There will be some testimony in Congress this week that will lay these myths to rest:

the delay in our funding will means this for our military:

* Unless Congress acts, the Defense Department will soon be required to begin giving layoff notices to about 100,000 civilian employees.

* Unless Congress acts, the military task force developing ways to better detect and protect our troops from roadside bombs will run out of money by early next year.

* Unless Congress acts, the Army will run out of operations and maintenance money in February.

* Unless Congress acts, the Marine Corps will run out of similar funds in March.

Link

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.
"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. @ 2:50 mark on video

Video (torture comments begin @ 1:22 seconds)
Link

@ 2:00 mark:

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

The Supreme Court refused to hear a CIA rendition case today claiming "State Secret Privilege."
Link   Read More »

The editors of student newspapers in Colorado and Oregon are cursing for our freedom in support of of a student in Florida who dared question the legitimacy of this regime and call for impeachment. How does their cursing compare to the obscenities of this administration?

The independent student newspaper at the University of Oregon, THE DAILY EMERALD explained the four word headline of its editorial, that included a four letter word:

Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, which makes this a perfect moment for a strong statement in support of free speech.

Our bold text is in response to another strong statement, one from the editorial board of the Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper at Colorado State University. Their statement was written in response to the Sept. 17 Tasing of Andrew Meyer, a student at the University of Florida, during a question-and-answer session with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Link   Read More »

George Bush is scheduled to make a prime time speech tonight, what if he announces the invasion of Iran instead of the expected draw down of troops from Iraq?

George Bush has a reckless side of his personality, when he loses he tends to ignore advice and double down. When his advisers were telling him to draw down troops from Iraq earlier this year -- he announced the surge.

What if the first indication for Americans of his new policy is the image of cruise missiles exploding in Tehran? The Bush-Cheney style is secrecy.

Has the Pentagon been ordering a lot of pizza deliveries lately?

Are any of the cable TV channels scheduled to show "Star Wars" tonight?

What will you do?

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

very interesting quotation:
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"I have to say that it is my belief that there is no Iraqi people inside Iraq. There are only diverse groups with no national sentiments. They are filled with superstitious and false religious traditions with no common grounds between them. They easily accept rumours and are prone to chaos, prepared always to revolt against any government. It is our responsibility to form out of this mass one people that we would guide, train and educate. Any person who is aware of the difficult circumstances of this country would appreciate the efforts that have to be exerted to achieve thee objectives."
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And who said these words and when? Faisal I, King of Iraq in 1932. Nothing has changed in the past 75 years, and the area known as Iraq is not a country with a central government, but rather a collection of military and religious fiefdoms with no allegiance to the "capital" of Baghdad. It is a shame that George W. Bush and his crew have never recognized this in their sham of an effort to establish a democracy where it is neither needed nor wanted. Keeping our troops there and spending almost a trillion dollars will change nothing in the long run.

It's about the oil - drilling in Kurdish sector of Iraq   Read More »

Well, the Bush administration and its minions in the Departments of Defense and State are once again getting out “the word” of how there is so much improvement in Iraq. Republican congressmen and senators are taking their obligatory visits to the war zone and declaring how the morale of our troops is upbeat and the Iraqi government, while not accomplishing a lot, is moving forward.

All of this is expected politics and really doesn’t affect much. But, the troubling and misleading statements about our troop deaths are where the real damage is done. Everyone, including the media, is talking about how the number of American deaths in Iraq is down from the high water mark of early summer. They note that the past two months has seen a drop to less than 100 fatalities as being a real accomplishment. The truth, though, is not a drop, but really an increase.

Eighty-one (81) Americans died in Iraq during the month of August 2007. This was an increase of 25% over the previous year’s August. It was the second deadliest August in the five year war. This brought the current total for the year 2007 to 738 troop fatalities, which was an increase of 60% over 2006. In fact, the first eight months of this year was the worst for losses since the war began. That’s improvement?

Doonesbury’s Debt Facts

Rarely do I read the Doonesbury cartoon strip by Garry Trudeau, which is more political comment than “comic.” But, today I did and picked up some very interesting facts that check out with actual history. Here is a word-for-word repeat of what is shown in this strip.

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Since 1776, the United States has accumulated a national debt of $9 trillion, over half of which was incurred when a Bush was on watch! What a family legacy. If you throw in Reagan, fully 70% of the national debt was created under just three Republican presidents. What’s more, they didn’t even try to restrain spending! Out of 19 submitted budgets, only 2 were balanced.

