Saturday, January 28, 2006

i'll take that in cash please :--)


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Sunday, January 15, 2006

top reasons for impeaching bush

Top Reasons for Impeaching Bush http://www.democrats.com/book/print/4433

What are the top reasons for impeaching Bush?

Iraq

* Invading Iraq without any threat to the U.S.
* Lying about Iraqi WMD's to Congress and the American people
* Causing the deaths of over 2,000 U.S. troops and the maiming of over 10,000 more
* Failing to provide adequate equipment and armor to U.S. troops
* Allowing illegal torture and murder of prisoners
* Causing the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi civilians
* Spending $300 billion in just two years for an occupation that could last for decades
* Letting Halliburton steal billions through no-bid contracts
* Using vast quantities of depleted uranium weapons that will poison Iraq now and for generations to come

September 11

* Ignoring countless warnings of an attack in the U.S.
* Reading "My Pet Goat" during the attack
* Letting Osama Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan
* Holding no bureaucrat accountable for ignoring warnings
* Delaying and obstructing the 911 Commission investigation
* Turning Afghanistan into the world's largest opium producer

Terrorism



* Allowing international terrorism incidents to quadruple and trying to cover up the facts
* Failing to secure our borders and ports to prevent terrorism
* Creating a new generation of terrorists through the invasion of Iraq and the killing of 100,000 civilians
* Letting terrorists buy high-powered weapons inside the U.S.
* Letting North Korea build nuclear bombs and missiles that can cross the Pacific Ocean
* Refusing to shut down Pakistan's nuclear weapons exports

Foreign relations

* Turning the world against the United States
* Preparing for another war with Iran
* Signing treaties that cost America jobs and undermine American laws

Economy

* Letting gasoline prices double at devastating cost to the economy while oil companies make record profits
* Letting corrupt companies like Enron steal billions from consumers and employees
* Cutting taxes for the rich and turning a $5 trillion budget surplus into a $5 trillion budget deficit
* Adding trillions to the national debt, which our children and grandchildren will have to pay off with interest
* Letting millions of American jobs go overseas

Freedom

* Letting bureaucrats wiretap Americans without a court order
* Locking up suspects for years without charges or trials
* Arresting nonviolent protesters at Bush events
* Packing the courts with right-wing judges to outlaw abortion
* Ordering federal courts to interfere in the Terri Schiavo tragedy
* Taking away our right to sue corporations through class actions
* Taking away our right to declare bankruptcy under Chapter 7 and forcing middle-class Americans into debt slavery

Democracy

* Stealing the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004
* Refusing to investigate the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters in Florida and Ohio
* Promoting black-box electronic voting machines without paper trails
* Embracing dictators in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia, and China
* Overthrowing democratically-elected leaders in Haiti and Venezuela

Environment

* Allowing global warming, which will cause massive environmental damage
* Allowing more toxic mercury in the air and water
* Allowing oil drilling in wilderness areas

Scandals

* Illegally "outing" CIA agent Valerie Plame, an important anti-terrorism official
* Letting a gay male prostitute (Jeff Gannon) roam free in the White House
* Paying journalists to give favorable coverage to the administration
* Relying on an earpiece for answers during debates and press conferences
* Going AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and covering it up ever since
* Defending the most corrupt Member of Congress (Tom DeLay)

We welcome additional suggestions here.

Us & Eu issue veiled threats concerning Iranian nuclear energy research

war mongering threats american economy can no longer effectively back up




Let's start by clarifying that we at deskRat chronicles are staunchly anti-nuke . we believe that ALL nuclear weapons , as well as all chemical-biological weapons should be destroyed and permanently banned from this tiny planet. That includes depleted uranium munitions in all their forms .

Hopefully some day in the "very soon to be" , people globally, will take control of this and other vital matters out from the inept hands of governments , greedy muntions corporations and their lobbyists everywhere and we all will be just a little closer to world peace and all of us better off because of it .

But now back to today's dirty realities.

despite the fact that iran is a sovereign nation and thus entitled to develop nuclear energy as well as nuclear weapons --if it sees fit to do so-- a steady stream of media hype and government spin surrounds the recent iranian decision to end the temporary agreement it had signed with the Us and Eu and resume iranian RESEARCH into nuclear energy . a decision that violates no permanent agreements and breaks no international treaties including the nuclear non-proliferation treaty--a treaty against the spread of nuclear weapons that iran has signed but israel has yet to ...

the iranian nuclear energy program , as i understand it , has been overseen and supervised by the Un's international atomic energy agency and certified by them as a civilian program and non weapons oriented .


"In February 2003 Mohamed ElBaradei traveled to Iran with a team of inspectors to investigate Iran's nuclear program. By November Mr ElBaradei stated that there is "no evidence" that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. On December 18, 2003 Iran signed the Additional Protocol at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, and is acting in accord with its provisions pending completion of ratification of the protocol [2].

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005. The full text of the fatwa was released in an official statement at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. [3]

In September 2005 the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in a report that Iran is still many years away from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability [4].

