001-08:00

This is what my New Year's Day looked like. We got hit with 10 inches + of snow over night.

Again there wasn't any snow on the ground before 10:00pm last night.

Under this snow is about an inch or two of slush... so it's a real pain in the back to shovel

I haven't seen a plow truck yet, I guess it must be their day off.

And they are calling for another 3-4 inches for today!

Are You A Terrorist?

2007-12-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

This is old but worth a read

Are You A Terrorist?

The Phoenix Federal Bureau of Investigation created a flyer some time back during Clinton's Presidency, asking the recipients to help them fight domestic terrorism. I received one of these flyers this past weekend at the Arizona "Freedom in the 21st Century" gathering.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (Greater Phoenix, Arizona) and the Maricopa County Attorney were placed on the flyer, as well -- before they saw the actual wording of the flyer -- in an effort by the FBI to "work jointly with local law enforcement."

Called the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the program was created, presumably, to help preserve the American way of life. This flyer was created -- by the feds -- to disseminate information about who the bad guys might be. However, its wording made it look like a disinformation campaign to paint at least a few groups of Real Americans as domestic terrorists. Among other things, the FBI was asking people:

"If you encounter any of the following, Call the Joint Terrorism Task Force":
"defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN"
[That describes many civil liberties groups and most gun rights and American Sovereignty groups in existence -- and, by extension, their members.]

"Groups of individuals engaging in para-military training"
[Such as, perhaps, shooting your semi-automatic "assault weapon" with some friends out in the desert?"]

Also being sought are "Common Law Movement Proponents" who
"Request authority for a stop"

[That's illegal now?]

"Make numerous references to the US Constitution"
[That's illegal now?]

"Attempt to 'police the police'"
[That's illegal now?]

And let's not forget the other potential "domestic terrorists" being sought. We really need to watch out for these people:

"Lone Individuals"
[Do you meet that description?]

"Rebels"
[Know any gun rights activist who doesn't have at least a touch of rebel pumping through the old bloodstream?]

Be sure and notice the following two things on the flyer, as well:

1) There is NOT ONE MENTION of "Islamic Fundamentalists" anywhere.
2) Defenders of the US Constitution and the common law from which it grew are being classified on the same level as the bottom-feeding Skinheads, Nazis and the KKK.

READ THE FLYER FOR YOURSELF

The flyer is a tri-fold, so you'll have to turn your head sideways to read one of the sections.
Front Page Back Page

NOTE: The far right side of the above "Front Page" is the actual front of the tri-fold flyer. The far left side of the above "Back Page" -- the part that mentions the 'defenders of the US Constitution' -- is the inside flap... the first thing you see when you open the flyer.

HISTORY OF THE FLYER

According to Terry Chapman of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office -- whose name is on the flyer as the MCSO contact -- the FBI created the flyer and printed the MCSO and Attorney's Office before the text was approved. He said it was created as a full color brochure to hand out to officers, not for the general public -- and that as soon as he saw it, he urged them not to use it, knowing it had some problems.

"The flyer never got off the ground," said Officer Chapman, "but it did manage to make it's way out -- and maybe it's right that it did." He genuinely didn't like this piece of junk, and he showed true concern about my issues with the flyer, too. "We were not happy with it. It was formulated, I think, for legitimate purposes, but it fell on stony ground because of the way it was worded -- the unfortunate profiles that were put in there outraged a number of people who received it."
"It's dead in the water as far as I know," said Chapman. "I just can't imagine the FBI putting it out there again. It wasn't for the public. The fact that it's circulating again has gotta be by unofficial sources."

Mr. Chapman couldn't name the FBI agent who created the flyer, saying the individual who created it was no longer with the FBI's Phoenix branch, which he described as having "revolving doors." Sheriff's officers didn't like the flyer, either. Said Chapman, "I had a Lieutenant from our own office call me and ask 'Am I on your list?' Am I a threat?' for supporting the constitution?'" Chapman was embarrassed by the seeming targeting of "decent, honorable segments of the community" by the flyer -- he hoped it would never be handed out or go anywhere at all.
According to Chapman, the FBI approached the Sheriff's Office saying they wanted to put a flyer together to help local law enforcement raise officer awareness about who to watch out for. They asked for a local contact name and number for use of a flyer they wanted to produce, and because Terry Chapman heads up MCSO Intelligence, he was the likely candidate. Possible lesson for Chapman: don't let yourself get used by misguided federal agents again.
The big question: Why the hell does the FBI have someone running around promoting that Defenders of the Constitution (and the common law from which the Constitution was born) are domestic terrorists?

The FBI has not returned phone calls on this matter. But suffice it to say that there has been at least one unAmerican weasel running around their camp urging people to turn against We The Real American People. We'd sure like to know this fool's name and location within the Bureau. If you track that information down, please contact me personally; we've got a bone to pick with him and his boss, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Winter Wonder Land

2007-12-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

I couldn't open my door this morning because the snow was so deep!

My "Shed Of Shame" is snowed in.

My backyard has turned into a Winter Wonder Land over night!!!

We got over 15 inches of snow during the night!!! There wasn't any snow on the ground until about 9:00pm & to top it all off it's damn cold out & the wind is blowing at 25 -35mph!!!

And their calling for another 8 inches today!!!

Big Brother In The Sky

2007-11-25T08:05:00.000-08:00

Houston police started testing unmanned aircraft and the event was shrouded in secrecy, but it was captured on tape by Local 2 Investigates.

Neighbors in rural Waller County said they thought a top-secret military venture was under way among the farmland and ranches, some 70 miles northwest of Houston. KPRC Local 2 Investigates had four hidden cameras aimed at a row of mysterious black trucks. Satellite dishes and a swirling radar added to the neighbors' suspense.

Then, cameras were rolling as an unmanned aircraft was launched into the sky and operated by remote control.

Check out the video

http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/drone_planes_houston_pd_secretly_test_drone.htm

Cats For Impeachment

2007-11-23T10:34:00.001-08:00

I agree Mamie

One Year & Counting

2007-11-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise when I realized that it's been over 1 year since I started freeway blogging & this blog. This must explain why I've felt the need to post some signs lately.

I've be seeing a lot of new signs around town. Some folks were posting signs on bridges for what we like to call "football Saturdays" but I never seem to have my camera with me.

Here's the 1st signs Liz & I posted

Thanx Scarlet for starting this whole movement.

http://www.freewayblogger.com/

UofM vs OSU

2007-11-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is "The Big Game" & I thought it would be nice to remind all 100,000+ ppl that there's a few wars going on.

These 2 can be seen by everyone coming off the highway

Both of these are really close to Michigan stadium so ppl walking to the game will see them!

This 1 is at Exit 172 to Michigan stadium & it's really BIG

GUILTY!!!

2007-11-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

Guilty of War Crimes
Guilty of Being a War Profiteer

Guilty of Lying to the American people & the WORLD
IMPEACH INDICT INCARCERATE

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

2007-11-09T07:17:00.001-08:00

I 1st seen Naomi Klein talking about her new book was on Democracy Now she talked abour her new book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." but what I found interesting was what she had to say about "Rapture Rescue 911: Disaster Response for the Chosen." That’s the title of Naomi Klein’s latest article in The Nation. It’s about the wildfires that just ravaged Southern California and the spate of new companies that offer privatized solutions to emergency management -- only for those rich enough to afford it.

http://www.triplecanopy.com/triplecanopy/en/home/ <- Protective Services For The Rich
http://www.sovereigndeed.com/index.html

Time For A Change

2007-11-09T04:37:00.000-08:00

This sign has been up since April 10th 2007 It was put up using 2 big rocks and it has been through rain snow wind and sun. It finely gave out on November 09th 2007 So I replaced it with this new sign.

I hope this sign stays up as long as the old sign.

Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America

2007-11-03T06:55:00.001-07:00

This is a must see

The Grim Reaper & The Marine Recruiter

2007-10-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

Semper Fi: Walking past the buildings of GCSU on an overcast, cool morning on a Thursday in September, a Marine Recruitment booth was spotted near "the Fountain," a common meeting area and major campus thoroughfare located between Arts & Sciences, Russell Library, and the International Education Center of Georgia College & State University.

Within two hours a cloak was donated, a scythe fabricated and the Grim Reaper began a conversation with the young recruiter.

Grim Reaper: "Good morning."
Marine Recruiter: "I wish my buddies were here."
GR: "I do not question your heroism. You have made a great sacrifice for our nation, you have given yourself for a purpose greater than yourself. You are an American Hero."
MR: "Mm hm."
GR: "The architects of this illegal and immoral war in Iraq are responsible for the rapes, mutilations, dehumanization and deaths of tens of thousands of men, women and children...Iraqis, coalition forces, and American servicemen and servicewomen. The Administration in Washington has summoned me. That is why I am here today. That is who I am here for."
MR: "O.K."
GR: "Thank you." (Hand shake)
Please go here to see these pictures better. This is GREAT work!!!!

http://billfisher.dreamhost.com/reaper.html

Southwest Airlines Is Going To Need A New Slogan

2007-10-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

No More Freedom to Move Around the Country?

Prior Permission From Government to be Required for Each Flight

The Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are quietly pushing for a set of crazy new rules. All travellers in the U.S. will be required to get government-issued credentials and official clearance before every flight, both within the United States as well as internationally. And Monday we received a new political action alert from Edward Hasbrouk, The Practical Nomad blogger who's been fighting the plan (and who testified about it at a TSA hearing). "The international Advance Passenger Information System rules were published, as 'final' effective February 19,2008, with no further opportunity for public comment even on the changes from the original proposal."

Hasbrouck sees this as a very ominous development. "The Department of Homeland Security can now evade debate on the similar elements of their Secure Flight proposal by claiming that it's needed to 'harmonize' the domestic and international travel restrictions — as though travel within America was tantamount to and subject to the same government restrictions and controls as crossing international borders."The stakes are high — and air travel may never be the same.

"The Secure Flight proposal also includes new and odious requirements that travelers display their government-issued credentials — not to government agents, but to airline personnel (staff or contractors), whenever the Department of Homeland Security orders the airline to demand them… " That alone will create a huge potential for abuse. "The proposed Secure Flight rules would leave travelers hopelessly at the mercy of any identity thief who claims to be an airline contractor (subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, etc.) demanding 'Your papers, please!' anywhere in an airport." But your personal information faces an even bigger risk. "In addition, the proposed rules would leave the airlines free to keep all the information obtained from travelers under government coercion, even after they've passed it on to the government. Your personal data would continue to be considered, at least in America, solely their property.

Not yours..."According to Hasbrouk, the Identity Project — an organization defending our right to travel freely in our own country — has made requests under the Privacy Act and they "have uncovered many more details (and many more problems) with the U.S. government's dossiers of travel records, which include everything from what books travelers were carrying to phone numbers of friends and associates to whether they asked for one bed or two in their hotel room."

Unfortunately, Monday, October 22 was the deadline for posting public comments on the proposed rules. But it's never too late to express your outrage... against another act in the continuing project to turn the United States into North Korea.

Crossing The Border Will Get Tougher

In three months, getting across the border is expected to become more difficult and time-consuming, when stricter federal rules requiring proper identification for land crossings are scheduled to take effect.

Long lines already are forming along the Mexican border as U.S. border agents start limited enforcement of these rules imposed by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the government's post-9/11 attempt to gain control of national borders.
Until recently, oral declarations have been sufficient proof of U.S. residency to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders by car or on foot.

Unless the date is changed, beginning Feb. 1, everyone, including children, will be required to have either a passport or WHTI compliant documentation. That includes both a government-issued photo ID (such as a driver's license) as well as proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, visa or green card.

The first phase of the WHTI crackdown began in January, when all travelers arriving by air from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and most Caribbean countries were required to provide a passport at U.S. immigration, exactly as if they were coming from anywhere else.
The tsunami of passport applications resulting from this edict flooded State Department offices, creating long delays and headlines and complicating the lives of thousands of travelers. The rule was temporarily relaxed, but that period has elapsed.

