Loyalty without truth
is a trail to tyranny.
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a middle-aged George Washington
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Monday, 23 October 2006 at 23h 45m 53s | Revolt and resistance from within | Click here for the US news wire public release.
This is a breaking story. 65 Active Iraq Soldiers are standing down.
Active-Duty Troops Launch Campaign to Press Congress to End U.S. Occupation
of Iraq
65 Members to Send "Appeals for Redress" Under the Military Whistle-blower
Protection Act
10/23/2006 9:58:00 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor
Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon, 202-246-5303, or Alex Howe, or Laura Gross,
202-822-
5200, for Fenton Communications
News Advisory:
For the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, active- duty members of the
military are asking Members of Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and
bring American soldiers home.
Sixty-five active-duty members have sent Appeals for Redress to Members of
Congress. Three of these people (including two who served in Iraq) and their
attorney will speak about this on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. EDT.
Under the Military Whistle-Blower Protection Act (DOD directive 7050.6), active-
duty military, National Guard and Reservists can file and send a protected
communication to a Member of Congress regarding any subject without reprisal.
What: Three active-duty members of the military and their lawyer, a
retired
U.S. Marine Corps JAG, make comments and take questions from the media.
When: Wednesday, Oct. 25, 11 a.m. EDT
| Sunday, 22 October 2006 at 21h 52m 52s | The real Iraq | Click here for a London Guardian documentary that aired on
the BBC, by Sean Smith, the Guardian's award-winning war photographer, spent
nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his
haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the
Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.
| Sunday, 22 October 2006 at 20h 49m 54s | There is no voter fraud | Just another hoax brought to you by the
anti-
democratic
Rethuglican
noise
machine to justify anti-democratic legislation and state initiatives that make
it more difficult for poor people to vote.
From the USA TODAY
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — At a time when many states are instituting new requirements for
voter registration and identification, a preliminary report to the U.S.
Election Assistance Commission has found little evidence of the type of polling-
place fraud those measures seek to stop.
USA TODAY obtained the report from the commission four months after it was
delivered by two consultants hired to write it. The commission has not
distributed it publicly.
At least 11 states have approved new rules for independent voter-registration
drives or requirements that voters produce specific forms of photo ID at
polling places. Several of those laws have been blocked in court, most recently
in Arizona last week. The House of Representatives last month approved a photo-
ID law, now pending in the Senate.
The bipartisan report by two consultants to the election commission casts doubt
on the problem those laws are intended to address. “There is widespread but not
unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much
less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, ‘dead' voters, non-citizen
voting and felon voters,” the report says.
. . .
Barry Weinberg, former deputy chief of the voting section in the Justice
Department's civil rights division, reviewed their work. “Fraud at the polling
place is generally difficult to pull off,” he says. “It takes a lot of planning
and a lot of coordination.”
Of course right-wing reactionaries "dispute the research and conclusions." Thor
Hearne, counsel to the misnamed American Center for Voting Rights -- that means
he is a
lawyer-- notes "that the Justice Department has sued Missouri for having
ineligible voters registered, while dead people have turned up on the
registration rolls in Michigan."
But a funny thing about these two examples? The dead people that showed up
on registration rolls were due to newly deceased persons. There was no
evidence that persons voted in place of the deceased persons in Michigan. The
statement of the Federal lawsuit against Missouri only mentions the existence
of the case, not the result of or the actual details of the case.
I did a google and had a hard time finding information about this federal
lawsuit against the state of Missouri.
Here is the source from an ap news wire line. The story was
printed in the St Louis Dispatch. Guess what the law suit was about?
The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Missouri, alleges that the state has failed to meet its legal
responsibilities to conduct a general program to maintain its voter
registration list for federal elections as required under Section 8 of the
NVRA. It alleges that, in some parts of Missouri, voters have been removed from
registration lists without notification in direct violation of mandatory NVRA
procedural protections,and that,in other areas, ineligible voters have not been
removed from registration lists. The complaint further alleges that the state's
failure to comply with the voter registration list maintenance provisions of
the NVRA has resulted in registration lists that provide inaccurate voting
information, including one county where the number of registered voters is over
150% of its voting age population.
