Secret Session

Lucille is on fire with posts this AM. Catching up?

It's addicting isn't it Lucille?

is on CNN now.

no shit! ha--i am getting light headed but no---- godda do what i godda do..why are you fist anyway? i was here all along i should be no.1--not fair!

AL is speaking than she comes "im getting told we have to go thanx for coming on" i hate watching them for real as much as joe tortures me, i prefer them

why are you fist anyway? i was here all along i should be no.1--not fair!
Submitted by Lucille on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 8:46am

do you know---is it a debate or just a vote?

Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history

MoD accused of sending propaganda to schools

Britain's biggest teachers' union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way.

Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union's annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a "propaganda" exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.

They believe the instructions, designed for use during classroom discussions in general studies or personal, social and health education (PSE) lessons, are arguably an attempt to rewrite the history of the Iraq invasion just as the world prepares to mark its fifth anniversary.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/iraq-teachers...

Let me check the House Schedule

US accused of altering Gitmo evidence

Lawyers for Canadian Terror Suspect Say US Military Commander Altered Evidence

A U.S. military commander altered a report on a firefight in Afghanistan to cast blame for the death of a Delta Force commando on a Canadian youth who was captured after the shooting stopped, a defense attorney said Thursday.

The attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, made the allegation at a pretrial hearing as he argued for access to the officer, identified only as "Col. W," as well as details about interrogations that he said might help clear his client of war-crimes charges.

The U.S. military has charged Omar Khadr with murder for throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a U.S. military raid on July 27, 2002, on an al-Qaida compound in eastern Afghanistan. Khadr's case is on track to be the first to go to trial under a military tribunal system at this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/US_accused_of_altering_Gitmo_eviden...

FISA Amendments Act
Today, the House will consider the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes.

The revised House legislation to amend FISA grants new authorities for conducting electronic surveillance against foreign targets while preserving the requirement that the government obtain an individualized FISA court order, based on probable cause, when targeting Americans at home or abroad. The House bill also strongly enhances oversight of the Administration’s surveillance activities. Finally, the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed.

http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0169

the propaganda being taught our own.
Even now Rove is trying to rewrite Shrubs legacy.
"Isn't he just the best Prez eva'? OMG!"
(in my best Paris/Brittaney voice)

i did wipe the mouse if you have to know!

From the Majority Leader:

Majority Leader Hoyer’s Statement After House Holds Secret Session

WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD) released the following statement tonight after the House held a secret session to discuss information relevant to the debate on legislation to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA):

“I did not hear any new information tonight that dissuades me from my very strong belief that the FISA bill House Democrats have produced – and which the House will vote on tomorrow – is a reasonable, thoughtful, appropriate piece of legislation that will ensure that the intelligence community has all the tools it needs to protect our nation, while also respecting the Constitutional protections that Americans rightfully feel are so important. Tomorrow, I will urge members on both sides of the aisle to vote for this legislation.”

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1213

if you read this can you help me connect the dots?

Doesn't Liberal talker Bill Press broadcast out of a radio station that is run or owned by the CEO of Riggs bank? The same Riggs bank that Cheney is linked to and the Dubai funds were funneled through w/o detail to fund the 9/11 attackers? Don't the Clinton's bank there too? If so he should have disclosed that fact before bringing up the pastor at Obama's church. Seems like that would be a clear conflict of interest.

http://www.apbroadcast.com/AP+Broadcast/About+Us/Press+Releases/General/...
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=87150&pt=archive
http://www.houstonhistory.com/whoswho/history24hof.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riggs_Bank

Laughter is the best meds, dear

I bitched out my Dr's staff about the nasty encrusted doorknob on their office door. I let them see I was using my sleeve to open it, too. I said, "What is this, a guarantee of repeat business?"
They were lucky I waited until the room was empty of patients.

Republicans know economics
by Chris in Paris · 3/14/2008 08:51:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comment (0) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

Shoppers not shopping because the credit binge is over. Families struggling to afford food and gas in the car to make it to work. Oil hits a new high every day thanks to a weak dollar. People worried about whether their job will still there by the end of the year. Isn't self-regulation worth it though? Business has been able to realize the decades long dream of letting us know if there's a problem and guess what? They say "no problem" so who are we to argue? Team McCain has already brought together the leading Bush economic adviser along with good ol' Phil Gramm, who helped build this new and exciting banking system that we all watch in awe (or is it shock?). McCain will eagerly bring us more of the same.
Oil hit a record high, the dollar sank again, and consumers stopped buying pretty much everything.

Stocks kept gyrating, too, on Thursday, swinging between gloomy recession evidence and rising hopes that all the bad news would bring another aggressive cut in interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets next week.

The Bush administration, conceding the economy was facing ''difficult'' times now, rushed out new proposals aimed at next time -- plans to fix various problems that have led to a severe crisis in credit markets.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Economy.html?_r=1&oref=slogi...

UK reviews deportation of gay Iranian

UK Government Reconsidering Decision to Deny Asylum to Gay Iranian Teenager

The British government is reconsidering its decision to deny asylum to a gay Iranian teenager who claims his life would be at risk in his homeland.

The fate of 19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi was put in Britain's hands after he was refused asylum in the Netherlands.

Kazemi, 19, says he traveled to London to study English in 2005 and applied for asylum in Britain after learning that his lover in Iran had been executed for sodomy. According to legal papers filed on Kazemi's behalf, he had been identified by his lover under interrogation.

After British authorities rejected Kazemi's application late last year, he fled to mainland Europe and applied for asylum in the Netherlands. Kazemi is still in the Netherlands and no date has yet been announced for his return to Britain.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced the review of his case on Thursday.

"Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr. Kazemi's case should be reconsidered on his return to the U.K. from the Netherlands."

On Tuesday, the Netherlands' highest court rejected Kazemi's application for asylum. The court, the Council of State, said his case was the responsibility of Britain, where he first applied for asylum.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/UK_reviews_deportation_of_gay_Irani...

Iowa Re-caucuses. The campaigns are heading to Iowa to try to gain John Edwards' 15 delegates. Per MSNBC just now.

Listen to how the various show hosts on AAR explain away today how Senator Obama's personal pastor has such hatred in his heart

I wonder what constitutes hope and change for Senator Obama when the cameras are not around. I think we are about to find out.

The mask is slipping...

when my girl friends used to come back home from boarding school their crazy sick dad used to look at the doors and say "the bitches are back, door knobs are missing"

U.S. Troops Kill Iraqi Girl On Roadside

(CBS/AP) U.S. soldiers shot and killed a young Iraqi girl after firing a warning shot at a woman who "appeared to be signaling to someone" along a stretch of road where several roadside bombs had recently been found, a military official said early Thursday.

Later Thursday, police said a parked car bomb had exploded in a commercial district of central Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding another 41.

The bombing took place off a bridge in Tahrir Square, a district of clothing shops just outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government, an Iraqi police official said on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to release the information. No more information was immediately available.

The shooting, which took place Wednesday afternoon, occurred in the volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad. An exact location was not given in a military statement.

The girl appeared to be "around 10 years old," said Maj. Brad Leighton, a military spokesman.

There has been an increase in the use of women as suicide bombers in Iraq.

The latest such attack occurred Monday when a female suicide bomber killed a U.S.-backed Sunni leader who formed a group to fight against al Qaeda insurgents in Diyala after his guards ushered her into the home without searching her.

Leighton, however, said preliminary reports indicated that soldiers didn't believe the woman posed a threat of being a suicide bomber, but rather "they were afraid she was signaling to someone that the convoy was going by."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/13/iraq/main3933530.shtml

oops sorry meant to say speaking on fisa--

dir-hir- as per Lauren above...jeez silly me toniD!

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Conservatives and allies of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stood to keep their hold on parliament, as Iranians voted in elections in which reformists were barred from running.

Clerics walk at the shrine of Saint Masoumeh in Qom, Iran, on Thursday.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0430 GMT), with state radio pronouncing that, "Today, the Iranian nation once again will show its political maturity."

Some 4,500 candidates nationwide are running for parliament's 290 seats in Friday's vote, in which an estimated 44 million Iranians of over 18 years of age are eligible to vote.

Ahead of the vote, the Guardian Council -- an unelected body of clerics and jurists -- disqualified around 1,700 candidates, mostly reformists. Those barred from running were judged insufficiently loyal to Islam or the revolution.