But these airport border disruptions are nothing compared to the chaos many experts expect at every U.S. land crossing with Mexico or Canada, from San Diego, Calif., to West Quoddy Head, Maine, when the other WHTI shoe drops.

Eventually, perhaps as soon as 2009, passports will be required of all travelers

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07301/828559-243.stm

Is it me or does this have the feeling of what happened to the jews in Gremany !!!

Frank Zappa

2007-10-27T05:10:00.001-07:00

He is missed!!!

Ralph Nader:

2007-10-19T10:07:00.001-07:00

Nader 08!!!!

Blackwater Training US Police

2007-10-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

Blackwater Training US Police

Wayne Madsen Report

10-15-7

The mercenary firm Blackwater USA is well known for the controversy involving its "shoot first, ask no questions" policy in Iraq. It is also known that Louisiana's Department of Homeland Security contracted with Blackwater to provide public law enforcement services in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. Blackwater is also planning to establish regional training centers in Potrero, California and Mount Carroll, Illinois, billed as Blackwater West and Blackwater North, respectively.

These training centers, in addition to Blackwater's Lodge and Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina -- Blackwater East -- and a possible fourth rumored to be slated for the Pacific Northwest -- Blackwater Northwest -- may result in the establishment of a network of Blackwater-trained police, sheriffs, and other police units around the country. Given Blackwater's dismal record on human rights and brutality, this spells trouble for civilian control of police and paramilitary forces in the United States, from major metropolitan areas to small rural towns.
On October 14, the Washington Post ran a story, which included photographs from Blackwater's Moyock training center. However, what was most intriguing was a photograph of a police and military patch board at Blackwater's headquarters that indicated the police agencies that have sent their officers to Moyock for training.
Blackwater is secretive about its non-federal, as well as its foreign clients, which the Post pointed out includes Jordan, Azerbaijan, and Burkina Faso, but a WMR inspection of the photograph of the police agencies has yielded the following list of agencies that have used Blackwater for training:

1. Iowa Department of Natural Resources
2. Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff's Department
3. Matthews, North Carolina Police
4. Atlanta Police
5. Chillicothe, Ohio Police
6. Charleston, South Carolina Police
7. Port Chester, NY Police
8. Highland, Indiana Police
9. Unalaska, Alaska Police
10. Metropolitan Washington, DC Police
11. Charlottesville, Virginia Police
12. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (Dulles and Reagan National Airports)
13. St. Louis County Police (Missouri)
14. Queen Anne's County, Maryland Police
15. Prince George's County, Maryland Police
16. FBI SWAT Team
17. Gloucester Township, New Jersey Police
18. Tempe, Arizona Police
19. New York Police Department
20. Yonkers, New York Police
21. Fairfax County, Virginia Police
22. Maplewood, New Jersey Police
23. Gastonia, North Carolina Police
24. Tampa Police
25. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
26. DeKalb County, Georgia Police
27. Arlington County, Virginia Police
28. Baltimore Police
29. U.S. Coast Guard
30. Suffolk, Virginia Police
31. Franklin City, Virginia Police
32. Milford, Delaware Police
33. University of Texas Police
34. Norfolk, Virginia Police
35. Ottawa-Carleton, Canada Police
36. San Bernardino County, California Sheriff
37. Plattsburgh, New York Police
38. Chicago Police Department
39. Oregon State Police
40. Los Angeles Police Department
41. Tonawanda, New York Police
42. Special Forces of Colombia
43. Jacksonville, North Carolina Police
44. Harvey Cedars, New Jersey Police
45. Elmira, New York Police
46. Department of Corrections, New Jersey
47. Lexington, Kentucky Police
48. Willimantic, Connecticut Police
49. Georgia Department of Law Enforcement
50. City of Fairfax, Virginia Police
51. Alexandria, Virginia Police Special Operations
52. Illinois State Police
53. Dallas, Texas Police
54. Hamilton, Ohio Police
55. Morganton, North Carolina Police

A number of the police departments that have been trained by Blackwater have abysmal civil rights and police brutality records, most notably the Chicago Police and Illinois State Police, both cited by former Illinois Governor George Ryan as being guilty of police misconduct in his decision to commute the death sentences of Illinois' death row inmates. It was a decision that likely had much to do with his indictment by the Bush administration on corruption charges -- political misuse of the Department of Justice that has been seen in the indictments and investigations of Alabama former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman and HealthSouth former CEO Richard Scrushy, Qwest's former CEO Joseph Nacchio, Democratic campaign contributor Martha Stewart, Coastal Corporation's former Chairman and Democratic contributor Oscar Wyatt, and Democratic-leaning trial attorneys around the United States, as well as the firings of several U.S. Attorneys who refused to engage in political prosecutions, and a Justice Department workup on North Carolina presidential candidate John Edwards in 2004.

The training and potential political indoctrination of police officers by the extreme right-wing and proto-fascist Blackwater, coupled with the politicization of the Justice Department and U.S. courts, has the potential for the streets of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Washington, DC, as well as Chillicothe, Harvey Cedars, and Elmira to turn as bloody as the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah.

Citizens have a distinct opportunity of confronting their local elected city, county, and town officials over Blackwater training of their police officers. Local officials should be pressured to reveal the numbers and identities of officers trained by Blackwater, the subjects covered by the training, the revenues spent, and a public demand should be made to cease and desist in such training.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Why Not Impeachment?

2007-10-09T03:28:00.000-07:00

Why Not Impeachment?

By Robert Parry
October 5, 2007

The disclosure that the Bush administration secretly reestablished a policy of abusing “war on terror” detainees even as it assured Congress and the public that it had mended its ways again raises the question: Why are the Democrats keeping impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney “off the table”?

After the Democratic congressional victory last Nov. 7, Washington Democrats rejected calls for impeachment from rank-and-file Democrats and many other Americans, considering it an extreme step that would derail a bipartisan strategy of winning over Republicans to help bring the Iraq War to an end.

That thinking got a boost on Nov. 8, the day after the election, when President Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the appointment of former CIA Director Robert Gates, who had been a member of the Iraq Study Group and was believed to represent the “realist” wing of the Republican Party.

One Democratic strategist called me that day with a celebratory assertion that “the neocons are dead” and rebuffed my warning that Gates had a troubling history of putting his career ahead of principle, that he was a classic apple-polisher to the powerful. [See the Consortiumnews.com’s Archive, “Who Is Bob Gates?”]

The Democrats also missed the fact that Rumsfeld submitted his resignation the day before the election – not the day after – along with a memo urging an “accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases” in Iraq from a high of 110, to 10 to 15 by April 2007, and to five by July 2007.

In other words, Rumsfeld’s ouster didn’t signal Bush’s new flexibility on ending the war, as the Democrats hoped, but a repudiation of Rumsfeld for going wobbly on Iraq.

Even when the Rumsfeld memo surfaced in early December, the Democrats ignored it, sticking to their wishful script that the Rumsfeld-Gates switch marked a recognition by Bush that it was time to begin extricating U.S. forces from Iraq.

Those rose-colored glasses got smudged badly when Bush instead announced in January that he was ordering an escalation, sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq.

But instead of responding with their own escalation – and putting impeachment back “on the table” – the Democrats opted for a strategy of wooing moderate Republicans to mild-mannered legislative protests.

As an opening shot in this Nerf-ball battle, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fired off a symbolic resolution to express disapproval of Bush’s “surge,” a meaningless gesture that Republicans kept bottled up for weeks making the Democrats look both feckless and inept.

Dangling Moderates

The failed “anti-surge” resolution should have clued in the Democrats to what was in store. The congressional Republicans would keep dangling the prospect that a handful of moderate Republicans finally might abandon Bush’s war policy.

But, like the end of a rainbow that keeps receding as one pursues it, the promise of moderate Republicans switching sides could never be reached.

The final act of legislative disillusionment came on Sept. 19 when Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, reneged on a commitment to support a bill by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to guarantee longer home leave for combat troops.

Warner said he reversed himself after he was lobbied by Defense Secretary Gates. “I endorsed it,” Warner said. “I intend now to cast a vote against it.”

With Warner’s help, Republicans blocked Webb’s amendment on a procedural vote that fell four votes short of the 60 needed.

Neoconservative pro-war Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, hailed the defeat of Webb’s proposal as proof “Congress will not intervene in the foreseeable future, … that Congress doesn’t have the votes to stop this [Bush] strategy of success from going forward.”

Soon, the Republicans were stampeding the Democrats into supporting condemnations of MoveOn.org for its “General Betray Us” ad and into urging Bush to adopt an even more belligerent posture against Iran by labeling its Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Hillary Prods Bush to Go After Iran.”]

Still, despite nearly a full year of futility in challenging Bush’s war – as public approval of the Democratic Congress sank to near record lows – the leadership kept the issue of impeachment off the table. It was as if national Democrats had concluded that the American people admired timidity and incompetence.

New Slap

Now, President Bush has slapped the Democrats in the face again by misleading them on his continuing policy of allowing harsh interrogations (that many would call torture) of terror suspects. Bush apparently is confident that the Democrats will swallow whatever humiliation he serves up.

The New York Times revealed on Oct. 4 that the Bush administration only pretended to repudiate earlier legal opinions that Bush had the right to abuse and torture detainees. Secret memos from 2005, which reaffirmed that right, were kept from Congress.

“When the Justice Department publicly declared torture ‘abhorrent’ in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations,” the Times reported.

“But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.” [NYT, Oct. 4, 2007]

The Bush administration achieved its sleight of hand on torture policy by purging traditional conservative lawyers, such as former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who had resisted White House assertions of virtually unlimited powers for Bush as Commander in Chief.

In 2004, those lawyers – under Attorney General John Ashcroft – mounted a remarkable rebellion against the White House theories of an imperial presidency. Goldsmith and Comey objected to the legality of several anti-terror operations approved by Bush, including the memos permitting torture and warrantless wiretaps.

Their opposition to Bush’s program for warrantless spying on Americans led to a dramatic showdown when then-White House counsel Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card went to Ashcroft’s hospital room where he was recovering from surgery. They urged him to overrule Comey who had balked at reauthorizing the spying, but Ashcroft refused.

Soon, the dissident Justice Department lawyers were headed out the door. Ashcroft, Comey and Goldsmith all resigned and were replaced by more compliant lawyers, led by Bush’s longtime legal adviser Gonzales.

The Times reported that the memo reaffirming Bush’s broad authority over treatment of detainees was signed by Steven Bradbury, who followed Goldsmith as head of the elite Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department office responsible for opinions relating to issues of presidential authority.

Unlike other lawyers in that sensitive job, Bradbury also has emerged as a vocal defender of Bush’s detention policies and wiretapping operations. In an interview with the Times, Bradbury said, “In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out.”

However, the Times also reported that the White House kept Bradbury on a tight leash by delaying his formal appointment in hopes of avoiding another situation like the one with the independent-thinking Goldsmith.

Harriet Miers, who replaced Gonzales as White House counsel, “decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial,” one Justice Department official told the Times.

After the Times’ article appeared, congressional Democrats – feeling misled again by the White House – demanded to see the confidential memos on interrogations. But Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the White House would resist turning over the memos.

At some point, the congressional Democrats may have to face up to the hard choice before them: either put impeachment of Bush and Cheney back “on the table” or accept that the United States has ceased being a constitutional Republic governed by the principle that no man is above the law.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

http://consortiumnews.com/2007/100507.html

When Cheney Comes To Town

2007-10-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

Big Dick Cheney came to town to let us all know he like war, but LOVES endless war even more!

A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad

2007-10-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:
Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy

by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
October 17th, 2006

John Owens didn’t realize how different his job would be from his last 27 years in construction until he signed on with First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting in November 2005. Working as general foreman, he would be overseeing an army of workers building the largest, most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

Then seven months into the job, he quit.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites he had worked on around the world compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. The Kuwait-based company building the $592-million Baghdad project is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken.”

