Prosecutor: Italy CIA kidnapping too grave to cover up

~

The kidnapping of a terror suspect is too grave a crime to be covered up just to protect government secrets, a prosecutor declared Wednesday in the trial of 26 Americans and seven Italians charged in the abduction of an Egyptian cleric.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro gave his closing arguments in a trial that is the first in any country to scrutinize the CIA's extraordinary renditions.

Under that program, the U.S. spy agency transferred terrorism suspects to third countries for interrogation.

~

Ron Paul on the Iranian Nuclear Program

~







~

Vatican: "Those other religions molest children too!!!"

~

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its pedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.

**********************

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is the "The other kids all do it" excuse.

~

Will the Supreme Court Expose the Torture Photos?

~

Obama's DOJ has battled to withhold images of detainee abuse. But the court could soon trigger their release.

For months, the Obama administration has been fiercely fighting to prevent the publication of around two dozen photos of American soldiers abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court justices will meet privately to weigh whether to hear the matter—and if they decline, the controversial images could be released within weeks.

~

Come to Florida And See The Alligators and Pythons and Pythons and...

~




Burmese pythons, left, and an African rock python, center, removed from the Florida Everglades (AP)

African Python Threat Growing in Florida

It's been about two months since Florida issued a virtual open season on giant invasive Burmese pythons gobbling up rabbits, birds and even small alligators throughout the Everglades.

Now there's another nonnative stealthy stalker that could soon be taking up residence in the region — Africa's largest snake, the rock python.

Three of these enormous constrictors that can grow to 20 feet and weigh 200 pounds have been found in the last few months in western Miami-Dade County, raising concerns that they could establish a breeding population, just like their Burmese cousins.

In South Florida's Everglades, where nonnative species of plants and animals are rampant, "it's business as usual" to find one invasive snake of any kind, said Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

"The thing that's a little concerning to us is the fact that we've had three sightings (of rock pythons) since the end of May, two in August," Hardin said. "We have to control this before things get out of hand."

The number of Burmese pythons in South Florida and throughout Everglades National Park has exploded in the past decade to potentially thousands, though wildlife officials aren't sure exactly how many are slithering around the region.

~

Sarah Palin To Release her Twits and Rants In "Rogue" Memoir Book

~




This Enquirer article is probably more factual than the memoirs she will publish in November

Sarah Palin, last year's Republican vice-presidential candidate who became a figure of global fascination, is to release her memoir just four months after her book deal was announced.

Publisher HarperCollins said Palin's memoir, titled "Going Rogue: An American Life", would be published on Nov. 17 after originally being scheduled for release in spring 2010.

She has not disclosed how much she would be paid by the publisher for her memoir.

During the electoral campaign she was criticised for being inexperienced and for describing herself as a "hockey mom", joking that the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull was lipstick.

The former beauty queen was ridiculed for saying her foreign policy experience was bolstered by Alaska's proximity to Russia across the Bering Strait. Her family also came under scrutiny when her 18-year-old unwed daughter Bristol had a baby.

Palin abruptly resigned as Alaska's governor in July, citing a variety of reasons for quitting - the burden of fighting nearly two dozen ethic charges which she had dismissed as "frivolous", her desire to avoid being perceived as a powerless "lame-duck" governor, and a "higher calling", among others.

*******************

The “higher calling” was the money she needs to make fast (while she’s still infamous) in order to pay for $500,000 in debt.

Hope someone does a fact check on the crap she writes in her memoir.

Many say that Sarah seems to them like George W. Bush in a skirt. Now I know where Bush's speech writers found a part-time gig.

At least this Alaska hockey puck mom gets to shop in New York’s Fifth Avenue for herself instead of letting the Republican Party buy her clothes.

~

'Law & Order' Season Premiere Prosecutes Bush Administration Official For Torture Memo

~

As we all know, in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.

Last night's episode of television's longest running drama -- NBC's "Law & Order" -- featured District Attorney Jack McCoy prosecuting a John Yoo-esque Bush administration Justice Department attorney for writing a legal memo authorizing the torture of detainees.

"Jack, you want to prosecute a member of the Bush administration for assaulting suspected terrorists?" McCoy is asked in the season premiere episode, titled "Memo from the Dark Side."

"The word is 'torturing,'" says McCoy, played by Sam Waterston. "And yes -- it's about time somebody did."

~

Sarah Palin Relying on Facebook to Spread Her "Preachings"

~

Palin is the only politician of note who relies almost exclusively on the Internet to get her message out.

