incredible url to chck out

http://conpix.thegatekeepers.biz/

this is a fantastic shockwave extravaganza

Important taser video; Design flaws MUST WATCH

In this important video, a segment run on CTV, a competing manufacturer, calls Tasers unsafe, explains why and calls for a moratorium.

Fascism and the "Evolution of Fire Service"

Published on Friday, November 30, 2007.

Source: TruthNews - Kurt Nimmo

According to a Phoenix, Arizona, fire chief quoted by David Edwards and Muriel Kane of Raw Story, firefighters snooping around inside your home, looking for suspicious material that may indicate you might be less than enthusiastic about the government, represents an “evolution of the fire service.”

Actually, what it represents is the death of the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment.

Like the First and Second Amendments, the Fourth is fundamental to the Bill of Rights. It arises from the old English maxim, ”Every man’s house is his castle,” and has precedent in a legal case going back to 1603.

In Semayne’s Case, it was decided that an “execution of process” had to be announced, that the King’s agents simply couldn’t break down the door or walk in unannounced. In another case, Entick v. Carrington, general warrants not showing probable cause were ruled against when agents of the crown raided homes in search of polemical pamphlets attacking not only governmental policies but the King himself. In the colonies, English authorities made use of writs of assistance, which were general warrants authorizing the bearer to enter any house or other place to search for and seize ”prohibited and uncustomed” goods, mostly smuggled and thus untaxed goods. The Fourth grew directly out of this experience.

Now, more than two hundred years later, we are so lax, so distracted, or so ignorant as to not understand that a fireman poking around in our desk as he conducts an “inspection” amounts to the same sort of abuse inflicted on colonists by agents of the King.

Of course, fire chiefs who believe they have the right to search for “material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities,” that is to say material and behavior “hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States,” likely do not consider themselves fascist in the traditional sense. If they think about it at all, no doubt the more intelligent fire chiefs among us consider “fascism” little more than an outmoded, pejorative epithet, a word that conjures up images of Hitler and maybe Mussolini. For as George Orwell said, the word is almost completely meaningless, because it is used to describe all manner of bullies and thus divorced from the political context.

However, whether they realize it or not, firemen who snoop around looking for evidence of political crimes are foot soldiers for an authoritarian political ideology, even if they do not fully comprehend this ideology. In a dictionary definition sense, fascism is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life and this is precisely what our rulers are attempting to do.

As Mike German, a former FBI agent, told Keith Olbermann, the Department of Homeland Security — let us call this agency what it really is, the “Ministry” of Homeland Security, an apropos if not frightening reference to Orwell — is attempting to turn firefighters into government spies, or more politely “intelligence gatherers.” In response to Olbermann’s question about firefighters now tasked with the job of ferreting out materials that may express “discontent” with the government. Mr. German said:

“Anytime you look at these stories, they always focus on certain reading materials, terrorist propaganda they might call it… and their focus on literature. Of course, again, there is a First Amendment in operation too, so we are concerned that is where the firefighters are turning their attention.”

However, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes so aptly noted, a “page of history is worth a volume of logic,” that is to say during “times of war” (even undeclared wars), the Constitution and the Bill of Rights become the first victims. “It is difficult to read our constitutional history,” explains Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas,

“without believing that the Constitution is often reduced at best to a whisper during times of war.”

Constitutional liberties were restricted during the Civil War (or more accurately, the “Northern War of Aggression”), World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. According to constitutional experts and commentators, however, the coming suppression of liberty may make the abuses of those past conflicts pale by way of comparison.

“Experts disagree on what effect the war on terrorism will have on First Amendment freedoms. Some constitutional experts say the most egregious affronts to the Constitution have occurred in the Fourth Amendment arena. But many believe that freedom of speech will be curtailed,”

warns David Hudson, writing for the Freedom Forum.

“I am very worried that there will be more efforts to suppress speech if the war on terrorism drags on,"

explains Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at the University of Southern California.

Indeed, if the neocons have their way, the “war on terrorism,” actually a war on liberty at home in the name of globalist fascism, will drag on for a hundred years or more.

It’s not called the “Long War” for nothing.

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT; Members of Congress War Crimes

Member of Congress War Crimes Problem

The American government’s system of checks and balances relies on separation of power: Congress appropriates money; and the President spends it. This does not mean that war crimes only attach to those who do things. Nuremberg adjudicated war crimes against legal counsel and officers of the court (judges) for failing to enforce the laws, or attempting to enforce illegal laws. The precedent: Non-Executive branch civilian personnel, leadership, and staff counsel can be prosecuted for war crimes, regardless their distance from the illegal activity on the ground. Members of Congress and their staff counsel have a war crimes problem.

They’re gumming this to death. There are several lines of evidence suggesting there’s great concern within the Member of Congress staff meetings in re war crimes. After DoD JAGs documented their concerns to DOJ that ICC would have a possible/likely role in prosecuting US officials for prisoner abuse, the Military Commissions Act included language that would defend US government officials before “international” tribunals. JAG concerns were not isolated to one document, but related to many working group meetings which Congress and DOJ were well aware and involved.

Congress also has the power — and responsibility — to raise and support the armies [AI S8]. Attached with that is the legal obligation to ensure those funds are only going for lawful things. Congress cannot, in “supporting” an army, spend money on an illegal war, or illegal violations of Geneva.

After WWII, Nuremberg adjudicated war crimes not just against primary actors — those who committed war crimes — but also civilian policy makers, non-executive branch judges, and legal counsel. Nuremberg concluded that the Geneva obligations attached to those who had the power to enforce the law, strike down bad law, and ensure the laws of war were fully preserved. [ See ]

Based on information and belief, it appears the Congressional staff counsel, working in concert with DoD and DoJ Legislative Liaison created language to defend all US government officials — including non-Executive Branch personnel in Congress, as required — against war crimes. Legal counsel memoranda is presumed to exist. It is expected that the arguments in writing, under seal, are not consistent with the public statements of Members of Congress.

Based on information and believe: Congressional staff counsel have memoranda which explicitly raises to Members of Congress the risk that US Members of Congress could be adjudicated with war crimes; that the precedents of Nuremberg do not attach solely to primary acts; and that Members of Congress and the President have a joint interest in never fully investigating all war crimes related issues.

Where To Get The Evidence

Discovery isn’t as difficult as one might expect. It cannot be argued that it is a “state secret” that Members of Congress and DOJ created language defending US government officials before “international” tribunals. The only tribunal related to the MCA — the one the US says it will not recognize — is the ICC and The Hague.

What appears to have happened is the Congress and President have publicly asserted the ICC-The Hague have “no jurisdiction”; but privately, they’ve well discussed the JAG memoranda form the POW working groups. There must be notes, memoranda, meeting minutes, and other things which would coordinate the JAG concerns; develop language for Congress to pass in the MCA; but then develop a public relations policy that would, with the President, attempt to convince the public that the ICC has no jurisdiction. [See sample “working group” Memo: here ] These working groups started after 9-11 in 2001.

Note the link is part of the Congressional record: Someone inside the Congress knew about the working groups, and has discussed this, but where are the war crimes investigations? “Off the table”. That is alleged malfeasance which implicated the Justices at Nuremberg. There’s no case to be made that this alleged malfeasance could not also broadly be applied to individual Members of Congress.

Sample Grand Jury Discovery Plan

- When did Members of Congress and their staff/outside counsel review JAG memoranda from DoD outlining JAG concerns that US civilians could be prosecuted for war crimes before the ICC?

- How long have Members of Congress and their staff counsel known — but failed to investigate — known war crimes which the JAGs well discussed in 2001 in re prisoner abuse?

- When did legal counsel first raise with members of Congress the risks that US civilians could be prosecuted before the ICC?

- When did the DOJ Staff Counsel discuss with Members of Congress, staff counsel and others the need to insert language within the MCA to defend before the ICC or other international tribunals war crimes charges against US Members of Congress, staff counsel, or others in the Executive Branch?

- Which Contractors did Congress and/or President hire to develop this public relations strategy: To attempt to convince the public that Members of Congress are not subject to any judicial review before the ICC or The Hague?

- What meeting minutes do Members of Congress have which took the JAG concerns about prisoner abuse: Why did these notes and memoranda not result in a shut down for funding in a timely manner; and where are the Majority-Minority memoranda to DoD-DoJ-CIA-NSA General Counsels/IGs related to questions about funding for these illegal activities?

- Where are the member of Congress legal counsel memoranda discussing the JAG concerns with prisoner abuse; and why did these memoranda not result in any public investigation of the war crimes?

- Which legal counsel working in Congress have hired outside counsel to defend them before the ICC/The Hague for making allegedly frivolous legal argument: Pretending Members of Congress could not be prosecuted; that the Nuremberg precedents in re Justice Trial could not be applied to other non-combatants in the Legislative Branch?

- When did legal counsel discuss with Members of Congress, Congressional leadership, and other staff counsel in the Executive Branch the problem associated with war crimes evidence: Which “state secrets claims” were known to be frivolous; were jointly agreed by Legislative-Executive counsel to shield evidence damaging to both the Executive and Legislative branches?

- When did Legislative Counsel discuss with members of Congress and others using “state secrets claims” as a basis to allegedly falsely “We cannot get the information,” related to evidence they knew, or should have known was related to illegal activity which they knew or should have known could not be shielded by any state secret claim, privilege, or any executive order?

- When did Members of Congress, their staff counsel, Executive Branch personnel, and their staff counsel jointly agree or indirectly agree to not ask questions related to these memoranda because the war crimes issues attached not just to the President, VP, but also Members of Congress and staff counsel in both the Legislative and Executive Branches?

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT; Pledge to Impeach.org

WHY IMPEACH BUSH/CHENEY?

When I was a boy of 9(1963), my brother-in-law supported my sister and their four children on his earnings as a truck driver, hauling hay to dairy farms. They owned a new home in Carlton Hills, CA, a pickup, car, and had a huge pile of presents at Christmas. I will never forget that pile of Christmas presents. My brother-in-law did not believe in credit and except for the house, everything was paid for. Sound like the same America we have today? Not hardly. What happened?

Corporate America happened. Infiltration of our Congress happened. Complicity with foreign governments happened. Seduction into debt happened. Destruction of labor unions happened. And of course, an executive power grab happened following the tragedy of September 11, 2001. All of these developments have left the American people without a voice in directing our nation
and preserving our personal livelihoods. PTI believes impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney is the required public response to all of the above, and that it is an action that can reunite and bring our People back into the process of government.

Though we have our differences, the collapse of democracy in America happened to Republicans as much as Democrats.

Conspirators in government design issues in ways to divide us; such as making the war an issue of peace versus supporting our troops and pro-life/pro-choice. These tactics are implemented to keep us at odds with each other and from relating to the fact that the vast majority of us have the same common concerns and the same freedoms and rights to lose if these conspirators are
allowed to continue with their plans.

Most Americans now feel that the two-party system no longer exists and are aware of the
danger of electronic voting machines. But PTI believes that the root of the problem is in the nominating process.

Democracy is designed to allow citizens to choose the best man or woman from among their fellows to represent them at the local, state, and federal level. But this is not what happens today. Today, not only are candidates not drafted by the community, they are not even drafted by the party. They are drafted by a conglomerate of wealthy and powerful interests, some of whom are not even American or have duel citizenship.

The scope of the problem is great and so is the solution. But first we must organize. To the mind of PTI, once American workers lost their power in the work-place they lost it in government. Ever since Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 higly skilled air-traffic controllers the hunt for the working man and woman was on. Since those days of deregulation, management has been drunk
with power and profits. Meanwhile, our people have been subjected to years of divisive propaganda and social engineering until we are effectively disorganized, divided, and defeatist. Every American has been reduced to a hyphenated identity; Afro-American, Irish-American, Japanese-American, Mexican-American, while even our most honored founding fathers are
incessently denigrated and redefined as racists and hypocrites in order to disconnect us from our heritage and further weaken our national identity.

PTI believes the only way to restore representative government under the present circumstances is through re-uniting our people, first at the local precinct level, then by township, county, state, and finally as a nation. As all other options prove ineffective and Congress convinces more people that they are not going to act, our strategy is slowly taking hold in the
imaginations of more and more incensed Americans. PTI is calling on Americans in every community to find your allies among your neighbors and form your own local strike force, ready and waiting for the strike date to be announced once we have enough people on board to insure the effectiveness of the action.

There are PTI organizers in several states working to bring their neighbors together in the cause of defending our democracy. In Tennessee, a diner owner has not only signed a pledge to stay home when the strike is called, but has requested a PTI poster be placed in his window, announcing that the diner will be closed during the strike and telling people to come inside and learn about the movement to mount a national strike for impeachment. Already people are sending others to the diner of the man who has the courage to stand up to tyranny. We are working to duplicate this in the privately owned diners and coffee shops across America.

The beginnings are in motion. Our cause is not only to impeach Bush and Cheney but to also prevent the spilling of a single drop of blood, with a strong and comprehensive plan for effective passive resistance. PTI thinks we have such a Plan and asks that you read the Plan, Sign a Pledge, and start Organizing your precinct. Time is running short.

Once Bush/Cheney exit office without prosecution, the effort to stop the runaway train toward tyranny becomes nearly impossible. The next president will inherit all the expanded powers collected under the Bush Administration without any of their crimes. Under the new administration, we will be subjected to the will of those in power without any case to keep them at bey.

Today we can still stop them without ever breaking a law, getting arrested, getting pepper sprayed, netted, or tasered. Not a drop of blood need be spilled. When we have the law, the truth, and the People with us,

we will win. I guarantee it.

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT; ballot for a People's Referendum

Impeachment is not a choice..it is dictated by the Consititution.

NOT TO IMPEACH IS A TREASONABLE OFFENCE.

If it does not happen, follow this or any other course to get rid of the entire treasonous lot.....


This is your chance to take a stand for your country.



A Ballot for a People’s Referendum

The United States government is broken almost beyond repair, completely and totally under the control of business and non-responsive to the will of the American Citizen. Our rights guaranteed under the Constitution have been ignored and dissolved. We are engaged in a war that the majority of the People do not support. Our children and Iraqi children are being poisoned with depleted uranium and slaughtered. Our Veterans are being ignored and abused. Innocent Citizens of the World are being tortured under our name. Our environment is being destroyed. Monumental catastrophes in our country have been ignored. The system of elections has been corrupted. Our children are being denied health care. The illegal Federal Reserve System has stolen trillions of dollars from our economy and its laborers. The integrity, honor and spirit of the American People have been forever scarred.

It is long past time to take back this United States from the corporations who have become the government.

It is time to re-establish and refresh the original content and spirit of the Constitution of the United States of America.

This is a call to all True Americans to awaken from the nightmare that pervades our land….to create a new dream…..a dream based on truth, honor, integrity and real equality.

This ballot is the beginning.

DO YOU BELIEVE THIS GOVERNMENT…..
EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL
SHOULD BE RECALLED AND DISSOLVED
AND A NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
ELECTED DIRECTLY BY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
PUT IN IT’S PLACE?

PLEASE CHECK “YES” OR “NO’


YES____ NO____


Signature_________________________________


Email Address (optional, but strongly requested)________________________


Postal Address (optional)_______________


___________________________________


Please copy, paste and send to ignotzle@windstream.net

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT. Kunich Privileged Resolution

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Privileged Resolution The Flag of the United States of America Washington, Nov 6 - Below is a copy of the speech Congressman Dennis Kucinich gave on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives today. Mr. Speaker: Pursuant to 2.A.1. of Rule 9, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a Question of the Privilege of the House, The form of the resolution is as follows: Resolved, That Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate: Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors. Article I In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit: (1) Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: (A) `We know they have biological and chemical weapons.' March 17, 2002, Press Conference by Vice President Dick Cheney and His Highness Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince of Bahrain at Shaikh Hamad Palace. (B) `. . . and we know they are pursuing nuclear weapons.' March 19, 2002, Press Briefing by Vice President Dick Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. (C) `And he is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time . . .' March 24, 2002, CNN Late Edition interview with Vice President Cheney. (D) `We know he's got chemicals and biological and we know he's working on nuclear.' May 19, 2002, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (E) `But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons . . . Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.' August 26, 2002, Speech of Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention. (F) `Based on intelligence that's becoming available, some of it has been made public, more of it hopefully will be, that he has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons, that he has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon, that there are efforts under way inside Iraq to significantly expand his capability.' September 8, 2002, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (G) `He is, in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.' September 8, 2002, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (H) `And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.' March 16, 2003, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (2) Preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Vice President was fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Vice President pressured the intelligence community to change their findings to enable the deception of the citizens and Congress of the United States. (A) Vice President Cheney and his Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, made multiple trips to the CIA in 2002 to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives accounts. (B) Vice President Cheney sought out unverified and ultimately inaccurate raw intelligence to prove his preconceived beliefs. This strategy of cherry picking was employed to influence the interpretation of the intelligence. (3) The Vice President's actions corrupted or attempted to corrupt the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, an intelligence document issued on October 1, 2002, and carefully considered by Congress prior to the October 10, 2002, vote to authorize the use of force. The Vice President's actions prevented the necessary reconciliation of facts for the National Intelligence Estimate which resulted in a high number of dissenting opinions from technical experts in two Federal agencies. (A) The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissenting view in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate stated `Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute it's nuclear weapons program INR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors or to project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening. As a result INR is unable to predict that Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon.'. (B) The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissenting view in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate also stated that `Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious.'. (C) The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissenting view in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate references a Department of Energy opinion by stating that `INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the US Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose.'. The Vice President subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 3800 United States service members; the loss of more than 1 million innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq. In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office. Article II In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit: (1) Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda: (A) `His regime has had high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to Al Qaeda terrorists.' December 2, 2002, Speech of Vice President Cheney at the Air National Guard Senior Leadership Conference. (B) `His regime aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda. He could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against us.' January 30, 2003, Speech of Vice President Cheney to 30th Political Action Conference in Arlington, Virginia. (C) `We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the Al Qaeda organization.' March 16, 2003, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (D) `We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on biological weapons and chemical weapons . . .' September 14, 2003, NBC Meet the Press interview with Vice President Cheney. (E) `Al Qaeda had a base of operation there up in Northeastern Iraq where they ran a large poisons factory for attacks against Europeans and U.S. forces.' October 3, 2003, Speech of Vice President Cheney at Bush-Cheney '04 Fundraiser in Iowa. (F) `He also had an established relationship with Al Qaeda providing training to Al Qaeda members in areas of poisons, gases, and conventional bombs.' October 10, 2003, Speech of Vice President Cheney to the Heritage Foundation. (G) `Al Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence services have worked together on a number of occasions.' January 9, 2004, Rocky Mountain News interview with Vice President Cheney. (H) `I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.' January 22, 2004, NPR: Morning Edition interview with Vice President Cheney. (I) `First of all, on the question of--of whether or not there was any kind of relationship, there clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to; the evidence is overwhelming.' June 17, 2004, CNBC: Capital Report interview with Vice President Cheney. (2) Preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Vice President was fully informed that no credible evidence existed of a working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, a fact articulated in several official documents, including: (A) A classified Presidential Daily Briefing ten days after the September 11, 2001, attacks indicating that the United States intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was `scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda'. (B) Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02, issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, which challenged the credibility of information gleaned from captured al Qaeda leader al-Libi. The DIA report also cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy: `Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.'. (C) A January 2003 British intelligence classified report on Iraq that concluded that `there are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network'. The Vice President subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 3,800 United States service members; the loss of more than 1 million innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq. In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office. Article III In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States, to wit: (1) Despite no evidence that Iran has the intention or the capability of attacking the United States and despite the turmoil created by United States invasion of Iraq, the Vice President has openly threatened aggression against Iran as evidenced by the following: (A) `For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime. And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.' March 7, 2006, Speech of Vice President Cheney to American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2006 Policy Conference. (B) `But we've also made it clear that all options are on the table.' January 24, 2007, CNN Situation Room interview with Vice President Cheney. (C) `When we--as the President did, for example, recently--deploy another aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf, that sends a very strong signal to everybody in the region that the United States is here to stay, that we clearly have significant capabilities, and that we are working with friends and allies as well as the international organizations to deal with the Iranian threat.' January 29, 2007, Newsweek interview with Vice President Cheney. (D) `But I've also made the point and the President has made the point that all options are still on the table.' February 24, 2007, Vice President Cheney at Press Briefing with Australian Prime Minister in Sydney, Australia. (2) The Vice President, who repeatedly and falsely claimed to have had specific, detailed knowledge of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction capabilities, is no doubt fully aware of evidence that demonstrates Iran poses no real threat to the United States as evidenced by the following: (A) `I know that what we see in Iran right now is not the industrial capacity you can [use to develop a] bomb.' Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, February 19, 2007. (B) Iran indicated its `full readiness and willingness to negotiate on the modality for the resolution of the outstanding issues with the IAEA, subject to the assurances for dealing with the issues in the framework of the Agency, without the interference of the United Nations Security Council'. IAEA Board Report, February 22, 2007. (C) `. . . so whatever they have, what we have seen today, is not the kind of capacity that would enable them to make bombs.' Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, February 19, 2007. (3) The Vice President is fully aware of the actions taken by the United States towards Iran that are further destabilizing the world as evidenced by the following: (A) The United States has refused to engage in meaningful diplomatic relations with Iran since 2002, rebuffing both bilateral and multilateral offers to dialogue. (B) The United States is currently engaged in a military buildup in the Middle East that includes the increased presence of the United States Navy in the waters near Iran, significant United States Armed Forces in two nations neighboring to Iran, and the installation of anti-missile technology in the region. (C) News accounts have indicated that military planners have considered the B61-11, a tactical nuclear weapon, as one of the options to strike underground bunkers in Iran. (D) The United States has been linked to anti-Iranian organizations that are attempting to destabilize the Iranian government, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organization. (E) News accounts indicate that United States troops have been ordered into Iran to collect data and establish contact with anti-government groups. (4) In the last three years the Vice President has repeatedly threatened Iran. However, the Vice President is legally bound by the U.S. Constitution's adherence to international law that prohibits threats of use of force. (A) Article VI of the United States Constitution states, `This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.' Any provision of an international treaty ratified by the United States becomes the law of the United States. (B) The United States is a signatory to the United Nations Charter, a treaty among the nations of the world. Article II, Section 4 of the United Nations Charter states, `All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.' The threat of force is illegal. (C) Article 51 lays out the only exception, `Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.' Iran has not attacked the United States; therefore any threat against Iran by the United States is illegal. The Vice President's deception upon the citizens and Congress of the United States that enabled the failed United States invasion of Iraq forcibly altered the rules of diplomacy such that the Vice President's recent belligerent actions towards Iran are destabilizing and counterproductive to the national security of the United States. In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office. Mr. Speaker: This resolution is similar to a resolution which I introduced earlier this year and has the support of 22 of my colleagues here in the House of Representatives.

