An imperial presidency is indeed in the making. A filibuster would enable Congress to challenge the Executive branch from steamrolling over the Constitution. I hope they will exercise their options. " Alito Filibuster: It Only Takes One" By Robert Parry Consortiumnews.com Sunday 22 January 2006 "With the fate of the U.S. Constitution in the balance, it's hard to believe there's no senator prepared to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whose theories on the "unitary executive" could spell the end of the American democratic Republic." last two concluding paragraphs: "A disciplined filibuster focused on protecting the Constitution and the Bill of …
All 48 comments by...
pick of the litter
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This entire editorial is worth reading, let me see if it fits: "Ominous Sign: The President's Growing Disregard for the Law" The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Editorial Friday 20 January 2006 " President Bush's latest tool for disrespecting the Constitution, Congress and the American people, used more than a hundred times so far, is the presidential signing statement. That statement is normally a few words that a president says when he signs a bill passed by Congress. In the past it was an occasion for the president to congratulate legislators who had been particularly active in passing the bill and to praise …
Posted to An Imperial President
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Will it be "God Bless America"? or "Long Live the King!"? "The White House has tried to create an air of inevitability around this nomination. But there is no reason to believe that Judge Alito is any more popular than the president who nominated him. Outside a small but vocal group of hard-core conservatives, America has greeted the nomination with a shrug - and counted on its senators to make the right decision. The real risk for senators lies not in opposing Judge Alito, but in voting for him. If the far right takes over the Supreme Court, American law and …
Posted to An Imperial President
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That's right. Diebold makes ATM paper receipts, what's the big deal about giving voting machines a paper trail? Lotsa info at: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
Posted to Ghosts in the Voting Machines
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The "losers" are the American voters. I'd sooner trust my purple finger than an unsecure, recordless, electronic machine, manufactured by donors to the Bush campaign.
Posted to Ghosts in the Voting Machines
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I saw some video footage some time ago of starving North Korean children, orphaned, stealing crumbs, while the adults shooed them away like flies at an open market. The videographer (Chinese, or ex-pat, I believe) managed to record conditions in N. Korea undercover and then slip back into China over some mountains. It was horrible to witness these children suffering terribly in the midst of apathetic able-bodied adults. North Korea holds its pride more precious than its children. It is not surprising to see an isolationist, militarist, covert society plunge into abject poverty. And we know that poverty-stricken nations will sell …
Posted to Cult of Ideology
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I completely agree. Life-saving drugs necessary to treat epidemics should not be withheld by stingy patents. Let them keep their patents for designer drugs that people don't need to live, but holy crap!?! it's always profit over human life! Maybe we need a global insurance company to fund epidemic vaccines?
Posted to Their Patents or Your Life
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"Perhaps the concern needs to be more narrowly focussed on just whose nest is feathered by the current scaremongering and promotion of Tamiflu as the solution." Posted by Athens Yes, good post. I don't think David from Canada is the only one who's "scam detector" is going off, judging by the public's non-reaction to the bird flu scare.
Posted to Their Patents or Your Life
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hmmmm yeah, Iraq is a real gold mine. I guess people go into this service with their eyes open (still at taxpayer expense, isn't that who ultimately pays Halliburton?) but you must be pretty desperate to trade your life for better pay. This just seems on par with today's cynical ambivalence towards war and foreign occupation. Who needs recruitment ads when the nation is full of debtors?
Posted to Road to Riches or Ruin?
