Monday, April 28, 2008

NANCY PELOSI: WILLING PARTICIPANT in Bush's $3 TRILLION war of lies, hubris, incompetence, and gross corruption.....



Nancy Pelosi's speaker's pen is dripping in BLOOD, DEATH, and DESTRUCTION... as she gives George W. Bush a kiss, and SIGNS MORE BLANK CHECKS for his INCOMPETENT, CORRUPT OCCUPATION of Iraq, and while she IGNORES his criminal theft of elections, obstructions of justice, and corruptions of justice her in America.

AS comments to this AP article "Millions in Iraq Contracts Never Finished" (by US contractors) point out,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/27/investigators-millions-in_n_98881.html
the REBUILDING of post-WWII Japan was accomplished by... JAPANESE companies.
America's RACIST HATRED of Middle-easterners in general, and Iraqi Arabs in particular (as criminal "terrorists" and insurgent murderers of US servicemen) is such that the American public now tolerates the LOOT, PLUNDER, and PILLAGE terms of the Bush-Cheney occupation of Iraq... Including Halliburton, Blackwater, Bechtel, and other US companies getting billion dollar no-bid contracts... with NO accountability to those living in that occupied country.
America's new-found racisist hatred and antipathy to Iraqis is of course founded on and formed by America's Jewish intellectuals. Half of the signers of William Kristol's "PNAC" - "New America Century" or "bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq now" think-tank being Jewish.
(Cheney, Rusmfeld, Bill Bennet, Jeb Bush, Francis Fukuyama, Steve Forbes and Dan Quayle being the most notable non-Jewish singers of the PNAC "bomb Iraq now" manifesto from June 1997... roughly the other half of signers are all Jewish, including Mr. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, VP Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff. Mr. Libby was CONVICTED of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE and PERJURY in the investigation of the "outing" of an undercover CIA officer by the Bush Cheney White House (to discredit and smear a prominent administration critic), which OBSTRUCTION and PERJURY enabled Bush and Cheney to push the scandal investigation PAST THE 2004 election. STONEWALLING that scandal investigation thus enabling Bush and Cheney to get close enough in the popular votes to STEAL the electoral votes of Ohio, and hence a SECOND _STOLEN_ US election... DIRECTLY as a result of the CRIMINAL CONDUCT of one of the PNAC founding signers!)http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
Which is to say, there is now a centuries old, 2,500 year JEWISH COMPONENT of hatred and racism now driving the US occupation of Iraq, the "hate the Arabs and don't let them rebuild their own country" RACISM upon which the more modern US "major media" narrative of militarist/neo-colonial hatred, contempt and scorn of the US occupation is built.

ENTER into this equation HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI, who will make the sign of a cross over her chest as a gesture of FAITH... just immediately before she takes up her Speaker's pen, and writes George Bush and Dick Cheny ANOTHER multi-billion dollar US taxpayer check, another LICENSE TO CORRUPTION and more of a murderous occupation in Iraq taxpayer check - with ZERO, ZIP, NADDA, NO, OVERSIGHT or accountabily for how Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush SQUANDER those billions of American taxpayer dollars.

NANCY PELOSI is a FULL VESTED WAR-HAWK, and she presides over the "Democratic" Party's CORRUPT PROFITING - in terms of donations from the Israel lobby and war-lobby - from those blank checks she signs for Bush and Cheney.
(Nancy Pelosi "The AIPAC girl, leaves IRAN WAR in Bush and Cheney's hands.")
http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=11&num=70952
By Patrick J. Buchanan
<< If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war. >>
http://www.vdare.com/buchanan/070319_pelosi.htm
In the old days, getting a slice of money back from the billion dollar check you just wrote to a company was called "KICKBACKS", but the corporate stranglehold on the US media is so complete, that the words "SLUSH-FUND, KICKBACKS, and CORRUPTION" are all but VERBOTTEN!, CENSORED from the US media nightly news or morning papers.

Below, one of the more reasoned and well researched EXCEPTIONS to Speaker Pelosi's ONGOING CENSORSHIP of the TRUE COSTS of the war that SHE ENDORSES - MORE BLOOOD and DOLLARS DRIPPING FROM Speaker PELOSI's POISON PEN - documented by economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes in their new book, the "THREE TRILLON DOLLAR WAR" - or roughly $10,000 per American, were the war to stop today.

======================================================

The Three Trillion Dollar War

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
April 2008
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/qna/forum/three_trillion_dollar_war/index.html

When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Americans were told Iraqi oil would cover the costs of the war and rebuilding. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld scoffed at estimates of $100 billion.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes raised a stir in 2006 by estimating the real cost of the war to be $1 trillion. That estimate has been tripled and the title of their new book is "The Three Trillion Dollar War."

(Below, Question #1 of 68, submitted by McClatchy readers between April 1 and April 15, answered by Linda Bilmes on 4-16-2008.)
--------------------------------------------------
Q: The invasion caused about a million deaths and many disabilities to the invaded people. The material losses included important archeological artifacts. Someday, hopefully, the invaders will be held legally responsible for it all. Reparations. Justly, death benefits should be based on the larger of standard benefits for invader and invaded. $4 trillion war?
- - - Submitted by Dennis Couzin from Berlin, Germany

A: When you look at the destruction of art and priceless artifacts, it is clear that many costs of this war simply cannot be quantified. But they are costs, nonetheless. Of course the loss of life cannot be really quantified either. We do address this issue in chapter 6 of the book.
Answered 04/16/08 12:05:58 by Linda Bilmes

Friday, April 25, 2008

Obama had better pick up the VELVET MAILED GLOVE and use it against Hillary Clinton... or he is going to look like John Kerrry...

