October 3, 2005
Bush Blocking Probes of Abuse -- A Reuters headline says: "Bush Moves to Block Torture Probe ... The White House on Friday threatened to veto a $440.2 billion defense spending bill in the Senate because it wasn't enough money for the Pentagon and also warned lawmakers not to add any amendments to regulate the treatment of detainees or set up a commission to probe abuse." Another investigation being blocked by Bush. Why doesn't Bush want any investigation into the torture carried out by soldiers under his command when he coincidentally was ordering the White House Counsel to elaborate a legal justification of torture? It's a rhetorical question. And speaking of blocking investigations, why did the Bush administration try so strenuously to block any investigation of that series of catastrophes? Can anyone give a good common-sense answer to these simple questions?
October 4, 2005
It's hard to keep a sense of humor. What is happening to this poor country is so grim. Now that Bush has installed his stealth candidate as chief justice, who turns out to be one of the guys in the photo of people who went to Miami/Dade county to bang on the windows and doors of the polling places yelling at them to stop trying to count votes. Now he's the chief justice. A partisan thug who helped to the dirty work in the 2000 election. Bush rewards him by making him chief justice, and does anyone in the Senate protest? A few brave souls. Now Bush is trying to put this ditzy lawyer friend of his on in the other vacant chair on the Supreme Court. This babe has never even been a judge. No experience. No record to evaluate. Except her record as the managing partner of a law form that was sanctioned more than once to the tune of millions of dollars for fraud, stealing, whatever fancy term you want to give it. Her big thing is that she adore's Bush and calls him "the most brilliant man I've ever met." This is Bush's latest big joke on the American people, but will any of our elected leaders challenge him on the idiocy of such a choice? Is there nothing the guy can't get away with with all these sold-out bums in Congress? Obviously Bush wants people like Clarence Thomas, grateful, compliant, rather dim people who will do his bidding. It's a race against time. How can you get convicted of war crimes -- or any crimes -- when you control the Supreme Court. Hang on to your hats, friends. This is getting very ugly.
Cry Your Heart Out -- According to the Drudge Report Donald Sutherland did an interview with BBC and said Bush "will destroy our lives." Regarding the Iraq war and the handling of Katrina, he said, "They were inept. The were inadequate to the task, and they lied... And they were insulting, and they were vindictive. And they were heartless. They did not care. They do not care. They do not care about Iraqi people. They do not care about the families of dead soldiers. They only care about profit" According to Drudge, Sutherland started crying: "We've stolen our children's future... We have children. We have children. How dare we take their legacy from them. How dare we. It's shameful. What we are doing to our world. Regarding master manipulator Karl Rove, he said, "We're back to burning books in Germany."
The Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was questioned in connection to the Tom Delay case according to The Guardian.
Times A-Changing -- According to Will Hutton in The Observer, "The most important political event last week for Britain did not take place at the Labour party conference in Brighton, but in Travis County, Texas. District Attorney Ronnie Earle charged the second most powerful man in the United States, Tom DeLay, with criminal conspiracy. DeLay resigned as the majority leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives while he fights the case, a stunning political setback. American conservatism that has shaped American and British politics for 20 years has been holed below the waterline. It will take a lot more to sink it, but DeLay's indictment is symptomatic of a conservative over-reach and endemic corruption that will trigger, at the very least, a retreat and maybe even more. One-Nation Tories and honest-to-God Labour politicians can take some succour; the right-wing wind that has blown across the Atlantic for nearly a generation is about to ease. Hypocrisies have been exposed. The discourse in British politics is set to change."
DRIBBLES
October 5, 2005
Burning Bodies -- I was of course suspicious when FEMA banned all photographs or media presence during the first few days after the federal government finally decided to move into the Gulf area. They said the secrecy was about the privacy of the victims, or some such crap. Similar to the Supreme Court nullifying the election of Florida using the equal protection amendment of the Constitution. We're going to protect every one against unequal rights due to different kinds of voting machines by taking away everyone's vote and deciding ourselves who will be president.