Print version of this document

Poll: Most Americans Support Full Due-Process Rights for Terror Suspects.

A recent survey showed that whether Republican or Democrat, Americans strongly support terrorism suspects rights. 73% of Americans support basic due process rights for terror suspects. And a majority of Americans, 57%, were against the Bush administration's practice of extraordinary rendition.

read more | digg story

How Bush Keeps Rendition Victims Out of Courts

MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL OF LAW

Andover, Massachusetts

A MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL OF LAW REPORT

“Thousands” Illegally Rendered By Bush Administration for Interrogation, Torture; How Bush Changed Rendition Policy

In violation of international and U.S. law, “thousands” of alleged terrorists have been victims of “extraordinary rendition” by the Bush Administration since 9/11, two legal scholars say.

“Instead of working to bring those committing crimes against the United States to justice in U.S. courts, the Bush Administration seems intent on doing exactly the opposite---keeping such individuals away from U.S. courts, hidden in a web of secret prisons, underground interrogation cells, and in the hands of cooperative governments,” write Margaret Satterthwaite and Angela Fisher.

Satterthwaite is an assistant professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law and Fisher served as assistant research scholar with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

“Extraordinary renditions, whether originating in territories under U.S. control (actual or effective) or merely carried out by U.S. agents, are unlawful and in violation of international treaties to which the United States is a party,” the authors write.

“Despite this clear prohibition, the Bush Administration continues to engage in this practice, using it to transfer detainees out of the reach of U.S. courts and into the realm of secret detentions and brutal interrogations.”

“Having altered the procedure from a transfer sanctioned by U.S. courts to a transfer that is extralegal, this Administration completed the transformation of extraordinary rendition from transfer to justice to transfer out of the justice system,” the authorities contend in an article titled “Tortured Logic: Renditions to Justice, Extraordinary Rendition, and Human Rights Law” published in “The Long Term View,” a journal of informed opinion published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover(Volume 6, No. 4).

The authors explain that extraordinary rendition is an updated form of “rendition to justice,” first secretly authorized in 1986 by President Reagan in National Security Decision Directive 207, which formalized U.S. policy to fight terrorism. It came into being, they say, because the U.S. in the 1980s did not have valid extradition treaties with countries that commonly housed terrorists or because those nations refused to give the suspects up.

Under Reagan, they write, “it has never been suggested that the purpose of the program was to subject the detainees to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Once in the United States, the rendered individual would be treated like any other federal detainee awaiting trial.”

Satterthwaite and Fisher said President George H.W. Bush authorized specific procedures for renditions in 1993 through National Security Directive 77.

President Clinton, they noted, went further “emphasizing rendition as a key counter-terrorism strategy” and signing presidential decision directive PDD-39 on June 21, 1995, which stated, in part, “Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government…” One outcome of the Clinton policy, the scholars write, was the rendition of Tal’at Fu’ad Qassim, an Egyptian national that had been granted asylum in Denmark and seized by the U.S. in Bosnia and transported to Egypt, where he was reportedly executed---the first known rendition by the U.S. of a victim to a third country with a record of torture.

Between 1998 and 2000, the CIA rendered more than two dozen suspects, then-CIA Director George Tenet testified. In 2004, Tenet testified before Congress there had been more than 80 renditions prior to September 11, 2001.

Since 9/11, the scholars wrote, renditions have been used not to obtain jurisdiction over the suspects in order to prosecute “but instead to get an individual to talk.

” Previous renditions that required approval by an inter-agency group that included the Departments of Justice and State, were now placed in the hands of the CIA, which could render suspects “without consultation.”

Satterthwaite and Fisher write extraordinary rendition is prohibited by a number of international human rights treaties the U.S. has signed, including the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(“CAT”), and the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR, or “the Covenant”).

Both prohibit the refoulement, or transfer, of an individual to another state where the person faces the risk of torture. Both treaties require ratifying states to institute domestic laws penalizing torture and CAT specifically requires states to criminalize conspiracy and aiding and abetting in torture.

Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for the City of Chicago and Nassau County, N.Y.,governments; as a news director for the National Urban League; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News; as a workplace columnist for Reuters; as a media consultant to colleges, universities, law schools and more than 100 national magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Business Week, and Foreign Policy; as a speechwriter for mayors, governors and presidential candidates, and as a radio news reporter and talk show host at WOL, Washington, D.C. He holds an award for "best spot news coverage" for Chicago radio stations in 1963. His degree from the University of Miami was in race relations and he has written a book, "Gruening of Alaska," a number of national magazine articles and several plays, including "Baron Jiro," produced at Live Arts Theatre, Charlottesville, Va., and "Yamamoto's Decision," read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.

TASER FILE: Guliani connection

The Giuliani Connection to the TASER Abuse Explosion by Zak Maymin Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com

Bernard Kerik, former Giuliani's driver , is behind the sudden advancement of tasers. The phenominal rise of tasers is mainly due to the efforts of Rudy Giuliani. In 2001, Taser International developed its "Advanced Taser Electro-Muscular Disruption" system and became a publicly traded company ("Taser"). In 2000, Giuliani installed Kerik as the New York City police commissioner. In 2002, Kerik, a senior vice president at Giuliani Partners and CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, became Taser's director.

With Kerik at the steering wheel, Taser's profits grew ten times in two years, to $68 million in 2004, up from just under $7 million in 2001. By the way, sales have been helped along by police officers who have received payments and/or stock options from Taser to serve as instructors and trainers.

received weapons orders from Homeland Security. In 2004 Bush, lobbied by Giuliani, nominated Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security. The same year, Kerik made more than $6 million from Taser.

Just five years earlier, Kerik faced lawsuits over delinquent payments for his condo. The life of this high school dropout changed after he became Giuliani's chauffeur. Giuliani made him rich, powerful, and, as a result, well-educated. After Kerik got a mail-order Bachelor's Degree from Empire State College in 2002, he went on to receive Honorary Doctorates from Iona College, New York Institute of Technology, Manhattanville College, the College of New Rochelle, and Michigan State University. In 2002, according to keriklegaltrust.com, "Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, also honored him with an honorary appointment as Commander of the Most Excellent Royal Order of the British Empire."

In 2004, the Commander of the Most Excellent Royal Order withdrew as nominee for secretary of homeland security and resigned from Giuliani Partners "to clear his good name. " "He continues to be a friend,'' said Giuliani of the Commander and immediately renamed Giuliani-Kerik LLC to Giuliani Security & Safety LLC.

Earlier this month, Kerik was indicted on federal criminal charges.

A U.N. committee called the use of tasers "a form of torture." Amnesty International estimated in hundreds taser related deaths.

Giuliani: "Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Ok, we get it. It's all because of the war on terror. Just where is it all going?

Next we will see flying taser saucers zapping us from the sky. Don't believe it? This weapon has already been built by Taser and tested in Houston. Then there is the crowd control taser. The Air Force secretary Wynne called for using it against US citizens first, before we try it on terrorists, because that "... would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns."

Yesterday's poll showed Rudy Taser Giuliani as the best candidate to address terrorism. Just don't tase us, bro!

www.publicani.com

Zak Maymin works in finance and writes about freedom.

IMPEACHMENT TOOKIT; OPED NEWS ON IMPEACHMENT

The Political Issue that Nobody Wants to Talk About	Timothy V. Gatto	2007-11-30	0
The 'Surge' Is Working? Fine. Then Bush Should Be Impeached.	David Michael Green	2007-11-29	0
America Heads for the Trash Can of History	Paul Craig Roberts	2007-11-29	4
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?	Dave Lindorff	2007-11-29	26
Two Candidates Explicitly Put Peace Before Party: Kucinich and Paul Challenge Their Party to Take Peace Seriously	Kevin Zeese	2007-11-29	1
Annoyed by the DNC's Decision to Cancel the Dec. 10th Debate	Kevin Gosztola	2007-11-29	3
CheneyBush Burned Again: Too Near the Plame	Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers	2007-11-28	1
Wake-Up Call	Dave Lindorff	2007-11-28	7
"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call!"	MikeHersh	2007-11-28	0
Impeachment Forum in Bucks County PA, with Rob Kall, Dave Lindorff, Elizabeth Holtzman	Rob Kall	2007-11-28	1
Confronting the FCC Monolith	Kevin Gosztola	2007-11-27	0
Nancy Skinner is the kind of Democrat we NEED in Congress	kpominville	2007-11-27	2
The Put Up or Shut Up Challenge	Andrew Bard Schmookler	2007-11-27	0
New Broom Coalition asks Fitzgerald to reopen the Plame case	Howard Burbank II	2007-11-26	0
Scott McClellan - Where are the Headlines?	Michael Collins	2007-11-26	44
The Real Plan Behind the Iraq War	Moss David Posner, M.D.	2007-11-26	1
Kucinich in Virginia	David Swanson	2007-11-26	0
America needs a drastic change of political landscape	Scott McLarty	2007-11-26	3
TERM LIMITS FOR CONGRESS - LET'S RESTART THE DISCUSSION	Linda Milazzo	2007-11-25	16
Saving America - A Plan of Action!	William Cormier	2007-11-25	4
The Time Has Come	Brian Wolf	2007-11-25	1
ANNOUNCING THE NEW BROOM COALITION	Carol Wolman	2007-11-24	3
When Will the Light See the Dark of Day?	Michael Bonanno	2007-11-24	10
Why a Democrat President Hasn't a Chance to Save the Nation	Jim Freeman	2007-11-24	4
Is Impeachment Still Off the Table Pelosi?	Rowan Wolf	2007-11-23	11
Next Impeach Target: Major Campaign Contributors	Ralph Lopez	2007-11-23	0
Sardonic Thanks-- 16 or so things to be somewhat thankful for	Rob Kall	2007-11-22	8
Impeachment on the Thanksgiving Table	Dave Lindorff	2007-11-22	7
All The President's Liars: Where the Hell are The Washington Post and New York Times on McClellangate?!	steve young	2007-11-21	11
Are Bush and Cheney guilty of treason?	Carol Wolman	2007-11-21	2

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT; Mukasey

There are currently over 1 million "hits" on google regarding Mukasey and TORTURE

http://www.google.ca/search?q=Mukasey+torture&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=
org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Editorial: Torture and the Attorneys General Submitted by Sheila Samples

The only information Mr. Mukasey can possibly be lacking is whether Mr. Bush broke the law by authorizing the C.I.A. to use waterboarding — a judgment that the White House clearly does not want him to render in public because it could expose a host of officials to criminal accountability. Would Mr. Mukasey approve of waterboarding an American soldier? Mr. Bush’s policies increase the danger of that happening.

My article on this is at this URL
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/opedne_ladybroa_070917_mukasey_as_next_atto.htm

A list of other articles on Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales is at:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/showtags.php?tid=6704&tag=/Attorney+General

This is Congress's important letter about the FISA court (remember they are avoiding using any reference to the ICC and The Hague and note the signatories. if anyone knows who sees this, which of these signatories subsequently voted for WAR FUNDING!!

ladybroadoak

Singed by Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter PATRICKJ. LEAHY, VERMONT, CHAIRMAN EDWARD M. KENNEDY, MASSACHUSETTS ARLEN SPECTER,PENNSYLVANIA JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., DELAWARE ORRIN G. HATCH, UTAH HERB KOHL, WISCONSIN CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, IOWA DIANNE FEINSTEIN, CALIFORNIA JON KYL, ARIZONA RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, WISCONSIN JEFF SESSIONS, ALABAMA CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NEW YORK LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA RICHARDJ. DURBIN, ILLINOIS JOHN CORNYN, TEXAS BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, MARYLAND SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND TOM COBURN, OKLAHOMA BRUCEA. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director MICHAELO'NEIll, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director May 21, 2007 The Honorable Alberto Gonzales Attorney General of the United States U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20530 Dear Attorney General Gonzalez: COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY WASHINGTON, DC 20510-6275 Last week we heard dramatic and deeply troubling testimony from former Deputyttorney General Corney. He testified that in March 2004, when he was Acting Attorneyeneral, he informed the White House that the Department of Justice had concluded an ongoing classified surveillance program had "no legal basis" and would not certify it. He then described how you, then Counsel to the President, and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card arrived at the hospital bedside of an extremely ill Attorney General Ashcroft and attempted to persuade him to certify the program. When you failed, because Mr. Ashcroft refused, Mr. Corney testified that the program was nonetheless certified over the objections of the Department of Justice. That apparently prompted a number of high-ranking Justice officials to consider resigning en masse. This incident obviously raises very serious questions about your personal behavior and commitment to the rule oflaw. Mr. Corney's testimony also demonstrates vividly how essential it is that this Committee understands the legal underpinnings of the surveillance program that was the subject of that incident, and how the legal justification evolved over time. The stonewalling by you and the Administration must end. The Committee on the Judiciary is charged with overseeing and legislating on constitutional protections, civil and criminal justice, civil liberties, and the Judiciary, all subjects that this matter impacts. We intend to do our job. This Committee has made no fewer than eight formal requests over the past 18 months - to the White House, the Attorney General, or other Department of Justice officials seeking documents and information related to this surveillance program. These requests have sought the Executive Branch legal analysis of this program and documents reflecting its authorization by the President. You have rebuffed all requests for documents and your answers to our questions have been wholly inadequate and, at times, misleading. We note also that the Administration has offered a legislative proposal that it contends seeks to "modernize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As you know, the Judiciary Committee has historically overseen changes to FISA and it is this committee's responsibility to review the Administration's proposal with great care. The draft legislation would make dramatic and far-reaching changes to a critical national security authority. Before we can even begin to consider any such legislative proposal,we must be given appropriate access to the information necessary to carry out our oversight and legislative duties. This Administration has asserted that it established its program of warrantless wiretapping by the NSA because it deemed FISA's requirements to be incompatible with the needs of the intelligence community in fighting terrorism. You testified in January that the warrantless wiretapping program had been terminated and that henceforth surveillance would be conducted pursuant to authorization from the FISA Court. To consider any changes to FISA, it is critical that this Committee understand how the Department and the FISA Court have interpreted FISA and the perceived flaws that led the Administration to operate a warrantless surveillance program outside of FISA's provisions for over five years. Your consistent stonewalling and misdirection have prevented this Committee from carrying out its constitutional oversight and legislative duties for far too long. We understand that much ofthe information we seek may currently be classified, but that can be no excuse for failing to provide relevant information to all members of this Committee and select, cleared staff. We will, of course, handle it with the greatest care and consistent with security requirements. Therefore, we reiterate our requests for the following documents and ask that you provide them to this Committee no later than June 5, 2007: 1) Please provide all documents that reflect the President's authorization and reauthorization of the warrantless electronic surveillance program that you have called the Terrorist Surveillance Program, including any predecessor programs, from 2001 to the present; 2) Please provide all memoranda or other documents containing analysis or opinions from the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the White House, or any other entity within the Executive Branch on legality of or legal basis for the warrantless electronic surveillance program, including documents that describe why the desired surveillance would not or could not take place consistent with the requirements and procedures of FISA from 2001 to the present; 3) Please provide all documents reflecting communications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) about the warrantless electronic surveillance program or the types of surveillance that previously were conducted as part of that program, that contain legal analysis, arguments, or decisions concerning the interpretation of FISA, the Fourth Amendment, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or the President's authority under Article II of the Constitution, including the January 2007 FISC orders to which you refer in your January 17, 2007 letter to us and all other opinions or orders of the FISA court with respect to this surveillance; 4) If you do not consider the surveillance program that was the subject of discussion during the hospital visit and other events that former Deputy Attorney General James Corney described in his May 15,2007 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to be covered by the requests made above, please provide all documents described in those requests relevant to that program, as well. We emphasize that we are seeking the legal justifications and analysis underlying these matters and not the specific operational details or information obtained by the surveillance. by ladybroadoak (13 articles, 115 comments) on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 5:42:01 AM

Kucinich hit for eyeing Paul as VP

By	Published: 11/27/2007

Jewish Democrats criticized U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) for saying he was considering Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) as his running mate.

The National Jewish Democratic Council in a statement Tuesday slammed comments by Kucinich, a prohibitive underdog among the Democratic presidential

"Despite his views on the Iraq war, Rep. Paul no more belongs on a Democratic ticket than Dennis Kucinich on a Republican one," said NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman. "Any Jewish Democrats or independents that are tempted toward Rep. Paul because of his stance on the war should be reminded that this Republican representative has a terrible record on Middle East politics, is anti-choice and opposes stem cell research."

The NJDC also provided several anti-Israel quotations from Paul, whose presidential candidacy on the GOP side has attracted support from several neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

On Sunday, Kucinich told a crowd in New Hampshire that he was considering Paul as his running mate. Despite being from different parties, Kucinich said the joint ticket could "balance the energies in this country."

THE TREASURY'S MISSING MINUTES MYSTERY

See these links as well:

Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 8:36 AM

November 29, 2007 -- AFTER a year and a half of stalling, the US Treasury finally complied with The Post's requests for information about The President's Working Group on Financial Markets - by delivering 177 pages of crap.

In essence, the Treasury's Freedom of Information officials said that the Working Group - affectionately nicknamed the Plunge Protection Team - doesn't keep records of its meetings.

How interesting and convenient!

Included in the 177 pages that the Treasury said responded to our request on the actions of The President's Working Group were 53 pages on which something was redacted - blacked out so that the discussion was unreadable.

Many of those 53 pages contained no words at all - just a big black blob.

Starting in June of 2006 The Post asked for an accounting of the actions of The President's Working Group, which was formed under President Reagan. The Group seems to have the ill-defined task of keeping an eye on the financial markets. We also asked for e-mails related to our request through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Working Group operates out of the Treasury Department and includes the heads of the various exchanges in the US, as well as top-ranking government officials.

Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve, are the two most prominent members.

Back in August, Paulson said in a television interview that "we've reenergized The President's Working Group on Financial Markets."

The Wall Street Journal last year said that Paulson, upon becoming Treasury Secretary, was insisting that the Working Group meet every six weeks.

Whatever the schedule of meetings, one of those meetings occurred on Aug. 17 - the day the Federal Reserve surprised the financial markets with a cut in its discount rate.

According to records that someone else got from Bernanke's office through a FOIA request, there was an 11 a.m. conference call on Aug. 17 of the "PWG" - the President's Working Group.

Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and Patrick Parkinson, a Treasury staffer, took part in that call, according to Bernanke's phone log.

The day before - Aug. 16 - Bernanke and Paulson had lunch, but it isn't clear whether this was just two guys having a meal or if it, too, was related to The President's Working Group.

Hours after that lunch, word got around on Wall Street that the Fed was about to make a move and the stock market staged a tremendous rally.

The next day those rumors of Fed action proved accurate.

So what's the Working Group up to?

I suspect the group is ready to come to the rescue of the financial markets - even equities - in the case of a meltdown.

And as I've said in the past, that would be a completely acceptable task as long as it remains a limited power that is used infrequently.

But who decides when a rescue is needed?

And if no records are kept, who is held accountable if The Working Group's power is abused?

George Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to President Clinton, tried to calm fears right after the terrorist attack in 2001 by explaining that The President's Working Group was at the ready to prop up the stock market.

I, too, had a similar conversation with a Fed official in Sept. 2001.

But the chance of abus ing this presi dential man date - even for personal gain - is great whenever an orga nization operates in secrecy.

And that's exactly how The President's Working Group is operating.

Included in the pile of manure we received from Treasury this week is an internal e-mail dated April 9, 2007 that Heidilynne Schultheiss, director of the Treasury's Office of Financial Market Policy, sent to six people.

The subject "Minutes of PWG Meetings?"

"Hi All, We received a FOIA request asking for minutes of meetings of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG). As far as we know, minutes are not (and never have been) kept . . . A search of our records turned up nothing," Schultheiss wrote.

That same day someone at Treasury named Mary Kertz e-mailed a bunch of folks "re: meeting notes from last PWG meeting on Financial Markets."

The e-mail said: "Thanks. Just spoke with Norman - he said the Fed Chairman had said he believed minutes were recorded for these meetings. Strange."

I don't know who Norman is. But I agree that having a powerful organization like this meet in secret is very, very strange.

See also:

PAULSON PLAYS WITH THE PLUNGE PROTECTORS

October 26, 2006 -- PAY attention!

Someone - and I don't know who - wants us all to know that since July Henry Paulson, the new secretary of the U.S. Treasury, has spent a lot of time on a little known Washington operation called the President's Working Group on Financial Markets.

That was the major message in a prominent piece this past Monday in The Wall Street Journal.

The big mystery is why do these people want us to know this? And why now? I wrote about the Working Group on Financial Markets back in June when Paulson left Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs to accept the top job at Treasury.

*SNIP*

Since the Federal Reserve is the group that would lower interest rates in an emergency, the Plunge Protectors would probably be the ones who'd fix the problem. In other words, they'd throw money at it.

Stocks have been moving steadily upward since July, when Paulson took over the Plunge Protection Team (and the Treasury). And one of the reasons could be that - as I mentioned back then - there is less risk in stocks if the government is providing a safety net.

Less risk, that is, until something bad happens.

john.crudele@nypost.com

ENTIRE the article here:

Information on this blog posted about the plunge protection team can be accessed by searching the links below.

Other bills pending in Congress ..

H1955: To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes [1 comment]

• Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to add provisions concerning the prevention of homegrown terrorism (terrorism by individuals born, raised, or based and operating primarily in the United States).
• Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to: (1) establish a grant program to prevent radicalization (use of an extremist belief system for facilitating ideologically-based violence) and homegrown terrorism in the United States; (2) establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States; and (3) conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
• Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism from violating the constitutional and civil rights, and civil liberties, of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

Community support (0 support, 15 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 8 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

The bill of the day is chosen by the BillWatch team. We aim to pick a diverse range of bills representing a variety of viewpoints. Our selection of this bill does not imply an endorsement.

Noteworthy Bills (based on site activity)

S185: A bill to restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States [12 comments]

• Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007- Repeals provisions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that eliminated the jurisdiction of any court to hear or consider applications for a writ of habeas corpus filed by aliens who have been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as enemy combatants (or who are awaiting such determination) and actions against the United States relating to the detention of such aliens and to military commissions (thus restoring habeas corpus rights existing prior to the enactment of such Act).
• Allows courts to hear or consider legal challenges to military commissions only as provided by the Code of Military Justice or by a habeas corpus proceeding.