So, here’s my question. Where did the myth of GOP fiscal responsibility come from?
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That’s a very good question. After all, it is the Republicans who always accuse the Democrats of “tax and spend” and talk a good game of wanting a smaller government. Smaller government? Has anyone looked at the new US embassy in Baghdad?

Of course the GOP reduces taxes on the rich and spends the money of the middle class like crazy, leaving the debt for some other poor shnook to pay.

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 29 Aug 2007 at 07:48:48 PM GMT is:

$8,985,524,742,395.99

The estimated population of the United States is 302,841,041 so each citizen's share of this debt is $29,661.04.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.42 billion per day since September 29, 2006! And we are looking at $3 Billion a week for the Iraq War.

Mr. Bush wants to make his tax cuts to the rich permanent. That's really going to help the debt picture. Hope your kids and grandkids are millionaires when the debt comes due.

In a speech this afternoon to the American Legion, the man who sits in the White House and plans his warped view of the world, stated: "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Iran's murderous activities." Does that frighten you? It does me.

He is upset that Iran in shipping guns to Iraq. That's just a drop in the bucket when compared to the billions worth of arms we have shipped.

He is upset that Iran wants an atomic weapon. We have thousands, but he wants exclusivity and control.

He is upset that some members of the Iranian army are in Iraq. Hell, we have 167,000 troops there plus God knows how many contractors.

He is upset that Iran is formenting trouble in the region. What he doesn't want to admit to himself is the fact that no one can exceed the trouble he has caused in the region.

He has taken us down a dangerous path, and like any child that has gone bad, he is blaming everyone else for our deadly problems that he caused.



I repeat...does this frighten you? It does me, and should you.

On Christmas night in 1951, in a small grove near Mims, Florida a bomb placed under the bed ended Harry Moore's life.

book jacket
Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T Moore America's First Civil Rights Martyr, Ben Green, The Free Press, New York 1999.

At the time of his death, due in large part to his leadership of the Progressive Voters League, 31 percent of all blacks were registered to vote, a rate that was 50% higher than any other southern state. Which was one reason why he was killed. The 100,000 black voters he registered were enough to effect the outcome of every statewide political race. If his murder was intended to send a message to potential black voters, it worked. In Brevard County, for example, black voter registration plummeted after his death from 51 percent in 1950 to only 33 percent in 1956. It would climb above 50 percent again only one time (in 1964) until the 1970s.

ibid, page 252

Fast forward to January 8, 2001,   Read More »

The New York Times and the Washington post are reporting that Sen. Leahy of Vermont held a news conference Monday and threatened to hold the White House in contempt for not turning over documents related to Justice Deparment legal opinions on the legality and Presidential authorization of NSA spying.   Read More »

It looks like we are about to see the rebirth of the County Unit System that was outlawed by the courts in Georgia in 1962. I’m talking about a proposal dubbed the “Presidential Election Reform Act” that is being pushed in California by a lawyer representing the California Republican Party.

At present, California allots all of its 55 electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections, a practice followed by most states. A few states allot their electoral votes based upon percentage of votes cast statewide. But the new California proposal is a throwback to the days of one party dominance and segregation, but not for the purpose of segregation but rather to guarantee a Republican victory no matter what the statewide vote shows.

A little history. The County Unit System was used by the State of Georgia beginning in 1917, during the days of Democratic Party dominance, to determine a victor in its primary elections. Simply put, a county (there are 159 in Georgia) received ‘unit’ votes based upon population. The eight most populous (urban) had six ‘unit’ votes each, the next thirty (medium) had four each, and the remaining 121 (rural) counties had two each, for a total of 410 county ‘unit’ votes. As a result, the small counties with two votes each had a majority (242), despite having only one-third of the population. This allowed the Democratic primary to be controlled by the less populous rural voters and the party machine. Four tiny counties in South Georgia could outvote populous Atlanta. For instance, Eugene Talmadge won the 1946 primary with 244 country unit votes as opposed to 144 for his opponent James Carmichael, even though he had lost the popular vote by 16,000.

In 1963, the county unit system was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Gray v. Sanders, finding that the system violated the ‘one man, one vote’ principal.

Now comes the Republican Party in California, resurrecting that old unconstitutional system, and pushing to allow the statewide winner of the popular vote two electoral ballots (there are 55,) and each voting precinct to cast one electoral ballot. The thinking here is that there are more small “Red” precincts than there are “Blue” ones, thereby guaranteeing a win for the Republican Presidential Nominee. Evidently they don’t feel the ‘one man, one vote’ principal means anything, and the illegal Georgia County Unit System lives again.

We shouldn’t allow this to happen, no matter what the state or the controlling party. We need ‘one man, one vote.’
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