This Faux News interview is a rather curious!?
Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash
Funny, Ron Paul was on to this 'blowback' in 2002. Just think, this man could have been our next President!?
But once again our choices are between the lesser of two evils. As we sleep walk towards another barrel-of-monkeys style election cycle. For example:
Iraq war hits U.S. economy: Nobel winner
Daniel Trotta
Reuters US Online Report Top News
Mar 02, 2008 10:03 EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Iraq war has contributed to the U.S. economic slowdown and is impeding an economic recovery, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is severely underestimating the cost of the war, Stiglitz and co-author Linda Bilmes write in their book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War" (W.W. Norton), due to be published on Monday.
The nearly 5-year-old war, once billed as virtually paying for itself through increased Iraqi oil exports, has cost the U.S. Treasury $845 billion directly.
"It used to be thought that wars are good for the economy. No economist really believes that anymore," Stiglitz said in an interview.
Stiglitz and Bilmes argue the true costs are at least $3 trillion under what they call an ultraconservative estimate, and could surpass the cost of World War Two, which they put at $5 trillion after adjusting for inflation.
The direct costs exclude interest on the debt raised to fund the war, health care costs for veterans coming home, and replacing the destroyed hardware and degraded operational capacity caused by the war.
In addition, there are costs not accounted for in the budget such as rising oil prices and social and macroeconomic costs, which the book details.
To illustrate how the money could be spent elsewhere, Bilmes cited the annual U.S. budget for autism research -- $108 million -- which is spent every four hours in Iraq. A trillion dollars could have hired 15 million additional public school teachers for a year or provided 43 million students with four-year scholarships to public universities, the book says.
Stiglitz and Bilmes say they were excessively conservative in calculating the $3 trillion figure, overcompensating for their bias in having opposed the war.
'FLOODING THE ECONOMY'
Asked if the war has contributed to the U.S. slowdown, Stiglitz said, "Very much so."
"To offset that depressing effect, the Fed has flooded the economy with liquidity and the regulators looked the other way when very imprudent lending was going up," Stiglitz said. "We were living on borrowed money and borrowed time and eventually a day of reckoning had to come, and it has now come."
The war has also altered how the United States has reacted to its current economic troubles, he said.
"When America's financial institutions had a problem, they had to turn to the sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East for recapitalization, for the bailout," he said.
"The reason was obvious. The war had led to high oil prices. The war had meant that America had to borrow more money. There weren't sources of liquid funds in the United States. The sources of the liquid funds were in the Middle East," he said.
Bilmes, a former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Customs Department, said the war also limited options for the $168 billion stimulus package signed into law by President George W. Bush on February 13.
"We really had very little wiggle room in order to pass this because of the fact that we're spending $16 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan," Bilmes said. "Actually the country could have used a larger fiscal stimulus but there is (no) cash to accommodate it."
The authors said they were surprised by the hidden costs their research found, citing, for example, what they called the underreporting of casualty figures by the Pentagon.
The official Pentagon figure of nearly 30,000 wounded in action fails to account for an addition 40,000 service members who have required medical attention for non-combat injuries or illness, Bilmes said. She based her conclusion on official Defense Department data from a restricted Web site.
Revealing interview from the August, 1988 broadcast of Frank Morrow's "Alternative Views" found at archive.org. It cements Dr. Paul's place as America's leading economic prophet crying in the wilderness and a voice we ignore at our own loss. At the time of the interview, Dr. Paul was the Libertarian candidate for president.
From the original description:
"Former four-term Congressman Ron Paul describes the American power structure. As a member of the House Banking and Currency Committee, Paul was in a unique position to see the inner workings of economic power and control of the country, and how this power translates into political power. Paul describes how, through the control of the Federal Reserve and the banking system, the American power elite is basically out of reach of the democratic system."
There's a lot of information contained. Dr. Paul rightly states that many politicians in DC aren't informed about the nature of banking or economics, a condition that serves the interests of the central banking establishment.
He also rightly states that the Federal Reserve, due to its secrecy and power, is nothing less than evil. This American agrees.
And Ron Paul is still the only candidate from either party that isn't a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Please excuse the sub-standard editing job. It's my first venture with video software (thanks http://www.squared5.com).