In the resignation letter last June, Owens told First Kuwaiti and US State Department officials that his managers beat their construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.

And it was all happening smack in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone -- right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract in July 2005.

He also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in the labor camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers lived. Those workers, recruited on the global labor market from the Philippines, India, Pakistan and other poor south Asian countries, earned as little as $10 to $30 a day.

As with many US-funded contractors, First Kuwaiti prefers importing labor because it views Iraqi workers as a security headache not worth the trouble.

No Questions Asked

By March 2006, First Kuwaiti’s operation began looking even sketchier to Owens as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Baghdad following some R&R in Kuwait city. He remembers being surrounded by about 50 First Kuwaiti laborers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai – not to Baghdad.

“I thought there was some sort of mix up and I was getting on the wrong plane,” says the 48-year-old Floridian who once worked as a fisherman with his father before moving into the construction business.

He buttonholed a First Kuwaiti manager standing near by and asked what was going on. The manager waved his hand, looked around the terminal and whispered to keep quiet.

“‘If anyone hears we are going to Baghdad, they won’t let us on the plane,’” Owens recalls the manager saying.

The secrecy struck Owens as a little odd, but he grabbed his luggage and moved on. Everyone filed out to the private jet and flew directly to Baghdad. “I figured that they had visas for Kuwait and not Iraq,” Owens offers.

The deception had the appearance of smuggling workers into Iraq, but Owens didn’t know at the time that the Philippines, India, and other countries had banned or restricted their citizens from working in Iraq because of safety concerns and fading support for the war. After 2004, many passports were stamped “Not valid for Iraq.”

Nor did Owens know that both the US State Department and the Pentagon were quietly investigating contractors such as First Kuwaiti for labor trafficking and worker abuse. In fact, the international news media had accused First Kuwaiti repeatedly of coercing workers to take jobs in battle-torn Iraq once they had been lured with safer offers to Kuwait. The company has billed several billion dollars on US contracts since the war began in March 2003 and now has an estimated 7,500 laborers in the theater of war.

Despite numerous emails and phone calls about such allegations, neither First Kuwaiti general manager Wadih Al Absi nor his lawyer Angela Styles, the former top White House contract policy advisor, have responded. After a year of requests, State Department officials involved with the project also have ignored or rejected opportunities for comment.

Your Passports Please

That same March Owens returned to work in Baghdad, Rory Mayberry would witness similar events after he flew to Kuwait from his home in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

The gravely voiced, easy-going Army veteran had previously worked in Iraq for Halliburton and the private security company, Danubia. Missing the action and the big paychecks US contractors draw Iraq, he snagged a $10,000 a month job with MSDS consulting Company.

MSDS is a two-person minority-owned consulting company that assists US State Department managers in Washington with procurement programming. Never before had the firm offered medical services or worked in Iraq, but First Kuwaiti hired MSDS on the recommendation of Jim Golden, the State Department contract official overseeing the embassy project. Within days, an agreement worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical care was signed.

The 45-year-old Mayberry, a former emergency medical technician in the Army who worked as a funeral director in Oregon, responded to a help wanted ad placed by MSDS. The plan was that he would work as a medic attending to the construction crews on the work site in Baghdad.

Mayberry sensed things weren’t right when he boarded a First Kuwaiti flight on March 15 to Baghdad – a different flight from Owens.

At the airport in Kuwait City, Mayberry said, he saw a person behind a counter hand First Kuwaiti managers a passenger manifest, an envelope of money and a stack of boarding passes to Dubai. The managers then handed out the boarding passes to Mayberry and 50 or so new First Kuwaiti laborers, mostly Filipinos.

"Everyone was told to tell customs and security that they were flying to Dubai," Mayberry explains. Once the group passed the guards, they went upstairs and waited by the McDonald's for First Kuwaiti staff to unlock a door -- Gate 26 -- that led to an unmarked, white 52-seat jet. It was "an antique piece of shit" Mayberry offers in a casual, blunt manner.

“All the workers had their passports taken away by First Kuwaiti,” Mayberry claims, and while he knew the plane was bound for Baghdad, he’s not so sure the others were aware of their destination. The Asian laborers began asking questions about why they were flying north and the jet wasn't flying east over the ocean, he says. "I think they thought they were going to work in Dubai."

One former First Kuwaiti supervisor acknowledges that the company holds passports of many workers in Iraq – a violation of US contracting.

“All of the passports are kept in the offices,” said one company insider who requested anonymity in fear of financial and personal retribution. As for distributing Dubai boarding passes for Baghdad flights, “It’s because of the travel bans,” he explained.

Mayberry believes that migrant workers from the Philippines, India and Nepal are especially vulnerable to employers like First Kuwaiti because their countries have little or no diplomatic presence in Iraq.

“If you don’t have your passport or an embassy to go to, what you do to get out of a bad situation?” he asks. “How can they go to the US State Department for help if First Kuwaiti is building their embassy?”

Deadly ‘Candy Store’ Medicine

Owens had already been working at the embassy site since late November when Mayberry arrived. The two never crossed paths, but both share similar complaints about management of the project and brutal treatment of the laborers that, at times, numbered as many as 2,500. Most are from the Philippines, India, and Pakistan. Others are from Egypt and Turkey.

The number of workers with injuries and ailments stunned Mayberry. He went to work immediately after and stayed busy around the clock for days.

Four days later, First Kuwaiti pulled him off the job after he requested an investigation of two patients who had died before he arrived from what he suspected was medical malpractice. Mayberry also recommended that the health clinics be shut down because of unsanitary conditions and mismanagement.

“There hadn’t been any follow up on medical care. People were walking around intoxicated on pain relievers with unwrapped wounds and there were a lot of infections,” he recalls. “The idea that there was any hygiene seemed ridiculous. I’m not sure they were even bathing.”

In reports made available to the US State Department, the US Army and First Kuwaiti, Mayberry listed dozens of concerns about the clinics, which he found lacking in hot water, disinfectant, hand washing stations, properly supplied ambulances, and communication equipment. Mayberry also complained that workers’ medical records were in total disarray or nonexistent, the beds were dirty, and the support staff hired by First Kuwaiti was poorly trained.

The handling of prescription drugs especially bothered him. Many of the drugs that originated from Iraq and Kuwait were unsecured, disorganized and unintelligibly labeled, he said in one memo. He found that the medical staff frequently misdiagnosed patients. Prescription pain killers were being handed out "like a candy store ... and then people were sent back to work.”

Mayberry warned that the practice could cause addiction and safety hazards. “Some were on the construction site climbing scaffolding 30 feet off the ground. I told First Kuwaiti that you don’t give painkillers to people who are running machinery and working on heavy construction and they said 'that's how we do it.’”

The sloppy handling of drugs may have led to the two deaths, Mayberry speculates. One worker, age 25, died in his room. The second, in his mid-30s, died at the clinic because of heart failure. Both deaths may be “medical homicide,” Mayberry says -- because the patients may have been negligently prescribed improper drug treatment.

If the State Department investigated, Mayberry knows nothing of the outcome. Two State Department officials with project oversight responsibilities did not return phone calls or emails inquiring about Mayberry's allegations. The reports may have been ignored, not because of his complaints, but because Mayberry is a terrible speller, a problem compounded by an Arabic translation program loaded on his computer, he says.

Accidents Happen

Owens' account of his seven months on the job paints a similar picture to Mayberry’s. Health and safety measures were essentially non-existent, he says. Not once did he witness a safety meeting. Once an Egyptian worker fell and broke his back and was sent home. No one ever heard from him again. “The accident might not have happened if there was a safety program and he had known how to use a safety harness.”

Owens also says that managers regularly beat workers and that laborers were issued only one work uniform, making it difficult to go to the laundry. “You could never have it washed. Clothing got really bad – full of sweat and dirt.”

And while he often smuggled water to the work crews, medical care was a different issue. When he urged laborers to get medical treatment for rashes and sores, First Kuwaiti managers accused him of spoiling the laborers and allowing them simply to avoid work, he says.

State Department officials supervising the project are aware of many such events, but apparently do nothing, he said. Once when 17 workers climbed the wall of the construction site to escape, a State Department official helped round them up and put them in “virtual lockdown,” Owens said.

Just before he resigned, hundreds of Pakistani workers went on strike in June and beat up a Lebanese manager who they accused of harassing them. Owens estimates that 375 were then sent home.

‘Treated Like Animals’

Recent First Kuwaiti employees agree that the accounts shared by Owens and Mayberry are accurate. One longtime supervisor claims that 50 to 60 percent of the laborers regularly complain that First Kuwaiti “treats them like animals,” and routinely reduces their promised pay with confusing and unexplained deductions.

Another former First Kuwaiti manager, who declines to be named because of possible adverse consequences, says that Owens' and Mayberry’s complaints only begin “to scratch the surface.”

But scratching the surface is the only view yet available of what may be the most lasting monument to the US liberation and occupation of Iraq. As of now only a handful of authorized State Department managers and contractors, along with First Kuwaiti workers and contractors, are officially allowed inside the project’s walls. No journalist has ever been allowed access to the sprawling 104-acre site with towering construction cranes raising their necks along the skyline.

Even this tight security is a charade, says on former high-level First Kuwaiti manager. First Kuwaiti managers living at the construction site regularly smuggle prostitutes in from the streets of Baghdad outside the Green Zone, he says.

Prostitutes, he explains are viewed as possible spies. “They are a big security risk.”

But the exposure that the US occupation forces and First Kuwaiti may fear most could begin with the contractor itself and the conditions workers are forced to endure at this most obvious symbol of the American democracy project in Iraq.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173

In Lies We Trust Part 4 of 16

2007-09-28T05:19:00.001-07:00

This is my 3rd try to post this to my blog!!!
This is well worth the time to watch all 16 parts

NASCAR & Dead Soldiers

2007-09-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Despite recent gasoline shortages throughout pockets of the South and record-high prices at the pumps, it will be business as usual for NASCAR and its gas-guzzling, 850-horsepower stock cars during Sunday Nextel Cup race.

One month after the controversial decision to close Georgia's public schools for two days to conserve fuel, an estimated 125,000 spectators will be on hand at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where nearly 5,000 gallons of racing gasoline will be consumed during a four-hour span.

Add in practice sessions and two other races -- today's NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series and the International Race of Championships -- and the total weekend fuel consumption will amount to more than 8,000 gallons.

This doesn't even include all the local race tracks, tractor pulls, Monsters Trucks, lawn mower races & many many more gas wasting events. If we are running out of oil (peak oil)like some ppl have said. Why waste so much gas? Also if we are in 2 war don't you think we should be trying to conserve as much oil as possible? How about making NASCAR for electric cars only! If Americans think that changing a light blub is all they have to do to save the world...we are doomed!

How many soldiers died, so ppl can watch cars go around & around

9-11 Flyer

2007-09-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

This was found on Liz's car as she left a store here in A2

Petraeus Report: Crisis in Confidence

2007-09-11T13:12:00.001-07:00

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act

2007-09-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act

Friday September 7, 2007 7:16 AM
By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible ``far-reaching invasions of liberty.''

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: ``We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time.''

The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.

The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.

In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.

He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all ``be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof.''

Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.

He said when ``the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty.''

Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into ``the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.''

He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.

The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.

``It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines,'' the judge said.

Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.

Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse ``may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms.''

In that event, he said, the judiciary could become ``a mere mouthpiece of the legislature.''

Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.

After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.

The Necessary Embrace of Conspiracy

2007-09-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

Published on Friday, August 31, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

The Necessary Embrace of Conspiracy
by Robert Shetterly

Several years ago I gave a talk on Martha’s Vineyard about many of the people whose portraits I’ve painted in the Americans Who Tell the Truth series. I spent some time talking about the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. When I talk about King, I like to focus on his last year — the period when, defying the advice of many of his advisors in the civil rights movement, he spoke against the Vietnam War, equating racism with imperialism. King felt bound to make the point that the forces of capitalism, materialism, and militarism that were driving segregation were also driving the war, and until we confronted the source of the problem, the abuses would continue. It was April 4, 1967, in Riverside Church in New York, that he made that declaration. A year to the day before his assassination.