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ha ha I had to agree with former President Jimmy Carter when he recently said in an interview that he could hardly believe that the legitimacy of torture is even being debated in this day and age, in these times. How low can we go? Or how low can Dick Cheney go? He makes Darth Vadar look like a kitten! Maybe the EU will have to expose some rottenness in "Denmark" and give George some 'splaining to do. "EU threat to countries with secret CIA prisons " · Poland and Romania under investigation · Germany fears it was hub for 'rendition' …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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How about Crisis Management Remedial class? interesting excerpts from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1653936,00.html "Cheney 'may be guilty of war crime' " · Vice-president accused of backing torture · Claims on BBC by former insider add to Bush's woes" Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday November 30, 2005 The Guardian "Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, singled out Mr Cheney in a wide-ranging political assault on the BBC's Today programme. Mr Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Mr Cheney …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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"The torture files" "CIA agents have broken ranks to reveal the 'cruel and inhuman' interrogation techniques they are ordered to use at secret prisons around the world, including freezing and near-drowning. By Raymond Whitaker " Published: 04 December 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article331070.ece excerpts: "Amid a growing row in the US over torture, a list of "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by CIA agents in secret prisons - including near-drowning, freezing, sleep deprivation, shaking and slapping - has been leaked. In at least one case, a prisoner has died. The techniques have been authorised for use at CIA "black sites" abroad, at which top terror …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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"During the weekend there were further revelations about the role of the CIA in kidnapping suspects. According to yesterday's Washington Post, the agency carried out a number of "erroneous renditions" - grabbing suspects off the street who later turned out to be innocent." "In total, "about three dozen" people may have been wrongly seized, the paper said. One of them was Khaled Masri - a German national who shared the same name as a top al-Qaida terrorist. The CIA kidnapped him in Macedonia on Dec 31 2003, and flew him to Afghanistan, where he spent five months in appalling conditions. After …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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"Rice defends US treatment of terror suspects" Staff and agencies Monday December 5, 2005 excerpt: "Ms Rice neither confirmed nor denied the existence of secret prisons, but she did defend the CIA's use of "rendition": transporting suspects to countries where they can be questioned outside the protection of US law. She said rendition had been practised for decades and was "not unique to United States or to the current administration". She also said other nations' intelligence agencies had been working with the US to extract information from detainees. But she added that the US did not permit or tolerate torture under …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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"But more than four years after President Bush created military tribunals, not a single case has gone to trial. Only a handful of the hundreds of detainees have even been charged. One probable reason for the military's reluctance is the real risk that any trial will turn into a trial of the United States' own interrogation practices. Although the military tribunal rules do not exclude the use of testimony extracted by torture, no trial will ever be viewed as legitimate if it allows such testimony, and defense lawyers are certain to make this a central issue in any proceeding. In short, …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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A thread is dead when you find yourself talking to the walls of an empty room. I wish I could say that this thread is dead because torture is unheard of in the twenty-first century, but unfortunately there will probably be other articles and threads concerning this extreme abuse of power. Please forgive these next looooong posts, but i had to share these ideas , which kind of opened my eyes to what will happen when we "withdraw" from Iraq. It's not quite on the torture topic, but our whole exposure to torture by our own government arose out of Iraq's …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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" "The idea of 'withdrawing' from Vietnam was there from the beginning, though never as an actual plan. All real options for ending the war were invariably linked to 'cutting and running,' or 'dishonor,' or 'surrender,' or 'humiliation,' and so dismissed within the councils of government more or less before being raised. The attempt to prosecute the war and to withdraw from it were never separable, no less opposites. If anything, withdrawal became a way to maintain or intensify the war, while pacifying the American public. "'Withdrawal' involved not departure but all sorts of departure-like maneuvers - from bombing pauses that …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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and finally: " But one major change from the Vietnam era is that we have potential "sanctuaries" in the area to withdraw to. Murtha suggested one of them, Kuwait, and it is the focus of attention at the moment. But Kurdistan, at present the quietest part of Iraq (despite fierce tensions between the two main Kurdish political parties and non-Kurdish residents of the as-yet somewhat undefined area), is also likely to be the most welcoming to American forces "withdrawing" from "Iraq." ..................The sole reference I've seen to this possibility was in a recent piece by veteran reporter Martin Walker who wrote: …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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Looks like the U.S. will make permanent bases and we will be there forever, or until the oil runs out or our economy switches to alternative energies, whichever comes first. At least ITT does archive these forums, so the ideas remain accessible. I originally posted these excerpts from Tom Engelhardt's article on Media Matters. There was also an excerpt from his article that had to do with Murtha and I thought it was so apt. The rabid right-wing media machine's attempts to smear his name is just a strange distraction. " We've just entered a period where you won't be able …
Posted to Torturers R' Us
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Totally off-subject, but I don't think anyone who puts up an evergreen for the holidays is an idiot. Christmas tree growing is about the least envrionmentally farming there is, generally being a family business and not an agri-conglomerate behemoth. It smells good and you can compost it in the end unlike the plastic stuff. Christmas trees are a joy, not a source of guilt, imo. Good article exposing war atrocities.