Community support (88 support, 5 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 73 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

S215: A bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure net neutrality [6 comments]

• Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to establish certain Internet neutrality duties for broadband service providers (providers), including not interfering with, or discriminating against, the ability of any person to use broadband service in a lawful manner. Allows providers to engage in activities in furtherance of certain management and business-related practices, such as protecting network security and offering consumer protection services such as parental controls.
• Prohibits a provider from requiring a subscriber, as a condition on the purchase of broadband service, to purchase any cable service, telecommunications service, or IP-enabled voice service.
• Requires a report from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to specified congressional committees on provider delivery of broadband content, applications, and services.

Community support (67 support, 8 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 38 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

HJ18: To redeploy U.S. forces from Iraq [3 comments]

States that: (1) the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date; (2) a quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region; and (3) the United States shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

Community support (59 support, 8 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 50 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

HJ22: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage [6 comments]

• Declares that marriage in the United States shall consist only of a legal union of a man and a woman.
• Prohibits any federal or state court from having jurisdiction to determine whether the U.S. Constitution or any state constitution requires the legal incidents of marriage to be conferred upon any union other than a legal union between one man and one woman.
• Provides that no state shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state concerning a union between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage, or as having the legal incidents of marriage, under the laws of such other state.

Community support (6 support, 82 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: -4 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

S356: A bill to ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child [3 comments]

• Amends the Public Health Service Act to require an abortion provider, before beginning any abortion of a pain-capable unborn child (defined as an unborn child who has reached a probable stage of development of 20 weeks after fertilization), to: (1) make a specified statement to the pregnant woman that Congress has determined that there is substantial evidence that the process will cause the unborn child pain, and that the mother has the option of having pain-reducing drugs administered directly to the child; (2) provide to the woman an Unborn Child Pain Awareness Brochure (unless she waives receipt) and an Unborn Child Pain Awareness Decision Form; and (3) obtain on the form the woman's signature and her explicit request for or refusal of the administration of drugs to the child.
• Creates an exception for certified medical emergencies.
• Establishes penalties for willfully failing to comply with this Act, including civil penalties, medical license suspension, or both. Authorizes: (1) specified officials to bring suit in federal court; and (2) private rights of action by a parent or guardian of a woman who is an unemancipated minor.
• [View bill for full summary]

Community support (10 support, 43 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: -16 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

H3: To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research [7 comments]

Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct and support research that utilizes human embryonic stem cells, regardless of the date on which the stem cells were derived from a human embryo. Limits such research to stem cells that meet the following ethical requirements: (1) the stem cells were derived from human embryos donated from in vitro fertilization clinics for the purpose of fertility treatment and were in excess of the needs of the individuals seeking such treatment; (2) the embryos would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded; and (3) such individuals donate the embryos with written informed consent and receive no financial or other inducements.

Community support (61 support, 10 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 16 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

H1590: To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the climate [3 comments]

• Amends the Clean Air Act to direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate: (1) targets for a 2% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions each year from 2010-2050; and (2) regulations requiring reductions to meet such targets, including by setting caps on emissions of sources and sectors with the largest emissions or the best opportunities to reduce them, by issuing and authorizing trading of emission allowances, and by imposing penalties for excess emissions.
• Requires relevant federal agencies to finalize a rule to carry out the National Academies' recommendations for regulatory action needed to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations or explain their reasons for declining to act.
• Requires the President to submit to Congress a plan for the distribution of emission allowances (including through auctions) and the use of proceeds (to be deposited in a Climate Reinvestment Fund) for specified goals, including mitigating the effects of energy cost increases and climate change.
• [View bill for full summary]

Community support (35 support, 12 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 11 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

HJ12: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizing the Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States [9 comments]

Grants Congress the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the U.S. flag.

Community support (2 support, 44 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: -14 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

H3053: To protect private property rights [1 comment]

• Prohibits a state or political subdivision from exercising its power of eminent domain, or allowing the exercise of such power by delegation, over property to be used for economic development or over property that is used for economic development within seven years after that exercise, if the state or political subdivision receives federal economic development funds during any fiscal year in which the property is so used or intended to be used.
• Prohibits the federal government from exercising its power of eminent domain for economic development.
• Establishes a private cause of action for any private property owner or tenant who suffers injury as a result of a violation of this Act. Prohibits state immunity in federal or state court. Sets the statute of limitations at seven years.
• [View bill for full summary]

Community support (43 support, 3 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 16 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

IMPEACH; Bill Watch

Bill Summary

For FAQ on impeachment:

The Administration is highly aware it has committed war crimes and is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. It has colluded with Congress on many occasions to supress such knowledge.

Will co-sonspiracy with CONgress, will be the subject of a grand jury investigation, nonsupport of this bill is evidence of COLLUSIONS and will be noted in upcoming international hearings on torture and war crimes.

We must pursue every single legal remedy and this is one that must be pursued.

Cheney does NOT believe that Iran is using enriched uranium to build a bomb: we has actually been providing them with a legal reason to attack.

I count 15 cosponsors to the bill below. Write them and say thank you and show them your support! And spread this notice.

We can celebrate when the first Republican comes on board.

PUT ON THE PRESSURE TO GET THIS BILL OUT OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. Contact your representative today. Ask for the discharge of Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker. There is a dual party proposal to have that be done.

Remove the legal reasons justifying an attack on America by another nation or anyone else fighting back against war funding by CONGRESS.

Veeger

HR333: Impeaching Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors [2 comments]

• Impeaches Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
• Sets forth articles of impeachment stating that Vice President Cheney: (1) has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against Iraq in a manner damaging to U.S. national security interests; and (2) has openly threatened aggression against Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and has done so with the U.S. proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining U.S. national security.

Community support (66 support, 7 oppose) I am for this bill | I am against this bill

Importance Community assessment: 50 Nudge importance higher | Nudge importance lower

View full text

View bill history

Additional Information

HR333 at GovTrack

HR333 at the Library of Congress

Sponsor

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Democrat Ohio http://kucinich.house.gov

Co-Sponsors

Rep. Tammy Baldwin [D, WI-2] Rep. Robert Brady [D, PA-1] Rep. Yvette Clarke [D, NY-11] Rep. William Clay [D, MO-1] Rep. Steve Cohen [D, TN-9]

Rep. Keith Ellison [D, MN-5] Rep. Sam Farr [D, CA-17] Rep. Bob Filner [D, CA-51] Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee [D, TX-18] Rep. Henry Johnson [D, GA-4]

Rep. Barbara Lee [D, CA-9] Rep. James McDermott [D, WA-7] Rep. James Moran [D, VA-8] Rep. Donald Payne [D, NJ-10] Rep. Janice Schakowsky [D, IL-9]

[View all]

Arguments

Add argument

For No arguments for this bill have been posted yet. Be the first one!

Against blahq | October 12 at 19:16 | Rating: 3 | To rate arguments you must first select your stance This bill is a joke. How can (2) be considered a high crime or misdemeanor. Cheney, being sane, believes that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the United States, crazy Democrats, being stupid, do not. This is criminalizing a difference of opinion. But then again, what else would you expect from liberals?

Comments

Add comment

mingdamirthless | October 18 at 20:58 | Reply | Rating: 4 | Rate up | Rate down

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but I'd have no problem with Cheney being impeached. I do not believe he has acted in the best interest of this country, and that's the one thing the American people expect from him.

In fact, if he HAS done the things that I and most others suspect, he should probably be in his beloved Gitmo, where he could discuss the merits of habeas corpus with his jailers.

The Democrats are implicated in every single crime IMPEACH

why-there-is-no-impeachment-democrats.html">Why there is no impeachment: The Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the current administration

November 28, 2007

For those NEW TO THIS BLOG: This is argument is linked to "coming war with Iran".

Yes: I TOLD YOU SO

Every now and then, when I am in a particularly self-punishing mood and feel I deserve some suffering for my sins, real or imagined, I read comment threads on various blogs, where commenters are debating the merits and failings of a minor league blogger who goes by the name Arthur Silber. As I say, I only engage in this ill-advised practice on rare occasions; besides, my writing isn't discussed that much by anyone, so it's not as if the opportunity arises with any regularity.

One comment that I've seen more than a few times typically goes like this: "Silber has been amazingly prescient. Everything he's predicted has come true. Everything. I don't know how he does it." That's all very nice, and I also think it happens to be true. But when I first saw this sort of remark a year or so ago, I would usually get very angry. I wanted to shout, or at least add a comment of my own, all in capital letters: "SO WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME NOW?" The primary subject about which I would have such thoughts is the one that ought to concern everyone, the only subject that matters now in terms of what it could mean for the future of the world, and of the United States: the probability of an attack on Iran.

Did you hear that? An attack on Iran.

Do you understand what I'm saying? A LIKELY ATTACK ON IRAN.

Never mind. The point is that even commenters who offer this kind of praise for my musings will not listen to me now, despite what they themselves admit is a track record of 100% accuracy, or as close to 100% accuracy as anyone is likely to come. For such commenters always go on to add: "Oh, but I don't read him regularly. I can't. He's just too damned depressing."

Please note that they do not contend that I'm wrong or inaccurate in what I see coming down the road. They acknowledge that I've been right before, and that I'm probably right now. But they would prefer not to think about it. It's just too depressing, doncha know. Of course, this is an entirely valid and useful approach to politics, and to life in general. When the deadly boulder topples over the edge of the cliff and is headed toward a landing directly on top of where you're standing below, it's always most advisable to close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and say over and over and over again:

"It's not happening!

There's no boulder!

It will be fine!

NOTHING'S WRONG!!

IT'S NOT HAPPENING!!!!"

Those of us who survive what may be coming will do our best to scoop up your pitifully splattered remains, and give you a decent burial. Never let it be said that we are disrespectful, or vindictive in even the smallest degree. We shall honor your memory, just as it deserves to be honored.

Many people consider it bad form to say, "I told you so." But I have, in detail, on many different subjects, most importantly in connection with trying to prevent terrible future events. Have I mentioned the likelihood of AN ATTACK ON IRAN? Forget it. Oh, you already have. Good for you! Anyway, only a few people listen to me -- I'm such a downer -- so what the hell.

For many months, I have been saying that this Democratic Congress would never, ever impeach anyone in the Bush administration. I said it in "Blinded by the Story":

But for the reasons set forth above (and a full case would fill many volumes), the Democrats are not going to impeach any of these criminals, barring events entirely unforeseeable at present. And they will not for one overwhelmingly significant and determinative reason: always with regard to the underlying principles, and frequently with regard to the specifics, the Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the members of the administration. The Republicans' crimes are their crimes.

I said it in "From the Department of Not Going to Happen":

Of course, if the Democrats had any convictions that were genuinely opposed to the corporatist, authoritarian, warfare state, they would begin impeachment proceedings against both Bush and Cheney immediately upon Congress's return in September (and they would have begun them months ago) -- because impeachment is deserved 1,000 times over in both cases, and because such proceedings might make an attack on Iran less likely. That would also assume that the Washington Democrats had some strategic smarts.

Democrats with deeply held convictions that impelled them to principled action that was not guaranteed to be successful, and clever about the implementation of a plan -- one that didn't directly concern an election -- that demanded their careful attention for more than a week or two? Excuse me for a moment.



Sorry. I had to collapse to the floor in helpless laughter for a few minutes, and then slowly pull myself back up so I could get to the keyboard.

I said it again recently, in "Get Out the Razor":

So impeachment WON'T hurt the Democrats politically. Not even in terms of 2008. Why, it might HELP them -- and help them to an overwhelming victory. Not incidentally, it would also signal to the world that there are at least some people in our national life who give a damn about the Constitution, about the law (including international law), about moral law, about the value of human life, about civilization, about decency. It might save us from being unceremoniously heaved into the filthiest of trash heaps, where we deservedly belong.

More and more Democrats themselves admit that impeachment is the unquestionably appropriate remedy, and fully DESERVED. It won't hurt them politically. So why won't they do it?

One more time -- first, what I said that is excerpted above:

[Impeachment] is the one method the Democrats will categorically, absolutely not utilize -- because the Democrats are a crucial, inextricable part of the identical authoritarian-corporatist system that has led us to these horrors. They have all worked toward this end over many decades, Democrats and Republicans alike, and now the horrors manifest themselves explicitly, without apology, even with the sickening boastfulness of the mass murderer who is proud of what he has done, and who vehemently believes he is right.

Or as I put it in an earlier essay:

...

Try to grasp this finally, before it is too late: the Democrats may differ from the Republicans on matters of detail, or emphasis, or style. But with regard to the fundamental political principles involved, everything that has happened over the last six years -- just as is the case with everything that has happened over the last one hundred years -- is what the Democrats want, too.

This should not be a difficult point to understand. The historical record is compelling in its clarity, and overpowering in its length and volume. A corporatist, authoritarian state is what the ruling elites want, and it is precisely what serves their interests, Republican and Democrat alike. They know it; they count on your inability or refusal to see it.

That's why they won't do it. That's why impeachment is "off the table." Try, please try for crap's sake, to understand this. I am weary of explaining it.

But I will keep explaining it, until at least 15 of you get it. At the current rate, I expect that to take until 2018.

Even now, I'm an optimist. Go figure.

And I've said it in a number of other posts.

In the latest installment of my "Final Descent" series, I mentioned an illuminating conversation between Jonathan Turley and Randi Rhodes, on Rhodes' radio show. The topic on that occasion was the increasingly widespread use of a specific form of police intimidation typical of a more and more tyrannical state. When the police approach or question you, even if you have done absolutely nothing criminal and nothing wrong at all, if you do anything that the police may later construe as "resisting arrest," they will arrest you for resisting arrest -- even if there had been nothing to arrest you for in the first instance. Oh, my, you are thinking. Why that means the police could arrest anyone -- and everyone! Exactly.

The state and the numerous representatives who execute its authority
understand that;

it's time more of you did.

Rhodes invited Turley to be her guest again today. Their discussion began with the government's systematic abuse of the state secrets privilege: how the government uses the privilege to shield itself from the exposure of any and all of its many criminal acts. Invoke the state secrets privilege, and the case is stopped dead in its tracks. Eventually, when the privilege is invoked a sufficient number of times and on enough points critical to a specific case, the lawsuit goes away entirely.

They then turned to impeachment, and why it is not going to happen -- and exactly how the Democrats are doing everything in their power to make certain it doesn't happen. Rhodes said she wanted Turley to explain his views, because Turley's insights had helped to make clear what Rhodes herself had not been able to understand. Rhodes said she hadn't understood at all why the Democrats wouldn't pursue hearings and investigations more aggressively, why they keep talking about retroactive immunity for the telecom companies (see "It's Called the Ruling Class Because It Rules," for a discussion of that and related subjects), and in general why the Democrats act like a pathetic, horribly abused dog that is regularly beaten almost to death. (If you'd been reading my blog, Randi, you would have understood it months ago! No, on this point I am not remotely humble.) For all the good they've done on any subject of importance, the Democrats might as well have taken the last year off. That could only have been an improvement. They have turned themselves into almost non-existent blobs of putrefying flesh, without the excuse of being non-existent or dead.

So if you didn't believe it when I said it, listen up. Here is what Turley had to say. The Democrats will never pursue hearings or investigations of the Bush administration beyond a certain point the Democrats consider "safe," they will not object to the administration derailing any case of moment by invoking the state secrets privilege, they keep telecom immunity alive, and the Democrats act in countless other ways to bury and cover up the crimes of the Bush gang, because there is one eventuality they fear more than any other: if there were ever to be a finding -- by a court, in Congressional committee, or anywhere else -- that the Bush administration, including the president himself, in fact ordered criminal acts, then they would have to begin impeachment hearings. It is inconceivable that even this repellent Congress could ignore, for example, a court determination that Bush had ordered torture -- which, as Turley pointed out, would constitute a war crime as defined by U.S. courts. The same would be true of any finding that the administration, perhaps including the president himself, had committed a crime by ordering illegal domestic surveillance.

Turley additionally noted that this is why the Democrats went out of their way to "save" the administration on the Mukasey nomination. The Democrats, or at least key Democratic leaders, didn't want Mukasey to say that water boarding constitutes torture. That would mean that administration officials had committed a war crime -- again, as defined by U.S. courts. They would have to begin impeachment hearings, once the meaning of the admission sank in. So the Democrats made certain that the question could be avoided, and that Mukasey was confirmed by a comfortable margin (see, "There Is No 'Lesser' Evil Now").

The broader point that Turley went on to make is the one I've made repeatedly, in the essays linked above and in others as well. "These are not principled people in this city," Turley correctly noted. He said he was sorry to have to say it, but it's the inescapable truth. Turley said that, with regard to the most critical dynamics in play, party designations don't matter much at all: "They don't believe in principle. They believe in power."

Turley thus made precisely the same point that I made in an article I wrote just before the 2006 elections:

Ah, but the Democrats will investigate the Bush administration's endless crimes. The investigations will restore honesty, decency and "true" American values to government. All the universes will be saved! Do people actually believe this nonsense? All such investigations will be exactly like all other government investigations of itself. People seem congenitally incapable of grasping that all politicians are now part of the same corrupt system, which aims only to protect itself and its existing prerogatives, as it simultaneously seeks to expand them. (The exceptions in the political class are so few that they don't matter.) In the end, all such investigations and committee hearings will conclude just as the 9/11 investigation concluded (and any other investigation you care to name): some criticisms will be made, general fault will be found but no one in particular will be condemned in terms that might cause distress, and some new guidelines and regulations will be proposed and enacted. Neither party wants to judge the other too harshly or cause irreparable harm: they don't want to, because they count on the same consideration in return. Both parties are happy to accede to this deal, for it is precisely how their system continues on its merry course, guaranteeing their lives of immense comfort and privilege, together with their hold on power.

Many of the rest of us, both here and abroad, will be screwed, maimed or dead -- and just when exactly did that concern the governing class?

Do you understand now? Do you finally get it? I truly am weary of explaining facts that should be obvious to a not very bright, woefully underachieving six-year-old -- particularly when I'm dealing with adults who are resolutely determined to render themselves deaf, dumb and blind in perpetuity.

There is still a chance -- now a very dim and remote one, I grant you -- to prevent an attack on Iran. Here's that detailed program again, with a more recent version of part of it in the concluding part of this essay.

Oh, that's right. You don't want to hear about any of that. It's just too goddamned depressing.

God, most Americans are abysmally pathetic. I don't know why I even bother any longer.

posted by Arthur Silber at 2:32 PM

Links to this post

Impeach Cheney, Bush and Pelosi

Impeach Cheney, Bush and Pelosi! 11/29/07. Ted Lang. As has been consistently reported by the real American news media, the Internet, a vast majority of Americans want the war in Iraq ended, and also want Cheney, the real head of the ...

Posted by Rocker at Thursday, November 29, 2007

Why there is no impeachment: The Democrats are implicated in every

Mediascout roundup on Shrieber/Mulroney/Parliament "event"

SHOWTIME FOR SCHREIBER
by Daniel Casey
November 29, 2007

As MediaScout writes these words, the wires are humming with the news that an aging, portly Bavarian has crossed the threshold of Centre Block as the first prisoner of the Speaker of the House of Commons since 1913: Ladies and gentlemen, Karlheinz Schreiber is in the building. Schreiber was transferred to the Ottawa-Carleton detention centre last night, in preparation for his extraordinary appearance before the Commons Ethics Committee today. Some of the Ottawa press corps smell blood on this one, and are making an impressive effort to provide background and set the scene, from Jane Taber’s one-two-three portrait of the parliamentary figures involved in serving the Speaker’s warrant, to Elizabeth Thompson’s burrowing for Schreiber’s donations to Liberal candidates in the Citizen. Others, like James Travers and Les Whittington of the Star, seem a little less impressed with the story, or at least with the potential for new revelations from Schreiber in his testimony before the Ethics Committee. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has his back to the wall in all of this, and the Post charts his lawyer’s affidavits trying to discredit Schreiber—who, lest we forget, is suing Mulroney to recover the $300,000 in cash he paid the former prime minister, payments that Mulroney says was a bad deal for a pasta company, and that Schreiber says was for services never rendered.

The Citizen focuses on the maneuvering to stay Schreiber’s extradition, which under the current order has to take place by December 30. The federal Justice Ministry has offered to consent to an extension to the order—which Justice Minister Rob Nicholson claimed he was powerless to modify earlier this week—if Schreiber’s attorneys will speed up his Supreme Court appeal that seeks to void the extradition altogether. Now, Nicholson acknowledges that Schreiber “isn’t going anywhere for the moment.” The Globe and the CBC’s fifth estate share what might be the biggest scoop yet: An email, sent from the address of the wife of Mulroney-era Solicitor General Elmer MacKay to the address of Schreiber’s wife, proposing the text of an open letter exonerating Mulroney that Schreiber issued last year. Schreiber says that MacKay suggested that this letter would lead to Mulroney raising the issue of his extradition with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But as the Post points out, this claim, and the assertion that Schreiber made a deal for cash payments with Mulroney before he left office in 1993, flatly contradict his earlier statements. Cash in envelopes, the father of the sitting defence minister negotiating deals using his wife’s email account, RCMP officers leading a shackled prisoner into Parliament itself—this is fun stuff.

Member of Congres War Crimes Problem

Member of Congres War Crimes Problem

The American government’s system of checks and balances relies on sepration of power: Congress appropriates money; and the President spends it. This does not mean that war crimes only attach to those who do things. Nuremberg adjudicated war crimes against legal counsel and officers of the court (judges) for failing to enforce the laws, or attempting to enforce illegal laws. The precedent: Non-Executive branch civilian personnel, leadership, and staff counsel can be prosecuted for war crimes, regardless their distance from the illegal activity on the ground. Members of Congress and their staff counsel have a war crimes problem.

They’re gumming this to death. There are several lines of evidence suggesting there’s great concern within the Member of Congress staff meetings in re war crimes. After DoD JAGs documented their concerns to DOJ that ICC would have a possible/likely role in prosecuting US officials for prisoner abuse, the Military Commissions Act included language that would defend US government officials before “international” tribunals. JAG concerns were not isolated to one document, but related to many working group meetings which Congress and DOJ were well aware and involved.

Congress also has the power — and responsibility — to raise and support the armies [AI S8]. Attached with that is the legal obligation to ensure those funds are only going for lawful things. Congress cannot, in “supporting” an army, spend money on an illegal war, or illegal violations of Geneva.

