Professor-rat's Blurty
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Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 12:33a |
| | 12:35a |
That Turd still lying there '...In a brief e-mail exchange Friday, Rove would not comment. He has been more voluble about his feelings about McClellan in his comments on Fox News, where he has maintained that he did not leak Wilson's name and ridiculed the former press secretary's suggestion that there might have been something sinister about a 2005 meeting with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby...' FROM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/22/AR2008062201863_pf.htmlKarl Rove to Robert Novak ( about Valerie Plame Wilson being CIA) ' ...you heard that too...' ( Thus offering confirmation of the leak - or if Novak was just ' shaking-the-tree', a direct hit. The leak straight from the Turds own mouth. ) | | 3:55a |
George Foreman griller
Assassinations, physical threats, political pressure, biased reporting, lack of professionalism, rampant corruption and self-censorship...just another day in the office. Barry has a secret plan to stop the war on all our inalienable human and civil rights - yeah right. I have family in America. I enjoy slipping the occasional "terrorist" or "jihad" or "fuck you NSA" into my conversations. Shame to lose that.
"They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. [...] That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary." -Handmaid's Tale
It’s Official: HuffPost Is Fastest Growing News Site In America! (by Greg Mitchell, Huffington Post)
The new numbers are out from Nielsen Online and now there can be no doubt: The Huffington Post is currently the fastest growing major news site in the U.S.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." Benito Mussolini
It is my understanding that this bill removes the need for a warrant in cases involving a potential terrorist and an American citizen, and that the Government reserves the right to define what constitutes a terrorist. This of course means the government can intercept anyone’s communications and claim it involved a foreign terrorist. Without a weren’t who can say if the government is merely doing political spying on those who disagree with it's actions. The answer is no one.
Also the retroactive immunity provision frees Bush Inc and the Congressional oversight committees from the disclosures that are bound to occur in pending law suits against the telecoms which I am certain will reveal that many of the Bush intercepts for the past six and a half years were illegal as hell, otherwise the administration and the Congressional leadership would not have been after this provision to hide their past behaviors like a starving dog after a bone, or passed it in such and underhanded way against the wishes of the citizens of this county. As I have implied the aid and abettors in Congress, some being Democrats, would also be in trouble as accessories after the fact.
So to save their rotten arses Congress and the Administration are willing to scrap the Fourth Amendment. Myself I am willing to scrap the Administration and some members of Congress to save the fourth Amendment. No members of Congress or the Administration are too important to not be removed and replaced, but the Fourth Amendment is too important to be destroyed. Obama should have understood this and said so, there is no excuse for not doing so.
So much for my two cents on the further demise of the Constitution and the rule of law by the criminals now squatting the nation's capital. They are squatters because their actions remove any legitimate reason for their being in public office.
The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool. George Santayana
by Bobjack23
As dear departed George Carlin said..
"Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked".
by MariaWr | | 4:00a |
Paging senator Blutarsky
The Albanian government and U.S. embassy in Tirana were working together to disguise from the NYT that China was the country of origin for the ammunition that our favorite 20-something Florida arms dealers were buying from an Albanian arms dealer and shipping to Afghanistan under a U.S. government contract, for which same dudes were indicted last week for violating the Arms Export Control Act. ( TPM )
On the bright side the Chinese embassy in Belgrade got bombed once and this Globalization things really catchin' on with the youth | | 4:31a |
Barry folds like a deck chair MJ I am disappointed in you. You ought to be more honest about this FISA issue and Obama. Your analogy with McGovern and "purity" is just dead wrong and you know it (and if you don't know it you should). That isn't what is at stake here. The choice isn't between being pure and winning. It is between undermining the Constitution or defending it. Every member of Congress supporting this FISA bill is violating their oath to protect and defend the Constitution including and perhaps especially Senator Obama. The reason, MJ, that this election is so important you may recall is because we have had a criminal tyrant ruling the nation since 2001 and a lilly-livered Congress that has enabled his misrule throughout regardless of which party is in control. The FISA law is illegal and unconstitutional. It is in no way a "compromise". It is a plain and disgraceful capitulation by the Democrats just as we have seen them capitulate on every important issue regarding civil liberty, torture, the war, funding the war, and so on. Obama was made the nominee in large part because he promised voters he was different and he would work hard to change Washington. This surrender without even fighting on FISA is the worst kind of Washington bullshit and Obama has not only gone along, but he has shamefacedly bent over, grabbed his ankles and smiled while taking it and is telling us all that it's okay, it feels better than it would have otherwise because we call it a compromise instead of a gang bang. It is sickening and it won't do one iota of good toward electing him in November: quite the contrary. This law that Obama is asking us to believe is a compromise undermines and circumvents the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. It