Did you get that? Notice the use of the word "alleges". We have no idea how
much of this "complaint filed in the US District Court" is politically
motivated. In any case, the "complaint" is not about voters actually
casting illegal
ballots which is, Mr. Hearne, why the study you criticize "found little
evidence of the type of polling-place fraud those measures seek to stop."
Lesson number 23 billion in why you must Watch what they do,not what they say.
Also, notice that the various versions of this original USA TODAY story are
being grossly sliced and edited.
* Click here *
The
original story was 9 paragraphs. The UPI story (which is owned by Fox news
mogul Ruppert Murdoch) is only 6 paragraphs. The very important original
first 4 paragraphs have been condensed into one sentence : "Claims of
widespread
voter fraud at U.S. polling booths are exaggerated, an independent report done
for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission says." The words "claims"
and "exaggerated" are new
words that were not in the original USA TODAY story.
And yet, these are the words that are cheap substitutes for
"There is widespread but not
unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much
less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, ‘dead' voters, non-
citizen
voting and felon voters,” the report says
Widespread but not unanimous ? Hmmm, would that be like a 35 - 3 football
game? Or a 95 - 5 Senate vote?
Furthermore, the UPI spinned version
ends with the legalese of Thor Hearn. The quote from Barry Weinberg has been
omitted.
Yes. That's right, you guessed correctly. The UPI decided it was more
important to end the story with a quote
from Thor Hearn, a partisan group lawyer, than Barry Weinberg, former deputy
chief of the voting section in the Justice
Department's civil rights division ? Who has a more substantive opinion : A
hired shill, or the deputy chief of the voting section in the Justice
Department's civil rights division?
By the way, "Thor Hearn" is actually Mark F. Hearn. What's with the nickname?
This is why you never believe an article that is from the "UPI Staff." What
you get is a sliced up spin version of the actual original story.
Who would you believe?
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Thor Hearn
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Barry Weinberg
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And the front page story for the Friday San Francisco Comical : "Critics assail
Firefighters effort to rescue mission." Yes, that's our corporate monolith
Hearst Corporation for you, getting to the bottom of the really, really
important stories that truly affect our democracy.
Blah.
| Sunday, 22 October 2006 at 20h 35m 39s | Bill Maher rips the stupidity of Think Tanks | Click here.
Bill Maher rips into the stupid predictions that never came true about the war
in Iraq
If you're someone from one of these think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War
and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need
a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would
be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, that the mission was
accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get
better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got
Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that whole bloody mess
wouldn't turn into a civil war ... you have to stop making predictions.
Thanks to CrooksandLiars.com for the footage.
| Saturday, 21 October 2006 at 4h 24m 55s | The real John McCain |
I used to respect John McCain. But now ... I realize he's just another craven
politician.
Here is a snippet of his "strained" interview with (of all people) Chris
Matthews ( of whom some people refer as Tweety) :
[SOURCE]
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about an area where we‘ve all been involved, you
especially, in talking about Iraq and how we can win this war or deal with it.
You‘ve called, just in the last couple of days, for 100,000 more troops on top
of the 140,000 we have as a compliment there.
When I read that on the clips this morning, I went to General Barry McCaffrey,
whom you know so well, and he said we‘ve got only a total of 19 brigades that
we could actually put into combat right now. We have 17 committed, two of those
brigades to Afghanistan, 15 brigades already in Iraq. He says we simply don‘t
have the capability to sustain another 100,000 troops in Iraq. You disagree?
MCCAIN: I said we need 100,000 more ...
MATTHEWS: Right.
MCCAIN: ...members of the Marines and the Army. We need additional troops
there, but I think we need to expand the Army and the Marine Corps by 100,000
people.
MATTHEWS: More recruitment.
MCCAIN: I didn‘t say we need 100,000 -- more recruitment. And by the way, I‘m
sure that people in this audience know the members—many members of the Iowa
National Guard. They have served with courage, with bravery, with sacrifice and
enormously wonderful performance. But it‘s a heavy strain on the Guard.