Posted to White Phosphorous Lies
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oops, " least environmentally harmful"
Posted to White Phosphorous Lies
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"Christmas trees aren’t war atrocities, that’s for sure. Exploding or incendiary Christmas trees and ornaments would not be festive or appropriate accessories for a holiday that glorifies the birth of Christ and economic rentiers. " i like your mind wileywitch "Nativity and debt. As long as our country is ruled by a private reserve bank we will be born in debt. " (couldn't agree more) 'Tis the season.....ahh... just so sad to think about people's bodies being burned, while the architects stonewall, and their clever marketing departments design new recruiting commercials, jingle hells, jingle hells, jingle all the way, oh what …
Posted to White Phosphorous Lies
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I hope that will not come to pass. Besides buying and selling nuclear weaponry, look what else Rumsfield has been doing in 'Messopotamia' : "Pentagon pays Iraqi papers to print its 'good news' stories " Jamie Wilson in Washington Thursday December 1, 2005 The Guardian excerpts: "One military official told the LA Times the military has also bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, both used to channel pro-American messages. The propaganda offensive is said to have caused unease among some senior military officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq, especially when the US is promising to …
Posted to White Phosphorous Lies
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oops, that was from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1654661,00.html
Posted to White Phosphorous Lies
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It is cruel punishment to incarcerate non-violent offenders, imo, and it is good to see any press examining America's "War on Drugs" as a gross infringement on personal liberty. Hey, even if citizens vote to decriminalize the softest drug of all, God's green herb, the State will still act like "Father knows best" and ignore the public's desire for rational and humane law. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5386972,00.html Denver Voters OK Marijuana Possession Wednesday November 2, 2005 12:46 PM By JON SARCHE Associated Press Writer "DENVER (AP) - Residents of the Mile High City have voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana …
Posted to Liberalisms Brain on Drugs
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This quote from another thread on ITT is so apt I had to repeat it: "The U.S. never was bothered by Saddam’s atrocities when he was a pawn in America’s MidEast strategy, but when he took an independent course, that is when all the rhetoric about his atrocities and suppression began to surface. The U.S. took Saddam out because he was no longer serving America’s interests. The Bush administration acted out of its own selfishness, the rhetoric about freedom and democracy was just the conveneient cover story to give to the American people. " Posted by Liberal on August 24, 2005 …
Posted to Radioactive Wounds of War
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Thank you ITT for covering this story. I watched a segment recently about recent Iraq veterans and the treatment (or lack of treatment) they receive is appalling. The media needs to be covering the atrocious effects of the war, on U.S. service veterans and Iraqis alike, more thoroughly and graphically instead of playing cheerleaders for death.
Posted to Radioactive Wounds of War
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Good job dlindorff and jsalsman. It is good to see an author stand up for his article and refute deliberate misinformation. (I am checking our your site.) How can we let the truth be hijacked by gov't hacks afraid of "suicide bombers"? Like telling the truth would encourage murder? Good God! Maybe if the military would not engage in so much deception and poison the world would see less revenge.