In any case the big production about secrecy always creates suspicion and I heard intelligent people speculating that FEMA was using those few days of "privacy" to destroy as many bodies as possible, destroy the evidence of White House negligence, keep the body counts low. Suddenly the estimates of those on the scene, like the mayor of New Orleans, were highly overinflated. It's probably thousands, Mayor Nagin had said. After FEMA had the place to themselves a few days, we were seeing only a tiny trickle of bodies accounted for. As if the place had received a thorough scrubbing. Maybe that's not so far off. Today I talked to someone who just returned from the Gulf region.
This is anecdotal, I can't prove it. Take it for what you will. But when a mountain of evidence piles up, it may make a pattern that is unavoidable. My friend who had been to New Orleans said, "I talked to some volunteers down there. They were from Oregon and had come down to help. 'We thought we were going to be helping the victims but we ended up serving food to truckdrivers.'" Truckdrivers? "They were taking truckloads of bodies to Camp Shelby to burn by the hundreds. About 250 on a truck and they were lined up."
Those in denial will blot out the most disturbing news. I can't prove it, but he who has ears, let him hear.
Now Bush is pushing use of the military to enforce quarantines in the case of an outbreak of Avian flu. (See New York Times: "The president had already raised, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the delicate question of giving the military a larger role in responding to domestic disasters. His comment today appeared to presage a concerted push to change laws that limit military activities in domestic affairs.")
A week or so ago he was pushing putting the Pentagon in charge of disaster relief. He's itchy for an excuse to invoke martial law. He may see the hounds a little to close to his heels, and he knows he's guilty of many crimes. He didn't have Alberto Gonzales write up a legal justification for torture without being very aware of the legal implications of his policies. He's trying to consolidate total control so he'll be totally without any check. He's already damn close with a largely sheep Supreme Court, most of whom owe everything to the Bush family and its cohorts, and a Congress that is almost totally without spine, courage or integrity.
So there is virtually no check on the president now except the people in the street, and they make him very nervous. He didn't want to meet with Cindy Sheehan because she's taller than he is. And besides being innately more intelligent and articulate, she is also moved by righteous anger. There was no way Rove was going to let that media catastrophe play out. So he just called her a "clown."
Speaking of people who have shown they will stop at nothing to get what they want, what was the deal with the article in the October 1 Washington Post: “Poison Found in Air During Anti-War Protest”? For a very chilling read, check out Columbus Free Press. The Free Press quotes the Washington Post to the effect that Biohazard sensors detected tularemia bacteria at the mall on Saturday, September 24, the day and place of the biggest peace demonstration in Washington since Vietnam. There were also trains that couldn't go from New York to Washington, Metro subway cars were stopped for repairs. But this germ warfare is particularly disturbing. This was military grade tularemia, one of six major bacterial bioterrorism agents, according to the Sherlock Bioterrorism Library serving the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. The BBC calls tularemia “one of the most infectious germs known to science,” and says it “takes just 10 microbes to bring on disease in humans.” It has been favored as a military weapon by military minds. As Washington D.C. Public Health Director Greg A. Pane asks in the Post article: “Why that day? That’s what is not explained.” He said it was “just this 24-hour period and none since.” Apparently they will stop at nothing. The writer of the Free Press article, Bob Fitrakis, says "Coincidence theorists. You gotta love 'em and their great faith in believing in the statistically improbable occurrence of events, rather than an alternative hypothesis: that friends of Bush (FOBs) planted the tularemia bacteria, just as most likely sent anthrax to Democratic senators and the media." It's all just coincidence. Go ahead and put your head back in the sand.
And for those who wish to remain asleep, unwilling to be aroused without the proverbial "smoking gun", consider the preponderance of evidence. Let's drop the phony confusion about where all this stuff is coming from. See Commondreams: "Bush Did It."