As a result, reformists have said they are not running in as many as 200 of the 290 races around the country. Many of the reform candidates who were allowed to compete are little-known. Watch one observer call the race one among conservatives »

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threw his support behind hard-liners. In a speech Wednesday, he called on voters to back candidates who are opposed to the U.S. and "whose loyalties are to Islam and justice."

Conservatives, particularly allies of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are expected to maintain the domination of parliament they have had since 2004. If they do so by a strong margin, it would demonstrate the Islamic leadership's ability to ward off a comeback by reformists.

snip

The disqualifications of candidates have divided reform supporters. Some have decided to boycott the vote.

In Tehran, computer technician Hadi Rezaei, a backer of democratic reforms, sees little hope -- and no reason to vote.

"We can't bring deep democratic changes within the ruling establishment through the ballot box," the 29-year-old Rezaei said. "Once, I used to vote for reformers but it didn't work. The Guardian Council has already decided the elections."

But reform leaders are pressing their backers to go to the polls, hoping that with a large turnout they can at least build a strong minority in parliament, rather than the handful of seats they now have.

"It is not a fair or free election but I will still vote," said Ahmad Moshkelati, who writes for the pro-reform newspaper Mardomsalari or Democracy. "Boycotting the vote only strengthens hard-liners and further weakens reformers."

Campaigning, which ended Thursday, has been without fanfare. The vote is taking place at a time when there is widespread discontent with Ahmadinejad's government because of high inflation and unemployment. (My addition: sounds familiar, doesn't it)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/13/iran.elections.ap/index.html?e...

Germany's Merkel to address Israeli assembly

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel becomes the first German chancellor to address Israel's parliament next week, despite opposition from a small number of parliamentarians, more than six decades after the end of World War Two.

Merkel's three-day trip, starting on Sunday, marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 and is intended to help further normalize relations between Germany and Israel.

She will be accompanied by several cabinet ministers and launch annual consultations between the governments. Talks on Monday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will include discussion of Iran's nuclear program.

"It's a signal of the normalization of relations," a senior German official said of the trip, referring to improving German-Israeli ties following the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed about 6 million Jews.

The statutes of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, were changed to allow Merkel to speak there. Before the changes were made, the only German official allowed to address the chamber was the president, the head of state.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Germany_s_Merkel_to_address_Israeli...

how is using strong language to describe the lack of social justice in america hatred?

I've been comatized(yes a word I made up,sounds better than comatose) lately..
What's up ?
Is Sam on 5 days aweek yet ?
Iran still standing ?
Has Hillary quit yet?
Has congress caved in to Bushtard on FISA ?
Should I go back to sleep ?
Or,more Meds & Coffee ?
Decisions, decisions..

Just kidding ! It's Friday Ya Bastids ! :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

And the NY Fed Bank are providing fanance to Bear Stearns who's liquidity position has significantly deteriorated in the past day.

Not good.

and i have been awake but have the same question you are asking

you have to ask yourself, how is this possible, after all yesterday s&p came out and announced "all clear", the worst is behind us.

cpi showed no change for feb. (of course it doesn't include luxury items like food and energy). one of the explanations is that prices stopped rising because demand has fallen off because nobody has any money.

Gates Calls on Congress For Science Education, Visas

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates paid a visit to Capitol Hill yesterday with a familiar wish list: more money for math and science education, more funds for research and more visas for skilled foreign workers.

In his last scheduled testimony to Congress before he retires, Gates said those provisions are necessary for the United States to maintain a competitive edge in technology innovation. He said some of the most talented graduates in math, science and engineering are temporary residents and cannot get the visas they need to take jobs with U.S. companies.

"U.S. innovation has always been based in part on foreign-born scientists and researchers," Gates told the House Committee on Science and Technology. "The fact that [other countries'] smartest people have wanted to come here has been a huge advantage to us, and in a sense, we're kind of throwing that away."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR200803...

regarding the media...and mika agreed but went back to "the pastor" story

no it hasn't. the only reason they like this is that these people are willing to work for half the price of american engineers and scientists.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Lincoln Chafee Interview: "Everyone Was Silent" On Iraq

As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.

Lincoln Chafee: "Everyone Was Silent"
The Only Republican Senator to Oppose Iraq War Authorization Speaks Out

In the fall of 2002, as the United States Senate was granting the White House authorization to go to war in Iraq, only one Republican member of that body opposed the course of action. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Rhode Island Republican, served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time that he expressed his skepticism. In his view, the administration had clearly failed to make its case to invade Iraq. Nor did he believe that the attacks on 9/11 were connected to Saddam Hussein. History, so far, has proved Chafee prescient.

In the summer of 2007, Chafee formally abandoned the Republican Party after losing his re-election run to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.

In this interview with The Huffington Post, he recounts how, at the time he opposed the initial war authorization, he felt like a sheep amidst the wolves.

What was it like to be in the opposition to the Iraq

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/13/lincoln-chafee-interview_n_9144...

The DJI is below the magic 12,000 number.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Tickets gone for Obama event Saturday in Plainfield

PLAINFIELD — Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign visit to Indianapolis on Saturday will include a town hall meeting at the Plainfield High School gymnasium.

Watch live coverage

Be sure to check IndyStar.com on Saturday to see and hear Sen. Barack Obama's town hall appearance live.

Doors to the gym will open at 12:30 p.m. A crowd of about 1,500 to 2,000 can be seated in the gym.
“What is really nice for us is that we hope to have some students involved as ambassadors and spectators,” Principal Scott Olinger said. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our students and teachers to experience the election process and democracy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Tickets to the Obama visit were all distributed within half an hour of becoming available on the candidate's Web site, said Kip Tew, coordinator of Obama's campaign in Indiana.

Wednesday, the Democrat candidate’s campaign announced that he’ll make his first trip to Indiana this year before the state’s May 6 primary elections.

“They checked with us yesterday to see if we could host a home town forum,” Olinger said, referring to campaign staffers. “They said this was kind of a last-minute thing.”

“And then they came to look at the facilities, and called back later to say it is a go,” he said.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080313/LOCAL19/8031...

he's gare's new incarnation...

he specialises in quibbling about aar (especially, sam)

via, the strawman technique

feigning outrage over superficial hypocrisy

and being a true asshole, he'll waste your time on his inconsequential bullshit

but a 10 y.o. girl shot dead by the roadside

eh, he walks on by

not giving a moments thought about...

• maybe if the soldiers had proper protection, they'd be less stressed out

• maybe if the soldiers weren't on their 6th tour of duty, they'd be less stressed out

• maybe if the soliders were paid the equivalent of blackwater mercenaries, they be less pissed off

• maybe the soliders were recruited from the dregs of society

• maybe if rumsfeld was hung for his false prediction at the beginning of the war, that the war would be over in 6 months

but no, not gare

Gen. David Petraeus said yesterday that “Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political difference.” Petraeus said “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments feels Iraq’s leaders are making “sufficient progress.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR200803...

in the past 24 hours word got out that bear stearns (bsc) had a "liquidty" problem, even after s&p declared yesterday that the worst was behind us, which triggered yesterdays rally.

vix, a measure of option volatility has just jumped to a 2 month high as bsc has fallen by over 33% in the 1st half hour this morning. this has triggered a drop across the board among the other financials and brokers with the resultant dow down over 200, s&p down 26.

a more pleasant way to describe this is the smart money is making a flight to quality (treasury notes)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

*

they'd have the best pussy in the world

thats funny Rules..a bigger jug is needed

let me watch the span and the pub liars---

Uncle Johnny Bush was CEO of Riggs Investment

Podesta worked for Clinton, and heads Center for American Progress. I can find no direct link between him and ALBRITTON, except they are both in the media business and in Washington DC. Jonathan Bush and Albritton are linked through the Riggs Bank which has become PNC Bank. Woodhull's family legacy is big in DC, having giving major property to Georgetown Uni.

Bill Press, broadcasting from the Center for American Progress in Washinton, DC
Its President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then United States President Bill Clinton.
http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/staff
(Center for American Progress- Christy Harvey...I can still hear Al Frankin singing his Christy song)

http://tinyurl.com/2ld892
CAP co-authors is Paul Woodhull, a "Special Adviser"
" Mr. Woodhull was a founding member of Big Eddie Radio Productions, LLC (BERP), the producers of the #1 liberal talk show in the country The Ed Schultz Show. Mr. Woodhull was responsible for signing the talent, designing the business plan, and negotiating with Jones Radio Networks for syndicating the program... Mr. Woodhull negotiated the sale of BERP to Product First owned and operated by legendary radio businessman Randy Michaels, the former CEO of Clear Channel Communications. Mr. Woodhull is a founding member of Bill Press Partners, LLC, the producers of The Bill Press Show.
Moreover, his wife is an executive with Jones Radio Network."