After WWII, Nuremberg adjudicated war crimes not just against primary actors — those who committed war crimes — but also civilian policy makers, non-executive branch judges, and legal counsel. Nuremberg concluded that the Geneva obligations attached to those who had the power to enforce the law, strike down bad law, and ensure the laws of war were fully preserved. [ See ]

Based on information and belief, it appears the Congressional staff counsel, working in concert with DoD and DoJ Legislative Liasion created language to defend all US government officials — including non-Executive Branch personnel in Congress, as required — against war crimes. Legal counsel memoranda is presumed to exist. It is expected that the arguments in writing, under seal, are not consistent with the public statements of Members of Congress.

Based on information and believe: Congressional staff counsel have memoranda which explicitly raises to Members of Congress the risk that US Members of Congress could be adjudicated with war crimes; that the precedents of Nuremberg do not attach solely to primary acts; and that Members of Congress and the President have a joint interest in never fully investigating all war crimes related issues.

Where To Get The Evidence

Discovery isn’t as difficult as one might expect. It cannot be argued that it is a “state secret” that Members of Congress and DOJ created language defending US government officials before “international” tribunals. The only tribunal related to the MCA — the one the US says it will not recognize — is the ICC and The Hague.

What appears to have happened is the Congress and President have publicly asserted the ICC-The Hague have “no jurisdiction”; but privately, they’ve well discussed the JAG memoranda from the POW working groups. There must be notes, memoranda, meeting minutes, and other things which would coordinate the JAG concerns; develop language for Congress to pass in the MCA; but then develop a public relations policy that would, with the President, attempt to convince the public that the ICC has no jurisdiction. [See sample “working group” Memo: here ] These working groups started after 9-11 in 2001.

Note the link is part of the Congressional record: Someone inside the Congress knew about the working groups, and has discussed this, but where are the war crimes investigations? “Off the table”. That is alleged malfeasance which implicated the Justices at Nuremberg. There’s no case to be made that this alleged malfeasance could not also broadly be applied to individual Members of Congress.

Sample Grand Jury Discovery Plan

- When did Members of Congress and their staff/outside counsel review JAG memoranda from DoD outlining JAG concerns that US civilians could be prosecuted for war crimes before the ICC?

- How long have Members of Congress and their staff counsel known — but failed to investigate — known war crimes which the JAGs well discussed in 2001 in re prisoner abuse?

- When did legal counsel first raise with members of Congress the risks that US civilians could be prosecuted before the ICC?

- When did the DOJ Staff Counsel discuss with Members of Congress, staff counsel and others the need to insert language within the MCA to defend before the ICC or other international tribunals war crimes charges against US Members of Congress, staff counsel, or others in the Executive Branch?

- Which Contractors did Congress and/or President hire to develop this public relations strategy: To attempt to convince the public that Members of Congress are not subject to any judicial review before the ICC or The Hague?

- What meeting minutes do Members of Congress have which took the JAG concerns about prisoner abuse: Why did these notes and memoranda not result in a shut down for funding in a timely manner; and where are the Majority-Minority memoranda to DoD-DoJ-CIA-NSA General Counsels/IGs related to questions about funding for these illegal activities?

- Where are the member of Congress legal counsel memoranda discussing the JAG concerns with prisoner abuse; and why did these memoranda not result in any public investigation of the war crimes?

- Which legal counsel working in Congress have hired outside counsel to defend them before the ICC/The Hague for making allegedly frivolous legal argument: Pretending Members of Congress could not be prosecuted; that the Nuremberg precedents in re Justice Trial could not be applied to other non-combatants in the Legislative Branch?

- When did legal counsel discuss with Members of Congress, Congressional leadership, and other staff counsel in the Executive Branch the problem associated with war crimes evidence: Which “state secrets claims” were known to be frivolous; were jointly agreed by Legislative-Executive counsel to shield evidence damaging to both the Executive and Legislative branches?

- When did Legislative Counsel discuss with members of Congress and others using “state secrets claims” as a basis to allegedly falsely “We cannot get the information,” related to evidence they knew, or should have known was related to illegal activity which they knew or should have known could not be shielded by any state secret claim, privilege, or any executive order?

- When did Members of Congress, their staff counsel, Executive Branch personnel, and their staff counsel jointly agree or indirectly agree to not ask questions related to these memorand abecause the war crimes issues attached not just to the President, VP, but also Members of Congress and staff counsel in both the Legislative and Executive Branches?

Impeachment Must Happen

Please drop by the comments section of this article and leave your remarks.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1879

This is another in a series of URLS discussing impeachment!

Please leave further urls/threads discussing impeachment on the comments section of my blog post.
For further information, just put impeachment of Dick Cheney, Nancy Pelosi or war crimes in the searchbox, or hit on the links listed to the side.

Thanks!!


By Carol Davidek-Waller

11/29/07 "ICH" -- -- Clearly the nation has turned against Vice President Cheney and President George W. Bush. Their approval ratings are the lowest of any elected leaders in American history. We are weary of war and bled white from profligate spending and larceny. Our civil rights have been severely restricted and crimes have been committed. A once peaceful world stands on the brink of turmoil.

As the 2008 elections draw near, it's tempting to look upon regime change as an end to our long night. We would like to believe that a change of face in the Oval Office would repair the damage done by the current administration. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Without investigation and impeachment, electing a new president will only serve to codify the unprecedented and illegitimate power stolen from the Congress and the American people. The powers of a dictator will be passed on like an Olympic torch where they will reside with the next president.

The nation has been wounded in its beating heart. The president is no longer obligated to uphold and defend the Constitution or obey and execute the laws of the land. We no longer have the full protection of the Bill of Rights. Our elected leaders are no longer bound to tell the truth. These wounds will continue to fester until they are cleansed by a strong dose of sunlight.

Failure to impeach is a threat to our national security. In the same way that we cannot expect our nation to be secure if we don’t understand what threatens us beyond our borders, we cannot expect the nation to be secure if we don’t understand and check what threatens us from within. The excesses of our own government can become a far greater threat than terrorism.

Articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney were filed several months ago and the majority of Americans favor impeachment. Congress has refused to act. They even turned a blind eye when Rep. Dennis Kucinich read out the well-document charges against Cheney on the floor of the House and demanded action.

The charges against Cheney are chilling. They outline in stark relief the peril our nation faces when even one man exercises unrestrained power; even a man whose office is purely ceremonial. How could so much damage be done in such a short time? Why has no one stopped him?

Elections give us an opportunity to choose our representatives and leaders. They do not and were never meant to address the gross abuses of power, war crimes, felonies and fraud that Cheney and Bush have engaged in. Impeachment not elections gets top billing in the Constitution.

Elections will not address the tragedy of the hundreds of thousands who have died in an unnecessary war nor honor their sacrifice. Elections will not prevent your government from spying on you without cause or restore your right to privacy. They will not prevent you from being incarcerated or having your assets seized because one man, the president, says so. Elections will not prevent you from being tortured or flown to another country to be tortured. Elections will not keep your own military from being used against you. They will not restore the rule of law or the integrity of the Judiciary. They will not restore the balance of powers. Elections will not prevent this nation or any other from making war at will or stealing another nation’s resources. They will not restore the delicate balance of the global community, shattered by broken treaties and unchecked lust for domination and power.

Elections will not prevent a president Clinton from declaring you an enemy combatant and shipping you off to Guantanamo. They won’t prevent a president Obama from sweeping up Americans and holding them indefinitely on his word alone. They won’t prevent a president Guiliani from illegally and immorally murdering millions of Iranians for no legitimate reason. They won’t prevent a president Romney from seizing your home and assets because he alleges you are impeding operations in Iraq. It won’t prevent a president Thompson from exempting himself, his entire administration and his political supporters from the rule of law. It won’t prevent any president from leaving the nation unprotected by ignoring or rewriting the intelligence to suit his or her political agenda. Elections won’t guarantee that anyone you elect to lead or represent you has to tell you, the congress or the judiciary the truth.

Under the Constitution, we have the right to know if our elected leaders are doing their jobs or abusing the power of their office.

When serious allegations are made, it is our right to have public investigations that are immune to state secrets and executive privilege.

We have a responsibility as citizens to act on that information.

There is no more important work for congress to do. You cannot build anything on a weak foundation. Unscrupulous men and women have damaged the very foundation of our nation: the Constitution is the very bedrock upon which the order and legality of our nation rests. These same people have suspended the rule of law by which we govern ourselves. They assert that the government is theirs to do with as they wish. We cannot let that stand.

The genius of the Constitution is that it contains the remedy for its own healing, it’s own restoration. That remedy is impeachment. Not elections. Impeachment.

Carol Davidek-Waller is a news junkie and an avid blogger.

Click on "comments" below to read or post comments

Comments (9) Comment (0)

"What will impeachment do? nothing not a thing’ it won’t pay for the wrong that has been done’ or the lives’ of those innocent’s you would have to lock up the whole American congress’ because they are just as guilty’ just as the Nazis who stood in the Nuremberg trials’ they the American congress have to be punished collectively in the manner to which they killed with impunity when they convened to do mass murder in the name of “freedom and democracy”

Look. This is mother talking.

We cannot afford the luxury of DENIAL. Some of us working diligently night and day, day after day to establish the legal options as Henry Wasman, John Conyers and Nancy Pelosi continue to block the way. It's called STONEWALLING.

So we are developing a three prong attack, please join.

1. to see that PELOSI, in particular gets removed, as she is not following her Constitutional imperative and that can/does make her a war crime co-conspirator. As Speaker, she MUST move the HR resolution along; she KNOWS that. The legal is building on that.

2. to take the issue to the state legislatures, a move also already under way.

3. Develop SPECIFIC [legal] charges to lay at The Hague.

ALL attempts to impeach MUST be pursued to lay this claim at The Hague and we are shifting through mountains of stuff about SPECIFIC legal claim, the history of how the tribunal was built ..

We must (and we are trying) to unite all those who would pursue impeachment together. That includes people outraged by the thought crimes bill that is pending who have ALREADY gone to state legislatures. It includes outraged Iraqis, French people (who already have made their criminal complaints known, environmentalists, British antiweapons activists, artists, the list is long, longer than you think. Cheney must go first, rather than BuZh to ensure Cheney doesn't mess it up and with the Scott McClellan finally there is an insider who has SPECIFIC evident to criminal wrongdoing that cannot be ignored, even by the AG of the US or HE becomes a war criminal as well.

Check out my blog, www.ladybroadoak.blogspot.com or go to Daily Kos. Do a search of my blog and you'll get each thread carrying SPECIFICS on joining urls.

Afterdowningstreet is another great site that understand we MUST go after Pelosi.

When you learn about the precise EFFECTS of Nuremberg, you will see that we must do this for future generations, for the victims of genocide perpetrated in these wars no matter how great the conspiracy is to keep them going!

Impeachment IS the remedy. I am sure if you put in about 2 hours on my blog, we can convince ANYONE that this what we MUST do. [ caveat; Anyone not braindead.] There will be PLENTY of downloadable "stuff" to pass on to your friends as days go by.

Remove PELOSI NOW. there are moves to have her unseated ALREADY in Congress.
Help us give her a good push!!
Virginia Simson

Bernake: Upcoming data may tell the tale on rates, yeah right.

Bernanke: Upcoming data may tell the tale on rates

Fed chairman plays cards close to vest on interest rates

Discuss amongst yourselves! I know what I think .. the "spin" is outrageous. The only honest thing is admitting that prices are SOARING.

This is NOT about lower interest rates. It's ACTUALLY about how long will the FED be bloody minded towards the poor and the economically "losing their shirts" without being aware of it YET .. and how much further the FED will go in bailing out the previously over gambling banks and their inability to distinguish what is REALLY going on this planet. Instead, those who THINK they understand economics (which is really knowing how well the HOUSE we call the planet stays healthy and functional.

Some of old, disabled people and those who are economically disenfranchised don't want to roll over and die in order to "serve" the interests of a government and economic system that are clearly deranged.

Veeger

By Greg Robb, MarketWatch

Last update: 6:47 p.m. EST Nov. 29, 2007

Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that economic data to be released over the next eight days may contain the answer to the key question: whether to hold rates steady or lower them for the third straight meeting.

In a speech after receiving the award of the 2007 "Citizen of the Carolinas" from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, Bernanke played his cards close to the vest about the upcoming policy decision on Dec. 11.

He neither ruled a rate cut in, nor ruled one out. "We will be receiving a good deal of relevant information in the coming days. In making its policy decision, the FOMC will have to judge whether the outlook for the economy or the balance of risks has shifted materially," he said.

After the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Oct. 31, the FOMC moved to a "neutral" stance by suggesting that the risk of a serious downturn in growth or a serious upturn in inflation were roughly in balance. Fed watchers interpreted these remarks to mean the central bank wished to hold rates steady if possible on Dec. 11, unless circumstances changed.

Many economists now argue that circumstances have changed, as credit markets have frozen over the past few weeks in an eerie replay of the turmoil in August.

Bernanke noted this renewed turbulence, saying that the outlook has been "importantly affected" over the last month.

"The fresh wave of investor concern has contributed in recent weeks to a decline in equity values, a widening of risk spreads for many credit products not only those related to housing and increased short-term funding pressures," he said.

'These developments [have] the potential to impose additional restraint on activity in housing markets and in other credit-sensitive sectors.'

"These developments have resulted in a further tightening in financial conditions, which has the potential to impose additional restraint on activity in housing markets and in other credit-sensitive sectors," Bernanke added.

These comments might give succor to economists projecting a rate cut on Dec. 11 and more in coming months. Similar comments by Bernanke's top deputy, Donald Kohn, led to a sharp stock-market rally on Wednesday. See full story.

Inflation and jobs

But Bernanke also expressed a concern about inflation. He said that soaring gasoline and food prices and the weak value of the dollar in foreign-exchange markets have the potential to upset the apple cart of low and steady consumer prices.

The Fed was "monitoring inflation developments closely," he commented. This might give cheer to some Fed officials and others who argue that the central bank can't fight the disruptions in credit markets effectively by cutting short-term rates without risking letting the inflation genie out of the bottle.

Bernanke was quite clear about what the FOMC would focus on in terms of economic indicators. He gave special mention to the November unemployment report, which will be released Dec. 7.

At the moment, Wall Street economists are forecasting job growth of under 100,000 in November, for the fifth time since June.

"Continued good performance by the labor market is important for maintaining the economic expansion, as growth in earnings helps to underpin household spending," Bernanke said.

He pointed out that the labor market remained "solid" in October, with 130,000 new jobs added.

Initial jobless claims, a key weather vane for changes in labor market conditions, have "drifted up a bit," Bernanke added. But they remain "at a level consistent with moderate expansion in employment."

Many economists have argued that labor-market conditions will be key to upcoming Fed-rate decisions.

The Fed is also anxiously awaiting fresh data on consumer spending to be released this Friday and readings on consumer sentiment to be released on Dec. 7.

To date, Bernanke said that the incoming data since the Fed's last meeting on Oct. 31 has been "mixed."

The Fed chairman said household spending has been on the "soft side."

"I expect household income and spending to continue to grow, but the combination of higher gas prices, the weak housing market, tighter credit conditions and declines in stock prices seem likely to create some headwinds for the consumer in the months ahead," according to Bernanke.

Investors, as measured by the federal-funds futures markets, are already set on a rate cut Dec. 11. Many economists initially took the Fed's word that it wanted to hold steady, but more are penciling in a December move.

In a separate speech Thursday, Fed Gov. Frederic Mishkin longed for the day that the public and media pay less attention to interest rates and focus more on the Fed's medium-term outlook, now that the central bank has decided to release its economic forecast four times per year. Read text of Mishkin's speech.

But that wish may likely have to wait for another day.

Greg Robb is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.

Another exhibit, Conyers letter .. can you spell I M P E A C H ???

A call response

After this description of my intent and feelings, we'll take a nice long look at what WAX and Conyers have in COMMON.

Or you can add it to the comments, cuz in fact I find this exercise of confronting the symptomology of Mssr. Conyers overwhelming.

It is a statement that either covertly or purposely designed to trigger cognitive dissonance. What we are being TOLD is happening, what we THINK is happening and what is ACTUALLY happening are all at odds. Thus the truly alert are going to be OVERWHELMED during the reading "process". I felt bullied and betrayed as a United States native citizen as I read it.

These are not mere words, these are the rationalizations and delusions of a man with stupendous power and prestige.

This man is subverting and distorting the good and decent intentions of the majority of an entire planet's and one nation's citizenry who are dependent on a nuclear powerhouse's stable of administrators to compel order, stability and justice throughout the world - a very sick world. But this responsibility he has to ensure Congressional oversight to the rule of law is totally ignored.

Which is not about the COMMON GOOD, is it?

Here is another spelling lesson, can you spell this phrase ...

P R E S T I G E, A R R O G A N C E, P A R T I S A N P O L I T I C S

to maintain POWER and control.

I am not trying to appear superior in my comments below, and I do not presume anyone will even read this. I just hope it will inspire YOU to write YOUR arguments of catalogue them on a video you post to youtube, google or some other videolibrary thus serving as an example. I am just showing you how someone even partially (only partially informed) informed on the law, could interpret his remarks.

As I recall, ignorance of the law is NO excuse.

This man has many, many lawyers and Constitutional experts at his beck and call. There is NO excuse whatsoever for what is written in this letter. Absolutely, positively none.

It literally brings tears to my eyes to read it. In my opinion, it is that BAD. Knowing that having seemingly different feelings at once is perfectly okay doesn't mitigate my feelings that range from disgust, to anger, to sadness, to outrage to total astonishment. That someone could write this knowing how much damage and destruction has been done to one of the world's oldest civilizations (Irak - Mesopotamia - and merely mentioning those of Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon and Palestine amongst others, ) and to the beacon of hope that was once the world's once most respected and loved republic (the United States of America) is just TRAGIC.

This letter set the stage for further abuse, physical displacement, death, torture, arms escalation, and even the use of nuclear weapons that have destroyed the health of America's own troops and the resultant damage of their offspring via the use of depleted nuclear weapons. Yet the cover ups continue on a massive scale. Investigation would have started the healing process.

The results of the thoughts behind this very letter are too perilous to even contemplate in one sitting.

I would pity this man if weren't for the power he has now and possessed when he wrote this - the power of life and death over millions of people. His lack of the legal exercise of power that his Chairmanship confers on him continues to leave the American people feeling helpless and hopeless and further traumatized by a lack of leadership and moral commitment.

This letter demonstrates how words have come to be manipulated to justify childish actions of the most selfish nature. instead, we are left with a nation nation wracked by a suffering they cannot even understand.

Would that he used the power invested in him wisely and showed healthy leadership.

His thinking expressed below is a most distressing example of

POWER GONE WAY WRONG.

And it ranks right up there with the most contemptuous acts of all time.

For shame, Mssr. Conyers, For eternal shame!!

May I be excused for looking like the fool. But I speak anyway and although I do not show my evidence, as

The record speaks for itself.

And you and other members of CONgress

are stonewalling.

If that proves to be a conspiracy,

may God or a higher force save us all.

I don't have the luxury of place in the entry to
House of Representatives which is now
smoke free, but polluted with same
moral hypocrasy that has dominated
these many years of ruin, so I stand on my soapbox here.


Your friend, Ms. Thomasina Trulee Pained

No Rush to Impeachment
By John Conyers Jr.

Washington Post
Thursday, May 18, 2006; A23

As Republicans have become increasingly nervous about whether they will be able to maintain control of the House in the midterm elections, they have resorted to the straw-man strategy of identifying a parade of horrors to come if Democrats gain the majority. (Like the average MURKAN is going to sit through that sentence to get at what is being said and to find out what is coming!! Oh, yeah SURE. I understand you are writing in the irrepressible WaPo - but forgive me for seeing you as a public servant in this MESS that's been created.) Among these is the assertion that I, as the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, would immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush. ( Gee, is THAT too much to ask, oh spineless one!!)

I will not do that. (Ah - the easy thing to do is just to put it in BOLD, as I reformat the letter. But I resist. I need to say this, as a representative of sane, humane thinking - this world is all about CHANGE. Things rapidly become socially unacceptable and so we ADAPT. And you, sir are NOT adaptable nor responsive. Kinda unhealthy that, not just Congressionally or Constitutionally irresponsible, but just plain playing SICK PARENTAL figure when you do that. You have not adapted and your ears and eyes have become deafen and blind to those who would try to help you and the nation mend. Only continually shaming you just might accomplish some sort of rectification of your attitude. That rectification of attitude is quite nearly impossible considering the IMPERIAL bubble that has encompassed the American landscape for seven long long years.) I readily admit that I have been quite vigorous, if not relentless, in questioning the administration. The allegations I have raised are grave, serious, well known, and based on reliable media reports and the accounts of former administration officials. (And ... this leads to to the conclusion you know what's best for everybody? MURKANS, the globe, everybody? in your inflexibility? and WHICH precise"former" officials - State Department officials? Diplomats? CIA operatives? and .. WHICH media? Specificity might be of great use here in future "arguments" with ya. I could list more objections. However, these legal omissions of yours will be judged for future generations. As for the "allegations", the evidence is overwhelming day after gruesome day after gruesome day. Nothing is alleged. It is clear. That some people excuse, rationalize, justify, pardon and purify the horrendous crimes and suffering does not in any way absolve it nor mean that we are to continue on this way.)

But none of these allegations can be proved or disproved until the administration answers questions. (LOL. As Ron Paul said: who would trust THEM?? and then there is also that a thorough investigation would certainly turn up some MORE stuff to be answered, understood, and would further move to towards averting more killing, more subversion of the process, a general decline in morale, and just might have stopped the heists of money, spirit and general commonsense not to mention other valuable virtues. Under the law, spiritual robbery is also a crime, a hate crime.) For example, to know whether intelligence was mistaken or manipulated in the run-up to the Iraq war, we need to know what information was made available to -- and actually read by -- decision makers and how views contradicting the case for war were treated. (And your point is ....? Ah! how quickly we devolve into nonsense, Mssr. Conyers. What they READ is not the problem, how they govern is our problem, one that the judiciary needs to address, is it NOT? If what you are inferring is exactly what certain alphabet soup intelligence agencies dug up that directly contradicted the "spin" and bald faced lies, openly distorted time and time again and now rationalized by BLAMING THE CONGRESS for a disastrous decision to conduct a war which that apparently has no end, starting with the invasion of Irak . .. well, that is one aspect of the matter at hand .. but the bald truth is we are talking about FRAUD here, not the usual "war games" played. This is ceaseless war of genocide, of ending nuclear conflict which no matter how the decision makers reached their verdict is neither "here" nor "there". It was and remains criminal in its intent. This is about the breakdown of an entire Republic by an administration's deceptions and outrageous lies, based on the establishment of an entire network of terror, used both internationally and domestically. WE have been frightened week after week - BLACKMAILED into paying for a total breakdown in public confidence. We are talking about crimes against HUMANITY that defrauded the American public from being a beacon of hope and decency. It brought America to its KNEES, while forever tarnishing it's reputation. And it was your job, sir, to see that CONGRESS was to see that no judicial injury was done to the republic. Were that this tragic history could be solved by determining which or which not literature was involved is a pure nonsense. What intelligence was available, which was made available, what was read is of no legal concern. What matters and what your purview is - actually is - is to determine what judicial course of action Congress is to take. STRICTLY THAT.)

