The Movement

HR 45: Family Protection a Crime? Where We Are Headed

2009-03-05T00:32:00.001-05:00

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Barbara PetersonRead the following article written by Robert A Waters in 2003, and keep one thing in mind: this is a true story. If you dont think this can happen here, think again. HR 45, the new gun control bill text can be found here:HR 45 Gun Control BillThe [...]

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[Source: Mint Dollar - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Chicago Rushes Head First Into Limitless Surveillance

2009-03-04T00:17:00.001-05:00

Source: Tech DirtFrom the but-will-they-be-able-to-spot-political-corruption? deptGovernments around the world are finding reasons to install surveillance cameras, but few are keeping account of the costs and benefits that come from those CCTV systems. Chicago, in its bid to follow in Chinas steps as host of the Olympics, is the most recent one to do so. By [...]No related posts.

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[Source: War On You: Breaking Alternative News - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Inheriting Halliburtons Army: What Will Obama Do With KBR?

2009-02-24T00:58:00.003-05:00

President Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a U.S. military base or two. Should he stay to eat with the troops, he will no [...]

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[Source: Mint Dollar - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Iggy Pop insurer doesnt have a lust for liable musicians

2009-02-24T00:58:00.001-05:00

A car insurer admitted today it refuses to cover musicians despite featuring Iggy Pop in its adverts.The veteran rocker is the star of swiftcover’s “Get a life. Get swiftcovered” campaign. But although the 61-year-old American is best known for singing hits such as Lust for Life, it has emerged that the online insurance firm has [...]

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[Source: vote tags: Tracking the Vote - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Guantanamo inmate to be released

2009-02-20T21:57:00.001-05:00

A British detainee held at Guantanamo Bay is to be released “as soon as practical arrangements can be made”, the Foreign Office has said.Binyam Mohamed, 30, will return to the UK after more than four years at the controversial US military base in Cuba.In a statement, the Foreign Office said agreement had been reached between [...]

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[Source: vote tags: Tracking the Vote - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Stocks: New month, more fears

2009-02-01T23:08:00.002-05:00

After closing out the Dow industrials and S&P 500’s worst January ever, investors might be hoping for a little breathing room before the next wave of negative reports hit. No such luck.Bookmark and Share More »Powered by Bookmarkify™

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[Source: Mint Dollar

Bitches don’t know about my popsicle

2009-01-25T02:58:00.002-05:00

I’m serious. They don’t.

Raw Aftermath : 40 Palestinians Killed In IAF Strike On UN School.

2009-01-07T21:45:00.002-05:00

Dozens of civilians killed in Gaza: Palestinians reported Tuesday that dozens of people have been killed since the afternoon hours in three separate Israel Air Force strikes on civilian targets.Sources in the Strip reported that at least 40 civilians were killed in an attack on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees [...]

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[Source: Mint Dollar

Typical US Press Zionist Spin On Gaza

2009-01-03T01:08:00.002-05:00

For a holy war that’s been going on since before I was born, the Israel & Palestine war on the Gaza borders, may seem to never end. Did anyone ever wonder why the US. would support killing thousands of innocent children by funding this war in the billions monthly? Also is there proof that Palestine [...]No related posts.

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[Source: War On You

The Federal Reserve Abolition Act

2008-12-31T05:55:00.002-05:00

The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
Ron Paul introduced HR 2755: Federal Reserve Abolition Act. There were no co-sponsors, no further action was taken, and the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively ...

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[Source: Ron Paul forum

Cheney Admits He 'Signed Off' on Waterboarding of 3 Guantanamo Prisoners

2008-12-27T20:10:00.003-05:00

Author's note: The statements Cheney made this week during an interview with the Washington Times about his role in approving the waterboarding of three Guantanamo detainees and the so-called "enhanced interrogation" of 33 prisoners was, disturbingly, not covered at all by the mainstream media.

Also published at my web magazine, The Public Record.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in another stunning admission during his campaign to burnish the Bush administration’s legacy, said he personally authorized the “enhanced interrogations” of 33 suspected terrorist detainees and approved the waterboarding of three so-called “high-value” prisoners.

“I signed off on it; others did, as well, too,” Cheney said about the waterboarding, a practice of simulated drowning done by strapping a person to a board, covering the face with a cloth and then pouring water over it, a torture technique dating back at least to the Spanish Inquisition. The victim feels as if he is drowning.