There are a few reasons for Pailn's slavish reliance on social media to stay relevant.

Palin is grammatically-impaired to put it kindly, but this isn't a liability in cyber space where non-standard abbreviations, misspellings, and non-sequiturs are the norm.

The Internet is the perfect milieu for an ignoramus like the former governor of Alaska.

In cyberspace Palin can spout her nonsense without being challenged by journalists, educators and other intellectuals.

Palin can tweet that she just saw Putin dance a jig from her back porch, and there will be no Katie Couric to contradict her.

Twitter is a perfect venue for a polarizing figure; Palin doesn't need more than 142 characters to fire off a tweet that will rally the conservative base.

Sarah Palin has an army of Twitter followers, and that's a very scary situation. Palin can marshal these forces for Tea Parties and other nefarious events.

But all hope is not lost; Obama is the only politician who has more Twitter followers than Palin.

The intelligent, articulate and measured Obama is the true hope and voice of America, and not the nitwit Palin.

~

DNA test shows Hitler skull is that of a woman

~

A reincarnation? Mnnnnnnn?

ADOLF Hitler may not have died in a bunker after fresh research suggests the skull thought to be the tyrant's was from a woman.

US archaeologist Nick Bellantoni found fragments from the skull believed to be Hitler's were too thin to be from a male, and suspected it was the remains of a much younger woman.

"The bone seemed very thin - male bone tends to be more robust. It corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40," Dr Bellantoni said.

DNA tests performed in a US laboratory confirmed the remains could not have belonged to the Nazi leader.

Original accounts of Hitler’s death said he shot himself in the head in a bunker after taking a cyanide tablet on April 30, 1945 as the Russian army attacked Berlin.

His remains, along with those of his wife Eva Braun, were taken from the bunker, doused in petrol and set ablaze.

A year later, skull fragments were dug up by Russian forces which seemed to confirm Hitler had shot himself in the bunker.

In 1970, the KGB cremated Hitler’s remains except for the skull fragment.

~

New Music Vid: Federal Reserve FRAUD

~







~

Lt. Watada Discharged After Refusing To Go To Illegal War In Iraq

~




Lt. Ehren Watada was the first commissioned military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq because he believed it was an illegal war. (Photo: PD-USGov-Military)

First Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq because he believed it was an illegal war, has won his three-year legal battle with the Army.

With little fanfare the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., accepted the resignation of the 1996 Kalani High School graduate, and he will be discharged the first week in October.

Rather than seek a second court-martial against the artillery officer, the Army will grant Watada a discharge under "other than honorable conditions."

~

CIA Torturers Running Scared

~

For the CIA supervisors and operatives who were responsible for torture, the chickens are coming home to roost.

That is, if President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder mean it when they say no one is above the law — and if they have the courage to stand up to brazen intimidation.

Unable to prevent Attorney General Eric Holder from starting an investigation of torture and other war crimes that implicate CIA officials past and present, some of those same CIA officials, together with what in intelligence circles are called “agents of influence” in the media, are pulling out all the stops to quash the Department of Justice's preliminary investigation.

In what should be seen as a bizarre twist, seven CIA directors—including three who are themselves implicated in planning and conducting torture and assassination— have asked the President to call off Holder.

Can someone please tell me how could the whole thing be more transparent?

The most vulnerable of the Gang of Seven, George Tenet, is not the brightest star in the heavens, but even he was able to figure out years ago that he and his accomplices might end up having to pay a heavy price for violating international and U.S. criminal law.

~

Honduras suspends civil liberties amid calls for 'rebellion' following US coup

~




Honduras' ousted president Manuel Zelaya gestures during a news conference at the Brazilian embassy. Photograph: Edgard Garrido/Reuters

Interim leaders empower police to break up 'unauthorized' meetings as ousted president Manuel Zelaya urges supporters to march

Honduras's interim leaders suspended key civil liberties last night in response to "calls for insurrection" by ousted president Manuel Zelaya, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorized" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.

The announcement came just hours after Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches today to mark the three-month anniversary of the 28 June coup that ousted him.

Zelaya described the marches as "the final offensive" against the interim government.

Zelaya, who surprised the world when he sneaked back into the country last Monday and holed up in the Brazilian embassy, is demanding he be reinstated to office, and has said that the government of interim president Roberto Micheletti "has to fall".

*******************************

Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S.