This interview was originally released to the net under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
"Remarkable" and "Troubling" indeed!
Part 1
Part 2
H/T to Raw Story
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday February 28, 2008
Newly-released records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request contradict the 9/11 Commission’s report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and raise fresh questions about the role of Saudi government officials in connection to the hijackers.
The nearly 300 pages of a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline used by the 9/11 Commission as the basis for many of its findings were acquired through a FOIA request filed by Kevin Fenton, a 26 year old translator from the Czech Republic. The FBI released the 298-page “hijacker timeline” Feb. 4.
The FBI timeline reveals that alleged hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi, who was aboard the United Airlines flight which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, had booked a future flight to San Francisco. He also had a ticket for a trip from Casablanca to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Though referenced repeatedly in the footnotes of the final 9/11 Commission report, the timeline has not previously been made available to the public.The FBI timeline is dated Nov. 14, 2003 but appears to have been put together earlier (since the last date mentioned in the document is Oct. 22, 2001) and was provided to the 9/11 Commission during its 2003 investigation. The final Commission report cites the FBI timeline 52 times.
The FBI timeline reveals that Al-Ghamdi, the alleged United hijacker, was booked onto several flights scheduled for after the 9/11 attacks, a piece of information not documented in the Commission’s final report. According to the FBI timeline, Al-Ghamdi was booked on another United Airlines flight on the very day of the attack.
On page 288 under an entry pertaining to “H AlGhamdi,” the FBI timeline reads: "Future flight. Scheduled to depart Los Angeles International Airport for San Francisco International Airport on UA 7950."
The sourcing reads simply: “UA passenger information.”
The timeline similarly documents Al-Ghamdi’s bookings for several other post 9/11 flights, including one on Sept. 20, 2001 from Casablanca, Morocco to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and another on Sept. 29, 2001 from Riyadh to Damman, Saudi Arabia. (FBI Timeline 2, p. 296 under “H Alghamdi”)
No additional information or explanation is offered in the FBI timeline itself.
In January 2000, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George Tenet attended regular briefings as Malaysian intelligence conducted surveillance of a “terrorist summit meeting” in Kuala Lumpur. Among the attendees were Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, two men who would later allegedly hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon.
A week after the Malaysian summit, al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi traveled to the United States. According to the 9/11 Commission report, they arrived in Los Angeles on Jan. 15 and “spent about two weeks there before moving to San Diego.” (9/11 Commission report, p. 215, chapter 7). The footnote for this item shows that the Commission relied on a different FBI report, “‘Summary of Pentbom Investigation,’ Feb.29, 2004 (classified version), p.16.”
But the FBI timeline contradicts this claim, placing the alleged hijackers in San Diego with specific details. According to the timeline, the two men resided in Apartment 152 at Parkwood Apartments, San Diego, from Jan. 15 through Feb. 2, 2000.
“A rental application shows that before renting Apartment 150 Parkwood Apartments on 02/05/2000, AL-MlHDHAR and Nawaf Alhazmi alleged that they resided with [REDACTED] from 01/15/2000 to 02/02/2000 at Apartment 152 of the same apartment complex,” page 52 of the FBI timeline reads.
Two pages later, the same apartment complex is noted again, this time with its full address: “AL-MIHDHAR and Nawaf Alhazmi resided at Parkwood Apartments, located at 6401 Mount Ada Road, Apartment 150, San Diego, CA. [REDACTED] was the co-signor and guarantor on the lease agreement for this apparement. The rental application shows that before renting Apartment 150, AL-MIHDHAR and Nawaf Alhazmi resided with [REDACTED]." (A photograph of apartment 152 appears atop this article. An image of apartment 150 appears on page 2.)
In other words, according to the only public account, both Al-Mihdhar and Hazmi were in San Diego, not Los Angeles, contrary to the Commission’s report.
Why did the Commission use an alternate source for the whereabouts of the two men, when the FBI’s own timeline said they were in San Diego by Jan. 15, the same day as their arrival in the US?
Paul Thompson, author of the The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response, has been wading through the FBI timeline since its release. His preliminary analysis can be found at the website of the History Commons (formerly known as the Center for Cooperative Research).
Thompson believes that the possible motive for the Commission to alter the dates is to obscure official Saudi ties to the hijackers.