isn't just another compromise along the way it is an attack on the Constitution itself. This law, if finallly enacted will allow serious crimes to go unpunished, it will serve as an encouragement to unethical future Presidents and corporate execs to violate the law of the land and disregard the Consitution and it will permit the government to spy illegally on American citizens with impunity. So clearly, in no way is your analogy with McGovern at all apt MJ. This isn't a question of purity at all. This is a question of patriotism and whether or not we have a nominee for President who has the courage of his convictions. If he follows through on this capitulation, it demonstrates quite clearly that Obama is nothing more than another office seeker willling to do or say anything he thinks will advance his electoral chances, but completley unwilling to defend any principle or position that might mean the mean old right wingers could criticize him. So why be a Democrat at all if that's going to be the approach? He could avoid lots of the bullshit coming his way this fall had he simply run as a Republican! Then at least he wouldn't have to lie to the public in an attempt to convince them that an complete and utter defeat for the Constitution and the position he has previously held on the issue is the best deal we cold get and that we have won greater protections in the future. Nobody who is at all informed believes nonsense like that. During the past seven years our nation has been pushed, cajoled, frightened and coerced closer and closer to a police state by a would be fascist in the White House and this FISA bill is a large step in the wrong direction, another seriously damaging law that undermines our republic. This is serious business--not just politics. The man who is now the leader of our party is giving his approval to this trampling of the Constitution and the enabling of executive crimes--high crimes. And he is doing this for the worst, most craven political reasons because ostensibly this cave-in will prevent him from being criticized from the right on terrorism, etc... Bah! What a load of doubletalking bullshit that is! This is precisely the same idiotic logic that led to the war in Iraq MJ. To a tee! It's the logic that Hillary and John Kerry and many other Democrats who knew better thought was the smart strategy to prevent Republican attacks on them back in 2002. Even though some like Hillary will not publicly admit it, they regret that stupid move. They will regret this one too if they commit the same error once again for all the same bad reasons. That is the logic that most likely cost Hillary the nomination and propelled Obama to the top of the heat. It did so because Obama said he wouldnt fall for that crap then and he wouldn't in the future, but we can see that is utterly false now. You know how foolish a strategy this is, but now it's okay cause Obama's your guy and you'll make any excuse no matter how bad his decision or position? I honestly didn't think you were willing to provide cover for him no matter what but you have obviousy proven me wrong. You are no different on this than Mr. Hundt who would devise excuses for Obama no matter how absurd or ridiculous or indefensible his position might be on any matter. On this issue you, like Hundt, are being a shameless and unprincipled apologist for wrongdoing and the enabling of wrongdoing. You need to rethink this. Far from protecting himself, Obama's cooperation with evil on the FISA bill weakens him as a candidate in November because it clearly shows him to be a coward and someone just like the rest of the fraidy cat Democrats of Washington: he doesn't have the courage of what he claims are his convictions. It is because of this that the Republicans are filled with glee you now. They understand that every time the pussy Democrats fold it breathes new life into their electoal prospects. When the going gets tough... Obama folds just as fast a the chief Senate chicken Harry Reid and Nancy "the Appeaser" of the House Pelosi. Obama's actions on the FISA bill are not shrewd political manuevering or practical or street smart, and they most certainly are not politically necessary: they are cowardly capitulation and the actions of an old fashioned yellow belly. You nor anyone else as smart as you are, should try and excuse this indefensible betrayal of the Constitution and the people who put their faith in Obama. If he maintains his cowardly position on FISA it will put the lie to all his rhetoric about "change you can believe in." It only adds insult to injury to see someone like you defend this lame, weak, disgraceful dodging of responsibility. If Obama is unwilling to stand up and defend the Constitution on this issue MJ, is there anything he will defend? How can someone with so little conviction end the war in Iraq? How can someone so willing to fold before even one shot has been fired have the balls and fortitude to get anything done on global warming or healthcare? And if you think there is any issue Obama would find worthy enough for him to actually stick by and defend, what would that issue be MJ? I'm all ears. McGovern never had a chance in 72 and we all knew it from day one. McGovern didn't ever lead in any polls in 72 vs Nixon as Obama routinely does today against McCain who is an old man, a known hypocrite and flip-flopper. McGovern's loss had little to do with his positions on anything because the entire Democratic Party was tarred and feathered in advance by the Republicn dirty tricks operation and Nison was at the height of his popularity. Today Obama runs not against a popular incumbent, but against a weak nominee when the Republican Party is almost universally despised by the elecorate and Bush is the most unpopular President in history! How in any way cold Obama's capitulation be anything like McGovern in 1972? The very notion is absurd MJ. You should be ashamed for even offering that thin veil of an excuse. I'm deeply disapponted in your decision to defend the indefensible. Posted by oleeb - FROM http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/21/stop_nickel_and_diming_obama_h/ | | 4:54a |
Surge on!