******************************

See Also: Solidarity with the Honduran people's struggle for democracy

*********************************

Roberto Micheletti, the coup president of Honduras, was trained in the American School of Assassins

***********************************

What is the School of Assassins in Ft. Benning, Georgia?

~

What did the blue lady say to Sarah Palin?

~




Click Picture



~

Fox News' Female Short Skirts Get Ratings Over CNN

~







~

Use war money for health-care costs

~

The Register's Sept. 20 editorial, "How Will the Nation Pay for Health Reform?" questioned how much health-care reform is going to cost and how we intend to pay for it.

We could start by taking a realistic view of the war on terror that the Obama administration inherited from Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.

According to the Center for Defense Information, the estimated cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $864 billion by the end of fiscal year 2009.

Converting our ill-advised military quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan into a common-sense strategy would go a long way toward saving a large chunk of that money, which could be diverted to guaranteeing that all Americans get the affordable, quality health care a modern industrial society owes its citizens.

~

GOP Senators Cut and Run from Torture Probe

~

Is their any excuse the GOP will not use to avoid responsibility for the international crimes for which they share responsibility? Here’s a beauty.

Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that they will no longer participate in an investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation policies, arguing that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to reexamine allegations of detainee abuse by the CIA would hobble any inquiry.

But truthfully this is a positive development.

Without the constant flow of GOP objections, interruptions, whining, obstruction, lies, and delays, Democrats can complete the investigation far more efficiently. Let the investigation continue!

~

Bin Laden Beer

~




CLICK ON PICTURE FOR FULL SIZE



~

Where's Palin? Big bucks for speech in Hong Kong

~

“You gotta have it up here, you betcha! You try making over $100,000 per hour by just talking smart like me. Now, I’m on my way to Fifth Avenue to buy my own fancy clothes!”

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerged from a two-month absence from public view with a private talk, heavy on foreign policy, to a group of investors in Hong Kong with no media allowed.

Her 90-minute speech Wednesday at an investment conference touched on issues from financial markets to health care, Afghanistan and U.S-China relations.

"The assertion that the United States is ignoring areas of disagreement with China is flat wrong," said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The administration regularly discusses a range of issues with Chinese officials, Berman said.

Palin was paid an undisclosed amount, said to be in the low six figures, for the 90-minute speech.

She has said one of the reasons she resigned was to pay legal bills that have topped $500,000.

"This speech had very little to do with advancing her political career and more to do with advancing her financial career," said former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Palin operates from behind a veil. Her spokeswoman won't even say what state she's in.

The Washington Post reported that Palin spent a month in California working on her book but has since left.

Spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton declined to comment.

~

Top Republican withdraws from CIA torture inquiry

~

The top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee has pulled out of the panel's bipartisan review of Bush-era terrorist interrogation techniques, saying Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s criminal investigation into the CIA undermines the committee's ability to interview witnesses.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond, the panel's vice chairman, said Mr. Holders decision to ignore President Obamas pledge to look forward - not back - has hampered the panels effort.

The Department of Justice "sent a loud and clear message that previous decisions to decline prosecution mean nothing and old criminal charges can be brought anytime against anyone - against these odds, what current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the committee's questions?" the Missouri Republican said.

******************************

Interpretation:

“I am a Republican and will not be responsible for putting George Bush and Dick Cheney, my buddies, in prison. Besides, the CIA is like the Republican elephant and never forgets who their enemies are. I don’t want to find a horse head in my bed one morning. Of course, I also don't want the CIA to release pictures and videos of what I do in my private life.”

~

Another Failed US Coup In Honduras, Like In Venezuela?

~

"Micheletti, you are not the president! The president is returning soon! And you will go ... to prison!"

SCENARIOS: How will the Honduras standoff end?

The United Nations on Friday condemned the de facto Honduran government for harassing the Brazilian embassy, where deposed President Manuel Zelaya is taking refuge after sneaking back into the country this week.

The Organization of American States has sought to broker an agreement to end Central America's worst political crisis in years and both sides are in contact about possible talks.

But they are also sticking to their key demands: the de facto government says Zelaya must face criminal charges and he insists he must be restored to power three months after he was ousted in a military coup.

******************************

See Also: Solidarity with the Honduran people's struggle for democracy

*********************************

Roberto Micheletti, the coup president of Honduras, was trained in the American School of Assassins

***********************************

What is the School of Assassins in Ft. Benning, Georgia?