President Bill Clinton recently got a $10 million dollar payoff for helping lobby Kazakhistan's ruthless, SADDAM-ESQUE DICTATOR Nursultan A. Nazarbayev...on behalf of Canadian super-investment mining mogul Frank Giustra!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html
==================================
We hate to agree on ANYTHING with Maureen Dowd,
that vapid female contributer to that vast gallery of media lying hacks and idiots, but in this case (like Pat Buchanan penning his "Nancy Pelosi is the AIPAC girl" column) MoDowd hits the ball out of the park - - if Senator Barak Obama thinks he is going to win the most powerful political position in the world without playing some political hard-ball, he really is a dreamer!
The text-book (political science) definition of politics is "that which determines who gets the power," and the text-book definition of power is "getting people to do that which they otherwise would not do" - things such as paying taxes, abiding by laws and regulations, going off to war from which one may never return, surrendering one's homes to new highway construction, etc.
The office of the presidency of the United States has the power to throw people under the sledgehammer of federal prosecutions (see the story of Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, quite probably convicted by partisan US Attorneys directed by White House Political Director Karl Rove, for doing one-third of what his Republican political opponents got away with); the presidency has the power to start wars (see, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Grenada, Bosnia/Kosovo), or declare a formerly "rouge" dictator to be a new friend and ally of America (see Qadaffi), and of course chief executive in the executive branch has the power to put people under miscroscope examination for TAX AUDITS and other iron-fisted government powers.
IF Barak Obama thinks he is going to control all those powers with NOTHING more than appeals to our (America's) better nature, he seriously underestimates the history of the human race, and especially the warlike nature of these United States of America!
Indeed, never in American political history has there been such an opportunity for one canddate to CHALLENGE the qualifications, judgement, and motivations of his opposition, as Mr. Obama now has with his Democratic primary opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton.
TO BEGIN WITH, there is former President Bill Clinton LOBBYING, on behalf of a Canadian mining mogul, with KAZAKHISTAN's SADDAM-ESQU DICTATOR for a multi-billion-dollar uranium contract, with Clinton getting a ten-million dollar payoff for his successful super-lobbying efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html
Then there are the repeated cases of former President Clinton charging $300,000 to appear at a charity event... for a one-evening dinner! (The Clinton tax returns indicate that they donated 10% of their income to charity... but the majority of those "donations" WENT TO THE CLINTON Charity Foundation, which did not disburse many funds to actual charities UNTIL Senator Clinton started her presidential campaign in earnest.)
So it is "UNFAIR" to make her husband's record the focus of criticism of Senator Clinton herself?
How about Senator Hillary Clinton's own ludicrous statement that "when an area was too dangerous to send the president, they sent me" describing her visit to Bosnia when she was then First Lady?

How about her vote to give authorization to the Bush-Cheney administration to attack Iraq... before international weapons inspectors had found one drop of evidence of an Iraqi WMD program? Or her outrageous "we will obliterate Iran" comment (which is redundent, because Israel already has the nuclear fire-power to do so)?
These absurd, atrocious comments (not to say "juvenile") coming from a so-called "leader" who claims she has "the experience" to become president "on day one"!

And above all, Senator Clinton's recent, campaign claims have video-tapped her protestations that she OPPOSED her husband's signature NAFTA free-trade agreement in the early 1990s - when there are videos and reams of testimony that she SUPPORTED congressional passage of the NAFTA trade agreement, challenges both her veracity, her memory, and her long-range strategic political vision... for anyone could see then, that if the NAFTA agreement did not include demands for labor and environmental minimum standards, then industrialists would use the "free trade" agreements in a RACE FOR THE BOTTOM, the race for bottom-line corporate profits at the expense of labor, coummunity, and environment.

===========================================

Maureen Dowd has it right:
if Senator Obama wants to step up to the plate of the most powerful political position in the world, he better be prepared to swing his bat with all his might. Dragging up the issues and/or scandals that challenge Senator Clinton's qualifications to lead the nation in perilous times is child's play... the ONLY PROBLEM, is doing that opposition campaigning in a respectful and dignified manner that does not get too personal.
(Example: "Today, Senator Clinton claims she was opposed to NAFTA in the early 1990s, even though she gave speeches supporting its passage in 1993. One news story suggests that then then First Lady Hillary Clinton focused her efforts on 'BLOCKING labor and environmental opposition' to NAFTA's passage by Congress.
Fifteen years later, BLOCKING labor, environmental, and economic fairness issues are the SIGNATURE POLICIES of the Republican leadership, Republican 'leadership' presiding over the decline of the American economy. Does Senator Clinton really think that she has the foresight and political ability today to undo the results of her legislative shortcomings from 15 years ago?")

------------------------------------------
IF Senator Obama is not prepared to swing that major league bat, he should, indeed, step out of the batter's box. Americans do not want a leader who can be bullied by an oppenent with a 30 years trail of missed opportunities, poor judgement, and poor recollection.

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Senator Obama Starting to look like the Efete and Vulnerable Senator John Kerry.
By Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist
Published: March 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/opinion/09dowd.html

<< The Obama campaign seems naïve when it keeps reacting with hurt feelings and play-by-the-rules protestations to the Clinton modus vivendi of grabbing the slightest slip and ripping it open. Hillary’s kneecapper Howard Wolfson compares the goo-goo Obama campaign to Ken Starr with a straight face.

The superdelegates are watching to see if Obama can stiffen his backbone. After seeing their candidates lose races they should have won in 2000 and 2004 because they flinched at Republican political waterboarding, Democrats do not want to watch the bully swipe their lollipop a third time.
Obama’s multiculturalism is a selling point with many Democrats. But his impassioned egghead advisers have made his campaign seem not only out of his control, but effete and vaguely foreign — the same unflattering light that doomed Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. >>

The Democrats' ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY: Pelosi, Meeks, Hillary, Reid, following treacherous path of Joe Lieberman....

HUGS and KISSES for Bush, McCain and the radical-right Republican Agenda... but WHERE is the "Democratic" opposition "leadership"??
WE KNOW what the Republican agenda is... tax cuts for the wealthy in time of war, President Bush eating John McCain's birthday cake while New Orleans residents drown from Hurricane Katrina rains (which overwhelmed the FEDERAL dikes and levees surrounding New Orleans); doing NOTHING to address the health-care crisis; installing "PRIVATIZED" vote-counting machines to determine elections; installing corrupt, crony hacks to intimidate Democratic voters and activists at the Department of Justice; and of course using CONNECTED, INSIDER, administration-donor CRONY CONTRACTORS for billions-of-dollars government contracts in the Iraq war and here in America...
....the only question is, WHERE IS THE DEMOCRATIC _OPPOSITION_ TO THAT AGENDA??
ECHOING Don Rumsfeld's infamous handshake (on behalf of President Reagan and Vice President Bush) with Saddam Hussein in 1987, BILL CLINTON acted as a SUPER-LOBBYIST for Canadian investor Frank Giustra's bid for a Uranium mining contract with Kazakhistan's SADDAM-esque DICTATOR, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html