A relatively conservative democrat who used to think I was a bit overboard on my fear of Bushworld, recently said to me, "The only chance we have now is ... " Then he clarified, "When I say 'we' I'm not talking about the democrats, I'm talking about the people." The Bush agenda -- the Iraq invasion and occupation, and the attempt to establish a totalitarian military state at home -- these are not partisan issues. It's pointless to remain stuck in Republican/Democrat, Left/Right, Conservative/Liberal arguments now. It's like a discussion between two deaf and dumb people. Our republic is being turned in to a totalitarian state. Our Titanic is sinking. As someone put it a day or so ago in reference to the crooked voting machines: "USA 1776-2004 R.I.P."
October 7, 2005
Today Bush is riling everyone up on New York, searching subways, putting out all these terror alerts. Here's another Terror Alert and this time we really mean it! Of course no one in any of the intelligence agencies knows what the hell it's all about. It's just another big stunt, another big production of the Bush-Rove PR machine. Sure, at any moment some hateful soul is bound to blow up the subway. But that's irrelevant to the Bush dramas. With Bush it's always a big drama to cover up the real politics of his administration.
Bush just can't wait to get soldiers on the street enforcing martial law. His real impulses always come out at times like that. Lately he reveals his real tendencies at every moment. He talks about putting the military in charge of disaster relief. Then the next week he's using flu as his reason. If there's an outbreak of the Avian Flu -- which at the moment is nothing more than one of a million ongoing possibilities, the hazards of survival of the human race -- then he may have to use the military to enforce quarantines. They may have to quarantine whole cities, or even whole states. It's the perfect fantasy for the would-be dictator, the spoiled brat who wants to rule the world. Increasingly, as his poll numbers go down, as law enforcement entitities close in on his web of crime, Bush seems anxious to employ the military.
Get used to it, folks! This is the way the oligarchy behaves in the days of peak oil. Get ready for the big crackdown and start thinking of ways to live in a time of breakdown. The regime that got into power by bullying its way over the barrier of an insufficiency of votes, that presided over the 9/11 catastrophe and then mysteriously tried vigorously to block any investigation of it, is not likely to suddenly become benign and exhibit respect for law, tradition and decency. Don't count on it!
As Rove's misdeeds seem to be catching up to him, Bush seems to be grasping at anything to serve as a reason to invoke martial law. These are interesting, and extremely perilous times.
As powerful as the Bush oligarchy is, it is not certain that they can continue to manipulate events to maintain power. We see them increasingly under threat of some level of accountability leaking into their ivory tower. Bush seems desperate, and when a rat is cornered, be very wary. No one can ultimately control the outcome of the currently inevitable clashes. We are all in the box seats watching. But any of us at any time can become the collateral damage of this struggle.
On paper things don't look so good for America. All three branches of government are firmly in control of a myopic, savage group. In terms of the "legitimate" functions of the government, not a lot of hope is offered. Is there even a political "leader" who has the guts to speak plainly about the idiocy that is being run on the American people now? But given the hopelessness of the supposedly legitimate machines of government, there may still be some hope in the hearts and souls of the American people. Are they not hip to all this ridiculousness? Are they going to put up with it? Somehow, I think international community that is America won't.
One thing you can say for the Bush administration -- They did get a lot of votes. Not a majority, but a very impressive number, considering they had so little to offer and they were full of crap with all their sanctimonious phony morality crap. Enough to allow them to bully their way in, if no one had the guts to stop them. How could anyone look at those faces and not see right through them? How could they have gotten so many Americans to support them?
Maybe not the country of torture after all? Anyway here are some good links gathered from today's cybersphere. The U.S. Senate, the famous Parliament of Whores, somehow found the guts to stand up for principle for once against the worst human impulses as represented by the evil Bush administration. Rallying behind the occasionally heroic, often corrupted John McCain, the Senate voted 90 to 9 (with all those Republicans!) to limit interrogation procedures.
McCain, who unlike the neocon chickenhawks has actually scene military service, said he mourns, "what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget . . . that which is our greatest strength: that we are different and better than our enemies." Before getting too keyed up about McCain, let's remember that McCain, for his ass-kissing of Bush bears some responsibility for saddling us with this nightmare. But giving credit where due, in this case he was more than a mouse.