AAR used to use Jones Radio Network until Green's purchase, when they switched to Westwood One, managed by CBS Radio

http://www.washingtonlife.com/issues/may-2007/the-power-100/
JOE L. ALBRITTON
MEDIA MOGUL
Just when you thought he was over the hill after the scandal that forced him to sell his long-time interest in Riggs Bank, the Channel 7/ NewsChannel 8 owner stirred up Capitol Hill waters this year together with son Robert, launching Politico with rising stars like Mike Allen, who they landed after a bidding war with Time magazine and the Washington Post. The Albrittons' deep pockets, keen eye for journalistic talent and grasp of the future of news consumption may very well become a model for the industry.

JOHN PODESTA and TONY PODESTA
PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS AND PRESIDENT, PODESTA GROUP
The fourth and fi nal White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, John Podesta currently presides over a progressive organization dubbed "a think tank on steroids." Brother Tony has major corporations and non-profits lining up for lobbying help. He also helped with major Democratic wins in the last election.

Anthony T. Podesta, major lobbiest, Dennis Hastert's son Josh works for him
http://tinyurl.com/34t32e
www.podesta.com/biopages/JoshHastert.htm
-----------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riggs_Bank
Bank with close ties to Bush administration engulfed in scandal
Aug 24, 2004 ... In 2000, he was briefly named president and CEO of Riggs Investment Management Company (RIMCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Riggs Bank. ...
www.wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/rigg-a24.shtml

Riggs Family
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. ...
www.spirituallysmart.com/riggs.html

After President Bush “intervened at the 11th hour” to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s new smog standards, “Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA’s past submissions to the Supreme Court…As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR200803...

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Could someone give me the email address for the new owner of AAR, so I can send a letter requesting Sam be put back on the air on a daily basis?

Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, “tens of thousands of miserable homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned.” However, ICF International — the company contracted to distribute the checks — “is doing quite well for itself” by posting “strong profits,” going public, and landing “additional multimillion-dollar government contracts.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23617100

Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress'

*

the hallmark of a psychopath is never admitting error

oh, the surge was top-notch, but...
oh, those iraqi's are mired in medieval squabbles, and...
oh, our recruits only require 6 weeks to be battle hardened
to shoot dead little girls

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes that yesterday, conservatives were acting like “like schoolgirls whispering among themselves in class” as they plotted their “secret” session on wiretapping. “Because of my clearance level, I’ve seen the secret information and information at other levels as well,” bragged Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), who was organizing the meeting. Rep. David Obey (D-WI), however, was not impressed. “I was here for the secret sessions,” said Obey. “And given the mumbo jumbo that I heard,” he added, the main purpose was “to demonstrate the total uselessness of secret sessions.” Laughter erupted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR200803...

don't be ridiculous

“tens of thousands of miserable homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned.”

oh, they're having the time of their lives
oh, everythings fabulous
oh, you america haters
oh, reality...

gold $11,000 an ounce...

oh, put on a happy face... it's only 10 cents an ounce
yes, buy 11 ounces for a dollar

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/2584

I knew about Allbritton but not about Podesta. Bill Press keeps saying that he doesn't care about which democratic nominee goes forward but I listen to his show daily and it has always appeared like they support Hillary.

Shouldn't they need to disclose their clear conflict of interest? This just makes matters worse for Hillary imo because it links her organization with the people who helped finance the 911 attacks. Why don't these facts make it to the light of day?

Your "liberal" main stream traditional media at work.

he's like on a merry go round screaming jihad at every turn but he's on the house floor doing it. I bet he has plastic sheets.

i listen to him every morning and my takeaway is that he's biased to clinton but not to the point of attacking obama.

he had some clinton asshat on this morning who was talking about the need to count the votes in florida and michigan. he kept using talking points about count every vote, don't disenfranchise the voters, blah blah blah, but he wouldn't admit that it was just a ploy to get clinton more delegates. i almost blew breakfast when he said obama didn't run in michigan because he knew there was no way he could be clinton.

Frangila - on Stephanie Millers show. Steph is on vacation.
Those girls are fucking funny. I love them.

Good Morning people

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday. - WAPO

;)

The Tubes - White Punks On Dope

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

I am so GLAD your feeling better.
What in the hell was/is wrong with you?
I hope nothing serious darling.
Anywho - Im sooo happy that your feeling good. Im actually dancing on a table top.

i'm using

http://www.cspan.org/watch/

and its still indicating that coverage is on the wisconsin primaries...

are funny smcgee43. I've enjoyed them too. They have a weekend show on KTALK

http://frangela.com/home.html

http://rancholaluna.net/c-span.htm

Funk.. ;)

They are funny smcgee43 ! :)

AAR could use them..
Where are they on normally ?
I could look it up I guess..But,I'm too busy eaten my Skittles.. ;)

KTLA,Thanks Fernando ! :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

says passing the Senate FISA bill with immunity invalidates the second amendment.

The Washington Post’s Dana
Submitted by toniD on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 10:40am.
*******
Who Elect's These Total Morons's ??

Oh I forgot,The PissPot/Gare/CM/Pussytard Party ! !

Who would have thunk it ?

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

hope things are well in your corner of this little world we live in.
Fernando - thanks for the correct spelling of FRANGAELA. They are funny.

It is a beautiful 38 degrees - going on up to almost 50 here in the Chicago area.
The sun is shining & we are going to be getting a little warmth. I love it! :)

Mom told me about a friend of hers from church. Old guy named Jim who spends alot of time and effort in his garden. Jim said despite the fact that his cucumber vine was gorgeous, the blooms would not bud and no cucumbers came out of it. They weren't pollenated. No bees....

Mom said the bee problem is killing off everybody's gardens. She also said that things like lettuce, spinach, potatoes, anything that wasn't a blossoming plant would not be affected.

I just think this is so sad. And I'm wondering if I shouldn't start stockpiling canned goods or something...

lets ask elliot spitzer how he feels about illegal wiretaps.

if the telcoms don't get immunity, the terrorists win!

EPA scrambles to justify action.
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

The dispute involved one of two distinct parts of the EPA's ozone restrictions: the "public welfare" standard, which is designed to protect against long-term harm from high ozone levels. The other part is known as the "public health" standard, which sets a legal limit on how high ozone levels can be at any one time. The two standards were set at the same level Wednesday, but until Bush asked for a change, the EPA had planned to set the "public welfare" standard at a lower level.

The documents, which were released by the EPA late Wednesday night, provided insight into how White House officials helped shape the new air-quality rules that, by law, are supposed to be decided by the EPA administrator.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031408L.shtml

Rendell rebuts Penn: "Either one of them is going to carry the state in the fall" by Joe Sudbay

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked..

By Greg Palast, Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout
Listen to Palast on Clout at www.GregPalast.com

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened.
Con't

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Starship Troopers wav

bouncey boobies? thanks mama!

this country has not been attacked since 9/11

now i am relatively new..did the USA get attacked every 8 months before that?

has an op-ed from a McCain surrogate and they don't disclose their motivations either.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120545277093135111.html

A dolphin saves two stranded whales in New Zealand

*

Iran Supports Nicaragua Energy Plan

*

Nice Flamenco vid, A/O...

they are now quoted or ordained by pubs all the way they might as well be them

Please do not pee in the pool. Waste of time anyhow as the

kids have already beaten you to it.

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama has pulled almost even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements from top elected officials and has cut into her lead among the other superdelegates she's relying on to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Among the 313 of 796 superdelegates who are members of Congress or governors, Clinton has commitments from 103 and Obama is backed by 96, according to lists supplied by the campaigns. Fifty-three of Obama's endorsements have come since he won the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, compared with 12 who have aligned with Clinton since then.

``That's not glacial, that is a remarkable momentum,'' Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a superdelegate and Obama supporter, said in an interview. ``I don't think there is anything that will slow that down.''

Democratic elected officials have the most at stake in the nomination because the candidate at the top of the ticket in November will have an impact on state and local races.

In the overall race for superdelegates -- elected and party officials who automatically receive votes at the Democratic National Convention that will choose the nominee -- Clinton leads Obama in commitments by 249 to 212, according to an Associated Press tally.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=a0OkW8Ml8ljw

Diplomatic sources from UNESCO told Prensa Latina that the agency made the decision due to the repeated demonstration of a lack of ethics on the part of RSF in its goal of disqualifying a certain number of countries.

