From Fox News (yeah, I know I can’t believe I’m referencing them either but they’re covering the story):
Wiccan Pentacle Added to Emblems Allowed on Headstones

“MADISON, Wis. — The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.

A settlement between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Wiccans adds the five-pointed star to the list of “emblems of belief” allowed on VA grave markers.

Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.”

It’s an outrage that conditions were allowed to get so bad in the first place.

Panel to probe conditions at Walter Reed

“WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that those found to have been responsible for allowing substandard living conditions for soldier outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center will be “held accountable.”

However, no one in the Army chain of command has so far offered to resign.

Gates spoke to reporters after visiting the medical compound, whose reputation as a premier caregiver for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan has taken a hit following a Washington Post series of reports last weekend that documented problems in soldiers’ housing and in the medical bureaucracy at Walter Reed.”

Posted by Twilight
from the Twilight and Thebes Show

This story is certainly disturbing.

Found via the What Really Happened site.

How NSA access was built into Windows

“A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA “help information” trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.

The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.

Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software “driver” used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.

ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run crypographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.

Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year’s Crypto 98 conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.”

Does that letter seem slightly opened? How about that letter from your favorite activist friend? Does it seem somehow mishandled? Under a new signing statement it could have been.

From The Seattle Times:
Bush says feds can open mail without warrant

“WASHINGTON — President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant.

Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.

A White House spokeswoman disputed claims that the move gives Bush any new powers, saying the Constitution allows such searches.

Still, the move, one year after The New York Times’ disclosure of a secret program that allowed warrantless monitoring of Americans’ phone calls and e-mail, caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

“Despite the president’s statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people’s mail without a warrant,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.”

From Green is the New Red:

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act pushed by animal industry groups, corporations, and the politicians that represent them is ostensibly meant to target underground, illegal actions committed in the name of animal rights. It’s been in the works, in various forms, since the passage of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act in 1992: proponents say AEPA didn’t go far enough, and they need more sweeping legislation to crack down on illegal actions by underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front.

You can download H.R. 4239, S. 3880, and the original AEPA, and take a look at exactly how this Green Scare legislation operates.

Read more here.

Mr. Mark Foley! I think you just handed the Democrats and liberals the election this fall. Thank you, Sir Slimey! This podcast covers the Mark Foley scandal, (former Representative from Florida, resigned); Bush’s plan for the Middle East, (including why Lebanon vs. Israel happened); Bush’s ‘State of Denial’ as proven in a couple of his speeches; a conservative guest rant from ‘Ozone’ of the podcast “Democrats are Lost” (an ultra-conservative who defends Israel); and an excerpt from the actual book “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward.
That brings up Condi Rice’s famous brush-off of George Tenet’s attempt to warn her of the imminent danger of 9/11 coming up, back on July 10, 2001. This is written about in detail in Woodward’s book and yes, the State Department does say that Tenet had a special meeting about al Qaeda with Condi Rice in July of 2001. She can deny it all she wants - we won’t believe her because too many people dispute her claims and she’s a proven liar.

Will the Democrats take both houses back? Ten Senate seats are either tied or Democrats are ahead. -This is a big surprise and it all happened before Foley’s boy-page-IM scandal!

I will be at the World Can’t Wait protest Thursday, October 5. The U.S. is headed for fascism, fast and furious, and the Democrats aren’t helping, but there are millions of us to march in the streets on Thursday. JOIN US. Here is the article I mentioned in the podcast that was in Rolling Stone Magazine: Will the Next Election be Hacked? by RFK Jr.

Promos played: Avalon Farmcast, a new member of the Progressive Podcast Network, and Last of the Super Heroes which you can find at the PPN.

Music played: ‘SoULS Of ChAoS’ by Michael Burns; Koba, ‘Rise Up Move’; and ‘Support the Truth’ by Jim’s Big Ego.

submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

I think you’ve been exposed, Mr. Bush. You can’t use Osama to do your dirty work for you anymore. The French have blown your cover story. According to the French ministry, it looks like he finally died in August of typhoid. In fact, that report was from Saudi intelligence. You no doubt knew that, George. Yet you and the CIA and probably the cat kept dragging in old videos of him to terrify the people you claim to want to protect.