-----------------------------------------------







As we all know, Joe Lieberman has given up any pretext of being an actual Democratic Party Senator by following Senator John McCain around on the Republican campaign trail, acting as friend, advisor, and supporter of McCain's "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" campaign to win the White House in the 2008 presidential election. However, because Lieberman represents the critical 51st vote that gives the Democrats the majority in the Senate, he has not been officially expelled from the Democrat Party.
But Lieberman is far from the only Democrat joining the Republican Party on the core issues of its radical right-wing "more Wars and tax-cuts for they wealthy" agenda. We have Speaker Nancy Pelosi FUNDING BUSH'S WAR to the tune of $170 BILLION dollars - while leaving every last corrupt, crony contractor buddy of Bush and Cheney firmly in place (including license-to-kill Blackwater). Pelosi also treacherously HASN'T DONE ONE THING to assure American voters that their votes count in "PRIVATIZED" computer vote-counting election machines. And, sure enough, the few EXIT POLLS in Pennsylvania do NOT agree with the 9.4% winning margin for Hillary Clinton that the state reported in the recent Democratic primary election.
For her part, Senator HILLARY CLINTON did the near impossible..... she ONE-UPPED Senator John McCain's toss-off "BOMB BOMB BOMB, BOMB BOMB IRAN" comment, by cheerfully advising American voters that whe would "OBLITERATE IRAN" were it to attack Israel. First of all, Israel has plenty of nuclear arsenal to "OBLITERATE IRAN" should the Jewish state find the opportunity (or excuse) to do so... second of all, how could Senator Clinton even HOPE to think that such a statement makes her look like a statesman?
answer- Oh, she's not worried about looking like a statesman... she is only worried about appealing to the same white voters for campaign donations and votes, who support Bush and Cheney's wars and their endless, in-your-face corruption.
The young and restless (and upwardly mobile) "Democratic" House Representatives are also joining Hillary, Pelosi, Lieberman and other Republicrat "Democrats" in SUPPORTING THE CORE REPUBLICAN AGENDA: despite their many late-night speeches (on an empty House floor at almost mid-night to C-SPAN video cameras) decrying the abuses and criminal conduct and EXPANDING WAR policies of the admininistration BEFORE and shortly after the 2006 congressional election, (as part of Pelosi's "ThirtySomethingDemocrats"
http://www.speaker.gov/30something/index.html....
...today, former firebrand "liberal" Democrats KENDRICK MEEKS and DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (both from "liberal" South Florida districts) now OPPOSE IMPEACHMENT, oppose even BASIC hearings into Bush-Cheney criminal malfeasance; oppose ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING about America's health-care crisis,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/hill-dc-dems-back-off-hea_b_98386.html
...have done very little to support congressional investigations into rampant corruption of the Justice Department under Bush-Rove-Cheney, and, above all, SUPPORT MORE OPEN-ENDED FUNDING for Bush and Cheney's war in Iraq!
ON EVERY ONE OF THESE CORE ISSUES of the past 3 or 4 Democratic election campaigns, Pelosi, Hillary, Meeks, Wasserman-Schultz, and Senate "leader" Harry Reid, cut through their lame "we are doing all we can" rhetoric and look at what they are ACTUALLY doing - on each of these CORE ISSUES, the "Democrat" "leaders" are now INDISTINGUISHABLE from the REPUBLICAN, radical right-wing agenda!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Does Speaker Pelosi APPROVE OF FIXED ELECTIONS? Rep. Holt VERIFIABLE VOTING bill DIES in House Committee....

YET AGAIN Speaker of the House - nominal 'leader' of Congress - NANCY PELOSI - CHOKES, WHIFFS, PUNTS, RUNS FROM _THE_ Issue at the very heart of our democratic governance in America - the RIGHT of Americans to vote, and KNOW that THEIR VOTES WERE COUNTED FAIRLY and fully.

Speaker Pelosi SO CONSISTENTLY JOINS the Radical Right-Wing, and their Major Media handmaidens, in IGNORING the threat to American democracy posed by privatized, no inspection, no-audit voting machines, that we are continually driven to wonder, "DOES SPEAKER PELOSI PRAY FOR THE RESTORATION OF THEOCRATIC, ONE-PARTY RULE in America in the 21st Century, as the Church once rule medieval Italy with an ruthless iron hand?" (See Machiavelli, "The Prince" written to one of the many princes who were very much subordinate to the power of the Church in early 1500s.)

(Note: today's news, "Scientists in EPA complain of POLITICAL INTERFERENCE from White House to PREVENT THEM FROM DISCUSSING national health and environmental issues, including global warming." AS USUAL, Speaker Pelosi PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE this right-wing administration BULLYING and CENSORSHIP....


==============================================

Congressman to press on with paper-ballot emergency voting bill
Bill goes down in House after White House intervenes
By Todd R. Weiss
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9078878


April 18, 2008 (Computerworld) A bill that would have helped states pay to switch to paper-election balloting systems and for random audits after elections died out of a House committee this week, but its prime sponsor said he is not giving up the fight.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said the bill he sponsored, House Bill 5036, the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act, would help make the nation's elections more accurate and secure by helping states move to paper ballots over touch-screen electronic machines.

"I'm still hopeful that it's possible to get some of this done before this year's November elections," Holt said. "Anything we can do to reduce the unresolved questions and disputes this November we should do," he said, referring to past problems in U.S. elections, including the troubled 2000 presidential election.

"Can we still do things before November? Yes, but time is running out," he said.

Under the bill, states and municipalities would have the option of getting federal money to move to paper-balloting systems instead of touch-screen, or direct recording electronic machines.

Electronic voting critics argue that touch-screen voting machines that don't use a paper ballot can't be later checked to be sure that a voter's intent was followed because it offers no way to recount the votes one by one.

E-voting supporters maintain that the machines themselves are accurate, but that problems may arise because of inadequate training for election workers and mistakes by voters.

Several states and counties have moved on their own from touch-screen machines to optically scanned paper ballots that can be recounted if needed.

"This bill this week, it was all optional," Holt said. "All it was, was reimbursing districts for doing the right thing. ... And by doing the right thing, I mean offering paper-based voting and more, requiring audits."

Two weeks ago, the bill came out of the House Administration Committee, where it was unanimously approved by Democratic and Republican members after several Republican amendments were added, and was sent on to the full House for consideration, Holt said.

On Tuesday, the bill, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass, went down to defeat in the House 239-178, with 223 Democrats in favor and 176 Republican opposed, after the White House sent out a statement opposing the measure. The statement said the administration "strongly opposes" the bill because it would "create a new program that is largely redundant with existing law, and therefore unnecessary, to reimburse States for the costs of making last-minute changes to their voting systems by Election Day 2008."

Holt said some Republicans on the committee must have had a "change of heart." At least one told him it was about how much the bill could cost to implement, but Holt said the committee members were all well aware of those costs when they voted to approve it the first time.

"The White House sending out a statement of opposition on the day of the vote certainly hurt and helped turn this into a partisan matter," he said. "They had nothing to say about it the whole time it was being prepared. Then all of a sudden they think it should be voted down. Well, where were [they] when we were drafting it? The night before we had some indication that the White House was going to oppose it, and that the Republicans were starting to back off in their support."

The White House did not return a call seeking comment.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Pelosi's refusal to hold EVEN BASIC IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS leads to this: Revelations that Bush and Cheney WATCHED LIVE TORTURE SESSIONS from WH!



