Bush Pulls Plug on American People

Let's pull plug on him.



Get the hell out!

"Ukraine" BushCo

What happened in the Ukraine was termed, Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" (Ukrainian: Помаранчева революція) of 2004-2005, a series of protests and political events that took place throughout the country in response to allegations of massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

While millions of Ukrainians demonstrated daily in Kiev (Kyiv) — the capital city of Ukraine and the center of the revolution where a large 24-hour tent city was set up by Yushchenko's supporters —the action was highlighted by a series of nationwide protests, sit-ins, and general strikes organized by the opposition, following the disputed results of the November 21 run-off election

-- Wikipedia

In our style of expanding our language faster than Presidential power, we can adopt the name of the country, "Ukraine," for our own word -- a verb, ukraine--the act of removing an administration from power by millions of citizens spontaneously demanding it.

After watching those hearings today, my response is, "Let's ukraine BushCo!"

In the concluding paragraph to his statement before the hearings, Conyers said,

Perhaps what is most troubling of all is that if we let this domestic spying program continue, if we let this president convince us that we are at war, so he can do what he wants, we will allow to stand the principle that the president alone can decide what laws apply to him. I submit that is not only inconsistent with the principles upon which our Republic was founded, it denigrates the very freedom we have been fighting for since the tragic events of September 11. That is why we are holding today’s hearing.

How sick! Bush is already fighting for his life and he isn't even being ukrained yet! He is now staking everything on this show with Gonzales, Cheney, the Judiciary Committee and Alito and the Supremes. If they can't make this argument stick, it's ukraine city. This business of him having to devote so much time and energy to this issue is pathetic! It's as if he and the Republicans are checkmating themselves.

To the police and the military

I am not a veteran, but I would have served if the stigma of Vietnam had not repelled me from following a military career.

My "Career Aptitude Test" my junior year of high school, 1974, gave me a 99% fit with the general characteristics of a "Military Officer" career. I had a 95% with "Catholic Priest."

I became a teacher.

Nevertheless, the military is the key to saving our country. Fuck Iraq. What about "freedom" in the United States?

As long as the Republicans satiate the Pentagon's lust for taxpayer dollars, the Pentagon will pull all their strings--visible and invisible--to keep the elephants on top.

But, if the rank and file can join forces with the population and insist on the restoration of civil values--not merely economic ones--to our civilization, we will have another chance to have a democracy here.

I'm not advocating open rebellion, just democracy, even for the military. We political activists need to find a way to inform and encourage the armed forces personnel to do some soul searching.

What are you fighting for, what would you die for, really?

Is this the country our progenitors labored, bled and died to secure for us?

What do we have to do now as soldiers and officers to protect and defend our Constitution and our democratic way of life?

God help us, our country is in the grip of a fascist oligarchy and they control the media and the armed forces!

If democracy is to be saved in this country, it must be the will of the armed forces.

All the Heavies are Weighing In

Seventeen Pakistani villagers have been sacrificed in the latest American atrocity for the so-called, "War on Terror."

The Associated Press reporter, Nedra Pickler, wrote an article entitled, Rice: al-Qaida Can't Be Treated Lightly. The article provides us with a full range of justifications and lies Americans can utilize in order to avoid any guilt or even responsibility over the murder of poor foreigners.

As Rice spoke Sunday, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets for a second day to protest the airstrikes. They chanted "Death to America" and demanded U.S. troops leave neighboring Afghanistan.

In furtherance of her sarcasm in the wake of the tragedy,

"It's obviously difficult at this time for the Pakistani government," Rice said in the first remarks from a top Bush administration official following the airstrikes. "We'll continue to work with the Pakistanis and we'll try to address their concerns."

As for our "allies in the war on terror,"

Pakistani officials have strongly condemned the attack. It has fueled increasing anger in Pakistan, where many of the 150 million residents oppose the government's involvement in the U.S.-led war against terror.