Cheney identified the three waterboarded detainees as al-Qaeda figures Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and al Nashiri. “That's it, those three guys,” Cheney said in an interview with the right-wing Washington Times.

Other detainees at secret CIA prisons and at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to harsh treatment, including being stripped naked, forced into painful stress positions, placed in extremes of heat or cold and prevented from sleeping – actions that international human rights organizations, and previously the U.S. government, have denounced as torture and illegal abuse.

“I thought that it was absolutely the right thing to do,” Cheney said of what he called the “enhanced interrogation” of the detainees. “I thought the [administration’s] legal opinions that were rendered [endorsing the harsh treatment] were sound. I think the techniques were reasonable in terms of what they [the CIA interrogators] were asking to be able to do. And I think it produced the desired result.”

Cheney also took issue with the notion that waterboarding was torture.

“Was it torture? I don't believe it was torture,” Cheney said. “The CIA handled itself, I think, very appropriately. They came to us in the administration, talked to me, talked to others in the administration, about what they felt they needed to do in order to obtain the intelligence that we believe these people were in possession of.”

Other experts, including some military and intelligence interrogators, have disputed Cheney’s claims of success in extracting reliable information through waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Much of the confessed information turned out to be dubious or incorrect.

The First Case

Zubaydah was the first “war on terror” detainee to be subjected to the Bush administration’s waterboarding, according to Pentagon and Justice Department documents, news reports and several books written about the Bush administration’s interrogation methods.

However, according to author Ron Suskind who interviewed CIA and other insiders, Abu Zubaydah was not the "high-value detainee" that the Bush administration had claimed. Rather, Zubaydah was a minor player in the al-Qaeda organization, handling travel for associates and their families, Suskind wrote in his book The One Percent Doctrine.

Nevertheless, Suskind said President George W. Bush became obsessed with Zubaydah and the information he might have about pending terrorist plots against the United States.

"Bush was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind wrote. Bush questioned one CIA briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

Abu Zubaydah's captors soon discovered that their prisoner was mentally ill and knew nothing about terrorist operations or impending plots. That realization was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," Suskind wrote.

But Bush did not want to "lose face" because he had stated Zubaydah’s importance publicly, according to Suskind.

WARONYOU

Interior Motives

2008-12-17T23:09:00.002-05:00

Having not yet been a senator for a full term, Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) hasn’t had much time to collect money from the industries that will take a special interest in him as Secretary of the Interior. Barack Obama seems poised to appoint Salazar to the Cabinet position, following a tradition of giving the post to [...]

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Bush Administration created executive pay loophole

2008-12-16T20:35:00.000-05:00

The Bush Administration inserted an eleventh-hour provision into the $750 billion bailout bill to protect executive bonuses, a single sentence that will torpedo efforts to reduce bonuses even as companies slash tens of thousands of jobs and use taxpayer money to gobble up other companies at fire-sale prices.

Pressured by constituents who worried that companies would take government aid and continue to pay their executives eye-popping bonuses, Congress inserted a provision that would penalize companies who took taxpayer money and shelled out outsized bonuses.

But at the last minute, Bush officials insisted on a one-sentence provision that stopped the measure in its tracks, according to congressional aides who spoke to the Washington Post.

The change stipulated that the sanction would only apply to firms that sold mortgage backed securities to the government at auction, which the Bush Treasury Department said would be the method they’d use to infuse troubled companies with bailout cash.

“Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts” who spoke to Post reporter Amit Paley. “In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.”
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Laid-Off Workers Occupy Chicago Factory, Seek Pay

2008-12-10T22:06:00.003-05:00

Invoking Main Street resentment of Wall Street's federal bailout, some 200 workers entered their third day of occupying a shuttered Chicago window and door factory on Sunday, demanding that Bank of America agree to pay them severance plus vacation pay.

Workers belonging to the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers union began their peaceful occupation of the plant on Friday after family-owned Republic Windows & Doors said it was closing after Bank of America canceled its line of credit.

The workers said Republic Windows & Doors gave them only three days notice of Friday's closing instead of the 60 days required by law, and owes them roughly $3,500 per worker including unused vacation pay.

A union spokeswoman said Bank of America is not letting the company pay the workers.