We here at DemNationUSA have long held that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's REFUSAL to hold EVEN BASIC Impeachment Hearings is a national disgrace - a sign that Speaker Pelosi is more aligned with the neo-con War Lobby, than she is with the Democratic voters whose blood, sweat, donations, and efforts gave her the Speaker's Chair in Congress.
Now Speaker Pelosi's disgusting obstruction of true justice - her "see no evil, hear no evil, speak of NO crimes from the Bush-Cheney White House!" re the serial lawbreaking, corruption, lies-to-war, illegal surveillance, torture, and other criminal violations of the law coming from the Bush-Cheney administration - has taken a new hit. For we learn that not only did Bush, Cheney and their senior cabinet and administration officials DISCUSS TORTURE TECHNIQUES in "DOZENS" of White House policy session...
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4583256&page=1
....but according to Washington Post writer Daniel Froomkin, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Aschroft, Powell, and others even SAT IN on LIVE TORTURE SESSIONS of Iraqi prisoners vide-transmitted to the White House from American prisons!!

Congratulations, Speaker Pelosi. Your "modern" assumption as the first woman to hold the Speaker's chair in America's democratic Congress harkens not to progress.... but to the reigns of Queens Catherine de Medici of France, Queen Elizabeth of England, and Queen Catherine II of Russia, who all at times ordered the torture of their enemies.

<< Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, MICROMANAGED THE TORTURE of terrorist suspects FROM THE WHITE HOUSE BASEMENT, according to an ABC News report aired last night.
DISCUSSIONS WERE SO DETAILED, ABC's sources said, that SOME INTERROGATIONS WERE virtually CHOREOGRAPHED by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft. >>


=============================================

White House Torture Advisers


By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008; 1:20 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/10/BL2008041002069.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

At least one member of the club had some qualms. ABC reports that Ashcroft "was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

"According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: 'Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Iraq Prime Minister, America's ally: US forces can start withdrawing from Iraq now. April 10, 2008

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Disagrees With Petraeus: US Forces Can Start Withdrawing

April 10, 2008
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-07-14-iraqsaturday_N.htm
BAGHDAD (AP) — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."
One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a U.S. lab."

America's Himmlers: Bush, Cheney, Rice DIRECTED TORTURE SESSIONS, of Iraqi prisoners in US prisons, from basement of White House!

America's horrific disgrace: The President, the Vice President, their National Security advisor, and other top administration officials listened and watched live video feeds of TORTURE sessions of Iraqi prisoners beind tortured in US prisons... Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their officials then DIRECTED American torturers on how to harm, inflict pain, and (torture) on the captured prisoners.

<< Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft. >>




White House Torture Advisers [torture DIRECTORS]
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008; 1:20 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/10/BL2008041002069.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

At least one member of the club had some qualms. ABC reports that Ashcroft "was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

"According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: 'Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

Here's the video of last night's report by Jan Crawford Greenburg and a text version by Greenburg, Howard L. Rosenberg and Ariane de Vogue.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Karl Rove does GQ - and implicates himself in partisan Republican Prosecution against Dem. Ala. Gov. Don Siegelman!

Our previous post tried to illustrate that Alabama Dem. Governor Don Siegelman was prosecuted by PARTISAN REPUBLICAN US ATTORNEYS, one of whom was THE WIFE of a campaign advisor to Gov. Siegelman's REPUBLICAN OPPONENT!
Here Larisa Alexandrovna dissects a GQ interview with Karl Rove's, and in particular Rove's responses to (former) Republican whistle-blower Dana Jill Simpson charges... Charges that Rove was at the very center of the prosecution of Gov. Siegelman, as a means of removing a Democratic governor from his position of political power and authority in a Deep Southern state.
Check the story for the image of Karl Rove squirming in the glare of the public spotlight.. and trying to squirm his way out of story of how he arranged a partisan prosecution to remove a political opponent...
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/rove-caught-in.html

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The PROSECUTOR, in the Ala. Dem. Governor DON SIEGELMAN PROSECUTION... was the WIFE of the Repbulican candidates' Advisor!


The permanent Republican majority,
Part one: How a coterie of Republican heavyweights sent a governor to jail
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html


The Permanent Republican Majority, Part IV: How corporate-GOP interests sought to topple Democrats in Mississippi.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/How_Bush_US_attorney_riddled_with_0401.html

Since the deregulations of the Reagan era, the electoral strategy of the Republican Party and the interests of the corporate lobby have become intimately entwined.

Karl Rove – President George W. Bush’s former Deputy Chief of Staff and campaign maestro – capitalized on this alliance in Texas in the early 1990's, when he made campaigning against "activist judges" a cornerstone of Republican victories. He then applied the same technique in Alabama, where he and Republican consultant William Canary began systematically working in 1994 to elect pro-business judges.

As reported in Raw Story’s The Permanent Republican Majority - Part One, Canary reemerged in 2002 as the advisor to Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate and now governor, Bob Riley. Canary’s wife, Leura, meanwhile, used her position as the US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama to investigate Riley’s Democratic opponent, incumbent governor Don Siegelman, helping ensure his defeat and leading to his prosecution on bribery charges, conviction, and imprisonment in 2007.

During the mid-90s, a series of state lawsuits against the tobacco industry delivered a heavy blow to American business interests in the South.

Initiated by Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, they sought compensation for the costs of smoking-related diseases. Other state attorneys general joined the suit, and eventually the industry was forced to settle, culminating in a Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement that exempted the tobacco companies from liability in exchange for a $246 billion dollar payment and other concessions – the largest settlement in US history.

Alabama, however, refused to join the lawsuits. The decision, by the state’s Republican governor and then-Attorney General William Pryor, led to a political firestorm.

The conflict was a major factor in then-Democratic Lieut. Gov. Don Siegelman’s election as governor in 1998. Almost as soon as Siegelman took office, however, Pryor initiated a series of corruption investigations against him. After the Bush administration took office in 2001, these state probes were elevated to the federal level at the hands of US Attorney Leura Canary. As reported in The Permanent Republican Majority – Part Three, Rove and Canary also helped promote the Siegelman investigations.

In neighboring Mississippi, meanwhile, the tobacco suit had produced several extremely wealthy trial lawyers, who became major funders of the local Democratic Party.

In 2003, a Bush-appointed US Attorney, Dunnica Lampton (above right), brought federal charges against one of those lawyers, plaintiff’s attorney Paul Minor, alleging that he had bribed a Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, Judge Oliver E. Diaz, Jr.

Just as in the case of Governor Don Siegelman in Alabama, when the first trial of Diaz failed to produce the desired result of removing him from his elected seat in 2005, fresh charges were brought almost immediately.

Diaz and Siegelman also shared the ire of tribal casinos. Siegelman’s attempt to introduce an Alabama state lottery to support education initiatives had ruffled the feathers of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, who saw it as a threat to their interests, while Diaz stood against the Choctaws by ruling in favor of more regulation of tribal casinos.