~

Doctor Admits Vaccine Is More Deadly Than Swine Flu Itself & Will Not Give It To His Kids

~







~

Republican leader to cancer victim: Beg for charity

~

Here is the Cantor plan for middle-income Americans who may have lost their health insurance after being laid off by a company whose CEO might be making a million dollars a year.

First, she should sell all of her lifetime possessions to desperately pay humongous medical costs, with the side benefit that this would make her poor, and therefore qualify for health programs for the poor that many Republicans don’t support.

f this fails, Mr. Cantor advises the woman to do this: beg.

***************************

Webmaster's Commentary:

Cantor just had his "Let them eat cake" moment.

~

Another 9/11 widow calls for new investigation of 9/11

~







~

China Reacts (negatively) to Sarah Palin

~

Sarah Palin in Hong Kong

Sarah Palin’s first brush with China has not made her many friends.

“Palin Gives Speech in Hong Kong, Called Boring, Members of the Audience Left Early” was how Ming Pao, a popular Hong Kong newspaper, put it in a headline today.

A commenter in a Chinese Web forum wrote of Palin’s speech: “This is such a joke. Since when does China need the U.S. to point the way to the future?”

Palin went to Hong Kong, which is the closest she has come to mainland China, to provide what she called “a view right from Main Street” to an investors’ conference Wednesday, and though she asked that it stay closed to the media, excerpts have crept out.

“We simply cannot turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that could undermine international peace and security,” she said, according to a Wall Street Journal blog.

“Here, China has some one thousand missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer though believes that it poses a serious threat to Beijing.”

She also made statements that are likely to linger in the Chinese consciousness for a while, including:

“The more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnic group will be able to settle disputes in court rather than on the streets. The more open it is, the less we’ll be concerned about its military buildup and its intentions.”

And: “In seeking Asia’s continued peace and prosperity, we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia whole and free. Free from domination by any one power…”

Republicans have traditionally played better in China than Democrats because the latter are more likely to make human-rights demands.

But with Obama playing well in China these days, I have to wonder if the current iterations of American politics is altering Chinese stereotypes.

Chinese papers, after all, seemed to take a skeptical line on Palin’s visit: “Palin Delivers Speech in Hong Kong, Says U.S. Will Help China Find the Future” as the Oriental Post put it.

(Incidentally, I don’t see that line in excerpts of the speech, but such is the result of barring the press and forcing it to rely on leaks.)

~

Chavez prefers Obama to 'the devil'

~

The last time he was here, Hugo Chavez called then U. S. President George W. Bush "the devil," but on Wednesday, Venezuela's leader offered slightly more-positive sentiments for Barack Obama.

"The arrival of President Obama, who can deny it, generates, has generated and will continue to generate big expectations," Chavez told a meeting of U. S. union leaders at the Venezuelan mission to the UN.

In New York for his scheduled address before the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Chavez praised Obama's Wednesday speech before the same body, noting that the U. S. president said Washington is ready to work to promote peace.

But Chavez also said the White House and the foreign policy it crafts is unlikely to live up to the president's lofty words.

"Sometimes one gets the sensation that there are two Obamas. One, who gave the speech, is good. The other, really, makes decisions that are contradictory to his speech," he said.

~

Munich's Oktoberfest Opens

~

Women in traditional Bavarian dress enjoy a couple of the roughly 6.9 million liters (1.8 million gallons) of beer expected to be served at this year's festival.



MORE PICTURES HERE

~

Sarah Palin pitch leaves Hong Kong investors unimpressed

~

Alaska Governor Quitter and defeated US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin failed to enthuse investors attending the CLSA Asia Pacific Markets Forum - a lavish annual beano where over a 1,000 people come to hear the views of the foremost political and business minds on earth.

Palin’s first ever visit to East Asia began with a monologue that invoked the spirit of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and sounded “unmistakably” like a pitch for the 2012 presidency.

Several members of the audience described the speech as “long, humorless and George W Bush-like”.

It was a rare foreign outing for Palin, who committed a series of foreign policy gaffes during last year’s campaign.

She claimed to be familiar with Russia, thanks to Alaska’s proximity to the country, and had only visited Kuwait and Germany before - on both occasions to meet US troops stationed there.

Several audience members reportedly walked out 30 minutes before the end, citing “more important things to do” or describing the talk as “too partisan and too much like a speech at the Republican convention”.

The speech carefully attacked America’s worsening fiscal position and directly condemned President Obama’s healthcare plan.

Although the CLSA event was strictly off-limits to media, one attendee remarked that the speech felt like it was carefully crafted for a global television audience.