The conduct of RSF does not fit the profile or the purposes of UNESCO, and the group has once again shown itself to be sensationalist in its eagerness to set itself up as a court of inquisition against developing nations, according to the sources.

...

The diplomatic sources, who spoke with Prensa Latina on the condition of remaining anonymous, said that, interestingly, the RSF blacklist did not include a single Western country, and that its fire was concentrated on the so-called Third World.

Canadian journalist Jean-Guy Allard, in a number of news articles and a book, has exposed the fact that the RSF was financed in part by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the United States. He also demonstrated the group’s ties with admitted CIA agents and the financial support it had received from the European Union. In 2005, the EU gave RSF more than 1 million euros.

your congressman? if yes oo boy yourll have problems...no he did not cry on the floor but i think he is working on a tear drop

No!
But that is irrelvant. Obama is finsihed. Tragically, it is a great day for 97s.
America is not ready to hear, let alone, confront, the Howard Zinn view of American history. Everything, that the Reverend Wright rails about is dead-on, but mainstream America won't hear it. Reverend Wright's comments, could have been taken form the Riverside Church speech of Doctor
King. America can't honestly deal with Hiroshama, the extrimination of its indigenous population, or it genocidal support of Israel. And of course, America is no where near accepting the notion that the militerization of this nation to protect its glutenous energy needs led to 911. That is utter heresy. The closet Obama could come to actually speaking the truth was when he said, "we need to change the mindset of this country that led to our invasion of Iraq."
No mainstream politican can speak the honest truth, or even be closely associated with those that do, in this country. If this were not the case,Dennis Kucinch, for example, would have been viable.
Sadly, Obama is ruined. By next Friday, in the Gallup national polls, he will be down by fifteen points, never to recover: Another Eugene McCarthy/George McGovern.
America will be doomed, "damned," until it can honestly face its own past and present. Its future is more economic and moral bankruptcy, and yes, more 911's, until it can embrace political candidates to that do not marginalize reality.

Gen. David Petraeus debates himself
by smintheus
Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 08:27:42 AM PDT
David Petraeus, February 14, 2008:

The passage of the three laws today showed that the Iraqi leaders are now taking advantage of the opportunity that coalition and Iraqi troopers fought so hard to provide.

David Petraeus, March 13, 2008:

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services...

Petraeus said he and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had "repeatedly noted that it's crucial that the Iraqis exploit the opportunities that we and our Iraqi counterparts have fought so hard to provide them."

In one month's time we learn that the "surge" has both succeeded and failed in advancing national reconciliation in Iraq. Remind me again, why is it that the traditional media pretends that General Petraeus is infallible?

He isn,t mine.

I'll try to control myself... :)
I'm more concerned with guy walking around spraying some chemical on all the foliage... :/

*

Pool 1

Pool 2

A liberal named Tim Ryan. He's a little bit of a shit

disturber...in a good way.

Submitted by Lucille on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 11:31am.
this country has not been attacked since 9/11

now i am relatively new..did the USA get attacked every 8 months before that?
--------
Yep. That's why you don't see many skyscrapers in Kansas cornfields. As soon as one was built, blammo!, an airplane dropped it to the ground.

You fucking crack me up, grrl. :D

It's Friday ya bastards!!

"fisa bill"

Just emailed pcollin requesting Sam go back to a daily radio show.

not familiar with him...oo boy but that bonehead, heaven help us all big or small!

maybe that was roy blounts secret

I hope you are wrong.

DAMNIT I hate Neo-scum in Dem clothing

just said liberal democrats are terrorist supporters.

What an idiot. I'm not worried ghettodefender. I think you are over-reacting.

there sure are a lot of kool aid drinkers and bed wetters calling in on that republican line.

one caller remarked that there is evidence that some of the liberal congressman are actually part of a terrorist organization.

well you were correct. The producers have given her campaign $10,000 in donations. -raw

And did not disclose their conflict of interest. Corporate run sponsorship of that type really should be illegal. I thought it was. Why doesn't this get any discussion?

As the Anthrax attacks (assassination attempts on two U.S. Senators and numerous TV media personalities) disappear down the memory hole...

drinking water. Now, I find out the evil bastids have

already beaten me to it! Damn, I'm a loser!

( * )( * ) ( . )( . ) ( * ) ( * ) ( . )( . )

the worst part is that they made money doing it...

dude on c-span
new
Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 11:59am.
just said liberal democrats are terrorist supporters.

--

those same idiots use to say liberals were "communists" remember?

Americans are the stupidest people on earth. At least te stupids will suffer the most in the next great depression. Maybe they'll wise up.

well, at a minimum there should have been a point in the show where clinton comes on in a voice over and says "i'm hillary clinton and i approve this ad"

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dfc_1205463739

and before that there was this thing about guys with long hair...

"this country has not been attacked since 9/11"
new
Submitted by Harold on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 12:04pm.

As the Anthrax attacks (assassination attempts on two U.S. Senators and numerous TV media personalities) disappear down the memory hole...

Shhhhhhh. It changed Leahy and Daschle's minds about the PATRIOT ACT, and shut up the press about 9/11 inconsistancies.

The Children of War

To put this in more human terms: Imagine that a child born on March 19, 2003, just as Baghdad was being shock-and-awed, will be of an age to enter first grade when the sixth anniversary of George Bush's war hits. He or she will have gone from babbling to talking, crawling to walking, and will by then possibly be beginning to read and write. Of course, an Iraqi child born on that day, who managed to live to see his or her sixth birthday, might be among the two million-plus Iraqis in exile in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East, or among the millions of internal refugees driven from their homes in recent years and not in school at all. (Similarly, a child born on October 7, 2001, when the President first dispatched American bombers to strike Afghanistan, will be in second grade in March 2009; of course, seven-and-a-half years after being "liberated," an Afghan child, especially one now living in the southern part of that failed narco-state, is unlikely to be in school at all. As with Iraq, we could take some educated guesses about the situation in Afghanistan a year from now and they would be grim beyond words.)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174905/the_eight_inside_the_beltway_fund...

Tweety asked a member of that show how it was fair and they said they put out a disclaimer. Sure the disclaimer sounded like a joke but I think they should have said the entire parody had a bias so people could understand what they were laughing at.

"GET A HAIR LIP!"

was on the "spitty show" last night defending himself and i wondered why....if you are clean why are you up there defending yourself..mmmmm interesting, he looked slimey too, could hardly say a word..ok ok ill say it for him

"Bitch is the new black"

I sometimes do that myself..... LOL

there is evidence that some of the liberal congressman are actually part of a terrorist organization.

are you vacationing??????

Tubes Candy fishin'
Submitted by zeek on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 11:32am.
*******
The Fishing Musician ! :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/14/archaeology.conservation

like these pubs...9/11, telcoms being sued...they fight back like their lives depend on it...pathetic..

HANNITY: Not — you look at McCain-Kennedy, the country doesn’t want it?

MCCAIN: We failed. My friend, we failed. I think you noticed, because you were one of the reasons.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
[...]
Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

See any names you recognize?

and we watched Bush's speech about the economy. He is living in an alternate plane.

The man is terrified that we will go isolationist! he mentioned it several times. "Nafta is working for us", he said.

My brother was yelling at the TV. Talk about the oil prices. Talk about the food prices. He brought up 911 and the wars many times.

He's a supreme idiot. You have to see this speech to believe it.

He still thinks these rebates are going to correct the economy.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B69A791A-B900-4567-8481-0458C71FB...

I say, GET OUT OF DEBT, or the corporate fascists win.

then why do the telcoms need immunity?

FISA: FBI Overrides Constitutional Objections

Democrats just defeated (with 217 votes) an effort by Republicans to consider the Senate FISA bill before the House considers the House bill today.

While we're watching lots of bloviating on FISA in the House, I thought I'd call attention to something Mary found yesterday.

The FBI twice disregarded a secret court's constitutional objections and obtained private records for national-security probes, a U.S. inspector reported on Thursday.

The Justice Department's Inspector General made the disclosure in reviews of the FBI's powers to obtain information such as phone records or credit-card data in terrorism probes or other security investigations.

[snip]

The report took particular note of two occasions in which a secret court that oversees electronic surveillance rejected FBI requests to obtain records.

The court was concerned that doing so could interfere with rights protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech, religion and association and the right to petition the government.

After the rejections, the FBI used separate authority to get the information without the court's approval, relying on so-called National Security Letters -- even though that authority also had First Amendment guidelines.