He points to the redaction of the name of a person who is a known employee of a Saudi defense contractor, Omar al-Bayoumi, who lived at the same location.
“We know it’s Bayoumi,” said Thompson, “because after 9/11, the Finnish Government mistakenly released a classified FBI list of suspects that showed Bayoumi living in apartment #152 of Parkwood Apartments.” That information is available here.
“But also important is that it strongly suggests that the hijackers already had a support network in Southern California before they arrived,” Thompson continued.
“In the official version of the story now, the hijackers drift around L.A. listlessly for two weeks before chancing to come across Bayoumi in a restaurant [according to Bayoumi’s account],” Thompson added. “Whereupon he's an incredible good Samaritan and takes them down to San Diego, pays their rent, etc.”
”But from the FBI's timeline, we now know the hijackers started staying at Bayoumi's place on Jan. 15 – the very same day they arrived,” Thompson says. “So obviously they must have been met at the airport and taken care of from their very first hours in the US. That's huge because the FBI maintains to this day that the hijackers never had any accomplices in the US.”
Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Middle East whose See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism became the inspiration for the award winning film Syriana, concurs with Thompson’s view.
“There are enough discrepancies and unanswered questions in the 9/11 Commission report that under a friendly administration, the 9/11 investigation should be re-opened,” Baer wrote in an email message Tuesday night.
“Bayoumi clearly offered material assistance to [the 9/11 hijackers].”
READ THE DOCUMENTS: PDF pages 1-105, PDF pages 106-210, PDF pages 211-297.
Much has been reported about Omar al-Bayoumi and his alleged relationship with the government of Saudi Arabia. In his recent book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, New York Times reporter Phillip Shenon discusses at length the questions surrounding Bayoumi and his ties to the Saudi government.
“Bayoumi seemed clearly to be working for some part of the Saudi government,” Shenon wrote on page 52. “He entered the United States as a business student and had lived San Diego since 1996. He was on the payroll of an aviation contractor to the Saudi government, paid about $2,800 a month, but apparently did no work for the company.”
In fact, Bayoumi was an employee of the Saudi defense contractor Dallah Avco. According to a 2002 Newsweek article about Bayoumi, Dallah Avco is “an aviation-services company with extensive contracts with the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, headed by Prince Sultan, the father of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar.”
Newsweek points to another connection between Bayoumi and Bandar: “About two months after al-Bayoumi began aiding Alhazmi and Almihdhar, NEWSWEEK has learned, al-Bayoumi's wife began receiving regular stipends, often monthly and usually around $2,000, totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The money came in the form of cashier's checks, purchased from Washington's Riggs Bank by Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy who is a prominent Washington figure and personal friend of the Bush family. The checks were sent to a woman named Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who in turn signed over many of them to al-Bayoumi's wife (and her friend), Manal Ahmed Bagader. The Feds want to know: Was this well-meaning charity gone awry? Or some elaborate money-laundering scheme? A scam? Or just a coincidence?”
According to then-Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), who served as a co-chair of the 9/11 Congressional inquiry that preceded the 9/11 Commission, during the period of Alhazmi and Almihdhar’s arrival in the US, Bayoumi had an “unusually large number of telephone calls with Saudi government officials in both Los Angeles and Washington.” (Graham and Nussbaum, 2004, pp. 168-169)
Bayoumi moved to London in 2001 and lived there until his arrest immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Following his release, Bayoumi returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was interviewed in October 2003 by the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, and Senior Counsel Dieter Snell.
Snell did not respond to requests for comment; Zeilkow could not be reached.
According to Shenon, several staff members working under Snell, “felt strongly that they had demonstrated a close Saudi government connection,” based on “explosive material” on al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy, a “shadowy Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles.”
Shenon recounts how Snell, in preparing his team’s account of the plot, purged almost all of the most serious allegations against the Saudi government and moved the “explosive” supporting evidence to the small print of the report’s footnotes. (The Commission, pp. 398-399)
Two commission investigators who were working on documenting the 9/11 plot, Michael Jacobsen and Raj De, argued that it was “crazy” to insist on 100 percent proof when it came to al-Qaeda or the Saudi regime. In the end, however, and with a publishing deadline looming, Snell’s caution and Zelikow’s direction buried apparently promising leads.