We need to know the extent to which high-ranking officials approved of the use of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment inflicted upon detainees. (which why we NEED impeachment; to draw up a ledger of wrongs, including the grave wrong done the Cuban people and who knows who else has been forced to submit to the brutal power of an administration clearly operating outside international legal norms; by its own admissions. What the administration feared the most was having these cases actually brought into United States courts and the truth revealed. They have hidden under the cover of a "military justice" tribunal system of their own devising. As a leader, we might have expected that you, you, John Conyers, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, would move swiftly and decisively to bring to light any and all abuses as they related to the Congressional imperative to find legal remedies to such injustices. And further, these same injustices have been meted out unfairly, indiscriminately and without socially redeeming value on all those who would question such policies of torture, detention without end in a vast archipelago of torture facilities including mental hospitals which do not presume to understand human rights on the domestic population. With wilful and continued malfeasance, the current American administration and its minions have threatened and actually funded vast detention facilities, including the use of the stadium in New Orleans, in which US citizens were detained by cruel and inhumane jailers in the form of mercenaries. Such mercenaries were in fact funded by a United States state department so profoundly out of touch with the American people, that it did not care. Millions of people have been detained, relocated and given to the winds of fortune to survive unbelievable poverty, traumatization, and relocation; literally millions of people. This rhetorical distraction from the cold, hard facts of the criminal case put to you, is unworthy the power bestowed upon you when you took the oath of office.) We need to know whether the leaking of the name of a covert CIA operative was deliberate or accidental, as well as the identity of those responsible. (At the point this was written, the CIA officials had signed their names to a letter indicating that they were outraged by an attack on one of their own. Why not ask their support at discovering the hard cold truth about the outting of Valerie Plame-Wilson's position and putting her entire network of operatives -- those whose entire professional lives were committed to protecting the American public from the scourge of weapons of mass destruction -- at further risk? The damage that has been done may never be fully understood; the results of this arrogant act was far beyond just that of lives of United States' agents and their allies being put at risk. The cause of universal stability may have been put into jeopardy by this fateful action.

Instead, we awaited the book of Scott McClellan to bring to light the actual perpetrator of this unprecedented outrageous attack. Yet, here, in November of 2007, we are still waiting for your sense of responsibility to develop.

McClellan has spoken out. Whether we are being deceived yet again is open to question. And you have left us in this position of not knowing. SHAME!)

The administration's stonewalling, and the lack of oversight by Congress, have left us to guess whether we are dealing with isolated wrongdoing, or mistakes, or something worse. (Again, this is called dereliction of duty. This is your JOB. To make this determination. Who else is going to do it?? The presumption is that they must hanged before a determination can be made, and that they will some how find some ethics and come clean. You clearly do not understand the criminal mind or HOW TO MOVE FORWARD. In Constitutional terms you are to be the agency of discovery; a form of governmental grand jury. Clearly you do not take that responsibility.) In my view, the American people deserve answers, not guesses. (Allelujah, brother. BINGO! And we had waited to long by then, we are waiting NOW. Scores of legal experts, scores of "Interested Parties" have already been forced to find the answers from outside the halls of Congress concerning high crimes and misdemeanors perptuated by the current US administration and no longer "guess". We see a clear pattern of deception, a clear will to deceive and distort. A pattern of crimes against all of humanity that will take perhaps generations to recover from -- and as a result, Congress has less support than the 'suspected' administration criminals. Can we talk LAW here? Were you put on that committee to claim judicial authority and lead as Chair, or did you take that chairmanship precisely to obstruct justice? I am asking you that last question in all sincerity as I should like to know. That question may come to torture future historians looking into this shameful, shameful period of history. I would like for my children and grandchildren to know the answer. Is obstruction your primary goal, sir? or do you suffer from "mere" dereliction of duty? Enquiring minds want to know.) I have proposed that we obtain these answers in a responsible and bipartisan manner. (but we are talking about global crimes! It takes sovereignty to establish the rule of law, this is true but no one in CONgress or the Department of Justice seems to care one whit about seeing that it is followed. What is a thinking, moral person who is a citizen of the United States of America in 2007 to do ...? In the end, Mssr. Conyers, history may judge you to be the worst criminal of them all. And at this time in history, one can only be guided by a sense of decency and expose, as they can, the crimes of this age. And those are too large to be endured.)

I hope you will begin to listen to the citizens of your

country, as Nancy Pelosi does not no matter how often

or how urgently one appeals. I've asked my friends to

write you . .. I hope you can HEAR and begin to SEE the

truth of our moment in history and what your decisions

have wraught on our morale. Please, act now with utter

urgency before another life is lost.

Contact Information

Washington, D.C. Email:
john.conyers@mail.house.gov
Washington, D.C. Website:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/
Washington, D.C. Webmail:
http://www.house.gov/writerep

Washington, D.C. Address
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-5126
Fax: 202-225-0072

District Address
669 Federal Building, 231 West Lafayette Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48226-2766
Phone: 313-961-5670
Fax: 313-226-2085

District Address
2615 West Jefferson
Trenton, MI 48183
Phone: 734-675-4084
Fax: 734-675-4218

What constitutes Fraud, the expert's view IMPEACHMENT is on the table OR ..

Forerunner to next commentary - Please watch

Elizabeth de la Vega (rah!)

on impeachable offenses

(see also Tom Englehardt's Tomgram for her commentaries)

The TRUTH about the CNNyoutube rePUB debate from a Tom Paine commenter

There They Go Again

Submitted by Robert Borosage on November 29, 2007 - 12:32pm.

The Republican CNN/YouTube debate lasted over two hours Wednesday night. But once more, we learned nothing about what the candidates would do about the economic straits we are in.

Not a word about the housing crisis—the rising tide of foreclosures, plummeting housing prices and sales—and the credit crunch that now roils banks across the globe.

Not a word about the recession that Wall Street is now betting on.

Not a word about the stagnant wages and rising costs of food and gas and college that had two-thirds of Americans thinking we were in a recession or near it when the Bush economy was at its best.

We learned nothing about what Republican candidates would do about our broken health care system. Nothing about what they’d do about gas prices, energy dependence, global warming or trade deficits that have made our economy dependent on the kindness of strangers—primarily Chinese and Japanese central bankers and Arab princes.

We learned only that these candidates can repeat the conservative gospel. All (except Duncan Hunter in an “emergency”) vow not to raise any single tax while in office, not even the shameless tax break that has billionaire private equity barracudas taxed at half the rate of their secretaries.

With the economy slowing, all would slash domestic spending. Mitt Romney calls for capping and cutting by 1 percent a year, and promises to “go at something like our entitlements.” Fred Thompson mumbles about his plan to “save Social Security,” which does so by slashing benefits nearly in half over 60 years. Rudy Giuliani calls for “5 to 10 percent” across-the-board cuts, and cutting the federal workforce—already near record lows—by 25 percent through retirements. If the one guy named Bob who is tasked with testing toys for the Consumer Product Safety Commission retires, Giuliani will just leave it up to the Chinese to keep the lead out. John McCain fulminates about vetoing any pork-barrel spending, a Titan boasting of squashing a gnat. Ron Paul at least knows where the money is, pledging to bring the boys home and save billions out of the military budget.

No one—not one—gave any indication that cutting spending—and jobs—as the economy slows might not be such a good idea. These guys have been in campaign bubbles for so long they don’t have a clue about what is happening around them.

Asked about our collapsing infrastructure and the investments needed to make us competitive—or simply to keep bridges and roads from collapsing beneath us—Giuliani argues sensibly for an investment account that would allow for greater spending on real investments. He doesn’t bother to say how this would survive his across-the-board domestic spending cuts. Paul sensibly suggests new priorities once more, using the money we spend to blow up bridges in Iraq to build them here. McCain repairs once more to his veto pen, which might fund a bridge or two.

Only Romney offered the inklings of an economic strategy—and that, not surprisingly, was a full pander, more of the same. He pledges to “follow the pathway that Ronald Reagan blazed,” asking voters to elect “somebody who understands how jobs come and go,” etc. etc. But the Reagan model—top-end tax cuts, massive increases in military spending, corporate-oriented trade policies, cutbacks on entitlements, assault on workers—was Bush’s guide, also. In both administrations, that “pathway” racked up massive debt; squandered billions in military folly; hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs while running up record trade deficits; contributed to rising inequality and stagnant wages, and starved investments vital to our future. We’ve pretty much played out that hand, Mitt. Continuing to dig the hole we are in is not likely to get us out of it.

CNN got its headlines in the faux fight over who is tougher on immigration but gave voters no sense of what these guys would do about the straits we are in. We know that they are for “securing the border,” for outlawing abortion, for reading the Bible, for protecting guns, for cutting taxes on the wealthy and spending more on the military. We got that.

Now, could the talking heads focus on what we haven’t heard? Little things, like what they’d do about the housing crash, or the coming recession, or the broken health care system, or stagnant wages, or soaring gas prices and accelerating global warming? There might be a couple of voters interested in such things.

• Budget
• Conservative Failure
• Economy - Global
• Economy - National
• Taxes
• Terrorism
• Trade

• Robert Borosage's blog
• Login or register to post comments

---

Comments

Questions

Submitted by Mishka1 on November 29, 2007 - 2:35pm.

I guess all the Democrat plants decided to ask questions on other topics. Hard to have a recession when the GDP is on track for an annual 5% increase.

Keep on Rocking the Boat: Willy Murphy

Keep On Rocking The Boat
by Willie Murphy

A man on the street asked for some money for somethin' to eat
As I gave him all of my coin I say brother how do you keep goin'?
He said I know my life is rough but I believe I'm tough enough
'Cause every mornin' I wake up mad at the powers that treat me bad
I got to keep on walkin'
Keep on talkin'

Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat
Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat

Down in my neighborhood the folks ain't doin' too good
They can't live the way they want to
They got to live the way they got to
In stone cold poverty tryin' to hold on to dignity
It's the same sad situation in every city in our nation
We got to keep on walkin'
Keep on talkin'

Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat
Can you hear me?
Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat

Politicians and corporations
Run our neighborhoods and rule our nations
They're captains of the ship that we call earth
Now the ship is sinkin'
Tell me, what is it worth?

Let's throw away our lives to the powers of greed
Let's let the planet die while we watch it on TV

Here's to the people who stand up and say no
Here's to the people who keep on rockin' the boat

I don't know a lot but there's one thing I know
Capitalismo -it don't have no soul
Compassion and justice won't never be done
By no board of directors or no barrel of a gun

But people say Willie, man, but what can we do?
I just speak for myself
I can't speak for you
I got a voice
I'm gonna holler
I'm gonna fight
Fight the power

I got to keep on walkin'
Keep on talkin'
Keep on rockin'....

Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat
Keep on rockin'
Keep on rockin' that boat

WHY WE MUST PUSH IMPEACHMENT NOW!!

I had a thought.

WHAT IF

(a dysfuntional activity, to be sure, BUT)

BuZh already had guarantees from Hillary

that he and the others will be pardoned.

WHAT IF ????

Is anyone really willing to take that risk?

Hasn't he already pushed her for President right on television?

Not to make people vote against her

but merely to preserve his own hide so

he can go to Paraquay,

a country without extradiction,

live on his 10,000 acre ranch

(forget the lecture circuit alibi!!

He has plenty of dough rollling in from those

He tried to get former military bases

as sites for oil refineries)

far from the reach of the LAW.

Don't we ALL have the duty to preserve the

Constitution?

Can't we DEMAND accountability NOW as

THE PROOF IS IN ..

Dick Cheney commited High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Can't we PLEASE know the full details of Dick Cheney's crimes?

That's all we are asking.


Do you trust that Hillary wouldn't do "such a thing?"

or any other of the media-approved candidates?

In a bit I am going to post the Harry Reid letter.

That should open some eyes.

VIDEO; IMPEACH DICK CHENEY

Petition: http://impeachcheney.org/

Watch Dick Cheney's impeachable crimes, then sign the petition demanding Congress begin impeachment hearings. 14 Representatives currently support H. Res 333, 3 articles of impeachment outlining Vice President Dick Cheney's crimes.

Video by Robert Greenwald - excellent expose of high crimes and misdemeanors on the video.

Rove: "Congress Pushed Bush to War in Iraq Prematurely"

I forgot to post this earlier.

This Rover guy is surely overprescribed. Talked about DERANGED. Take him off his meds immediately.

He makes the rest of us traumatized nutz, look totally sane no matter what we get up to.

If anyone knows a good psychiatrist in Texas, I think we have the basis for a sound commitment process and it should definitely be pursued. This guy qualifies for an R. D. Liang type of treatment. Follow THIS insane logic.

But as I said, once upon a time on here, REALLY, he ONLY retired to be of further use to the RNC (Republican National Committee, the White House and othere cabal members), judging he could be of more use OUTSIDE the White House. And here's the proof of that conjecture.

Is this pysops, or WHAT ?? Why is this item suddenly sprung just AFTER the Anapolis psyop/photo op ??

I think a few people are feeling their backs with Republican middle names are getting pushed against a WALL of outrage to get THIS far out .

Such a tasty morsel for us mortals publishing on the internet, doncha think?? I don't even want to post it, it's PLAYING HIS GAME.

Thankfully, the item is tastefully written by Paul Abrams. Otherwise as a press release, this item would carefully be wadded up if it were on paper, and tossed into a garbage can after a good deal of muttering.

Give ME a break.

As reported in the Huffington Post ..

Rove: "Congress Pushed Bush to War in Iraq Prematurely"

Posted November 25, 2007 | 08:56 PM (EST)

---

Read More: Bush Administration, Iraq War, Iraq War Resolution, Karl Rove, Breaking Politics

You are not going to believe this, well, actually you will... According to Karl Rove (on Charlie Rose), the Bush Administration did not want Congress to vote on the Iraq War resolution in the fall of 2002, because they thought it should not be done within the context of an election. Rove, you see, did not think the war vote should be "political".

Moreover, according to Rove, that "premature vote" led to many of the problems that cropped up in the Iraq War. Had Congress not pushed, he says, Bush could have spent more time assembling a coalition, and provided more time to the inspectors.

If you are like me, you have stopped reading/listening, and are rushing to get your anti-emetic.

It is worth remembering that the Senate in the fall of 2002 was controlled, barely, by Democrats. Get it? George Bush, we are being told, wanted to delay, wanted to hold back, wanted to take the time to build a coalition and let the inspectors finish their job, but that damn Congress just pushed him into it. George Bush, you see, is a careful, prudent, leader, deeply concerned about the consequences of premature.

Get it? If Biden, Clinton, Dodd or Edwards is part of the Democratic ticket, the Republicans will run a campaign charging the Senate Democrats with rushing to judgment, of pushing the poor President to premature...(well, you fill in the blank)....

Not that Iraq is that big of an issue. Rove claims that, if Iraq had been a big issue, that Joe Lieberman, who was pro-war, could not have won in Connecticut, defeating receiving more Democratic, Independent and Republican votes than any of his opponents.

I have purposefully NOT provided the (obvious) answers to his claims because to answer is to give him control of the argument. That's Rove's tactic, and I have written about that many times in these pages.

Instead, this should be used as a trigger to talk about Rove's history of dissembling, how that is reflected in the Bush Administration's entire approach to public policy and public information. Bush, through Rove, should be attacked for trying to escape responsibility and accountability. And, it will help to make some historical references to rulers whose tenure was so dismal that they could not allow historians to provide objective analyses, and thus try to write the history themselves.

As might have been predicted, Rove raises "historical revisionism" to new depths, what may become known as "hysterical Rovisionism."

Thus are only this part of the interview is on view at youtube. I think someone SHOULD make a video that shows just how DERANGED this interview was. Watch and see how his eye blink like hell when the lies start and sets up Richard Armitage. How CRAFTY!!!

Out of an archive: tasers at the UK arms fair, MARK THOMAS

I've included the entire article for your nonenjoyment. I've bolded the nice text as it applies to TASERS.

And you thought they were for protection against rapists! Shame on YOU!

The human mind is endlessly creative in cooking up ways to harm one another in the name of REVENGE and REPRESSION. Would that it were so great in coming up with ways of living with one another and finding alternative sources of energy that actually work besides coal, oil, nuclear fission ..............

Leg irons row sees two companies thrown out of London arms fair

· Organisers misinterpreted equipment, says MD
· Peace activists arrested outside trade show

• Rob Evans and Richard Norton-Taylor
• The Guardian
• Wednesday September 12 2007

Two companies were ejected last night from Britain's biggest arms fair for promoting leg irons for prisoners and battlefield captors. BCB International, a British-based firm, and Famous Glory Holding, a Chinese company, were thrown out of the biennial Defence Systems and Equipment show which opened in London's Docklands yesterday.

Although the type of leg irons on offer appear to escape the government's ban on the sale and export of equipment that can be used for repression and torture, their promotion is hugely embarrassing to the exhibition's organisers.

The two companies were told to leave, allegedly for breach of contract, by Reed Elsevier, organisers of the fair.

Last night BCB denied selling leg irons. Andrew Howell, its managing director, said the organisers had "misinterpreted" equipment in their catalogue, adding they were not advertising leg irons but "lefs" or the "light extendable flexible" cuff used to restrain hands.

Mr Howell said a DVD promoting his firm's equipment, which contained a photograph of the cuff, was 10 years old. He said ejection from the trade exhibition was "totally unfair", and that his firm had been questioned by Customs yesterday.

A representative of Famous Glory Holding made no comment.

Both the government and Reed Elsevier have been trying to improve the image of the arms exhibition. Arms companies this year were told not to show off cluster weapons which, while not illegal, are widely condemned because many of the unexploded "bomblets" they scatter over a wide area maim and kill civilians.

At least one company was told not to promote its cluster bombs at the fair despite its strong attempts to do so.

Whitehall last year altered the rules to allow the export of leg irons, cuffs and shackles if such equipment's chains are between 240mm-280mm (9in-11in) long. However, the Foreign Office website lists a range of equipment which it says the government wants to control as a matter of policy. It includes

"stun guns and tasers, and specially designed components for such devices, leg irons, gang chains, shackles (excluding normal handcuffs) and electric-shock belts designed for the restraint of a human being".

Scores of demonstrators, with drums and trumpets, some from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, marched to the exhibition's site. A group of up to 20 protesters taking part in a sit-in outside the Docklands' ExCel centre were arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace.

Several countries with bad human rights records, including Libya, Saudi Arabia, China, and Indonesia, were invited to attend the event this year.

Mark Thomas, the comedian, political activist and investigative journalist, said:

"I just wanted to thank the police for providing this level of protection against those evil thugs across the road."

He added:

"It is an illegal fair in respect that illegal activities take place there."

A spokesman for Reed Elsevier said:

"We run DSEi along very strict guidelines, and take any alleged breach of these extremely seriously. We investigated these allegations as soon as we received them, referred the matter to the appropriate government authorities and took steps to close the stands in question immediately."

This year Reed Elsevier announced that it plannedd to sell the event after journalists from The Lancet, one of its publications, urged the company to end its connection with the arms fair. F&C Asset Management and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust both sold shares in Reed in protest over its connection to the arms trade.

Criminally Confident Mark Thomas 13th September 2007

Guardian article

The demonstration against the arms fair in London’s Docklands on Tuesday saw the usual gathering of pensioners, Quakers, anarchists, -peaceniks and tutting liberals (my category), waving banners in blood-red paint. From a distance it looked like Sesame Street was doing a show-and-tell special on imperialism. Closer inspection would reveal a cop-to-demonstrator ratio of 1:1; this wasn’t crowd control, it was more like mentoring. I had been asked along by Campaign Against Arms Trade as a speaker, which entailed being backed up against a brick wall and addressing a crowd penned in by metal barriers, via a megaphone held above the phalanx of the Met’s fluorescent jackets. Everything went swimmingly: local residents’ speeches were met with particular appreciation, news teams scribbled notes, and peace songs were faintly sung. I thanked the organisers and headed for the Docklands light -railway to go home. As I walked up the entrance ramp I was stopped by police. “I am afraid I can’t let you past me until I have searched you, as I have reason to believe that you could have articles intended for criminal damage,” said an officer. “What good reason?” I asked. “We watched you address the crowd.” “I am being stopped for what I said in a speech?” I spluttered. “Oh no. Not because of what you said. It is because you look overconfident.” That was the official reason, I was “overconfident”; bless them, they even wrote it on the stop-and-search slip the police have to provide. Under the title “Grounds for Search”, the officer wrote: “overconfident attitude of Mr Thomas”. How can I walk past the police in an overconfident manner that might indicate criminality on my part, I thought, short of wearing a black-and-white stripy jumper, with a bag marked “SWAG”, shouting: “Do your worst flatfoot!” How do the police differentiate between “confidence” and “overconfidence”? Maybe there is a training programme at Hendon, perhaps an ID line-up room for the overconfident full of the Tory frontbench, where new recruits point at Michael Gove shouting: “That one! Definitely that one!”. Perhaps there are briefing sessions where the significance of “overconfidence” is explained by Sir Ian Blair with the aid of a Venn diagram: “Circle one is Osama bin Laden, circle two Ronnie Biggs, and finally drug dealer Howard Marks is circle three. What is in the shaded area where the circles coincide? Cockiness. They all cock a snook at authority. That and a cavalier attitude towards health and safety.” Surely, if overconfidence is now part of the police’s forensic arsenal, Jeremy Clarkson could never leave his house. He would be over the car bonnet with the cops rifling through his manbag before you could say “He’s just Richard Littlejohn with a copy of Motor Sport magazine”. And if the cops were really after the overconfident, they would have a wagon permanently stationed outside Peter Jones in Sloane Square. There is a definite sense among campaigners that the police conduct stop and search for no other reason than that they can. I recently saw police search a clown in central London. She was wearing a colander on her head and dressed in rainbow tights. I am not an expert but I believe Raffles preferred black slacks. And I would guess that most criminals avoid wearing a colander; it not only draws attention to them, but it tends to put the balaclava out of shape. I could be wrong, it could be a double bluff; maybe clowns have pulled off a multitude of heists. The late Charlie Caroli might have done the Brinks Mat job, shoving the bullion down his baggy pants before wandering off to shove shaving foam into someone's face. Bizarrely, I have worked quite a bit with the authorities on arms issues, finding and reporting three companies offering illegal torture equipment at the last Docklands arms fair, then appearing before a parliamentary select committee on arms dealing. Last May I cooperated with police after I found electroshock torture equipment being demonstrated at the police and security trade fair in Birmingham. In fact customs were even tipped off on these pages only weeks ago about possible breaches at this Docklands fair: a warning that proved accurate as two arms companies were thrown out of the fair for allegedly offering leg irons — an offence under the Export Control Act, as reported in the Guardian yesterday. Perhaps those arms dealers slipped past the police by being underconfident, possibly dressed as Dickensian clerks, wringing their hands and muttering: “Good day t’yer guv’nor,” when they touch their caps.