"We're just shocked that Bank of America, after receiving $25 billion in bailout money, not only do they refuse to extend credit to companies but, to add insult to injury, they don't allow these companies to fulfill their legal obligations to their workers," union spokeswoman Leah Fried said.

The downturn in home construction doomed the plant, which has manufactured windows and doors for more than 30 years.

Bank of America was among several U.S. banks to receive funding from a $700 billion federal bailout package designed to stabilize the financial system.

The laid-off workers hoisted placards saying, "Bank of America: You got bailed out. We got sold out."

According to the Chicago Tribune, the bank said it was not responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees. A Bank of America spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Officials of Republic Windows & Doors also could not be reached for comment.

The parties were expected to meet on Monday.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, and Chicago-based civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson were lending support to the workers.

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Merchants of Death: Exposing Corporate Financed Holocaust in Africa

2008-12-07T02:16:00.002-05:00

War in Congo has again been splashed across world headlines and the same old clichés about violence and suffering are repackaged and rebroadcast as "news". Meanwhile, early indications out of America are that President-elect Barack Obama will assemble a foreign policy-team primed for business as usual.

How will Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State compromise the Obama Administration’s capacity to honestly redress the untold suffering, massive theft of resources and millions of deaths in Africa?

And Tom Daschle? Behind the media smokescreens are people whose involvement has been documented and exposed, but there is always some African fall guy—the ‘embraceable’ black subordinate or ‘rebel’ commander—charged with war crimes and used to deflect attention from the leaders of organized white-collar crime networks.

Blacked out are the corporate executives, government officials and expatriate personnel of Western enterprises whose success amidst chaos implicates them in the deracination and death of millions of black people. What’s behind the recent hostilities and media posturing in Central Africa?

THE SHORT, BRUTISH LIFE OF SANDRINE

On a darkling plain in a far away place the skeletons of hundreds of unnamed people lie strewn over the land amidst the red dirt and brown grasses scorched by the equatorial sun. Bones poke into the air here and there, hidden by the tall grass, tripping you up as you walk; others lay bleaching white in piles where the bodies fell. These are the killing fields of Bogoro, a small hillside village on a southerly road out of Bunia, a metropolis of suffering in the wild, wild east of Congo.

The grassy plains of Bogoro were guarded by soldiers and when I arrived the militia of the day wore black trench coats and black mirror sunglasses to enhance the aura of terror that surrounds them. With AK-47’s slung over their shoulders they talked on shiny Nokias and Motorolas and Samsungs—cellphones built with the blood minerals of the Congolese people.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL AND THE NAMES GAMES

The UPC, FPRI, FNI—these are three of the scores of militias that have risen and fallen in Orientale since the war began in 1996 and, more poignantly, they are meaningless acronyms used to scramble the brains of western spectator-news-consumers.

First there was the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) that invaded Rwanda, and then came the Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) that marched across Zaire to unseat President Mobutu. Next came the "rebellion" with Jean-Pierre Bemba and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), and all the different factions of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, or Congolese Rally for Democracy—RCD, RCD-G (Goma), RCD-K, RCD-K-ML—backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

Here are the comrades in arms who studied together at the Marxist University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president; Laurent Desiré Kabila, the ADFL figurehead and assassinated president of the Democratic Republic of Congo; Meles Zenawi, president of Ethiopia; Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea; Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani; former RCD leader Wamba dia Wamba; Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president; and John Garang (d. 2005), former leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and first president of South Sudan.

Both the RPF/A and SPLA waged successful covert guerrilla wars against governments that were considered "undesirable" by Washington; both achieved their objectives of seizing land and gaining control, and both insurgencies were covertly backed by U.S. Committee for Refugees official Roger Winter—a pivotal U.S. intelligence asset operating in Sudan and a dedicated ally of Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and John Garang.

Winter’s protégé is Susan Rice, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Rice was one of the primary architects of the Pentagon’s prized Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI)—a euphemistically named entity created to project U.S. power in Africa, and run by U.S. Army Special Forces Command (SOCOM).[2]

The coups d’etat in Rwanda and Burundi occurred after the presidents Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated on April 6, 1994. Similarly, more than a decade of covert U.S. military support for the SPLA, channeled through Uganda and Ethiopia, led to the Naivasha Peace Agreement of January 2005 and the creation of the autonomous country of South Sudan.