It has always confounded me every year when we celebrate Dr. King’s life that no mention is made of that Riverside Church speech in the major media. We are always treated to sound bites of the 1963 I Have a Dream speech. That speech’s oratory is as powerful as it is non-confrontational. Which is why it is re-played for modern audiences. Dr. King was about confrontation. Non-violence and confrontation, each ennobling and making the other effective. In 1967 he said, “… my country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” And he explained how our economic system thrived on exploitation and violence, or, as Emma Goldman put it, “The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism.” This was probably the most important speech King ever gave and not playing it when we ostensibly honor him, is tantamount to castrating him morally and intellectually. Just as there is a long history of White America castrating black men, there is an equal legacy of Elite America cutting the most important truths of our social prophets out of the history books. We pay homage to King’s icon, the cardboard cutout, but not to his strongest beliefs and his most cogent analysis of our problems — to what vision called forth his courage. And, if we think that he spoke the truth, to censor that truth is to promote a curious kind of segregation. He is segregated, not for the color of his skin, but for the accuracy of his perception, how close to the bone his words cut. We can’t bear to hear the sound of truth’s knife scraping on hypocrisy’s bone. Only people who actually want to change the system dance to that music or want it to be heard.

Equally important, and part of the same neglect, is the intentional ignoring of the facts of his death. In my talk on Martha’s Vineyard I spoke about William Pepper’s book, An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, Jr. Pepper had been James Earl Ray’s lawyer. Ray was the man convicted of killing King. But both Pepper and the King family were convinced that Ray was innocent. The King family hired Pepper to represent them in a suit; they asked only $100.00 in damages to clear Ray’s name. Before the trial came to court in 1999, Ray had died in prison. The jury determined that King had been assassinated by a conspiracy involving the Memphis police, the Mafia, the FBI, and the Special Forces of the U.S. Army. Ray, the patsy, had left town before the shot was fired. Pepper had confessions from people involved from each of the organizations named. The verdict was barely mentioned in the U.S. media then and is not mentioned every year on the anniversary of his death. Why?

After my talk on Martha’s Vineyard a man came up to me and said, “I enjoyed your speech and was with you until you started that conspiracy stuff about MLK, Jr.” I said, “That’s not conspiracy. What I told you are facts.” End of conversation.

I think we’re confronted with two conspiracies here: one to commit the crime, the other to ignore it even when the facts are known. ( Two sides of the same coin.) The man who accused me of slipping into the neurotic, aliens-are-among-us land of conspiracy nuts was unable to hear the evidence, perhaps because he was so utterly convinced by our government and media that conspiracies don’t exist, people who espouse them are dangerous fruitcakes, and if you begin to think like that, your whole house of cards wobbles then topples. Who wants that? Better a standing tower of marked cards, than having to admit the game is rigged and the ground is shaking.

America is steeped in conspiracy, and even more steeped in propaganda that discredits those who try to expose the conspiracies. Whether we’re talking about MLK, Jr., JFK, RFK, Iran-Contra, 9/11, or, most importantly, the status quo, anyone who works to uncover the truth is branded a “conspiracy nut” and discredited before any evidence has a fair hearing. The government/corporate/media version is THE VERSION. Anything else is illusory.

In fact, the cultural success of labeling investigative reporters and forensic historians, and, simply, anyone who tries to name reality, “conspiracy nuts” is perhaps the most successful conspiracy of our time. Well, not the most successful. That prize goes to the conspiracy to give corporations all the rights of individual persons under our Constitution. That conspiracy has codified and consolidated corporate power so that it controls our lives in almost every meaningful way. It controls the election funds of our candidates, and them once they are in office. It controls our major media including public broadcasting. It controls the content of our television programming. It controls how are tax dollars are spent making sure that the richest get the most welfare. It controls the laws, the courts, the prison system and the mind numbing propaganda that we are the greatest democracy on earth. It controls the values with which we raise our children. It controls our ability to dispense justice. It controls how we treat nature, how we deface our land with strip malls, and blow the tops off our mountains — a form of corporate free speech. It dictates our modes of transportation. It controls our inability to respond to true crises like climate change. It attempts to create a spiritual deficiency in every person that can be filled and healed only with stuff — and no stuff is ever enough.

As Richard Grossman puts it, “Isn’t it an old story? People create what looks to be a nifty machine, a robot, called the corporation. Over time, the robots get together and overpower the people. … For a century, the robots propagandize and indoctrinate each generation of people so they grow up believing that robots are people too, gifts from God and Mother Nature; that they are inevitable and the source of all that is good. How odd that we have been so gullible, so docile, obedient.”

It is obvious to say that we have been engineered into a culture that values competitive consumption and consumers instead of community cooperation and citizenship. Capitalism with its obsessive and necessary appetite for consumption, expanding markets, resource depletion, and increasing profits has consumed democracy. Have you ever watched a small snake swallow a large frog? The snake’s hinged jaw stretches wider and wider, squeezing the frog millimeter by millimeter into its gullet until finally the snake looks like the Holland Tunnel might if it had devoured the Titanic. Then the acids and enzymes do their corrosive work. The frog becomes the snake. And the snake claims it is the frog. Capitalism has gulped down democracy and claimed it is democracy. When, immediately after 9/11, President Bush advised Americans to demonstrate their love of freedom and their resistance to terrorism by courageously, selflessly, hurrying to the mall to buy something, he was speaking as the snake that identifies itself as a frog. He was asking us to play a little game with our brains’ synapses, replace the snake icon with the frog’s. Sadly, he may also have been speaking about democracy in the only way that he can understand or recognize it. And, for him, Christianity has been another tidy meal for the snake.

Perhaps this switcheroo is nowhere more obvious than in the military /industrial complex. We are told that the vulnerable frog needs protecting. The threats are grave. So we fork over our money and children’s lives for war and weapons. We are told that we are building security and peace. More lives. More weapons. What we aren’t told is that the largest US export to the world is weapons. What we aren’t told is that enormous fortunes are being made from the arms trade. What we aren’t told is that the more precarious and unstable the world is, the better the business for the arms dealers — that the real promotion is not for security and peace but insecurity and war, that the lives of our children are the necessary collateral damage for this monster. What we aren’t told is that the only real security is in cooperation, conservation, and fairness, not imperialism. The frog, who is a snake, wrapped in a flag, pleads for patriotism and counts the cash. The snake’s forked tongue is a barbeque fork on which we’ve all been roasted.

I’d call that conspiracy.

The neocons have claimed, with some accuracy, that they can create reality faster than we can react: the deed is done, now deal with it. The troops have invaded, Halliburton, Blackwater, and Lockheed signed their contracts, the prisoners are tortured, your email is bugged, the resources for social programs are gone, the laws are changed, the Wal-Mart is built, the sludge dump has already polluted the aquifer, truth is hollowed out —- catch me if you can!

How is that not conspiracy?

The cooks & the crooks create a new status quo, legalize it, propagandize it, mythologize it, fundamentalize it, slather it with fear and patriotism, and force feed it to the complacent, sedated cow we call America.

How is that not conspiracy?

Of course, ever since the Constitution was signed and didn’t free the slaves or give the vote to women, poor folks, Native Americans and freed blacks so that people with power and money could continue to profit, America has been a conspiracy against itself. It’s been cowboy grilling his own heart over a smoke & mirrors campfire, a CEO with inherited wealth and three hundred years of patrician, affirmative action crooning “Only in America.”

The reason we can’t talk about conspiracy is because it is the modus operandi. It isn’t the elephant in the room, it is the room itself. We all live there. We can impeach a few elephants, and we should, but the architecture is in place. And they control it.

When I was in school, I was reminded - repeatedly — to avoid using an indefinite pronoun without identifying whom it refers to, as in, “They are coming to get us,” … or, “They control everything.” Who are They? It’s bad practice to think and write like that. Without reference it just sounds like paranoia. But the hell of it is that it’s damned hard to say who the They are that are in conspiracy to destroy democracy and, by exploitation, nature. Did They do it on purpose or merely discover by serendipity, like cavemen seeing copper ooze out of a rock by a fire, the wondrous possibility and power of what they had found. For instance, the invention of the TV was not a conspiracy. But once the realization of how TV could be used to submerge the public in a lobotomizing swamp of advertising, sound bites, inactivity, community destruction, titillation, false history, empty myth, consumption, and complicity in making fortunes for the sponsors, the program was clear. Conspiracy was the silent partner in the euphemism good business practice. And, once they saw the implications of giving corporations First Amendment rights, they were home free.

Time to re-think conspiracy.

We need to embrace conspiracy in two ways. One, admit that it’s real, its quotidian, it’s the fabric of our lives, the mercury in the air, the dioxin in the water, it’s filling the airwaves and the marketplace and the courts and the halls of Congress before we even get out of bed every morning. Two, counter it with a conspiracy of our own. On our side we have the fundamental fact that although the corporate They can alter many of our realities, they can’t alter Reality. They can’t change the behavior of Nature. They can sell off the rain forest, but they can’t leverage the effect of cutting it. They can keep the mileage of cars poor so we’ll buy more gas, but they can’t alter the amount of oil in the ground or the damage to the atmosphere. They can privatize every human interaction and every natural resource, but they can’t privatize the laws of nature. They have conspired to change reality. We must conspire to live in harmony with Reality.

In the same way, they can conspire to kill Martin Luther King, Jr., but they can’t totally eradicate the truth of who did it and why.

Con + spirare, from the Latin. To breathe together. Those are the roots of conspiracy. Breathing together doesn’t sound like an activity of the ideologically deracinated whispering seditiously in a dank cellar or a board room, foul breaths denting a weak flame flickering over a candle nub, gunpowder or greed blackened fingers setting a timer, the whites of creased eyes glinting like knives with treason, murder, power, and deceit.

Con + spirare sounds like healthy men and women standing in the sun figuring out how in the hell they are going to take care of each other and their aging mother Earth and love life while doing it. Breathing together, sharing the same air, plotting to make sure that what’s mine is yours, conspiring to save their self-respect, their ideals, the future for their children.

I want to be part of a conspiracy. Pervasive, populist, revolutionary, and totally transparent. Grassroots. Idealistic. Simplistic. Life-affirming. Community building

A conspiracy to make the common good and the love of nature the common denominator of every economic transaction.

And the simple truth is either we start breathing together, conspiring big time, right out in the open, nakedly, unashamedly, or we will have conspired in secret, by default, in our own demise.

We have let them breathe for us, and they have stolen our breath, our air, our spirit.

Secret con + spirare is death. Open con + spirare is life.

Conspiracy is dead. Long live conspiracy!

Robert Shetterly lives in Brooksville, Maine www.americanswhotellthetruth.org

Rammstein-Amerika

2007-08-29T16:58:00.001-07:00

We're all living in America
America is wonderful
We're all living in America
America, America
When there's dancing I want to lead
even if you're whirling around alone
Let yourselves be controlled a little
I'll show you how it really goes
We're making a nice round dance
Freedom is playing on all violins
Music is coming out of the White House
and Mickey Mouse is standing in front of Paris
We're all living in America
America is wonderful
We're all living in America
America, America
I know moves that are very useful
and I will protect you from missteps
And whoever doesn't want to dance at the end
doesn't know yet that they must
We're making a nice round dance
I will show you the way
Santa Claus is coming to Africa
and Mickey Mouse is standing in front of Paris
We're all living in America
America is wonderful
We're all living in America
America, America
We're all living in America
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra
We're all living in America
America, America
This is not a love song
This is not a love song
I don't sing my mother tongue
No, This is not a love song
We're all living in America
America is wonderful
We're all living in America
America, America
We're all living in America
Coca-Cola, sometimes war
We're all living in America
America, America

Why Cheney Really Is That Bad

2007-08-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

By Scott Ritter

Karl Rove, interchangeably known as “Boy Genius” or “Turd Blossom,” has left the White House. The press conference announcing his decision to resign has been given front-page treatment by most major media outlets, but the fact of the matter is the buzz surrounding Rove’s departure is much ado about nothing, especially in terms of coming to grips with the remaining 16 months of the worst presidency in the history of the United States.