And, in a punch line, to add insult to injury,

"The biggest threat to Pakistan of course is what al-Qaida has done in trying to radicalize the country," Rice said.

Then the Bushco noise machine cranked into high volume.

The White House declined to comment on the attacks, except to praise Musharraf as well as Pakistan as "a valued ally on the war on terror."

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said it's still unclear if al-Zawahri was killed in the attack.

Senators defended the airstrikes Sunday.

"We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again" in going after al-Zawahri, said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

"We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al-Qaida, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately," McCain, a Senate Armed Services Committee member, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the CIA had been watching the area for several days and that the agency would not have conducted such an operation without extraordinarily high levels of intelligence.

"It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" Bayh told CNN's "Late Edition." "It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border is a real problem."

Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., another Intelligence Committee member, said such strikes are necessary to get at al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan who are directing anti-American violence in Iraq. "My information is that this strike was clearly justified by the intelligence," Lott said.

Reform Campaign Financing

Campaign for America's Future has a campaign finance reform page where they ask for your ideas on campaign finance reform. I said

I am against the death penalty, but white collar crime needs to have the most severe punishments in the code. Greatly increase the severity of the punishments against white collar and political money criminals.

Strict limits need to be set on campaign spending The amount of advertising allowed in any race is to be regulated by the people's government at a very low level. All other campaign spending of any kind must desist six months before the election. The candidates cannot "advertise" as they do now, but only, with their limited funds, state their positions on issues.

Finally, all contributions by lobbyists or their friends, families, business associates or anyone connected with them are forbidden. Corporate or other non-human entities are forbidden from donating funds -- or from having funds donated on their behalf -- to politicians or people or organizations associated with them.

Game over

Yes, the Alito hearings were fascinating because a sinister tale unfolded beneath the text of the question and answer sessions.

Why does Alito want to be such an important judge? Why did Bush nominate him? Why are some senators so intent on confirming him?

There will be much more to say on this and other related topics soon. Meanwhile, however, the NSA spy scandal has been somewhat lowered under the radar by the Alito hearings.

Today, the Washington Times carried this article, Ex-official warned against testifying on NSA programs. Full force intimidation. It was about Tice.

Renee Seymour, director of NSA special access programs stated in a Jan. 9 letter to Russ Tice that he should not testify about secret electronic intelligence programs because members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees do not have the proper security clearances for the secret intelligence.

So, if a spying program that Congress would declare illegal if they knew about, is too secret to tell them about because they don't have "clearance."

This is in the paper to scare people from opening their mouths or talking about this kind of issue. This is exactly the kind of horseshit they want Alito to protect on the Court.

Whether Alito gets confirmed or not we have to play as if we have lost our freedom to a dictatorship. It's past time to act.

blood money

This new online news outlet, the Canadian, has a feature story entitled, How The War Machine Drives US Economy.

The Rogers and Hammerstein Research Collection of Recorded Sound

I wandered into the Performing Arts Library yesterday evening. It just happened to be the one weeknight the Library is still open after 6:00 PM.

I found a number of FDR recordings on the electronic catalogue, and after asking around for about ten minutes, I found myself checking my coat on the third floor. Then I passed through the glass door into a long, brightly lighted room of computer desks and microfilm file cabinets.

The room was very very clean. I thought I was in some corporate research or creative department. To think that the City of New York had little public library annexes of this quality!

And it is free!

To make a long story short, I listened to FDR's first 2 inaugural addresses.

Ironically, what FDR said in those speeches conveys the mind and spirit that give rise to the very facilities where I was listening to his words: public facilities of the highest quality, provided by the people for the common good.

A couple of phrases really struck me. In the First Inaugural he said there was a need to keep private, autocratic powers in proper subordination to the people's government.

David Sirota couldn't have said it better himself!