*****************************************************

Rumor has it that the CISA had a choice of speakers between Sarah Palin and Paris Hilton. By the time they put in their bid, the CIAI won and got Paris Hilton. The CIAI is the CIA Interrogators holding their convention in Honolulu. I may have started this rumor.

~

Seven Former CIA Directors Want To Bury The Truth

~

The Magnificent Seven say, "America, you can't handle the truth!"

Last week, seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, who made their own contributions to the CIA’s low esteem over the past 35 years, asked President Barack Obama to make sure there is no criminal investigation of the crimes associated with the Agency’s detentions and interrogations policies over the past eight years.

Their letter to the president is particularly self-serving for three of the directors (Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, and George Tenet), who would presumably be the subject of any investigation, and simply self-aggrandizing for the others (John Deutch, James Woolsey, William Webster, and James Schlesinger), whose stewardship of the CIA since the early 1970s has contributed to the Agency’s loss of influence and credibility.

The key to managing a complex organization such as the CIA is based on the integrity and competence of the director and his senior management.

These traits were certainly lacking during the two decades these “magnificent seven” were at the helm.

~

Sweetener aspartame to be investigated for possible side-effects

~

The Food Standards Agency is calling for volunteers to help test claims that the artificial sweetener aspartame, used in more than 4,000 products, causes illnesses

~

Moving Republicans to Support Gay Marriage

~

Can you be Republican and support gay marriage? The short answer to that is, of course. Look at Meghan McCain, Steve Schmidt, Dede Scozzafava, or heck, even Dick Cheney.

But while a few voices in the wilderness have come out for marriage equality, most of the Republican Party toes a line that says no to same-sex marriage.

But despite what Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, or Newt Gingrich might say about same-sex marriage, there's room in the GOP to change hearts and minds on this issue.

~

Italian prosecutors begin closing arguments at CIA rendition trial in Milan

~

Prosecutors began closing arguments Wednesday in the trial of 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of orchestrating a CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian terrorism suspect.

The arguments by prosecutor Armando Spataro signaled the final phase of the first trial in any country involving the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program.

Spataro’s arguments, including the specific sentence he wants for each defendant, are expected to continue into next week.

A verdict is expected by year’s end.

Prosecutors say the 26 Americans were mostly CIA agents who worked with Italian intelligence to organize the kidnapping of Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from Milan in February 2003.

~

Is This the Book Bush Loyalists Want to Kill?

~

Matthew Latimer, a former Bush 43 speechwriter, just published a memoir of his couple of years serving in the White House, and apparently it’s kicking up a small cloud of criticism from his former colleagues.

“Without having read a single word, they’ve been on this mission against me—and it’s disappointing,” Latimer told The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove yesterday.

“What they’re basically saying is: ‘Here is the book the Bush administration doesn’t want you to read!’” He doesn’t bother to suppress a giggle.”

Latimer went on to tell Grove that such Bush associates as Ed Gillespie, Dana Perino, and Bill McGurn have been trying to keep Latimer off of radio and TV talk shows.

Why, one wonders, would they bother to do that?

~

Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration

~







~

Sarah Palin to talk foreign policy with no media

~

Failed US vice presidential candidate and quitter Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin

Former US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has agreed to address a major investor group in Hong Kong, requesting no media coverage on the event.

Palin, scorned by the media during last year's US presidential race for her inexperience in foreign affairs, is due to address hundreds of financial big-hitters on US foreign policy, healthcare, and China at the CLSA Investors' Forum on Wednesday.

The forum is one of the top-ranked equity brokers and financial-services group's trademarks where the keynote speaker plays an important role in attracting investment.

~

The Economy Is A Lie, Too

~

Americans cannot get any truth out of their government about anything, the economy included.

Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with one million school children now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.

The spin that masquerades as news is becoming more delusional.

Consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. It is the driving force, and it has been shut down.

Except for the super rich, there has been no growth in consumer incomes in the 21st century.

Statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com reports that real household income has never recovered its pre-2001 peak.

The US economy has been kept going by substituting growth in consumer debt for growth in consumer income.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan encouraged consumer debt with low interest rates.

The low interest rates pushed up home prices, enabling Americans to refinance their homes and spend the equity.

Credit cards were maxed out in expectations of rising real estate and equity values to pay the accumulated debt.

The binge was halted when the real estate and equity bubbles burst.

~

Is THIS how the bank bailout money is being used?