Diaz himself had previously been the target of GOP-allied business interests during his 2000 election campaign, when the United States Chamber of Commerce ran issues advertising supporting his opponent.

The United States Chamber of Commerce
Despite its seemingly bipartisan name, the Chamber of Commerce has operated as a pro-Republican powerhouse since the fervently anti-regulation Thomas J. Donahue became president in 1997.

“The chamber has become a significant force in state and national politics under Donohue's decade of leadership,” the LA Times’ Tom Hamburger wrote this past January. “Once a notably bipartisan trade association with a limited budget and limited influence, it has hugely increased its political fundraising and developed new ways to spend money on behalf of pro-business candidates.”

Under Donohue, the organization has frequently aligned itself with GOP priorities. Donahue recently announced an intention to play a major role in electing pro-business candidates in 2008, proclaiming, "We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed.”



William Canary, the Alabama political consultant who was central to the defeat and prosecution of Governor Don Siegelman, is closely tied to Donohue and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. When Donohue was president of the American Trucking Association in the 1990’s, Canary served under him as a counselor, political advisor, and eventually Senior Vice President for State, Federation and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Canary and Donohue were also friends. According to two Alabama Republican lawyers recently interviewed by RAW STORY, it was Donohue who recommended that Canary be named president of the Business Council of Alabama, a position he assumed in March 2003. The Business Council is currently the Alabama affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and it has played an active role in Alabama politics since at least 1994, when it invited Karl Rove to the state to work with Canary.

“You know it was Donohue who helped place Billy Canary at the [Council], don’t you?” said one of the Alabama lawyers several weeks ago, during our second trip to Alabama. The attorney asked to remain anonymous for fear of backlash. A second attorney interviewed in Alabama familiar with the events also said Donohue had a hand in getting Canary the job at the Council.

The US Chamber of Commerce did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Diaz faces pro-business challenge
Keith Starrett ran in the Mississippi Supreme Court judicial election against Oliver E. Diaz Jr in 2000. In the state of Mississippi judges are not allowed to run on a party ticket or represent a party. But it was no secret that Starrett was supported by Republicans and Diaz by Democrats. In the two weeks preceding the vote, the Chamber purchased over a million dollars of campaign ads on behalf of Starrett and three other Republican candidates. Starrett lost the election anyway.

Starrett told RAW STORY Tuesday he had no knowledge of the Chamber running the ads.

"It was a complete surprise to me and when I found out, I asked that they be stopped," he said. "Oliver's [Diaz] comments about Lampton and me [to other publications] being involved in his prosecution is a boldface lie and a pipe dream."

Diaz did not mention Starrett as being involved in his investigation and prosecution to us.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce refused to reveal their membership list after concern over the ads surfaced. According to Mississippi law, campaign donors must be disclosed, and strict limits are placed on the amount of total contributions an individual, group, or corporation can donate. The state of Mississippi sued the Chamber over the pro-Starrett advertisements and won a ruling on the federal level.

The Chamber, however, had friends in high places. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted an emergency appeal to vacate injunctions challenging the legality of the ads.

During that same election cycle, Dunnica Lampton ran on the Republican ticket to represent Mississippi’s fourth Congressional district. He lost. In 2001, the Federal Election Commission fined Lampton’s campaign $5,800 for failure to file campaign finance reports. These fines trigged an accounting audit by the FEC, which cited Lampton’s failure to disclose debts and obligations and receipt of contributions in excess of campaign limits.

Despite the FEC fines, President Bush nominated Lampton to be US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi in September 2001.

Lampton took office in November. Early the following year his office began investigations into Diaz, Minor and other Mississippi judges.

A similar nomination-prosecution pattern was seen in Alabama. As soon as Leura Canary – wife of Chamber ally Bill Canary – was appointed the US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, she began targeting Democratic governor Don Siegelman.

Starrett made out well after his defeat. In 2005, he was appointed to a federal judgeship for the Southern District of Mississippi by President Bush.

And just as in Alabama, the US Attorney in Mississippi targeted his friend’s Democratic opponent.

The case against Paul Minor and Oliver Diaz
Paul Minor was a prominent Mississippi trial lawyer whose firm made more than $70 million in the late 1990's from the state's tobacco lawsuit settlement. He was also a generous donor to Democratic candidates, contributing more than $500,000 between 1996 and 2003.

It was partly because of the 1997 tobacco settlement that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent over a million dollars in 2000 to help elect pro-business judges to the Mississippi Supreme Court, in an attempt to follow the pattern set by the Republican takeover of the Alabama Supreme court led by Karl Rove and William Canary in the 1990’s.

Judge Diaz managed to retain his seat despite the Chamber’s advertising but wound up deeply in debt. Minor helped Diaz raise money to pay off the debts, including signing a loan guarantee. This became the basis for the prosecution of both men on bribery charges.

In October 2002, news of an ongoing FBI investigation of possible judicial misconduct was leaked to Mississippi newspapers just weeks before the upcoming judicial elections. One story, which was typical of the leaked reports, stated, "Federal authorities are investigating whether state court judges took out loans that were repaid by nationally prominent trial lawyers from South Mississippi whose cases the judges handle."

Overnight, donations by lawyers like Minor became "radioactive," and six pro-business Republican judges were elected.

As one Mississippi attorney explained in an interview, “In war, you first cut off the supply lines of the enemy troops.” Minor was the “supply” target because of his large donations to Democratic candidates. Diaz was the “obstacle” to corporate interests seeking to reduce plaintiff cases and keep tribal casinos deregulated.

US Attorney’s conflicts of interest in the Diaz case
In July 2003, Paul Minor, Oliver Diaz, and two former judges – Wes Teel and John Whitfield – were charged with a range of federal crimes based on Minor's loan guarantees.

Lampton claimed during the Diaz trial that he had recused himself from the case and that it was being handled by lawyers from Washington. He later acknowledged that he had not recused himself, although it does seem that the Washington lawyers were taking the leading role.

When Lampton’s office began investigating Diaz, Lampton’s own ties to Starrett should have been enough reason for the US Attorney to recuse himself. Starrett was Diaz’s 2000 opponent in the judicial election, and Lampton and Starrett apparently have been friends as far back as childhood. During Starrett’s investiture ceremony, Lampton discussed their long-standing friendship.

“U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton, who has known Starrett since they played Little League baseball together, praised the new judge for his tremendous work ethic, compassion and knowledge of the law,” the local Daily Leader wrote in 2005. "He will do everything he can to be fair,” Lampton said. “He does not have an agenda.”

In addition, a relative of Lampton’s, Donna Lampton, was and continues to be the legal administrator for now federal judge Starrett.