The "Rwanda genocide" began with the 1990 invasion of northern Rwanda by Ugandan forces that brutally targeted everyone in their path. By the time the RPF/A forces—comprised mostly of seasoned Ugandan troops—reached Kigali, more than 800,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons) were hovering around the capital city: they were terrified, they were homeless, they were hungry, they were angry and—justifiably—they took up arms. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and its Canadian General Romeo Dallaire clandestinely backed the illegal guerrilla war.[3]

The guerrilla wars in Rwanda and South Sudan were prosecuted much like the CIA-backed low-intensity guerrilla warfare, spawned by Washington, against populist movements in Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and Guatemala. This is exactly what is playing out in Congo and Sudan today: low-intensity guerrilla warfare prosecuted by powerful shadow forces competing for land and loot.

SPLA leader John Garang received military training at the School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia. Paul Kagame received training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the time he was sent for training, Kagame was Museveni’s director of military intelligence; upon his return he assumed command of the army created, financed and trained by Uganda: the Rwanda Patriotic Army.

Both Garang and Kagame likely received "counter-insurgency" training through the Pentagon’s International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). Since 1998, the IMET program has provided training to 318 RDF and 291 UPDF soldiers. Many other IMET soldiers who attended the notorious School of the Americas are today known human rights violators in Latin America.

In North Kivu province we find the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the National Congress for the Defense of the People, the CNDP, created by self-appointed Rwandan "General" Laurent Nkunda. Here the media has historically cast General Nkunda as good, the FDLR as evil. Only recently has Nkunda come under any kind of "harsh" criticism.

The war in Eastern Congo is almost universally described with clichés about the "Rwanda genocide." The usual targets of white media racial profiling and hysterical academic polemics are the Hutu—the infamous Interahamwe and FDLR—the "killers" that "fled Rwanda after committing genocide" there. This is how millions of innocent Hutu people—comprising over 85% of the populations of Rwanda and Burundi—are collectively dehumanized.

Congolese Mai Mai militias are described as "nationalists" sometimes "wearing bathroom fixtures on their heads" and "shooting magic bullets." The Mai Mai are the closest thing to a people’s or indigenous justice movement in Congo. The Mai Mai have most recently allied with the Congo’s national army, the Armed Forces for the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), and the Mai Mai are sometimes cast as good, but usually as evil.

In 2007 the Mai Mai and FLDR joined forces to form the Front for the National Liberation of Kivu (FNLK). Backed by the FARDC, the FNLK is purportedly vying for power against General Nkunda’s CNDP. However, alliances are constantly shifting based on private profit and "warlord" fiefdoms, and ALL factions, at some point or other, have collaborated in war and resource plunder.

Western news stories throw the acronyms and names of militias around with little or no information about their rise or fall, and nothing substantive about foreign backers they collaborate with. Militias mysteriously appear and disappear. Indeed, the more you read about Congo from venues like the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, or the Atlantic Monthly, the less you will understand. This is no accident, and—no, you are not dumb.

Take the militia FNI: but for the victims and their suffering, it makes no difference what the acronym stands for, it’s all one big sadistic joke of language and power. The most significant fact to remember about this "F" "N" "I" is that they served as the private proxy army for the gold mining operations of Metalor, a Swedish firm, and AngloGold Ashanti, headquartered in South Africa and partnered with Barrick Gold.[4] Secondly, they were agents for Ugandan power brokers.

Anglo-Gold Ashanti directors include Sir Sam Jonah, who is also a director of shady mining-cum-military companies operating in Sierra Leone and connected to Tony Buckingham and other white-collar mercenaries. Buckingham affiliated companies—e.g. Heritage Oil and Gas, Branch Energy, Saracen Uganda—collaborate with the Museveni regime. Saracen’s top shareholder is General Salim Saleh, half-brother of Yoweri Museveni, and Congo’s nemesis, a Ugandan agent cited by the United Nations for war and plunder in Congo.

AngloGold Ashanti is the Anglo American mining conglomerate of the Oppenheimers and De Beers mining cartels of Britain and South Africa, interests deeply aligned with Belgian American intelligence insider Maurice Tempelsman—the godfather of covert operations in Africa. Tempelsman’s diamond interests in Congo were, at least partially, displaced by the Israeli cartels of Dan Gertler and Benny Steinmetz.[5] It is a no-brainer that the Tempelsman gang backs Rwanda’s occupation of eastern Congo.