In similar fashion, 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry Report produced by Congress -- an entire chapter outlining evidence of Saudi and other state sponsorship -- were redacted.
Baer has additional questions.
“Considering that the main body of evidence came from tortured confessions, it's still not entirely clear to me what happened on 9/11,” Baer said. “Among other questions [I have]: Why did [Prince] Bandar's wife sent money to Bayoumi? What are Bayoumi’s links to the Sultan? How were the 15 Saudis [among the 19 hijackers] selected to carry out the attack? Who fed the credit card used by Abu Zubayda? What happened to Abu Zubayda's telephone bills? Who was he calling in the U.S? None of these questions are unreasonable nor would answering them violate intelligence sources and methods."
In a recent review of Shenon’s book, former Democratic senator and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey called on Congress to investigate alleged Saudi ties.
“Congress should demand direct access to those who organized the attacks; our indirect interviews were at best inadequate,” Kerrey wrote. “And Congress should pursue [the] question of whether the Saudi government aided the conspiracy.”
Kerrey declined to comment for this article. Other Commission members did not respond to requests for comment.
What's really startling about this whole story, beyond the utter corruption of Karl Rove and the lies therein, is the CBS broadcast blackout (only) in Alabama during the Sunday airing of this story on 60 Minutes. The possible conspiracy of a planned blackout of a broadcast that originates from New York, implies that a much larger behind-the-scenes media manipulation is afoot. This is truly scary and needs to be followed up on.
Republican Rep. Richard Renzi of Arizona was indicted on 35 criminal counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and official extortion stemming from land deals in his state, Justice Department officials said on Friday.
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The 2008 presidential race must be an incredibly welcome development for President Bush and his White House. That's because the American body politic can only really focus on one thing at a time, and so there's little time for anything else aside from the madcap antics of of Gilligan, the Skipper, the Millionaire and his wife, the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann...and the rest. Some liberal blogs and right-wing talk radio are lined up in circular firing squads, and the op-ed columnists have trained their fire on Hillary's lonely teardrops or Barack's Church of the Poison Mind.
While no one was looking, the economy nosedived, gas prices have soared, the war in Iraq is as unpopular as ever and Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. And so while none of us were paying attention, our 43rd president just hit a major milestone.
George W. Bush is now the most unpopular president in recorded American history. (h/t Atrios)
Worse than Richard Nixon in the days before he resigned in disgrace during Watergate, worse than Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis, much worse than Bill Clinton when he was impeached. Just as Roger Bannister raced through what once seemed the unreachable 4-minute mile, Bush has burst through a barrier once also thought impossible, below the 20-percent mark.
Check this out:
George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.
Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.
Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove.
That is just mind-blowing. How does it compare to other presidents? There's no comparison.
Nixon, as he was hounded out of office in August 1974, never dipped below the mid-20s.
Here's a pretty good compilation of poll numbers from Roper. To summarize the highlights:
Clinton low: 36 percent, May 1993 (early missteps like Zoe Baird)
George H.W. Bush low: 29 percent, August 1992 (recession)
Reagan low: 35 percent, January 1983 (recession)
Carter low: 28 percent, July 1979 (high gas prices)
Ford low: 37 percent, January 1975 (economy, Nixon pardon)
Nixon low: 23 percent, January 1974 (Watergate)
Johnson low: 35 percent, August 1968 (Vietnam)
Lowest ever? That would be Harry Truman during the Korean War, in February 1952, at 22 percent.
And so now George W. Bush has shattered a record that has stood for 55 long years, and there's not any one reason. It's everything, although I suspect that liberals would more likely say Iraq and torture, conservatives would say immigration and runaway spending, and everyone would now say the economy.
It takes more than unpopularity to become the worst president ever, but this may be the straw that broke the camel's back on that front. It should remind us all what the 2008 election is all about, and it's not about Hillary's wardrobe or an off-the-cuff remark or who is the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan.
It's only about who can undo the damage of the last eight years. It's amazing so many people wanted such a difficult task.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.
The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.
The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.
The Financial Times:
The use of the Fed’s Term Auction Facility, which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wider range of their assets than previously permitted, saw borrowing of nearly $50bn of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.
