Duty to Warn
Attorneys representing Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case believe they have a rock solid defense to present in their client's perjury and obstruction of justice trial expected to begin next year.
In numerous court filings over the past few months, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have maintained that their client did not intentionally lie to federal investigators and a grand jury regarding the role he played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson during the summer of 2003.
Instead, Libby's attorneys have said that their client was dealing with other, more crucial matters, such as the Iraq war, terrorism, and national security and simply forgot about how he first learned that Plame was employed by the CIA when he told the grand jury - untruthfully - that a reporter told him that she worked for the spy agency.
In numerous court filings over the past few months, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have maintained that their client did not intentionally lie to federal investigators and a grand jury regarding the role he played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson during the summer of 2003.
Instead, Libby's attorneys have said that their client was dealing with other, more crucial matters, such as the Iraq war, terrorism, and national security and simply forgot about how he first learned that Plame was employed by the CIA when he told the grand jury - untruthfully - that a reporter told him that she worked for the spy agency.
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The only thing more depressing than watching the Democratic Party cower cluelessly in a corner while the country goes to hell in a hand-basket is reading the pathetic pleas of the liberal punditocracy exhorting their party to grab the reins and forge ahead. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, folks, but your horse is dead. Flogging it is unlikely to lead to its revival.
What will it take for you to understand this?
How many golden opportunities can the Democrats blow before you get a clue?
If your party can’t make hay out of illegal wire-tapping and torture, the bloody mess in Iraq, the Abramoff scandal and Hurricane Katrina, then isn’t it time to consider an alternative?
If you really care about your country and the future of the planet, consider your options. But understand that trying to reform a stagnant, out-of-touch, corporatized culture from within isn’t one of them.
The only thing more depressing than watching the Democratic Party cower cluelessly in a corner while the country goes to hell in a hand-basket is reading the pathetic pleas of the liberal punditocracy exhorting their party to grab the reins and forge ahead. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, folks, but your horse is dead. Flogging it is unlikely to lead to its revival.
What will it take for you to understand this?
How many golden opportunities can the Democrats blow before you get a clue?
If your party can’t make hay out of illegal wire-tapping and torture, the bloody mess in Iraq, the Abramoff scandal and Hurricane Katrina, then isn’t it time to consider an alternative?
If you really care about your country and the future of the planet, consider your options. But understand that trying to reform a stagnant, out-of-touch, corporatized culture from within isn’t one of them.
I can’t get Three 6 Mafia’s Academy Award winning lyrics out of my head: “You know it’s hard out here for a pimp. When he tryin’ to get this money for the rent. For the cadillacs and gas money spent.”
And every now and then, keeping the same beat with the same mood, thinking of pimp and pimping in a non-sexual way, with the pimp being the president of the USA, I find myself also humming and singing,: “And you know it’s hard out here being pimped. And our pimp don’t have to worry ‘bout his rent. He gets a nice per cent of gas money spent.”
And every now and then, keeping the same beat with the same mood, thinking of pimp and pimping in a non-sexual way, with the pimp being the president of the USA, I find myself also humming and singing,: “And you know it’s hard out here being pimped. And our pimp don’t have to worry ‘bout his rent. He gets a nice per cent of gas money spent.”
Washington, March 14 -- Last Wednesday evening, the House Appropriations Committee voted to throw another $67,000,000,000 at the murderous work in Iraq and Afghanistan. That night members of the committee, righteously indignant and nearly unanimous, gave President "Bring ‘Em On" Bush a loud slap in the face.
Whoa! You mean the most powerful committee in Congress voted 62-2 to stop funding our national war crimes orgy? Of course they did…and then we all lived happily ever after.
No, the killing will proceed as planned, with no congressional intervention, although chances are you heard absolutely zip about the 67 Billion Dollar Question, thanks to the Guardians of Reality who insured the news from that hearing was the Dubai Port deal, not the unimaginable sum of our money Congress voted for war, nor the voices raised against it.
That news must come from places like the internet site you’re now reading, not the corporate press. And I’m here to tell you the story.
Whoa! You mean the most powerful committee in Congress voted 62-2 to stop funding our national war crimes orgy? Of course they did…and then we all lived happily ever after.
No, the killing will proceed as planned, with no congressional intervention, although chances are you heard absolutely zip about the 67 Billion Dollar Question, thanks to the Guardians of Reality who insured the news from that hearing was the Dubai Port deal, not the unimaginable sum of our money Congress voted for war, nor the voices raised against it.
That news must come from places like the internet site you’re now reading, not the corporate press. And I’m here to tell you the story.
The perpetual war on women’s lives continues unabated. The recent U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that allows protestors to continue to terrorize women
at abortion clinics and South Dakota’s ban on virtually all abortions (with
other states threatening to do the same) are the latest assaults on women’s
human rights in this country. In addition, almost immediately after signing
the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), President Bush
promptly turned around and submitted a budget that proposed cutting funds to
the vital services that are provided for by this important piece of
legislation.
The arrogant disregard for women’s human rights however is a global phenomena. Hundreds of women die every year from AIDS the complications of childbirth because there is no profit in helping them survive. Women throughout the world are also victimized by a perpetual pandemic of sexual violence including infanticide, female genital mutilation, rape and sexual slavery.
The arrogant disregard for women’s human rights however is a global phenomena. Hundreds of women die every year from AIDS the complications of childbirth because there is no profit in helping them survive. Women throughout the world are also victimized by a perpetual pandemic of sexual violence including infanticide, female genital mutilation, rape and sexual slavery.