Then after this year’s annual 9/11 Scare-Fest, you again ratcheted up the heat and the rhetoric on finding bin Laden, like you do every year. Then you meet with Middle Eastern leaders like it’s not all a big sham, and then you give your threatening speech at the UN and like last time, you expect anyone to pay attention to your fearmongering and threats. In between, you’ve been saying that bin Laden wasn’t such a scary guy after all. If this is true, and you knew it all along, then you’re even lower than I thought; a cruel, dishonest, prying, rights-sucking thug, you with your fellow lover/hater of freedom, Alberto Gonzalez, and all your dishonest cabal of crooks and criminals. You’re the lowest of the low, if indeed you actually knew bin Laden was dead all this time and were still dragging out that ridiculous old video, using him to dangle phantom terror over our heads while piously using 9/11 for your own twisted political agenda.

True, there are a lot of ifs in there, but we all know you know more than you’re letting on. You can’t possibly be as stupid as you act.

Time to get pissed off and plan where you’ll be on October 5th, everyone.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

“And anyone who claims that I and others like me are ’soft,’ or have ‘forgotten”‘ the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.”– Keith Olbermann

I think he truly is turning into Edward R. Murrow and he may eventually be responsible for changing the media, the nature of media commentary, or even saving the country. His latest 9/11 commentary was the third in recent memory that was an eloquent commentary on the state of propaganda, partisanship and our nation’s political climate in general. Instead of just saying “can’t we all just get along” he has seriously looked at why it is that we apparently can’t, and courageously pointed his finger in the direction of our country’s massive black hole that sucks everything horrible in it. Yes, the Bush regime and its merry band of excusers and profiteering sycophants.

The Republican party, still unable to be grateful for the power they hold over the country, are still whinging about the Democrats, who have no power whatsoever. Yet, no power whatsoever is not enough for the Republicans. I think they want to wipe liberals and Democrats and everyone “not Republican” off the face of the earth along with al Qaeda, terrorists, and others they hate. Because the Republicans are all about hate. Hating and killing. That is a completely fair thing to say because that is ALL I hear coming out of their mouths lately: bitching about Democrats, wild-eyed comments on “liberals”, and their burning desire to kill people. Pretty much anyone; they don’t seem too picky.

Their leader has said we are in a clash of civilizations; a life or death struggle, “It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation,” he spouts, glassy-eyed, and continues with more such over-arching hyperbole that would make McCarthy himself blush. We can only hope Keith Olbermann keeps up the good fight to counteract such monumentally false nonsense. Here’s a snip of his speech from his live broadcast on September 11:

“History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, “bi-partisanship” meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, “validate the strategy of the terrorists.”

They promised protection, and then showed that to them “protection” meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11 is “lying by implication.”

The impolite phrase is “impeachable offense.”
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you — or those around you — ever “spin” 9/11?

Rock on, Keith, and don’t stop now.
Read the entire speech here.

Submitted by Shelly, of Citizen Against Lies Check out the latest podcast from 9/11.

How dare they do this! This is getting totally out of control. A contributor sent this to me today and it outraged me enough to give it top billing for the day. Google is planning to tap into our internal computer microphones to monitor and data mine what people listen to in the background, whatever that may be. Music, videos, conversations, Skype calls, TV and radio, and your dog barking. This is insanity. We deserve some modicum of privacy in our own homes. The first and fourth amendments still exists, after all! It also surprises me, considering that Google is a big proponent of net neutrality. How can they be so on the right side of something important and then on the wrong side of something just as important! There goes the last of our privacy… watch it fly out the window. From The Register:

“The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what’s on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was “that’s cool, but dangerous“.
The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.
The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that’s adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.”