MATTHEWS: Would they please stand up? I know we have some here. Would the
people of the National Guard of Iowa please just stand up nonofficially here?
Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: Thank you. Thank you for your service.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAIN: Some of these young people have been to Afghanistan or Iraq two or
three times already. We have put an enormous strain on them. They have
performed magnificently, but we can‘t keep it up. We‘ve got to expand of the
Marines. . . .
MATTHEWS: But why isn‘t it working? I mean, so few people here— we‘ve got a
couple of thousand of young people here, and a very, very small percentage have
expressed a commitment, even by standing here. Doesn‘t that mean we might have
to think of the draft again?
MCCAIN: I don‘t think we need to think of the draft again because I don‘t think
it makes sense in a whole variety of ways. But I guarantee you, if these young
people felt that this nation was in a crisis and we asked them to serve,
virtually every one of them would stand up because I have the greatest
confidence in the young people of America.
So ... , uh, what the hell is John McCain saying? I think the picture above
says everything ?
| Saturday, 21 October 2006 at 4h 15m 46s | Holy Shit | Whoa baby look at what's happening now/
Baltimore Sun Source
Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials
contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous
package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's
polls in 2004.
Cheryl C. Kagan, a longtime critic of Maryland's elections chief, says the fact
that the computer disks were sent to her - along with an unsigned note
criticizing the management of the state elections board - demonstrates that
Maryland's voting system faces grave security threats.
. . .
The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns nationwide about the security of
the November elections and the ability of the state to keep tight controls on
the thousands of machines that will be used next month.
Maryland's September primary - which used voting machines and electronic check-
in equipment made by Diebold - suffered a series of mistakes, and the outcomes
of some contests were not known for weeks.
A legislator gets an anonymous package which proves that Diebold machines had
preconceived intentions of fraud ?
| Saturday, 21 October 2006 at 1h 57m 1s | My fears of the ignorance | I do hope we are all getting an education. I don't think many
people
read at
all, and so what information they ever get is mostly from the video and audio
media.
Imagine a people who have no idea what happened 30-40-50 much less 300 years
ago. Much of history is something a whole hell of a lot of people have never
even conceived of, except when alluded to by some external media source, or in
conversation with other people. I mean if you don't know what happened in 1910
or 1804, what would you think about if you pondered it? What notions would fill
the void of the empty receptacle?
This is hard for me to imagine because I have been reading since the age of 3.
I was writing and drawing at age 5. I started playing guitar and piano in high
school, and now, many years later ... I suppose I'm probably what you might
call a child progidy.
But still, I know that other people are different, and frankly I am sometimes
catatonic when I think of how little the average person reads in a month. I
mean a lot of persons are vulnerable to the spin and propaganda, because they
are just too ignorant too know any better. They often have good intentions, but
like most human beings will get their hackles up and become quite defensive
when challenged.
Now I'm not speaking of the bots and spin merchants who vomit all over the
media and blogosphere.
Those fools are just hybrid rodents chewing on their fingers.
God Save The Republic.
| Friday, 20 October 2006 at 0h 36m 49s | Listen to yo grandma | I thought I'd share this with everyone.
We've been had.
We struck a match across the entire Middle East.
[We] not only failed, we created a civil war.
We did exactly what the British said we were doing, we fixed the facts around
the policy because the President wanted to go to war.
They've been cut off at the pass, because they don't understand one thing :
people fight for their country. I mean what else are they gonna do, where
else are they gonna go.
We are only compounding the problem.
-- quotes from Helen Thomas, the David Bender show, 19 October
2006
I love Helen Thomas, the 80 something veteran journalist. Listen to your
grandmother boys.
| Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 3h 8m 29s | Progress is right around the next.... | Bottomless pit of corruption.
This is the average hours of electricity in Baghdad from 2005 to 2006. Baghdad
is a modern city of 10 million people. Prior to the invasion, there was an
average of 16 to 24 hours of electricity per day.
[SOURCE]
And now ...
| Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 2h 55m 12s | Saving the elephant |
Thanks to bartcop.com
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