I am a war criminal; I bombed innocent women and children"
-John McCain
From the treatment by the corporatist whore mainstream media you would think that John McCain was somehow still relevant. In the latest example the old loser and self-admitted war criminal is whoring himself out to the lazy cretins who masquerade as journalists in shilling for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. McCain is orderingPresident Obama to make the decision on sending more troops into the meatgrinder NOW. I have to say that the ongoing forum for this asshat who has become a fixture on the Sunday morning bloviation circuit and as much a frontman for the Military Industrial Complex as the old phony Ronald Reagan was for the rising fascist tide is rather astonishing but not unpredictable. Anyone with any sense at all learned long ago not to trust a goddamned thing that the pocket media has to say even if they never even heard of Operation Mockingbird.
In the Wall Street Journal on September 13, the two Repubs and one former Democrat wholeheartedly endorsed sending more of our troops to eat $#!t sandwiches in Afghanistan.
We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan.
snip
However, we need more than the right team and the right strategy. This team must also have the resources it needs to succeed-including a significant increase in U.S. forces.
What the band played as Titanic slowly began to sink is never disputed - ragtime, waltzes, specific tunes noted by survivors included 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' and 'In The Shadows'. But a question mark still hangs over what the last song was as Titanic's stern began to rise clear of the Atlantic Ocean, and indeed, would it be physically possible for them to play anything in those conditions?
Welcome to the 18th installment of "Considered Forthwith."
This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.
This week, I will look at the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Forces Committees. Obviously, these members are the ones to contact to advance the bill that would repeal the "Don't ask/don't tell policy." These are also the committees that need a proverbial kick in the pants to advance legislation that would close Gitmo. More information below.
This is a SNEAK PREVIEW for all you Dharma Bums who want action and accountability for 8 years of War Crimes, High Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
If you want to host a War Crimes Accountability series diary let me know. I will be posting these myself until someone wants me to pass the baton to them. E-mail me at ministryoftruth@live.com if you are interested, or say so in the comments below.
Let me know if you think this is an effective course of action, or if you have any other thoughts or ideas to share.
Cheers
This diary will be published at 10a.m. tomorrow morning on Orange. Please be there to rec it up, as well as to call for Justice!
Dear Dharma Bums, I submit for your consideration and approval a plan to bring the Bush/Cheney Administration to justice.
If you don't support warrantless wiretapping, The Patriot Act, torture or any of the other high crimes and War crimes committed by the Criminal Bush Junta, please use the contact information below to demand justice for War Crimes. Contact Speaker Pelosi and the Representatives of the House Rules Committee today and ask them to support H.Res 383.
H.Res 383 was introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA9) and is designed to act as a Congressional oversight bill that would establish a select committee to review national security laws, policies, and practices. Better yet, this committee would have power of subpoena.
Below the fold you can find the Contact Information for Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi and the members of the House Rules Committee to which H.Res 383 has been referred, as well as the AG's Office and White House. Call or write to let them know that you support H.Res 383 and accountability for Bush/Cheney era War Crimes.
A January 17 New York Times editorial noted that Attorney General designate Eric Holder testified at his nomination hearings that when it came to overhauling the nation's interrogation rules for both the military and the CIA, the Army Field Manual represented "a good start." The editorial noted the vagueness of Holder's statement. Left unsaid was the question, if the AFM is only a "good start," what comes next?
The Times editorial writer never bothered to mention the fact that three years earlier, a different New York Times article (12/14/2005) introduced a new controversy regarding the rewrite of the Army Field Manual. The rewrite was inspired by a proposal by Senator John McCain to limit U.S. military and CIA interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual. (McCain would later allow an exception for the CIA.)
According to the Times article, a new set of classified procedures proposed for the manual was "was pushing the limits on legal interrogation." Anonymous military sources called the procedures "a back-door effort" to undermine McCain's efforts at the time to change U.S. abusive interrogation techniques, and stop the torture.
Pauline: Plans and schedules were important and are made in advance. However, such disruption that we had earlier are unexpected and those kinds of events take away the time delegated for priorities and goals. But here, at Big Mountain, we live with a lot of threats from the police and guns of the United States. And unfortunately, we just saw that this morning and you yourself have seen it personally.
"...A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that In July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead..."
At this point, the story is as Clemons termed it, "A Scoop", so there hasn't been verification of this by other sources at this time.
We've heard a lot of speculation about what this year's presidential election supposedly means. Were Americans simply voting for Barack Obama, a charismatic peacemaker with a worker-friendly tax plan? Or were they also voting against something, and if so, what? Republican incompetence? Neocon arrogance? The Iraq War? The economic meltdown? Negative campaigning?
After reading georgia10's front-page story "22%" on Daily Kos -- specifically, after looking at the New York Times maps she embedded -- I think we can figure out what most Americans were voting against in a single glance, by seeing who embraced Obama and, more important, who rejected him.