For a second example, media corporations have consistently blacked out the truth about the lucrative corporate "conservation" industry with articles like the recent New York Times production "Congo Violence Reaches Endangered Mountain Gorillas" (Jeffrey Gettleman, 11/18/08). Unreported however are the many accusations coming out of North Kivu that link the Jane Goodall Institute and Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to local Mai Mai and FDLR: like every other militia, or occupation army, these factions have infiltrated villages and now prey on, intimidate and abuse the locals. The white agents working for Western "conservation" NGOs—and we know their names—are directly responsible for extortion, racketeering, land theft, human rights atrocities and for ripping apart the social fabric.[6]

"The commander of the Mai-Mai is Colonel Ntasibanga and the commander of the FDLR is Colonel Faraja," report Congolese locals who have been documenting the abuses (the facts are confirmed by a Spanish journalist). "We count already five people killed because of this [conservation] project… DFGF and JGI are without doubt corrupt… they are paying armed groups and forcing us off of our lands." [7]

The Gettleman NYT article, on the other hand, cites one of these agents, Samantha Newport, described as "a spokeswoman for Virunga National Park," who in fact works for Richard Leakey’s organization Wildlife Direct, a shady paramilitary entity involving Walter Kansteiner.
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Boeing Airborne Laser Weapon Fires for the First Time

2008-12-05T00:24:00.014-05:00

Boeing and the US Air Force keep advancing in their airborne high-energy laser weapon, the modified 747-400F that is designed to shoot down missiles as they fly to their targets. Last week they fired the entire laser system for the first time ever at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.While the laser has been [...]

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Boeing Airborne Laser Weapon Fires for the First Time

2008-12-05T00:24:00.013-05:00

Bush: 'I Was Unprepared For War,' 'I'm Sorry' for the Economic Crisis, Says He Helped Elect Obama

2008-12-05T00:24:00.012-05:00

Lame duck President George W. Bush scores a hattrick when recently speaking to ABC News' Charlie Gibson. Some interview excerpts:Gaffe No. 1: "I think I was unprepared for war," Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson in an interview airing on World News. In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" Bush said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents - one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."Gaffe No. 2: "I'm sorry it's happening, of course," Bush said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC's World News. "Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we're in. And if we need to be in more, we will."Gaffe No. 3: I think it was a repudiation of Republicans," he told Charlie Gibson. "And I'm sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me. I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next four years explaining policy."

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Obama Discloses Transitions First Donors

2008-12-05T00:24:00.011-05:00

The fundraisers for the Obama-Biden transitionannounced this morning that they raised just under $1.2 million to finance the transition in the 11 days following Barack Obama’s election. At a little over $100,000 per day, the pace of thetransition’s private fundraising is not nearlyas torrid as during the campaign, whenObama’s average daily haul wasabout $1 million.According [...]

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Mumbai Terrorists Watched World React With Horror Using BlackBerrys

2008-12-05T00:24:00.010-05:00

Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo: The terrorists in Mumbai might have committed inhuman acts, but in at least one way, they are just like you and me. When authorities cut the cable feeds to the hotels where the terrorists held over 200 hostages, they relied on another piece technology to monitor the police response and the world's reaction to the attacks: BlackBerrys. Commandos were not only surprised to find the devices in the terrorists' rucksacks, but that they used the internet to look beyond local Indian media for information, watching the global reaction in real-time as well.It's somewhat striking that the terrorists' use of BlackBerrys "caught the anti-terrorist forces by surprise." While perhaps another step forward in the sophistication of their organization, in that it it makes communication more instant than ever, it's long been reported that terrorist networks use the internet and cellphones for communication. Why wouldn't they use the same tools that millions around the world use? They don't all live in caves, you know.That said, it doesn't make it any less scary, either.

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Top Obama Counsel Unlawfully Blocked Judge"s Confirmation

2008-11-29T02:40:00.002-05:00

The new director of the White House Domestic Policy Council was a top congressional aide who unlawfully obstructed a federal judge"s confirmation in order to influence a high-profile affirmative action case.

Barack Obama"s pick (Melody Barnes) to head the highly influential office masterminded the scandalous scheme while she served as Senator Ted Kennedy"s chief counsel on the Judiciary Committee in 2002. Barnes successfully delayed the confirmation of President George W. Bush"s judicial nominee to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to influence the court"s ruling on an affirmative action case involving University of Michigan law school students.