Unfortunately, this is a detail I've only seen highlighted in Reuters' coverage of the IG report on PATRIOT Act provisions. It's an example that really proves the necessity of the additional protections included in the House bill--without FISC reviewing what DOJ is doing, we're going to see DOJ override Constitutional concerns more and more often.

Update: nolo has the passage from the OIG report on this here.

Conyers introducing the bill: [PAA] transferred power of independent review from courts to AG.

The Administration tells us they have nothing to hide. If that's true, they should have no problem with the enactment of this Blue Ribbon Commission. We learned yesterday that FBI continuing to misuse PATRIOT Act provisions. We learned four days ago NSA using massive net.

Lamar Smith starts off by lying through his teeth, again claiming that wiretapping on the kidnappers in Iraq was held up because of FISA--rather than because Paul Clement had left work early.

Feeney makes up stuff about the bill.

Jim Marshall engages in colloquy with Conyers and Reyes clarifying how the FISA suits would go forward.

Nadler we have heard false and misleading statements from our colleagues. By solving the State Secrets problem, if they need it and if they obeyed the law.

Pence war war war unilateral disarmed fail fail war war.

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer
44 minutes ago

BEIJING - Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent Friday, with shops and vehicles torched and gunshots echoing through the streets of the ancient capital, Lhasa. A radio report said two people had been killed.

The U.S. and the European Union called on China to show restraint in the face of the protests and Washington said Beijing should respect Tibetan culture. Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, appealed to China not to use force against demonstrators
The Dalai Lama called on the Chinese leadership to "address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people. I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence." His statement was issued from India where he is in exile.
Con't-YahooNews

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

i refused to watch else i would truley end up being your brother...i pretended to sleep around about that time, turned everything off...

lawsuits over safety...teehee...VIVA CORPORATIONS FUCK THE NATION!!!

FISA: FBI Overrides
new
Submitted by Lucille on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 12:39pm.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

TIPS Prove Bernanke Has Lost Control of Inflation as Yields Turn Negative Bond investors have never been so sure that the Federal Reserve will lose control of inflation. They're so convinced that they're giving up yields just to buy debt securities that protect against rising consumer prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aIbnAuYWv3A0&refer=e...

we shall see...

Most FCC investigations go nowhere

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the Federal Communications Commission were a cop on the beat, congressional watchdogs contend, it would have a lousy conviction record.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080314/us_nm/fcc_dc;_ylt=AkkzhsnRKTJ05zV6ZM...

Submitted by toniD on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 12:35pm.
...He's a supreme idiot...
--------
Dubya's oil field investors: "We coulda told you that. All you had to do was ask."

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=54374

:)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

My kid is hitting your unlucky city (or perhaps its my pocketbook that's unlucky) in T-15 hours. :-(

Oy vey.....!!!!

Get elected to Congress
and get rich

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The personal wealth of members of the U.S. Congress has soared in recent years, leaving lawmakers on average far more well-to-do than most Americans as of 2006, said a study on Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/usa_congress_wealth_dc;_ylt=AsRZpCBN1IICTrHXs...

Some viruses come
pre-installed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from the factory — pre-installed viruses that steal passwords, open doors for hackers and make computers spew spam.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080314/ap_on_hi_te/factory_installed_viruse...

Job search, school search? Vacation?

nope! prez thinks he has inherent authority..she says??mmpphh

bweU.S. faces severe recession: NBER's Feldstein

Friday March 14, 10:55 am ET
By Ros Krasny

BOCA RATON, Florida (Reuters) - The United States is in a recession that could be "substantially more severe" than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday.

"The situation is very bad, the situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad," Feldstein said in a speech at the Futures Industry Association meeting in Boca Raton, Florida.

"There's no doubt that this year and next year are going to be very difficult years."

NBER is a private sector group that is considered the arbiter of U.S. business cycles. Feldstein is also a Harvard economics professor and former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

Answering questions from the audience, Feldstein said the downturn could be the worst in the United States since World War Two.

Feldstein said the federal funds rate, the Federal Reserve's benchmark lending rate, is headed down to 2 percent from the current 3 percent.

He added that lower rates from the Fed would not have the same impact in the current downturn, in terms of reviving economic activity.

"There isn't much traction in monetary policy these days, I'm afraid, because of a lack of liquidity in the credit markets," he said.

The Federal Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday to consider its next step on interest rates. Financial markets currently look for a rate cut of 75 basis points, to 2.25 percent, with a moderate chance rates will be slashed 100 basis points.

The Fed's huge new credit facility, announced on Tuesday, "can help in a rather small way ... but the underlying risks will remain with the institutions that borrow from the Fed, and this does nothing to change their capital," Feldstein noted.

Feldstein said the combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus and the falling dollar "will help to dampen the magnitude of the downturn but won't be enough to sustain an expansion."

"The housing situation is getting worse by the day," he noted, as more and more houses drop below 100 percent loan-to-value ratios, encouraging homeowners to walk away from their properties.

More broadly, in global credit markets, "there is a lack of confidence leading to a lack of liquidity ... without credit creation, we can't have economic growth," Feldstein said.

Feldstein noted "powerful forces (that) will continue to drive inflation higher." And while inflation expectations are still relatively well contained, "you wonder how long that's going to last," he said.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080314/usa_economy_feldstein.html?.v=1

America is not ready to hear, let alone, confront, the Howard Zinn view of American history. Everything, that the Reverend Wright rails about is dead-on, but mainstream America won't hear it. Reverend Wright's comments, could have been taken form the Riverside Church speech of Doctor
King. America can't honestly deal with Hiroshama, the extrimination of its indigenous population, or it genocidal support of Israel. And of course, America is no where near accepting the notion that the militarization of this nation to protect its glutenous energy needs led to 911. That is utter heresy. The closest Obama could come to actually speaking the truth was when he said, "we need to change the mindset of this country that led to our invasion of Iraq."
No mainstream politican can speak the honest truth, or even be closely associated with those that do, in this country. If this were not the case, Dennis Kucinch, for example, would have been viable.
Sadly, Obama is ruined. By next Friday, in the Gallup national polls, he will be down by fifteen points, never to recover: Another Eugene McCarthy/George McGovern.
America will be doomed, "damned," until it can honestly face its own past and present. Its future is more economic and moral bankruptcy, and yes, more 911's, until it can embrace political candidates to that do not marginalize reality.

1. White House pot dealer

2. A good start

FISA And The Unilateral Executive: Debating “A Dangerous Engine Of Arbitrary Government”

By: Christy Hardin Smith Friday March 14, 2008 8:35 am
Firedoglake.com

To sustain individual liberties, we must consistently press elected officials to represent our rights in Congress.

Please call your elected Representative -- and the Blue Dogs as well -- and let them know that you expect them to stand for liberty: no telecom immunity, stand for the rule of law and vote for the Amendment to H. R. 3773. I am hearing the vote could come around 1 pm ET, although depending on GOP procedural shenanigans could be later. [Great statement from Rep. Holt on this today. (YouTube).]

Ben Franklin famously said that we have a Republic, if we can keep it. That charge to keep rests with all of us -- we must continue to work toward "a more perfect union" every day. It is our responsibility to demand better government, so that liberty is never sacrificed with a whimper, but with as loud a bang as we can muster.

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay came up with an ingenious way to bring the Constitutional debate to citizens in NY state, as a way to encourage voters to ratify the Constitution over the prior Articles of Confederation. Today, the Federalist Papers are often used as a means of interpreting intent and background for various Constitutional provisions -- there were 85 essays in total. Additionally, there were the Antifederalist Papers from Patrick Henry and others debating safeguards for essential civil liberties, which ultimately led to the Bill of Rights.

In one such Federalist essay, Hamilton wrote:

"To bereave a man of life (says he), or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government". (emphasis mine)

While this discusses habeas corpus, the principle is analogous to unchecked domestic spying potential of the federal government versus the rights of individuals "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" subject to lawful warrant being obtained through a court under the Fourth Amendment.

Con't
"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

that post was good. Unfortunatly there are many older adults that are the problem. And of course the southerners.

Her orchestra class is coming there.

Strange but true - they're performing at a nursing home...?

NOT...dont yourll realize that this new generation will no longer be frightened, all that crap means not a mutha fucking thing......NO WERE NOT!!

i think its time to turn off the fisa debate before i brick mode my monitor.

Lucille, it would have been good to have a link on that Obama neocon Israel thing from Alterman.

Links are always good.

Clinton, Obama agree to
Philly debate on April 16

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign said today that she has accepted ABC News' invitation for a prime-time televised debate in Philadelphia in advance of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/clinton_ready...