~






~

American Credit Card Slaves

~








~

FBI False-Flag Goes Bust in NYC

~

“We are here to protect you, America. All we say is true. We found all 19 9/11 hijackers in 24 hours, didn’t we? We even found their pristine passports in ground zero.”

The FBI becomes frantic.

Their false-flag operation has been blown after they ran all of this BIG HYPE.

They have to come up with something and THEY ARE FURIOUS WITH COMMISSIONER KELLY AND THE NYPD...

~

Would you pay this much for dinner with Palin?

~

"No, it's not me. I can't stand pig with lipstick or moose!"

Not long ago, Hattie reported that anyone with sufficient cash could head to eBay to purchase a dinner date with Sarah Palin.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you have now missed your chance. The opportunity has been snapped up for a mere $63,500. And that doesn't even include picking up the tab.

The bidder still has to undergo a background check (presumably for liberal skeletons).

They must also pass the Sarah Palin suitability test.

Comment Central believes sample questions will run along the following lines: Can you fix a snowmobile? Umpire a hockey game? Advise me how to crack Iowa?

No word yet on where the dinner will take place (again it's Mrs Palin's call).

But first-hand experience tells me that you have to go a long way in Wasilla before you find a restaurant without the word 'moose' in the name.

~

Muse - "Uprising" Official Music Video

~







~

History of Banking In The US

~







~

Rohrabacher to Iraqis: Be More Grateful!

~

“You ungrateful bastards! We murder your families, we destroy your country and you can’t say ‘thank you, America’ ?”

Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) seemed mostly interested in berating the Iraqis for their lack of gratitude

Then Rohrabacher opened his mouth.

"I have never heard one word of gratitude from the Iraqi people about the 4,300 Americans who lost their lives," he exclaimed.

"We went to Iraq to try and free your people and now we're being blamed for sectarian violence," he said.

"Don't blame us because that type of bloodlust exists in your society."

**********************

Webmaster's Commentary:

Unflipping believable, in light of the facts:

1. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: the US knew that, and it was just a pack-of-lies ploy to get the war started.

2. Iraqis enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East before the invasion and occupation.

3. Iraqis had one of the highest standards of education before the invasion and occupation.

4. The US completely destroyed Iraqi infrastructure in terms of water, medical care and energy, which will take decades to rebuild.

5. The US destroyed countless cultural artifacts, which are a part of what gives a people and a country its sense of history.

6. The US created death and destruction through the use of depleted uranium weapons, causing cancer and massive birth defects in Iraq's kids.

7. The ethnic strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims was cynically manipulated by the US as a means to "divide and conquer"; this hadn't been a part of the Iraqi culture before the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

8. There are reports by various international groups that over a million Iraqis (men, women and children) have died because of the invasion. Some estimates run to two million dead.

9. Over two million have also left Iraq to camps in surrounding countries.

And it is for these consequences of the invasion and occupation of Iraq that Rohrabacher thinks the Iraqi people should be more grateful?!?!?

~

Did Bush Continue to Secretly Operate Total Information Awareness?

~




"This is how night vision works? I can see black."

"Suspicionless Surveillance" of American Citizens was developed by the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness department, led by Adm. John Poindexter, the former national security adviser, who secretly sold weapons to Middle Eastern terrorists in the 1980s during the Iran-Contra affair and was convicted of a felony for lying to Congress and destroying evidence.

Poindexter was involved in a 1984 policy directive criticized by civil liberties groups and lawmakers, who said it would hand the National Security Agency control over privately held information. The directive was voided with the passage of the 1987 Computer Security Act.

In the summer of 2002, a public outcry over the revelation that JetBlue Airways turned over the names and addresses of 1.5 million passengers to the Pentagon so the agency could create a database about Americans' travel patterns, and also authorized the agency to monitor credit card transactions, led Congress to withhold tens of millions of dollars in funding for the project in early 2003.

But the program would have been able to continue to operate if President Bush believed that dismantling it would endanger national security, which is what former NSA officials familiar with the program allege Bush did after the program was publicly dismantled.

~

Whack-A-Wingnut! GAME

~







~

The Government Can

~







~

Homeland Security's Michael Chertoff Gets Pounded With 9/11 Questions By C-SPAN Callers

~






~

7 ex-CIA chiefs ask Obama to stop probe of Bush-era 'torture' interrogations

~




Click on cartoon to enlarge

Seven former CIA directors asked President Barack Obama on Friday to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration.

The CIA directors, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents and include three who worked under President George W. Bush, made their request in a letter sent Friday to the White House.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration.