US officials say the trend shows that financial authorities have become far more adept at channelling liquidity into the banking system to alleviate financial stress, after failing to calm money markets last year.
However, the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the US banking system and the banks’ growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.
“The TAF ... allows the banks to borrow money against all sort of dodgy collateral,” says Christopher Wood, analyst at CLSA. “The banks are increasingly giving the Fed the garbage collateral nobody else wants to take ... [this] suggests a perilous condition for America’s banking system.”
The media must focus on the personalities of the candidates, because of their lack of representation of Americans. All presidential candidates are pro war and pro big government, are CFR and AIPAC members, except for Ron Paul, who represents Americans, which the CFR and media do not, who is censored or given minimal coverage so that people will not hear of him, and against whom intensive voter fraud has taken place.
In addition to not being controlled by the media, another reason for a person to not largely or solely base their decision on who they perceive to be popular, is to prevent voting for someone who is popular but unknowingly bad (Bush for example). The media can and do make whomever they want to seem the most popular. (e.g. Bush in 2000, now in 2008 the whole lineup of traitorous warmongers). They don't report on millions of people, they determine how millions of people will act. In other words the viewers depend on the media, not vice versa. For some reason, Ron Paul, who represents Americans, isn't given coverage by the media, who determine, not report on, which candidates are the most popular. Ron Paul would do all of the following, whereas none of the other candidates would do any of the following:
No War in Iraq
No War on Drugs
No income tax / IRS / Federal Reserve
Limited Government
No government overspending which the income tax pays for
No subtle removal of human / constitutional rights
Those are the freedoms the media is keeping us from
Not a surprise move, but with little fanfare, George W. Bush eliminated the job position that was to be in charge of government oversight.
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From Democracy Now:
Matt Welch, Editor-in-chief of the libertarian Reason Magazine and a former editor at the Los Angeles Times. He has written extensively on John McCain and is the author of a new book titled McCain: The Myth of a Maverick.
"John McCain makes George W Bush look gun shy"
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The shocking new full length film that will change the way you look at our once great country and what America has become today. After the pre-release viewing of the movie on 01/21/08, many people compared it to Aaron Russo's "Freedom To Fascism". B.A. Brooks is currently writing his new book "Total Disclosure" which will compliment this movie. The book is to be released sometime in 2008.
Download this movie now and pass it along anywhere and everywhere that you can. Burn it on CDs and DVDs for your friends and family. Upload it to every single site that you know of and help spread the word. Thank you all, B.A. Brooks http://www.uaff.us/declinethemovie.wmv
(All Rights Reserved 2008)
Attempts to delay the New Hampshire Republican recount are provoking some to suspect state officials are engaging in chicanery in a ploy to scupper the entire process and derail the recount, ensuring it goes the same way as its Democratic equivalent did last week...
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Couldn't have said it better my self.
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Romney: 21 minutes, 11 seconds (12 answers and asked 1 question)McCain: 16 minutes even (12 answers and asked 1 question)Giuliani: 13 minutes and 50 seconds (10 answers and asked 1 question)Huckabee: 12 minutes and 11 seconds (8 answers and asked 1 question)Paul: 6 minutes and 31 seconds (5 answers and asked 1 question)
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On Dec. 14, I joined with my colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee, Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), in urging Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) to conduct hearings on a resolution of impeachment now pending consideration in that committee.
Among my constituents, there are those who say I have gone too far in calling for Congress to examine possible impeachable offenses by the Bush administration. There are also those who argue I have not gone far enough. In letters, emails, phone calls, personal conversations and listening sessions, I have heard passionate arguments from those who think we are losing our democracy and that I should do more to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions.
The call to impeach is one I did not take lightly. But as we said in our letter to Chairman Conyers, the issues are too serious to ignore. We simply cannot discount or overlook numerous, credible allegations of abuse of power by the Bush administration that, if proven, may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our Constitution. To prove this, we must follow the form of the signers of our own Declaration of Independence who wrote, “let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Recount early returns in New Hampshire show Obama likely won the state, while ROn Paul was 3rd, rather than 5th!
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Surge to Nowhere
Don't buy the hawks' hype. The war may be off the front pages, but Iraq is broken beyond repair, and we still own it.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, January 20, 2008
As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working.