We have to do something, call Congressmen, splash this on your websites, yell out the window, something. We need to research how to stop this. Our equipment is bought and paid for by us to serve us and be useful tools, not to allow the government or Google to spy on us. It serves us and I will not pay for equipment or software that is going to spy on me. The government can go jump in a lake if they think we’re going to stand for this. How much money does Google need that it sells its soul in this way? I may have to dump my gmail and start using someone else for searches, etc. Google seems to be outgrowing its own conscience.

submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

Here is our
PPN 60 sec. Promo

I like the DNC’s brand new plan for changing around the caucus schedule for the 2008 presidential election cycle. But unfortunately, as usual the D.C. Democrats are focusing on strategy again — as though that will matter, instead of the big problem. I suppose it might make some difference: the idea is that by adding Nevada and South Carolina to the early mix of caucuses they will add racial and geographical diversity. The two additional caucuses would occur before New Hampshire’s primary. I agree with that strategy because of Iowa’s democraphics. Think about it: a 98% white state of middle class Protestants who drink coffee so weak it puts you to sleep get to choose the Democratic presidential candidate. No offense to Iowans, but I’ve been to your fine state and it’s not exactly a melting pot, (and I will never forgive you for your awful pick in 2004.)

So even though the strategy is sound, it won’t solve any problems as long as Republicans continue to steal elections. When your vote doesn’t count or is literally thrown out in key states, what’s the point of choosing a great candidate? All the Russ Feingolds in the world won’t do any good when the GOP hacks your voting machine and changes your vote. I’d like to see the Democrats loudly and doggedly challenge the use of hackable Diebold voting machines with no auditable paper trail instead of all these cheerful plans, as though they are playing a game on a fair playing field. They’re not. Diebold machines can be easily hacked with a screwdriver by anyone who has rudimentary computer skills. See this article: “Diebold voting machines can be beaten with a switch-flip . . . . If you want to steal an election, use a Diebold machine.”

Yes. Six years after the debacle of 2000 and two possible stolen elections since then and we still don’t have unhackable, safe and accurate voting machines, or a system in place for how to deal with vote stealing and other dirty tricks and crimes that Republicans commit to steal elections. There is ample evidence that they have committed voter fraud and other crimes in the last three elections. How long do we put up with that while we cheer on strategies like mixing up the caucus schedules? Too little, too late!

Get a clue, D.C. Dems, and do something that will actually prevent yet another presidential election from being rigged. Get rid of those dictator-loving touch-screen Diebold machines or at least demand they are unhackable and insist on paper trails for ALL machines. Do that, and someone besides Repubicans might win presidential elections again.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

I’m totally disillusioned with the MSM, or mainstream media, these days. Are they worthless or did they cover the protests and I missed it? Look at this crowd! I now in fact call the media the COM, or the corporate-owned media. I don’t mean online media, which is often pretty good.

So I knew there would be protests on August 12th in Washington, but I assumed, due to lack of hearing about it later, that the protesting was a disastrous failure. Nothing of the kind! In fact, according to certain websites which actually pay attention to this type of thing, the protests were large and enthusiastic. You can read about them here at one of my favorite protest websites.

My latest podcast ends with an interview with Ahmad S., an Afghan journalism student in Pakistan who talks about our foreign policy and his ideas on what we can do about it. You’ll be impressed with his insightful thoughts on it. He produces and writes his own blog called MyScribbles, here. During the interview he expresses his desire for Americans to rise up and protest and demand that our government change our policies. It sounded so easy when he described what we should do! Part of the problem is that when people do protest, the media doesn’t even cover it. If it’s completely ignored, there is no reason to protest. They know this, and that’s why they control so much of the media. Look up who owns American media, and it all starts to make sense. Whoever controls the flow of information to the people, controls the people.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies.

I don’t know what to believe.. Yet.

When I heard about the recent terror threats thwarted by the British government it was on the car radio as I got back from a few days away in the sticks. The circus was in full swing with the tabloid news bigging things up almost to the level of an American TV news station. Comparisons with nine eleven were batted about as easy as delivering a weather report and still nothing was really known.

I thought I would reserve judgement for a few days and see what surfaced. Instead of watching the endless news reports say the same nothings, I looked around at how the British public were reacting.

Down my local shop people weren’t talking about it any more than the weather. The most concerned person I came into contact with was a member of the family that was due to fly to Spain and wanted the airports to get back to normal as they had been desperately looking forward to this break abroad.

Have we really gotten so use to all of this? Perhaps it only affects our subconscious now? The fear.. The feeling of a threat always lurking in the shadows..

I am hoping it’s that we just have retained a little perspective. There is some serious suffering going on in the middle east at the moment and maybe even the British public can see through the frantically scrawled sensationalism fed to us by our gutter press.