Holy Crap Batman! Is it possible to be reading this from CBS News: "This CBS News Poll finds an American public increasingly pessimistic about the economy, the war in Iraq, the overall direction of the country, and the President. Americans' outlook for the economy is the worst it has been in four years. Most expect the price of gas to rise even further in the next few months. A growing number of Americans want U.S. troops to leave Iraq as soon as possible, rather than stay the course, and the highest percentage ever thinks the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq. When given a set of options for paying for rebuilding the hurricane-racked Gulf Coast, only one — taking money from the Iraq War — gets majority support. President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has reached the lowest ever measured in this poll, and evaluations of his handling of Iraq, the economy and even his signature issue, terrorism, are also at all-time lows. More Americans than at any time since he took office think he does not share their priorities." Is it any wonder Bush wants to get the military on the street in the U.S. anyway he can? The trouble is for Bush, the military don't like him either. So even though he would be happy to give the military industrial complex anything for letting him play fuhrer, they are not so sure they want to be stuck with him tell he abdicates, or dies. So that avenue may not be open to him. But beware. Bush, desperate by nature and drawn to brinkmanship, is really desperate now. Almost anything could happen. It all comes down to the basic nature of the American people, who are measurably not in support of Bush's policies.
Tear It Down! Here is one more quote from Schopenhauer in the mid-19th Century that seems applicable now. "It is consistent with the state of things that we should see the scientific, literary and artistic Zeitgeist declared bankrupt about every 30 years; for during this period the errors contained in it have grown to such proportions as to crush it by the weight of their absurdity... "
A mess of George Bush's making
The Guardian
``There is no justification for Iran or any other country interfering in Iraq,'' Blair said at a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Duh
Bush and the Bushmakers have discovered the words empire and imperialist and are trying to appropriate them, to give them a meaning that will nullify their previous meaning, which applies to him and the neocons.
Village voice: "To a president whose poll numbers are tanking, and who recently seems at risk of losing the loyal support of his conservative base, the halcyon days after 9-11-marked by his soaring poll numbers and talk of taking the war to the terrorists-must seem irresistible. And so on Thursday, with conservatives openly threatening revolt against his choice of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice, and with 62 percent of Americans disapproving of President Bush's handling of Iraq, and with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted on money laundering charges, and with the White House's top procurement official also on the rack, and with signs that top White House advisors could be indicted any minute now by a federal grand jury, Bush and his advisors reached for that old crutch, a speech reminding Americans of the glory of fighting the terrorist enemy in Iraq."
According to Yahoo, Rove appears for third time before grand jury, is warned his testimony could be used against him if indicted.
October 8, 2005
Whoops! Another tear in the fabric of deception. While Bloomberg is searching New Yorkers on the subway and getting everyone in a tizzy, Michael Chertoff, head of ironically-named Homeland Security, says the warning was "not credible." See "New York and Washington Try to Explain Two Views of Threat" in the New York Times, "Bomb scare at New York's Penn Station appears to be hoax" Forbes, "Credibility issues over New York subway threat" Reuters
Happy John Lennon's Birthday -- War is Over (If You Want It)
October 9, 2005
Trading in Grandma for Gems Galore
I knew we had finally entered the sci-fi world when the World Trade Center towers exploded and Dr. Evil Cheney and the Neocons launched their plan for world domination -- but if there was any doubt in anyone's mind that fantasy has surpassed reality, check out the article at Yahoo! that explains that people can now incinerate their deceased family members and turn them into diamonds. No lie.
"It's not for everyone," the president of LifeGem admitted, but added that "for those who do chose to immortalize their loved ones in jewelry, the experience is extremely positive," according to the article. "We have people that approach us who have just experienced a tragedy and they say I can't wait, I'm so excited about this," he said. "In the field of death care, when someone says I'm really excited about this, I think we've achieved what we wanted to do which is change the culture of death."
How many fantasy and mystery writers could have -- and perhaps did -- use that as a plot element in a piece of outlandish fiction? Think of all the new variations of motives for murder you could squeeze out of that little fact.