CNN accuses Al Franken of advocating execution of Rove: Soon...

SPRINGFIELD, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday he fears that al Qaeda or another extremist group might attempt spectacular attacks in Iraq to try to tilt the U.S. election against him......

Been almost 5 years they have plotted against McCain ...sneaky fucks.

Free Democracy

now i gotta work extra...geez...alright alright i will go back and hunt, no rest for the wicked!

Just as a rule. No need to backtrack.

Home prices plunge
across California

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Median home prices plunged in many of California's most populous counties in February, with Southern California leading the slide with an overall drop of 17.9 percent compared to a year earlier, according to new housing data released Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080313/ap_on_bi_ge/california_homes_prices;...

Eric Alterman on Obama’s Jewish problem
Posted by Cecilie Surasky under Government , Obama

In (Some) Jews Against Obama, the Nation’s Eric Alterman has the most in-depth roundup I’ve seen yet of charges leveled against Obama by various American Likudnik Jewish leaders including Mort Klein of the the Zionist Organization of America, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and a counsel at the American Jewish Committee.

During the past few months a small group of neoconservative Jews, many of whom hold key positions in the world of official Jewish institutions, have been working to undermine the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama with a series of carefully planted character assassinations and deliberately misleading innuendo.

Alterman quotes Matthew Yglesias:

“First Obama was an anti-Semite because Zbigniew Brzezinski is an anti-Semite. Then Obama was an anti-semite because Robert Malley is an anti-semite. And now according to [Commentary’s Noah] Pollack [sic] it’s Samantha Power who’s tainted by Jew-hatred.”

As usual, attempts at painting Obama as anti-Israel have had almost no traction with the majority of American Jews, whose liberal views comport with Obama’s with quite nicely.
What exactly are they so scared of? Alterman writes:

Perhaps it is honesty about the issue. Speaking to a largely Jewish audience in Cleveland, Obama explained, “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.” Then came his kicker: “One of the things that struck me when I went to Israel was how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States.” No wonder he scares them so…

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=54353

Brought Back For Your Enjoyment:Peaches

The Stranglers - Peaches

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

A sickening truth at Guantánamo
A gravely ill detainee I represent, never charged with a crime, has been neglected by military doctors. Will he be the next to die inside the notorious prison?

March 14, 2008 | The U.S. government has long insisted that it provides quality medical treatment to all suspected terrorists imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Even the dependably cynical Michael Moore, in his latest film "Sicko," fell for the hype. But it is time to set the record straight. Five prisoners are now known to have died inside the secretive prison -- at least one under dubious circumstances -- and others are gravely ill. And in the case of one very ill man, there is evidence of extraordinary medical neglect on the part of military physicians.

I am an attorney representing that man, Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi, who has been held inside America's legal black hole since March 2002. The U.S. government has never charged him with any wrongdoing. Military officials claim he has been given proper healthcare. But Al-Ghizzawi appears to have acute liver disease, among other ailments, and the military is allowing his condition to deteriorate without proper diagnosis or treatment, according to a doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross who has observed Al-Ghizzawi and his medical records at the prison. A leading medical expert who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case agrees with that conclusion, as do I, based on my observations of my client during repeated visits to Guantánamo. Military and government officials have refused to grant me access to my client's medical records.

Al-Ghizzawi, now 45, is a Libyan-born man who had been living quietly in Afghanistan with his Afghan wife. They had a small shop selling honey and spices that they later expanded to a bakery. They have a young daughter, now 6 years old, whom Al-Ghizzawi last saw when she was just a few months old. When the American bombs started to fall in late 2001 on Jalalabad, the city where Al-Ghizzawi lived with his family, he did what most people would do: He fled. He took his wife and infant daughter to his wife's parents' home away from the city. Unfortunately, Al-Ghizzawi was not well known in his in-laws' village. Bounty hunters turned Al-Ghizzawi over to the Northern Alliance in December 2001, who then handed him over to the United States. (Our government offered millions of dollars for captured "murderers and terrorists," and few questions were asked when Arab men were turned over for those bounties.) By March 2002, Al-Ghizzawi was sent to Guantánamo, where he was never charged with a crime or given the opportunity to prove his innocence.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=54358

Must be a big Nursing home. Do you know if it's in the City or Suburbs?

I think she will like Chicago as a city. Sorry New Yorkers, but Chicago can be a bit friendlier. But, then again, we are the big city in the middle of farm country.

Lake front is beautiful.

step out...im being held hostage here!

Submitted by Lucille on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 1:26pm.
CNN accuses Al Franken of advocating execution of Rove...
-----
When I think of "ruthless killer," Al Franken is the first image of viciousness that comes to mind.

(How come you never hear that someone is ruthful?)

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders threatened the United States and China with trade sanctions Friday if the world's two biggest polluters don't commit to ambitious cuts in greenhouse gases by next year.

The warning came as the economic downturn focused European leaders on the impact on industry of their groundbreaking agreement last year to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

EU leaders want similar commitments from other major economies by next year, when a conference on global warning is to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. Otherwise they say European companies will need protection from unfair competition from heavily polluting rivals in China and the United States — the world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.

In a declaration issued after a two-day summit, the 27 EU leaders warned: "If international negotiations fail, appropriate measures can be taken" to protect European industry.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy went further. "Our main concern is to set up a mechanism that would allow us to strike against the imports of countries that don't play by the rules of the game on environmental protection," he told reporters Friday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted the threat to European producers. "Industry, faced with global competition could be exposed to a real disadvantage if no international climate accord is struck, but we in Europe have very strict rules," she said.......

Bear Stearns' plunge drives down financials

By Greg Morcroft, MarketWatch
Last update: 1:29 p.m. EDT March 14, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Investors hammered financial stocks on Friday, highlighted by Bear Stearns losing more than half its value at one point after an elaborate bailout by the New York Federal Reserve Bank and J.P. Morgan triggered sector-wide selling.

Bear, which earlier this week denied any liquidity problems, quickly changed its tune Friday morning before the market opened. Alan Schwartz, chief executive of Bear (
BSC) , said in a statement that the company's liquidity position in the last 24 hours "had significantly deteriorated," and unveiled the unusual three-way deal.
The company scheduled a conference call with analysts for 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. See full story.

Bear shares traded at $33.11, off $42%, at last check. The shares traded as low as $26.85 in morning action. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPMJPMorgan Chase & Co
News, chart, profile, more JPM) , a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 2.4%.

The developments in the financial sector caught President Bush's attention Friday too.

At a previously scheduled appearance, Bush said the U.S. economy is going through "a tough time" but will recover, in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. "Every time, this economy has bounced back better and stronger than before," he said.

Bear's plunge helped drive the Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index down 6.4%. Despite the drop, if the XBD index closes at current levels it would be just the eighth biggest one-day percentage drop in the index's history; On April 14, 2000, the XBD fell 12.7%.

http://tinyurl.com/2xtfxy

BREAKING: Obama Found To Have A Pastor; Possibly NOT A Muslim
By: Blue Texan Friday March 14, 2008 10:30 am

What a dilemma for the wingnuts.

After months of hard work building the case that Hussein al-Osama is some kind of stealth Islamic Raymond Shaw, someone at ABC News dug up a five-year old sermon Jeremiah Wright gave in which he said, "God damn America."

And like the Pavlovian simpletons they are, the wingnuts have temporarily abandoned the "Osama al-Hussein X" storyline and pivoted right into "Obama's an angry black militant."

It goes without saying that the crowd which for the past 30 years has embraced a bunch of theocratic, flatearther, homophobic, snake-handling, anti-Catholic, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-everyone-but-white-American-evangelicals--- and whose nominee currently seeks their approval and endorsement --- has absolutely no moral standing whatseover to object to anyone else's inflammatory religious rhetoric. Ever. Period.

But Obama's response today was perfect:

Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe.

But if the wingnuts really want to play this guilt-by-association game, they'll lose. We've got lots more ammo.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/14/breaking-obama-found-to-have-a-pastor-...

Richard "Dickie" Scruggs Pleads Guilty
In a surprising turn of events, Trent Lott's brother-in-law pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to bribe a judge in a case involving legal fees for a post-Katrina lawsuit.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/03/miss_attorney_pleads_in_briber...

...when asked if she is playing the "race card", said firmly, "No way, I don't enjoy driving fast!"

----------

EB News Service

'Where news is newsworthy'

CNN accuses Al Franken of advocating execution of Rove, Libby

Comedian Al Franken, once best known for his Saturday Night Live catchphrase of "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it people like me," is now campaigning for the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

In an interview with CNN's Kiran Chetry, Franken insisted that his having been a comedian isn't a problem because people "know I take the issues very seriously. They hear me speaking from my heart and my gut and my brain."