Lampton also had an additional reason to target Diaz. In 1998, a case involving his Dunnica’s twin brother Dudley Lampton, was reviewed by the Mississippi Appellate Court. This three judge panel, with Diaz as one of the judges, ruled against Dudley.

Lampton was not available for comment as he is on sick leave from the US Attorney office as a result of a car accident.

Continued on page 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Permanent Republican Majority Series and Related Raw Story Articles
Part One – The Political Prisoner

Part Two – Exclusive interview with jailed governor’s daughter, Dana Siegelman

Part Three – Running Elections from the White House

Alabama station drops 60 Minutes expose on Don Siegelman prosecution

Interview with Dana Jill Simpson and alleged Rove smear campaign

Karl Rove’s Next Move: A million dollar home on Florida’s Emerald Coast

Larisa Alexandrovna is the Managing Editor of Investigative News for Raw Story and regularly reports on intelligence and national security matters. Contact her at larisa@rawstory.com

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Pelosi's DISGRACE: While she wants to make TIBET an issue, here in America she IGNORES voters and activists PERSECUTED by REPUBLICAN PROSECUTORS...


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sits with President Bush. Despite pledging in January 2007, upon assuming leadership of Congress, NOT TO WRITE BLANCK CHECKS for Bush's war in Iraq,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/07/ftn/main2335193.shtml
Speaker Pelosi has done EXACTLY THAT... just one of many dozens of examples of her flip-flopping, timid, not to say "fearful" brand of "leadership".

Now we learn the details - Speaker Pelosi's REFUSAL to CONFRONT PURGE-GATE, the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House hyper-partisan prosecution of Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman, now has some other names to add to the list of Democrats wrongfully TARGETED by Republicans, with NO PROTECTION from their Democratic "leaders"
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/
---------------------

While NANCY PELOSI, the Democrat's "leader" in Congress, wants to make an international issue of Chinese persecution of Tibetans in Tibet, here in America she turns her back on Democratic voters, activists, and even elected officials PERSECUTED by Republican murderously corrupt ABUSE of the Justice Department and state proscutor powers. This NEGLECT by the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE to OVERSEE JUSTICE - to oversee the exective branch administration of justice, and to reign in, with new laws, any "conservative" judiciary attempts to interpret existing laws in partisan or unfair means of justice (such as the Voting Rights and Civil Rights laws were passed in 1964 and 1965 in order to overcome "conservative" court rulings that flagrantly ignored the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution) - is simply DISGRACEFUL.
STOLEN ELECTIONS are at the heart and core of eight long, deadly, treasury gutting years of Republican misrule, yet Speaker Pelosi joins the Washington inside-beltway establishment in laughing off persistent cases of Republican VOTE FRAUD CRIMINALITY as the fault of the victims of those vote stealing schemes; from the New Hampshire Democrat phone-bank INTERFERENCE on election day - robo phone calls that overwhelmed the Democrat's phone bank, SPONSORED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, to even Alabama Governor DON SIEGLEMAN ROBBED of his re-election and rail-roaded into prison by a selective, deceptive, and partisan prosecution, to now, finally, 'the other shoe' has dropped: WE FINALLY GET SOME NAMES of those mythical "Democratic voter activists" that we have heard of, voter activists who have been harrased, or even PROSECUTED, by CORRUPT, PARTISAN REPUBLICAN PROSECUTORS, without the "mainstream media" paying ANY attention to such Republican election thuggery.

WORLD, MEET Willie Ray, Glorida Meeks, and Jamillah Johnson... three real-life victims of those well-rumored by never nailed-down reports of REPUBLICANS PROSECUTING Democratic VOTER ACTIVISTS.

FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS are at the HEART AND SOUL of American democracy - the "freedom and democracy" the Bush-Cheney administration crow about at every opportunity, as a propaganda effort to legitimize their license to kill in Iraq. But here in America Bush, Cheney, and their Republican supporters are CONTEMPTUOUS of free and fair elections, and voter rights, reflecting the decades long traditions of SEGREGATION and active voter suppression in the Deep South and northern states, as well. (NOTE: Until Senator Strom Thurmond led the Southern White Democrats' DEFECTION from the Democratic Party during his "Dixiecrat" party run for president in the 1948 election, Southern white segregationists were uniformly Democrats, reflecting Southern hate of the Republican administration of President Abraham Lincoln, which defeated the South during the Civil War, and imposed freedom and equality for Blacks in the Deep South during the Reconstruction era. From Thurmond's 1948 lead till present, Southern "conservative" and neo-segregation (racist) voters and leaders have steadily migrated to the Republican Party, a trend that was accelerated starting with President Nixon's "SOUTHERN STRATEGY" of coded appeals to White racism as the bedrock of Republican electioneering... a trend which accelerated even more when Ronald Reagan selected Philadelphia, Mississippi, out of ALL the towns, cities, and forums in America, to launch his 1980 presidential campaign. WHAT possible significance could Ronald Reagan draw from starting his campaign... in such a small town, in Mississippi, of all places??? - answer: Philadelphia, Mississippi, was the scene of the MURDER, lynch-mob style, of Black voter registration activists!

FAST FORWARD to the tail end of the Bush-Cheney administration's foul reliance on "the SOUTHERN STRATEGY" for their 8 long years of electioneering, and NANCY PELOSI PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE!

Madam Speaker, by ALLOWING your 110th Congress to all but IGNORE Republican SELECTIVE PROSECUTION of DEMOCRATIC VOTER ACTIVISTS, you ENABLE the Republican efforts to go back almost THREE DECADES to Mr. Reagan's Philadelphia campaign launching... if not to the CENTURY of active white supremacist efforts to DENY VOTER RIGHTS during the segregation and lynch mob eras.

You have your pearls, you limousine, and big donors WHILE YOU WRITE BILLION DOLLAR CHECKS for the Bush administration's miserable conduct of the war.. while here in America, you IGNORE vote stealing and gang style voter intimidation and even fraudulent prosecutions!


http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/
Since 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been prosecuting Democratic Party activists, almost all African-Americans and Latinos, as part of an effort to eradicate what he said was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas.

"These guilty pleas demonstrate precisely why it is so important to uphold the integrity of our election process in the state," Abbott said, speaking of Ray and Johnson's conviction in a press release. "We will visit justice upon any who ignore the fact that we have election laws in Texas and they apply to everyone."

But Texas Democrats, such as Lisa Turner of the Lone Star Project, onestarproject.net a political action committee that first exposed Abbott's prosecutions, issued reports on it and maintains a staff to fight voter suppression in the state, said Abbott's goal is not merely to prosecute little old ladies. Rather, Turner said it was to send a message to Texas' minority communities, which lean Democratic, by sowing fears among the elderly about voting by mail.