*************************



You may want t oread this, Mr. Obama: CIA Killed JFK

~

If Sarah Palin talked like a pirate

~

… on today’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, it might go something like this:

“I am one who, on Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is certainly today in our beloved state of Alaska would be a day where I be saying “aaarrrghh” and shaking my cutlass at that lily-livered Putin rearing his eyepatch over there in Russia where that Obama said where he wouldn’t put missiles, that scurvy son of a Kenyan.

Did ye know ye can see Russia from my crow’s nest?

I also certainly want to preclude that the bilge-sucking Obama should be keelhauled for making old people walk the government death planks, which doesn’t even make sense!

I mean, health care reform will make our country run out of buried treasure except Alaska with its oil, which is buried too and I have the map but it’s different because it’s black.

But I thought I should say before I stop but not quit because I never quit because Americans don’t do that no matter what the hornswoggling media claim that it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep ye pirate hat down and plod along on your wooden leg and “go with the flow” but I won’t do that.

Avast, only dead landlubbers go with the flow, so later this month I’m weighing anchor with my first mate Todd to hunt for plunder in Hong Kong.

Then we set sail for the White House, which we expect to capture by 2012.

**********************

"You betcha!"

~

Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die

~




(Illustration: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t)

On September 7 the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported that the previous week US soldiers raided one of its hospitals.

According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men's and women's wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters.

Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer for the US Navy, confirmed the raid, and told The Associated Press, "Complaints like this are rare."

Despite Sidenstricker's claim that "complaints like this" are rare in Afghanistan, they are, in fact, common.

Just as they are in Iraq, the other occupation.

A desperate conventional military, when losing a guerilla war, tends to toss international law out the window.

Yet even more so when the entire occupation itself is a violation of international law.

~

McCain Goes Ballistic

~




John McCain's wet dream ruined by Obama

As the news broke that President Barack Obama was scrapping President George W. Bush's proposal to place missile defense bases with yet-to-be proven technology in Poland and the Czech Republic and moving ahead with a mobile, partly sea-based system using existing technology, Senator John McCain became a leading critic of this decision.

He decried Obama's plan—which followed the recommendation of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff—as "seriously misguided" and called it a cave-in to Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader who had opposed deployment of US missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.


***************************


"Heck, me and my buddies had bought all this missile technology stocks once Georgie boy told me he was going to spend all this tax payer money on Poland and Czechoslovakia. Now, all this stock will be worthless. Can't an old man die rich without Obama ruining his wet dreams?" - Johnnie Mac Official Souse

~

Health insurance companies are a criminal racket.

~







~

Algerian kids falling prey to Jewish 'organ harvest'

~

A newspaper article suggests that Algerian children are kidnapped, trafficked to Morocco where they are sold to Israelis or American Jews for the sake of organ harvest.

An international Jewish conspiracy to kidnap children and harvest their organs is gathering momentum as another shocking story divulges Israeli plot to harvest organs from Algerian children.

~

20 Minutes with the Prez - New Version!

~







~

Charlie Sheen Challenges President Obama to Re-Open 9/11 Investigations

~

Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen has publicly challenged the US President to reconsider what he claims is a fiction: the official 9/11 story.

The intriguing piece of news creation on September 8 has apparently shocked America, but so far the crisis of a TV star thinking independently and doing a much-discouraged activity called 'research' has not translated into any serious soul-searching among the professionals of the world’s media empires.

In an online video address to President Barack Obama, Sheen has posed serious questions about some of the inconsistencies in the official 9/11 story.

Holding a transcript titled "Twenty Minutes with the President" to draw Barack Obama’s attention, Sheen stated it outlined the evidence that contradicts the official version of 9/11.

The transcript is fictional and is written as though he had a 20-minute meeting with President Obama. In the video, Sheen said he had sent the President a copy and called on "Mr President" to initiate a new congressional investigation into the terrorism of 9/11.

~

Help Terminal Man Find Sarah Palin’s Plane

~

I’m worried that sleep deprivation eventually will cause my blog entries to descend into unintelligible nonsense, so now seems like a good time to introduce the first Terminal Man contest.

Hold on, that’s not exciting enough. Let me try again.

Fasten your seat belts and put your tray tables in the upright position, because it’s time for The First Terminal Man Contest!