In memos obtained by the media, Barnes directs Senator Kennedy to hold off on any 6th Circuit nominee until the University of Michigan case regarding the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education is decided. Recognizing the impropriety of a delay for that purpose, one of the memos states that if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able to review the case and vote on it.

The judge, Julia Gibbons, was eventually confirmed a few months after the court ruled 5-4 to uphold Michigan"s affirmative action program. At the time Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Kennedy.

The detailed complaint offers a timeline of the unlawful events and points out that the veteran Massachusetts Democrat and his agents deliberately manipulated both the judicial confirmation and legal processes to achieve a partisan political goal.

Now the woman who orchestrated the illegal and unethical plot will serve as the next president"s top adviser in a wide range of crucial issues, including education, health, criminal justice and labor. The Domestic Policy Council was created by executive order in 1993 and officially includes the cabinet secretaries and administrators of key federal agencies that affect domestic issues.

Square America: Vintage Amateur Photography

2008-11-29T02:39:00.005-05:00

This is a great slice of Americana — a nicely curated collection of family photography. Includes civil servants, double exposures, the space race, perverts, vacations, and of course Bar Mitzvahs in 3-D!

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Bush Fails To Pardon Border Agents

2008-11-29T02:39:00.004-05:00

A rapper serving a lengthy prison sentence for smuggling cocaine, an embezzler and a tax evader are among those thankful for presidential pardons and commutations this week while a pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents spend another Thanksgiving in prison for intercepting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler.

Once again President George W. Bush has pardoned or reduced the sentences of serious criminals while the veteran federal agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compeanrot in jail for doing their job. The men intercepted a van loaded with drugs while guarding the Mexican border near El Paso in 2005. The admitted drug smuggler, an illegal alien named Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, tried to flee and one of the agents shot him in the buttocks though he still got away.

Ramos and Compean were subsequently convicted on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm and violating the drug smuggler's civil rights. The agents were sentenced to 11 and 12-year prison terms, outraging dozens of lawmakers from both parties who have pushed for pardons.

This week marks the second time that Bush announces a list of pardons and commutations that, incredibly enough, excludes the agents. Last year the list featured 14 serious criminals, among them several drug dealers and a man convicted for bombing a coal mine.

An additional 14 convicts received the coveted presidential pardons and commutations this week, just in time to spend Thanksgiving at home with family. Among them is a rap artist serving a 14-year prison sentence after getting busted at Newark International Airport with a briefcase containing $1.4 million worth of cocaine.

Also off the hook is an income tax evader, a bank embezzler, a couple of unrelated men convicted for distribution of marijuana and cocaine and a woman who aided and abetted theft of government property. The entire list is available from the Justice Department.

Obama's FCC Transition Co-Chair is a Hardcore 'World of Warcraft' Player

2008-11-25T23:28:00.010-05:00

House of Hackers writes:I've had a political dream for a while now that I think all of us WoW players can agree on: someday, I hope, we will have a President in the White House that plays videogames. We're not quite there yet, but we're closer - apparently, Obama's FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player, and has played in two different endgame guilds, including Joi Ito's famous We Know guild.This is a guy who knows all about the communities that these MMOs create, and just how awesome it is to run through Karazhan, or grind PvP for a Merciless Gladiator weapon ... and he's been selected by the incoming President of the United States to run the FCC. That's beautiful.Too many government officials (both Democrat and Republican, this isn't partisan at all) suffer from the "series of tubes" mentality - they are being asked to regulate and coordinate things that they don't understand at all.But getting guys like Kevin Werbach in there, no matter what your political affiliation, is a great step forward for all of us gamers - we'll have people behind the regulatory wheel who know how important and wonderful virtual worlds like Azeroth can be.

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9/11 Debate: Jon Gold Vs. Pat Curley

2008-11-25T23:28:00.009-05:00

All three parts to a debate between 9/11 Activist Jon Gold and Pat Curley, the creator of the popular blog ScrewLooseChange.The debate took place on Monday, November 24th, 2008 on the Franklin Pierce University closed circuit television show, The Dynamic Duo, and was moderated by the show's hosts, Justin Martell and Eric Jackman.The only editing that has been done to the three segments is all references to commercials have been removed (to make the conversation continuous), along with the opening and closing credits. The content of the debate has not been altered in any way.