Yesterday I found myself momentarily thanking the powers that be for reading every electronic information transmission in the ‘civilised’ world. Thanking them for intercepting this threat and therefore keeping us safe.

But only for a moment.

Then I realised how convenient this all is. That we are to be reminded of another victory for the powers-that-be over the evil that lurks in our everyday lives. Just when our ‘war on terror’ was flagging and the common man joined together in condemnation of the atrocities occurring in the middle east.

A few small crumb like facts are slowly coming to light and things are once again beginning to look a little sinister.

Could this plot descovery be another well timed public release..?

Take a proper-gander at the news and decide for yourselves.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/august2006/130806liquidbomb.htm

President Bush’s approval rating has “dropped to 33, matching his low in May,” according to an AP-Ipsos poll. Most of the people who voted for Bush in 2004 (57%) disapprove of the job he is doing. Obviously, we need to all walk around with shirts that say, “Pay Attention!” What are the other 43% thinking? Bush, Cheney and Lieberman all wasted no time in blaming Democrats for terrorism and using yesterday’s foiled plot to justify all war that ever occurred anywhere. But in fact, this terror plot is clearly an offshoot of Bush’s disastrous foreign policy, according to no less than the former 9/11 commissioner Tim Roemer.

According to Think Progress, Dick Cheney has already used the terror plot for political reasons. As have Tony Snow, Bush, and even Joe Lieberman, fresh off his huge and humiliating Connecticut primary loss. Cheney said the Democrats were encouraging “the Al Qaeda types.” . . . and the vice president added, “there’s a significant body of opinion that wants to go back — I guess the way I would describe it is sort of the pre-9/11 mind-set, in terms of how we deal with the world we live in.” (Why do the media continue to quote this? He says it at least once a month. Boooooring!) From the Center for American Progress:

President Bush seized on the foiled London airline bomb plot yesterday “to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.” [He also said, “The London conspiracy is “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation,” the president said on a day trip to Wisconsin.
“It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America,” he said. He’s right - his administration is a HUGE threat to the United States.] His remarks came “one day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign” to tar opponents of the Iraq war as “weak on terrorism.” Publicly, Bush aides “fought the notion that they had exploited their knowledge of the coming British raid” for political advantage. Privately, they expressed a different sentiment. “Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,” one unnamed White House official said, expressing hope that the foiled plot “would yield political gains.” Another Iraq war supporter, Sen. Joe Lieberman, said yesterday as he kicked off his “Lonely Joe” campaign, that setting a timeline for U.S. troop redeployment (backed by 57% of Americans) “will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again.” Previously, Lieberman has called using national security issues for political purposes “just unacceptable and in my opinion un-American.”

I guess that means Lieberman just called himself and most of the Bush administration un-American.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

Before the war, Bush was unaware that there was a difference between Shiites and Sunnis. Now granted, I was no expert either, but I’m not the frackin’ President of the United States, either. How dumb is/was is this guy? According to Former Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, he was clueless. In his new book (The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End) Galbraith claims that the Bush regime knew very little about Iraqi, Iraq society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

“Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

This also explains why Bush can’t coherently explain what an “insurgent” is, and in fact he has called them “ordinary Iraqis”. RawStory writes that a year after the “Axis of Evil” speech, Bush met with experts who said it became very clear to them that Bush was clueless about the different religious groups within Iraq and the potential problems with attempting to force them to merge and all be like one another under Bush’s utopian veil of “democracy, freedom and liberty”. Those words to Bush seem to represent a 1950’s version of American society where everything is shiny and old-fashioned, and capitalism thrives and people spend all their time thinking about money and how to make more of it. That would have provide the U.S. with decades of controlling cheap oil. That the Bush regime is still going ahead in pursuing this utopian plan, despite all that has transpired in the last 3 years and not taking into account how much of Iraq despises us, is madness. Instead, Bush will be adding more American soldiers (aka “targets”) to the fray in hopes of calming down the super-violent Bahgdad. As Gen. John P. Abizaid testified before the Senate last week, we needed to at least control Baghdad, and we’ve lost that. As a result, Iraq is now embroiled in a horrible civil war, all because our ignorant “leader” had no concept of what he was getting into. Time Magazine says that Baghdad is already in a civil war which it calls “Life In Hell”. My question is: what is our punishment for doing this to a country? Not just one country but at least two. Look at these satellite photos of Beirut, courtesy of Juan Cole’s website.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies.