If there's a way of making money out of something, you know the big Kings of Greed will move in and find a way to shovel some of the profits into their own pockets. These top-rank mobsters like the Bush crime family rarely miss a trick. George W. may seem a bit dull, but there are other quicker-witted characters in the shadows behind them. Surely by the time this surfaces in the mass media, these guys have been using it to make money for years already.
These days, for example, we hear a lot of mainstream reports about drone planes that the CIA and the Pentagon are using to assassinate whomever they wish to wipe out, or to bomb whomever they feel like bombing, or maybe just to bomb some people to try out the equipment. We are not supposed to make any connection, however, between those auto-piloted craft and the dazzling military operation that unfolded September 11, 2001. Suffice it to say that by the time a new piece of sinister technology is reported in the mainstream, its potentials as a weapon or source of making money have been long exploited by the shadowy power elite.
So if it's possible to burn bodies, turn them into graphite, then compress them into diamonds worth up to $20,000, as many as 20 gems per body according to this article, then some sadistic, money-crazed madman is going to use it to make a fortune. It's probably already happening.
And then there will be the common criminals, like the Menendez brothers, Klaus von Bulow, or any of a number of famous bimbos who have shown a talent for turning old people who have outlived their usefulness into cash in hand. This opens a whole new avenue for them.
And of course it adds another angle to the story of FEMA chasing out all media as they went to work cleaning up the bodies in New Orleans and promised to count them, and the grisly whispered reports about body burnings. Where there is money to be made from death and destruction, Halliburton will be there.
[On September 7, Reuters reported that FEMA "asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath" and "refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas." (See MediaMatters)
Then FEMA's "zero access" policy was announced September 9. (See MediaMatters)] CNN filed suit on September 10 and obtained a restraining order from a federal judge allowing them access the the body recovery operations and the Bush administration said it wouldn't block access, but it did anyway. Reports kept coming in (Like this September 12 report from Aaron Brown of CNN or this September 14 report from SF Gate) that the soldiers on the ground weren't complying with the court. FEMA had plenty of time to clean up without anyone looking.]
And in other news...
Al Gore spoke about the American media's alternate universe and the danger it puts Americans in. Truthout
Bush Fights Back in Favor of Torture -- After the Senate voted 90 to 9 to prohibit torture -- as if such a thing should be necessary in America -- Bush is reportedly going to veto it. (See Truthout) The article in the Telegraph didn't offer any quotes from Bush as to why he is so devoted to torture, but since it only takes 66 to override a veto, what is he expecting to gain by this veto?
John Dean writes a very clear analysis of the Delay indictments at
Bork: Not Impressed with Miers -- Republican judge and rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork about Harriet Miers: "This is a woman who’s undoubtedly as wonderful a person as they say she is, but so far as anyone can tell she has no experience with constitutional law whatever. Now it’s a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you’re on the court already. So that—I’m afraid she’s likely to be influenced by factors, such as personal sympathies and so forth, that she shouldn’t be influenced by. I don’t expect that she can be, as the president says, a great justice." MSNBC
Boozer Bush -- Salt Lake City Weekend
October 10, 2005
ImpeachBush.org
ImpeachBushCoalition
AfterDowningStreet.org
Caught on Video: Here's a video from the Dallas Morning News showing National Guardsmen in the post-Katrina activities caught on video destroying dogs after they had said they were taking them to shelters.
Kenyon, the company the Bushites put in charge of disposing of the dead in New Orleans (See Daily Kos) is owned by SCI, which is -- of course -- an old Bush crony, previously compromised in criminal activity. What in this case? Disposing improperly of human remains. A scandal affectionately known as Funeralgate. Read all about it here: Web Fairy
Bush cohorts profiteering at all levels
Obsidian Wings
Here in Reality
American Politics
Blackwater Mercenaries in New Orleans --Daily Kos
BlackwaterUSA
Portland IndeyMedia
North Texas IndyMedia