Posted to Radioactive Wounds of War
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I see "Natalie" is still haunting ITT. I agree that the news reportage is shallow. Negative? Only spin-meisters demand to see the "positive" side of war. This article (intro to a photo gallery by Salon) gives a few insights why graphic images have been absent in the MSM: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082305O.shtml Iraq: The Unseen War By Gary Kamiya Salon.com Tuesday 23 August 2005 a few excerpts: " Aug. 23, 2005 This is a war the Bush administration does not want Americans to see. From the beginning, the U.S. government has attempted to censor information about the Iraq war, prohibiting photographs of the coffins …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Well said JFL. "What must a dictator or terrorist think when they listen to the U.S. media and gauge what threat America is to their survival? They must think to themselves...hmmm.....half of America is on my side." (from a post above) This is just utter bullshit. Americans plainly see the debacle that the Bush/neocon foreign policies are bringing US. Nobody supports terrorists by desiring peace. War as an answer will never bring "unity" ... think what single-minded nations are.... fascist dictatorships!
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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"We could stay as long as it takes to let this country learn the freedoms and the responsibilities of self determination." Well, whatever happened to the conservative idea that America not become the world police? I'm not even sure that peace is the ultimate goal of the bigtime oil wheeler and dealers (who seem to be pulling a lot of the puppet strings for Bush). I agree with Bud that the other article about Iraq here (Echoes of Oslo, By Mark Levine, In These Times, Sunday 21 August 2005, which btw also appears in truthout.org) is quite insightful. here's a relevant …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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"The U.S. never was bothered by Saddam’s atrocities when he was a pawn in America’s MidEast strategy, but when he took an independent course, that is when all the rhetoric about his atrocities and suppression began to surface. The U.S. took Saddam out because he was no longer serving America’s interests. The Bush administration acted out of its own selfishness, the rhetoric about freedom and democracy was just the conveneient cover story to give to the American people. "...posted above by Liberal that is so damn right!
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Speaking biblically, "love thy neighbor (and enemy)" , "thou shall not kill", "turn the other cheek" , all point the way to peace,... peace, the necessary ingredient for a "civilized" society, for sustained prosperity. The oil economy seems destined to play out like the dinosaur, it is ultimately a short-term energy solution and it is foul, foul , foul....so bad for our health. If the oil economy depends upon war and strife, where/when is the longterm prosperity going to emerge? It must be clean energy which leaves no blights upon the land and the people, where environmental health is the indicator …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Good one kaela. "A civil war is the worst case scenario for the Bushies, the final dagger into the heart of their bad planning. " Jon B I think not. Did you read the other article on ITT, Echoes of Oslo, By Mark Levine, In These Times, Sunday 21 August 2005 ? again I post this quote: “The idea of “sponsored” or “managed” chaos as a defining characteristic of contemporary neoliberal globalization has already been demonstrated by scholars working on Africa, the former Soviet Union, and other locations along the “arc of instability” that happens to contain some of the world’s …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Protesting this very wrong war is not only right but it is incumbent upon a moral conscience. The posts above address the issues really well. The protest is against bad policy not soldiers. The ones who destroy troop morale are the ones who lied them into being there, and who send them in harm's way while they have to use shoddy body armor and equipment. People in uniform can think for themselves and they don't need to hear a censored America. Mrs. Sheehan is speaking her heart and the press has glommed onto those wide-spread sentiments that they ignored for way …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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I agree with Stan Groff's resolute determination to "Exit Now" even if he is gruff with all the politicians who leave conditional wiggle room for an exit strategy. If they wait until certain conditions exist for Iraq, the exit could last forever. How long will the American public tolerate this chaos? I would imagine that many people in uniform serving overseas have no problem with massive civilian anti-war protest since it is a response to the civilian commander's decision to engage in this premeditated war plan. Civilians put them there, civilians will get them out. Maybe many people in the armed …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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------------------ "Staying the course and enduring further casualties while the insurgency grows stronger is an insane policy. If we persist on that front we will end up strengthening the hand of Islamic extremists and their role within the Iraqi insurgency. Our choice is simple - either we invest in the military resources and personnel required to defeat the Sunni insurgents and allow the Shia and Kurds to consolidate power or we withdraw and let the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds find their own solution. We cannot ask our soldiers and Marines to give their lives and sacrifice their bodies for a new …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Jon Stewart just did a number on Hitchens last week. Hitchens is a pompous ass. He did warn however, that he is coming out with a new article very critical of Bush's handling of this war. So stay tuned.