This article first appeared in The Guardian

Mark Thomas - Serious Organised Criminal
DVD ~ Mark Thomas

1 Review 5 star: (1) 4 star: (0) 3 star: (0) 2 star: (0) 1 star: (0) See all customer reviews...

(1 customer review)

---

RRP:	£19.99
Price:	£13.98 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save:	£6.01 (30%)

DVD Description
Comedy that really makes a difference! This is Mark's true story of cake icing as a political weapon, of demonstrations to Defend Surrealism and getting to like the police. Mark turns an 18 month battle over Parliament Square and the right to demonstrate into bizarrely brilliant stand up.

This is how Mark fought the law ... with the law's permission! It is a laugh out loud funny world inhabited by anarchists, Goths, artists and the Westminster Constabulary, in which Mark becomes a Guinness World Record holder, organises 2,500 protests in one day and changes the law in the process.

Synopsis
Comedian, presenter, political activist and broadcaster Mark Thomas provides stand-up with a difference. In this show he tells the story of his Guiness World Record for organising 2,500 protests in one day, and how it changed the law.

Headaches with transglobalism; Case Study BAE

Bribery law reform could tackle wrongdoing in high places

Clare Dyer, legal editor
Thursday November 29, 2007
The Guardian

Proposals published today for changes to the "out-of-date" and "uncertain" law of bribery could make it easier to prosecute in cases such as the corruption investigation into BAE Systems.

The change, in a Law Commission consultation paper commissioned by the Home Office, would remove the so-called Nuremberg defence - "I was only following orders" - by enlarging the offence of bribery to include corruption at the highest level of an organisation.

At present, in the private sector, the offence of bribery is confined to situations where an agent or employee betrays his principal. If the principal approves the bribe, the offence is not committed.

Although the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE Systems was said to have been dropped on public interest grounds - in response to Saudi threats to withdraw cooperation in the war on terror - Lord Goldsmith, then the attorney general, said he had received a QC's advice that the case could not be successfully prosecuted in any event.

He said in the Financial Times last January:

"The principal obstacle [was that] BAE were asserting that the payments they were making had been authorised at the highest level."

To the question, "

The highest level of the Saudi royal family?"

he replied:

"Yes, the Saudis."

He added: "

Normally to produce a corruption case you will call somebody senior from the company to say, 'Good heavens, I never knew the marketing director was taking used £50 notes, or getting a free subscription to the golf club, or having his roof done', or whatever it may be. That's the first person you call. How were the SFO going to deal with that in this case? Were they going to be able to call someone from Saudi to say this wasn't authorised? "

The Law Commission produced a controversial report calling for reform of the law of corruption in 1998, but its recommendations never reached the statute book. Its latest proposals have a narrower remit, concentrating only on bribery, and follow criticisms of UK law by the OECD, whose conventions on bribery and corruption the UK has signed up to.

The Law Commission proposes broadening the offence of bribery to get rid of the need for an agent to betray a principal. The offence would be committed by someone who offers an advantage to another as a reward for breaching a trust, or breaching a duty to act impartially or in the best interests of another person.

The person soliciting or taking the advantage would also be guilty, and agreeing to use one's influence to persuade someone else to breach a duty would also be an offence of bribery.

At present, bribery outside the UK can be prosecuted here only if it was committed by a British national.

The Law Commission says this should be extended to cover foreign nationals resident in the UK. Its paper also calls for a separate offence of bribing a foreign public official.

Comment: Yeah, right. Not in my lifetime. OR .. Don't holdjer breath, baby.

Slovak police say three accused of trying to sell nuclear material

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday November 29, 2007

The Guardian

Alarms over international nuclear smuggling were raised last night when Slovak police announced that three men had been arrested in Slovakia and Hungary after allegedly trying to sell a kilogram of radioactive material.

A Slovak police spokesman told journalists that the authorities in Slovakia and Hungary had been monitoring the activities of the alleged nuclear traders for several months before arresting them. They were detained in eastern Slovakia and eastern Hungary, near the common borders with Ukraine.

Police declined to provide any details of the radioactive substance, but said they had seized the material and sent it for examination. The location of the operation suggested that the material had been smuggled from the former Soviet Union, either Russia or Ukraine.

Western officials have been concerned for years about the risk of nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union, although US-funded safeguarding programmes have been effective in reducing the danger of nuclear trading.

Officials at the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said they knew little about the reported incident across Austria's border in Slovakia, but that the agency's nuclear security department would be looking into the matter urgently.

Police said they would supply more details about the case today. The main Slovak news agency reported that the material involved was enriched uranium but there were no indications of the degree of enrichment.

Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear power plant fuel, while weapons-grade uranium is highly enriched. In 2002 it emerged that Iran had been conducting an illicit nuclear programme for 18 years, greatly helped by the disgraced metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan's Pakistan-based smuggling racket.

Khan was found to have been privately channelling nuclear materials and equipment to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Slovak police said that the detained men had been attempting to sell the radioactive material for $1m (£480,000).

A few bones to pick with Henry Waxman

Captain, we have a problem ....

Oh, boy! Do we! I have a few bones to pick with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). (Adjectives omitted.)

For ease of reading, I just intersperse my comments throughout.

Waxman Wimps Out On The Constitution

Filed under: Impeachment Progress News — Jodin Morey @ 5:34 pm

As published on After Downing Street – From Henry Waxman:

Thank you for contacting me to express your strong opposition to the policies of the Bush White House and your support for impeachment. I appreciate having the benefit of your view on this issue and the opportunity to share my thinking with you. (yeah, but I am sure not going to help you achieve THAT.)

As you know, on November 6, 2007, Representative Dennis Kucinich offered a privileged resolution on the House floor to bring up H.Res. 333, which would impeach Vice President Cheney. (no kidding! Lots of us know, Henry . we are waiting you YOU. At least the accusations should be investigated? Too much to ask?) I joined a majority of the House in a 218-194 vote to refer the privileged resolution to the Judiciary Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction. (yes, yes it IS. and your responsibility in the matter no COMPELS you to what? Ever wonder why so many republicans voted for it as well? Do you just assume it was to tie up that committee with further complications, or to just stall it a proper investigation? OR to belittle the current Speaker of the House for her inaction? OR .. that maybe, just maybe, there are multiple REASONS .. ?)

I do not take impeachment lightly. Having been elected to the House in 1974 on the heels of the resignation of President Nixon, I fully understand the gravity of the impeachment process. And having served in the House during the partisan and political campaign that pursued the impeachment of President Clinton, I have seen the detriment of its abuse. (Well this is some sort of minimization of the daily death toll in Iraq, if there ever was one! Somehow, the ONE remedy that the Founding Fathers of the Republic came up with is to be given greater gravity than the actual CRIMES committed? We are already going onto slippery slope territory with this. The CREATIVE impeachment process was the real remedy for ABUSE of the citizenry. But citizens come way down the list of priorities .. your discomfort and displeasure coming way ahead of citizen concerns and grievances, obviously.)

While I recognize the eagerness of Representative Kucinich and other supporters of impeachment to move this resolution swiftly, I believe the House has a constitutional and institutional responsibility to handle such resolutions and their underlying accusations with due process and regular order. (First off, Henry there should be a initial cop on Constitutional; it is an IMPORTANT document, The Bible is not the ONLY document that gets an initial cap. You for one, in particular, should know this. And two, I question the use of your word EAGER. They are asking for "due process" and "regular order" that is the SPECIFIC point. You are marginalizing those who call for IMPEACHMENT, that is NOT removal - that is asking for an INVESTIGATION.) That is why I voted to refer the measure back to the House Judiciary Committee for its evaluation and consideration. (and your point is ... ? You aren't cosponsoring the bill!! I hardly call you COOPERATIVE.)

In addition to concerns about process, I personally believe that impeachment is not a successful strategy for challenging the Bush Administration. (so is the point to be strategically FOR democrats on the take? What strategically do you propose?) On a practical level there aren't enough votes in the House or the Senate for impeachment or a conviction. (You are lumping the two things together. We are asking for IMPEACHMENT, the conviction is another story, for a later date!! Kapish, Henry! You can use and/or rather than just or and be correct about it. The real number of persons who have obstructed this for so long are ON THE COMMITTEE, which is way HR. res. 333 was submitted. The People are pretty FED UP. We are SPECIFICALLY asking for not, an admonishment of the Bush Administration but particularly for an investigation of Richard Cheney. Did you follow the resolution. We aren't asking what YOU think about challenging the Bush Administration; HISTORY and the families of the war dead, injured and emotionally destroyed, as well as many other harmed individuals will do THAT.) Furthermore, pursuing impeachment would polarize our country at a time when Americans are unifying across party lines to oppose the President's policies in Iraq. (I will not argue that many Republicans are coming to see that the President's HELL HOLE of a society is making less and less sense to many republicans, but that important consideration of INVESTIGATING Richard Cheney goes begging here once again.) It does not make sense to divert attention and focus on a losing strategy against an administration that will be out of office next year. (If Richard Cheney is guilty of abuse of privilege, if he is a war criminal, if he has used his office to enrich himself, particularly in pursuit of moneys taken to procure arms, and is quality of other crimes as well, then CERTAINLY got beyond the date the administration cedes power. The high crimes and misdemeanors, not to mention TREASON will still need to be investigated at the time they leave "Office".)

As Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform I am committed to holding this Administration accountable for its actions. (Yes, you are responsible! You got something right! But COMMITMENT is another question. You are RESPONSIBLE, but the commitment seems to be "strangely" lacking.) I believe the best way to do so is by restoring the essential checks and balances that languished during previous congresses. (And we are not asking about that, we are asking for an INVESTIGATION, Henry. The checks and balances are WAY out of whacked; in this administration worse than any other previous administration in history, even on a partisan level. But what is your solution to the problem? By becoming more like a spineless, insipid, unreasoning tool of Dick Cheney?) I am determined to fully investigate acts of misconduct and misjudgment and learn from the Administration's mistakes so that we can fix our policies and prevent future abuses.

So boyz and girlz, the lesson is this - everything YOU learned in Civics class, everything you THOUGHT you knew about the government's LEGAL remedies against public officials who are criminals is all bunk. Henry Waxman, the OFFICIAL keeper of US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has told you so. His STRATEGIES are way more important, and like a classic example of what is wrong with this government he has no plan for governmental oversight.

Sigh. Now you can all go to your rooms, and burn those Constitutions. Unless some other people began to grow consciences and take their oaths of office, there is no need for them anymore.

The Great and Glorious OZ, aka Henry Waxman, has spoken and the clicking on the Ruby slippers don't work.

Hey! Care to write Henry Waxman a letter and tell me what he tells you back? He's provided a nice link -- or you can call him up. and below I've posted the phone and his address at the bottom.

For more about my work in Congress, or to sign up for periodic e-mail updates, please visit http://oversight.house.gov and http://www.waxman.house.gov.

Thank you again for contacting me and please be in touch on issues of concern.

With kind regards, I am

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Member of Congress.

Office of Rep. Henry A. Waxman
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600
Los Angeles, California 90048
(323) 651-1040 (phone) (818) 878-7400 (phone)
(310) 652-3095 (phone) (323) 655-0502 (fax)

crosspost: about US war "deserters" ..

Other Items: From commonills.blogspot.com

In justifying the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration concocted a new and patently illegal doctrine of "preventive war," under which the US gave itself the right to attack a state if it believed it could constitute a threat to the US at some point in the future. As for the various justifications Washington gave for the war, from weapons of mass destruction to the reputed ties of the regime of Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda, they have all been exposed as lies.

The war has, moreover, resulted in untold violence and countless atrocities. According to studies by reputable agencies, the war and the accompanying destruction of Iraq society have caused the death of over one million Iraqis and the flight of millions of people from their homes and Iraq altogether.

If the Canadian government intervened in the Hinzman and Hughey cases to prevent their raising the illegality of the war, it wasn’t just to save the Bush administration from embarrassment. Ottawa feared Canada would become a haven for "war resisters" and a pole of resistance to the war. Given a different decision on Hinzman's and Hughey’s refugee claim, thousands more might well have joined them.

According to the Pentagon’s own figures, most likely underestimated, desertion is a growing phenomenon. The US army admits that 4,700 soldiers deserted in 2006 alone, an increase of over 40 percent compared to 3,300 soldiers in 2005, and up by 80 percent compared to 2003. These figures do not include personnel from the Air Force, Navy, or the Marines. (See: US Army reports rising desertion rates)

The attitude of the Canadian government and state to the Iraqi war resisters is in sharp contrast to that which it adopted in the 1960s and early 1970s during the Vietnam War. Then some 50,000 young Americans fled the military or obligatory conscription and were given refuge in Canada.

If the decision of the Supreme Court did not hit the front pages, neither did it pass unnoticed. It was the object of articles in daily papers all over the world.

The above is from Guy Charron's "Canada's Supreme Court opens door to deportation of US 'war resisters'" (WSWS). Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are the two most immediately effected along with Robin Long. But if the Canadian legislature does not address the situation it could effect many -- not all -- war resisters who went public in Canada. Not all? Kyle Snyder is an example of "not all." He is married to a Canadian citizen. In addition, there are those who have not gone public. On December 11th, the Canadian Parliament will hold hearings on the issue.

In the US more and more are walking away. On Sunday, we noted this:

Is Julie Ann Stendahl a war resister? No one knows. We ignored her reported e-mail because there was no way to prove that it was from her. What is known is that she was supposed to deploy October 31st to Iraq and did not. What is know is that she went missing. Now, The Olympian's Joseph Rose reports, US military flack Holly Blevins has announced, "Friends and family said she told them she wasn't going back to Iraq." That is all that's known. And certainly because the US military says something is true doesn't make it so.

AP notes that "she turned herself in on Monday morning" and that "Army officials say she'll be returned to her unit, and disciplinary action will be up to her commanding officer." That is all that is known specifically about her case. What is known in the big picture is that Stendahl is far from alone. Matthew Fewox self-checked out the military. Florida's NBC2 News speaks with his father Dave:

He left without permission and he was arrested for military desertion.
"It's a decision he made and ultimately he's going to have to suffer the consequences," said Fewox.

Whatever those consequences are, Matthew's father insists they can't be worse than the anxiety attacks his son suffered while in the Army.

"From what I understand he actually collapsed at the military base," said Fewox.

He says doctors diagnosed his son with depression, but despite continuing attacks - he couldn't get a medical release.

"They just kept sending him to the doctor and sending him back to the barracks," said Fewox. "Where the depression came from or the anxiety came from - I don't know."

But he thinks the danger of war may have finally hit home for his 20-year-old son.

"It's a good possibility you're going to Iraq. There are 99 chances out of 100 you're going to go. Maybe it got close and it freaked him out," said Fewox.

Note that in addition to the text, the link also contains video. Naomi Spencer's "US Army Reports Rising Desertion Rates" (WSWS via CounterCurrents):

For the Army, the desertion rate for 2007 is 42 percent higher than that of the previous year, when 3,301 deserted. In 2005, 2,011 Army soldiers deserted, representing the lowest annual rate of the war period. In 2001 and 2002, the number of desertions was similar to the most recent figures for the Army (4,597 and 4,483, respectively) before they began to decline.

Historically, the military has not actively pursued deserters. Troops who leave their posts are denied veterans benefits and their names are permanently added to a national database of fugitives. If they are picked up by civilian law enforcement, they are handed over to military police for court martial.

However, Army prosecutions of desertions and other unauthorized absences have greatly increased over the past four years in an attempt to deter other would-be deserters, according to Army lawyers in interviews with the New York Times earlier this year. In a report published April 9, the Times noted that from 2002 through 2006, the average annual rate of Army prosecutions for desertion was triple the preceding five-year period, and prosecutions of similar absences have doubled. This increase in disciplinary action is an unmistakable acknowledgment by the chain of command that the rise in desertions represents not a fluke but a sign of things to come.

Pointing to the far higher Vietnam-era desertion rates, which rose as high as 5 percent, the military has insisted the current rise in desertion rates has nothing to do either with the so-called war on terror or with mass antiwar sentiments.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Musings on WAR CRIMES and the United States

Let's have a good look at what we CAN Do, based on WHAT Can be DONE.

Impeachment, we are told is NOT on the table.

Further, the US has a new Attorney General who is obviously "politicized" and not taking a look at what constitutes WAR CRIMES, an Attorney General of the United States, a POWER who is at war that has a generalized (that is politicized) policy of torture. He not only overlooks certain forms of torture, but refuses to look at the fact that the US is using territory in foreign nations to torture who do not agree with this use of THEIR soil, ie, CUBA.

In addition, to turning a blind eye to domestic law violations on the part of the United States in persecuting those who oppose the war (the pictures of Lennox Yearwood's leg being broken come to mind while wearing an "I love Iraqis" button spring to mind), the US legal process has been SERIOUSLY re-routed into serving political ends. We cannot expecct much from government appointed Federal prosecutors; we all KNOW that story and we cannot expect much action from any of them. Those with conscience have already been FIRED.

There seems to be no outcry from CONgress about this. Since Mukasey was nominated as CHIEF LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE of the most militarist society on the face of the planet, we actually saw Democrats cross the aisle and vote him in!! The argument being that although he allowed torture and would NOT repeal the Patriot Act, he was "the lesser of evils" and probably the best nominee that BuZh could come up with? Was he? Is that a fair question?

I think there were far far better candidates for the post of Attorney General in the legal profession, including among the Federalist Society (you can find posts about them on this blog.)

This link well illustrates the challenge of Nuremberg: The prosecutors were required to create new laws. Never before had judges been prosecuted. Similarly, it appears Members of Congress -- in an unprecedented manner, as was the case with Nuremberg in re the Judges -- have engaged in alleged malfeasance. Congress has the power to appropriate money, but this is only for two years.

That appropriation is not a blank check; the Congress shares responsibility: To ensure the funds are spent for lawful wars. Arguably, the illegal war in Iraq attaches to each Member of Congress. This may be a new legal principle; and it may be a "new" requirement which has never before been attempted. But is it not reasonable to impose a legal duty -- attached with some sort of enforcement mechanism -- on Members of Congress: The duty to oversee, investigate, and refuse to continue providing funding for what is illegal?

To suggest that war crimes liability only attaches to the primary actors -- only in the Executive branch -- would ask that Congress need not engage in any oversight; nor review any laws: Just write the checks; and "trust" the President to do what he wants. It appears this blind deference to the President has been the problem: Blind in that the Congress refuses to see where it should open its eyes; and deferential where confrontation is lawfully required, especially on grave breaches of Geneva, which it appears the Congress well knew the President's advisers were well concerned with.

The crime isn't just in the primary actor; but in those who had a shared duty to oversee. America's government isn't a single Executive Branch; power is divided. The Judges in Nazi Germany were held liable. Similarly, the US Members of Congress, relying on this Precedent of Nuremberg, must be lawfully challenged for their alleged malfeasance in re US war crimes, breaches of Geneva: Alleged failure to investigate, failure to timely gather facts, and failure to timely bring charges. These charges, in theory, should attach to the leadership in Congress who had a duty to keep all lawful options on the table. This speaker appears to have defied the House precedents, and pretended that the Vice President wasn't involved; or that the acts were from another era. No, these acts were under this Speaker's watch while the VP was in office. Inaction isn't a defense. The Nazi Judges had a duty to enforce the law. Similarly, Members of Congress had the legal obligation to read it, then oversee whether it was or was not being followed before appropriating additional funds for the alleged war crimes in Iraq, Eastern Europe, and Guantanamo.

The Nazi judges were found liable because they failed to act, and did not enforce the law; and refused to resist illegal laws of the Nazi. Congress went one step further than the Nazi Judges: It passed illegal laws, was silent while those laws of war were violated, and continued paying pretending that they were subject to "superior" orders from the President. No, they had a duty to -- as a faction -- challenge that President, not become a staff agency to the Oval Office. Game on for expanding the Justice Trial precedents of Nuremberg against Member of Congress alleged breach of their oath of office in re the laws of war.

Canada-US crude oil pipeline down; gas prices UP!

Fire and explosion kills 2 shuts main Canada-US crude oil pipeline*

29 Nov 2007 04:59:55 GMT
Source: Reuters

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A fire and explosion in Minnesota on Wednesday forced Enbridge to shut most of the main pipeline that supplies Canadian crude to Midwest refineries, halting nearly a fifth of U.S. imports and sending prices up $1.

Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc said all its lines in the vicinity of its Clearbrook, Minnesota, terminal -- Lines 1, 2, 3, and 4 -- were immediately shut down and isolated.

Those are the main trunk lines that carry an estimated 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) of Canadian crude to the United States.

Enbridge did not give further details about the total line capacity that had been shut down and said it was unable to say when the line might be restarted.

Company spokespeople were not immediately able to offer additional comment.

The explosion took place about 3.0 miles (4.8 km) southeast of the Clearbrook terminal, Enbridge said, adding that appropriate authorities and emergency officials had been notified. The company said it was working with federal and state authorities to begin a thorough
investigation.

Two Enbridge employees were killed in the explosion and fire, the company said in a statement. A spokeswoman for the county said the fire could burn for another three days.

"The area under fire now is 100 feet (30.5 metres) by 100 feet, it is anticipated to burn for up to three days," Jeanine Brand, County Attorney and Public Information Officer for Clearwater County, told Reuters by telephone.

Oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel in Thursday trade on fears that the disruption would tighten supplies, rebounding from a nearly $4 fall a day ago. U.S. crude oil futures were $1.17 higher at $91.79 a barrel by 0445 GMT.

Canada is the biggest supplier of foreign crude to the United States, accounting for almost one-fifth of its over 10 million bpd of imports, government data show. [EIA/IMPORT]

Nearly all of that is delivered via the Enbridge system.

According to the Enbridge Web site, Lines 1, 2, 3 and 4 have a capacity to carry slightly over 1.7 million bpd of crude oil, natural gas liquids and oil products.