Rove is a domestic political marauder, the personification of a conservative movement which lacks a moral compass and has a complete disregard for facts. The master of exploiting mainstream America’s predilection for news-as-entertainment, under which the likes of Rupert Murdoch can manufacture headlines out of thin air, Rove helped turn “fair and balanced” into a national joke which everyone laughs at but few actually comprehend. Rove served as the maestro of a political-smear orchestra composed of such intellectually challenged muckrakers as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, manipulating the NASCAR/professional wrestling crowd’s addiction to seedy gossip in an effort to maintain the all-important 51 percent majority needed to win elections.

Perhaps if the Democratic Party had possessed a semblance of organization and cohesion (not to mention a post-Clinton message that could be sold to a majority of America), then Rove would be but a footnote in history, known simply as the man who helped the worst governor in the history of Texas get elected. Even the self-destructive campaign run by Al Gore in 2000, in which he distanced himself from a sitting president who, despite all of his faults, would have defeated Bush in a landslide if the Constitution permitted a third term, was enough to deny Rove his beloved 51 percent—it was Gore, not Bush, who in which he won the majority of votes in that contest. It took a Republican governor of Florida, backed by a compliant Supreme Court, to put George W. Bush into the White House, not any genius on the part of Rove.

“Bush’s Brain” may claim that it was his careful manipulation of fiction over fact that carried the 2004 election, in which the term became synonymous with political character assassination, but it was the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq which sank the Democratic Party and its candidate for president, John Kerry. It is very difficult to unseat a president in a time of war, especially when so many Democrats voted in favor of the concept, first by buying into every post-9/11 policy put forward by the Bush administration (find me one Democrat who actually read the Patriot Act in its entirety before it was voted into law) and second by rubber-stamping the lies that led to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Remember, it was Kerry’s inarticulate defense of his decision to vote in favor of granting war powers to the president that sank his election hopes, not his Vietnam War record.

Certainly, Karl Rove played a significant behind-the-scenes role in supporting Bush’s war policies. The perjury trial of “Scooter” Libby forced the collective of deaf, dumb and blind pseudo-journalists who populate what is known as the mainstream media in America to recognize how pathetically duplicitous and petty the Bush administration could get when it came to defending the policies propping up the so-called Global War on Terror and the awful tragedy of Iraq. Rove’s fingerprints were all over the decision by Vice President Dick Cheney to leak CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name to the media in an effort to thwart the truth-telling of her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

But that is about as deep as Rove’s involvement in the two issues that will define the presidency of George W. Bush gets. While Rove might be the “genius” behind the kind of winner-takes-all dirty politics that won the Republicans a majority in Texas.

The vice president is the single greatest threat to American and international security in the world today. Not Osama Bin Laden. Not the ghost of Saddam Hussein. Not Ahmadinejad or Kim Jung Il. Not al-Qaida, the Taliban, or Jose Padilla himself. Not even George W. Bush can lay claim to this title. It is Dick Cheney’s alone. Operating in a never-never land of constitutional ambiguity which exists between the office of the president and the Congress of the United States, Cheney’s office has made its impact felt on the policies of the United States of America as had no vice president’s office before him. Granted unprecedented oversight over national security and foreign policy by executive order in early 2001, many months prior to the terror attacks of 9/11, Cheney has single-handedly steered America away from being a nation among nations (albeit superior), operating (roughly) in accordance with the rule of law, and toward its present manifestation as the new Rome, a decadent imperial power bent on global domination whatever the cost.

The absolute worst of the rot that has infected America because of the policies and actions of the Bush administration has originated from the office of the vice president. The nonsensical response to the terror attacks of 9/11, seeking a “global war” versus defending the rule of law at home and abroad, taking the lead in spreading the lies that got us involved in Iraq, legitimizing torture as a tool of American jurisprudence, advocating for warrantless wiretappings of U.S.-based communications (regardless of what the Fourth Amendment says against illegal search and seizure), and pushing for an expansion of America’s global conflict into Iran—all can be traced back to the person of Cheney as the point of origin.

America today is very much engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the forces of evil. The enemy resides not abroad, however, but at home, vested in the highest offices of the land. Neither Osama Bin Laden nor Saddam Hussein threatened the life blood of the United States—the Constitution—to the extent that Cheney has. Not Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Ho Chi Minh. Not since the American Civil War has there been a constitutional crisis of the magnitude that exists today, threatening to rip the very fabric of American society apart at the seams, courtesy of Dick Cheney.

That Congress today remains relatively mute on this crisis is one of the great mysteries of our time. Perhaps the vagaries of national politics can be blamed. The Democratic majority in Congress appears to have ceded its leadership role to unelected presidential candidates who seem solely empowered to comment on current events, domestic or foreign, and who, out of fear of any misstep which could hurt their chances to seize the White House as their own, refuse to actually take a substantive stand against the policies of the Bush administration. In an effort that is curiously Rovian in the quest for electoral victory, the Democratic candidates (with a few notable exceptions) have been less than bold in their opposition to the heinous policies that are currently in place concerning Iraq, Iran, the war on terror, torture and constitutional violations—unless you count empty rhetoric.

In many ways, the leading Democrats, both those running for office and those currently holding office, are a far greater insult to American values than the conservative standard-bearers for the policies of Cheney. No one of substance takes seriously the manic ranting of the Hannity/Limbaugh/Coulter triad. These Democrats, on the other hand, have mastered the art of compromise to the point that they stand for nothing at all—this at a time in American history when the policies of the administration, derived from the dark abyss of Bush’s soul, Cheney, provide the most concrete example of what we as Americans should be standing against.

The Democrats need to stand for something. Cheney has provided the sort of political ammunition that would enable them to fight, and win, a constitutional battle over the heart of America, the kind of defining struggle which I believe the vast majority of Americans would rally around. Unless the Democrats start separating themselves from the policies of the Bush administration, and take an active role in outing and suppressing the true evil that is Dick Cheney, all they will achieve in the coming years is a change in the titular political orientation of America, without the kind of deep-seated break from the failures and crimes of the past six-plus years that have taken our nation, and the world, right up to the edge of chaos.

“Bush’s Brain” may be gone, but his “Soul” lives on. It is high time all of America put Dick Cheney fully in the spotlight of collective accountability, purging our nation of this scourge which has harmed us in so many ways. If there is any case for impeachment to be made against any member of the Bush administration today, it can be made against a vice president who has shamed our nation, destroyed our moral standing and broken our laws.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070821_why_cheney_really_is_that_bad/

President For Life Or Ruler Of The World

2007-08-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

I still haven't picked my jaw off the floor after reading this!!!
Brought to you by the good people at Family Security Matters (FSM)

Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy
By Philip Atkinson

While democratic government is better than dictatorships and theocracies, it has its pitfalls. FSM Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson describes some of the difficulties facing President Bush today.

President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.

Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy.

The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable – for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.

When faced with the possible threat that the Iraqis might be amassing terrible weapons that could be used to slay millions of citizens of Western Civilization, President Bush took the only action prudence demanded and the electorate allowed: he conquered Iraq with an army.

This dangerous and expensive act did destroy the Iraqi regime, but left an American army without any clear purpose in a hostile country and subject to attack. If the Army merely returns to its home, then the threat it ended would simply return.

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.

The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.

As there appears to be no sensible result of the invasion of Iraq that will be popular with his countrymen other than retreat, President Bush is reviled; he has become another victim of Democracy.

By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.

When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.

Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome – thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

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

BIG Dick Cheney in 1994 on Iraq

2007-08-16T12:54:00.001-07:00

What a piece of shit this man is!

Who owns you Americans?

2007-08-15T06:08:00.001-07:00

George Carlin is the BEST!!!

The Rats Are Jumping Ship

2007-08-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

Good Bye Hot Karl!

President Bush's chief political adviser is leaving his job at the White House at the end of the month.
HOT Karl Rove is a longtime member of Bush's inner circle who the president nicknamed "the architect" for designing the strategy that twice won Bush the White House.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino calls this "a big loss." She says Rove is "a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant (evil) mind."

Perino says Rove has been talking with the president for "about a year" regarding when might be a good time to leave. Ultimately, she says Rove decided there was never a good time, just the "right" time.
Several other top administration officials have announced their resignations since Democrats won control of Congress.

It's expected Rove will write a book after he leaves.

1 down 2 to go. Let's hope he gets Ass Cancer....& dies slowly

Dingell Talks About Hot Air

2007-08-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

Dingell to Discuss Global Warming in Conversations with Constituents

Congressman to share thoughts on energy efficiency, carbon tax, cap-and-trade and fuel economy standards in Ann Arbor Town Hall next Tuesday.

I went to this armed with a few signs.

I took 2 inside. I was one of the only people with a sign. There was a group of people with some hand made signs, but no one was holding them up. http://members.greenpeace.org/hotseat/

I'm not up on "global warming" & to be honest with you I don't have kids so I guess I really don't care what happens to the earth after I'm dead. But what Mr. Dingell had to say was all about %'s & #'s And it can all be done by the year 2050!!!

Report from Iron Mountain
The “Report from Iron Mountain” was a 1967 publication that claimed to be a leaked, top secret government report. It argued that though world peace was a nice idea, the economy of war was such a vital part of global stability, it was difficult to come up with substitutes. A hoax? Satire? Or the truth? For more than three decades, the Report has been a cornerstone of intelligent debate… sometimes.

http://www.philipcoppens.com/ironmountain.html

Iron Mountain Blueprint To Tyranny

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6745627342652553091

In this video it will say that the NWO will use the environment (Global Warming) as away of rallying the world together, when we have the NWO running the whole show there will not be wars to rally the people(sheeple) behind.

At the end of his power point program the last thing it said was...(not the exact words) it said

If we are to get serious about GW we need to make the price of consuming more expensive.

What I get out of this statement is they want to price me out of living or life. I'm just bearly making it now, how am I to make ends meet if the price of life keeps going up & up & up!!!

The United States Of America Is Dead

2007-08-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

The United States Of America Is Dead

By A. Alexander, August 4th, 2007

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are dead. Incredibly, just as was the case when Rome's Senate voted to make Caesar the Emperor, the United States' Senate voted to surrender the rights and liberties of every American citizen. By a margin of 60-28, the Democratic-led Senate gave George W. Bush the unconstitutional authority to spy, without warrant, on whomever he chooses. That includes U.S. citizens, but everyone is pretending that isn't the case.

Feel free to label this analysis and the author 'extremist', or 'alarmist', or even a 'left-wing Looney-Tunes conspiracy theorist nutcase'. What you think of this analysis or of the author just doesn't matter. It won't change the fact that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are dead. And, here is the thing most Americans don't understand: without a Constitution, there is no United States of America ... America you see, is the Constitution and the Constitution is America. Without the one, the other doesn't exist.

Kick and scream all you want. It's too late - the game is over, the "good guys" lost. Oh, it'll take awhile before you and most Americans realize it, but the Constitution and Bill of Rights aren't endangered, or threatened, or under attack ... both are all already dead.

If you shoot a deer in the heart, before it keels over, it will run approximately one hundred yards. It takes a little while for the body and brain to realize that the heart is dead. It'll be like that in America, too. It'll take awhile before people realize that the Constitution and Bill of Rights have died.

The Senate's cowardly and treasonous act of giving the Executive Branch the legal authority to spy without warrant wasn't the start of the assault; it was merely the death blow. The real push to eviscerate the Constitution and Bill of Rights began in earnest after 9/11. The FBI can enter your house without a warrant and without your permission, do you know that? The government can read your postal mail without your permission, do you realize that? The National Security Agency can read your e-mail and listen to your private phone conversations, are you aware of that?