As a progressive ‘yellow-dog’ Democrat who happens to work in the Ports for New York Harbor find it urgent to speak on the current Dubai fiasco.
Republicans and Democrats alike have taken aim at this takeover of the operations at six U.S. Ports to a company owned by Dubai Ports World, of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubai Ports World is buying the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a British-owned firm which has contracts to run cargo terminals in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans.
Republicans and Democrats alike have taken aim at this takeover of the operations at six U.S. Ports to a company owned by Dubai Ports World, of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubai Ports World is buying the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a British-owned firm which has contracts to run cargo terminals in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS, LA Carnival 2006...As a mild sociopath with a fear of crowds
and parades, I had been awaiting this event with a mixture of childlike
anticipation and abject terror. Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, marks the end
of the revelry that is the month of February, and the last day before the
Catholic holiday of Lent. While Carnival is celebrated all over the
world, no city does it with quite the same degree of lewd abandon as does
New Orleans. This yearly celebration of all things sensual and insane
normally attracts tens of thousands of visitors from all over the country
as well as bringing out the entire local community; indeed, nearly
everyone in the city spends all year planning and anticipating the Month
of February, preparing costumes, planning drinking routes, collecting and
ordering beads and other “throws”...however, this Mardi Gras also marked
the six month anniversary of the devastation visited upon the Gulf Coast
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Detroit hosted Super Bowl XL in February amidst a city staggering with nearly 50,000 abandoned houses and a 14.1% unemployment rate. Police swept the homeless off the streets to project a goodly image to the world.
The essence of football is the strategic and violent struggle for monopoly control of land, with the winner taking all.
And that's what happened in Detroit's Poletown 25 years ago this month. Poletown Michigan made national news as the Michigan Supreme Court agreed to consider whether or not Detroit could demolish a vibrant multicultural neighborhood to build a General Motors Cadillac plant.
Under pressure from GM, the City of Detroit had declared in 1981 that it could take private property and transfer it to a profit making corporation under the U.S. Constitution's 5th Amendment, which said that land should be taken for "public use." Traditionally the eminent domain clause had been interpreted to mean using sovereign power to build a public good like a road, a library or school, not a Fortune 500 corporation. Poletown residents fought back fiercely, but the MI Supreme Court gave Detroit/GM the green light.
Sudden Death
The essence of football is the strategic and violent struggle for monopoly control of land, with the winner taking all.
And that's what happened in Detroit's Poletown 25 years ago this month. Poletown Michigan made national news as the Michigan Supreme Court agreed to consider whether or not Detroit could demolish a vibrant multicultural neighborhood to build a General Motors Cadillac plant.
Under pressure from GM, the City of Detroit had declared in 1981 that it could take private property and transfer it to a profit making corporation under the U.S. Constitution's 5th Amendment, which said that land should be taken for "public use." Traditionally the eminent domain clause had been interpreted to mean using sovereign power to build a public good like a road, a library or school, not a Fortune 500 corporation. Poletown residents fought back fiercely, but the MI Supreme Court gave Detroit/GM the green light.
Sudden Death
In mid-June 2003, when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's criticism against the White House's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence started to make national headlines, Vice President Dick Cheney told his former chief of staff and close confidant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak classified intelligence data on Iraq's nuclear ambitions to a legendary Washington journalist in order to undercut the charges made against the Bush administration by the former ambassador.
On June 27, 2003, Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, became the first journalist to whom Libby leaked a portion of the classified National Intelligence Estimate that purportedly showed how Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger.
This story is based on interviews with current and former administration officials who work or worked at the CIA, the State Department and the National Security Council. All of the individuals are familiar with the events that took place in the days that led up to Libby's meeting with Woodward and other journalists in which the NIE was discussed.
On June 27, 2003, Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, became the first journalist to whom Libby leaked a portion of the classified National Intelligence Estimate that purportedly showed how Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger.
This story is based on interviews with current and former administration officials who work or worked at the CIA, the State Department and the National Security Council. All of the individuals are familiar with the events that took place in the days that led up to Libby's meeting with Woodward and other journalists in which the NIE was discussed.
Washington – Fifteen people were arrested yesterday in front of the White House after winding their way for two hours through the streets of the nation’s capital, demanding the U.S. stop torturing detainees in military prisons.
Members of Witness Against Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice, and ending at the White House where U.S. Park Police carried out the arrests. Speakers called on officials in each of the buildings to cease planning and executing policies that have injured and killed people in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Arrested were Art Laffin, of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, Amanda and Matt Dalaisio, and Tania Theriault of the Catholic Worker’s Mary House in New York, Susan Crane from Jonah House in Baltimore, Matt Vogel, Mark Colville, Brian Kavanaugh, Carmen Trotta, Jacqueline Allen-Doucot, Alice Gerard, Bill Streit, Tom Feagley, Edith Tetaz and Jordan Manuel.
Members of Witness Against Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice, and ending at the White House where U.S. Park Police carried out the arrests. Speakers called on officials in each of the buildings to cease planning and executing policies that have injured and killed people in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Arrested were Art Laffin, of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, Amanda and Matt Dalaisio, and Tania Theriault of the Catholic Worker’s Mary House in New York, Susan Crane from Jonah House in Baltimore, Matt Vogel, Mark Colville, Brian Kavanaugh, Carmen Trotta, Jacqueline Allen-Doucot, Alice Gerard, Bill Streit, Tom Feagley, Edith Tetaz and Jordan Manuel.