"My initial impression is that (this) will put a halt to the slide in oil prices and put us back on the march towards $100 a barrel," ANZ senior commodities analyst Mark Pervan said. "The timing is pretty bad. We are coming to the strongest demand period for crude with the approach
of the northern winter."

PAST LEAKS FIXED QUICKLY

Previous disruptions caused by leaks on the Enbridge system earlier this year have been patched up quickly enough to avoid any significant impact on customer deliveries.

A prolonged outage could have a significant market impact. The Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) oil futures is located in the Midwest, although the Enbridge line does not flow directly there.

The fire occurred at a main juncture in the line shortly before the U.S. portion splits into a network of pipes that runs to refiners in Chicago and the U.S. Midwest, a landlocked region that has few other immediate sources of supply.

It supplies 62 percent of the crude refined in the Chicago area and 82 percent of Ontario's demand, according to the Web site of U.S. arm Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P .

The Enbridge System in Canada consists of 8,000 km (5,000 miles) of mainline pipe and connects to the 5,600 km Lakehead System in the United States.

The cause of the explosion has not been determined, Enbridge said, but Clearwater County's Brand said it was due to a leak.

"Apparently, there was an oil leak within the last couple of weeks, crews were around when they finished, and they pressured the pipeline, and crude started spilling from the pipeline, oil sprayed and created an oil spill," she said.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot and Robert Campbell in New York, Luke Pachymuthu, Jiwon Chung and Nick Trevethan in Singapore; Writing by Jonathan Leff; Editing by Ramthan Hussain)

Holding them accountable: Nuremberg

After World War II, the Allies decided against summary execution in favor of an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg—an ... all » unprecedented move in the history of international justice. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg challenged the world to apply law to mass violence and to recognize crimes against humanity. In this excerpt from a panel discussion at Facing History and Harvard Law School's Pursuing Human Dignity conference on the legacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the following people reflect on the legal and educational legacies of Nuremberg: Gary Bass, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University; John Barrett, Professor of Law, St. John’s University; Ernie Michel, Holocaust survivor and reporter, Nuremberg Trials; Ben Ferencz, former Nuremberg War Crimes Prosecutor; Martha Minow , Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Fernando Reimers , Ford Foundation Professor of International Education, Director, International Policy Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education; and Margot Stern Strom, Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves

The Geneva Conventions

War is an ugly business. For about 10,000 years, that remained the case.

Then the Geneva Conventions came along in 1948, and the nations of the world joined hands to transform war from an ugly business into an ugly-business-described-by-solemn-buzzwords-and-unenforceable-guidelines, which allowed countries taking part in war to disavow the ugliness of the business without actually having to conduct the business in any meaningfully different manner. This is what we call "civilization."

As a bonus, the Conventions also allowed combatants to accuse each other of very specific over-the-top ugliness, thus justifying current wars and inflaming still more wars in the future. This is what we call "humanitarianism."

After World War II, which was (at the time) arguably the worst war ever, the nations of the world started to wonder about this whole war business. Although war had been an inescapable fact of life ever since primates figured out how to sharpen sticks, the primates of the 1940s were more than a little unsettled by WWII's unprecedented body count, unspeakable atrocities, genocidal mass murder and wholesale slaughter of civilians (to the tune of more than 200,000 in a single day's work).

The Geneva Conventions were actually an update of previously drafted set of standards also known as the Geneva Conventions, but no one paid any attention to the first Geneva Conventions, so they don't count. You might be tempted to say the same thing about the current Geneva Conventions after reading this, but historians generally regard it as classier to wait 30 or 40 years before stating the obvious.

The nations of the world had two bright ideas for dealing with this problem of war. The first was the United Nations. This was a great idea. Really. You can't fault them for trying (well, you could if you wanted).

One of the first things the U.N. did was sit down in Geneva, Switzerland, and try to find a kinder, gentler way to wage war. What better place than Switzerland? (To quote Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) in The Third Man: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!")

In December 1948, the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide passed the first article of what would be known as the Geneva Conventions. Genocide was defined as murder "committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Taking a page from the Nuremberg Trials, the convention drew up a list of punishable crimes "genocide; conspiracy to commit genocide; direct and public incitement to commit genocide; attempt to commit genocide; [and] complicity in genocide."

The initial statement on genocide was followed up by subsequent conventions dealing with various related and unrelated aspects of war, including prisoners of war and the treatment of civilians. Three more articles were adopted in 1949, and the Conventions were updated and expanded in 1977.

The Rules

In very broad strokes, here are the major points mandated in the tens of thousands of words and hundreds of rules known as the Geneva Conventions, as identified by the International Red Cross:

• Prisoners of war should be "respected and protected" without regard to gender, race, politics or creed.
• Prisoners may not be murdered, tortured or subjected to scientific experiments.
• War combatants are obligated to search for, collect and care for the wounded and sick after a battle, and they are required to report these activities (as well as the names of prisoners) to the Red Cross.
• Combatants may not capture independent parties attempting to provide humanitarian aid or perform search-and-rescue missions.
• Hospital facilities may not be used for military purposes.
• Prisoners must be allowed to communicate with their families. They must not be subjected to "violence, insults and public curiousity."
• POWs are only obligated to provide their captors with their name, rank, serial number and date of birth.
• POWs must be provided with reasonable and hyginic shelter, including food, clothing and medical care. They can't be used as human shields. If they are forced to work, they must be compensated and provided with reasonable workplace conditions.
• POWs may be tried by their captors in a fair and impartial manner, and they are entitled to competent representation.
• At the end of a war, all POWs must be returned to their home countries.
• The Red Cross must be permitted to visit privately with POWs, to examine the conditions of their confinement and to distribute humanitarian supplies.
• Civilians unfortunate enough to be living in the middle of a war must be allowed to "lead normal lives."
• Occupiers of a land must honor the safety, dignity, religious beliefs and cultural mores of the people there.
• Civilians are entitled to all the protections accorded to POWs (above), as well as protection from collective punishment or deportation.
• Civilians cannot be forced to do military work for an occupying force.
• Occupying powers are obliged to support the health and safety of the population with food and medical supplies (or by allowing humanitarian shipments of the same).
• "Indiscriminate" attacks on civilians targets are forbidden.
• Dams, dikes, nuclear plants, places of worship, cultural landmarks and "objects indispensible to civilian survival" (such as crops or drinking water supplies) may not be specifically targeted.
• Soldiers must be over the age of 15.
• Weapons which cause inordinate environmental damage, "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" are prohibited.
• Using a protected emblem (like the Red Cross) to hide military activity or personnel is a war crime.

Breaking the Rules

Needless to say, once the civilized world agreed on the basic principles of decency and honor, those principles were promptly discarded in favor of expediency and sadism.

Given the fact these rules were largely instituted as a response to Nazi atrocities during WWII, it's ironic that Israel is considered one of the worst offenders, racking up dozens of clear Geneva Conventions violations and hundreds more rumored or suspected violations, mostly concerning the Palestinians.

A 2002 U.N. resolution condemning Israel's treatment of the Palestianians laid out a number of violations, including "the siege of Yasser Arafat’s Headquarters in Ramallah, by the Occupying Power in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Those include annexation and settlement, the reoccupation of Palestinian cities and blocking of roads between them; expulsions and targeted assassination of scores of Palestinians; attacks on ambulances and medical personnel; house demolitions; destruction of water storage facilities; uprooting of thousands of fruit and olive trees; 24-hour curfews; almost permanent closures of towns, villages and cities; and excessive use of force, including weapons of war such as F-16 bombers and helicopter gunships used against apartment houses, refugee camps and other civilian targets, causing the deaths of numerous Palestinians."

In addition, Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, is one of the most notorious and practiced practitioners of interrogative torture in the world.

The use of War Crimes tribunals in relation to the Geneva Conventions has mostly been reserved for a) Third World countries with little power to defend themselves and b) regimes which have collapsed so thoroughly that no one cares what happens to their former leaders. This includes countries like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the great "successes" in international war crime prosecution.

Other countries pretty much do what they want, and no one tries to stop them. Among these nations, the United States stands out as the "Untouchable." U.S. forces and policy-makers have been involved in a number of high-profile incidents over the years, which is one reason the U.S. has opted out of the International Criminal Court initiative.

The best known violations came during the Vietnam War, such as the high-profile My Lai Massacre, and countless proven and alleged incidents involving the destruction of civilian villages, mass defoliation with Agent Orange, the execution of prisoners (civilian and military) and the use of napalm and poison gas.

Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey served on a U.S. death squad operating under orders to kill Vietnamese civilians in the Mekong Delta village of Thanh Phong. He said he was sorry (and he's not from Rwanda), so apparently he doesn't get a war crimes tribunal. And public outcry regularly wells up in calls for a Henry Kissinger tribunal every eight months or so.

After September 11, the U.S. stopped even giving lip service to the rules of war, by declaring al Qaeda operatives and allies "unlawful combatants," which American policy makers took to mean "non-entities." As part of its terrorism-inspired attack on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, the U.S. joined forces with the Northern Alliance, a faction known for its roving rape gangs and frequent execution of prisoners.

Hundreds of prisoners from that invasion were unceremoniously shipped to detention camps in Afghanistan and Cuba where some were imprisoned in the rough equivalent of barbed-wire straightjackets — cells in which they were restrained in a standing position with no range of movement. Several al Qaeda members, from the top echelon leadership to mentally challenged footsoldiers have been shipped to undisclosed locations where they are carefully tortured with an eye toward legalistic loopholes (i.e., probably no rubber hoses or electrodes taped to genitals).

Other highlights of U.S. historical practices include feeding radioactive waste to retarded children during the 1950s and decades of active research into biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax and smallpox. During the 1980s, the fruits of this research were shared with beloved U.S. allies like Iraq.

Speaking of Iraq, the 2003 U.S. invasion looks to be a promising source of war crimes to entertain the jaded public for months to come. Although there appeared to be scores of Iraqi civilians killed as "collateral damage" by U.S. attacks within days of the war's start and hundreds (or perhaps thousands) more dying as a result of the coalition's failure to provide legally required support and humanitarian aid to civilians in occupied areas, Saddam Hussein's fighting forces have really been going the extra mile to take the heat off of whatever piddling crimes the Americans manage to muster.

It's almost as if Uday Hussein sat down with the Geneva Conventions handbook and drafted a set of orders designed specifically break every single rule listed therein. Within just the first two weeks, the Iraqis televised humiliating pictures of POWs, apparently executed some prisoners, tortured others and possibly dismembered still others. The Iraqi leadership dressed soldiers in civilian clothing and distributed them among the population, posted armed forces in hospital facilities, launched suicide attacks using soldiers dressed as civilians, and used fake surrenders for sneak attacks. About the only atrocity the Iraqis hadn't pulled off by the end of week two was the deployment of the alleged chemical weapons that provided the pretext for launching the war in the first place.

Needless to say, it's manifestly unfair to single out the U.S. and Iraq for violations of the Geneva Conventions. Not when you can compile similar lists for China (torture, mass executions, biological and chemical weapons), the former Soviet Union (torture, mass executions, genocide, civilian massacres, assassination, biological and chemical weapons), the current Russia (torture, biological and chemical weapons, trafficking in nuclear weapons), North Korea (torture, executions, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons), Turkey (torture, detention camps, ethnic repression), Pakistan (torture, mass executions, assassination, supporting terrorism, military attacks on civilians, nuclear weapons), Saudi Arabia (torture, supporting terrorism, gender-based oppression), Kuwait (ethnically-based slavery), Chile (torture, mass executions), the Philippines (torture and assassination), Iran (mass executions, religious and ethnic repression, chemical and nuclear weapons), Thailand (torture, child sex trade), Singapore (torture), Malaysia (torture, execution, illegal detentions), Sudan (torture, supporting terrorism, mass executions), the Congo (ethnic cleansing, torture, rape gangs, civilian massacres), South Africa (apartheid, torture, assassinations, civilian massacres), Kenya (gender-based persecution, torture, massacres), Uganda (slavery, child abduction, massacres, rape, child sex trade), Cuba (mass detention, assassinations), Colombia (assassinations, mass executions, civilian massacres, drug trade)...

But this is getting tedious, and unfortunately, it could easily go on for pages and pages. The long and the short of it is this: The Geneva Conventions are great fodder for politicians attacking countries they don't like, but if you feel you have been the victim of a violation, you might as well take it to Judge Judy, because you aren't getting a tribunal unless you happen to live in Rwanda, or possibly (at some point in the distant future) Iraq. Have a nice day.

Historical lesson of the day: about WAR CRIMES

"The. prostitution of a judicial system

for the

accomplishment of criminal ends

involves an element of evil to the State

which is not found in frank atrocities

which do not sully judicial robes."

"In spite of all that he had done he still bore an unmerited reputation as the last of the German jurists and so Hitler gave him his blessing and 100,000 RM as a parting gift.We are under no misapprehension. Schlegelberger is a tragic character He loved the life of intellect, the work of the scholar. We believe that he loathed the evil that he did, but he sold that intellect and that scholarship to Hitler for a mass of political pottage and for the vain hope of personal security. He is guilty under Counts two and three of the indictment."

The Defendant Schlegelberger

Let's not think about this too much. Let's realize that in the United States of America, any JUDGE, any legal personage who is complict in WAR CRIMES is GUILTY.

Perhaps the most salient moment was in the eleventh programme entitled 'Knowledge or Certainty' when Bronowski visited Auschwitz, at which many members of his family had died.

We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.

Bronowski published his last poem, on the Watergate scandal, in the Listener magazine (see left margin),

Ascent was to be his last project, as it was completed shortly before he died at East Hampton, Long Island, New York from a heart attack in 1974, at the age of 66. He is buried at Highgate Cemetary, north London.

Campaign trail rancor carries over into GOP debate

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CNN) -- The acrimony from the Republican campaign trail carried over quickly into the CNN/YouTube GOP presidential debate Wednesday.

The debate marks the first time the candidates have faced off on the same stage in over a month.

With five weeks to go until the first contest of the 2008 nominating season, the Republican candidates engaged in a full-fronted free-for-all, trying to differentiate their views on immigration, the Iraq war, abortion, gun control and even whether they believed every word in the Bible was true.

Unlike previous debates in which the candidates focused most of their attacks on Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Wednesday night's attacks were launched at each other.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney traded jabs over illegal immigration, something they have been arguing about on the trail for the past month.

Romney attacked Giuliani's record, saying that as mayor, he promoted illegal immigration. And Giuliani shot back, accusing Romney of having a "sanctuary mansion" at his own home. Watch the Romney-Giuliani tangle »

"In his case, there were six sanctuary cities. He did nothing about them. There was a sanctuary mansion -- at his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed," Giuliani said.

Romney denied Giuliani's allegation and the two raised their voices as they tried to talk over each other.

Don't Miss

• GOP hopefuls field YouTube queries with race undecided
• Funny, poignant questions pour in for GOP debate
• I-Report: Share your take on tonight's debate
• Debate transcript
• Debate scorecard: Who won?

In his quest to appeal to the hard-line immigration wing of the party, Romney also turned some of his fire on the same topic toward former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has been rising in the polls.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, who has anchored his candidacy on securing the borders and cracking down on illegal immigration, seemed delighted with the give and take, saying the other candidates were trying to "out-Tancredo" him.

Huckabee drew one of the night's largest cheers when he said that one of the agencies he would abolish to control federal spending was the Internal Revenue Service.

"Most people in this country are more afraid of an audit than they are of a mugging, and there's a reason why," he said.

Sen. John McCain, freshly back from a visit to Iraq over Thanksgiving and the most hawkish of the candidates, and Rep. Ron Paul, the most anti-war of the candidates, tangled on two occasions over the Iraq war.

Asked which government programs they would cut, Paul said bringing the troops home from Iraq would save "a trillion dollars."

McCain said, "it's that kind of isolationism that caused World War II," which drew some hoots from the crowd. Watch McCain, Paul spar on Iraq »

Paul replied, "The real question you have to ask is why do I get the most money from active duty officers and military personnel?"

A retired brigadier general Keith Kerr, who is gay, asked candidates if they thought U.S. military personnel were professional enough to work with gay and lesbian troops.

CNN later learned that Kerr served on Clinton's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender steering committee.

David Bohrman, CNN senior vice president and executive producer of the debate, said, "We regret this incident. CNN would not have used the general's question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate." Political Ticker

In a section of the debate about gun ownership rights, three of the GOP presidential hopefuls said they do not own guns: McCain, Giuliani and Romney.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quipped, "I own a couple of guns -- but I'm not going to tell you what they are or where they are." Watch the candidates address gun control »

The debate turned personal when a viewer, holding the Bible, asked "Do you believe every word of this book? And I mean specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand."

Huckabee, a Baptist minister, said,"Sure I believe the Bible is exactly what it is."

Giuliani said he believes the Bible, but not "literally true in every respect."

After that, Romney stammered a bit when moderator Anderson Cooper asked him if he believed every word. Watch the candidates get personal about the Bible »

"Yeah, the Bible is the word of God. ... I might interpret the word differently than you interpret the word, but I read the Bible and I believe the Bible is the word of God," Romney said.

When asked about abortion, Romney said he was wrong in favoring a woman's right to choose -- his position when he was elected governor of Massachusetts.

"If people in this country are looking for someone who's never made a mistake on a policy issue and is not willing to admit they're ever wrong, they're going to have to find somebody else. On abortion, I was wrong," he said.

His remarks came in response to the 30-second video produced for the debate by Thompson's campaign, which included a clip of Romney expressing support for Roe vs. Wade during a 1994 debate against Sen. Ted Kennedy.

When asked what women and doctors should be charged with if abortion was to become illegal, Paul said it was not an issue for the president or the federal government.

"We don't need a federal abortion police, that's the last thing we need," Paul said. He added that the issue should be left to the states and courts and not federal authorities.

On the issues of taxes, Thompson said he'd "never met a tax he liked."

"I've got a tax-cut bill on the table. But I don't do pledges to anybody but the American people," he said.

His response was met by a "Go, Fred, go!" from a member of the audience.

On the issue of trade with China, Rep. Duncan Hunter said China is "cheating on trade ... and it's in the interest of the us to stop China's cheating. Buy American this Christmas season, that might keep your neighbor from losing his job."

The candidates fielded video questions submitted by the public via the YouTube Web site, just as Democratic White House candidates did in July.he debate was the first time the GOP candidates had faced off on the same stage in over a month.

CNN's political team viewed nearly 5,000 videos for the GOP debate -- about 2,000 more than they saw for the Democrats' debate.

A message from our sponsor: The Earth

From: Save the Peaks
To: Save the Peaks
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 5:16 PM
Subject: SAVE THE PEAKS CALL FOR SUPPORT! - Legal Battle to Protect Sacred Site Comes to Pasadena, CA

SAVE THE PEAKS CALL FOR SUPPORT! - Legal Battle to Protect Sacred Site Comes to Pasadena, CA

The San Francisco Peaks are a unique mountain ecosystem which are managed as public lands in Northern Arizona.

The Peaks are held Holy by more than 13 Indigenous Nations. A small ski area is threatening expansion and attempting to make fake snow from treated sewage effluent filled with harmful contaminants.

A coalition of tribes and environmental groups have unified to prevent the environmental destruction, community health hazards and extreme desecration that would be caused by the proposed development.

Although the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the ski area plan, the case will be reheard in Pasadena on December 11th, 2007.

Along with the events planned below, the Save the Peaks Coalition is calling for prayers to be made on Dec. 11th to support the protection of all threatened sacred places.

If you, your group or organization would like to sign on as a supporter of our efforts, please send us an email indicating your support to coalition@savethepe aks.org.

We will publish your organization/ group/individual name on our website and possibly on our outreach material as well, with your permission of course.

The Save the Peaks Coalition is also planning a caravan from Northern Arizona to Pasadena, CA to support the efforts to protect the Holy Peaks. If you would like to go on the caravan please contact us by December 5th. Please call or e-mail J Benally at (928) 527-1431 or coalition@savethepe aks.org to reserve your space or for more information.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
www.savethepeaks. org

SAVE THE PEAKS!

Flagstaff, AZ Events

Wednesday, December 5th
Save the Peaks Banner Making Party!
Where: Taala Hooghan Infoshop & Youth Media Arts Center
1926 N. 4th St. #7B, Flagstaff, AZ
When: 5:30pm

Tuesday, December 11th
Save the Peaks Vigil for Justice!
Where: Heritage Square, Downtown Flagstaff, AZ
When: 4:00pm - 5:30pm

LA/Pasadena, CA Events

Sunday, December 2nd
Screenings of the "The Snowbowl Effect", a documentary about the struggle to protect the sacred San Francisco Peaks. Discussion with Save the Peaks Coalition representative and Q&A with the director of the film.

"Save the Peaks Solidarity" at the South Central Farmers' Tianguis
Where: South Central Farmers' Community Center
1702 E. 41st St., Los Angeles 90058
(between Long Beach Ave and Alameda Ave.)
Tel. 1-888-scfarm- 1
southcentralfarmers .com
When: Sunday, December 2nd
w/ screenings and discussion at:
11:30am -- 1pm -- 2:30pm -- 4pm

"Environmental Justice and Protecting Sacred Lands"
Documentary screening and discussion on building a stronger Indigenous Movement and Environmental Justice Alliance.
Where: First Street Studios
2026 E. 1st Street Los Angeles, CA. 90033 (Boyle Heights)
Tel. 323-268-0005
www.firststreetstud ios.com
When: Sunday, December 2nd at 6:00pm

Saturday, December 8th
Panel Discussion & Awareness Concert!
"Defending the Land: Indigenous Cultural Survival, Environmental Justice & Protecting Sacred Places"
Panel Discussion from 6:00pm - 8:00pm with representatives from Environmental groups, Grassroots organizations, and Indigenous communities struggling to protect sacred places.
Protect Sacred Sites! Awareness Concert starting at 8:00pm (Bands TBA)
Where: Self Help Graphics & Art
3802 Cesar E. Chavez Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90063
Tel. 323-881-6444

Monday, December 10th
Welcoming ceremony for Save the Peaks caravan from Northern Arizona, dinner and speakers.
When: 6:30pm
Where: The All Saints Church
132 North Euclid Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101
Tel. 626-796-1172

Tuesday, December 11th - Save the Peaks Court Date
The case will be heard at the Pasadena Court of Appeals at 3:00pm. The court is located at 125 South Grand Avenue, Pasadena, CA. Parking is limited in the area so please carpool and use public transportation.

Noon - 1:30pm
March for Sacred Sites & Human Rights!
Meet at All Saints Church for lunch and march to the Appeals Court.