Maybe someday you'll decide that you've had enough. Maybe you'll decide to do something about it. Maybe you'll decide to stand for election on a promise to restore the Constitution. Maybe you'll have forgotten that when you were 20 years old and your girlfriend was gone for the summer, that you two shared intimate moments on the phone. Maybe you'll forget, but they won't and 30 years later, as you embark upon your crusade to finally try and do something about the fascist state of affairs, they'll have not forgotten and they'll play your intimate conversation for the world to hear.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are dead. You just don't know it yet, because the signal from the bullet riddled heart hasn't reached the body and the brain - but it will, soon.

The United States of America is dead.

http://progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1632

Vick vs War

2007-07-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

Were lucky if we get 4 people holding signs protesting all the wars & all the other evil King George II & his Dick are doing against this country & it's people

But 1 millionaire sport idol gets busted for dogfighting & 100's of people show up with signs.

So this tells me the American people care more about a millionaire sprots idol touturing & killing dogs than they do about George Bush touturing & killing of humans.

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq
Min. 67945
Max. 74336

“Change the channel”- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.[NYT 12th April 2004]

Cheney Declares Himself National Monument

2007-07-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

When I was told this & had to laugh, because I thought it was pure BS

I hope it's a joke!!! but King George II & his Dick will stop at nothing...

Cheney Declares Himself National Monument
It's the vice president's latest attempt to dodge a subpoena.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19586492/site/newsweek/

Mr. Cheney took the unorthodox step only after failing in his attempt to invoke a little-known legal principle called the separation of Cheney and state

http://fe35.news.sp1.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070707/cm_uc_crabox/op_473230

cheney declares himself a National Monument

http://eforum.reviewjournal.com/lv/showthread.php?t=16922

How to Create an Angry American

2007-07-23T07:12:00.001-07:00

This videos should be used at their TRIALS! God damn liars

Letters To The Editor

2007-07-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

July 4 parade not for political statements

It was a beautiful day for a parade in Ann Arbor celebrating our nation's birthday on July 4. At the finish was a gentleman carrying a sign saying "The End.'' Unfortunately, some felt the need to piggy back after the end and spout political statements not fitting for family entertainment. One sign, in particular, had a bloody reference that was not "parade worthy.'' I urge the sponsors to monitor for such unauthorized entries.

http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1184164896134500.xml&coll=2

To Ann Sutherland, in response to your July 11 letter to the editor:

I was one of the six people that "piggybacked'' at the end of the Ann Arbor 4th of July parade. When the man with the sign saying "The End'' went by, that signaled the end of the parade, thus turning Liberty Street back into a public road - a road that you don't need to be authorized to walk on. But I'm not sure what parade you attended, because not one of the six people walking were "spouting political statements.'' We walked in silence 10 feet back from the "official'' parade. The only time any of us said anything was to say thank you to all the thumbs ups and clapping we received.

As for the two signs that were held up, one said "End Corporate Warfare'' the other said "Trillions Would Be Better Spent On Peace.'' As for the "bloody reference'' sign, it was a cartoon depicting George Bush as a vampire. To me, war and occupation are not "fitting for family entertainment'' or "parade worthy.'' I can only hope that you would join us, because your child is next in line to die in an endless war that has more to do with profits and control than it has to do with freedom or democracy.

http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1184164896134500.xml&coll=2

Parade offered chance for patriotic expression

In the 21 years I've lived in Ann Arbor, I've missed very few of the Fourth of July parades. I'll admit that I have enjoyed them mostly as slightly hokey entertainment - the juxtaposition of the drum and fife corps, Mothers of Multiples, politicians, peaceniks and Shriners showcase the funky small-town heart of Ann Arbor.

This year, I decided that I needed to mark our country's birthday in a more deliberate way. I allowed myself to cheer on the usual members of the parade from my favorite vantage point. Then, when the signal for the end of the parade went by, I joined the procession in silence.
I carried a U.S. flag affixed upside down to a pole, a symbol of the distress in which our country and its Constitution struggle these days. I wore a T-shirt with a picture of George W. Bush and the caption "Worst President Ever.''

Many of the people I passed clapped and shouted words of encouragement. I want to thank those folks for appreciating what was a thoughtful exercise in free speech in celebration of our country's founding.

A few people became angry. I want to remind those people that there have always been political and military elements to Ann Arbor's parade (e.g., campaigning politicians, jet fighters buzzing the route, etc.), and that, in the words of Mark Twain, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.''

http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/118494251999950.xml&coll=2

3 Days At The Art Fair

2007-07-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

Art Fair is winding down. But it's been 3 days of high foot traffic.

The Liberty Street Agitators were busy for 3 out of the 4 days of Art Fair
The response we got were mostly good, with a lot of people stopping to hold a sign with us.

Here's what day 1 looked like...

Ok I forgot my camera so you'll have to trust me that there was a good turn out.

There was a bunch of these newspaper boxes by the corner & most of them had nothing in them so.... I printed out some of my favorite pics & put them in the boxes. It was fun watching peoples reactions when they realized what they were really looking at.

This is what day 2 looked like

Here's what day 3 looked like

One lady did yell "Get A Life" & I had to stop & think about this statement. So I take it by "getting a life" I can no longer have my freedom ? or does "getting a life" mean sitting in front of the TV watching American Idol? if this is true I don't want a life.

Ann Arbor Art Fair

2007-07-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

The blogger awoke before dawn, he put his boots on.

He took a sign from his ancient gallery, & he walked on down the road.

He went to the fence where the cars go by & then he.....

Walked on down the road

Paid a visit to a overpass, and then he....

Came to a bridge & then he... hung a sign

Bush, Yes Mike.....I want to IMPEACH YOU!

It's Art Fair time in A2 & I thought it would be nice to welcome everybody coming to Ann Arbor for art fair with something to think about while spending all their $$$$$$.

It's Not Fair & It's Not Art, Now Leave Your $$$$$$$$ & Go Home

A Letter From An Agitator

2007-07-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

This letter made it into the Ann Arbor News. It's from one of The Liberty St. Agitators.

In an era of polarized American politics, what defines a patriot?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

BY GORDON E. BIGELOW

Who are the patriots?

It is 1937, four years after Adolf Hitler became Germany's chancellor, four years before the U.S. and Germany were at war. American flags on standards surround the podium, flanked by swastika pennants. Every person in the room is in uniform, standing at rigid attention. Opening the session, they earnestly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag ... the American flag. It is a meeting of the German American Bund, an organization of Americans in America dedicated to close affiliation of the U.S. with Nazi Germany. They consider themselves patriots.

What is patriotism? Is it loyalty to one's countryfolk? Reverence for traditional precepts? Voluntary public service? Personal or financial sacrifice for the nation? Spiritual commitment? Political party affiliation? Ostentatious flag allegiance? Obedience to government? Willingness to lie to protect a vice president from prosecution, to cheat, steal, spy upon, sabotage or subvert foreign governments, assassinate their leaders, or destroy property as an undercover federal agent?

Is it "the last refuge of scoundrels''? "My country, right or wrong''? The cement by which nations endure? The soldier's license to kill? The censor's warrant to silence dissent? The police state's excuse to wiretap? The leverage presidents use to pry war funding from Congress? The imperial rationale to conquer and oppress?

In the past, someone has interpreted patriotism as each of these alternatives. Perhaps no other vehicle of human expression enables otherwise mature adults to work such tragic mischief, to assert preposterous values, talk tribal nonsense, commit heinous acts, inspire senseless sacrifice. At best, it joins religion and vengeance for this distinction, rivaling religion for sanctimony and vengeance for fanaticism.

Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier in Napoleon's army, is the prototype of "excessive and unreasonable nationalism mingled with xenophobia,'' the dictionary definition of chauvinism. Aggressive, bellicose chauvinists are dubbed "jingoists.'' Can we recognize such people inside the Beltway today?

Nathan Hale symbolizes American patriotism, along with celebrated war heroes. At the opposite pole is... Benedict Arnold, classic anti-patriot, notorious traitor.

Those who take up arms against the nation or "give aid and comfort'' to its enemies can be indicted for treason.

The aftermath of World War II spawned an atmosphere of distrust in Washington. Cold War politics conjured a new vision of treachery. Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy rose on a wave of ideological orthodoxy. Their victims were labeled "communist,'' "socialist,'' "fellow traveler,'' "pinko.'' Blacklists banned prominent national figures from employment. Public employees,
including schoolteachers, were required to sign loyalty oaths. Whistleblowers today face ominous echoes of that era.

Polarized politics evokes strong rhetoric. Superpatriot warmongers have no mental space for "loyal opposition.''

A president charges that citizens who protest against, or legislators who seek to deny funding for, the Iraq war do not "support the troops.'' Is it more patriotic to sustain, or to oppose, the exposure of Americans occupying embattled Iraq? Does keeping forces there weaken our nation, diminish homeland security? Is control of Iraqi oil a wise trade-off for war debt at the mercy of China?

Vietnam War protesters eventually prevailed over leaders who had sustained that war, although many voices impugned their patriotism at the time. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has since acknowledged mistaken leadership. Who were the real patriots? Is anyone who acts in well-informed good faith, having the nation's best interest at heart, a patriot? Can democracy function in the turmoil of wartime if government will not hear dissent?

Would it ever be fitting to condemn an American president for being unpatriotic? Or does the president so personify the state that his whims define patriot and traitor? A royal prerogative? Imperial divinity? What if his actions "give aid and comfort'' to Osama bin Laden?

When courts, ultimate arbiters of treason, are not invoked, perhaps contentious times leave rhetorical definition of "patriot'' and "traitor'' in limbo, or the mind of each beholder.

http://www.mlive.com/news/annarbornews/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1184683448294660.xml&coll=2

Anthrax Attacks, False Flag Attacks?

2007-07-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Were the Anthrax Attacks on Congress the act of the U.S. Government?
By F. Vyan Walton

According to a report from a government Insider currently posted on AfterDowningStreet.org, the Anthrax attacks on Senators Daschle and Leahy in 2001, just weeks after 9-11, may have been launched not by foreign or even domestic terrorists, unless (like Rosie O'Donnell) you count members of the U.S. Government as potential members such a group.

Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.

I admit I am wary of what might seem a bit of tin-foil haberdashery, but then again - we just had a President commute the sentence of someone who lied to protect the Vice President from possible Treason charges. We've seen our racial discrimination at the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. Just how much lower can the Bush/Cheney Government go?

Based on what Dr. Boyle has to say it just might be that we haven't even begun to completely plumb the true depths of BushCo.

"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you could have gotten that."

At the time of the attacks the Senate was contemplating the original version of the Patriot Act, which at the time included a complete striping of Habeas Corpus. Senator Leahy was one of the leading opponents of the bill.

Following the attacks, much of that opposition faded and the bill - with some modifications - was passed. Leahy even voted for it.

Boyle who had worked for years on Bioweapons and had been responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which passed both Houses and was signed into law by George Herbert Walker Bush.

But wait, the plot sickens...

After realizing that the type and quality of the Anthrax used against Sen. Daschle indicated that it had to have been developed by U.S. Scientists, Boyle contacted the FBI and spoke with Agent Marion "Spike" Bowman.

Boyle and Bowman had met at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School. Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.

Well, you'd expect that armed with this knowledge, trusty Agent Bowman would be after his man/men immediately? Well, not so much.

Bowman then informed Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick on the matter. Boyle expressed his view that Fort Detrick could be the main problem.

Fort Detrick receives it's cultures for bioweapon analysis and development from Ames, Iowa - but not long after these events the cultures at Ames were ordered destroyed by ... wait for it ... the FBI.

The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of finding out which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of anthrax used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have leddirectly back to a secret government biowarfare program.

"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction of justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That collection should have been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this wasAmes strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letters."

It's not like Agent Bowman hasn't dropped the ball before. It was he along with FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Maltbi who decided it wasn't even worth trying to file a FISA warrant the contents of Zacarias Moussaoui's computer hardrive.