On January 9, 2006 Iran resumed voluntarily suspended nuclear energy research and development in spite of international displeasure and pressure from the United States, the European Union and Russia. " --wikipedia international atomic energy agency and iran



of course the israeli zionists , who already have at least 100 to 200 nuclear warheads they have secretly built at their dimona facility, somehow feel threatened by a non-weapons nuclear energy program in iran and have purchased not only submarines from which the zionists could launch nuke-tipped missiles , but also at great expense to american taxpayers , 'bought' new american fighter bombers and the long range refueling planes needed to feasibly extend their reach to iran and back.

of course , it's no secret that before he was recently "touched by an angel" the old fat, "man of peace" himself , ariel sharon ,the 'legbreaker' , the 'butcher of beruit' , the instigator of intifadas , the rapist of jenin , the wall building -ethnic cleansing-landgrabber , was said to have approved the plans for a premptive strike on the iranian nuclear sites --ala israel's 1980's air strike on iraq's osirak reactor --also a civilian reactor-- built by the french , encouraged by the Us and financed by loans provided by the west and the construction supervised by the Un's IAEA certifying it as a non-weapons type reactor ...the americans , europeans and zionists must have laughed a long time among themselves at that one , having tricked the gullible sadam hussein into borrowing money from them to build the reactor --almost at their insistance ---knowing the izzies would blast it to smitherines with the very same fighter jets and advanced technologies that the west's taxpayers (especially americans ) had so generously 'given' the israelis . it's also said that after the israelis humiliated saddam by destroying the almost completed osirik reactor--an undeniable act of war by the izzies , saddam began a nuclear weapons program in ernest...another portion of the infamous iraqi wmd program significantly owing its existence to the Us , israel and the west ...

but back to the present situation ...russia has been building for the iranians , a billion dollar civilian nuclear reactor designed to produce electrcity and not weapons grade plutonium .

the iranians have said that they recognize that their extensive oil reserves will not last forever and now is the time for them to prepare for the nation of approximately 50 million people's future energy needs --while the financial resources are still readily available.

the izzies --paranoid of course of any sign of progress , or any potential strength in the middle east that could one day be used to resist their expansionist plans for a "greater israel" --occupying the lands between the nile and euphrates rivers--are readying themselves for a massive series of premptive strkes against iran ...

the izzies' neo-con zionists , and rightwing--rapture-eager christian zionists in charge in washington , also have limited war with iran --along with 'regime change' on the planning table.

as the neo-con-likudnik soap opera of "as the saber rattles" prepares to 'air' its next episode , expect a further demonization of the iranians while they 'break the seals' that they had allowed the west to put on iran's nuclear energy research facilities--and the Eu-'big three' (france , germany and england ), along with the Us neo-con-christian-zionist-likudniks play a version of "good cop / bad cop" while both ultimately seem in cahoots to stop iran from gaining nuclear technology...

as an example of how "good cop / bad cop" is played in the international arena look at the recent reports stating that while the german government of helmut schroder was vehemently denouncing the approaching american invasion of iraq in public , privately , german intel-- the BND --operating in baghdad , provided the info that led to the 'decapitation' assassination bombing attack against saddam hussein that destroyed a restaurant he was believed to be meeting at--- but in the process missed hussein and instead wiped out the iraqi family living above the restaurant.


george bush and new german chancellor angela merkel "mending fences"



berlin admits giving Us bombing targets in iraq







"Why are you damaging the good name of the security council and IAEA for you own political purposes?' he asked. 'Don't take away the credibility of legitimate forums. Your arsenals are full to the brim, yet when it's the turn of a nation such as mine to develop peaceful nuclear technology you object and resort to threats."-- newly elected iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad

what more proof do americans need , ray ?

when vice president cheney and scooter libby visit cia headquarters and intimidate intel analysts by repeatedly rejecting the evidence provided by these cia analysts that both the 'wmd' and al qaeda 'angles' for invading iraq are pure myth --then when the same vice pres threatens the intimidated analysts to 'keep digging until you find something '--- when the head of the international atomic energy agency , mohammed el baradei sends the bush administration officials letters warning them that the 'iraq seeking niger yellow cake uranium' documents were blatant forgeries --and the bush administration , despite these warnings , still cites these known forgeries as part of their evidence of iraqi wmd ---what more proof do people need that bush lied , fabricated , manipulated and 'FIXED the evidence' to convince the nation to invade iraq ?

are americans who still believe that bush is an honest man and deserves to be in the white house, extremely gullible , or incredibly stupid ? How many more blatant lies must bush and cheney tell , how many more americans must they illegally wiretap--illegal spying that BEGAN BEFORE 9-11 btw -- how many hundreds of thousands more iraqi must die before americans wake up and demand Congress IMPEACH THESE LYING FOOLS ?










Proof Bush Deceived America
Ray McGovern

January 13, 2006

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. A 27-year veteran of the CIA’s analysis ranks, he is now on the steering group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

James Risen’s State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, may hold bigger secrets than the disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized warrantless eavesdropping on Americans.

Risen’s book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the "Downing Street memos;" namely, that "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way.