Sorry - I thought you said surgeon
BAGHDAD, Iraq — One U.S. soldier was killed and five others were wounded today in a bizarre shooting incident near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, according to U.S. and Iraqi authorities.
Iraqi authorities said a member of the town council, which is part of the U.S.-allied Iraqi government, carried out the shootings,
An Iraqi police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the incident, said local council member Raed Hmood Ajil opened fire on the U.S. troops for unknown reasons and was killed at the scene by American forces. The account could not immediately be verified.
The U.S. military could confirm only that "initial reports indicate one Coalition forces (soldier) killed in action, five Coalition forces soldiers wounded in action and one enemy killed in action" at 1 p.m. today in the Salman Pak area.
' These are men - Americas best...silver targets on their chests ' | | 5:08a |
Dick cheese
McClellan cries like a girl to House Judiciary Committee
(23/6 )
Neither side is his good side.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, he of the shockingly too little, too late memoir "What Happened," testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday. He's expected to cry like a little schoolgirl about how administration officials misled him on their role in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Since the release of McClellan's memoir, GOP officials have also been asking themselves: what happened? McClellan wasn't like this before. He didn't criticize his party.
Who turned him? And how did they do it? 23/6 collects the most popular theories:
* At a Beltway cocktail party, shortly after a George Will toast, Scott felt dizzy. He woke up in a hospital, where he was horrified to learn that a nuclear bomb has been implanted beneath his ribs. If he returns to his GOP comrades, the bomb will be detonated. Scott's lone hope is to pretend to be a harsh administration critic, buying time until he figures out how to save not only his party, but his country.
* Calling him "Porky," "Lard Pants" and "Comb-Over," a gang of National Public Radio thugs gave Scott a pink belly, stole his White House lunch per diem and plunged his head into a swirling toilet bowl. Humiliated and in tears, he agreed to tell outlandish lies about his best friends.
* Hillary Clinton came to his door, brandishing a deck of cards. The sight of the Queen of Diamonds triggered within Scott's mind a series of commands that were embedded in his brain during a 2004 brainwashing session in China. Ever since, Scott has been a mindless drone for the Chinese government, fighting George Bush, who in turn is being controlled by the Dalai Lama.
* After Pentagon officials abruptly canceled Scott's secret project to create the ultimate fighting soldier, the disillusioned former press secretary injected himself with the experimental serum. He gained superhuman intellectual power but, unfortunately, turned evil.
* On a wild Vegas weekend with Bill Bennett, Scott ran up a1.5 million gambling debt, all on slot machines. As a mob enforcer prepared to chop off Scott's right hand, Noam Chomsky intervened and wrote out a check. Until he can pay it off, Scott must do Chomsky's bidding.
* While reading Ari Fleischer's memoirs, Scott was outraged to learn that his White House predecessor never had to pay165 a month for parking, as Scott was doing up to his final day. More and more, Scott came to see his former employers as penny-pinching cheapskates. When they asked for a campaign contribution, he snapped.
* On a secret assignment from the President, who will deny public involvement, Scott has been sent to infiltrate a terror cell. The mission requires him to break all ties to his past, becoming an outcast to his party. If all goes to plan, sometime before Nov. 2, Scott will publicly expose the domestic al Qaeda network, currently known as the Democratic Party.
* After attending an incredible concert, Scott had the opportunity to meet Willie Nelson backstage. They hit it off. After several days listening to tunes with Willie and smoking primo weed, Scott realized that his life and career have been a total bummer.