<>The Judiciary Committee has been investigating FISA problems at the FBI, including holding closed hearings where Mr. Bowman and others were questioned about the Moussaoui case.
<>Mr. Grassley said a 26-page electronic communication from the Minneapolis agents contained information that "a reasonable person would have concluded" was sufficient to obtain a FISA warrant.

He said the application should have gone forward to the Justice Department and the FISA court.
Instead, he said, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Maltbie concluded there was not enough information and that Mr. Bowman agreed, although he was aware Mr. Maltbie had "removed certain information before making a presentation of questionable accuracy and length to the national security law unit."

Mr. Grassley said if the application had gone forward and a warrant issued, the agents would have found information in Moussaoui's belongings linking him both to a major financier of the hijacking plot and to an al Qaeda boss who met with at least two other hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials.

After his stellar work on the Moussaoui case, Bowman was naturally given a Presidential Rank of Meritorious Service award. I suppose a fresh new Medal of Freedom wasn't available at the time.

It should also be noted that there are others with a different opinion and view of the source of that Anthrax used in that fateful 2001 attack. From the WaPo Sept 2006

What was initially described as a near-military-grade biological weapon was ultimately found to have had a more ordinary pedigree, containing no additives and no signs of special processing to make the anthrax bacteria more deadly, law enforcement officials confirmed. In addition, the strain of anthrax used in the attacks has turned out to be more common than was initially believed, the officials said.

As a result, after a very public focus on government scientists as the likely source of the attacks, the FBI is today casting a far wider net, as investigators face the daunting prospect of an almost endless list of possible suspects in scores of countries around the globe. "There is no significant signature in the powder that points to a domestic source,"

You wonder if any of these people have ever watched an episode of CSI and know what DNA is? Whether cultures from the Ames lab were or weren't a source for the Anthrax is now only a matter of speculation and supposition since the originals have been destroyed. Preserving them would have gone a long way to helping establish that Ft. Detrick or any other U.S. lab as suspected by Dr. Boyle clearly were not involved in the Attack.

So if it wasn't "weaponized" could it still have come from an Defense Lab or was it just run of the mill anthrax, the kind you find at your local Walmart? (More from Wapo)

Whoever made the powder produced a deadly project of exceptional purity and quality -- up to a trillion spores per gram -- but used none of the tricks known to military bioweapons scientists to increase the lethality of the product. Officials stressed that the terrorist would have had to have considerable skills in microbiology and access to equipment.

So who are the terrorist with "considerable skill in microbiology and access to equipment" - are they hiding out in the caves of Afghanistan or maybe they're somewhere North, South, East and slightly West of Tikrit by now? The lack of "additives" may not neccesarily mean that the Anthrax wasn't made at someplace like Ft Detrick, it simply means that additives that would have given it a more unique and distinctive signature weren't added (yet). Particular when the point of the Attack clearly wasn't to maximize leathality, it was to foment fear and help shift U.S. policy to a more fascist stance.

<>But again, this is mere speculation - proof one way or the other seems to be in short supply.
One may or may not believe Dr. Boyle, one may or may not feel that his cause for alarm and claims that this smacks of a "deliberate cover-up" are legitimate, I for one certainly have my doubts, but....

One thing is certain, in the wake of 5 Million Missing Emails, you just have to wonder...

UPDATE: As pointed out by a DKOS commenter - this doesn't have to be a "conspiracy" for Boyle to be largely correct about the possible source of the Anthrax. All it takes is one nutball with access to materials and the will to use them. Again from the WaPo.

"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."

Instead, suggested Spertzel and more than a dozen experts interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks, investigators might want to reexamine the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism, or try to determine whether weaponized spores may have been stolen by the attacker from an existing, but secret, biodefense program or perhaps given to the attacker by an accomplice.

Whether this was the act of one lone nut, followed by a botched investigation or something more sinister and deliberate - many questions remain and deserved to be answered.

http://dailyscare.com/1676/were-the-anthrax-attacks-on-congress-the-act-of-the-u-s-government

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_f__vyan__070706_were_the_anthrax_att.htm

A2's 4th Of July Parade

2007-07-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

Got Junk? I have to laugh every time I see these guys... to me... Junk = Heroin

We went to the 4th of July parade with our flags upside down, a standard military distress signal.

Here's a true patriot

People cheered as this Armoured personnel carrier ( Ann Arbor's SWAT TANK) went by. It's never been used... not once!

I wonder how much $$$$$$$$$$$ it cost the taxpayers of A2?

This is the chest of some armyboy that got in my face (so close if I were to pucker up I would of kissed him) he didn't like the way I was waving "HIS" flag. I had to remind the hired killer (soldier) that it was my flag too & that it was made in CHINA!!! I didn't wait around long enough to hear his reply, as we (all 6 of us) started to march at the end of the parade. A cop keep us 10ft back from the "official" parade. Beleive it or not we got more cheers from the crowd than the usual "go home" 1 guy said that ONLY in America would we be able to do what we were doing. I had to remind him that America is not the ONLY country with a form of "free speech" & that under the so called patroit act OUR free speech can be taken away from us at any time.

The Day After

2007-06-26T04:58:00.000-07:00

Contingencies for nuclear terrorist attack

Government working up plan to prevent chaos in wake of bombing of major city

As concerns grow that terrorists might attack a major American city with a nuclear bomb,(why the concerns? Is there something your not telling us) a high-level group of government and military officials has been quietly preparing an emergency survival program that would include the building of bomb shelters, steps to prevent panicked evacuations and the possible suspension (ending) of some (all) civil liberties.

Many experts say the likelihood of al Qaeda or some other terrorist group (Bush & his Dick) producing a working nuclear weapon with illicitly obtained weapons-grade fuel is not large, but such a strike would be far more lethal, frightening and disruptive than the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (The attack "they" didn't stop) Not only could the numbers killed and wounded be far higher, but the explosion could, experts say, ignite widespread fires, shut down most transportation, halt much economic activity and cause a possible disintegration of government order. (Oh no "we"can't have that)

The efforts to prepare a detailed blueprint for survival (who's Survival? the governments?) took a step forward last month when senior government and military officials and other experts, organized by a joint Stanford-Harvard program called the Preventive Defense Project, met behind closed doors (why the the closed doors? what do "they have to hide?) in Washington for a day-long workshop.

The session, called "The Day After," was premised on the idea that efforts focusing on preventing such a strike were no longer enough, and that the prospect of a collapse of government order " ("they" seem obsessed with keeping ORDER) was so great if there were an attack that the country needed to begin preparing an emergency program.

One of the participants, retired Vice Adm. Roger Rufe, is a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security who is currently designing the government's nuclear attack response plan.

The organizers of the nonpartisan project, Stanford's William Perry, a secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, and Harvard's Ashton Carter, a senior Defense Department official during the Clinton years, assumed the detonation of a bomb similar in size to the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II.

Such a weapon, with a force of around 10 to 15 kilotons, is small compared with most Cold War-era warheads, but is roughly the yield of a relatively simple bomb. That would be considerably more powerful and lethal than a so-called dirty bomb, which is a conventional explosive packed with some dangerous radioactive material that would be dispersed by the explosion.

The 41 participants -- including the directors of the country's two nuclear weapons laboratories, Homeland Security officials, a number of top military commanders and former government officials -- discussed how all levels of government ought to respond to protect the country from a second nuclear attack, to limit health problems from the radioactive fallout and to restore civil order. Comments inside the session were confidential, but a number of the participants described their views and the ideas exchanged.

A paper the organizers are writing, summarizing their recommendations, urges local governments and individuals to build underground bomb shelters, much as people did in the early days of the Cold War; (we've gone back to the 50's what's next? DUCK & COVER) encourages authorities who survive to prevent evacuation of at least some of the areas attacked for three days to avoid roadway paralysis and damage from exposure to radioactive fallout; and proposes suspending regulations on radiation exposure so that first responders would be able to act, even if that caused higher cancer rates.

"The public at large will expect that their government had thought through this possibility and to have planned for it," (your joking...right) Carter said in an interview. "This kind of an event would be unprecedented. We have had glimpses of something like this with Hiroshima, and glimpses with 9/11 and with Katrina. But those are only glimpses." (just look at Katrina to see how "our" government will help us)

Perhaps the most sobering issue discussed was the possibility of a chaotic, long-term crisis triggered by fears that the attackers might have more bombs. Such uncertainty could sow panic nationwide. (if Fox News has it's way)

"If one bomb goes off, there are likely to be more to follow," Carter said. "This fact, that nuclear terrorism will appear as a syndrome rather than a single episode, has major consequences." It would, he added, require powerful government intervention to force people to do something many may resist -- staying put. (in a F.E.M.A. camp)

Fred Ikle, a former Defense Department official in the Reagan administration who authored a book last year urging attack preparation, "Annihilation from Within," said that the government should plan how it could restrict civil liberties and enforce a sort of martial law (sort of martial law = martial law for the poor) in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, but also have guidelines for how those liberties could be restored later (sure they will).
That prospect underscored a central divide among participants at the recent meeting, several said.

Some participants argued that the federal government needs to educate first responders and other officials as quickly as possible on how to act even if transportation and communication systems break down, as seems likely, and if the government is unable to issue orders. (again with the ORDER obsession)
"There was a clear consensus that a nuclear bomb detonated in the United States or a friendly country would be an earth-shaking event, and we need to know how we will respond beforehand," said Ikle. "I wish we had started earlier, because this kind of planning can make an important difference."

But others said the meeting made it clear that the results of any attack would be so devastating and the turmoil so difficult to control, if not impossible, that the lesson should have been that the U.S. government needs to place a far greater emphasis on prevention. (like 9-11)

"Your cities would empty and people would completely lose confidence in the ability of the government to protect them," (you have to have confidence 1st before you can lose it or should I say "TO LATE") said Steve Fetter, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. "You'd have nothing that resembles our current social order. (& we must have ORDER at all cost) I'm not sure any preparation can be sufficient to deal with that."

Fetter added, "We have to hold current policymakers more responsible" for taking all out measures to prevent a nuclear attack.

Raymond Jeanloz, a nuclear weapons expert at UC Berkeley and a government adviser on nuclear issues, said that California might be better prepared than most states because of long-standing plans for dealing with earthquakes and other natural disasters. Those plans, he said, could be a useful model for first responders.

He added, as others did, that the dislocation and panic caused by a nuclear strike could make any responses unpredictable.

"The most difficult thing is the fear that this kind of planning, even talking about it, can cause," Jeanloz said. (the sky is falling, the sky is falling)

Michael May, a former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, defended the survival planning, saying that people should get used to the idea that such a crisis, while dire, could be managed -- a key step in restoring calm. "You have to demystify the nuclear issue," said May, who now teaches at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. "By talking about this, you take away the feeling of helplessness."

Can I Get A Witness

2007-06-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

The Liberty St. Agitators were back at it...

With the blessing of Father Mike

Ron Paul Excluded in Iowa

2007-06-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

Iowans for Tax Relief and Iowa Christian Alliance will host a presidential candidates forum on Saturday, June 30th in Des Moines. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson, and Tom Tancredo will participate.

Ron Paul, however, will not participate. Why? Because he wasn’t invited.

We heard about this forum from numerous supporters in Iowa who asked why Dr. Paul was not going to participate. Those supporters assumed that Dr. Paul was invited.

The campaign office had not received an invitation so we called this morning; thinking we might have misplaced the invitation or simply overlooked it. Lew Moore, our campaign manager, called Mr. Edward Failor, an officer of Iowans for Tax Relief, to ask about it. To our shock, Mr. Failor told us Dr. Paul was not invited; he was not going to be invited; and he would not be allowed to participate. And when asked why, Mr. Failor refused to explain. The call ended.

Lew then called Mr. Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, to talk with him. Mr. Scheffler did not answer so Lew left a message. He has yet to respond.

Why are the Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance excluding the one Republican candidate who scored at the top of every online poll taken after the MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN debates? Why are they denying Iowans the opportunity to hear from the Republican presidential candidate whose popularity is growing by the day?