In President Bush's pithy formulation, the United States is now "kicking ass" in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that "we are winning in Iraq." While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain's remark captures the essence of the emerging story line: Events have (yet again) reached a turning point. There, at the far end of the tunnel, light flickers. Despite the hand-wringing of the defeatists and naysayers, victory beckons.
From the hallowed halls of the American Enterprise Institute waft facile assurances that all will come out well. AEI's Reuel Marc Gerecht assures us that the moment to acknowledge "democracy's success in Iraq" has arrived. To his colleague Michael Ledeen, the explanation for the turnaround couldn't be clearer: "We were the stronger horse, and the Iraqis recognized it." In an essay entitled "Mission Accomplished" that is being touted by the AEI crowd, Bartle Bull, the foreign editor of the British magazine Prospect, instructs us that "Iraq's biggest questions have been resolved." Violence there "has ceased being political." As a result, whatever mayhem still lingers is "no longer nearly as important as it was." Meanwhile, Frederick W. Kagan, an AEI resident scholar and the arch-advocate of the surge, announces that the "credibility of the prophets of doom" has reached "a low ebb."
Presumably Kagan and his comrades would have us believe that recent events vindicate the prophets who in 2002-03 were promoting preventive war as a key instrument of U.S. policy. By shifting the conversation to tactics, they seek to divert attention from flagrant failures of basic strategy. Yet what exactly has the surge wrought? In substantive terms, the answer is: not much.
Article Continues
What have we learned since this timeless speech by MLK? Nothing it seems!
The Sunday Times has obtained a document that confirms that a file, which the FBI denied existed, could contain information about American officials stealing nuclear secrets for Turkish and Israeli spies, who would then sell the secrets to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
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Seventy-nine injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks. "My personal opinion is that as the war goes on, you'll see more and more soldiers with (limitations)," said Maj. Gen. Mark Graham.
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US is entering the Realm of Rogue Nation Status!
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.
The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.
Link to Article
Diebold miscounts reported across many candidates, wards, in first day of election contest hand counts
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.....Bush Administration in 2006 alleges that the latest Pentagon encounter between Iranian ships and a Navy vessel was a deliberate fabrication.....
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BREAKING: The future of a recount in N.H.’s Republican Primary is uncertain – possibly because of PayPal, Inc.
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The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.
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Do not expect the mainstream media to publish this. Those fake radio transmissions that the Bush administration was using to “pump up a war with Iran” have been exposed for what we all knew they were: a prankster. This probably came from some sailor fooling around or someone on the shore. Ron called their bluff...
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National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.
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I am coming to blow you up in a few minutes..
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Related Story:
The Pentagon's version of the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning, involving U.S. Navy warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats is, at the very least highly suspicious. On Tuesday, the Navy released video footage and an audiotape to back its claims that the Iranian boats acted in a threatening and provocative manner, but neither the video nor the audio are particularly convincing as proof that Iran had hostile intentions. The video, which shows what is claimed are Iranian boats speeding around U.S. ships, doesn't show any of the boats hurtling directly towards any of the navy ships, nor does it show what the Pentagon claimed the Iranians then did, namely dropped "white boxes" in the water. (I would have opened fire at those, wouldn't you?) The audio tape is even less convincing, mainly because the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent and moreover, sounds more like Boris Karloff in a horror movie than a sailor in the elite branch of Iran's military. (The tape is also separate from any video.) Any Iranian can immediately identify Persian-accented English, particularly if the speaker has had little contact with the West, as is the case with Revolutionary Guardsmen and sailors. Iranians, you see, have difficulty with two consonants such as "p" and "l" next to each other; even Iranians who have lived in America for years will often pronounce "please" as "peh-leeze", or in this case, "explode" as "exp-eh-lode". On the tape, "explode" is pronounced perfectly, albeit as if the speaker was a villain addressing a superhero. Further, it is unimaginable, given what is known about the Revolutionary Guards (and I have met many), that one of its corps would speak in a such a manner, even if the accent were correctly Persian.