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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dear wth, if you have to ask who Jon Stewart is, you have no pulse on current American culture.
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082605D.shtml Read my link! Read my link! Hey, I posted numerous times on this thread on Exiting Iraq, did you read all my links? http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/041115roco04?page=1 Weapons of Self-Destruction Is Gulf War syndrome - possibly caused by Pentagon ammunition - taking its toll on G.I.'s in Iraq? By David Rose excerpts: "It's also remarkably cheap. The arms industry gets its D.U. for free from nuclear-fuel processors, which generate large quantities of it as a by-product of enriching uranium for reactor fuel. Such processors would otherwise have to dispose of it in protected, regulated sites. D.U. is "depleted" only in the sense that …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082605D.shtml And I posted excerpts from this this article before here: Why We Must Leave Iraq By Larry C. Johnson Davidcorn.com Thursday 25 August 2005 " Sometimes in life there are no good options. It is part of our nature to always assume that we can fix a problem. But in life there are many problems or situations where there is no pleasant solution. If you were at the Windows on the World Restaurant in the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9 am on September 11, 2001 you had no good options. You could choose to jump or …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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"Rabbit will sing in your nation’s destruction and good riddance. " Well you can just fcuk yourself! It's a damn global network of powermongers and this country is made up of the best and the worst like any country on earth. "I am everyday people"
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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The "West" is best is an exaggeration and I don't think the "East" is least. No doubt no one has a lock on love. I only suggest that cultures, which are not neccessarily wholly Eastern or Western, that are patriarchial/one sided and sexually repressive have little to offer for the future. I agree that cultures should be left alone as they wish, though ideas will always find a way to cross borders. It is true that traditional European culture has a terrible history of enslavement and racial prejudice (and genocide). Western manifest destiny has left a horrible legacy, an ugly footprint …
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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Just to add, I know that the "west is best" phrase is arrogant and I just used it for its punch, so sorry for the offense. I do hold dear the faith that every creature on this planet deserves dignity and that environmental respect is key to good health and prosperity. If every incorporated entity would be true to the health of all peoples and the good earth, resist being slave to profit's lonely ultimatum, and would not disregard its responsibities for good citizenship and stewardship, the world would be better for it.
Posted to Exiting Iraq
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I agree too. The "War on Drugs" has caused the biggest swell in prison population and now the system is entrenched by the profiteers of prisons. If this country wasn't so damned unreasonable concerning consensual "crimes" we wouldn't have so many families being wrecked by forced incarceration for non-violent offenses. Disgraceful indeed!
Posted to So Very Sorry
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The neverending campaign to disenfranchise rolls on.
Posted to So Very Sorry
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There was another conscientious objector story I read about recently. The wife of the man wrote the story. "One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality" By Monica Benderman CommonDreams.org Friday 08 July 2005 some key excerpts: " This soldier fulfilled his commitment, he kept his promise to his enlisted contract, and when ordered to deploy to Iraq at the start of the invasion, he went, not because he wanted to "kill Iraqis" or "destroy terrorist cells," but because he wanted the soldiers he served with to come home safely. He returned knowing that war is wrong, the most dehumanizing creation of humanity …
Posted to A Different Duty
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And what has always bugged me was the fact that the Pentagon refuses to keep track of the Iraqi civilian death toll as a result of their war. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071905C.shtml Unnamed and Unnoticed: Iraqi Casualties By Judith Coburn TomDispatch Monday 18 July 2005 an excerpt: " But there's no way to count, protest American journalists. What they mean is that the Pentagon doesn't count for them -- "We don't do counts," was the way General Tommy Franks put the matter during our Afghan war. But Iraq Body Count (IBC) counts as does the Brookings Institute among others. As of July 13, IBC …
Posted to A Different Duty
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