We couldn’t get answers to these questions from Messrs. Failor and Scheffler. Maybe you’ll have better luck. Their contact information is below.

It's ironic that on the same day we learned the Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance excluded Dr. Paul from their candidates forum, we received a call from ABC News confirming Dr. Paul’s participation in its nationally broadcast August 5th debate to be held in Des Moines.

Kent Snyder, Chairman
Ron Paul 2008

Contact Information

Edward FailorIowans for Tax Relief2610 Park AvenueMuscatine, Iowa 52761Phone: 563-288-3600 or 877-913-3600Fax: 563-264-2413E-mail: itr@taxrelief.orgWeb Site

Steve Scheffler, PresidentIowa Christian Alliance939 Office Park Road, Suite 115West Des Moines, Iowa 50265Phone: 515-225-1515Fax: 515-225-1826E-mail: slscheffler@iowachristian.comWeb Site

Birds & Bees

2007-06-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

1st it was the bees dying off now it's the birds.

Scientists investigating a mysterious ailment that has killed many of the nation's honeybees are concentrating on pesticides and microorganisms as possible causes of the disorder, and some beekeepers are refusing to place their hives near chemically treated fields.
Scientists from Penn State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are leading the research into the disease, which has killed tens of thousands of bee colonies in at least 35 states.

http://www.star-telegram.com/national_news/story/139968.html

The populations of 20 common American birds from the fence-sitting meadowlark to the whippoorwill with its haunting call are half what they were 40 years ago, according to an analysis released Thursday.
Suburban sprawl, climate change and other invasive species are largely to blame, said the study's author Greg Butcher of the National Audubon Society.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3279448

State of the Union 2007 - Bush Impression

2007-06-13T06:21:00.001-07:00

SWAT Teams Surround Tax Evaders Home

2007-06-11T19:32:00.001-07:00

Waco 2.0 or Ruby Ridge 2.0
NO taxes for WAR!!!

Impeachment Coffee

2007-06-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been helping The Liberty St. Agitators with their daily 5-6 m-f protest.

I was told to have some fun while exercising my free speech...so I made this sign & got some pj's, a robe, & a coffee pot from a 2nd hand store.

Now I serving up a hot cup of Impeachment Coffee to help America wake up.

Bush Impeachment Town Hall In Detroit

2007-06-03T07:22:00.001-07:00

Great work A28

Keith Olbermann Calls The Democrats Out

2007-06-01T03:21:00.001-07:00

This will be the my 3rd try to post this. Is Youtube censoring?

Sheehan Goes Home

2007-05-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

'It's up to you now': Sheehan quits

Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement "that often puts personal egos above peace and human life."

But she said the most devastating conclusion she had reached "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think".

"Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives," she wrote. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most."

"I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," Sheehan wrote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070529/ap_on_re_us/cindy_sheehan

"Go Fuck Yourself I Win"

King George II To Be Outsourced

2007-05-25T04:33:00.000-07:00

U.S. Presidency to be Outsourced

WASHINGTON DC -- Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of May 1, 2006.

The move is being made to save the President's $400,000 yearly salary, and also a record $521 billionin deficit expenditures and related overhead the office has incurred during the past 5 years. "We believe this is a wise move financially. The costsavings should be significant," stated CongressmanThomas Reynolds (R-WA). Reynolds, with the aid of theGovernment Accounting Office, has studied outsourcing of American jobs extensively. "We cannot expect to remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by email this morning of histermination. Preparations for the job move have been under way for sometime. Rupinder Singh of IndusTeleservices, Mumbai, India, will be assuming the office of President as of January 21st. Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of$320 (USD) a month but with no health coverage or other benefits. It is believed that Mr. Singh will beable to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference between the U.S. and India, he will be working primarily at night,when few offices of the U.S. Government will be open. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the American Express call center, "stated Mr. Singhin an exclusive interview. "I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be President someday."

A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr.Singh may not be fully aware of all t he issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem because Bush was not familiar with the issues either. Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issues at all. "We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson."President Bush has used them successfully for years."

Bush will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment. Following a two week waiting period, he will be eligible for $240a week unemployment for 13 weeks. Unfortunately he will not be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit.

Mr. Bush has been provided the out placement services of Manpower, Inc.to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition. According to Manpower, Mr.Bush may have difficulties in securing a new position due to limited practical work experience. A greeter position at Wal-Mart was suggested due to Bush's extensive experience shaking hands and smiling no matter what the circumstances.

Another possibility is Bush's re-enlistment in theTexas Air National Guard. His prior records are conspicuously vague but should he choose this option,he would likely be stationed in Waco, TX for a month,before being sent to Iraq, a country he has visited."I've been there, I know all about Iraq," stated Mr.Bush, who gained invaluable knowledge of the country in a visit to the Baghdad Airport's terminal and giftshop.

Sources in Baghdad and Falluja say Mr. Bush would receive a warm reception from local Iraqis. They have asked to be provided with details of his arrival so that they might arrange an appropriate welcome.

Are Americans Stupid?

2007-05-24T14:50:00.001-07:00

Doh!!!

Ron Paul Courageously Speaks the Truth

2007-05-22T17:52:00.001-07:00

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Worst President Ever

2007-05-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

Bush Is 'the Worst in History' In Foreign Relations, Carter Says

Former president Jimmy Carter called President Bush's international relations "the worst in history" and also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative program.

The criticism came in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which reported Carter's remarks Saturday. The denunciation of a sitting president was unprecedented for Carter, a biographer said.

The former president also lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Asked by BBC Radio how he would judge Blair's support of Bush, Carter said: "Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient. And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world."

In his interview with the Democrat-Gazette, Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts, by other presidents.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter said. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations . . . has been the most disturbing to me."

Carter said that Bush's policy of preemptive war, "where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened," was "a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helps religious charities receive billions in federal grants.

"As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one," he said.

Carter spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.

"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said that it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War."

"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president," said Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer. "When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."

In February, Carter indirectly criticized the Bush administration at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, when he alluded to its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"The struggle for equality is not over," Carter said. "We only have to recall the color of the faces in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi -- those most devastated by Katrina -- to know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

Saturday, Sunny, & Signs

2007-05-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

I did some bloggin' on this sunny Saturday

I don't know what this place was but it sure did smell bad

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both. James Madison

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. James Madison

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. James Madison

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations. James Madison

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. James Madison

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people. James Madison

The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. James Madison

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority. James Madison

All the Impeach signs have been held at a protest

Car Sales Man

2007-05-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

I finely did a post on 696. As you can see it has been hit before, bungee cords, zip ties, & the remains of an old cloth sign all over the fence. The weather (cold, wet, & windy) + my back have really slowed things down here.

steppenwolf monster

2007-05-14T16:23:00.001-07:00

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Vietnam Syndrome

2007-05-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Vietnam syndrome

The consequences of U.S. defeat in Iraq would be much greater than they were in Vietnam

(Not one of mine)

As the war in Iraq drags on into its fifth year, comparisons to the Vietnam War grow more frequent and persuasive. There are some parallels, as there are to all wars, but key differences between Vietnam and Iraq also deserve noting.

As in Vietnam, the United States faces an enemy that cannot be distinguished from the civilian population. A preliminary hearing for Marines charged with killing 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha recalls the U.S. massacre at My Lai.

As in Vietnam, the United States is fighting a war that can't be decisively won because a determined, seemingly inexhaustible enemy would rather die than cease killing.

(One of mine)

In Iraq, the United States again is allied to a democratic government that cannot successfully defend itself, no matter how much aid it receives. As it did following the Vietnam War, the United States might wind up having to resettle hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who took our side in the war but would risk being murdered if they remained in their country after U.S. withdrawal.

Similar to President Lyndon Johnson's experience, President Bush lost popular American support for the war as U.S. casualties mounted. Like Johnson, Bush is unwilling to withdraw. Repeating the 1960s, it will take a change in leadership to end U.S. combat involvement in Iraq.

In Vietnam, the United States faced a united, determined enemy: communist North Vietnam and its Viet Cong allies. In Iraq, U.S. troops battle a multifaceted enemy: Saddam loyalists, Shiite militias and imported terrorists with ties to al-Qaida. These enemies can hardly be identified, much less decisively defeated or negotiated with.

In Vietnam, the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars, suffered 400,000 casualties and inflicted more than 1 million. In Iraq, the financial cost is almost as high, but U.S. casualties number in the thousands. Iraqi combat and civilian deaths are difficult to calculate but probably exceed 100,000.

The most telling difference between the war in Iraq and the one in Vietnam is the most dangerous. When the United States could not prevail in Vietnam, it withdrew, with little consequence to U.S. strategic interests or the regional balance of power. U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could result in another rogue regime bent on anti-Western terrorism and aggression. Alternatively, civil war resulting in complete anarchy and a failed state would offer global terrorists another base from which to operate with impunity.

In some ways, Americans might come to wish the war in Iraq were more like the Vietnam War, not less.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4794324.html

On Vacation In Iraq

2007-05-10T00:28:00.001-07:00

"Our military is stretched to the limit right now and you're seeing the effects in these young soldiers who are having mental health and family problems by the constant stress of being sent back to Iraq," he said. "And the problems are worse for those soldiers who have done two and three deployments."
http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1178350311/2

Media Silence on Kent State Revelations

2007-05-09T05:55:00.000-07:00

When the Gun Smokes and the Press Doesn't Smell It: Media Silence on Kent State Revelations

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today's mainstream media.

After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.

It proves what "conspiracy theorists" have argued since 1970---that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.

To Read More
http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=21883

A Banner Day

2007-05-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

While I was driving around looking for a place to hang some banners I spotted this flag on a fence next to the highway & I thought it needed some support

All of these banners are over 10ft long

View from the other side of the highway...

This is over 13ft long & is facing on coming traffic.

This one is way up on a hill but close to the highway.

You can see it for almost a mile.

More A2 Move On Veto Vote Protest

2007-05-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

All these pictures are copyrighted by PamLeBlanc

"The War Is A Lie & Impeach" signs are now hanging on I96

A proud father checks out his work (The "End Of An Error" sign made it to the Grand Rapids protest & http://www.bartcop.com/ )

Thanx for all the picture Pam!

5 For Friday

2007-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

As I was putting this Impeach sign up a cop pulled over someone right on the other side of the fence. I thought I was busted for sure, but I had on my road work's vest & a hard hat so he must of thought I was a roadworker.

These 2 are over Telegraph rd again! Very high traffic ... The last signs I put here stayed up for almost a week. They both say War Is Terror

All these signs have been held at a protest or two!!!

Veto This Bush!!!

2007-05-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Move On put out a call for action

Here's what Ann Arbor had to say about King George II's veto!

This sign says U.S. Government's Ultimate Tool: FEAR

This sign says Stay The Course, Stuck On Stupid

This banner says Bring Them Home NOW

It was a good turn out for a 1 day notice

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48702752@N00/sets/72157600171797911/show/

WPE

2007-05-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

I had to move this WPE sign

So I replaced it with this sign.

I moved the WPE sign to a new walk way I have never blogged before.

This is over I-94 Ypsilanti.

Ann Arbor A28 Protest

2007-04-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here's what it looked very early. I was a bit to busy to get many photos.

We had almost 4 days of rain, but then when Saturday rolled around the rain stopped & the sun came out, almost like "someone" knew how important Saturday was to us & the U.S. We had a nice turn out (I always want to see more). I want to thank all the folks that came from out of town to support this call for impeachment. Also a big thanx to all the "townies" A lot of people would be walking by but would stop & pick up a sign. Lot's of honking & thumb's up too.

A few of us marched to the Diag & back(trying to get in as many graduation pictures as we could)

Here some more pictures as things started to get hopping

Saturday Morning Signs

2007-04-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

I put most of these up Friday night & Saturday morning. I put these up along I94 in hopes that Bill Clinton's motorcade might see them. Bill was in town for the U of M spring commencement speech.