Does this map look familiar? If you've read my Daily Kos diaries on David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed, it should.
Posted a rant yesterday, about the little journey between the hills of hope and fear that many of us have been going through, even as all polls seem to suggest a clear cut Obama victory today. I didn't mention one particular fear, though, because I'm not sure it had crystallized fully at the time I wrote that mess up. It's a little darker than the thoughts I did mention, and even now I hesitate to mention it, because, in the light of day, it seems ridiculous.
But for a tiny bit there, yesterday, I wondered whether I might die in the night, before I had a chance to vote for Barack Obama for president.
America's Barack It may be a little early, but I'm already getting ready to celebrate. But first, a short story about media cronyism.
Tomorrow is election day, children. It is one of the most cherished privileges of being an American citizen, and one of the most solemn responsibilities as well.
Many people take great pleasure from having the ability to help to choose who will lead our great nation, and they believe that by voting they are playing an important role in that choice. However, most are unaware that sometimes this process is not as straight forward as one might think.
After millions of well intentioned consumers citizens have gone to the polls to cast their votes, our friends in the media spend many minutes, and millions of dollars, figuring out who really won the election. They add up numbers given to them from computers and pollsters and other pundits, and when they are certain that they can make a reasonably close guess - BAM! - they announce it on television and America has a new president.
So where does this abundant and unregulated power reside?
So, as I write this, tomorrow is the big day. The people of the US get to choose their next President. There's a good quote on this over at Socialist Appeal (UK):
Looking around, it appears that I'm not the only one trying to go through however many stages of grief there are in a very compressed time span. I got to trying to expound on the thinks inside my skull for myself, and ranted and raved for a few words, sprawling through tension and tenses, and various points of view, and thought, might as well share.
I feel better having spewed it out onto a microsoft word document, and I kinda like the way this movie ends....love to hear what you think, though, and what sorts of crazy thoughts are careening through your own skullspaces...
It's gettin' down to crunch time, America! And I couldn't be more pleased about the state of the Palin-McCain ticket as we head into these last few days. As I proved conclusively earlier, polls show that we are in great position to win this election.
I've been workin' like the dickens to shore up this misperception that I don't understand foreign policy too good. Just the other day I was chattin' with French President Nicolas Sarkozy about all kinds of things, like which countries we can see from our houses, unfair things the liberal media says about us, our shared love of hunting, the relative hotness of me and his wife . . . well, I'll just let you listen for yourselves:
Learned yesterday morning that Obama was going to be in Highland, Indiana, last night, so I planned on going. The rally was to begin at 7:30 p.m., at Wicker Memorial Park.
It was a beautiful, perfect evening!
Arriving, there was no allotted parking left, shopping mall across the street was packed and we were instructed by police to go to K-Mart (nothing being said about it not being there anymore). Kept driving until I saw more police, who told me where the lot was. Parked and got on a shuttle bus (free) to go back to the Park. Got off, walked to entrance, where police awaited, but, amazingly, no one's purse or pockets were even searched. Walked to the Park, where all of the standing room possible in front of the platform was filled to capacity. Security everywhere. Interestingly, the group in front of the platform were "gated" off behind them, then there was a goodly amount of space, then more "gating" and people behind that, myself included.
ej and i are watching Dutch news at 8pm. and the video comes up of John McCain shouting to a crowd and i zero in when i hear::: I'M AN AMERICAN." that's an exact quote. and then i think he said something like: i'm going to fight. don't give up hope.
what the ... what the ... what the FUCK????????????????????????????
i mean i am stunned. even i am stunned. because at first, i heard it. and then i HEARD it. he's an american. obama is not.
be ready on Nov. 5 is all i can say. maybe the progressives will become the new secessionists...
this just isn't good.
anybody able to link this? because i'm still reeling..................
Pepe Escobar Commentary: Al Gore campaigns for Obama in Florida; Bin Laden still not heard from
For months there has been relentless talk of an October surprise capable of swaying the US presidential election - just as the Osama bin Laden video "Message to the American people" released in late October 2004. Possible October surprises include former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsing Senator Barack Obama and former vice-president Al Gore campaigning for Obama in Florida - the state that cost him the election in 2000. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has vaguely endorsed Senator John McCain. But many - including top US government officials - are still waiting for an Osama bin Laden video.
The WaPo editorial for today calls out McSame for yet another "vile smear:
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.
For his part, Mr. Khalidi, an academic of the first degree, squashes McSame like a bloated cockroach and even throws the clammering, allusion-hungry masses (that would be us) a bone:
Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
March on Washington
If you don't support warrantless wiretapping, The Patriot Act, torture or any of the other high crimes and War crimes committed by the Criminal Bush Junta, please use the contact information below to demand justice for War Crimes. Contact Speaker Pelosi and the Representatives of the House Rules Committee today and ask them to support H.Res 383.