Via Media Matters:

O’Reilly: Rape, murder victim was “wearing a miniskirt and a halter top. … [E]very predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning”

While discussing the recent rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore during the August 2 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O’Reilly appeared to suggest that the clothing she was wearing at the time helped incite her killer. O’Reilly discussed several factors that contributed to the “moronic” girl’s rape and murder, including that she was drunk and wandering the streets of New York City alone late at night. But in addition to those factors, O’Reilly added: “She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning.”

-Sure I’m usually disgusted by O’Reilly but this is a particularly vile comment. What next? Is he going to imply she wanted to be raped and killed because why else would young woman dress like that?!? Blaming the victims of rape and/or murder is a horrible thing to do. The only thing this man is accomplishing is the promotion of misogynism. Since he’s not reporting “fair and balanced” news perhaps that is his real agenda.

Posted by Twilight from The Twilight and Thebes Show

Why are we still missing part 2 of the prewar intelligence report? Sen. Harry Reid angrily shut down the Senate last year to protest the slow pace of obtaining the promised Phase II of this report. The Republicans derisively called it a “stunt” but Reid was eventually promised that he’d get that report very soon. Well, if you’re a woman you could have had a full-term baby by now because that was nine months ago — and we still don’t have the report! It might be time for another Senate shut down, except they are going on recess soon. Naturally, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is led by Republicans, which is why nothing is getting done and promises are not being kept. Why do Republicans have such a hard time doing what they say they’ll do? David Corn of The Nation writes that the following is a part of his personal interview with Rep. Senator Pat Roberts:

[Corn] QUESTION: Given the 800 American GIs who have lost their lives so far, thousands have had serious injuries, lost limbs, all on the basis of false [WMD] claims…[and that] American taxpayers have had to kick in almost $200 billion, doesn’t the American public and the relatives of people who lost their lives have a right to know before the next election whether this administration handled intelligence matters adequately and made statements that were justified — before the election, not after the election? [Yes!!]
ROBERTS: This is in phase two of our efforts. We simply couldn’t get that done with the work product that we put out….It is one of my top priorities….I have told everybody on the other side of the aisle, everybody on our side of the aisle, ‘We’ll proceed with phase two. It is a priority.‘ I made my commitment, and it will be done..

Except now it’s been over a year. If this is how a “priority” is handled, how do they handle non-priorities? Hidden in the party platform somewhere must be “delay, lie and make empty promises”. We need that report because, as you will recall, we were lied to and told Iraq had “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and so we went to war based on false information. How did that happen? That’s what we need to know. It is something the Republicans obviously don’t want us to know, but what they don’t realize is that the public and the Democrats and others will not give up until they find out exactly what happened.
submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

Today, Bush vetoed something for the first time: bills passed by Congress to allow federal funding for the use of frozen, soon- to-be-discarded embryos for possible life-saving new stem cell lines. But first: Why did Bush meet with bishops yesterday? He’s not even Catholic. Why did Bush finally exercise his veto after nearly six years — on something that could save lives, as opposed to something that could harm Americans? We know of course that Bush wrote over 750 “signing statements” in order to avoid previous vetoes as his own personal method of overriding laws that Congress has passed, but now he’s really gone too far. His attempts to remake the Middle East as a welcoming reception area for his planned Rapture Party has failed, so it’s time for Bush to move on to other things that will appease his War Gods. One thing that he feels will appease his peculiar and violent gods is denying scientists the right to use frozen embryos, on their way to being discarded, of which there are thousands. The current 21 stem cell lines are tainted and showing genetic abnormalities, and are all privately owned, so they have probably passed their point of usefulness. In order to really make progress on new embryonic stem cell lines, it would be very useful to have new lines. But, Bush said no, no federal funding for this “immoral” area of science, which he imagines will lead to ‘fetus farms’ and other science-fictiony things that don’t even exist anywhere but in the twisted minds of Republicans. (They are fond of saying “slippery slope” except when it relates to things that actually exist - like the erosion of our civil rights.)