"It's the equivalent if when a gang moves into a neighborhood and spray paints their graffiti or their marker; it's not to deface one building. It is to send a message," Turner said. "You have agents of the attorney general, walking through a neighborhood, walking past three crack houses, to go talk to a voter. Think about that. What does that say their priorities are? It's about holding onto the levers of power."



===================================

Texas Prosecutes Little Old Ladies for Voter Fraud

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted March 31, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/


State's Attorney General has prosecuted Democrats who help seniors vote by mail while ignoring documented Republican ballot box stuffing. Willie Ray was a 69-year-old African-American City Council member from Texarkana who wanted her granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, to learn about civil rights and voting during the 2004 presidential election. The pair helped homebound seniors citizens get absentee ballots, and once they were filled out, put them in the mail.

Fort Worth's Gloria Meeks, 69, was a church-going, community activist who proudly ran a phone bank and helped homebound elderly people like Parthenia McDonald, 79, to vote by mail. McDonald, whose mailbox was two blocks away from her home (she recently died), called Meeks "an angel" for helping her, a friend of both women said.

And until he recently moved out of state, Walter Hinojosa, a retired school teacher and labor organizer from Austin, was another Democratic Party volunteer who helped elderly and disabled people vote by getting them absentee ballots and mailing them.

Today, Ray and Johnson have criminal records for breaking Texas election law and faced travel restrictions during a six-month probation. Gloria Meeks is in a nursing home after having a stroke, prompted in part, her friends say, by state police who investigated her -- including spying on Meeks while she bathed -- and then questioned her about helping McDonald and others to vote. Hinojosa, meanwhile, has left Texas.

Their crime: not signing their name, address and signature on the back of the ballots they mailed for their senior neighbors, and carrying envelopes containing those ballots to the mailbox. Since 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been prosecuting Democratic Party activists, almost all African-Americans and Latinos, as part of an effort to eradicate what he said was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas.

"These guilty pleas demonstrate precisely why it is so important to uphold the integrity of our election process in the state," Abbott said, speaking of Ray and Johnson's conviction in a press release. "We will visit justice upon any who ignore the fact that we have election laws in Texas and they apply to everyone."

But Texas Democrats, such as Lisa Turner of the Lone Star Project, onestarproject.net a political action committee that first exposed Abbott's prosecutions, issued reports on it and maintains a staff to fight voter suppression in the state, said Abbott's goal is not merely to prosecute little old ladies. Rather, Turner said it was to send a message to Texas' minority communities, which lean Democratic, by sowing fears among the elderly about voting by mail.

"It's the equivalent if when a gang moves into a neighborhood and spray paints their graffiti or their marker; it's not to deface one building. It is to send a message," Turner said. "You have agents of the attorney general, walking through a neighborhood, walking past three crack houses, to go talk to a voter. Think about that. What does that say their priorities are? It's about holding onto the levers of power."

Attorney General Abbott and the election laws that he has used to bring the prosecutions have been challenged in federal court under a suit that is slated to go to trial this spring. In September 2006, Gerry Hebert, a former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Voting Section -- which oversees the nation's voting rights laws -- and now executive director of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, filed a suit challenging the Texas attorney general, secretary of state and a 2003 Texas law that criminalized practices often used to help the elderly to vote by mail.

Abbott's office would not comment on the suit, but Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who works for Abbott, issued a statement in September 2006 saying it "has no basis in law" and "the plaintiffs are combination of political operatives and individual criminals who have already pleaded guilty to voter fraud."

Meanwhile, Texas' attorney general has continued to prosecute middle-aged and elderly political volunteers under a law his office says stops people from impersonating voters and taking advantage of seniors by falsifying ballots. The accused are almost all African-American and Latino and likely Democrats.

In February 2008, Abbott indicted four Duval County residents, Lydia Molina, 70, Maria Soriano, 71, Elva Lazo, 62, Maria Trigo, 55, for allegedly delivering "mail-in ballot applications to numerous residents in Duval County, many of whom were ineligible to vote by mail," his press release said. Under Texas law, only the disabled, people 65 or older, or people expecting to be out of state on Election Day can vote absentee. The accused checked a box saying voters were disabled "when they were not," he said, referring to their actions in the 2006 election.

"The voter registrar's office then mailed the actual ballots to the residents," Abbott's release said. "Once the ballots were completed by the residents, the defendants allegedly retrieved these and mailed them to the registrar to be counted without identifying themselves on the carrier envelope." They face six months and a $2,000 fine.

Only likely Democrats prosecuted

Despite Abbott's repeated declarations nobody is above Texas law, he has prosecuted no Republicans.

"What is especially troubling is that while Greg Abbott's office has prosecuted minority seniors for simply mailing ballots, he has not prosecuted anyone on the other side of the aisle for what appear to be open and shut cases of real voter fraud," Hebert told Texas House Elections Committee, on January 25, 2008, as the panel held a hearing on a bill making the state's voter I.D. laws tougher.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Lieberman "DINO" TREACHERY is Contagious- now HILLARY and PELOSI are on the right-wing bandwagon....


In a week when former Alabama Governor DON SIEGELMAN _finally_ got OUT OF JAIL - out on appeal from a HYPER-PARTISAN REPUBLICAN PROSECUTION instigated and directed from the White House by President Bush's then Political Affairs Director KARL ROVE, with a very good chance the conviction will be overturned in light of closer scrutiny (Mr. Rove was able to ram-rod his prosecution of Gov. Seigelman in 2002, shortly after the 9-11 terror attacks, when the power and popularity of Mr. Bush were at their zenith)
http://www.sunherald.com/312/story/454433.html

In a week when Vice President Dick Cheney followed Iran's President in a visit to Iraq... and within days of the Vice President meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, Maliki unleashed his government army and police forces on other political parties in Basra, Baghdad, and Iraq, the body-count from the renewed fighting reaching well over 450 killed, many by US airstrikes called in by Maliki's forces....