Filed under: McClellan testimony, McClellan Conyers, McClellan judiciary, McClellan Plame, Mcclellan Plame affair, Scott Mcclellan testimony, Scott McClellan Judiciary Committee, Scott McClellan Judiciary Committee testimony, McClellan Judiciary Committee testimony, Scott McClellan, Scott McClellan memoirs, Scott McClellan book, Judiciary Committee, Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney | | 5:10a |
A crawling Cockroach Alexander Cockburn - a dangerous filthy pest '...Of course, it's not a crime, and it's hard to see how, in a free society, it could or should become one. But the culpability of the energy firms the climate scientist James Hansen will indict in his testimony to Congress today is clear. If we fail to stop runaway climate change, it will be largely because of campaigning by oil, coal and electricity companies, and the network of lobbyists, fake experts and thinktanks they have sponsored. The operation sprang directly from Big Tobacco's war against science. It has used the same fake experts, the same public relations companies and the same tactics: as I showed in my book Heat, the campaign against action on climate change was partly launched by the tobacco company Philip Morris. But while the tobacco companies' professional liars were smoked out by a massive class action in the US, the sponsored climate change deniers still have massive influence over public perception. A survey published yesterday by the Observer shows that six out of ten people in Britain agreed that "many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change." This is an inaccurate perception, which results from Big Energy's lobbying. Almost without exception, the scientists who claim to doubt that manmade climate change is taking place fall into two categories: either they are not qualified in the branch of science they are discussing or they have received money from fossil fuel companies. Of all the self-professed climate "sceptics", I have been able to find only one – Dr John Christy of the University of Alabama – who has relevant qualifications and who does not appear to have received fees from lobby groups or thinktanks sponsored by the energy companies. But even he has had to admit that the figures on which he based his claims were the results of "errors in the … data". The others are the very opposite of sceptics. Many of them are paid to start with a conclusion – that climate change isn't happening or isn't important – then to find data and arguments to support it. In most cases, they cherrypick scientific findings; in a few cases, like the fake scientific paper attached to the celebrated Oregon petition, they make them up altogether. But people who don't understand the difference between a peer-reviewed paper and a pamphlet are taken in. The energy companies' propaganda campaign is amplified by scientific illiterates in the media, such as Melanie Phillips, Christopher Booker, Nigel Lawson, Alexander Cockburn and the television producer (who made Channel 4's documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle) Martin Durkin. I don't believe that the energy companies should be prosecuted for commissioning the truckload of trash their sponsored experts publish. But their campaign of disinformation must be exposed again and again. Like the tobacco lobbyists, they are not only delaying essential public action; they also create the impression that science is for sale to the highest bidder. The awful truth is that sometimes it is...' - FROM http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissionsLeft fascist, Liar, Holocaust denier, dirty crawling Cockroach vermin Alex Cockburn you suck - go die | | 5:16a |
A resource for all time
libcom.org is a resource for all people who wish to improve their micro-knowledge of how a bunch of mendacious Marxists invented anarchism fifty years after it spread out from France. Libcom has a dialectical relationship with truth so you don't have to think logically. ' From each according to their gullibility - to each according to their greed'. Do you need to know more? | | 10:52a |
First order of business
'...George Bush lied to you about Iraq. He lied to you about torture. He lied to you about Katrina. George Bush has lied to you about many things. So, would you trust him now with your family's privacy? I don't...'
This hits on some of the big three non-negotiables
1) Supreme crime of waging aggressive war
2) Approving routine kidnap and torture tactics
3) Ubiquitous mass spying as in any fascist police state
The fix for these serious problems is
a) A full independent investigation into all the reasons given for illegal aggressive war on SW Asia
b) A full independent investigation into torture authorizations and who read the product of torture sessions
c) A full independent investigation of all those who approved illegal mass domestic spying
Then prosecutions where warranted by the evidence. Fair trials, Due process. Capital punishment.
Important as Health care, energy, climate change, infrastructure, the deficit and anything else Krugman wants to get exercised about they are second order issues by a serious order of magnitude.
Any second order issues could be handled by Truth and Reconciliation commissions as far as I'm concerned.
And thats just not my opinion either - I'm going by the consensus of comments online and what people were willing to fight and die for in the past. | | 11:34a |
Police burglars please note
If I shoot any of youse filthy scumbags in my house and shoot you with a cross-bow I get off no matter what that nincompoop Steve Bracks ,yr fat sow of a boss, yr stupid union rep and the Herald-scum/Police Life told you. | | 5:31p |
I'm going to kill you now and try to revive you later Trust me I'm a spin-doctor "To kill one person is murder. To kill thousands is foreign policy." TURLEY: Well, there‘s no question in my mind that there is an obvious level of collusion here. We now know that Democratic leadership knew about the illegal surveillance program almost from its inception. Even when they were campaigning about fighting for civil liberties, they were aware of an unlawful surveillance program as well as a torture program. And ever since that came out, the Democrats have been silently trying to kill any effort to hold anyone accountable because that list could very well include some of their own members. And, I‘m afraid this is Washington politics at the worst. And, so, I think that what you‘re seeing with this bill is not just caving in to a very powerful lobby, but also caving in to sort of the worst motivations on Capitol Hill since 9/11. You know, the administration was very adept at bringing in Democrats at a time when they knew they couldn‘t refuse, to make them buy in to this program, and now that investment is bearing fruit. