SOURCE: Huffington Post

All the President's Nazis (Real and Imagined):An Open Letter to Bush

Posted May 15, 2008 | 07:48 PM (EST)

By Larisa Alexandrovna

Dear Mr. Bush,

Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today:

It was a rather peculiar diatribe by the Secretary of Defense, especially considering that, oh so many ages ago, he'd been a member of the Air Force himself. Even more puzzling, considering that the Air Force is running at least four mega bases in Iraq, including the Balad Air Field, which rivals O'Hare in traffic, was Robert Gates' assertion that the Air Force is not pulling its weight in the Iraq and Afghanistan endeavors.

What was he thinking?

SOURCE:Boston Globe

Pressing to develop Navy land in Maine

Congresswoman courts Air Force Cyber Command

May 4, 2008

KITTERY, Maine - As the Navy explores private development of the former Portsmouth Naval Shipyard prison, US Representative Carol Shea-Porter is pushing to bring the US Air Force's Cyber Command to the long-neglected castle-like structure.

If you agree that we organize governments at all levels to deal with (prevent and/or mitigate) the vagaries of man and nature we don't want--i.e. man-made and natural disasters, which may be categorized under the seven Is:

incineration

inundation

invasion

infestation

incarceration

injury

ignorance

--then it seems fair to conclude that, since every one of those conditions has been promoted and exacerbated in Iraq, that benighted land is a prime example of government gone wrong. And, though it doesn't get much coverage, the United States Air Force is largely at fault.

Let me start with the observation that I did not invite the missive from the Jeanne Shaheen campaign to be dropped in my in-box, nor did I forward my address in anticipation of getting either policy missives or requests for donations. So, in a sense, this is the internet version of the robo call and the extension of the opt-out policy to this medium of communication is not welcome, since it's the strategy spammers rely on to validate that the addresses they have purchased are active.

Analysis of the communication follows after the break.

Although it's John McCain that's gained notoriety for crooning "bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann," the fly-boy mentality is alive and well in today's Air Force. But, there's a new twist. The traditional insensitivity of people who fly way up in the sky and get a thrill out of dropping their deadly load, has been passed on to some really pedestrian, ground-based fellows, manning computer terminals in the vicinity of Las Vegas, Nevada to control predatory drones that dispatch individual with 500 pound bombs and missiles. Talk about over-kill.

Tom Engelhardt and a few others have taken the trouble to bring us up to date on the evolution (devolution?) of the air war from Guernica to Arab Jabour, courtesy of the United States Air Force.

SOURCE: SALON.COM

by Glenn Greenwald

During yesterday’s chat with Washington Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane, this extremely revealing exchange occurred, regarding the view of Harry Reid and other anonymous Democrats of Chris Dodd’s actions this week, whereby Dodd disrupted their collective desire for quick, smooth, trouble-free passage of Bush’s surveillance and immunity bill:

Tim Roemer, a former Democratic representative from Indiana, who served on the Sept. 11 commission, is president of the Center for National Policy. In an article in today's Washington Post on how to fix intelligence oversight, he makes the point that Congress has little idea of what's actually going on because:

The intelligence-authorizing committees in the House and Senate -- the ones we look to when something goes wrong -- have, ironically, the least say over how intelligence dollars are spent. Instead, the defense appropriations subcommittees have final say over intelligence funding levels.
Authorizers are often circumvented or ignored by the intelligence community, which seeks to deal directly with appropriators. The defense appropriations subcommittees, understaffed and preoccupied with a $600 billion defense budget, simply don't have the time or resources to devote sufficient attention to intelligence funding -- one of the most important spending priorities for our country's national security.

In case you've forgotten, this press release from the Democratic Congresswoman from Venice, California is a pretty good summary of her recent career.

SOURCE: Baltimore Sun

by Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson

With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman’s “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.

Not since the “Patriot Act” of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

It's strange that this story makes no reference to the fact that Qatar is host to one of the largest, if not THE largest, U.S. military bases in the Middle East at the al Udeid Airport.

SOURCE:Wall Street Journal

Dealings Have Potential For Trouble If Ex-Mayor Receives Nomination

By MARY JACOBY

November 7, 2007; Page A8

Rudy Giuliani is one of the few candidates ever to pursue the White House while maintaining a high-ranking role in a private-sector firm.

But since he became a candidate for president, the Republican front-runner has rebuffed all calls to disclose details about the clients and dealings of Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm he founded in 2002.

SOURCE: The Daily Free Press

by Vivian Ho

Former Boston University professor and political activist Howard Zinn last night said Americans need to "withdraw our obedience from our government" in response to what he called government deception surrounding modern wars.

PRESS RELEASE: ACLU of Southern California,National Lawyer's Guild, Center for Constitutional Rights

Oct 31, 2007
The 20-year effort to deport two men over their alleged political support of Palestinian self-determination officially came to an end today when the nation's highest administrative body overseeing immigration cases dismissed all charges against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, members of a group of Palestinian student activists arrested in January 1987, who became known as the LA 8.

Ron Paul Schools Dems; Stands Up Against Terror Hysteria
Posted on Alternet by Joshua Holland

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/65836/

When he's not railing against public education or warning of the threat the Bilderbergs and their New World Order represent, Paul keeps busy being 100% right about the War on Terrrrrrr.

Behind the Ron Paul sensation is a desperate desire for someone, anyone, to stand up and call "bullshit" on the "War on Terror" and all that it has entailed, from illegal surveillance of citizens and nightmarish foreign adventures to an executive branch mad with power and drunk on its sense of entitlement.

Last week Paul, whose opposition to much of the 20th century makes him terrible on just about every issue which touches the political economy and whose Birchian isolationism leas him to embrace conspiracy theories about shady cabals of globalists undermining American sovereignty and sapping our precious bodily fluids (not to mention his little white supremacy problem), simply schooled Democrats on how to roll back the disasters of the Bush era introducing the "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007."

As we now know, privatization has been a major strategy for removing public issues from the public arena for the simple purpose of making sure that the public (the pesky people to whom the Constitution assigns the power to govern) don't actually have a say in what's being done in their name.