1:40pm - 3:00pm
Prayer Vigil, Ceremony & Rally outside the Courthouse.
Vigil to continue outside for folks who do not wish to enter the courthouse.

3:00pm - 4:00pm
Actual court proceedings. Folks will be able to go inside the courthouse to view the court proceedings and show support.

5:00pm - 5:30pm
Press Conference outside of courthouse.

Please visit www.savethepeaks. org for more information.

Protect our Cultural & Natural Heritage

Anonyous, it's heating up and we should TALK

Far easier for back and forth,

please use my gmail address, which is no great secret

ladybroadoak@gmail.com

Then perhaps we should exchange phone numbers, as I care VERY deeply about

1. Getting Pelosi out of the way

2. Getting impeachment ON THE TABLE

3. Getting these dirty rotten KILLERS to court, PRONTO.

4. Ending the arms trade and

5. Getting the crook$ and liar$ who are destroying this planet day by day by day.

6. Helping ensure that NDN peoples have a safe home, as they intended it to be.

To do this we need CLEAN WATER and putting our children FIRST,

above ALL else.

I can't sleep knowing how much killing there is going on, knowing that we COULD do something about if we ALL unite

environmentalists,
antiwar persons,
antiplutocracy people
civil libertarians
grandmothers (I AM!)
mothers
daughters
grandfathers
fathers
sons
brothers and sisters (go listen to the Gino Vanelli song HERE )

we must work TOGETHER .. NOW IS THE TIME.

THE NEED, not WANT, has never been greater.

So do drop me an email .. let's get the ball rolling and in the face of everyone that needs to see ACTION.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

ps, Gino is singing his HEART OUT. This is a song about P E A C E.

The WAR IS OVER!!

The Pen on the FCC

There is a massive bipartisan ground swell of public opposition
building against the attempt of the FCC chairman on accelerated
notice to sneak through the most devastating decimation of media
diversity ever. Multiple groups are mobilizing around this, including
more than 10,000 submissions to the FCC and your members of Congress
from our first alert on this last week.

Stop The FCC Action Page:
http://www.usalone.com/stop_media_consolidation.php

Facebook Action Page:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum738

Though deliberately been rushed through to try to evade critical
analysis, it is now clear that the proposed rule changes would affect
every city and hamlet in every market, not just the 20 biggest as
deceptively advertised. It's nothing but a giant cave in to the media
moguls who have already degraded the public discourse with systematic
propaganda masquerading as news.

But the good news is that members of both sides of the aisle in
Congress are acting to stop this last minute bum rush, by bringing
forward the Media Ownership Act of 2007, to tell the FCC in no
uncertain terms, "Whoa horsey!" Please submit the action page above
so we can turn the tide on this eminently winnable struggle, just as
we did in 2003, turning back virtually the same attack by then FCC
chairman Powell.

We need to really pour it on. We need every voice we can muster to
tell our members of Congress we stand behind them as one on this, and
to tell the FCC that we the people unanimously oppose our media being
sold out to those who have sold the public interest so short.

We only have until December 11, to make our voices heard. Please
bring the weight of your personal comments to bear at this pivotal
time for the future of our public media. You can submit either of the
action pages above, the second being the new Facebook alternate
option.

OpedNews Brings Their Numbers To Join The Fight

Coming through in a major way in this mobilization is the entire
contributing writer staff at OpedNews, who have submitted seven
pieces on this policy crisis in the last couple days alone. The
articles below contain much insightful analysis and information, for
example the fact that FCC Chairman Martin has been nothing but a Bush
political hatchet man since day one, including a stint as a Bush
campaign attorney.

Please read and promote these articles of truth as well, on any
networks you participate in like Digg, Reddit and so on, to get the
word out that it's time for the people to be heard again.

Censored: Media Consolidation Debate by Steve Fournier
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steve_fo_071127_censored_3a_media_cons.htm

Cross Ownership Proposal by Kenneth Briggs
http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_kenneth__071127_cross_ownership_prop.htm

Confronting the FCC Monolith by Kevin Gosztola
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kevin_go_071127_confronting_the_fcc_.htm

The Bush Push To Take Control Of Our Media and What You Can Do About
It by Cliff Carson
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_cliff_ca_071127_the_bush_push_to_tak.htm

Stopping the FCC from Consolidating Media Ownership by Mike
Kuykendall
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_kuy_071127_stopping_the_fcc_fro.htm

When Fox News Brags.....and the FCC by Michael Shaw
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071126_when_fox_news_brags_.htm

Media for the Masses, not amassed media monopolization by Richard
Mathis
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__071127_media_for_the_masses.htm

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.usalone.com/in.htm

Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function
at http://www.usalone.com/out.htm

usalone135b:56541 

ISP problem now fixed! Get ready for the SNARK, guyz and galz

Leave feedback now.

I'll get it posted asap.

Sorry about the delay

(do you think KKKarl and The Dick had something to do with it??)

STATE PROCLAMATION for removal of Pelosi

Forward this to your friends, and to your State Legislators for debate; and here are important back-up links to support the following [Precedents from the House in re Speaker Removal, State Proclamations]:
http://www.haloscan.com/ comments...a=36529#2692020
- - - - - - - -
State Proclamation Calling For Removal of Nancy Pelosi As Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Whereas House Rules Prohibit conduct by any member which may bring discredit upon the House; or engage in any conduct which would allegedly violate the law;

Whereas House Rule 603 permits any State Legislature to pass a resolution calling for a change in leadership, including Constitutional officers; and that this resolution is privileged;

Whereas House Rules Recognize that a Speaker may be removed after the House Members vote on a privileged resolution removing the Member of Congress from their role as Speaker;

Whereas Nancy Pelosi took an oath to the United States Constitution, 5 USC 3331, where she promised to have no mental reservation in defending the Constitution against domestic enemies;

Whereas Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have allegedly conspired to block review, investigation, and discussion by the United States House of Representatives, their Members, and Committees of impeachable offenses of President and Vice President of the united States;

Whereas Speaker Pelosi and others have allegedly brough discredit upon the House by refusing to fully assert her oath of office, has demonstrated mental reservations about her 5 USC 3331 oath of office requirements;

Whereas there is ample evidence supporting allegations against the President and Vice President which the Speaker and others have said they are not interested in reviewing because of lesser, non-constitutional goals, allegedly in breach of her oath of office, and in contravention with the House Rules requiring conduct to fully support the Constitution as the Supreme Law;

We the Legislature/Assembly of the State of ________ do pass this resolution calling for the United States House of Representatives to remove Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the United States House; and the House of Representatives Vote to Start Immediately an investigation into the impeachable offenses of the President and Vice President of the United States.
Anonymous | 11.08.07 - 12:33 pm | #

>>>>>-<<<<<
Brilliant. Now you have the big clue. Complicity with war crimes is a serious issue.

It's the big thing Pelosi doesn't want to admit she has a problem

>>>>>-<<<<<>>>>>-<<<<<

Brilliant. Now you have the big clue. Complicity with war crimes is a serious issue. Darls, I've had a clue for a long time. I'd loan you mine, but you haven't shown you can care and feed for it. And while you're at it, consider your own complicity, as well as the notion of "degree." Then think about stabbing your eyes with a knitting needle since you clearly don't need them to read. NTodd, Powersupplyless | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:53 pm | #

Here's the issue the Americna legal community will have to face, unless Pelosi wakes up: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/.../ Alstoetter.htm - Alleged frivolous excuses by Ameican legal counsein DoJ, Congress, and other areas for alleged breach of oath in re Geneva. These are war crimes issues, counselor. Get. A. Clue. if we don't confront Pelosi and get this investigation going; then other nationsn can lawfully use combat to compel. IS. THIS. SINKING. INTO. YOUR. MIND? Anonymous | 11.27.07 - 7:53 pm | #

You. Keep. Asserting. This. But. Don't. Provide. A. Citation. In. Geneva. NTodd, Powersupplyless | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:51 pm | # [kill]​ Nice. Try. But. You. Are. NOT. BEING. EMPHATIC. ENOUGH. Phila, Pizen Sarpint | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:54 pm | #

NTodd, Powersupplyless | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:53 pm | The Grand jury can decide who's been doing their job; or not. Anonymous | 11.27.07 - 7:54 pm | #

mer - yes, dear. Damn you. I'm just of a mood, but I'll stop feeding it. NTodd, Powersupplyless | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:54 pm | #

i think two practical steps Congress can take is 1. impeach chimp 2. prosecute war profiteers 3. withdraw from Iraq. 100% euphronius | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:54 pm | #

These are war crimes issues, counselor. Get. A. Clue. if we don't confront Pelosi and get this investigation going; then other nationsn can lawfully use combat to compel. I'm late to the show but I assume you can explain briefly why we're going after Pelosi before Bush and Cheney? SteveLG | 11.27.07 - 7:55 pm | #

>>>>>-<<<<<

Commentary on Young people the coming attacks on IRAN, and what happens NOW and THEN

Tons here, discuss amongst yourselves ..

First my tuppance of the day,

As the evidence mounts that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are blocking impeachment efforts (think of all that lovely PAC money! Think of the defense contractor election funding! Think of how WAR pays for the linings of big buck$ dollar$ in their pockets and porkbarrelled job$ in their districts netting them more campaign dollar$),

we get comments like this one:

what strenuous arguments you make for us to stop attacking republicans and start attacking democrats?

Well, folks I can safely and with CERTAINTY say, that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are acting without conscience, without concern for the the effects that their actions and coverups and lack of action for the global community. They have DIMINISHED whatever PRESTIGE that America had left. They've made the defense and Homeland Security industries BILLIONS richer, but what are they doing for anyone dieing in Irak, or for anyone in GAZA, or anyone fearful of a COMING WAR WITH IRAN.

It IS a nonpartisan issue - and to keep covering this ground is a complete waste of time. Meanwhile, the killing continues, it's business as usual and Christmas season when we have to sit back and take a good look at the pretty pass the Anglo-Americano-Isreali axis has taken everyone. And I mean everyone.

I went shopping today at at an Indigo Book store, a nice big FAT Heather Reisman bookstore here in Lalaland Toronto. There is plenty of money in this neighborhood. Everyone is mostly "doing nicely, thank you". But people were in there, like me, trying to get the cheap bargain food advertised in this week's shopper. You now, $2 for 3 toaster waffles, an incredible (DEAL OF THE YEAR!) $1 for a low-end pork roast, $1 boxes of Michelina's frozen (incredibly small) frozen dinner boxes, $2 cheese bar$, but these things were ALL GONE. Not there, not in stock, just a figment of someone's imagination and ability to buy ads to get us INTO THE STORE.

Truth is people are TAPPED OUT. People are feed up and restless, they're angry and out of tune ..

During my travels (spent $30 to cash a disability check, as my money didn't stretch through the month), I handed out TWO cards to young women for this blog! Both were about 30, both wonder why politics dominates everything and they are aware there is NO POLITICAL LEADERSHIP. Who is speaking for them? Nancy Pelosi? Yeah, right. Harry Reid? Their Canadian Prime Minister? Their MP? The press? Nope.


But they did take my hand lettered business card. They want to KNOW. And they have a right to know the high stakes game that is going on around this globe, in terms that they can understand. Are they seeing that as people waffle about the need to REMOVE Nancy Pelosi? About the need to censure Harry Reid? About the need to expose The Harper's game of covering up all his arms purchases and why Canada is REALLY in Afghanistan.

We need ot make our actions, as we are the ADULTS, to ensure that youth figures out what to do when the LEADERS put their interests ahead of the people they PAID TO REPRESENT.

Forget the partisan politics before time runs out.

The clock on Iran and the bigger arms deals is ticking ..

The hour is late.

The bodies of the dead pile up.

The war-injuried troops are exhausted.

This generation is looking at a dire future.

The least we can do is help them out.

And this is my answer to THIS

what strenuous arguments you make for us to stop attacking republicans and start attacking democrats

which I spotted on a thread of major political blog.

It's about the young people, STOOPID, it ain't about the DEMOCRATS!! Get the eff with it!!

Veeger
and now for a round up of what I can pull off some threads ...

X writes:

If the US — as Sibler suggests — attacks Iran, and does nothing about these impeachable offenses, there is a major problem: The US could be lawfully attacked. We’ve got Russian bombers flying missions near Alaska; and visits between Russia-Iran-Venezuela. [ Read Prof Turley information for more. ]

If We the People will not put impeachment on the table, and remove all obstacles to accountability for these alleged war crimes, then other nations — under the principle of reciprocity and retaliation under Geneva — can use deadly force to do what Congress has failed to do: Enforce the Geneva conventions.

This is getting serious folks: Either time to force this US government to do what it needs to do and not make excuses; or we need to not be surprised when other nations use force to do what We the People refused to do: Constrain power.

Putin made it clear just this week he will use full uncompromising force if necessary against any threat and has put Soviet Nuclear Forces on full and permanent round the clock alert.

Y writes

Good points.

Small problem: Diplomacy doesn’t change history, or the war crimes evidence.

It’s untimely for Bush — as a possible effort to divert attention from impeachable offenses — to be “concerned” with diplomacy. That didn’t appear to be of much concern when Saddam (supposedly) offered to resign, if the US would not invade. Bush had legal options on the table, but refused to assert them; Congress has legal obligations on the table, and refuses to assert them. Congress and the President are on two sides of the same crime-complicity coin. [See Legal problem for Congressional staff counsel ]

Other than the DNC assenting to war crimes (through a decision not to investigate, or agree with frivolous excuses to suppress evidence of war crimes), not seeing much evidence Congress is doing much to distance itself from the war crimes. What’s the Congressional-DOJ Staff counsel going to do, other than issue more frivolous legal arguments to pretend they are immune to accountability for inaction in re war crimes? It does not appear they have much defense. Time for the public to get access to these Congressional memoranda, and find out which delusions the DNC-leadership is working under to “justify” inaction in re Geneva violations and grave breaches of laws of war by the President.

Voters need to see the information to make an informed Presidential-voting decision. Until the voters see the evidence, We the People have no basis to evaluate how these Presidential candidates will or will not embrace the needed reforms to ensure this abuse of power, inaction, and Congressional malfeasance does not occur.

If Congress will not investigate or impeach, time to gear up for grand jury indictments of Members of Congress; and mobilize the states to support direct prosecutions of the President, VP, and Members of Congress in re Geneva violations.

X writes:

Here we go again. Flip Flop? Insane Madman? Or is the MSM playing games with peoples heads? Which is it?

AP - 15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush told the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday he is personally committed to their mission of peace, urging them to stick with it and not lose sight of their goal.

Y writes:

Here we go again. Flip Flop? Insane Madman? Or is the MSM playing games with peoples heads? Which is it?

AP - 15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush told the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday he is personally committed to their mission of peace, urging them to stick with it and not lose sight of their goal.

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

"you can also hire lawyers to fix the laws that get in your way you CAN create you own reality and not pay any consequences.
s po cko | Homepage | 11.27.07 - 7:11 pm

Hitler's lawyers did the same.

Look: those lawyers were prosecuted:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/.../ Alstoetter.htm

Same can happen with the lawyers who are involved with this US government. It's on the table. Geneva hasn't been removed; and lawyers can be prosecuted for making frivolous legal arguments to "justify" illegal policies: No imminet warfare.

The issue isn't just the President, VP, or the allegedly copmlicit Congress, but the legal counse in the GOP, DNC, and DoJ-DoD that helped rubber stampg this non-sense.

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

If Pelosi permitted funding for illegl actdivity, is that not actionable under Article 1 Section 9: There shall only be funding for lawful things? Approprations that are not consistent with the law can hardly be called Constitutional. A rubber stamp, yes; but that rubber stamp is not blank check.

Along with power comes great responsibility to use that Speaker's gavel for lawful objectives; and to challenge illegal activity. Not make excuses to argue for action that is illegally funded; but then point to that example to justify inaction. For example, someone argued "Well, Pelosi passed a Bill she knew the Senate would oppose, because it waas teh right thing." But when it comes to impeachment, even with the Senate possible/likely opposition. . .why isn't Pelosi also arguing for action -- as she did with the Geneva issues, which the Senate opposed?

Because action -- not inaction -- is the right thing. Even if you're going to lose, it's sometimes better to make the other side lose something important -- the option for a pardon -- that to do nothing, get nothing, and win at nothing. IF we investigate, we find facts; with facts, we can -- as voters -- decide which of these 2008 Presidential candidates has the best plan to resolve these legal issues, and lead the effort to reform the US government, and ensure this does not happen again. But tunil there is an investigation, eafch of these canditaes may sound nice, but they aren't being challeged -- before the lection -- with the facts they'll need to confront as President: What have been the problems in re Bush-Cheney 2001-2006; and what are we going to do about it?

Time tog et the facts on the table so the public can decide: Does anyone running for President have any plan to lead the needed reforms? Without an investigation, we're being asked to trust -- on blind faith -- that they'll do the right thing. That is outragegous. We were told -- not asked -- to trust on the issues of WMD; told, not asked, to trust on the madate; and told, not asked, to trust on FISA. Betrayals all around. Sell outs. How many more do you want?

Time to confront them. Today. Before the election. Stop this, "Wait utnil after the election..." No, we did that. And we got more, "wait . . " No, time for them to wait as we ask them questions: Why should we believe you; and why are you afraid of facts?

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

- Why do you believe that only the GOP is behind this; and why is a needed attack on a roadblock a bad thing? It's about the Constitution. Nothing else.
- How else do you propose to get an impeachment investigation going unless all the roadblocks are removed? Waiting around isn't making progress.
- What do you really fear about challenging the speaker to open all the doors to an investigation? Inaction isn't a sign of strength, it's inaction. Attention on the GOP isn't making progress to open all the doors.
- Why not challenge the Speaker? She's in charge of the House, not the DNC. She's not "ours", she's a leader, third in line. We're challenging the President; why not Pelosi? (Saying "can't challenge her" is putting politics before the law.)
- Refusing to challenge the Speaker for inaction; but willing to challenge the President for illegal activity? That makes no sense. Some malfeasance is better than others? That's non-sense.
- How would clearing the way for impeachment investigations "weaken" the DNC? The DNC already has 85 DNC Members who supported the Kucinich resolution.
- Why would voting to remove all the roadblocks to impeachment "weaken" the DNC? Wouldn't it merely confirm: We need a solution to find facts?
- How can "not finding facts" (and blocking an investigation) be good for the DNC? Ignorance was the basis for the Iraq invasion. You want more ignorance; fearful of finding facts; fearful of confronting those who do not want to find facts?
- How long do you want to agitate:What is your view of other efforts to put pressure on the Speaker to open the door, or leave?
- What is the backup plan if the agitation for impeachment does not work: What other roadblocks need to be removed?
- How will "continuing to have a Speaker that blocks investigations" lead to your goal?
Anonymous

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

If Pelosi permitted funding for illegl activity, is that not actionable under Article 1 Section 9: There shall only be funding for lawful things?

That's quite an interesting read of Art I, Sec 9...

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>

A. Reality: The Road To Investigations of the WH is Through the House

To get to the President/VP, need to go confront the DNC. Conversely, it appears -- in the effort to to justify inaction -- some would ask that some leaders in the legislative branch "not be challenged" for the same problems in the Executive branch. That defies reason.

It's incorrect to suggest that anyone's suggesting "not" going after the President of VP; but "only" going after the DNC.


B. Factions Either Clash, or they are Challenged For Failing to Clash

Same US government, with the same roadblocks: Can't help it that the DNC and the GOP keep changing the seats on the (complicity-excuse for inaction-gravy-train).

If you want impeachment, or an investigation, something needs to change in the House.


C. Time: Without an investigation, there are no "proceedings"; and Cheney-Bush remain eligbile for a pardon.

I'm all ears for other solutions. But time is running out. Yes, this is about investigating the President and VP; and getting information on the table for prosecution, impeachment, and the voters.

But it appers one person doesn't want this. OK. Then what do we do -- sit around and "not talk" about the roadblock? May have to go for merely a "proceeding", to ensure there is no pardon for either Cheney or Bush. That will leave them exposed for later prosecutions. But taking no action on impeachment leaves open the possibilty that they could be pardoned. That's not a good thing

D. Confront the Obstacles in the US Government, wherever those obstacles might be.

That makes no sense: Continuing to point fingers at Bush/Cheney, but not also confronting the DNC leadership . . .makes no sense. The DNC is in charge of the House. But they're not in charge of the Constitution or its defense. We the people and the States are.

I do not like the idea of challenging Pelosi -- as a person -- because if she's removed, there's a chance Bush and Cheney will remain in office. Yet, again the issue isn't removal of Bush/Cheney -- it's starting the proceedings to ensure that they are denied any chance of pardon.

Would I trade "removal of Pelosi" for "no possibilty for pardon for Bush/Cheney". Yes. I don't like that, but that may be the best we can get. But time is running out.

Even if you disagree with the option -- that of removing pelosi as Speaker to clear the way for impeachment -- the effort to challenge her remains on the table, a credible threat, and something she has to deal with. Can't put this back in the genie bottle. Too many people are discussing it.

Sidebar:

You know the issue on the table is valid: An investigation triggers the "impeachment proceeding"-clause, which would deny Bush and Cheney any chance at Pardon.

And?

What is the sense of not taking that pardon away? You have no answer, just "secret handshakes".

So we should impeach a sitting Democrat? How compelling.

If the Constitution was burned in your face, would you care?

Nope, I wouldn't because it's a piece of paper. Power comes from people.

Either lead, or find another board to make excuses for inaction.

BACK ON TOPIC

It sure is, isn't it.

"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

- By law: That law must be lawful/constitutional.

- Illegal appropriations are not the sole responsibility for the President; but can be attached to others.

- War crimes can be attached to civilian policy makers; US system, "policy makers" is divided between the Executive and Legilsative Branches. Ouch. {Gang of 8, classified briefings, fiduciary duty, Administrative law, oath of office, 5 USC 33331 . . .rining a bell?]

"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

- By law: That law must be lawful/constitutional.

Uh, no. Appropriations passed into Law. In other words, nobody spends money without Congress saying it's okay in legislation. Note it doesn't say "lawful" or "according to this Constitution."

Learn to fucking read.

>>>>-<<<<< [ 5 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 79 ], grand juries decide whether you can or cannot read. No need to swear, counselor. The oath is to _this_ constitution. Learn to read your 5 USC 3331 oath, cousnelor. See the problem? Anonymous

>>>>>-<<<<< "In other words, nobody spends money without Congress saying it's okay in legislation."

It's for the grand jury to decide, not you.

- What did the Member of Congress have, as a 5 uSC 3331 duty, to einvestigate?

- Did they take the oa