The fact that the Iranian foreign ministry downplayed the encounter as routine and minor, and that the Revolutionary Guards, not known for their moderation, actually denied the U.S. version of events, is curious. Iran, which is usually keen to exploit its image as a fearless foe of the U.S., would ordinarily relish the opportunity to show that it can be a menace to the great superpower, particularly if, as the encounter shows, the U.S. does little to counter that menace. (Khomeini's words, "the U.S. cannot do a damn thing", are still emblazoned on the walls of the former American Embassy in Tehran.) Iranian patrol boats do indeed, as Iran freely admits, check on ships that enter the Persian Gulf, in this case only three miles outside its territorial waters, much as one would expect them to do (and as the U.S. Coast Guard would undoubtedly do if a foreign fleet of warships cruised within fifteen miles of say, Miami Beach), but apart from the arrest of the British sailors last year, there is hardly ever even a sharp exchange of words. At the risk of sounding like (and as I'm sure I will be accused of being) an apologist for the Islamic Republic, the encounter with the U.S. Navy as described by the Pentagon just doesn't ring true. Coming as it did on the eve of President Bush's visit to the Middle East, the encounter as described is doubly suspicious.
BTW, Obama is a prominent member of the CFR. You can read about the CFR here!
Sutton with 100% reporting, reported 0 votes for Ron Paul, but a poster in Sutton reports: My mom, aunt, and dad all voted for Ron Paul today. In other news, 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems.
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It's not easy for a 72-year-old, 10-term congressman from Texas, who once before ran for president on the Libertarian ticket, to get much media attention. He's been polling a long time in single digits. But then a couple of things happened. Paul's thousands of outspoken, fervent followers set a new one-day fundraising record and reaped almost $20 million for him in the fourth quarter, likely more than any other GOP candidate. Then last week Paul came in fifth in Iowa with 10%, a lot better than the 4% of Rudy Giuliani, who'd criticized Paul strongly in an early debate.
Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is The Real News Network Senior News Analyst and Senior Editorial Consultant and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science and written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.
Former 'Gagged' FBI Whistleblower Alleges Pentagon, State Department Officials Overheard Receiving Payoffs in Exchange for Classified Info; Crimes Covered Up at Highest Levels of Government | U.S. Media Scooped Again, Failed to Air Claims After Offer of Disclosure by Edmonds in Recent BRAD BLOG Exclusives...
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MSNBC reports that a facebook poll "chose" Huckabee... when in fact the article itself reports that Ron Paul leads the poll at 43% . Disgusting.
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Offers his take on the world in 'Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!'
"The government is supposed to be us, and it's not us anymore. It's been hijacked. Just when is somebody going to do something?"
What's a struggling New York pol to do? Never Forget.Clinton and Giuliani both broke out 9/11 references a day after the Iowa Caucuses upended the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns."None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried," Giuliani said.
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From Democracy Now:
Independent journalist Allan Nairn and American Conservative correspondent Kelley Beaucar Vlahos discuss a little-addressed facet of the 2008 campaign: many of the top advisers to leading presidential candidates are ex-U.S. officials involved in atrocities around the world.
Jonathan Turley suggested that under those circumstances, the failure to appoint a special prosecutor was a serious problem, because "the investigation will essentially be the Justice Department investigating itself. ... Michael Mukasey's boss is the president of the United States. If torture occurred, he was the guy who ordered it."
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Here's the clip that should have aired last night. No explanation has been issued on why it didn't air.
Related: Iowa Caucus Recap for RP
From Gambling 911
Ron Paul didn't win in Iowa Thursday night and he didn't even come in third or fourth place. But there is some good news that the long time Congressman and his supporters can take away from Iowa....
1. Ron Paul got 10% of the vote and was within striking distance of both John McCain and Fred Thompson, the later of whom is likely to drop out of the race after New Hampshire.
2. Ron Paul came in third place in Johnson County, which perhaps has the closest demographics to that of New Hampshire. It is home to the progressive college town of Iowa City, full of young voters who Paul's campaign is reliant on.
3. He beat Rudy Giuliani by a landslide and Giuliani is considered the frontrunner nationally. And like Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul did not focus as aggressively on the state of Iowa.