Chetry noted that the Republican Party has been attempting to paint Franken as an extremist and Coleman as a moderate. The National Republican Congressional Committee recently called Franken "one of the most extreme and radical candidates for public office in years," adding that "Al Franken's mean-spirited and nasty partisanship is a clear contrast from Norm Coleman."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_accuses_Al_Franken_of_wanting_0314.htm...

Obama: I "Profoundly Disagree" With Pastor Over "God Damn America" Comments
By Greg Sargent - March 14, 2008, 11:47AM
In an interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper, Obama personally addresses the revelations that Obama's pastor said "God damn America":

Q: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing "God Bless America," black people should sing a song essentially saying "God Damn America."
A: I haven't seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.

Q: What about this particular statement?

A: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe.

The fuller context of Wright's quote is here. In a 2003 sermon, Wright said:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

The Wright story has been all over the cable nets since yesterday. As Ben Smith notes, Obama is refusing "to throw him overboard, as both campaigns have been doing at a furious pace with other supporters."

The Obama campaign didn't immediately respond when asked whether Wright would be keeping his largely honorary post on the campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/obama_i_profound...

Submitted by Exhausted Blogger on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 1:55pm.
EB News Service
'Where news is newsworthy'
----------
Bait News Service
"We Deliver"

which is ofcourse down stairs....

You got it, babe.

I've got better sources--so get to work.

heh heh

Rush has been fanning the flames regarding the pastor Jeremiah Wright for the past two days. He is playing clips from his sermons. I understand cable news is running with this around the clock. May turn out to be a problem for Obama.

EBait News Service

onservative Dem Announces Retirement From House, Creating Opportunity For GOP
By Eric Kleefeld - March 13, 2008, 10:58PM
The Democrats may end up with a tough open House seat to defend, with Congressman Bud Cramer (D-AL) announcing his retirement.

The district voted 60%-39% for President Bush in 2004, and though Cramer had been able to easily hold the seat as a relatively conservative Dem since his first election in 1990, an open-seat race will probably be a top target for the Republicans.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/conservative_dem...

Oh goodie, it's a buyers market!

Now a one bedroom shack in Santa Barbara's going for only 1.5 million.

would like to know who the 4 dems were that voted "nay"

Obama is too smooth and coool...

like Superfly

Go Bama !!

WASHINGTON - On this presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can agree: They sometimes disagree with their trash-talking supporters and will try to cool it.

Advisers to the Democratic candidates shed some light Friday on the private chat the two candidates had Thursday on the Senate floor. The talk lasted three or four minutes in full view of reporters watching on the balcony above who could see them talking, but not hear what they said.

"They approached one another and spoke about how supporters for both campaigns have said things they reject," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. "They agreed that the contrasts between their respective records, qualifications and issues should be what drives this campaign, and nothing else."

An Obama adviser, speaking on a condition of anonymity about the private conversation, gave a similar account, while stressing that it was Obama who approached Clinton on the subject. They committed to making sure that their supporters don't get overheated in the future, the adviser said.......

your peeps toniD
Submitted by Lucille on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 1:55pm.

What do you mean by "your peeps"?

Modern conservatism is dying. There’s still an election to be held, but conservatism as we’ve known it since Ronald Reagan is failing - ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans - “small government, low taxes, high security” - the American people are living the consequences.

We’ve seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say “shrink government.” We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say “deregulate,” and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say “low taxes,” but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

Al Franken.... Willing to say any to get elected?

They Will Pay a Price in November

Along with the White House and McCain, who pounds the "surge is working" drum at almost every campaign stop, we can thank the media for much of this shift. Over the last seven months, there has been a massive 80 percent reduction in the amount of coverage devoted to the war. And this lack of attention has taken a profound toll: a new study found that public awareness of U.S. deaths in Iraq has plummeted since August 2007, when 54 percent of the public was able to say how many American soldiers had been killed in the war. Now, just 28 percent are aware that the death count is about to reach 4,000. Chilling.

So McCain and the White House PR machine are able to promote the myth of success in Iraq without much pushback from the media. Or from Democrats. Indeed, the most lasting "opposition party" image of the last few months regarding the surge is Hillary Clinton springing to her feet at the State of the Union when the president declared "Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt." Is there any wonder the public is confused?

The fact remains: the surge is not working. Indeed, it is an abject failure on many fronts.

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. economy lost the title of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets.

Taking the gross domestic product of both economies in 2007, the combined GDP of the 15 countries which use the euro overtook that of the United States when the European currency surged to a record high of more than $1.56 per euro.

"The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone's annual output has now exceeded that of the U.S.," the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, said in a note to clients.......

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-economy-world-biggest.html

Bush
From the AP ...

Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars.
Hit by a free fall with no end in sight, the once mighty U.S. dollar is no longer just crashing on currency markets and making life more expensive for American tourists and business people abroad; its clout is evaporating worldwide as foreign businesses and individuals turn to other currencies.

Experts say the bleak U.S. economic forecast means it will take years for the greenback to recover its value and prestige.

Negative dollar sentiment is growing in nations where the dollar was historically accepted as equal or better than local currency — and dollar aversion is even extending to some quarters in the United States.

--Josh Marshall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/03/dollar_sinks_worldwide.php

for telcoms. 213/197 Not veto proof,

Bush already said he would veto this.

House has two weeks off for Easter break so there still is no new FISA bill.

House Passes FISA Amendments Act
March 14th, 2008 by Jesse Lee
The House has just passed the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes, by a vote of 213-197-1. The revised House legislation to amend FISA grants new authorities for conducting electronic surveillance against foreign targets while preserving the requirement that the government obtain an individualized FISA court order, based on probable cause, when targeting Americans at home or abroad. The House bill also strongly enhances oversight of the Administration’s surveillance activities. Finally, the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed.

Read more on the FISA Amendments Act in our current legislation section >>

http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0169

In spite of the potential "train wreck" of the Democratic nominating process this year, the coming Presidential election could usher in a new era of progressive politics, says the Campaign for America's Future in a new report. The Campaign's annual Take Back America conference starts on Monday, and co-director Bob Borosage and progressive pollster Stanley Greenberg held a conference call Wednesday to talk about what they see as signs of a major progressive revival.

Don't think of the election of 2008 in comparison to 1992, when Bill Clinton won the White House but failed to produce the coattails to elect a Democratic Congress or accomplish an ambitious progressive agenda, they said. Instead, say Borosage and Greenberg, think of the current political moment as comparable to 1979--the beginning of the Reagan Revolution, which drastically altered the way Americans think and talk about politics.

(((Run them out! Bastards! They like Reagan! Just Like OBAMA does!!)))

Historic levels of dissatisfaction with the economy, foreign policy, and the direction of the country make this a particularly ripe moment for change. Borosage compares today's bloggers and MoveOn members to the conservatives who took over government in the early 1980s.

Whatever the outcome of the nominating process "the objective conditions set the stage for a sea change" in 2008, Borosage said.

Greenberg, looking at the polls, concurred. "It's hard to understate the degree of tumult and the desire for change in the country," he said. "The conservative coalition is already shattered. It's demoralized. It has a candidate it does not view as its own. We have not yet seen, fully, the political fall-out."

Michigan Democrats Working On Re-Vote Plan
Congresswoman Says Second Primary Would Be Held On June 3 And Funded Through Party Money

AP) A Michigan congresswoman said Friday that the state's Democrats are working on plans for a June 3 primary that would give them a say in the tight presidential nomination race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick said the primary would be statewide and would be funded through party money. She is one of four Democrats who are not endorsing either candidate who are working together on a plan for a repeat primary.

Clinton won a primary the state held in January, but Obama's name wasn't on the ballot. He had it removed because the primary was held too early to comply with national party rules, meaning no delegates were at stake.

Florida also had its delegates stripped for holding a primary in January. The Florida Democratic Party offered a plan for a mail-in primary Thursday, but admitted it didn't have a good chance of being approved. Kilpatrick said the mail-in approach wouldn't work in Michigan.

Kilpatrick said discussions on the plan would continue Friday. "We're hopeful. We're close," she told reporters after appearing at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill.

Other Michigan Democrats working on the plan include Democratic National Committee member Debbie Dingell, Sen. Carl Levin and United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger.