Risen, a senior reporter for The New York Times, reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had an urgent need in the summer of 2002 to get the equivalent of a "second opinion" regarding Bush’s plans for war in Iraq—insight independent of his own telephone conversations with the president and independent of what Blair was hearing from his own foreign office.

During his April 2002 visit to Crawford, Blair had gone out on a limb in pledging to support war on Iraq. The following months saw him getting nervous. So he chose what intelligence parlance calls a "back channel," and sent the chief of British intelligence, Richard Dearlove, to Washington to sound out his counterpart: the garrulous CIA director George Tenet, who he knew to be very close to the president.

The highly revealing Downing Street memo contained the minutes of Dearlove's briefing of Blair and his top advisers upon his return from Washington on July 23. But what the memo left unanswered was the question of who gave Dearlove the confidence to say this to his prime minister:

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.

When the Sunday Times published the minutes of that key briefing on May 1, 2005, it seemed a safe bet that Dearlove’s source was Tenet, and I said so.

Now we have the confirmation. Risen writes that George Tenet was reluctant to receive Dearlove, but acquiesced when the British made clear that Blair considered the back-channel meeting urgent. Tenet then rose to the occasion—with a vengeance. Risen, quoting a former senior CIA official who helped host the British for a session that lasted most of Saturday, July 20, 2002, reports that Tenet and Dearlove had a 90-minute one-on-one conversation, during which Tenet was "very candid."

Risen adds that by the time of this "intelligence summit," senior CIA officials had concluded that "the quality of the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction didn’t really matter," since war was inevitable. That perverse attitude certainly prevailed two months later, when the fabricated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and WMD was produced by Tenet’s National Intelligence Council in a successful attempt to deceive Congress into voting for war.

A former CIA official told Risen that after the conversation with Tenet, Richard Dearlove could certainly "figure out what was going on; plus, the MI6 station chief in Washington was in CIA headquarters all the time, with just about complete access to everything." In any case, we now know that Blair got what he wanted out of the visit—the inside scoop from someone enjoying the complete trust of, and daily access to, President Bush.

The president now says that he does not want his political opposition to dwell on how he lied to Congress and the American people in order to invade a country and kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and more than 2,200 U. S. troops—not to mention the many thousands maimed for life. Perhaps he knows that Risen's book could do as much damage to his administration by calling renewed attention to the Downing Street memos as is likely to be done by the revelations of the secret NSA wiretapping.

One world leader recognizes the extreme danger of official lies told to a nation in the service of an aggressive war. He also happens to be a leader who survived the horrors of fascism in the last century. In a Jan. 1 address to the world, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the consequences of lies such as these, in what can only be a thinly veiled reference to the president of the United States:

…Sacred Scripture, in its very first book, Genesis, points to the lie told at the very beginning of history by the animal with a forked tongue, whom the Evangelist John calls ''the father of lies'' (Jn 8:44). Lying is also one of the sins spoken of in the final chapter of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, which bars liars from the heavenly Jerusalem: ''outside are... all who love falsehood'' (22:15). Lying is linked to the tragedy of sin and its perverse consequences, which have had, and continue to have, devastating effects on the lives of individuals and nations. We need but think of the events of the past century, when aberrant ideological and political systems wilfully twisted the truth and brought about the exploitation and murder of an appalling number of men and women, wiping out entire families and communities. After experiences like these, how can we fail to be seriously concerned about lies in our own time, lies which are the framework for menacing scenarios of death in many parts of the world.

The ethos of the Central Intelligence Agency in which my contemporaries and I worked was chiseled into the marble at the entrance of CIA headquarters: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Sadly, the agency has come a long way.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

it's 'time' alright ...








Bush Impeachment Inquiry Has 8 House Co-Sponsors
By davidswanson
Created 2006/01/01 - 11:56

By Matthew Cardinale, Atlanta Progressive News

A total of eight US House members have co-sponsored Resolution 635 to create a select committee to investigate the grounds for impeaching President Bush, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

The co-sponsors are Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (C-CA), according to the US Congressional website Thomas.loc.gov

HR 635 reads as its official title: "Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."

The bill was initially proposed by Rep. Conyers on 12/18/2005. The 7 other co-sponsors added their names on 12/22/05.

"In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice-President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration. There is at least a prima facie case that these actions that federal laws have been violated – from false statements to Congress to retaliating against Administration critics," Rep. Conyers said in a press release on 12/20/05.

As reported last week in Atlanta Progressive News, US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) stated in a radio program that he would sign a bill of impeachment of President Bush if it were drafted on account of Bush’s approval of illegal domestic wiretapping. US Senator Barbara Boxer has also requested a report by legal scholars regarding the grounds for the Bush’s impeachment for the same reason. The article regarding the statements by Rep. Lewis and Sen. Boxer is available here: http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/pages/13/index.htm [1]

Meanwhile, a current pageview of an MSNBC.com poll as of 01/01/06, shows 86% of 185,673 total respondents believe President Bush should be impeached. The poll is available here and has been active online for several days: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904 [2]

Matthew Cardinale is the Editor of Atlanta Progressive News. He may be reached at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com [3]
Source URL:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6223

Links:
[1] http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/pages/13/index.htm
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904
[3] http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=mailto:matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com