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...Democrats are quite effectively boosting the power of the federal government and corporations over our lives. This isn't weak or ineffectual. It's proudly standing up for their authoritarian beliefs. Progressive voters, on the other hand, look pretty darn weak and ineffectual when they continue to fund and vote for a party that does this sort of thing. The story of the FISA battle is that the desire to turn this country into a dictatorship is bipartisan. Just getting rid of the GOP is not enough. Any Dems politician who will pass horrible legislation to 'deny the Republicans their talking points' might as well just switch parties. That is exactly the Republicans' strategy, and the Dems play along every time. It's time to stop the protection racket. Nowhere is it written that the agents of government are supposed to protect the country. They're sworn to uphold the constitution. In actual fact it's not possible to protect the whole country. That's why it's a racket. Just like a Mafia Don's. They could easily have killed this bill in committee, or via procedural maneuvers, or in conference, or even on a floor vote, and allowed these few red district Dems to vote for it to innoculate themselves in their elections. So I don't buy the argument that this was done to protect endangered Dems. Then again, large yellow streaks do run down many of their backs, and I've not exactly been overwhelmed by their political acumen. They slipped into the majority as the result of massive GOP wrongdoing more than they actively won it. Who knows why they did this. Personally, I think that Turley had it right--they're complicit and are just covering their tracks. In which case, there is little chance that Obama will criminally investigate this, for fear that it would incriminate or at least negatively affect these Dems. A deal was cut, he's in on it, and they're hoping to move on. And it's our job to not let them. A fair compromise may be that a conditional immunity be given to the telecoms, i.e. they are given immunity provided that they fully cooperate with investigators. Or Specter's proposal that the gov't be the defendent in the suits against the telecoms. Until that calculus changes, their behavior never will. That's why it is so vital to target and defeat selected Democrats in Congress who are enabling these unconstitutional and lawless assaults. Democratic leaders need to learn that this strategy won't work. Right now, they think there is no price to pay from doing things like giving telecoms amnesty and destroying the Fourth Amendment, because those who oppose that won't do anything other than continue to support them. If they start losing seats when they engage in that behavior rather than gaining them -- if people who want to defend the Constitution and impose limits on the lawless Surveillance State work together to destroy this risk-benefit calculus by punishing them rather than rewarding them when they do things like this -- only then will they stop doing it. If, as a result of their destruction of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, they see that they lose seats -- that John Barrow and Chris Carney are removed from Congress and Steny Hoyer's standing in his district is severely compromised and that list of targets continues to grow -- then they'll conclude that they can't build their Vast and Glorious Democratic Majority by dismantling the Constitution and waging war on civil liberties. Between Iraq, Afghanistan, the price of oil, the teetering of our financial system, and the loss of our manufacturing base, what sane person would want to be president right now? The Democratic positions on 95% of the issues IS the middle. He doesn't have to move an inch, and he will win in a landslide. Any movement further right is an adoption of what used to be the ravings of the 'fringe' rightwing lunatics. Case in point.. he is now supporting the right of corporations and the government to spy on American citizens without a warrant, when those citizens were suspected of no crime whatsoever. How is that, in any possible description of the term, the 'middle'? "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - G. Marx | | 6:03p |
Hors de combat
Goldwater girls Digby and Jane Hamsher have well and truly choked
Hamsher's dropped the Plamegate scandal in favor of Tammany Hall press releases and this today from Digby...
'...Imagine if it were you stuck in that stateless, Kafkaesque nightmare.' ( Of Gunatanamo)
Stateless? So I guess fucking space aliens are running the place. Look if you two can't hack the pace just get the hell out of the way for others. You suck - go die | | 6:19p |
Mr Joyboy is right
Bill Kristol is just what the Straight Talk express needs right now...that and some campaign doll sets with Darth as Dr Evil and McCain as Mini-me...that would work. Far out Mr Joyboy.
'...I think some new blood—focused just on the big picture—would help the McCain team. My candidate would be Kristol. He obviously has a keen political mind; he's a McCain guy going way back (and as far as I know has a good relationship with McCain's key people); and he's a conservative who understands the need to move beyond the Bush administration without being panicked by every Bush association...' | | 6:39p |
Mushrooms and Rice
Of Rice, Mushrooms, and Lies [Douglas J. Feith]
One viewer of my interviews with Peter Robinson wrote in that among the "lies" of the Bush administration was "Rice's line about the 'smoking gun/mushroom cloud.'"
CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on September 8, 2002 how close was Saddam Hussein's government to developing a nuclear capability. Rice said:
"You will get different estimates about precisely how close he is." She presented a summary of what the CIA was saying at the time about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and then added: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Rice was highlighting the limits of U.S. intelligence. While emphasizing the disparate estimates about how close Saddam was to a nuclear bomb, Rice was saying that the CIA would not necessarily know when Saddam acquired one.
She was warning that we might not learn this until after a detonation. This was an important and accurate statement.
Everyone now knows that the CIA's intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed. (It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on erroneous intelligence - though they did so in good faith.) Rice deserves credit for stressing here the gaps and uncertainties in U.S. intelligence.
The comment about the mushroom cloud was a way of telling the American people not to expect their officials to know the state of Saddam's nuclear program at any given moment. It was a clear and proper warning that our country was subject to surprise. And it made the unarguable point that we would not want that surprise to take the form of a mushroom cloud from an Iraqi weapon.