Despite their devotion to the “sanctity of life”, the Bush Morals & Values Division sees nothing wrong with collateral damage, the death penalty, preemptive wars, or letting horrible diseases that could potentially be cured by stem cell research rage on in living humans today.

You can read the account of Bush’s bizarre vetoing ceremony here, that occurred as he was surrounded by several frozen embryo children “rescued” by his Embryo Cop Brigade, yet barred from the media.

“This bill would support the taking of innocent human life of the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our society needs to respect, so I vetoed it,” Bush said at a White House event where he was surrounded by 18 families who “adopted” frozen embryos that were not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.”

If this weren’t reality, it would make an interesting psycho-drama movie. Does he really think that with all the orphaned children in the world and all the foster children without permanent homes that Americans and others are going to want to resurrect frozen embryos from which to create their new children? There is something horrifyingly morbid about our president’s vision of a future populated by frozen embryo children, while already-born children remain homeless and/or sick and poor, and diseases remain uncured so that Republicans can win more elections via the Religious Right’s votes.

Other countries are ahead of us on stem cell research, not surprisingly, so in yet another area of science, the United States falls behind, hindered by its leader’s insistence on ruling via his own personal set of non-mainstream “morals” and “values” that few people share. Bush has shown himself to be extremely out of touch with the average American in the last 3 years, especially, and it’s time for him to either drastically change or for impeachment proceedings to start as soon as possible. And we know he won’t be changing.

Submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies

This is a picture of a destroyed vehicle in Southern Lebanon. It’s not the whole picture. On the bottom of the picture, cut off, is a very small child lying dead, killed by Israeli bombs. Click here for more graphic depictions of what Israel is doing to the innocent civilians of southern Lebanon. More pictures of “precision bombing” by Israel here. The Guardian wrote about it too, as children dying in a convoy attack, but it wasn’t just children. Unfortunately Isreal, according to Juan Cole, has vowed to cause “pain to the Lebanese”. I think it has achieved this objective, and then some. If you refuse to negotiate a peace, then you are likely to have to go on fighting a war, says Juan Cole on his blog on Thursday. I think we have all noticed by now how some governments, including the current Bush regime, seem to ridicule peace and treat it like a sickness they need to wipe out. Then there is this allegation: “Lebanon charged that the US blocked a UN Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.” Face it: Israel and the Bush administration want war; mainly because it’s profitable by itself, or its outcome it. Maybe someone can explain why we give Israel over $3 billion per year, much of it earmarked for weapons. American taxpayers are funding their war against Lebanon, a fellow Democratic country. So we can somehow, some day, blame this all on Iran, and then really start the next world war.

Speaking of that, the Republicans may decide to promote ‘the long war’, the GWOT (Global War on Terror), the whole violent, volatile mess in the Middle East, and everything else that the Neocons have started or encouraged, as World War Three. And WWIII will be a perpetual way of life from now until eternity — in order to win elections for the GOP from now until eternity. So says Newt Gingrich. (Remember him?) “Let’s face it, it’s WWIII, Gingrich says” yesterday on Meet the Press. Therefore, it must be so, because Big Giant Head Newt says so. That adds plausibility to what we are doing there, of course, which benefits Republicans. Here is what Newt is afraid of: as more Americans seem to accept gay marriage and abortion as things they can and will “tolerate”, those items could soon disappear as issues for elections. So instead, the GOP can use WWIII as an excuse to keep them in power and “fighting the enemy” for ever and ever. Eternal war. That must be why they are promoting it and possibly blocking ceasefires. Any other explanation would mean they are just murders. Newt said, “. . . Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and “connect all the dots” for Americans.” We’re way ahead of you, Newt. Consider connnecting dots a “Mission Accomplished”.

Posted by Shelly from Citizen Against Lies

U.S. seeks to exhume Iraqi girl’s remains

TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. investigators have asked Iraqi authorities to help them navigate cultural sensitivities to exhume the body of a teenager allegedly raped and murdered with her family by American soldiers, a military official said Saturday.

U.S. Maj. Mark Wright said U.S. authorities are aware that Islamic tradition has strict rules governing exhumation and could require religious leaders to become involved in the investigation.