Friday, September 7, 2007
Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act
He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all "be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof."
Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.
He said when "the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty."
Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values."
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Copy of the decision Doe v. Gonzales - Opinion Decision and Order
Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction
The officers continued to insist on the significance of Sabri's information, but one of Tenet's deputies told them, "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change."
The report with the misleading introduction was given to Dearlove of MI6, who briefed the prime minister. "They were given a scaled-down version of the report," said one of the CIA officers. "It was a summary given for liaison, with the sourcing taken out. They showed the British the statement Saddam was pursuing an aggressive program, and rewrote the report to attempt to support that statement. It was insidious. Blair bought it." "Blair was duped," said the other CIA officer. "He was shown the altered report."
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Monday, September 3, 2007
Restoring the Promise of the American Dream
The promise of America is that if you work hard, you will be rewarded. You will be able to provide for your family, own a decent home, afford quality health care, and enjoy a secure retirement. It is that promise that built a thriving middle class. It is the American Dream, and it has inspired generations of women and men who helped make this country great.
have new ways of communicating, new methods of production, new means of generating wealth, new global competition. And while many of the ways we used to do business have changed, the American Dream has not.
Today, in 2007, that dream is at risk. We stand at a moment of unprecedented economic opportunity, but that opportunity is not being extended to all. Tens of millions of Americans are working harder than ever just to stay afloat. The latest Census Bureau report shows that wages are dropping and more people lack health insurance.
On the other hand, a handful of incredibly wealthy people are prospering beyond all comprehension. Private equity CEOs are making on average more than $650 million -- or more than 22,000 times what the average American worker brings in. Put another way, it takes the average American worker one full year to make what a wealthy buyout CEO makes in only ten minutes.
It's Not Easy Being Ultra-Rich
Just in time for the holiday, two liberal groups -- United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies -- have issued a gleefully malicious new attack on our CEO class. They point out that the CEOs of large companies earn an average of $10.8 million a year, which is 362 times as much as the average American worker, and retire with $10.1 million in their special exclusive CEO pension funds.
They further point out that the compensation of US CEOs wildly exceeds that of their European counterparts, who, we are invited to believe, work equally hard.
And, in what they must think is their cleverest point of all, the UFE/IPS folks state that: "The 20 highest-paid individuals at publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That's ... 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military."
Read the storyThursday, August 30, 2007
The Rip-off in Iraq: You Will Not Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone
In Iraq, private contractors are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.
You've done such a terrible job, in fact, that when auditors from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction visit the college in the summer of 2006, their report sounds like something out of one of the Saw movies: "We witnessed a light fixture so full of diluted urine and feces that it would not operate," they write, adding that "the urine was so pervasive that it had permanently stained the ceiling tiles" and that "during our visit, a substance dripped from the ceiling onto an assessment team member's shirt." The final report helpfully includes a photo of a sloppy brown splotch on the outstretched arm of the unlucky auditor.
When Congress gets wind of the fiasco, a few members on the House Oversight Committee demand a hearing. To placate them, your company decides to send you to the Hill -- after all, you're a former Air Force major general who used to oversee this kind of contracting operation for the government. So you take your twenty-minute ride in from the suburbs, sit down before the learned gentlemen of the committee and promptly get asked by an irritatingly eager Maryland congressman named Chris Van Hollen how you managed to spend $72 million on a pile of shit.
You blink. Fuck if you know. "I have some conjecture, but that's all it would be" is your deadpan answer.
The room twitters in amazement. It's hard not to applaud the balls of a man who walks into Congress short $72 million in taxpayer money and offers to guess where it all might have gone.
Read the storyDeadly cholera outbreak in Iraq
An outbreak of cholera in two northern Iraqi provinces has killed eight people and infected 80 others, the Kurdistan Regional Government has said.
Kurdish Health Minister Zeryan Othman said local health authorities were also treating 4,250 suspected cases of the disease in Sulaimaniya and Tamim.
Specialist teams and emergency aid have been sent to the affected regions.
Serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment, worsened by crumbling local infrastructure, are being blamed.
A report by the UK-based charity, Oxfam, and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) last month warned that 70% of Iraq's population did not have adequate water supplies and that only 20% had access to effective sanitation.
Another Person Arrested for “Impeach” Sign
So they made a cardboard sign with “Impeach Bush Cheney” on it...
...Within a couple of minutes, Sergeant Randy Riddle did arrive.
“These were the first words out of his mouth: ‘Put down the sign. Put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest.’
“I asked him why was I being arrested.
“He said, ‘I’m sick of this shit, you’re going to get your 15 minutes of fame, now, buddy.’ ”
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) Chastises Bill Clinton
Meet the Press, January 24, 1999
How did we not know he was gay?
I'm beginning to think the reason the republicans were so upset with Clinton, was because he was with a woman.
ABC News, 1982
Study: US preparing 'massive' military attack against Iran
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Monday, August 27, 2007
Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Iraq Body Count Running at Double Pace
BAGHDAD — This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.
Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings _ the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Is It Time to Legalize Drugs?
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Two Years After Katrina, Billions in Relief Funds Are Missing
- Washington set aside $16.7 billion for Community Development Block Grants, one of the two biggest sources of rebuilding funds, especially for housing. But as of March 2007, only $1 billion -- just 6 percent -- had been spent, almost all of it in Mississippi. Following bad publicity, HUD spent another $3.8 billion on the program between March and July, leaving 70 percent of the funds still unused.
- The other major source of rebuilding help was supposed to be FEMA's Public Assistance Program. But of the $8.2 billion earmarked, only $3.4 billion was meant for nonemergency projects like fixing up schools and hospitals.
- Louisiana officials recently testified that FEMA has also "low-balled" project costs, underestimating the true expenses by a factor of four or five. For example, for 11 Louisiana rebuilding projects, the lowest bids came to $5.5 million -- but FEMA approved only $1.9 million.
- After the failure of federal levees flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received $8.4 billion to restore storm defenses. But as of July 2007, less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent, even as the Corps admits that levee repair won't be completed until as late as 2011.
This article is taken from the new report compiled by the Institute for Southern Studies called, "Blueprint for Gulf Renewal," giving a voice to grassroots advocates calling for greater federal accountability in the Gulf Coast rebuilding process. The report is available at: http://www.southernstudies.org/BlueprintShort.pdf.
Universal Health Care for Wisconsin?
A median income household, earning about $45,000 a year, would pay about $750 less per year for insurance, and employers who now provide employee health insurance would on average pay 15 percent less than they do now, allowing for workers to negotiate pay increases.
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