Rice's reference to the mushroom cloud has been widely denounced as a gaffe or a lie. But it was neither.
06/23 11:24 AM - The Corner
The thing is that if they were acting in good faith and not just lying their evil rotten arses off ,like the stupidist fucking guy on the planet above would have us believe, there is still the little problem of criminal negligence...thats when you don't do the most rudimentary due diligence on so-called faulty intelligence.
People go to jail for culpable negligence all the time.
Then theres the cover-up - a separate matter entirely and a serious crime in itself.
People go to jail for lying under oath all the time. | | 7:44p |
The usenet crackdown
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's governor and attorney general have sent a joint letter asking all ISPs doing business in the state to follow the lead of Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint to block access to Usenet discussion groups that traffic in child pornography.
Brown and Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined forces to write the joint letter to the California Internet Service Provider Association, which represents about 100 ISPs. The action came in the wake of a deal made among the three ISPs and New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
"We applaud three of the largest Internet service providers — Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint — for taking steps to block access to child pornography," Brown said. "It is not enough, however, for only a few Internet service providers join the fight against online predators. Your more than 100 members can help by ridding their existing servers of child pornography and blocking access to child pornography through newsgroups."
Though cloaked in the guise of child protection, blocking Usenet discussion groups has raised the ire of civil rights advocates and tech experts because of the radically different ways that Verizon, Time Warner and Sprint have chosen to block the offending groups.
Verizon has pledged to block access to a significant portion of newsgroups, while Time Warner plans to drop access to it entirely. In both cases, regular, legal discussion groups have been shut down.
The American Civil Liberties Union has already hinted that it might try to fight the action in New York through legal channels.
“The Internet service providers should not be blocking whole sections of the Internet - all Usenet groups - because there may be some illegal material buried somewhere," ACLU technology director Barry Steinhardt said. "That's taking a sledgehammer to an ant.”
Other major Internet service providers in California include AT&T and AOL. - XBiz news | | 9:07p |
St Paul - Terror Central St. Paul and cops gear up for protests at GOP convention By RANDY FURST, Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/conventions/20620054.html?location_refer=$urlTrackSectionName Suicide bombers. Chemical or biological attacks. Lone gunmen. Terrorist attacks. Riots. Blockades that could shut down the Republican National Convention. In its most explicit arguments to date, the St. Paul city attorney's office on Friday outlined the "calamitous" potential of granting a request by antiwar demonstrators to change the route and time of a Sept. 1 march outside the Xcel Energy Center. Protest organizers accused the city of scare tactics designed to legitimize the denial of free speech. The dire warnings by the city came in a legal brief it filed to support the permit restrictions it is placing on the antiwar group. The city warned of "immeasurable risks to public safety and security" if protesters were allowed a march route that could total 100,000 and encircle the Xcel, site of the Sept. 1-4 convention. At the Minneapolis offices of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, Jessica Sundin, one of the group's leaders, accused authorities of exaggerating the threats. "There are no experiences in recent history of conventions being targeted by the kind of violence they are describing in their brief," said Sundin, who has taken a leave from her clerical job at the University of Minnesota. "They are raising a specter of terrorism that is absolutely unfounded, and they are using it to prevent us from speaking out against terrorism being inflicted on the Iraqi people every day by U.S. occupation forces," said Sundin, who took the leave to work on the protest. Prolonged dispute St. Paul officials and the protesters have been engaged in a prolonged dispute over when a permit for the march would be issued and, lately, over details of the permit. In mid-May, police granted a permit that allows demonstrators to march to the Xcel from the State Capitol and back. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota and the National Lawyers Guild filed briefs this month saying the march route is too narrow, the turn-around too abrupt, and the noon-to-2 p.m. period allowed for the demonstration too early in the day, occurring before convention delegates arrive at the center. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 9 before U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen. City officials have repeatedly said that they welcome nonviolent protesters and that they have gone out of their way to accommodate the free speech concerns of dissenters. The projected size of the antiwar demonstration on the first day has been estimated at between 50,000 and 100,000, although there has been some speculation it could be smaller, depending on the situation in Iraq. While St. Paul Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom previously has made references to potential threats, such as the detonation of a bomb, or blockades by anarchist groups, Friday's court filing was the most detailed description about concerns of law enforcement. Included with the brief is a memorandum from John A. Kolerno, the Secret Service coordinator for the convention, who noted that attendees typically include a range of high- ranking officials. "In planning security measures for the RNC," Kolerno wrote, "the Secret Service is considering a wide array of potential security threats, including terrorist attacks, lone gunmen, fire, environmental