In a week where President Bush's cabinet Secretary for Housing (HUD) ALPHONSO JACKSON was FIRED in disgrace, for CORRUPTION in STEERING HUD contracts to friends and cronies...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080331/bs_nm/usa_economy_housing_dc;_ylt=AruGtbZs99EllhDPj6xUuC2s0NUE
In a week when the entire US financial sector totters on the brink of financial meltdown, having avoided thus only by the massive infusion of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS of fed/Treasury socialized BAIL-OUTS for Bear Stearns and other private banks and brokers.... and the Bush administration's only response is to give the duo who have overseen this market crunch, Treasury Secretary Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commissioner MORE influence and authority to play a shell-game, ("rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/03/31/paulsons-rescue-plan-rearranging-deck-chairs-on-the-titanic/
whereby taxpayer BAILOUTS of big banks continue, as homeowners face foreclosure and BANKRUPTCY, and STATES ARE REELING under budget crunches...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033002138.html

IN SPITE OF ALL THESE adminstration SCANDALS, FAILURES, economic disasters, and WAR hundred+ BODY-COUNTS in THIS week's news, HILLARY CLINTON has her surrogates praising FOX 'news' as FAIR and BALANCED"!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0308/Gov_Rendell_Fox_is_most_objective_cable_network.html
, and Speaker NANCY PELOSI, OBLIVIOUS to the Vice President's latest Iraq war bodycount (and another leadership DISASTER in Iraq) - Speaker Pelosi wants to talk about CHINA in TIBET!
http://www.montereyherald.com/politics/ci_8760540

Madam Speaker, I hate to agree with the China Communist government, especially regarding their brutal repression in Tibet... but you, WHO FUND DICK CHENEY's BOMBS and BULLETS in Iraq, have a hell of a lot of nerve lecturing the Chinese about Human Rights!
http://www.montereyherald.com/politics/ci_8760540

(P.S.- It could be FAR WORSE than Speaker Pelosi "merely" FUNDING Vice President Cheney and President Bush's war in Iraq... because according to widespread reports, the Bush-Cheney administration is building up US bomber forces to BOMB IRAN, at their earliest possible "convienent" moment!
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03312008.html

WILL SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI go down in history as the 'DEMOCRATIC' SPEAKER who ENABLED A THIRD, massive US bombing and invasion of a foreign country?
SHE SHOULD STOP LISTENING to REPUBLICAN JOE LIEBERMAN, and the administration's other pro-war lobbyists.

------------------------------------

JOE LIEBERMAN is back to his foul, anti-democratic tricks, which is exactly what one would expect for the treacherous Senator who ran as an anti-war moderate against NED LAMONT for the Senate in 2006, only to revert to his BLATANTLY, hyper-partisan PRO-WAR REPUBLICAN stripes once he had won the general election as an "independent", after losing that Senate Democratic primary to dark-horse challenger NED LAMONT just weeks before the general election.

NO, Mr. LIEBERMAN - YOU LOST YOUR re-election bid as a DEMOCRATIC SENATOR in the summer of 2006.... YOU WERE NOT A "DEMOCRAT" then, and you have a hell of a lot of war-monger nerve accusing the Democrats of being "HYPER-PARTISAN" now, when you are now THE Bush administration's MOST VOCAL pro-war SUPPORTER in the ENTIRE US Senate.... and that includes ALL REPUBLICAN Senators and Congressmen as well!

For there is Senator Joe Lieberman, TURNCOAT, TRAITOR, TREACHEROUS former Democrat, out on the campaign trail, TRYING TO IMPROVE the election prospects for.... REPUBLICAN presidential candidate John McCain! And it is NOT like John McCain is a "moderate" - his campaign is widely recognized as being "Bush-3" or "John McBush"!
And speaking of "hyperpartisan", we here at DemNationUSA have been accused, at times, of being "anti-semitic", because of our outrage that the Democratic Party has been HIJACKED by a foreign government (Israel), and over the past 8 years the inside-beltway 'Democratic' "leadership" has consistently offered only TEPID opposition to the hyper-partisan Bush adminisration's raw, grotesque abuses of power.
Well, we don't have to go far to prove this assertion... for the whole time that TRAITOR Joe Lieberman is accusing Democrats of being "hyperpartisan", the Governor of Alabama, DON SIEGELMAN, was ROTTING IN JAIL, put there by a HYPER-PARTISAN REPUBLICAN PROSECUTION, using FEDERAL GOVERNMENT US ATTORNEYS in Alabama HAND PICKED BY KARL ROVE to first rob Governor Siegelman of his re-election victory in November 2002, and then "bury him under the jail" so to speak... throw Mr. Siegelman in prison for a bogus corruption conviction, where until this past week, he had been held beyond the reach of the press, media, or his supporters!

What is the cruelest irony of all, is that Mr. Seigelman WAS RAISED JEWISH, but that TRAITOR JOE LIEBERMAN will PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE the Karl Rove/George Bush/Dick Cheney CORRUPTION of the US Justice Department, as they arranged and led a white-collar, POLITICAL LYNCHING of a Jewish heritage Democratic sitting governor of a Deep South state!

Which reminds us... IT WAS NOT PALESTINIAN terrorists who killed, assassinated Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak RABIN.. it was JEWISH TERRORIST EXTREMISTS!

In PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE the POLITICAL LYNCHING, by the Bush-Rove-Cheney White House, of sitting Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, the treacherous Senator Joe Lieberman is making ECHOES of that actual ASSASSINATION of the Jewish Prime Minister!
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/31/independent_lieberman_calls_democratic_party_hyperpartisan/

And Joe Lieberman is not the only (former) 'Democratic' 'leader' to exhibit TREACHERY against the will of Democratic voters...
...for there was HILLARY CLINTON surrogate Pennsylvania Governor ED RENDELL... PRAISING FOX 'news' as FAIR AND BALANCED the other day...!

And SPEAKER OF CONGRESS NANCY PELOSI, herself, waxes indignant about the CHINA REPRESSION in TIBET... which is all very well and good... EXCEPT THAT SHE REFUSES TO NOTICE that she, her Congress, and the US Senate have given a FAR BIGGER "bomb, arrest, imprison, AND TORTURE locals" pass to President Bush and Vice President Cheney in their war in Iraq!
Indeed, in a week when the Vice President and President may be planning yet another war crime, this time the illegal bombing of IRAN,
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03312008.html
...Speaker Pelosi, given the power over the entire US Congress, and thus the bully pulpit of commanding the US government purse-strings, is in the news for nothing more than urging President Bush to skip the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics!
http://www.montereyherald.com/politics/ci_8760540



============================================

Independent Lieberman calls Democratic Party 'hyperpartisan'
Lieberman says the party has changed.

March 31, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/31/independent_lieberman_calls_democratic_party_hyperpartisan/

Senator Joe Lieberman blasted the Democratic Party yesterday as protectionist, isolationist, and hyperpartisan.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, said it is not the same party that made him its vice presidential candidate in 2000.

"It's not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government," he said. "It's been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist, and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me."

Lieberman, who won reelection to the Senate as an independent after losing the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary, still caucuses with Democrats. But he has endorsed Republican John McCain's presidential bid, and said yesterday that McCain reflects the legacy of John F. Kennedy.

McCain, he said, is "a reformer, somebody who understands ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country and remembers the other part of the Kennedy inaugural, which said that we will bear any burden, pay any price to assure the survival and sustenance of liberty. That's John McCain."

Lieberman also blasted Senator Barack Obama for voting against a resolution to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group and gave Clinton credit for supporting it.