Here’s how it works. During the presidential campaign, Sarah Palin chartered a JetBlue plane to fly around the country. (By the way, if you’re curious, no sponsorship by JetBlue was meant to be implied; its logo was removed from the plane while Palin used it. See for yourself in the photo.) That plane has long since returned to service.

Your job is to find it.

The plane is an Embraer 190, tail number N239JB, or November-Two-Three-Niner-Juliet-Bravo if you want to sound like you’ve got skills.

The rules are simple: You must take a picture of yourself with the plane, and its tail number must be clearly visible.

~

Food Industry Is Now Calling Junk Food 'Healthy' - Why Could That Be?

~

Food corporations are hoping to cash in on the growing public concern about nutrition by launching a program that labels some junk food healthy.

*********************

"You can even make the above healthier by dipping it in some low fat sugar free ice cream. Mmmmmmmm! Delicious and good for you."

~

It's Business as Usual Again for Wall Street's Casino Capitalists

~

One year after the bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, governments are divided over what lessons should be learned from the crisis.

But the more the economy recovers, the less desire there is to implement radical reforms -- and many bankers have already returned to their old casino capitalism ways.

Everything moves faster on Wall Street, whether it's winning, losing -- or forgetting.

***************************

"Hey, why should we worry or change? The tax payers will bail us out!" - Official Wall Street Souse

~

US doubts UN report on possible Israel war crimes

~

"Hey, I also want to be a dual Us - Israely citizen like most of the Jews in Bush's and my administration. I'm already circumcised."

The United States has "serious concerns" about a U.N. investigator's report accusing Israel and Palestinians of war crimes during their Gaza war, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday.

"The United States is reviewing very carefully what is a very lengthy document," Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters. South African jurist Richard Goldstone unveiled the report in New York this week.

"We have very serious concerns about many of the recommendations in the report," Rice said.

The Goldstone commission said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, during the December-January war in the Gaza Strip. It said both had terrorized and killed civilians.

It urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the allegations to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if either Israel or Palestinian authorities failed to investigate and prosecute those suspected of such crimes within six months.

~

When Reagan and the two Bushes spent our money, why no protests?

~

When did those Washington, D.C., protesters get all upset about our national debt?

Was it when Ronald Reagan tripled it? Or when George H.W. Bush had the biggest deficits in history? Or when George W. Bush reversed Bill Clinton's budget surpluses and added more debt than every previous president?

Did they scream socialism and paint little Hitler mustaches on the president's picture when George W. rammed through his Medicare prescription-drug benefit with no way to pay for it?

Did they lionize a South Carolina congressman for interrupting a presidential address at the mention of illegal immigrants?

No. They don't really care about budget deficits (tax cuts make them worse) or inflation (no signs of it) or even government-run health care (they love Medicare and veterans health).

It was not until we elected our first Black president that the sons of the Confederacy erupted.

~

Former top Ashcroft aide takes the fifth on trial related to Abramoff

~

"Hey buddy boy, I hope I look as dapper as you when I get put in prison for crimes against humanity."

A top aide to former Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination Thursday in a trial related to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

David Ayers, who was Ashcroft's chief of staff at the Justice Department during the Bush administration, refused to answer questions under oath about tickets he received from Abramoff's firm and any favors he may have granted for the firm's clients.

Ayers was called as a defense witness in the corruption trial of Abramoff deputy Kevin Ring.

Ring faces charges that he illegally influenced federal officials by providing them with expensive meals, drinks and tickets to concerts and sporting events.

Prosecutors say Ayers helped Ring get Justice Department funding for one of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, to build a $16.3 million jail on their reservation.

Prosecutors say Ring, with Abramoff signing off, then gave Ayers highly sought-after tickets to the 2002 NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament in Washington.

~

Tucker Carlson is still officially not gay!

~

After Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show 'Tucker' got the axe rumors were flying about the final disposition of the intrepid and still officially not gay news pundit, but have no fear boys and girls!

Despite what they have been saying about him, Tucker Carlson is still officially not gay!

According to a recent FOX News video clip that I found on Crooks & Liars, Tucker is going to do an important news show about defending violence based on sexual orientation, and the horrors of teaching about gay penguin sex in school!

The clip is of FOX News' morning talk show host Steve Doocey and Tucker having a very heterosexual and manly on-air chat about Tucker's new role at FOX.

Tucker is very concerned about your kids, and wants to make sure that his macho manly not gayness is able to rub off on them!

I am glad that Steve Doocey and FOX News will be putting some wind in the sails of Tucker's flagging career, which has sadly been rather limp and lifeless these last few months.

~