hazards, chemical or biological attacks, structural safety concerns, and suicide bombers." In a separate memorandum, Bostrom warned that "certain groups and persons have specifically and publicly stated their intent to 'shut down the RNC' by denying delegate access to the Xcel Energy Center." He cited a "self-described anarchist/anti-authoritarian" group known as the RNC Welcoming Committee, which has advocated a "three-tier strategy" of blocking the Xcel Center, "immobilizing" delegates' transportation and blocking connecting bridges. Seattle riots cited He referred to "violent riots" that occurred in Seattle in 1999, when he said the city failed to heed threats to shut down meetings of the World Trade Organization. And he said St. Paul needed to have unimpeded traffic flow for emergency vehicles to get to and from the Xcel Center, if necessary. ncluded in the briefs are an assortment of documents that have been posted on the Internet by the Welcoming Committee and other groups, including some more recent calls for "direct action." Tom Walsh, who has been the Police Department's main spokesman on police preparation for the convention, said Friday night that he had not seen the court documents and could not comment. Charles Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, said he reviewed the documents Friday afternoon. "It's a litany of everything that could possibly go wrong whether they grant a permit or not," he said. "In order to eliminate every possible risk, they should have every delegate stay home, provide broadband connection for every delegate, give them computers and let them watch the televised show from an undisclosed location. "There is nothing in the statements I have seen that puts any credible assessment to the risk. It's a catalogue of all the bad things that could happen if the First Amendment is allowed to exist." Randy Furst They left out a blockade that could shut down the rascist, fascist US Secret Service. This would be a sustained DDoS attack threatening various protected persons. By law the SS has to investigate each and everyone of these. | | 9:26p |
Fascism ' Lite' With Barry White - check out the pics here http://www.stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/In case you can't make out the Latin inscription above the ruptured duck there, it's "VERO POSSUMUS", which is a reasonably good translation of "Yes we can." Amazing, really, how Obama's formerly almost perfect-pitch campaign has taken this sudden plunge into laughable bathetic grandiosity. The New-Dealish blocky sans-serif type -- the constipated, chalky colors -- the frathouse Latin -- and above all, the splayed, two-dimensional eagle, a bird of very ill omen indeed. All in all, it reminds me irresistibly of the new uniforms Nixon once designed for his palace guard: ( And Dame Edna EVERAGE ) | | 9:35p |
Become an activist and jail yrself Two anarchist students from the city of Penza were arrested on June 19 for handing out leaflets! The leaflets said "Government is the prison of the people. Become an anarchist and free yourself!" The cops are pressing criminal charges against the two, Oslav Kirosheyev and Vitaly Bakhmasterov. The face expulsion from the university and imprisonment. This is an extremely dangerous case as the police are basically trying to use anti-extremist laws to outlaw all public anarchist activity, even handing out such leaflets. Just like in the old days of the totalitarian one party state, thought crime is punished by imprisonment. Penza is a city with over half a million people. In such places with no big organized anarchist movement, the authorities feel free to exercise all their power to crush anybody who even tries to start an anarchist movement. We have got to send a clear message to them that we will not tolerate this and try to support these two because the state is clearly trying to repress young people like that and scare them in order to repress any potential anarchist organizing. Hopefully news will follow on how you can help. A possible fax for sending nasty letters about the case would be the city Duma (municipal government) : 3-01 54-18-12 There is a video here: http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=u4948816812 | | 9:38p |
Bad ideas cluster together
Here's an ugly nexus - Raimondo letting his hair down at some log-cabin Paleo-shithole this year, sounds just like a Marxist, even quoting slabs of boilerplate Marxist bs in comments. Maybe he was drunk...but then Antiwar carries on publishing the Cockroach and the Bilgerat. ( Cockburn and Pilger)
Here's another. The rancid Cockroach rag publishes a neo-primitivist rant called...
Techno-Fascism
Every Move You Make
By CHELLIS GLENDINNING
Counterpunch
June 19, 2008
Then if we go over some of the scribblings of Zerzan at primitivism dot com ( company?) we quickly find approving quotes from Freud and Marx. This slots in nicely with the Ed Said and Orientalist-Marxist Nasrallah-as-Che fantasies @ Counterpunch. Even if this article above is reasonably interesting.
Then Libcom is yet another nest of nattering Freudian -Marxist nutcases. These ideas all cling together like sticky shit. Somehow the cretins promoting Freudian and Marxist nutcase ideas have rationalized away all the heinous evil done in their name. When that happens even simply appearing in their raw sewage outlets makes you stink. ( Yeah I'm looking at you Chellis and you too, Chuck0 you loudmouthed imbecile )
Sooner or later you who would judge us may be judged by the company you keep | | 10:08p |
The Platformist cult
It is impossible to read about the Trotskyist parties in the 1930s and beyond (there is a huge literature on this) without being struck by the straightforwardly cultic environment they created internally. I have just finished ‘The Old Man’ by Hitchens, an article that should be much more widely known. Hitchens was a key journalist on the Socialist Worker in the 1960s, and published a memoir in the 1990s, which exposes the atmosphere within the largest British Trotskyite Party when the Russian tanks rolled into Prague. It is based on his contemporaneous notes of the time, and some interviews with surviving Marxist stalwarts.