Kilpatrick said although she is optimistic, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey has expressed concern they may not have the time or manpower to pull it off. She said they are trying to work through those issues.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/14/politics/main3938584.shtml?sou...

at house members that spoke to support no immunity such as Conyers' office sure like it when you call and say thank you.

Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
(202) 225-5126

I certainly hope Obama WILL NOT denounce his pastor and kick him to the curb. I would rather he forget about the presidency. Since the media is willing to denigrate the Black Church to bring him down, then America certainly isn't worth it. After all, it was the Black Church that risked life ad limb during the Civil Rights Movement.

Hillary, Pelosi, and Ferraro, the faux, default feminist that they are, better thank Rosa for not getting off the bus.

McCain: I "Worry" That Al Qaeda Will Attack To Tip Election Against Me

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/mccain_i_worry_t...

Or..we could conglomerate and become...
Submitted by Exhausted Blogger on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 2:02pm.
EBait News Service
-----
Bait News Service attorneys prefer "congeal" or "coagulate" in place of "conglomerate." Also included in the counteroffer is "BBait News Service" in place of "EBait News Service".

US firm, CEO admit weapon, nuclear-linked export violations

A US company and the Indian head of an international firm have admitted to violating laws on export of weapons technology and nuclear power testing equipment to India, the US Justice Department said Thursday.

Decade-long US sanctions over illegal Indian nuclear tests prohibit US-based companies from exporting certain goods and services to India.

Parthasarathy Sudarshan, the Indian CEO of Cirrus Electronics with offices in the United States, Singapore and India, pleaded guilty in Washington Thursday to a charge of shipping restricted weapons technology to the Indian government.

He admitted exporting controlled microprocessors and electronic components to Indian state entities involved in developing ballistic missiles, space launch vehicles and fighter jets.

Among the recipients were the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), an enterprise within the Indian Department of Space; and Bharat Dynamics, Ltd. (BDL), an Indian Defense Ministry enterprise.

Both are on the US Department of Commerce's so-called Entity List. Exports of US-origin commodities to these entities are restricted and require prior authorization in the form of a license from the department.

"The defendant participated in a clandestine network that circumvented our export laws and put sophisticated technology in the hands of foreign companies that were listed as end-users of concern for proliferation reasons," US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_firm_CEO_admit_weapon_nuclear_li_0313200...

Spitzer watched, they watch you, too
Think twice before you swipe that card, because everything is being tracked.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4446681

Kristen in Girl-on-Girl vid at Gawker.

She has a bright future.

with it's "the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed".

The same type of deal that Feinstein was trying to get thru in the senate ?
Hope not..

Just wondering..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

CNN...you told me to tune in this morning...but got the end tail only...(just teasing about the peeps part)

thank you...everything about him IS a problem including his skin...NO FEAR! LETS GO!!

to tell us how today, the house chose to let the terrorists win?

into the kitchen and start washing dishes...

Expect a whole lotta ugly from a never ending parade of stupid. - Motormouth Maybelle (Hairspray)

word..his gonna make a back spin on his way to the ranch..just watch...poor troubled soul! teeheehee i am happy today yes happy today..."ill VETO the bill" go the fuck ahead do that punk!

It's Friday.....

ABC News

'Muscle' Silences Credit Card Adversaries
Travel to D.C., but Refuse Demand to Reveal Financial Information in Exchange for Chance to Testify

By VIJA UDENANS
March 13, 2008

Christy Mylar Smith and her husband paid their Citibank card bill on time for years -- but when they paid late twice in one year, their interest rate increased from 12.9 percent to 31.4 percent overnight.

Steven Strachan has a FICO score in the high 700's, has always paid on time, never gone over the limit, yet Chase increased his rate from 10.99 percent to 24.99 percent.

----

At the 11th hour, the credit companies found a way to stop those that had traveled to Washington today to tell their story to the Congressional panel on consumer credit.

The banks whose practices were about to be discussed on Capital Hill were demanding that those testifying before Congress about credit card practices sign a waiver that allowed their personal financial information be revealed to the public.

The Republicans on the sub-committee were backing the banks' requests and a procedural battle would have ensued.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4448963&page=1

Weak Dollar Costs U.S. Economy Its World No. 1 Spot
new
Submitted by Kevin © on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 2:14pm.

"Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush may restore something of the United States' battered image and standing overseas, but that 'the magic is over.'"

The 2oth century was the American century. The world knows now that other countries must take the reins during the 21st century. I would go so far as to say that the U.S. isn't even a superpower anymore. It's simply one of many robust first world industrialized countries.

and yet idiots still vote these monsters back in, year after year.

Fuck you Bush.

Fuck you, Cheney.

Up yours, Rice.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/12/iraq.women/index.html

HOW MANY DAYS TIL 1-20-09? Jesus Fucking Christ...

:)

i made it FIRST.....waited whole day for this...neener toniD

will be talking to Potato Head on MTP this Sunday.

FISA: The good guys win a big one
by mcjoan
Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 12:09:10 PM PDT
First off, Steny Hoyer, I apologize for anything I might have ever said about you in relation to the Blue Dogs and FISA. I was wrong. You were great today. Thank you. The shrewd planning of Pelosi and Reid really tied the Republicans in knots, taking away all of their tricks for derailing the bill through obnoxious and obstructionist procedural maneuvering. Chairs Conyers and Reyes were excellent in sheparding their committee members.

Particularly deserving of thanks, though, are those Freshman Dems who would not be intimidated by everything being thrown at them by the Republicans--the robocalls to their constituents saying they were with the terrorists, the deceitful and inflammatory Defense of Democracy's crazy television ads. Particularly of note are Mike Arcuri who managed the Rule on this vote, and Nancy Boyda, Carol Shea-Porter and others who stood on the floor during these debates and strongly stood up for our civil liberties. You can show your support for them here.

As for those 21 Blue Dogs who wrote that letter a few weeks ago telling Pelosi she should rubberstamp the bad Senate bill, that letter that the Republicans tried to use to bludgeon the Dems about "bipartisanship"? SevenFive (I'm math impaired) of them, Shuler, Boren, Cooper, Holden, and Carney stuck with the Republicans. Lincoln Davis voted present. (The remaining "no" votes among Dems who are progressives and are generally opposed to surveillance legislation at all.) Thanks to the hard work of leadership in whipping the remaining 13, as well as all of you who made phone calls and sent e-mails for flipping them. And thank you 13 for doing the right thing. You showed the Senate it can be done.

Lists and contact info below the fold.

Update: Links to roll call votes, relevant ones are 144 (the Rule) and 145 (final passage).

Update II: Take special note of this story from Los Diablo, who just called Rep. Boswell's office:

...they thanked me for thanking him because they are getting a hammered with negative calls because he supported this.

The same is probably true in a lot of Blue Dog offices. Your calls can make the difference between pride and regret.

http://mcjoan.dailykos.com/

http://foxattacks.com/virus
Demand the media stop spreading the FOX virus

As I predicted above-the show hosts at AAR spent the day defending Pastor Wright and Obama. What dreary people they are.

I like this quote-it was made by a different kind of Pastor:

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it"

In contrast, some of Pastor Wrights thoughts:

In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just “disappeared” as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.

Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong! I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it! Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home! Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! Hillary can never know that! Hillary ain't never been called a nigger! Hillary has never had her people defined as nonpersons! Hillary ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything, or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than their C-students sitting in the White House. Hillary ain't never had her own people say she wasn't white enough!

Hillary is married to Bill and Bill have been good to us? No, he ain't! Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: He was riding dirty!

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no! Not God bless America! God Damn America! (cheers) -- it's in the Bible -- for killing innocent people! (cheers) God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human!

We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians, and black South Africans, and now we are indignant (cheers) because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards! (cheers and applause) America's chickens are coming home...to roost.

Wright on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway: "Black women are being raped daily in Africa. One white girl from Alabama gets drunk at a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country and that stays in the news for months."

Wright on Israel: "The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism."

I think some of these Obama culties need to stop getting high off his speeches and go to rehab.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD5sahXoj0U

are you blogging for victory too?
http://blogsforvictory.com/

Thats Mr. Wolfy to you-geez you guysss

No Im a liberal democrat-I don't know what you people are-despite what you say.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/14/20827/4727/132/476843

This will spread. The Obama people have no idea just how angry they have made supporters of Hillary. Ive been to the functions and heard the uncensored talk and Ill tell you-its very, very bad. You people have no idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if this morphs into something bigger-for instance boycotts of news networks.

But I trust that will not affect the rabid anti Hillary movement at AAR. I hope all you folk stay at your posts,till the bitter end.