4. Wolf Blitzer of CNN called Ron Paul's showing "impressive".
5. With McCain and Thompson tied for 3rd, Ron Paul technically came in 4th place.
6. There were some counties in Iowa where Ron Paul excelled.
7. Iowa is not an Internet state and the inquiries coming in for Ron Paul (and Internet traffic in general) is not very heavy from Iowa. The great news is that the most significant search inquiries for Ron Paul were coming in from Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Massachusetts and California.
He vowed Thursday night to continue his presidential campaign into New Hampshire and other states.
....This is not the end. This is the beginning,'' the Texas congressman told a boisterous gathering of about 150 people at a downtown Des Moines hotel.
The crowd interrupted Paul at times, chanting ....Live free or die'' and ....Ron Paul.''
....I am more encouraged than ever before,'' he said.
Posted January 1st, 2008 by Give Me Freedom
ELRON - VOXEO: The Israeli Defense Firm That Tallies the Iowa Caucus
Posted By: ChristopherBollyn
Date: Monday, 31 December 2007, 8:10 a.m.
ELRON ELECTRONICS:
The Israeli Defense Company
That Tallies the Iowa Caucus
By Christopher Bollyn
The Iowa caucus is only a few days away and the nation's attention will be directed to the results, which signify the beginning of the U.S. presidential race. But does anyone watch who tallies the results of the Iowa caucus?
The Iowa caucus results were tallied in 2004 by a company that is headed by a man whose company was bought by Elron Electronics, the Israeli defense firm. I suspect that it will be the same this year. Don't expect to see any grassroots political activists doing the tally in Iowa. The Israeli defense establishment takes care of that part of the American "democratic" election process.
VOXEO
In the summer of 2004, I first learned that a foreign and out-of-state company using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology tallied the Iowa caucus results.
The system used to tally the 2004 Iowa caucus results was provided by a company called Voxeo, which was apparently based in Orlando, Florida. (Yellow flag goes up in the mind of those familiar with Orlando and electronic vote fraud history. See Bollyn article on Wang below.)
The calls from the nearly 2,000 caucus centers in Iowa went to a Voxeo call center in Atlanta, Georgia.
On January 31, 2005, I wrote to Michelle Bauer, Iowa's Secretary of State with some questions about the use of Voxeo, a foreign company located in Florida, to tally the results of the Iowa caucus: Article Continues
From NY Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: January 2, 2008
WASHINGTON — Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of sensitive technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.
But today the administration is facing questions from weapons experts about whether some equipment — newly authorized for export to Chinese companies deemed trustworthy by Washington — could instead end up helping China modernize its military. Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria.
The technologies include advanced aircraft engine parts, navigation systems, telecommunications equipment and sophisticated composite materials.
The questions raised about the new policy are in a report to be released this week by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, an independent research foundation that opposes the spread of arms technologies.
The administration’s new approach is part of an overall drive to require licenses for the export of an expanded list of technologies in aircraft engines, lasers, telecommunications, aircraft materials and other fields of interest to China’s military.
But while imposing license requirements for the transfer of these technologies, the administration is also validating certain Chinese companies that may import these technologies without licenses.
Read Entire Article
With only a day left before the Iowa caucus kicks off 2008 presidential voting, electronic tabulating machines to be used in some state primaries may be "unfit" for an election, according to CNN.
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election.
Times Online UK
On the day she was assassinated, Benazir Bhutto was due to meet two senior American politicians to show them a confidential report alleging that Pakistan’s intelligence service was using US money to rig parliamentary elections, officials in her party said yesterday.
The report was compiled by the former Prime Minister’s own contacts within the security services and alleged that the Inter-Services Intelligence agency was running the election operation from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad, they said. The operation’s aim was to undermine Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and to ensure victory for the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party, which supports President Musharraf, in the elections scheduled for January 8.
This really is like kindergarten stuff now. Fox News is outta control. I know ive been pushing it alot on here but people, PLEASE take the time to watch "Outfoxed" on google video. Heres the link to make it simple. You have to understand how deep this "Fox Noise" propaganda cuts.
Hat tip to kidwave1
Political operatives have urged citizens NOT to ask too many questions and NOT to take photos or video of precinct caucus results, warning them that only "conspiracy theorists" would want to independently confirm the announced results.Not taking photos or video could be a fatal mistake. If you are in Iowa make sure EVERYTHING gets recorded!!!
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