A sad picture emerges: blind faith; over conviction in the rightness of the cause in question; no real internal discussion; dissenters demonised, libelled and banished; scared truths held to be self evident when in point of fact they weren’t; a culture of everything sacrificed to the party; a view that everything depended on its existence; a horrible sectarianism to all and sundry on its perimeter. The sad truth is that much of this Trotskyite culture has been imbibed by its most ferocious critics on the Platformist left. The methods of organising and the attitudes that go with it are not that different. Consider what is obvious to everyone not directly involved: the ghastly, repellent sectarianism of the Platformist left, its endless fragmentation into ever smaller units of devotees agreeing with each other about more and more issues, its inability to gain a toehold in wider mass movements (evidenced by Flood’s refusal to differentiate between the policies of anarchist organization class leaders and those of its critics within) – these are all sectarian traits that have a great deal in common with Trotskyism. My own view is that they predispose Platformist organisations, to one degree or another (they are not all identical in how far the process has advanced) towards what can only be described as cultism. | | 10:31p |
Petit-bourgeois parasites Terrorize them. Shoot them. Deport them. '... Quote: An individual peasant, or (self employed) prostitute of course can be a communist, and a member of a communist/anarchist organisation. It doesn't change the class nature of the peasantry though. Mm makes the argument that prostitutes shouldn’t get our support on the basis of their class difference seem pretty shallow – fighting for their interests is manifestly in our own interests, both historically and for the future. I don't understand why. Devrim ( Devrim "Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol" Posts: 2822 Joined: 15-07-06 ) '...Saii wrote: Well as you point out, there's nothing stopping people who aren't workers but in a similar economic boat from becoming staunch allies of workers - tactically speaking, I'd say that's quite a strong argument for fostering such ties whenever possible. Maybe, I didn't express myself well. I was talking about on an individual basis. I don't see the petit-bourgeoisie suddenly being transformed as a class into fighters for communism. Devrim...' '...There is no group of sex workers in the IWW who promoted this, despite Slava's attempts to confuse the ESPU with a branch of sex workers. Anyways the problem isn't that independent escorts have a non-traditional relationship to the means of production, the problem is that they have no relationship to the means of production. This isn't a moral question, it's actually a question of whether the IWW is relevant to them; I'd say it isn't, and that the organization they're looking for (basically an organization that can fight for decriminalization) is not the IWW....' '...I am Marxist-Leninist not a trot. "We can (and must) begin to build Socialism, not with imaginary human material, nor with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism." V.I.Lenin I consider myself "part of the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism." To me, there could be no better example of this than the prostitute. Comradely, Lisa Roellig..' http://libcom.org/forums/libcom-wobblies/iww-referendums-15062008?page=4Quote: It is obvious that a whiteguard insurrection is being prepared in Nizhni. You must strain every effort, appoint three men with dictatorial powers (yourself, Markin and one other), organise immediately mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers, former officers and the like. * Lenin Collected Works, Volume 35, page 350, 9 August 1918. | | 11:14p |
A late frost
A SENIOR police officer charged with possessing child pornography blamed his sons for the images, a court has been told.
Superintendent Vivian Rex Little, 52, is facing a hearing on child pornography charges in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court.
He was charged after his former wife, Kathy Frost, turned in a number of computer disks and DVDs to the Police Integrity Commission (PIC).
Ms Frost told the court today that the images, including one titled "mother and daughter", were on disks in a cupboard in the room where her husband was sleeping in their NSW Central Coast home.
"There were some colour photographs, some blown up pictures in plastic sleeves, some vibrators, some condoms, some lubrication gel, a heap of floppy disks, some magazines, some DVDs, and some videos," she said.
When she confronted Supt Little about an image featuring a child, he initially said he did not know what she was talking about.
He then changed his story and told her he had found them on the family computer.
"He said that he found it on our computer and he saved it on the disk because he believed that the boys ... our children, had had it on our computer," Ms Frost told the court.
Her sons, aged 20 and 19, both insisted they had never seen or accessed any such image and there was no way they would do so, she said.
Ms Frost, a court registrar in Wollongong, said Supt had told her: "Well, Kathy, you have me now, really, really well. This time you have got me.
"He later said: `Be very careful with what you do, with what you have found'."*
Supt Little previously served at Broken Hill in NSW before being transferred to Chatswood in Sydney, where he was working when the images were allegedly found. End extract
* Shades of Ari! Also a separate crime? Its good they have whole prisons set aside for ex-cops these days. |
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