Then, in the Second Inaugural, FDR mentions that three things we learned we have to do to have stability and economic justice are:

1) Strict government supervision of credit, investment and banking,

2) No speculation with Other People's Money, and

3) Adequate, sound currency.

This economic stability and justice would give rise to "new building materials of social justice."

So I sat and listened in that quiet, clean, well-lighted public facility, and wondered how it could be that I had never heard those words before. Is it possible that others have been trying to prevent me from hearing them?

leave the usa?

what for?

Scilla

Tropea

Take my liberty; spare my life!

As the braindead, stupefied, terrified televiewers wash into another calendar year, our frightened leader is "on the march."

He is battling to renew the "Patriot" Act, which has been extended for one month from December 31st to allow more time for debate on the controversial provisions that are set to expire.

In Bush Fights Resistance To Patriot Act, an anonymous AP journalist informs us of Bush's comments yesterday when he "press[ed] his case to a supportive audience at the Pentagon:

"The enemy has not gone away. They're still there," said Bush. "And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war, and they got to give us the tools necessary to win this war."

Oh, my! What a fighter! Fuck you, Mr. President.

We are not at war with terrorists. That whole concept is incoherent. Besides, with a little better leadership we wouldn't need to squander so much money in an admittedly futile effort to coordinate the bloated intelligence services and law enforcement that are struggling so hard to get the job done.

In another pitiful and scandalous attempt to exploit the fear and helplessness of our behavior-conditioned citizenry,

Later, outside the West Wing, prosecutors cited several cases in which the Patriot Act had played a crucial role, from staging an undercover sting on California weapons dealers attempting to sell Stinger missiles to securing convictions of major terrorist financiers in New York.

"We use it each and every day to protect our country against terrorists and criminals," said Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Fortunately, stepping somewhat into the void left by the untimely killing of Senator Paul Wellstone,

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on "staged meetings with hand-picked participants" at the White House.

It's clear that Bush is as terrorized as anybody--afraid of negotiating with the Democrats and others who want an open and honest debate. How could this man ever lead our country in a real war? He needs laws like the Patriot Act and secret police services like Homeland Security to hide his own quaking and trembling ass from Americans who might disagree with him a little bit. It's a foregone conclusion that he isn't up to confronting, much less hammering out a settlement with the Iraqis or the Iraqi resistance.

Get back to your fucking ranch, you coward, and take your whole fascist cabal of lying thugs with you!

In case anyone is really wondering why Bushco is so intent on getting the Patriot Act renewed, as well as carrying on with these secret detentions, the right to torture, the freedom to deny habeus corpus to captives, and the employment security of making themselves rich at the expense of the rest of the world, ecetera, notice what Amy Butler and David Fulghum have to say in an article in today's Aerospace Daily and Defense Report, entitled, Pentagon Dissent Discouraged on Spending, Force Structure

The administration's underlying budget approach now, critics contend, is to put off any growth in military spending until beyond the 2008 presidential race. "There will be no real movement [on acquisition] until after the next election," says a veteran airlift specialist. "That will mean mitigation in combat capability."

They're telling everybody to get with the program or shut up. In other words, Bushco business as usual: no debate, no reasoning, no examination of dissenting opinions or alternative priorities. If we're wrong, we're wrong. Fuck it. Let the whole world go down the tubes. We'll still get our money.

However, according to Fulghum and Butler, "Defense industry officials and uniformed officers are expressing concern about the lack of informed debate."

Is this what we're here for? To allow this mismanagement and bullying destruction of our economy and our society?

Let's oust Bushco now, slash defense, close down Homeland Security, and try to develop a little bit of sustainability in our communities, our food and energy supplies, our transportation system, and our relations with allies.

Give me liberty; or give me death. The war on terrorism IS terrorism.

Bushco going broke

I've been reading through this carefully researched and documented report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee, Constitution in Crisis.

Read it.

We need to start a movement to take George Tenet's Medal of Freedom and give it to John Conyers instead.